Reply to post: how about "Cryptography means Cryptography"?

Crypto for cryptographers! Infosec types revolt against use of ancient abbreviation by Bitcoin and NFT devotees

NickHolland

how about "Cryptography means Cryptography"?

here's an idea: write it out.

To me, truncating words and abbreviating them is just snobbish. For the most part, when I see someone saying "crypto", regardless of the intended meaning, it translates basically to, "I think I'm cool", except, I think you look like a goof.

I'm not talking about just the non-word "crypto", here, either. Our industry LOVES spewing letters around and hoping the listener/reader "gets it" (or maybe, just thinks we are cool). Yet, we can communicate a lot clearer if we just spell (or say) it out rather than shortening it. It also respects those that come from other fields -- our three letter acronyms conflict with other three letter acronyms. JUST SAY IT OUT. I spent a lot of time decades ago trying to figure out what Automatic Teller Machines or Adobe Type Manager had to do with networking (and much more recently trying NOT to think of Automatic Teller Machines when someone said "ATM", realized, no, really, for the first time in my career, "ATM" means "Automatic Teller Machines".)

Ok, there are some things that this doesn't help -- saying "Modulator/Demodulator" over "MODEM" or "Random Access Memory" over "RAM". I get that. But I don't think there's a reason for this "dispute". Take the high road.

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