Simon Says

[No technical content in this uncharacteristically brief post, be warned]

This morning I was leafing through the September issue of Wired, when I got to an interview with Simon Singh (no links to it, Wired’s Web site does not appear to have the September issue up yet).

Mr. Singh is a great science writer. A decade ago his The Code Book (Codici & Segreti nella versione italiana) was one of the reasons for which I got an interest in security and protocols (one other being Cryptonomicon, of course); more recently, I indirectly referenced his work on Fermat’s Enigma from my Programming Windows Identity Foundation (doesn’t that titillate your curiosity? ;-)).

I won’t get in the details of the article I was reading here, but just highlight a quote from it:

“You have to decide who you trust before you decide what to believe”

Taken alone that may be a tad out of context, however I could not resist putting it out here: because that, folks, is such a beautifully concise enunciation of the very essence of claims-based identity that I may just start putting it everywhere.