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Some tools are so specific to crypto that it may well be that this Q/A site has the best knowledge about those tools. These are mainly tools for crypt-analysis such as tools to test randomness or tools specific to performing attacks.

Should we allow such questions? Or should we still forward them to e.g. https://unix.stackexchange.com? And if we do allow them, where do we draw the line? I presume we still want to OpenSSL command line questions to Unix and keytool (a Java key store handler) to StackOverflow, correct?

Currently we have such a question here about the DareDevil attack.

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  • $\begingroup$ If one needs a concrete example: Figuring out how to get Msieve and / or CADO-NFS to do GNFS based factoring or dlog attacks. $\endgroup$
    – SEJPM
    Nov 9, 2018 at 19:55
  • $\begingroup$ Another example is regarding NIST entropy tools (and it's relations). Sadly, a missed opportunity to move the art forward. $\endgroup$
    – Paul Uszak
    Nov 16, 2018 at 21:46
  • $\begingroup$ I already upvoted that one :| $\endgroup$
    – Maarten Bodewes Mod
    Nov 16, 2018 at 22:12

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I believe we should be a bit flexible about that and determine it on a case-by-case basis. In particular, we should think whether or not cryptographic expertise is required to make use of the tool. If not, then it would be fine sending it to another site for general system administration. This would include, for example, asking how to import a keyring into GnuPG or how to set a password for a SSH private key. If on the other hand it does require cryptographic expertise, then it should absolutely stay here where we can answer it.

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  • $\begingroup$ That makes sense. On the other hand, there is a lot about GnuPG, for example, that should be understandable, but is not. It takes expert advice to understand some of the details in GPG because RFC 4880 is often unclear and GPG is bloated--they certainly don't always go into detail or make things easy. $\endgroup$
    – Patriot
    Jul 17, 2019 at 12:24

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