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I recently asked “Why does “2xAES-256” provide “99.99%” security strength whereas “1xAES-128” provides “40%”?” on the main site.

It was kind of a "doghouse" question, as the question by itself implied that the quality of the services is highly questionable and there was a background on The Sidechannel (our chat) implying that the question wasn't asked out of confusion and couldn't therefore been considered genuine.

It's mainly for these reasons that the question got closed less than 16 hours later by our moderators. I don't want to discuss about the closure (which was reasonable) here.

My question is:
The question got a score of 4 (+6,-2), more than 400 views (within 16 hours) and the only (accepted) answer got a score of +20, does this imply that there's an interest in such questions on Crypto.SE? Or how could one explain these votes and views else?

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    $\begingroup$ Perhaps it hit the hot network question list? 400 views is pretty high for crypto.se. $\endgroup$ – CodesInChaos Jul 18 '15 at 12:58
  • $\begingroup$ @CodesInChaos, was my first thought too, but I couldn't find it on the main page. $\endgroup$ – SEJPM♦ Jul 18 '15 at 12:59
  • $\begingroup$ possible explanation: The question shows up on google when searching for "aes 256 strength". Likely it shows up for similar (common?) notations as well. $\endgroup$ – SEJPM♦ Jul 18 '15 at 13:10
  • $\begingroup$ It doesn't shop up for me. $\endgroup$ – CodesInChaos Jul 18 '15 at 13:13
  • $\begingroup$ @CodesInChaos, strange, looks like Google knows me already... $\endgroup$ – SEJPM♦ Jul 18 '15 at 13:15
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Does this imply that there's an interest in such questions on Crypto.SE?

Hard to tell. There are too many factors that can cause a “sudden boost” of a question.

Looking at it today (at the time of writing this) the question was asked 8 days ago, has enjoyed 472 views, and currently hugs a score of 3.

Since you wrote…

400 views (within 16 hours)

… and looking at the current numbers, my brain can´t help to visualizes the following:

quick home-brew chart thingy
(Missing the actual numbers of day 2 to 7, I simply used en equally spread, daily average/mean. See data in left table.)

Based on that, I would say: Whatever caused the initial boost – it definitely didn´t hold on all too long.

Now, I´m not sure if that can be considdered to be an indicator for anything, but to me the numbers surely don´t show any long-term “increased view pattern” one would expect when “masses come in” to check on a question they´ve always wanted to ask (or find utterly interesting, or something alike).

Yet, that´s only my 2 cents and based on the current status-quo. Should 1000 people decide to come view the question tomorrow morning, this answer will be rendered to useless dust.

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  • $\begingroup$ Well there was no 1k view boost over night. Strange... $\endgroup$ – SEJPM♦ Jul 27 '15 at 12:25

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