He also thought "cube cryptanalysis" was going to break most modern ciphers. Do you think he's a serious practitioner? I think he's a pundit.

I think Schneier does less cryptography now than he used to, but I would still say that he's much more than just a pundit.

I'm interested in why you think that (I'm in listen mode here, not argue mode).

Hmm. I'm having trouble putting my finger on anything really concrete right now. More than anything else I'd say that it's just a general impression from how well in touch he seems to be with current events.

He was part of the SHA-3 team that proposed Skein. I think he also coauthored a paper on some advances in attacks on hashes with Kelsey recently.

:)