I did in fact read the paper before my reply. I’d recommend considering the participants pool — this is a very common problem in most academic research, but is very relevant given the argument you’re claiming — with vast majority of the participants being students (over 60% if memory serves; I’m on mobile currently and can’t go back to read easily) and most of which being undergraduate students with very limited exposure to actual dev work. They are then prompted to, quite literally as the first question, produce code for asymmetrical encryption and deception.
Seasoned developers know not to implement their own encryption because it is a very challenging space; this is similar to polling undergraduate students to conduct brain surgery and expect them to know what to look for.