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2017 Levchin Prize for Real World Cryptography

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Re: 2017 Levchin Prize for Real World Cryptography

#11

Post by tptacek »

RRRA wrote: post #8
dom0 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trevor Perrin also went on and created the Noise protocol framework (of which some protocols are quite similar to Signal).

Interesting, didn't know he was also involved with that one. Has anyone seen a table comparing Noise, Axoltl & OTRv4?

Those aren't comparable.

Noise is a metaprotocol, a framework of patterns for building secure transports.

Axolotl is a cryptographic ratchet construction, for continuously modifying encryption keys as messages are transmitted.

OTRv4 is a complete message cryptosystem, like Signal Protocol.

Re: 2017 Levchin Prize for Real World Cryptography

#12

Post by justinpombrio »

woah wrote: post #10
niftich wrote: post #5

Not OP, but I sense perhaps a limitation of HN; articles with comments where the comment is the submission get conflated with submissions about the article itself. (EDIT: the submission's URL has now been changed from a particular reddit comment at https://www.reddit.com/r/crypto/comments/5m0zpo/moxie_marlin... to a different announcement about the prize. The rest of my post as it originally stood follows.) Reproduci…

I shouldn't judge based on a remembered, secondhand, out of context quote, but this sounds kind of... pretentious.

You might have read it backwards: the message was very humble. Moxie was saying that he didn't deserve credit for what he had built, because if he had not built it someone else would have. So his work was best thought of as a product of history, rather than a product of Moxie.

Re: 2017 Levchin Prize for Real World Cryptography

#13

Post by justinpombrio »

scandox wrote: post #6

What I struggle with, especially when it's someone that clearly has great integrity, is the apparent need to favour one group of tyrants over another. The idea that communist leaders felt any different at all to the fascist ones seems delusional to me. They simply had different tropes, different conventions. I had the same feeling seeing everyone praise Fidel Castro while simultaneously gnashing their teeth about Tru…

Moxie was contrasting the different perspectives that communist and fascist leaders had about what caused their success, for the purpose of an analogy. He was not contrasting communism with fascism. Please learn to distinguish the two.

Re: 2017 Levchin Prize for Real World Cryptography

#14

Post by scandox »

justinpombrio wrote: post #13
scandox wrote: post #6

What I struggle with, especially when it's someone that clearly has great integrity, is the apparent need to favour one group of tyrants over another. The idea that communist leaders felt any different at all to the fascist ones seems delusional to me. They simply had different tropes, different conventions. I had the same feeling seeing everyone praise Fidel Castro while simultaneously gnashing their teeth about Tru…

Moxie was contrasting the different perspectives that communist and fascist leaders had about what caused their success, for the purpose of an analogy. He was not contrasting communism with fascism. Please learn to distinguish the two.

I'm very clear in my comment:

a. "The idea that communist leaders felt any different...". In other words "the different perspectives" they had about what caused their success. I do not believe they had different perspectives, except externally.

b. I think it's pretty clear that Moxie favours what he perceives as the superior point of view of one group over the other and he reinforces that by himself clapping with the audience in emulation of the preferred group.

I'm not for a moment suggesting that he's got simplistic ideas about Communism and Fascism. I actually don't know his politics. I understand that he talking more about the concept of historical materialism, of being part of a movement rather than being a mover. On the other hand I think a reasonable reader would infer that this goes beyond mere analogy.

Re: 2017 Levchin Prize for Real World Cryptography

#15

Post by snowpanda »

woah wrote: post #10
niftich wrote: post #5

Not OP, but I sense perhaps a limitation of HN; articles with comments where the comment is the submission get conflated with submissions about the article itself. (EDIT: the submission's URL has now been changed from a particular reddit comment at https://www.reddit.com/r/crypto/comments/5m0zpo/moxie_marlin... to a different announcement about the prize. The rest of my post as it originally stood follows.) Reproduci…

I shouldn't judge based on a remembered, secondhand, out of context quote, but this sounds kind of... pretentious.

That's because it is pretentious and politically loaded. The guy acts like he cured cancer and tries to throw in his political ideologies. Meanwhile he's stubbornly defending WhatsApp and dismissing any criticism of the security flaw featured in The Guardian. Or any work towards a Signal without Google Play Services. Or most forms of criticism really. Unfortunately, most people on here follow along with anything he says, no matter how bad advice it is. Which is most likely why he won the award.

Re: 2017 Levchin Prize for Real World Cryptography

#16

Post by sk5t »

woah wrote: post #10
niftich wrote: post #5

Not OP, but I sense perhaps a limitation of HN; articles with comments where the comment is the submission get conflated with submissions about the article itself. (EDIT: the submission's URL has now been changed from a particular reddit comment at https://www.reddit.com/r/crypto/comments/5m0zpo/moxie_marlin... to a different announcement about the prize. The rest of my post as it originally stood follows.) Reproduci…

I shouldn't judge based on a remembered, secondhand, out of context quote, but this sounds kind of... pretentious.

On the contrary, while it conveys some difficult ideas, I find it quite humble to acknowledge that one's individual contribution to technology is not an act of genius but of inevitability.

Re: 2017 Levchin Prize for Real World Cryptography

#17

Post by girvo »

snowpanda wrote: post #15
woah wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I shouldn't judge based on a remembered, secondhand, out of context quote, but this sounds kind of... pretentious.

That's because it is pretentious and politically loaded. The guy acts like he cured cancer and tries to throw in his political ideologies. Meanwhile he's stubbornly defending WhatsApp and dismissing any criticism of the security flaw featured in The Guardian. Or any work towards a Signal without Google Play Services. Or most forms of criticism really. Unfortunately, most people on here follow along with anything he s…

I think we must have read two different speeches, because the one I read was Moxie stating that the invention of Signal was an inevitability, not him taking credit for it. But then it kind of sounds like you have an axe to grind on this topic?

Re: 2017 Levchin Prize for Real World Cryptography

#18

Post by Unman »

While applauding the stated mission of Open Whisper Systems to make cryptography usable by large numbers of people I think it is fair to hold Moxie & Co. to the same high standards to which they held PGP: https://moxie.org/blog/gpg-and-me/

    The journalists who depend on it struggle with it
    and often mess up (“I send you the private key to
    communicate privately, right?”), the activists who
    use it do so relatively sparingly (“wait, this thing
    wants my finger print?”), and no other sane person
    is willing to use it by default. Even the projects
   that attempt to use it as a dependency struggle.
Breaking this up into constituent parts and trying to guess whether those standards are met seems to leave us somewhere in this territory:

1) Journalists communicating with WhatsApp struggle with it and mess up.

Given the confusion around under what circumstances one can communicate securely with WhatsApp ("Is it OK if I have two checkmarks? Is it OK because Facebook would never let a government have access to the RedPhone part?")

2) Activists who use WhatsApp do so relatively sparingly. I have no idea on this one. I hope they're using Signal and/or GPG with all their attendant bother, complexity and confusion though.

3) No other sane person is willing to use WhatsApp by default. Hmmm.. more confusing value judgements. Is someone that uses a communication method open to abuse by corporations and governments "sane"?

4) Dependency struggle. AFAICS no other projects can piggy-back off WhatsApp because it's proprietary and closed. So the user base can't scratch their own itches. OK, so what about Signal? Sounds like the dependency on Google Cloud Messages and Play Services can be hacked around with great difficulty.

I dunno. Fair play to Moxie and Perrin for what they've done, but so far GPG looks like a better bet for actual secure end-to-end communication, using an already existing, widespread distribution mechanism which is widespread and redundant: email.

Reports of GPG's death may have been grossly exaggerated.

Re: 2017 Levchin Prize for Real World Cryptography

#19

Post by leafpile »

niftich wrote: post #5

Not OP, but I sense perhaps a limitation of HN; articles with comments where the comment is the submission get conflated with submissions about the article itself. (EDIT: the submission's URL has now been changed from a particular reddit comment at https://www.reddit.com/r/crypto/comments/5m0zpo/moxie_marlin... to a different announcement about the prize. The rest of my post as it originally stood follows.) Reproduci…

I first heard that applause story from Žižek (but it might not have originated with him?) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvgl0Oy5wx8#t=13m33s

Re: 2017 Levchin Prize for Real World Cryptography

#20

Post by tptacek »

snowpanda wrote: post #15
woah wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I shouldn't judge based on a remembered, secondhand, out of context quote, but this sounds kind of... pretentious.

That's because it is pretentious and politically loaded. The guy acts like he cured cancer and tries to throw in his political ideologies. Meanwhile he's stubbornly defending WhatsApp and dismissing any criticism of the security flaw featured in The Guardian. Or any work towards a Signal without Google Play Services. Or most forms of criticism really. Unfortunately, most people on here follow along with anything he s…

The Levchin Award recipients are determined by the RWC Steering Committee, which this year was Dan Boneh, Aggelos Kiayias, Brian LaMacchia, Kenny Paterson, Tom Ristenpart, Tom Shrimpton, and Nigel Smart.

I think we can safely assume Moxie's popularity on HN had very little to do with persuading these people.

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