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Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

philzimmermann.com

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Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#81

Post by tasogare »

Zababa wrote: post #65
skybrian wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One difference (in this article at least) is that there are no jokes or unnecessary cultural references. Another might be called moral clarity. Unfortunately, it's usually an illusion. We have much more experience with technologies invented under optimistic assumptions turning out to be a moral gray area at best, when you look at how they're used. I found this paper interesting: The Moral Character of Cryptographic W…

I'd put "jokes" and "cultural references" together under "tone". Recent articles often feel like they're trying to catch the attention of children. There are lots of "candies" to make you read: pictures, GIFs, jokes, an attention grabbing title, colors, emojis, a friendly tone, lots of exclamation marks. On the other hand, that article is mostly black on white text, that's plain in a good way.

I especially hate this "corporate fun" style when it's a big tech repository where each bullet point of a list is replaced by an emoji.

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#82

Post by harryf »

uncomputation wrote: post #27

There’s something… different about how people (techie people are most of my sample) would write before the 00’s. I’m not sure if it has to do with the medium, or the constraints of the time, but reading it always fills me with something I can best describe as peace/nostalgia. The belief that technology honestly can change the world for the better and that the most influential people driving it have good motives inste…

Aside from shifts in morality and underlying cynicism that took place online from around 2007, once the "unwashed masses" because addicted to Facebook, I think the biggest thing that killed good writing online was analytics.

Once most people discovered their well thought-out blogpost got only 100 page views while a meme with a cat got 10 million, many just gave up. But what's missing in those numbers is, of those 100 page views, perhaps 10 were people you actually respect, have influence in your field, were actually using your Open Source project etc.

By optimising metric like page views we lost sight of the genuine impact we might have had with good writing.

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#83

Post by [deleted] »

TeeMassive wrote: post #50

Is there a good websites listing the ways being spied on can affect you personally? Would be great every time a "I don't care if the NSA watch my dick picks, bro" naive person bring this to my face again.

[deleted]

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#84

Post by Zababa »

tasogare wrote: post #81
Zababa wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd put "jokes" and "cultural references" together under "tone". Recent articles often feel like they're trying to catch the attention of children. There are lots of "candies" to make you read: pictures, GIFs, jokes, an attention grabbing title, colors, emojis, a friendly tone, lots of exclamation marks. On the other hand, that article is mostly black on white text, that's plain in a good way.

I especially hate this "corporate fun" style when it's a big tech repository where each bullet point of a list is replaced by an emoji.

I really have a hard time with emojis outside of communications. Either they are saying something that was already said by the word or words before, and in that case they are useless, or they replace a word and make text harder to read. I also really don't like the concept of making objects into emojis, as we already have words to describre that, and emojis reflect a very limited world. For example, if you look at the food emojis, this is basically "I live in San Francisco and all of the food I get is from restaurants". I think I've heard it described one day as "the world of people that live in airports", and that fits well.

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#85

Post by sildur »

skybrian wrote: post #48
uncomputation wrote: post #27

There’s something… different about how people (techie people are most of my sample) would write before the 00’s. I’m not sure if it has to do with the medium, or the constraints of the time, but reading it always fills me with something I can best describe as peace/nostalgia. The belief that technology honestly can change the world for the better and that the most influential people driving it have good motives inste…

One difference (in this article at least) is that there are no jokes or unnecessary cultural references. Another might be called moral clarity. Unfortunately, it's usually an illusion. We have much more experience with technologies invented under optimistic assumptions turning out to be a moral gray area at best, when you look at how they're used. I found this paper interesting: The Moral Character of Cryptographic W…

All those "jokes" are exhausting. I usually don't have the energy to finish reading an article. I assumed it was a problem with myself, lack of attention. Until some day I read an article from beginning to end, it was captivating. I found that weird, then I checked the date of the article: 1950.

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#86

Post by vbezhenar »

Zababa wrote: post #65
skybrian wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One difference (in this article at least) is that there are no jokes or unnecessary cultural references. Another might be called moral clarity. Unfortunately, it's usually an illusion. We have much more experience with technologies invented under optimistic assumptions turning out to be a moral gray area at best, when you look at how they're used. I found this paper interesting: The Moral Character of Cryptographic W…

I'd put "jokes" and "cultural references" together under "tone". Recent articles often feel like they're trying to catch the attention of children. There are lots of "candies" to make you read: pictures, GIFs, jokes, an attention grabbing title, colors, emojis, a friendly tone, lots of exclamation marks. On the other hand, that article is mostly black on white text, that's plain in a good way.

That's because young people have very short attention span and they must be fed with instant gratifications all the time to continue reading. Those "candies" are targeted at them.

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#87

Post by IanClarke »

cowmix wrote: post #7

I have sooooo many lost emails due to lost pgp configurations. Encrypted blobs in my mail spools.

Today's analogy is bitcoin...

Will all Bitcoin just be lost one day, because all keys get lost?

I am aware that "there are solutions", but are they (really) enough? Isn't "breaking in" required at some point?

Another endgame for Bitcoin is that all Bitcoin are stolen through the one tool which helps with (unbreakable) encryption: Hacking / social engineering.

Besides that we hab substantial discussions about why PGP isn't really cutting it for use with email (to cumbersome, at one point you lose your private key, recipient struggles to decrypt, etc.).

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#88

Post by IanClarke »

bariswheel wrote: post #49

'The only way to hold the line on privacy in the information age is strong cryptography.'

Everything is hackable.

Connect a computer to the internet and you basically have lost.

We know that today, encryption isn't the final solution when there are hackers and social engineering.

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#89

Post by vbezhenar »

arminiusreturns wrote: post #75

From an old comment of mine on the topic: https://youtu.be/sKOk4Y4inVY?t=518 [1] 1. "In 1995, there was a debate at Harvard Law School – four of us discussing the future of public key encryption and its control. I was on the side, I suppose, of freedom. It’s where I try to be. With me at that debate was a man called Daniel Weitzner who now works in the White House making Internet policy for the Obama administration.…

Tor is the anonymous net. It might be not perfect against targeting state-level attackers, but generally it works and delivers its promise.
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