I think that sometimes we forget that PGP is primarily a political statement. It makes the world a better place simply by existing.
Why I Wrote PGP (1999)
101–110 of 194 posts
Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)
#102There’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…
I am with you. But I think I know what it is, you touched on it and almost had it. It was indeed peace, we almost had it, world peace - feeling utopian and all loving in the 90s. Then came 9/11. It’s the single point in history where just about everything to do with American society can be defined to be before and after. Doesn’t matter what you think about the event and it’s authenticity as described, the fact of the…
> Doesn’t matter what you think about the event and it’s authenticity as described
Interesting small mention. Is it common in America to disbelieve in the mainstream history of 9/11? I’m just getting glimpses from the new world via the internet and have no ear to the ground there
Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
To me, there was something to say vs people posting shit just to meet a quota. There seems to be much less thought/research/editing of content now. It wasn't so gamefied before HTML2.0 and social.
Not convinced HTML2 'gamified' anything. "HTML 1" wasn't really a standard anyway and I don't remember what html2 actually brought - I remember not every browser in the mid 90s did tables, client side image maps etc but they were later additions to html2. Javascript (which came in with html 3.2) was far more of a step change than html2
I think they meant "Web 2.0"
Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)
#104From 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.
The fact it is state built and state funded doesnt give me confidence that it protects you against state level adversary.
Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)
#105There’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…
By now the concept of competing for attention, for the limited 3-4 hours of free time you have a day is well known. To maximize engagement and clicks you just have to appeal to the shittiest parts of human nature - anger, fear, low attention spans. A few people figured out how to make the equivalent of cocaine (e.g outrage porn news, gamified social media) and now there is no going back - you compete with cocaine whether you like it or not. The more technical phrasing is that "intermittent variable rewards" are highly addictive - and this basically explains the entire design of social media or the shitty mobile games you see now.
You can read statements/watch videos by Chamath Palihapitiya or Sean Parker admitting to this being an explicit strategy at Facebook. "Digital Minimalism" by Cal Newport is also a nice book that covers some of the same ground.
If you ask me, our current way of managing society is a failure. You have large, well-coordinated organizations basically selling cocaine (fast food, youtube, social media, cigarettes) on end, but the other end (consumers) are necessarily less coordinated and informed because they don't operate within an organizational hierarchy with centralized decision making, shared knowledge and people dedicating 8 hours a day to maintaining those systems. Theoretically, companies live and die by how much value they create for their their customers. Practically, many companies resemble organized militia waging asymmetric warfare on unorganized masses in an increasingly zero-sum world.
I think we need to focus a lot on organizing as people outside of the structure of a for-profit corporation. Theoretically the government plays this role but it's not enough.
(inb4 omg you hate capitalism stupid commie)
Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am with you. But I think I know what it is, you touched on it and almost had it. It was indeed peace, we almost had it, world peace - feeling utopian and all loving in the 90s. Then came 9/11. It’s the single point in history where just about everything to do with American society can be defined to be before and after. Doesn’t matter what you think about the event and it’s authenticity as described, the fact of the…
> Doesn’t matter what you think about the event and it’s authenticity as described Interesting small mention. Is it common in America to disbelieve in the mainstream history of 9/11? I’m just getting glimpses from the new world via the internet and have no ear to the ground there
The answer to that is a personal one and I suggest for anybody on either side of any argument to recall Nietzsche’s saying -
Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.
Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)
#107There’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…
I am with you. But I think I know what it is, you touched on it and almost had it. It was indeed peace, we almost had it, world peace - feeling utopian and all loving in the 90s. Then came 9/11. It’s the single point in history where just about everything to do with American society can be defined to be before and after. Doesn’t matter what you think about the event and it’s authenticity as described, the fact of the…
>Then came 9/11
The rising pessimism and negativity since 2008/09 is a global phenomenon. I think it's wrong and very US-centric to attribute that to 9/11.
The 2008 financial crisis and the rise of social media has probably more to do with the rise of millennial pessimism and negativity.
Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)
#108My favourite conspiracy theory is that the whole Trevor Martin/George Zimmerman affair ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Trayvon_Martin ) was pushed so hard by US media mainly to suppress any reference to George Zimmerman and PGP after the publication of Snowden's papers.
Couldn't be genuine outrage about a child getting murdered in cold blood
Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's interesting and all, but my point is just that you'll have to stop and think about how many orders of magnitude separate the userbase sizes. A simpler way to make the same point would be that relative to modern cryptography, to a first approximation, nobody uses PGP.
Maybe only the right people use PGP.
Safe communication should be available to everybody. Given how many professional engineers botch PGP at some point, it isn't exactly a great option for people like journalists who may need to depend on it with their lives.
"Don't worry, these few thousand techies are the only ones that need secure communication" is sheer arrogance.
Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)
#110Earlier 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.
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.
I think you are biased, and falling to the age-old "young/old people bad" where young/old is picked on which one you are not
Commodari E, Guarnera M. Attention and aging. Aging Clin Exp Res. 2008 Dec;20(6):578-84. doi: 10.1007/BF03324887. PMID: 19179843.