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Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

philzimmermann.com

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Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#151

Post by nolok »

approxim8ion wrote: post #112
nolok wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that you couldn't restore no matter what without the key speaks for pgp rather than against, in my book. By comparison I have very little trust in modern IM software.

Do you think I could restore an encrypted signal backup without the key?

You missed my point which was not about whether you could, but about whether someone else could, either from your backup or from a entirely different copy they could have acquired during the original transmission.

Same way I wouldn't trust a gmail/outlook/whatever-apple-named-theirs automatic mail encryption the way I can trust a bulky weird to use pgp one.

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#152

Post by dylan604 »

bretthoerner wrote: post #103
iso1210 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

Yes, you are correct. Totally meant Web2.0 when things became interactive and sites started allowing users to post comments and what not.

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#153

Post by sidlls »

vbezhenar wrote: post #113
newsclues wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really just young people? Don’t old people who sit in front of the news get a similar rush?

That was my experience working with developers of different ages. Those who were born before 1995-2000 year are fine spending hours focusing on books. Those who were born after, prefer to learn from short engaging videos. I don't judge anyone, that's just my observations, I don't claim if one method is better than the other.

Where do you get that? Do you mean software developers specifically?

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#154

Post by throwaway984393 »

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…

It was a different time. The people writing these things were more nerdy and more mature. The social internet hadn't taken over. People weren't concerned with votes, stars, comments, likes, splashiness, attention, or trading funny pictures of cats. You could take your time to write something considered just because you needed to get the information down. Software projects were idealistic because most software out there was proprietary and expensive; paid software was an entrepreneurial risk, and free software was transgressive.

If a culture is popular, it tends to saturate. The old internet simply couldn't compete with the new one.

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#155

Post by IggleSniggle »

user3939382 wrote: post #100
vbezhenar wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> it works Does it? Dragnet surveillance might not easily inspect all Tor traffic, but it can easily see who is using it, flag those identities, and put them on a list for increased scrutiny. Unless a major web browser has it enabled by default, I don’t see it delivering on its promise.

> What if everyone believed that law-abiding citizens should use postcards for their mail? If a nonconformist tried to assert his privacy by using an envelope for his mail, it would draw suspicion. Perhaps the authorities would open his mail to see what he's hiding. Fortunately, we don't live in that kind of world, because everyone protects most of their mail with envelopes. So no one draws suspicion by asserting their privacy with an envelope. There's safety in numbers. Analogously, it would be nice if everyone routinely used encryption for all their email, innocent or not, so that no one drew suspicion by asserting their email privacy with encryption. Think of it as a form of solidarity.

——

I agree with you. And also perhaps those of us with nothing to hide really need to spend more time on Tor

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#156

Post by approxim8ion »

breput wrote: post #31
tptacek wrote: post #29

Earlier 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.

That's fine, but even the "right" people need to interact with the "unwashed masses" sometimes. If your cryptosystem isn't readily accessible to everyone, it's kind of useless.

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#157

Post by phone8675309 »

keewee7 wrote: post #107
danielschonfeld wrote: post #97

Earlier 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…

>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.

I think the 2008 financial crisis showed most millennials that they would never be able to own anything of real worth and value from their work alone, that they would not accrue their own generational wealth but instead inherit from their parents (if they inherit at all), and that unless you're born into the big club, are useful to the big club, or are a massive outlier, that hard work and personal sacrifice will not materially improve your condition in life.

At least that's what I got from it as an "elder millennial" (born in the very early 1980s).

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#158

Post by phone8675309 »

vbezhenar wrote: post #89
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.

The fact that the inventor of onion routing technology from the United States Naval Research Laboratory was involved in the creation of Tor pretty much ensures that Tor will be useless at evading 5 Eyes and equivalent nation-state actors.

If they've not come at you when you're using Tor then it's that they don't care to find you. It's not that they can't find you.

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#159

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#160

Post by u801e »

danielschonfeld wrote: post #97
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…

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…

> America as a country has been locked in this sort of country wide PTSD since and have changed completely.

Population wise, that was the case for a number of years after 9/11. In terms of government policy, it's still the case. But in terms of the former, it's fading away as more time passes. People who were born in 2001 are or will turn 20 this year. Just like events like the attack on pearl harbor and the Cuban missle crises, 9/11 will also become an event that's just known by reading history rather than a first hand experience.

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