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Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

philzimmermann.com

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Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#121

Post by dosman33 »

breput wrote: post #12
dosman33 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sad thing is if the clipper chip was ubiquitous today that could have killed the ability for spammers to spoof numbers. Some days I can get a dozen robo calls, each with a different spoofed number. People that want non-backdoored crypto could still do so. I'm still blown away at how hard it is to get people to use any encryption, even people who work in infosec/etc. If nothing else, 2020 was a great year for the…

Robo calls should be filtered at the network level. The Clipper Chip would have done nothing to prevent this. There is actually encryption technology[1] available that would solve this or at least make it traceable and blockable. But here we are. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STIR/SHAKEN Edit: Also the political situation at the time was that if Clipper was adopted, all other encryption technology would be outlaw…

The key word here being "should", and they are clearly not filtering at the network level. I can tell, I still get spoofed robocalls... The clipper chip provided end users the ability to cryptographically prove callers were who they claimed to be independent of the network operator, which is a key need of a crypto system.

Robocalling with spoofed ANI has been a problem long enough that I think we can safely say the network operator is 100% complicit with this activity now. The phone company could track down kids war-dialing blocks of numbers in the 1980's in order to make sure they were not telemarketers not paying higher telemarketing fees. Do people really think the phone company is not getting a cut of these robospoofers?

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#122

Post by pdkl95 »

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.

In addition to the reason already mentioned, one of the most important reasons privacy is necessary is how people - especially children - discover new aspects of their own identity, personality, and interests.

Children will experiment when they think their parents aren't watching. Freedom to experiment and explore their interaction with the world is obviously very important for children, but this use of privacy never really goes away. Consider if you wanted to learn an instrument but have never played music before (or any other difficult skill). You probably want the freedom to practice badly for a while. If you had to practice knowing people were watching you, would you feel as free to experiment learning this type of skill?

Problems of abuse and power are obviously very important concerns. However, I believe the chilling effect surveillance has on people will cause a major shift away from people experimenting with learning new things and exploring their hobbies will become an insidious, system damage to culture and social liberty.

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#123

Post by dosman33 »

toast0 wrote: post #19
dosman33 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sad thing is if the clipper chip was ubiquitous today that could have killed the ability for spammers to spoof numbers. Some days I can get a dozen robo calls, each with a different spoofed number. People that want non-backdoored crypto could still do so. I'm still blown away at how hard it is to get people to use any encryption, even people who work in infosec/etc. If nothing else, 2020 was a great year for the…

You don't need a clipper chip to trace nuisance calls. You need an authenticated network that records the origin of calls, and hopefully passes that through when calls are forwarded and makes it simple and worthwhile to report nuisance calls and aggregates those reports and takes meaningful action against the origins. Anyway, we're getting shaken/stir or whatever RealSoonNow(TM), so we'll probably have better CallerI…

"You don't need a clipper chip to trace nuisance calls. You need an authenticated network that records the origin of calls,"

So where is this magical solution you speak of? We're all products that the phone company sells to telemarketers, there is no incentive for them to give us these tools now.

Again, the clipper chip would have made it difficult for anyone to pretend to be someone they are not, cryptographic signature is part of the deal to ensure you are talking to who you think you are talking to.

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#124

Post by Zababa »

vbezhenar wrote: post #86
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.

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 don't think they are targeted only to them. The short attention span can be a thing, although I'm not sure it's generational. For example, the usual newspaper has a lot of small articles).

On the other hand, part of the candies is to reassure your audience and try to bring them to you with something else than your content. That part applies to everyone, regardless of their age. For example, if you do a blog post on a programming technique, you could try to brand it (and yourself) as "software craftsmanship", insert a few references to people in that space, add a few paragraphs talking mostly about this ideology and not the content. Or you could use a lot of examples, references and jokes from something cultural (the current popular thing on netflix for example). These "candies" aren't targeted at people with short attention span.

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#125

Post by nmg »

goodoldneon wrote: post #120
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…

9/11 is an inflection point in modern day America, but there have been other equal/greater inflection points. Revolutionary War, Civil War, WW2… lots of war

Absolutely, and wars waged without declaration that were equally traumatic. Within the lifetime of the Internet, I think 9/11 is the major inflection

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#126

Post by stavros »

jtsuken wrote: post #90

My 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.

Did you mean Phil Zimmermann? The two last names aren't spelled the same (and it peeves Phil when people forget the second n).

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#127

Post by jacquesm »

Zababa wrote: post #117
jacquesm wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the recurring critique on my blog posts: that there is too much text and too little pictorial content. I'm not going to change anything because of that but it is interesting how you have identified this as a good thing when the bulk of the feedback that I get about this is negative.

I've just read "Pianojacq, an easy way to learn to play the piano" from your blog. I like it. There is a video to show everything, and a direct link to the software. The tone is what I called "plain in a good way" in my comment, it's mostly information organized logically. I wish more blogs were like yours.

Thank you! The software has come a very long way since that first blog post (and so have my piano playing skills :) ).

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#128

Post by honzzz »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #105
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…

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 whe…

>> in an increasingly zero-sum world

I don't understand this part - what do you mean by that? Why would the world be increasingly zero-sum?

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#129

Post by Gradient-Ascent »

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)

#130

Post by ok_coo »

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…

Money/Greed attracts a certain type of person who has different values, priorities, and interests.

I think it mostly comes down to that.

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