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I've seen this accusation thrown around for years now (often privately) and I just don't see it. Maybe I'm blind. Even if he's shilling for the government (stu

I've seen this accusation thrown around for years now (often privately) and I just don't see it. Maybe I'm blind. Even if he's shilling for the government (stupid claim but whatever), what do they gain by him encouraging people to adopt better crypto habits? This seemingly-baseless personal attack doesn't even pass the laugh test for me. I'd like to see some hard evidence. What do government shills sound like? What are they trying to accomplish? How does Thomas line up with their modus operandi and/or endgame? As someone who works heavily with appsec/crypto and has no business relationship with tptacek, it's obvious to me that his warnings are exclusively of the "don't do unnecessary things that often result in security foot-bullets" category. What OpenSSH does right: public key pinning instead of a CA infrastructure. But then, you don't necessarily need the CA infrastructure for TLS. Do all security researchers sound like government shills now?

vox_mollis 11y ago
I think a better term would be apologist, not shill. For better or for worse, Thomas's interest in the law gives him a position on Federal power that is often at odds with the more old-school libertarian/anarchist members of the HN community. Speaking for myself, his apologia of The State also irritates me quite a bit, but I try to keep my mouth shut because he contributes so much to the community.
vidarh 11y ago
He's got positions on the US government that rubs a lot of people the wrong way (including me; then again, my positions on the US governments rubs a lot of other people the wrong way). That's probably where the accusation stems from. While I disagree with him a lot on politics, like you I don't see any justification for calling him a shill. It seems a lot of people don't understand that most people who have political views they don't like hold those views because they honestly believe it is best, not because of some nefarious conspiracy. More importantly, I've yet to see any security advice from him that is in any way suspect. Strangely enough it is possible to disagree with someone about politics and still trust their technical advice when it time and time again is demonstrably sound.

vox_mollis 11y ago

I think a better term would be apologist, not shill. For better or for worse, Thomas's interest in the law gives him a position on Federal power that is often at odds with the more old-school libertarian/anarchist members of the HN community. Speaking for myself, his apologia of The State also irritates me quite a bit, but I try to keep my mouth shut because he contributes so much to the community.

vidarh 11y ago

He's got positions on the US government that rubs a lot of people the wrong way (including me; then again, my positions on the US governments rubs a lot of other people the wrong way). That's probably where the accusation stems from. While I disagree with him a lot on politics, like you I don't see any justification for calling him a shill. It seems a lot of people don't understand that most people who have political views they don't like hold those views because they honestly believe it is best, not because of some nefarious conspiracy. More importantly, I've yet to see any security advice from him that is in any way suspect. Strangely enough it is possible to disagree with someone about politics and still trust their technical advice when it time and time again is demonstrably sound.