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Security reviews and the hope that the whole academic field of security researches is not bought a-la-carte by NSA.

pdimitar 10y ago
Cynical and long rant alert: From a psychological standpoint and my own experience, as you grow older, it becomes harder and harder to resist bribes or being bought out to inject vulnerabilities in a software/hardware you work on. Idealism lasts 5 (maximum 10) years of heavy work during which you squander the seemingly infinite energy of your youth, then you become very tired, then you make it worse with coffee, energy drinks and all-nighters, then you destroy several possible relationships and friendships, you become grumpy and cold, and one day you find that you don't care about what's good for the world anymore. You also find yourself staring at your ceiling and wondering WTF are you doing with your life. And unless you're one of the rarer human beings who is actually decisive and has the courage to make a U-turn and change your life to exactly what you want from it, then you'll be stuck for life. Now imagine we fast-forward lots of years later. At 35-45 you no longer care about most (or all) of your youth ideals. All it takes is one phone call or email offering you a 5-digit figure and you're bought out. And if the sum is 6-7 digits then forget about it, you'd sell the entire humankind. We can all pretend to be on high moral thrones but I am sure most people wouldn't think for more than 2 minutes after they receive the said phone call or an email. So at this point, I simply can't believe anyone when they say they really want privacy and security to be enforced and to try and beat NSA & Co. in their own game. I know I want to, if only out of spite and to show them they're not so awesome as they think, but meh, I am not an electric or electronic engineer. I can't reverse-engineer a chip. I can't devise a new chip. I can't isolate equipment in a room and try and check if it emits signals I don't want it to emit. I can't hack the kernel of my Android phone and kill its services who always drain my battery. Basically, I can't do almost anything about it. So I am thinking about it on a human level. Humans are easily bought. If not, they are even easier to threaten.
- vithlani 10y ago
  Maybe this explains why there are no libertarian billionaires and other well off individuals who do not fund secure crypto work....

Cynical and long rant alert: From a psychological standpoint and my own experience, as you grow older, it becomes harder and harder to resist bribes or being bought out to inject vulnerabilities in a software/hardware you work on. Idealism lasts 5 (maximum 10) years of heavy work during which you squander the seemingly infinite energy of your youth, then you become very tired, then you make it worse with coffee, energy drinks and all-nighters, then you destroy several possible relationships and friendships, you become grumpy and cold, and one day you find that you don't care about what's good for the world anymore. You also find yourself staring at your ceiling and wondering WTF are you doing with your life. And unless you're one of the rarer human beings who is actually decisive and has the courage to make a U-turn and change your life to exactly what you want from it, then you'll be stuck for life. Now imagine we fast-forward lots of years later. At 35-45 you no longer care about most (or all) of your youth ideals. All it takes is one phone call or email offering you a 5-digit figure and you're bought out. And if the sum is 6-7 digits then forget about it, you'd sell the entire humankind. We can all pretend to be on high moral thrones but I am sure most people wouldn't think for more than 2 minutes after they receive the said phone call or an email. So at this point, I simply can't believe anyone when they say they really want privacy and security to be enforced and to try and beat NSA & Co. in their own game. I know I want to, if only out of spite and to show them they're not so awesome as they think, but meh, I am not an electric or electronic engineer. I can't reverse-engineer a chip. I can't devise a new chip. I can't isolate equipment in a room and try and check if it emits signals I don't want it to emit. I can't hack the kernel of my Android phone and kill its services who always drain my battery. Basically, I can't do almost anything about it. So I am thinking about it on a human level. Humans are easily bought. If not, they are even easier to threaten.

vithlani 10y ago
Maybe this explains why there are no libertarian billionaires and other well off individuals who do not fund secure crypto work....