4 ms·

The emails don't show djb as a scumbag, just a little bit cold and rule-oriented. The kind of guy that is generally regarded as writing the most secure unclass

The emails don't show djb as a scumbag, just a little bit cold and rule-oriented. The kind of guy that is generally regarded as writing the most secure unclassified crypto code is going to be rule-oriented. Think of Immanuel Kant, who (roughly) said that the golden rule was the ultimate law, and required him to always tell the truth, even if a murderer showed up at his door, and asked whether his target was upstairs. DJB is simply saying he's willing to be the guy's confidant, but if he wants him to act in a formal, legal way, he wants him to tell him all the things he's willing to have exposed to a legal process. He doesn't want to assume that just because he's filing a complaint, that everything that his friend has told him in confidence is now potentially public record, and so he wants him to repeat what he wants to be on the record. To me, that's the mark of a good friend.

pseudalopex 10y ago
Both of them describe Bernstein as a manager, not a friend. I think Bernstein may simply have meant that the written complaint had to be specific, but that took a close reading and some charity. His direction to leave out "any reference to the previous conversation" first struck me as wanting to pretend there hadn't been one.
- tempestn 10y ago
  That's not the impression I got. It sounded to me like there had been a long, confidential conversation, perhaps spanning different media, and he just wanted an authoritative email laying out the full issue, which he could then act on, without needing to try to accurately recall all past conversation and determine which parts should be confidential or not. I'm not saying it was the ideal response, just that if we give the benefit of the doubt it doesn't appear to be a malicious one.
  - pseudalopex 10y ago
    Like I said, a close reading made me rethink my first impression. Still, I can't blame the author for interpreting "any reference" as "any reference".

pseudalopex 10y ago

Both of them describe Bernstein as a manager, not a friend. I think Bernstein may simply have meant that the written complaint had to be specific, but that took a close reading and some charity. His direction to leave out "any reference to the previous conversation" first struck me as wanting to pretend there hadn't been one.

tempestn 10y ago
That's not the impression I got. It sounded to me like there had been a long, confidential conversation, perhaps spanning different media, and he just wanted an authoritative email laying out the full issue, which he could then act on, without needing to try to accurately recall all past conversation and determine which parts should be confidential or not. I'm not saying it was the ideal response, just that if we give the benefit of the doubt it doesn't appear to be a malicious one.
- pseudalopex 10y ago
  Like I said, a close reading made me rethink my first impression. Still, I can't blame the author for interpreting "any reference" as "any reference".