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Criticizing someone else's choice of crypto is I guess par for the course on HN. But I think her story is still noteworthy. It's unusual to be someone who spec
by neilk 10y ago
Criticizing someone else's choice of crypto is I guess par for the course on HN. But I think her story is still noteworthy.
It's unusual to be someone who specializes in writing about digital activists who need encryption.
It's unusual to be a nerd (your identity is online) and also be constantly hiding your tracks (your identity is constantly erased, by your own action).
It's unusual to be an emigrant in this age, where they expect you to surrender your voluntary self-surveillance at the border.
The thing is, what happens to nerds on the margins eventually happens to everybody.
Personally – there's some of her story that already applies to me. And, even if all of this is trivial in terms of technology, there aren't a lot of people who can bring such evocative writing to the topic.
- tptacek 10y agoIt's very unusual to be someone who specializes in writing about encryption for digital activists. More unusual than you might know. The rest of it: sure, this is all true. But that's my gripe: this story has little to do with any of that. Ultimately, the only role surveillance played in this story was something for a new couple to bond over. Sure, better that than The Sound And The Fury, which I swear to Christ a teenaged girlfriend made me read, but so what? What's special about OpenSSL here that wouldn't be special about Club Penguin or Overwatch or some other lower-status technological detail?
- Kalium 10y agoThe author can get paid for writing about OpenSSL here, because it's in line with their employer's interests? That's different here.
- harpocrates 10y agoI enjoyed your initial quip immensely. This one a bit less (I liked _The Sound And The Fury_, although not nearly as much as _The Mansion_). I think the OpenSSL line was only intended to emphasize that the communication wasn't easy - thereby making it more meaningful. I often wonder what internet messages would be like if sending them was has the same time/effort overhead as sending physical letters (having to address them properly, walking to a postoffice, etc.). Surveillance isn't really important here.