6 ms·

Gender neutral and more accurate, it might not be how everyone else uses it but you got the meaning, no?

rumanator 7y ago
"Man in the middle" is not only an established concept it also is self-explanatory. Furthermore calling intercepters "monsters" is also a highly insensitive thing to do, if we're going to play the virtue signaling card. All this quixotism towards grammar and language is very stupid and pointless.
- jraph 7y ago
  > "Man in the middle" is not only an established concept it also is self-explanatory. Being comprehensible and established does not make it "good" (sure, this is a relative notion). I get your point of view about calling the interceptors "monster", but we are calling the whole process an "attack", this could already be considered a judgment call with this reasoning. Monster are not necessarily evil though. A myth that Monsters, Inc is actively trying to debunk :-) > All this quixotism towards grammar and language is very stupid and pointless. Many non-ignorant people think differently, so you need to argue here. Saying they are doing a stupid and pointless thing will not convince them.
  - rumanator 7y ago
    Your attempt to force your personal blend of newspeak onto the world has no place in tech nor in this discussion. Please leave your gender politics activism out of an interesting technical discussion that affects us all. Besides being pointless and stupid, it only adds noise to the debate.
    - danShumway 7y ago
      Discussions should get more civil over time, not less. GP never mentions gender in their post, but in terms of politics, it seems to me that this entire thread is a political conversation. It's certainly not technical -- a technical person would not care about whether someone used the term "monster" or "man", since: a) it changes literally nothing about the technical details of the attack. b) everyone understands what both terms are referring to. The only reason why it makes sense for anybody at all to advocate for switching to "monster" or to advocate against switching to "monster" is because they're interested in the politics behind that switch. From a technical point of view, if using the word "monster" makes some people happy, then why is it a problem for them to do so? My computer isn't going to stop working because of it ;) If it makes someone feel more accepted, and it isn't causing any confusion, then I'm all for it.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - mises 7y ago
        There is a technical reason. I may know, but Google does not. I look up "Man in the Middle" and get many years worth of useful info. I look up "Monster in the Middle", and here's what I get: one result about a cloudflare project, one bodybuilding.com post, one disney wiki post, and several you tube videos about "HuggleMonsters". After those is this discussion. Does that sound like a really good term to use? This looks like some one at cloud flare got pc and used the term, then this guy got in on it. I see no reason to let some company decide what's proper; I'd rather go for decades of security and development expertise.
        jraph 7y ago
        If the expression spreads, search engines will start showing relevant results. If it does not spread, then we are facing a non-issue.
        danShumway 7y ago
        To add to this, search engines already need to correlate "MITM" and "Man in the Middle". But we don't see anyone here arguing that the expanded form should be preferred to make searching between those two forms easier. Correlating terms turns out to be a pretty easy problem. It's overlapping terms like "Mongoose (Animal)" and "Mongoose (Database)" that are hard.
      - pelasaco 7y ago
        well what is more accurate? A man in the middle or a monster in the middle? Last computer conference that I visited, there were a lot of Men, some women but no monsters.. The same Pattern i observed in the last 15 years. So I think Man in the Middle is pretty much more accurate.
jackewiehose 7y ago
I didn't even get the intention of gender neutrality. I thought the author just tried to be funny but it was just confusing.
jraph 7y ago
I would like person-in-the-middle attack, but unfortunately PITM would not be recognized as well as MITM. And in fact, it seems that we shouldn't really care so much that a person is in the middle, so we might be better off saying "in-the-middle attack" (ITM) anyway. Today, "man-in-the-middle" sounds familiar but I wonder if in a few decades, saying "man" instead of "person" or "human" will bear more meaning than today, and if expressions like this will sound needlessly confusing and off-topic, like, "How being a man specifically is any relevant? Is there something special to men, relevant to the attack? Why should we care?" (though people would probably understand the history aspect of it; this would still require extra effort). Languages has been evolving and there is nothing special about MITM that would make this particular expression immutable. We already got gender neutral pronouns in English, for which we are seeing a wide adoption now, and new pronouns feel like a pretty big change, much bigger than an evolution of the MITM expression.
- icebraining 7y ago
  I agree that keeping the initials is useful. What about maverick-in-the-middle? It has a nice ring to it ;)
- mises 7y ago
  > We already got gender neutral pronouns in English, for which we are seeing a wide adoption now, and new pronouns feel like a pretty big change, much bigger than an evolution of the MITM expression. Huh? We don't have such pronouns in English. The closest is perhaps the plural "they". I've heard some mutterings about weird, made-up ones, but they seem very fringe and pushed solely for political reasons rather than as a natural evolution of language. More importantly, what purpose would a "gender-neutral" pronoun serve?
  - danShumway 7y ago
    Singular "they" has been used for hundreds of years dating back to the 14th century -- comparatively, it's a very modern trend for people to say that it should only be used in the plural. Even forms like "themself" have a pretty long historical precedent. > what purpose would a "gender-neutral" pronoun serve? From a technical perspective, these pronouns allow you to refer to a single person without prescribing their[0] gender. This may have the effect of making some technical writing more accessible. From a narrative perspective, these pronouns allow you to write about a character who's gender you might not want to reveal yet[1]. And from a political perspective, these pronouns allow individual to assert that they are nonbinary. The political perspective is what gets people annoyed, but it's worth noting that both language and politics are a reflection of society. It's normal for one to influence the other. It's because of this that we consider language and grammar rules to be descriptive, not prescriptive -- they simply describe the words that people use, even if those words are being used for a political purpose. Ignoring politics, why not use "he" as the gender neutral form and get rid of "they"? For the same reason why it can occasionally be annoying for `0` to be automatically cast to the boolean false in languages like Javascript. If I use the word "he", I don't want someone to have guess whether I'm using it in the gender neutral form or if I'm literally describing the person's gender. Singular "they" serves as a strict typecheck -- it makes "he" into a more useful word because you can use it exclusively to refer to male subjects. [0]: Also note the usage of singular "their" here, which is almost universally accepted. I've never heard someone argue that we should get rid of singular "their" just because we already have "his" and "her". [1]: "The cloaked thief stepped into the house. Their eyes scanned left and right, as if they couldn't decide what they wanted to take first." Is the thief a man or a woman? Only the detective will know!

"Man in the middle" is not only an established concept it also is self-explanatory. Furthermore calling intercepters "monsters" is also a highly insensitive thing to do, if we're going to play the virtue signaling card. All this quixotism towards grammar and language is very stupid and pointless.

jraph 7y ago
> "Man in the middle" is not only an established concept it also is self-explanatory. Being comprehensible and established does not make it "good" (sure, this is a relative notion). I get your point of view about calling the interceptors "monster", but we are calling the whole process an "attack", this could already be considered a judgment call with this reasoning. Monster are not necessarily evil though. A myth that Monsters, Inc is actively trying to debunk :-) > All this quixotism towards grammar and language is very stupid and pointless. Many non-ignorant people think differently, so you need to argue here. Saying they are doing a stupid and pointless thing will not convince them.
- rumanator 7y ago
  Your attempt to force your personal blend of newspeak onto the world has no place in tech nor in this discussion. Please leave your gender politics activism out of an interesting technical discussion that affects us all. Besides being pointless and stupid, it only adds noise to the debate.
  - danShumway 7y ago
    Discussions should get more civil over time, not less. GP never mentions gender in their post, but in terms of politics, it seems to me that this entire thread is a political conversation. It's certainly not technical -- a technical person would not care about whether someone used the term "monster" or "man", since: a) it changes literally nothing about the technical details of the attack. b) everyone understands what both terms are referring to. The only reason why it makes sense for anybody at all to advocate for switching to "monster" or to advocate against switching to "monster" is because they're interested in the politics behind that switch. From a technical point of view, if using the word "monster" makes some people happy, then why is it a problem for them to do so? My computer isn't going to stop working because of it ;) If it makes someone feel more accepted, and it isn't causing any confusion, then I'm all for it.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - mises 7y ago
      There is a technical reason. I may know, but Google does not. I look up "Man in the Middle" and get many years worth of useful info. I look up "Monster in the Middle", and here's what I get: one result about a cloudflare project, one bodybuilding.com post, one disney wiki post, and several you tube videos about "HuggleMonsters". After those is this discussion. Does that sound like a really good term to use? This looks like some one at cloud flare got pc and used the term, then this guy got in on it. I see no reason to let some company decide what's proper; I'd rather go for decades of security and development expertise.
      - jraph 7y ago
        If the expression spreads, search engines will start showing relevant results. If it does not spread, then we are facing a non-issue.
        danShumway 7y ago
        To add to this, search engines already need to correlate "MITM" and "Man in the Middle". But we don't see anyone here arguing that the expanded form should be preferred to make searching between those two forms easier. Correlating terms turns out to be a pretty easy problem. It's overlapping terms like "Mongoose (Animal)" and "Mongoose (Database)" that are hard.
    - pelasaco 7y ago
      well what is more accurate? A man in the middle or a monster in the middle? Last computer conference that I visited, there were a lot of Men, some women but no monsters.. The same Pattern i observed in the last 15 years. So I think Man in the Middle is pretty much more accurate.

jackewiehose 7y ago

I didn't even get the intention of gender neutrality. I thought the author just tried to be funny but it was just confusing.

jraph 7y ago

I would like person-in-the-middle attack, but unfortunately PITM would not be recognized as well as MITM. And in fact, it seems that we shouldn't really care so much that a person is in the middle, so we might be better off saying "in-the-middle attack" (ITM) anyway. Today, "man-in-the-middle" sounds familiar but I wonder if in a few decades, saying "man" instead of "person" or "human" will bear more meaning than today, and if expressions like this will sound needlessly confusing and off-topic, like, "How being a man specifically is any relevant? Is there something special to men, relevant to the attack? Why should we care?" (though people would probably understand the history aspect of it; this would still require extra effort). Languages has been evolving and there is nothing special about MITM that would make this particular expression immutable. We already got gender neutral pronouns in English, for which we are seeing a wide adoption now, and new pronouns feel like a pretty big change, much bigger than an evolution of the MITM expression.

icebraining 7y ago
I agree that keeping the initials is useful. What about maverick-in-the-middle? It has a nice ring to it ;)
mises 7y ago
> We already got gender neutral pronouns in English, for which we are seeing a wide adoption now, and new pronouns feel like a pretty big change, much bigger than an evolution of the MITM expression. Huh? We don't have such pronouns in English. The closest is perhaps the plural "they". I've heard some mutterings about weird, made-up ones, but they seem very fringe and pushed solely for political reasons rather than as a natural evolution of language. More importantly, what purpose would a "gender-neutral" pronoun serve?
- danShumway 7y ago
  Singular "they" has been used for hundreds of years dating back to the 14th century -- comparatively, it's a very modern trend for people to say that it should only be used in the plural. Even forms like "themself" have a pretty long historical precedent. > what purpose would a "gender-neutral" pronoun serve? From a technical perspective, these pronouns allow you to refer to a single person without prescribing their[0] gender. This may have the effect of making some technical writing more accessible. From a narrative perspective, these pronouns allow you to write about a character who's gender you might not want to reveal yet[1]. And from a political perspective, these pronouns allow individual to assert that they are nonbinary. The political perspective is what gets people annoyed, but it's worth noting that both language and politics are a reflection of society. It's normal for one to influence the other. It's because of this that we consider language and grammar rules to be descriptive, not prescriptive -- they simply describe the words that people use, even if those words are being used for a political purpose. Ignoring politics, why not use "he" as the gender neutral form and get rid of "they"? For the same reason why it can occasionally be annoying for `0` to be automatically cast to the boolean false in languages like Javascript. If I use the word "he", I don't want someone to have guess whether I'm using it in the gender neutral form or if I'm literally describing the person's gender. Singular "they" serves as a strict typecheck -- it makes "he" into a more useful word because you can use it exclusively to refer to male subjects. [0]: Also note the usage of singular "their" here, which is almost universally accepted. I've never heard someone argue that we should get rid of singular "their" just because we already have "his" and "her". [1]: "The cloaked thief stepped into the house. Their eyes scanned left and right, as if they couldn't decide what they wanted to take first." Is the thief a man or a woman? Only the detective will know!