4 ms·

I'm not sure it's still really cognitive dissonance when they admitted their error in marketing it that way, announced they were working on exactly this to prov

I'm not sure it's still really cognitive dissonance when they admitted their error in marketing it that way, announced they were working on exactly this to provide what their claims said, and now they're saying it's done? Sounds like they got a sudden spike in interest, realized that their customers were angry, admitted the error, bought keybase, and provided what their customers asked them for.

ignoramous 6y ago
> error in marketing it that way... There's an ashtonishing lack of ethics in our industry. A marketing error here, a software bug there [1], a misleading opt-out here [2], a preinstalled malware there [3][4][5], a little violation of privacy of here [6][7], a little lack of respect there [8][9]... It's all happening all at once. We shouldn't be lapping it up. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24514433 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24514433 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22531087 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22531087 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9072424 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9072424 [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17145204 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17145204 [5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3298205 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3298205 [6] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19031055 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19031055 [7] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23929044 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23929044 [8] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4936561 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4936561 [9] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14384187 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14384187
- stingraycharles 6y ago
  I hate to be that guy, but you can hardly blame them when there are hardly any consequences. I really hate what they’re doing, but the worst they get is a slap on the wrist.
  - anm89 6y ago
    No, it's very true.
  - paxys 6y ago
    They do not get even a slap on the wrist. There is literally no enforcement for any of this.
- bigbubba 6y ago
  I blame the dumb meme of 'Hanlon's Razor'. It extols gullibility.
  - rurounijones 6y ago
    Agreed. "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" basically means "Always make sure your malicious act can be adequately explained by stupidity if you get caught"
    - tialaramex 6y ago
      Here's a clever technique from the Web PKI: Stop blaming people. You don't need to care whether people are malevolent or incompetent, you can assume incompetence just fine. Intent only matters for blame, so, don't use blame. I don't actually care whether the board at Symantec were deliberately turning a blind eye to forbidden practices and then get caught or they were too incompetent to exercise effective oversight and had no idea there was a problem, we can't trust them in either case.
      - rurounijones 6y ago
        Apart from in the legal system, which is supposedly where we go to sort things like this out and discourage others from doing the same thing, intent has a massive impact ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea ) on the penalties you can levy to discourage said behaviour.
wittyreference 6y ago
Even after they got busted, I had their sells reps pitching my organization that they have proper E2E encryption, and that the public claims were mistaken. So, no. This perfectly above-board version is not what happened.
- neltnerb 6y ago
  That is another story entirely. It's a very low bar and that still doesn't make the cut. Like a car dealership except with no rules...
- proactivesvcs 6y ago
  IIRC their web site wasn't updated to reflect the facts, either. In my opinion this means they lied twice - one after being caught out.
Fnoord 6y ago
> [...] bought keybase [...] I missed that one, thanks for the heads up (found sources @ [1]). Between that and Keybase going into cryptcurrency, that means I uninstalled Keybase and quit using it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keybase#cite_note-12 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keybase#cite_note-12

ignoramous 6y ago

> error in marketing it that way... There's an ashtonishing lack of ethics in our industry. A marketing error here, a software bug there [1], a misleading opt-out here [2], a preinstalled malware there [3][4][5], a little violation of privacy of here [6][7], a little lack of respect there [8][9]... It's all happening all at once. We shouldn't be lapping it up. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24514433 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24514433 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22531087 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22531087 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9072424 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9072424 [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17145204 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17145204 [5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3298205 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3298205 [6] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19031055 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19031055 [7] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23929044 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23929044 [8] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4936561 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4936561 [9] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14384187 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14384187

stingraycharles 6y ago
I hate to be that guy, but you can hardly blame them when there are hardly any consequences. I really hate what they’re doing, but the worst they get is a slap on the wrist.
- anm89 6y ago
  No, it's very true.
- paxys 6y ago
  They do not get even a slap on the wrist. There is literally no enforcement for any of this.
bigbubba 6y ago
I blame the dumb meme of 'Hanlon's Razor'. It extols gullibility.
- rurounijones 6y ago
  Agreed. "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" basically means "Always make sure your malicious act can be adequately explained by stupidity if you get caught"
  - tialaramex 6y ago
    Here's a clever technique from the Web PKI: Stop blaming people. You don't need to care whether people are malevolent or incompetent, you can assume incompetence just fine. Intent only matters for blame, so, don't use blame. I don't actually care whether the board at Symantec were deliberately turning a blind eye to forbidden practices and then get caught or they were too incompetent to exercise effective oversight and had no idea there was a problem, we can't trust them in either case.
    - rurounijones 6y ago
      Apart from in the legal system, which is supposedly where we go to sort things like this out and discourage others from doing the same thing, intent has a massive impact ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea ) on the penalties you can levy to discourage said behaviour.

wittyreference 6y ago

Even after they got busted, I had their sells reps pitching my organization that they have proper E2E encryption, and that the public claims were mistaken. So, no. This perfectly above-board version is not what happened.

neltnerb 6y ago
That is another story entirely. It's a very low bar and that still doesn't make the cut. Like a car dealership except with no rules...
proactivesvcs 6y ago
IIRC their web site wasn't updated to reflect the facts, either. In my opinion this means they lied twice - one after being caught out.

Fnoord 6y ago

> [...] bought keybase [...] I missed that one, thanks for the heads up (found sources @ [1]). Between that and Keybase going into cryptcurrency, that means I uninstalled Keybase and quit using it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keybase#cite_note-12 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keybase#cite_note-12