3 ms·

Using the billionaire pedophile example is a disgusting trick. You're trying to set me up for appearing to support that. Why not use more neutral examples? Lik

by mthoms 6y ago

Using the billionaire pedophile example is a disgusting trick. You're trying to set me up for appearing to support that. Why not use more neutral examples? Like being gay or supporting certain political causes? What if those later become controversial or illegal? What then? Do you want to live in a world where you have to guard everything you say in semi-private conversations, just in case it one day becomes controversial? That sounds like an oppressive nightmare. The social media argument is tangential but I do agree with you there.

busterarm 6y ago
I'm not setting you up as supporting anything. I'm illustrating the severity of the identifiable public record. When the Nazis started rounding up people to put in camps, they looked at the _extremely detailed_ Christian Parish records saying who was what and where they lived. They were thought to be innocuous and important records to keep at the time. Actually I think in the Scandinavian countries the state Church is still responsible for recording all marriage & death records. They stopped tracking births for the previously mentioned reasons. (Hey, we just learned the importance of separation of Church and State, too!) Nobody knows how important privacy is. Until they do.
- mthoms 6y ago
  >I'm illustrating the severity of the identifiable public record. This is an argument in favor of emails being non-verifiable, so now I'm confused. Previously you seem to be supporting the idea that email should be verifiable. Now you seem to be arguing the opposite. Everything you wrote above correlates with the opinions I've expressed so far. You also wrote: > If you live in a [country where homosexuality is illegal] and secretly a homosexual, do not send emails indicating that you're a homosexual. As if that's an acceptable state of affairs and a reasonable compromise for the purpose of catching the occasional bad actor. It isn't.
  - busterarm 6y ago
    Not at all. a) email being verifiable is fine b) nobody should be so stupid as to use email for anything personal. it is not privileged communication and potentially permanent public record. c) if you want to use email, you'd better encrypt it and only for recipients that you trust.
    - mthoms 6y ago
      As you well know, people use email for things they shouldn't. Why not make email slightly better? What's the harm? Isn't greatly reducing the chance of blackmail unequivocally positive? So far, you've just been repeating disparaging comments on less technically minded ("stupid") people. You've not presented an argument for why this change would be detrimental. We can continue educating people about the inherit insecurity of email while still improving it for those that (a) will never get it and (b) simply don't have access to alternatives.
      - busterarm 6y ago
        It isn't solving the right problem. What we should be doing is making end-to-end encryption easier to use. PGP & S/MIME failed at this completely.
        mthoms 6y ago
        You can argue improving email shouldn't be a priority, but the proposal in the article has zero cost. It's a free improvement. I have to say you've failed to articulate why making email better (while we work to come up with a better solution) is an inherently bad thing. Especially when we can make it better for free.

by mthoms 6y ago

busterarm 6y ago

I'm not setting you up as supporting anything. I'm illustrating the severity of the identifiable public record. When the Nazis started rounding up people to put in camps, they looked at the _extremely detailed_ Christian Parish records saying who was what and where they lived. They were thought to be innocuous and important records to keep at the time. Actually I think in the Scandinavian countries the state Church is still responsible for recording all marriage & death records. They stopped tracking births for the previously mentioned reasons. (Hey, we just learned the importance of separation of Church and State, too!) Nobody knows how important privacy is. Until they do.

mthoms 6y ago
>I'm illustrating the severity of the identifiable public record. This is an argument in favor of emails being non-verifiable, so now I'm confused. Previously you seem to be supporting the idea that email should be verifiable. Now you seem to be arguing the opposite. Everything you wrote above correlates with the opinions I've expressed so far. You also wrote: > If you live in a [country where homosexuality is illegal] and secretly a homosexual, do not send emails indicating that you're a homosexual. As if that's an acceptable state of affairs and a reasonable compromise for the purpose of catching the occasional bad actor. It isn't.
- busterarm 6y ago
  Not at all. a) email being verifiable is fine b) nobody should be so stupid as to use email for anything personal. it is not privileged communication and potentially permanent public record. c) if you want to use email, you'd better encrypt it and only for recipients that you trust.
  - mthoms 6y ago
    As you well know, people use email for things they shouldn't. Why not make email slightly better? What's the harm? Isn't greatly reducing the chance of blackmail unequivocally positive? So far, you've just been repeating disparaging comments on less technically minded ("stupid") people. You've not presented an argument for why this change would be detrimental. We can continue educating people about the inherit insecurity of email while still improving it for those that (a) will never get it and (b) simply don't have access to alternatives.
    - busterarm 6y ago
      It isn't solving the right problem. What we should be doing is making end-to-end encryption easier to use. PGP & S/MIME failed at this completely.
      - mthoms 6y ago
        You can argue improving email shouldn't be a priority, but the proposal in the article has zero cost. It's a free improvement. I have to say you've failed to articulate why making email better (while we work to come up with a better solution) is an inherently bad thing. Especially when we can make it better for free.