5 ms·

This is a great article and I agree with the overall premise and ~90% of the individual points made. But. > If messages can be sent in plaintext, they will be

This is a great article and I agree with the overall premise and ~90% of the individual points made. But. > If messages can be sent in plaintext, they will be sent in plaintext. This format is such a common line of attack in critiques of technology that I think it needs a new logical fallacy coined to describe it. I've seen it used as the primary basis for entire "x considered harmful" essays (thankfully not the case here as the rest of the bullet points more than hold up without it). The idea that many people will use technology wrong is not an argument in itself against that technology. It's essentially an argument against UX, which is important (especially in the case of security) but while a false sense of security is much worse than no security, that doesn't justify advocating against correct application of that technology (or against efforts to improve the UX of said tech). As mentioned the point here is moot given encrypted email's other larger failings, but without them this point simply wouldn't stand.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> that many people will use technology wrong is not an argument in itself against that technology Author makes this argument best when they say PGP leaves emails "at the mercy of the least secure person they’ve sent them to." You can have the best UX gating your PGP emails. But if you send them to me, and I have the option of replying on plaintext, there is a non-zero chance that I will eventually respond in plaintext. The blast radius of that compromise is the entire message thread. If what you're communicating about requires actual security, that is an unacceptable risk. If what you're communicating about doesn't, it's fine. Herego, it's a bad solution for secure messaging.
ufmace 5y ago
I think the serious issue around this would be not so much that a person in a secure email conversation can easily send a plaintext email, but that a person who does that could also easily include a plaintext copy of the entire rest of the formerly-secure conversation through automatic quotation.
AussieWog93 5y ago
>The idea that many people will use technology wrong is not an argument in itself against that technology. It absolutely is. Look at the shitshow that is Bluetooth. A good standard should be easy to implement properly.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

JumpCrisscross 5y ago

> that many people will use technology wrong is not an argument in itself against that technology Author makes this argument best when they say PGP leaves emails "at the mercy of the least secure person they’ve sent them to." You can have the best UX gating your PGP emails. But if you send them to me, and I have the option of replying on plaintext, there is a non-zero chance that I will eventually respond in plaintext. The blast radius of that compromise is the entire message thread. If what you're communicating about requires actual security, that is an unacceptable risk. If what you're communicating about doesn't, it's fine. Herego, it's a bad solution for secure messaging.

ufmace 5y ago

I think the serious issue around this would be not so much that a person in a secure email conversation can easily send a plaintext email, but that a person who does that could also easily include a plaintext copy of the entire rest of the formerly-secure conversation through automatic quotation.

AussieWog93 5y ago

>The idea that many people will use technology wrong is not an argument in itself against that technology. It absolutely is. Look at the shitshow that is Bluetooth. A good standard should be easy to implement properly.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]