3 ms·

I think you are being too deferential here. Reports from 2007/2008 had already indicated significant interference and government spying between agencies and wi

I think you are being too deferential here. Reports from 2007/2008 had already indicated significant interference and government spying between agencies and with private corporations. Also, at that time it was widely believed but not yet confirmed Dual_EC_DRBG was backdoored via NIST/NSA collaboration. Many folks equate any US government money with NSA money, and did so especially around this time, which is likely why you made this mistake. Taking any US-backed government money, even at the time Signal took it, was and should be suspect. IIRC Signal continued to take money even after Snowden. So it is a fair point and not at all idiotic, and the over-reaction after you agreed to correct the article is suspect. I do think Signal needed that money to survive, and it probably was put to good use, but I would have acted differently and more transparently about how my use of that money was communicated to the public.

tptacek 3y ago
That's not what they said. They didn't write "Signal, like every other privacy app at the time, took US-backed Broadcast Board of Governors money". They wrote "Signal took NSA money", which is inflammatory and, of course, obviously false. You can't rescue that claim with jazz hands. I don't think you're doing this person any favors by keeping this debate alive.
- dijit 3y ago
  I cant see any evidence that Broadcast Board of Governers has funded anything like: Telegram, Briar, any of the third party clients for XMPP or IRC or any of the major privacy mail services like tutanota. So I think it’s at least a mild mischaracterisation that they funded everything. in fact the only other major popular software they seem to fund is Tor (also from US govt) and noscript.[0] “How could you possibly get the three letter agency wrong, your argument is entirely invalid” is a bit of a strawman dude, I admitted the mistake and corrected immediately — but you make it sound as if it matters at all which three letter agency it was. No, it wasn't the one that is charged with spying on everyone, it was the one linked to disrupting everyone. Much better, but not materially different. I am not finding evidence to suggest what you claim either. [0]: https://www.usagm.gov/wp-content/media/2017/01/OIF-Factsheet_Jan-2017.pdf https://www.usagm.gov/wp-content/media/2017/01/OIF-Factsheet...
  - tptacek 3y ago
    You are very poorly informed. You were a Google search away from a sprawling list of projects OTF funds, but instead found a 2017 PDF of "current projects" that listed a tiny percentage of them, and concluded you'd found dispositive evidence for your argument. It's fine not to be super well informed about this stuff. Why would you be? Most subjects that come up on HN, I'm very poorly informed about, too. But it's not fine to be so noisily poorly informed that you spread misinformation, which is literally what you've done here. I've done that, too! But I believe I apologized when that happened, rather than doubling down. I hope I did! Dealing with this thread has made me super self conscious about that, which is I guess a good thing. Your blog post was so bad I experienced personal growth. You could have asked people before you posted this story; you could have done any kind of research at all, and improved it. But you didn't: instead, you ran a piece that claimed the NSA funded Signal, and that Signal relies on server security, and that advocates of Signal are part of disingenuous conspiracy. (You and I are the ~only people reading this flagged, buried thread now, so we can leave it here if you like).
    - dijit 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - tptacek 3y ago
        I don't think casting aspersions on people and calling their reputations into question is a small thing at all. The argument on this thread isn't about semantics: it's about demonstrably false inflammatory things you said in your post.

tptacek 3y ago

That's not what they said. They didn't write "Signal, like every other privacy app at the time, took US-backed Broadcast Board of Governors money". They wrote "Signal took NSA money", which is inflammatory and, of course, obviously false. You can't rescue that claim with jazz hands. I don't think you're doing this person any favors by keeping this debate alive.

dijit 3y ago
I cant see any evidence that Broadcast Board of Governers has funded anything like: Telegram, Briar, any of the third party clients for XMPP or IRC or any of the major privacy mail services like tutanota. So I think it’s at least a mild mischaracterisation that they funded everything. in fact the only other major popular software they seem to fund is Tor (also from US govt) and noscript.[0] “How could you possibly get the three letter agency wrong, your argument is entirely invalid” is a bit of a strawman dude, I admitted the mistake and corrected immediately — but you make it sound as if it matters at all which three letter agency it was. No, it wasn't the one that is charged with spying on everyone, it was the one linked to disrupting everyone. Much better, but not materially different. I am not finding evidence to suggest what you claim either. [0]: https://www.usagm.gov/wp-content/media/2017/01/OIF-Factsheet_Jan-2017.pdf https://www.usagm.gov/wp-content/media/2017/01/OIF-Factsheet...
- tptacek 3y ago
  You are very poorly informed. You were a Google search away from a sprawling list of projects OTF funds, but instead found a 2017 PDF of "current projects" that listed a tiny percentage of them, and concluded you'd found dispositive evidence for your argument. It's fine not to be super well informed about this stuff. Why would you be? Most subjects that come up on HN, I'm very poorly informed about, too. But it's not fine to be so noisily poorly informed that you spread misinformation, which is literally what you've done here. I've done that, too! But I believe I apologized when that happened, rather than doubling down. I hope I did! Dealing with this thread has made me super self conscious about that, which is I guess a good thing. Your blog post was so bad I experienced personal growth. You could have asked people before you posted this story; you could have done any kind of research at all, and improved it. But you didn't: instead, you ran a piece that claimed the NSA funded Signal, and that Signal relies on server security, and that advocates of Signal are part of disingenuous conspiracy. (You and I are the ~only people reading this flagged, buried thread now, so we can leave it here if you like).
  - dijit 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - tptacek 3y ago
      I don't think casting aspersions on people and calling their reputations into question is a small thing at all. The argument on this thread isn't about semantics: it's about demonstrably false inflammatory things you said in your post.