-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512 Nadim Kobeissi:

Small follow-up: Maybe it's true I look like my goal here is just to foam at the mouth at Silent Circle. Maybe it looks like I'm just here to annoy Chris, and I'm truly sorry. These are not my goals, even if my method seems forced.

I've tried writing multiple blog posts about Silent Circle, contacting Silent Circle, asking journalists to *please* mention the importance of free, open source in cryptography, and so on. All of this has failed. It has simply become clear to me that Silent Circle enjoys a double standard because of the reputation of those behind it.

Silent Circle may be developed by Gods, but this is just quite plainly unfair. If someone repeatedly claims, towards activists, to have developed "unbreakable encryption", markets it closed-source for money, and receives nothing but nods of recognition and applause from the press and even from *security experts* (?!) then something is seriously wrong! No one should be allowed to commit these wrongs, not even Silent Circle.

I feel like I'm fighting for our own sanity here. Look at what you're allowing to happen!

I've been monitoring this discussion about Silent Circle and the one on cryptography@randombit.net Software such as TrueCrypt would never have gained the popularity and widespread usage if it were closed source. Likewise things like SSL and TLS would not have gained widespread usage without standards bodies and technical specifications. I don't see Silent Circle being anything revolutionary. Encryption software which encrypts the contents before uploading it to the cloud already exists, see Cyphertite. They have actually released their source. I also don't see how any "burn" function of software on sensitive data has any useful purpose. I see that as a false sense of security. If someone were to take a photo of the phone with another phone, it would be circumvented. I also don't see any problem in Silent Circle releasing source, and using a restrictive license if they so please, the point is while it is closed source we're really just expected to "trust" these big names. Rich and popular men can be bought and sold, so really their identities or names mean nothing to me. We need independent verifiable proof by people who understand the most inner workings of the implementations of the encryption to say "yes this works", and also people attempting to break it. Also by saying "unbreakable encryption" do they mean to say they've developed encryption technology using unbreakable ciphers? or is it just the implementation of them. To me it seems like a massive marketing campaign if they're using social media as much as people say they are this would further support this. Also "unbreakable encryption" is similar to saying to you've made an unsinkable ship, and we all know what happened last time someone said that. I also think journalists publishing about "Secret Circle" should find independent qualified sources to verify the claims of it being "unbreakable" before publishing it. To me that seems like good journalism vs bad. - -- scarp | A4F7 25DB 2529 CB1A 605B 3CB4 5DA0 4859 0FD4 B313 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQIcBAEBCgAGBQJRE9HGAAoJEF2gSFkP1LMTiT0P/RP6WeR9MEBX3ps8O/9dFaAt nsxh47sU9cTlbsxkRQJaRgVMUIWMGNBW2Zm6IdkZtXB63O1fm2jzt/6Oy7+2HJ80 s9WBVD3hKJd0lKED0Qj9aPIwdaSl0+7cu9GkdnwptpW6rLTyZGpk0aV1NI0CTSLQ 30BPYzb2LYFOrNt+F3KIZODX7czPHlCqxhLjvRuJ5+392qYnLE6f8/I2RiS4BKD3 cVULmzRvg05RiJRHuTsYtgum8CicKK6OENoFqmvfu8Y80I04Gy6H/toD8IGZvTKC AnW2SkDfyUW2wxJ5Bm5YL7+u3LQlgpB9C9e44pbUjEcFJVD0A6NHhkEuKDZ/NEU6 F/I5bKsI5m3v0FKKt7xKO1UTC4uIzmN4yLyVo32qz++N3ejiYyvrLHTuTWRQkCoT GyrShIQvzvAlt6qOYPdOdMYNVq/E4dlF51aDD+9Oiq3uua6EAQSwbT/Tx+eAj4C4 n2Pin1fYOBm1mm1V7llgtj7BStPbfOOZaywE7XIFfXpAdQS4I3N+xcp1owmD6wg7 EuJ77z7mM/lE7g2vuaMYQKTqeH16tXb6V5B639q8FLdYu/NNDRuN11GnMhvuTmqX tYTM6/4/cQyk0wC1ggzLAPjqdJ8RrxbvSSVuSl29PTIr2Wkdee8YudEYSeg2BBlx hZdbWhuhzGHZKEsfU27a =o2k+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE