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"Why I’m Writing A Book On Cryptography"
by coderman 10 Aug '20

10 Aug '20

https://www.cryptologie.net/article/504/ Why I’m Writing A Book On Cryptography posted last month I’ve now been writing a book on applied cryptography for a year and a half. I’m nearing the end of my journey, as I have one last ambitious chapter left to write: next-generation cryptography (a chapter that I’ll use to talk about cryptography that will become more and more practical: post-quantum cryptography, homomorphic encryption, multi-party computation, and zk-SNARKs). I’ve been asked multiple times why write a new book about cryptography? and why should I read your book?. To answer this, you have to understand when it all started… Diagrams are everything Today if you want to learn about almost anything, you just google it. Yet, for cryptography, and depending on what you're looking for, resources can be quite lacking. It all started a long time ago. For a class, I had to implement a [differential power analysis attack](https://www.paulkocher.com/doc/DifferentialPowerAnalysis.pdf), a breakthrough in cryptanalysis as it was the first side-channel attack to be published. A differential power analysis uses the power consumption of a device during an encryption to leak its private key. At the time, I realized that great papers could convey great ideas with very little emphasis on understanding. I remember banging my head against the wall trying to figure out what the author of the white paper was trying to say. Worse, I couldn’t find a good resource that explained the paper. So I banged my head a bit more, and finally I got it. And then I thought I would help others. So I drew some diagrams, animated them, and recorded myself going over them. That was [my first screencast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbqNCgVcXsM). This first step in education was enough to make me want to do more. I started making more of these videos, and started writing more articles about cryptography on this blog (today totaling more than 500 articles). [we want to know] I realized early that diagrams were extremely helpful to understand complicated concepts, and that strangely most resources in the field shied away from them. For example, anyone in cryptography who thinks about AES-CBC would immediately think about the following wikipedia diagram: [aes cbc] So here I was, trying to explain everything I learned, and thinking hard about what sorts of simple diagrams could easily convey these complex ideas. That’s when I started thinking about a book, years and years before [Manning Publications](https://manning.com) would reach out to me with a book deal. The applied cryptographer curriculum  I hadn’t started cryptography due to a long-life passion. I had finished a bachelor in theoretical mathematics and didn’t know what was next for me. I had also been programming my whole life, and I wanted to reconcile the two. Naturally, I got curious about cryptography, which seemed to have the best of both world, and started reading the different books at my disposal. I quickly discovered my life's calling. Some things were annoying me though. In particular, the long introductions that would start with history. I was only interested in the technicalities, and always had been. I swore to myself, if I ever wrote a book about cryptography, I would not write a single line on Vigenère ciphers, Caesar ciphers, and others. And so after applying to the masters of Cryptography at the university of Bordeaux, and obtaining a degree in the subject, I thought I was ready for the world. Little did I know. What I thought was a very applied degree actually lacked a lot on the real world protocols I was about to attack. I had spent a lot of time learning about the mathematics of elliptic curves, but nothing about how they were used in cryptographic algorithms. I had learned about LFSRs, and ElGamal, and DES, and a series of other cryptographic primitives that I would never see again. When I started working in the industry at Matasano, which then became NCC Group, my first gig was to audit [OpenSSL](https://www.openssl.org/) (the most popular TLS implementation). Oh boy, did it hurt my brain. I remember coming back home every day with a strong headache. What a clusterfuck of a library. I had no idea at the time that I would years later become a co-author of TLS 1.3. [sign] But at that point I was already thinking: this is what I should have learned in school. The knowledge I’m getting now is what would have been useful to prepare me for the real world. After all, I was now a security practitioner specialized in cryptography. I was reviewing real-world cryptographic applications. I was doing the job that one would wish they had after finishing a cryptography degree. I implemented, verified, used, and advised on what cryptographic algorithms to use. This is the reason I’m the first reader of the book I’m writing. This is what I would have written to my past self in order to prepare me for the real world. The use of cryptography is where most of the bugs are My consulting job led me to audit many real world cryptographic applications like the [OpenSSL](https://www.nccgroup.com/us/about-us/newsroom-and-events/blog/2015…, the [encrypted backup system of Google](https://www.nccgroup.trust/globalassets/our-research/us/public-reports/2018/final_public_report_ncc_group_google_encryptedbackup_2018-10-10_v1.0.pdf), the [TLS 1.3 implementation of Cloudflare](https://blog.cloudflare.com/ncc-groups-cryptography-services-au…, the [certificate authority protocol of Let’s Encrypt](https://letsencrypt.org/2015/04/14/ncc-group-audit.html), the [sapling protocol of Zcash](https://www.nccgroup.com/us/our-research/zcash-overwinter-consensus-…, the [threshold proxy re-encryption scheme of NuCypher](https://blog.nucypher.com/security-audits--round-1--3/) and dozens and dozens of other real-world cryptographic applications that I unfortunately cannot mention publicly. Early in my job, I was tasked to audit the custom protocol a big corporation (that I can’t name) had written to encrypt their communications. It turns out that, they were signing everything but the ephemeral keys, which completely broke the whole protocol (as one could have easily replaced the ephemeral keys). A rookie mistake from anyone with some experience with secure transport protocols, but something that was missed by people who thought they were experienced enough to roll their own crypto. I remember explaining the vulnerability at the end of the engagement, and a room full of engineers turning silent for a good 30 seconds. This story repeated itself many times during my career. There was this time where while auditing a cryptocurrency for another client, I found a way to forge transactions from already existing ones (due to some ambiguity of what was being signed). Looking at TLS implementations for another client, I found some subtle ways to break an RSA implementation, which in turned transformed into a white paper (with one of the inventor of RSA) leading to a number of [Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) reported to a dozen of open source projects](https://eprint.iacr.org/2018/1173). More recently, reading about Matrix as part of writing my book, I realized that their authentication protocol was completely broken, [leading to a complete break of their end-to-end encryption](https://matrix.org/security-disclosure-policy/). [comic] There’s so many details that can unfortunately collapse under you, when making use of cryptography. At that point, I knew I had to write something about it. This is why my book contains many of these anecdotes. As part of the job, I would review cryptography libraries and applications in a multitude of programming languages. I discovered bugs (for example [CVE-2016-3959](https://cryptologie.net/article/347/my-first-cve-o/?utm_cont… in Golang’s standard library), I researched ways that libraries could fool you into misusing them (for example see my paper [How to Backdoor Diffie-Hellman](https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/644)) and I advised on what libraries to use. Developers never knew what library to use, and I always found the answer to be tricky. I went on to invent the [disco protocol](https://discocrypto.com), and wrote a fully-featured cryptographic library in less than 1,000 lines of code in several languages. Disco only relied on two cryptographic primitives: the permutation of SHA-3 and curve25519. Yes, from only these two things in 1,000 lines of code a developer could do any type of authenticated key exchange, signatures, encryption, MACs, hashing, key derivation, etc. This gave me a unique perspective as to what a good cryptographic library was supposed to be. I wanted my book to contain these kind of practical insights. So naturally, the different chapters contain examples on how to do crypto in different programming languages, using well-respected cryptographic libraries. A need for a new book? As I was giving [one of my annual cryptography training at Black Hat](https://www.blackhat.com/us-17/training/beyond-the-beast-a-broad-surve…, one student came to me and asked if I could recommend a good book or online course on cryptography. I remember advising the student to read [the book from Boneh & Shoup](http://toc.cryptobook.us/) and [Cryptography I from Boneh on Coursera](https://crypto.stanford.edu/~dabo/courses/OnlineCrypto/). The student told me “Ah, I tried, it’s too theoretical!”. This answer stayed with me. I disagreed at first, but slowly realized that they were right. Most of these resources were pretty heavy in math, and most developers interacting with cryptography don’t want to deal with math.  What else was there for them? The other two somewhat respected resources at the time were Applied Cryptography and Cryptography Engineering (both from Schneier). But these books were starting to be quite outdated. Applied Cryptography spent 4 chapters on block ciphers, with a whole chapter on cipher modes of operation but none on authenticated encryption. Cryptography Engineering had a single mention of elliptic curve cryptography (in a footnote). On the other hand, many of my videos or blog posts were becoming good primary references for some cryptographic concepts. I knew I could do something special. Gradually, many of my students started becoming interested in cryptocurrencies, asking more and more questions on the subject. At the same time, I started to audit more and more cryptocurrency applications. I finally moved to a job at Facebook to work on [Libra](https://libra.org/). Cryptocurrency was now one of the hottest field to work on, mixing a multitude of extremely interesting cryptographic primitives that so far had seen no real-world use case (zero knowledge proofs, aggregated signatures, threshold cryptography, multi-party computations, consensus protocols, cryptographic accumulators, verifiable random functions, verifiable delay functions, ... the list goes on) I was now in a unique position. I knew I could write something that would tell students, developers, consultants, security engineers, and others, what modern applied cryptography was all about. [book] This was going to be a book with very little formulas, but filled with many diagrams. This was going to be a book with little history, but filled with modern stories about cryptographic failures that I had witnessed for real. This was going to be a book with little about legacy algorithms, but filled with cryptography that I've personally seen being used at scale: TLS, the Noise protocol framework, Wireguard, the Signal protocol, cryptocurrencies, HSMs, threshold cryptography, and so on. This was going to be a book with little theoretical cryptography, but filled with what could become relevant: password-authentication key exchanges, zero-knowledge proofs, post-quantum cryptography, and so on. Real-World Cryptography When [Manning Publications](https://manning.com) reached out to me in 2018, asking if I wanted to write a book on cryptography for them, I already knew the answer. I already knew what I wanted to write about. I had just been waiting for someone to give me the opportunity, the excuse to spend my time writting the book I had in mind. Coincidentally, they had a series of "real-world" book, and so naturally I suggested that my book extend it. [book] Real-World Cryptography is [available for free in early-access](https://www.manning.com/books/real-world-cryptography?a_aid=R…. I want this to be the best book on applied cryptography. For this reason, if you have any feedback to give, please send it my way :) The book should be ready in print for the end of the year.

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Julian Assange: A Wanted Man - ARTE Reportage - Watch the full documentary | ARTE
by jim bell 10 Aug '20

10 Aug '20

https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/089631-000-A/julian-assange-a-wanted-man/

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Blockchain Empowers Social Resistance and Terrorism Through Decentralized Autonomous Organizations
by jim bell 09 Aug '20

09 Aug '20

https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1743&context=jss [PARTIAL QUOTE FOLLOWS] Journal of Strategic SecurityVolume 13 Number 1 Article 3 Blockchain Empowers Social Resistance and Terrorism Through Decentralized Autonomous Organizations Armin KrishnanEast Carolina University, krishnana(a)ecu.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/jsspp. 41-58 Recommended CitationKrishnan, Armin. "Blockchain Empowers Social Resistance and TerrorismThrough Decentralized Autonomous Organizations." Journal of StrategicSecurity 13, no. 1 (2020) : 41-58.DOI: https://doi.org/10.5038/1944-0472.13.1.1743Available at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/jss/vol13/iss1/3 -------------------- "A new decentralized Silk Road for illicit goods and content could appear atany time that uses smart contracts to manage orders, to accept and releasepayments, and to deduct a founders’ fee, without the need of the operatorsto leave behind many digital fingerprints, if any at all. It might beimpossible to shut down a blockchain-based Silk Road, especially if itsnodes were numerous and spread across multiple jurisdictions.48Obviously, blockchain and smart contracts would also lend themselves tothe use for blackmail and for dead hand switches that automaticallyrelease content based on pre-programmed conditions. For example, if acertain transaction on the blockchain has not taken place at a specificpoint of time, it can trigger the smart contract function, which executes aprogram. "One can also imagine the use of a DAO to facilitate an anonymousassassination market, which is a concept originally proposed by anarchistJim Bell in his 1994 essay “Assassination Politics.” Bell wrote, “While it'scomparatively easy to “get away with murder,” it’s a lot harder to rewardthe person who does it, and that person is definitely taking a serious risk.’49 His solution is an anonymous assassination market, where individualscan anonymously contribute funds for the assassination of a celebrity to alegal organization and whoever guesses the correct death date of thecelebrity receives all the money donated. A high enough fee for making abet would discourage contributors from making random guesses. As thecontributions increase, so would the incentives for somebody to kill theunpopular celebrity and collect the money. "In the blockchain age a smart contract can govern such an arrangement.The assassin could be confident that the sponsoring organization willmake the payment for a correct bet and would be able to collect the moneyin an anonymous fashion. An anonymous vote by all contributors couldestablish whether the celebrity has died and could automatically releaseaccumulated funds to the correct guesser. "According to a report by Vice,people already use the prediction platform Augur to make bets on “thedeaths of public figures, including Betty White, Donald Trump, Jeff Bezos,and Warren Buffett.”50 The practical advantage of an assassination marketfor those participating is that it creates legal challenges as to whetherJournal of Strategic Security, Vol. 13, No. 1https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/jss/vol13/iss1/3DOI: https://doi.org/10.5038/1944-0472.13.1.174351making a bet constitutes the incitement of murder and also who could becharged with it in case of a large number of people contributing money tothe cause of compensating somebody who makes a correct prediction. Blockchain-Enabled Political Revolutions "During the Arab Spring small groups of activists could mobilize the massesagainst the respective government through tweets, Facebook posts, andtext messaging. The Egyptian government became so desperate at onepoint that they temporarily shut down the Internet and mobile servicesnation-wide on January 28, 2011 to prevent the coordination ofanticipated mass protests.51 After the Arab Spring, many authoritariangovernments cracked down on social media and NGOs. Major social mediaplatforms and search engines, most importantly Facebook, Twitter, andGoogle now face strong political demands to police content under thethreat of onerous regulation and fines. Peter Singer and EmersonBrooking have pointed out that the social media companies have assumedthe functions of government and that “they are now grappled withintractable political problems,” adding that the problems are of “the kind[that are] always destined to leave a portion of its constituentsdispleased.”52 [end of partial quote]

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Inverse: The big future of satellite internet just took a promising step forward
by jim bell 09 Aug '20

09 Aug '20

Inverse: The big future of satellite internet just took a promising step forward. https://www.inverse.com/innovation/satellite-internet-transceiver

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how a federal contractor secretly puts government tracking software into hundreds of mobile apps.
by jim bell 09 Aug '20

09 Aug '20

https://www.androidauthority.com/government-tracking-apps-1145989/ * A new report exposes how a federal contractor secretly puts government tracking software into hundreds of mobile apps. * The data gleaned from this tracking is then sold back to the US government for undisclosed purposes. * This tactic is deceptive because the tracking isn’t disclosed. However, it appears to be totally legal. new report today from The Wall Street Journal exposes yet another concerning development when it comes to mobile phone tracking. According to the report, at least one federal contractor puts government tracking software in over 500 mobile applications. The contractor — a Virginia-based company called Anomaly Six LLC — pays mobile developers to include its in-house tracking code within their apps. The trackers then collect anonymized data from our phones and Anomaly Six aggregates that data and sells it to the US government. It sounds crazy, but it’s happening. What’s more, it appears it’s totally legal. Government tracking: What you need to know The report from The Wall Street Journal makes it clear that the tracking software from Anomaly Six appears in over 500 mobile applications. However, Anomaly Six would not disclose the apps with which it has partnerships. The WSJ was unable to glean this information through other methods. One would assume you could dive into the terms of service agreements of popular apps and find references to Anomaly Six. That would be a waste of time, though, because app developers don’t need to disclose the Anomaly Six tracker to users. Therefore, you could have one or even dozens of apps with Anomaly Six’s government tracking code and you would have no idea. [end of partial quote]

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Inverse: The big future of satellite internet just took a promising step forward
by jim bell 09 Aug '20

09 Aug '20

Inverse: The big future of satellite internet just took a promising step forward. https://www.inverse.com/innovation/satellite-internet-transceiver

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Israel's "Middle East, secured!" campaign continues - [PEACE]
by Zig the N.g 09 Aug '20

09 Aug '20

Our collective condolences to the (yet to be assessed) hundreds of Lebanese who have recently lost their lives. 'It's Like Hiroshima': Terrifying Seismic Shock From Blast Devastates Beirut https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/did-nuke-just-go-beirut-terrifying-m… ... Lebanese Prime Minister says Beirut explosions caused by an estimated 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate left unsecured for 6 years in a warehouse <BE WARNED: The following is a RANT, speculation, possibly entirely hypothetical postulations of an intense, sad and altogether unfortunate situation> There is something remarkably short sighted about the Israelis - they seem to imagine that the following are simultaneously true: 1) That Americans will believe that "securing the Lebanese-Israeli border" is the USA's #1 national priority. 2) That creating such "friendly" relations with __Israel's immediate geographical neighbours__, is somehow a good thing. Go figure, muh j.gger wh.iggers… And a message to the Lebanese: it seems you may have missed the memo that EVERYBODY needs to clean up their back yard. As in "Are you firetrucking serious, you _really_ left 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate left unsecured for 6 years in a warehouse" ???!!?! Speaking about off your nut, I guess you decided that leaving such low hanging fruit around was too much effort to do anything about? A note to the entire fricken world, since everybody seems to have missed the memo: CLEAN UP YOUR BACK YARD ALREADY!! (2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate, in ONE warehouse, in downtown $MAJOR_CITY?? Please! This is nothing but negligence of the first order!) and before you can even say "boo", Trump is running round like an Israeli parliamentarian on crack desperately trying to implicate America in "securing the Israeli-Lebanese relationship": Trump Calls Beirut Explosion "A Terrible Attack - A Bomb Of Some Kind" After Briefed By Generals https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/trump-says-beirut-explosion-attack-b… .. Trump says military experts tell him Beirut blast a 'bomb of some kind'. .. Trump said he had been briefed by “our great generals” and that they “seem to feel” that the explosion was not an accident. .. "It was a bomb of some kind, yes" — he emphasized when questioned on it. How can such statements of "feeling" be useful on almost any view? Sometimes Trump ought consider that when he speaks WITH HIS GENERALS, perhaps he should ACTUALLY ASK THEM what they think might be worth communicating to the public, BEFORE communicating with the public. If he really believes that they are "great generals", surely he should seek their advice a little more? One imagines that the generals may finally have had a wake up call that Trump tends to tweet out the other ear, what comes in the one ear... better late than never I guess (that the generals realise Trump's nature). At least both Isreal and Hesbollah seem to be both in agreement _and_ in totally unequivocal denial that this was any sort of "security related incident": Israeli military sources tell Israeli 10 News reporter: Israel didn't bomb Beirut. The explosion did not occur in a Hezbollah weapons depot. This was not a security-related event. https://t.co/hgDXFVxZdH — Elizabeth Tsurkov (@Elizrael) August 4, 2020 There is certainly no doubt that a few thousand tons of "ammonium nitrate left unsecured for 6 years" may well have experienced degredation in the storage and or electrical cables in the warehouse - on this planet we have these things called rats, and mice, and other critters which sometimes gnaw through electrical cables (and data cables, and some cables which carry both power and data) and cause problems, also vessels (especially metal, but also plastic) can have problems too (sufficiently hungry rats do gnaw right through plastic if they think there's a chance of food on the other side of that plastic). Also, a piece of degraded metal which falls, may strike other metal and cause a spark.

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A question about Pegasus
by Stefan Claas 09 Aug '20

09 Aug '20

Hi all, after watching Mr Snowden's YouTube video and reading the following article, I was wondering if a factory reset and a new SIM card would be good enough, or should a compromised mobile device no longer been used and instead one should buy a new one with a new SIM card? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wltrint1JrA <https://tech.firstlook.media/how-to-defend-against-pegasus-nso-group-s-soph…> Regards Stefan -- my 'hidden' service gopherhole: gopher://iria2xobffovwr6h.onion

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States of Liberation - Tech re: Harvard launches contact tracing app
by grarpamp 09 Aug '20

09 Aug '20

Some saids: > https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/8/2/tracefi-wifi-contract-tracing-c… > Tracefi uses the signals phones, laptops, and tablets constantly emit to Harvard’s Wi-Fi infrastructures to gather three pieces of information: a datetime stamp, the signal strength received by Harvard’s Wi-Fi infrastructure, and the MAC address of the mobile device. The system then stores the data for up to 28 days. Harvard will use the Tracefi data to aid contract tracing efforts run by Harvard University Health Services and Harvard University Information Technology by providing information to human contact tracers about the specific whereabouts of infected individuals. > I was joking with co-workers about the use of ankle bracelets for such > purposes, but as it turns out some countries and companies are already > mandating the equivalents! > > https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/06/bracelets-beacons-barcodes-wearables-… > https://venturebeat.com/2020/05/18/the-technologies-the-world-is-using-to-t… https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/may/7/coronavirus-usa-states-expl… https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/coronavirus-kentucky-us-a… https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/03/us/kentucky-coronavirus-residents-ankle-… https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/apr/6/judge-allows-gps-ankle-moni… So as you see, these proposed always become all real, all evil, no joke, you knew, but you did not rise up to actual liberation at that very moment, so now you fucked again by the precedents you continue put in... Central tracking authority forces, databases recording lives, control switches over you, CBDC's, democracy machines... "Liberation" "technology"? This?!?! ... Lol. Without educating and rising up a state of liberation first, naught is left but to weep for yourselves, as they whip you with your own tools you created shackled around you. > how come it’s OK for the DARK SIDE of INTERNET BARONS, all US BASED, to spy on the whole world, but the US President objects to TIKTOK doing the same > What is the difference between Tik Tok and all the other surveillance capitalism infrastructure? (Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc.) > This is really awful, George Orwell’s and Michel Foucault’s worst > nightmare: “24x7 ubiquitous surveillance” unless you decide to go > off-grid and drink Labbatt’s in the Canadian wilderness You put the GovCorp cameras and radar and drones in the skies, the sensors and robot dogs in the ground, the ALPR's by the roads, the RFID in the cardboard beer box, QR serial nums on the cans, lease deposit rent registration non-allodial of the land to your master, the phone google maps malware closed CPU GPS in your asspocket, digital bank logs and KYC and permission and ID and tax (aka: theft) to ensure it keeps growing bigger worse in all your payments for it all... these travels, land, beer... So where, exactly, is this state of liberation you speak of? Oh Canada, eh? Certainly not! In some locales right now, one cannot even leave the quarantine checkpoints you raised, the real walls of imaginary "border" you drew on maps, to travel your infected dying self out to die free and at peace in the wilderness. Seems if you desire such non-awful, you must first create an actual state of liberation, indeed.

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Fw: [openzfs/zfs] mentions to 'child gangs' in the source (#10554)
by Zenaan Harkness 09 Aug '20

09 Aug '20

----- Forwarded message from Zenaan <github.com(a)freedbms.net> ----- From: Zenaan To: openzfs/zfs <reply+AAA7QRBF67OKNB3S56PUWTV5ENR7REVBNHHCODTXHQ(a)reply.github.com> Date: Sun, 9 Aug 2020 17:40:14 +1000 Subject: Re: [openzfs/zfs] mentions to 'child gangs' in the source (#10554) On Tue, Jul 21, 2020 at 05:06:16PM -0700, misterbigstuff wrote: > wanted to ask people to just remain on-topic for finding a new term to describe gang blocks, if you want to debate the philosophy of it, do so somewhere else. (And yet, you used the _more_ triggering term "child gangs" in your subject line: this is disingenuous by you, and belies that within you is a hidden agenda, and an intention which you fail to disclose to us.) If the leadership falls for this continued attack on rationality, for "the benefit of people's feelings", that will be a sad indictment against that leadership. To put feelings above facts, is to raise into authority he, or she, who brings those purported "feelings" to the table as a relevant and significant issue (in this case, supposedly, "in relation to a hypothetical developer's lack of contributions due to their feelings). Matthew Ahrens, for whatever reasons, is taking the submission/ politically "comfortable" approach of appeasement and submission, bowing low and proferring to offer up supplication in the form of "working together" and "communicating fruitfully", which is a little sad in the face of the inherently divisive language and intentions beinw either wittingly or unwittingly blought to this community. Matthew I put to you this and mak my words: this is a pure power play, and nothing else. Be deceived at peril. Your statement in the other thread: > Some people (myself included) feel that there is a connection, however unintended, between "whitelist/blacklist" and implicit bias / systemic racism. is misguided, your belief is misguided. The reason that your opinion is misguided is that there is a connection between all language, and all problems. Indeed, there is an inherent connection between our very existence, and all problems in the world, and this is inescapable. Neutering our language is never the appropriate solution to any problem. Indeed, neutering the language we use, is not only never an appropriate solution, in fact it always, over the medium to long term, exacerbates and energizes, the very problems that are proclaimed as 'reduced' by the neutering of our language. The reason(s) that neutering our language in any way, exacerbates the problems supposedly 'reduced' by such language neutering, include: - All words have roots in our deep past. - NO amount of language neutering is EVER accepted as sufficient to remedy "the problem" (whatever problem is presented); as there are always more words which have problems, including all words used to replace the "old" wolds, since it is the "trigger" of being reminded of the very concept (not the word itself) which is the (implied/ purported) problem. - Those who proclaim "feelings" as the ground for any such change, can and do change those feelings over time, and correspondingly increase their demands over time. - There are hidden intentions behind all attempts to control language, which most fail to witness, and which few can even properly name. - All concepts still exist, regardless of which word(s) are used to name that concept at any point in history. - The hidden intentions behind all attemps to control our language, are usually unseen until much community and other damage has been done. - Mental illness ought never be a foundation on which technical projects make technical decisions. - Basing any technical decision on any "equality" foundation, rather than on technical and competance considerations, damages the product, and damages the community. - Using the limited resources of a volunteer technical project, to handle the issues of mentally ill people, is perhaps unwise. Unseen virtue signalling, especially towards mentally ill people, is dangerous. @ahrens , I suggest you carefully consider the following questions, and possibly ask them of pourself whilst you're at it: I suggest the following questions be put to any and all persons who come to the OpenZFS/ZoL projects proclaiming to want "inclusiveness" whilst bringing divisive issues: - Given your statement that you are triggered emotionally by plain words which are used in this specific and highly technical context, why do you say that you do NOT need professional help? - Why do you say that this project, which is both volunteer AND with very limited resources, should spend time making changes to accommodate you, when you appear to require professional help? - Have you ever had a mental illness? - Have you ever been diagnosed with a mental illness? - If you have never been diagnosed with a mental illness, do you consider that you may need professional help, either by a psychiatrist, or a psychologist, or by a counsellor? ----- End forwarded message ----- -------------------------------------------------------------------- And a message from the github thread https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/issues/10458 GregorKopka commented on Jul 8 The following comment on slashdot.org nicely describes my view on the situation: > I strongly suspect the people who are pushing for these things fall into > two camps. The first camp are people who genuinely want to control the > language, and by proxy, thought. These are very dangerous people and > should be resisted at all times. The second camp are people who genuinely > want to do something so they can be a part of this current trend and feel > like they are participating in a meaningful way. These are ordinary decent > people, but are certainly influenced by the bluster and actions of the > first camp. > > Here's the thing, though. If you're in the second camp, your actions will > not save you from the first camp. The authoritarians in the first camp are > fundamentally about control, and if you stand in their way, your past > actions will mean nothing. Anything less than complete subservience to > whatever ideology is currently in vogue in the first camp, is treated as a > viral attack and is stamped out with extreme prejudice. Your past > capitulation will not serve you in the future. > > Nobody--at least nobody with a lick of sense or proportion--actually > thinks that changing "master/slave" to something else will accomplish > anything of substance or real value. It's nothing more than a publicity > stunt to demonstrate that you are not like those people over there, the > racists. It's a signal of your adherence to the new narrative, nothing > more. The authoritarians in the first camp will acknowledge your signal, > and they now know that later you will be more likely to accept the next > click on the ratchet. Make no mistake, however; when they ratchet it too > far for you, nothing you did in the past will save you. > > It's the behavior of cults, and used to great effect at controlling > behavior. What's surprising is how many tech people are susceptible to it. I ask we put this to rest and instead deal with the important matters. Like figuring out how not to piss off existing contributors hard enough for them to make github delete everything they ever did, removing a fair part of the usability of the issue tracker in the process (which as far as I understood it is what has happened to @kpande). Or how to move to (preferably self-hosted) platforms that make such destructive things impossible (or at least able to recover from, would the boxes backing this issue tracker run ZFS and be under control of OpenZFS then what's lost could be recovered from snapshots - it's IMHO a sad joke that this isn't the case) while not taking the data belonging to the OpenZFS project (or contributors to it) hostage out of greed (slack). Please no more virtue signaling in the hopes of maybe attracting new contributors. Contributors which might very well not exist in the first place as the amount of humans interested and able in the intersection of C, Kernel and Filesystem programming (plus living in a situation that allows for free time to actually spend on that) is somewhat limited. Contributors which, from being able to wield logic (which enables them to program in the first place), will likely have no mental problems at all with the distinction between master/slave describing relations between parts of machinery vs. the same words describing humans committing crimes against humanity. TL;DR: Please stop destroying the meaning of language, in case you need a further argument about this please consult the late Mr. Carlin, for no good reason but concentrate on what is actually important instead.

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