From: The Doctor <drwho@virtadpt.net>
I suppose what I'm bitching about (and I've probably just faceplanted by stepping into that particular pothole - it's my turn, I guess) is that there seems to be no part of the threat model where risk is acceptible. I mean, going all the way back to hand-wired electromechanical processors just to be able to bootstrap back to silicon and losing 20-30 years of technical advancement?
Somewhere, we went way off course. There is a saying: "Perfect is the enemy of working." I think that's where we as a group have lost our way.
The threats are known. The risks are known. Let's act. I agree with that. I think it's better that we get 50% of the population to use encrypted phones, where the encryption isn't truly known to be perfect, than to get 1% of the population to use perfect encryption. Verifying the last little bit of doubt is going to cost a rather large amount of money. Raising the demand for crypto phones to 50% represents a huge market, which will be satisfied, and the profits for that market will pay for the next generation of closer-to-perfect phones. Jim Bell