The Crypto Winter

Tim May tcmay at got.net
Sun Nov 18 14:07:05 PST 2001


On Sunday, November 18, 2001, at 01:53 PM, Faustine wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Faustine wrote:
> Tim wrote:
>
>> Getting away fron digital cash for a moment, If you'd care to point me
>> to any examples of crypto companies really focused and committed to 
>> developing
>> applications that are commercially appealing to Joe Sixpack AOLuser,
>> I'd be interested to hear about them.
>
>>> SSL/RSA built into every financial transaction with the common 
>>> browsers.
>>> Visit Amazon, Ebay, etc., and note the secure connections.
>>> User-transpaperent, of course, but then, of course, this is precisely
>>> what a "Joe Sixpack AOLuser" [SIC] application _must_ be.


Your quoting software (?) is still broken. You have the order wrong.
>

> You know as well as I do that the real push for improving transaction 
> security
> is coming from commercial interests, not demand by the average user.

You asked for an example, I gave a good one. As for who is asking for 
this, this is hard to say. Is the security of a bank vault being "asked 
for" by "commercial interests" or by "customers"?

> I'm a neo-Schopenhauerian Cynic-Stoic eudaimonist. Which is entirely 
> beside the
> point that if you or I were trying to _make money_ selling crypto 
> directly to
> average home users, we certainly ought to put some real effort into 
> hiring
> people who know what average home users really want and are comfortable 
> with.

This was done _extensively_ by the PGP/NAI people and by others. They 
had staffs of people designing products, designing boxes for sale at 
computer stores, etc.

You keep showing your basic unawareness of the past.
> Even with a whole laundry list of reasons behind the recent troubles
> (i.e. failures) of ZKS and Network Associates, I don't think you ought 
> to
> dismiss the "intelligence divide" problem out of hand. Maybe you can, 
> but I
> think it's still worth considering.

Then contribute something more than saying that other people are not 
doing what they should be doing.

Companies have been trying to convince the home computer user that they 
should be encrypting for years. Doesn't wrok. And for not very 
surprising reasons. Same thing seen in the home security business, 
backups, etc.

(The average user doesn't make any backups. The average homeowner 
doesn't do any more to secure his house than what it came with. In other 
words, "the defaults." )
>
>>> As usual, you just bullshit about things you obviously know little
>>> about. Do some serious reading, get up to speed.
>
> As usual, you round things off with an rallying cry of 
> "whippersnapper!!!"
> No problem, I know the drill.

You keep chanting about "whippersnapper!" I have no idea how old you 
are...you could very well be one of those menopausal women who go back 
to grad school after being kicked out of the house...though usually they 
end up studying to become psychobabblers.

Your problem is not your age, it's your ignorance of core issues. I 
suspect you are willfully uneducable.

--Tim May
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, 
butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance 
accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give 
orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, 
pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, 
die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." --Robert A. Heinlein





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