Re:Open-source crypto is no better than closed-source crypto
by Canada on Wednesday October 10, 2018 @04:14PM
(#18188447)
I don't have strong opinions on what motivation that murderer may have had. I just don't have any experience shooting up gay nightclubs that I could draw on to help me offer insight into that one.
I do strongly support the claim that security audits are usually broader than deep because I do that kind of work and am personally familiar with the pressures and motivations described.
In my own experience, and in the experience of all of my friends who do this work, with whom I have discussed this exact topic at great length, the majority of the time we are in fact structurally restricted from going deeper. It doesn't mean this is all the time, but it is the case for most of the billable hours doing this stuff. It pays reliably going broad and not deep.
But you're totally right. That's just like, my opinion man.
People have been known to make serious errors in judgment before examining evidence because they felt so sure about their widely-shared opinion. Glenn Greenwald pointed this out in regards to Omar Mateen's killings in the Orlando, Florida nightclub ("Pulse") in https://theintercept.com/2018/03/05/as-the-trial-of-omar-mat...
"Mateen’s alleged motive in choosing Pulse — that he wanted to target and kill LGBTs due to some toxic mix of self-hatred over his own sexual orientation and his fealty to Islam — has been treated as unquestionably true in countless media accounts, statements from public officials, and ultimately in the public mind. But ample evidence now affirmatively casts serious doubt about whether there is any truth to this widely accepted belief about Mateen’s motives in attacking Pulse. While some of this conflicting evidence has been reported in the same media outlets that originally disseminated the narrative that Mateen sought to target the LGBT community, it has been downplayed to the point where few in the public are even aware that the original theories about Mateen’s motives have been undermined."
The point being that people formed their view before the evidence was in. After the evidence was examined people learned that their view was nowhere near as justified as they initially believed and told others. They should learn that it's not helpful to guess about why something happened without the evidence. Although what we're talking about in this thread could theoretically involve life and death matters (whereas the Pulse murders objectively do), I think there's something to learn in calling for evidence before formulating one's opinion. Something that blog post doesn't do and we'd be wise to not join the author in that framing of the issue.