Re:Stop Using Encrypted Email
by Klonoar on Wednesday February 19, 2020 @09:48PM
(#22372298)
> ...but that well-meaning but poorly-informed technologists will try to talk them into doing it and added encrypted email to the basket of tools ordinary people use. That can't be allowed to happen.
This is already happening, which is why I disagree with your messaging: I don't think the way you attack it will fix it, because the people this post will resonate with already (generally) agree with you. But I digress...
I view encrypted email as services like PM/Posteo/whatever paranoia induced flavor of the week fits here. I don't know anybody who tries to use encrypted email straight up - I think the era of running your own mailbox is gone so I don't particularly count it for anything. If you do it yourself, it's a shitshow; if you're on one of those services it "just works".
You can shake the shoulders all you want, but people use email, and people look for the easy win. "Encrypted email" is easier for the average person to latch on to than the UI/UX most secure tooling has right now (a problem even you've noted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21897173). It's very telling that nothing has dethroned it yet.
Given that, I welcome these marginal improvements while something better is built. These things shouldn't be around in ten years, they're bridges. Email simply has an annoyingly odd usability bar to clear, and nothing is really close to that right now.
If I had to make a dumb analogy, it's like Objective-C and Swift: it's very, very clear that Swift is the future; inherent advantages abound, and much more difficult to shoot yourself in the foot with... but in lieu of Swift, I'd still sooner write Objective-C over straight C, warts and all.
This is already happening, which is why I disagree with your messaging: I don't think the way you attack it will fix it, because the people this post will resonate with already (generally) agree with you. But I digress...
I view encrypted email as services like PM/Posteo/whatever paranoia induced flavor of the week fits here. I don't know anybody who tries to use encrypted email straight up - I think the era of running your own mailbox is gone so I don't particularly count it for anything. If you do it yourself, it's a shitshow; if you're on one of those services it "just works".
You can shake the shoulders all you want, but people use email, and people look for the easy win. "Encrypted email" is easier for the average person to latch on to than the UI/UX most secure tooling has right now (a problem even you've noted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21897173). It's very telling that nothing has dethroned it yet.
Given that, I welcome these marginal improvements while something better is built. These things shouldn't be around in ten years, they're bridges. Email simply has an annoyingly odd usability bar to clear, and nothing is really close to that right now.
If I had to make a dumb analogy, it's like Objective-C and Swift: it's very, very clear that Swift is the future; inherent advantages abound, and much more difficult to shoot yourself in the foot with... but in lieu of Swift, I'd still sooner write Objective-C over straight C, warts and all.