[tor-talk] Question for those who say "Tor is pwned"

[Jeremy Rand]

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On 06/20/2016 09:12 PM, Ted Smith wrote:
> Paul, it pains me to see someone, who has contributed so much to 
> humanity through a long and celebrated career as a scientist, feel 
> the need to engage with what is at worst an agent of some 
> oppressive government hoping to scare people off Tor, and at best
> a hostile crank.
> 
> As a counterpoint, I'd like to thank you for everything you've 
> contributed, and beg the Tor Project to take better care of its 
> public channels of discourse. Things weren't always this way, and 
> regardless of the motivations of those involved, this behavior is 
> an attack that needs to be defended against.

While I agree with you that the comments that Paul is responding to
are not particularly friendly, nor particularly productive, I think
that many of us may underestimate the benefit of responding to such
comments.

I work on Namecoin; last year some people made some public allegations
about Namecoin's security being weak that the Namecoin developers (and
most other Bitcoin-related people I've talked to) considered to be
inaccurate (I won't elaborate on the allegations in this message, as I
don't want to contribute to the "lack of on-topic discussion"
problem).  My initial response, which was shared by most of the other
Namecoin and Bitcoin people I know, was to laugh about it on IRC, and
ignore it, figuring that since the allegations were obviously
inaccurate, there wasn't any need to get drawn into drama.

What we hadn't counted on, yet should have, is that even very smart
people are not experts in everything, and it's difficult to discern
what's accurate and what's not when one isn't an expert.  I realized
this when I was talking to someone in a related field, though not an
expert in Bitcoin, and he seriously asked me about the allegations
that I assumed everyone would quickly realize were inaccurate.

I think that we would have been saved a lot of inconvenience later on,
had we simply engaged enough to make it clear to casual onlookers why
we didn't think the allegations were accurate.  Yes, it would have
taken up some of our development time.  But it probably would have
saved more time later, which we ended up spending on explaining things
to far more people.

People can't be an expert in every field, and the existence of a
response can be worthwhile, even though it may feel like a waste of
time.

So, I commend Paul for taking the time to write up a well-reasoned
response, which I hope will prevent onlookers from taking something at
face value that isn't particularly accurate.  It's not fun to engage
in such discussions, but it is sometimes worthwhile.

Cheers,
- -Jeremy Rand
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