Re: Draft finding - "Transitioning the Web to HTTPS"

* Tim Berners-Lee wrote:
>For the benefit of the discussion in general please retract that remark.
>
>- Mention me by name not role I was not invoking;
>- point to your message you are taking about in this HTTPS and where it is relevant;
>- be less inflammatory
>- don't generalize a persons argument to the point of ridicule, it is not a useful form of rhetoric.

This thread is about the TAG's position on the use of encryption on the
web. The proposed finding states that encryption is necessary for a Web
that is trustworthy. It could also say that users' unhindered access to
the cleartext of encrypted communications is necessary, too; users can-
not trust their user agents if they cannot verify what their agents do.

On that point I said "it seems very unlikely that the TAG would agree
that users have a right to know what their computers do and what data
they send and receive" and then "In any case, it should be clear that
the Chair of the TAG very strongly disagrees [that 'Users *absolutely
do* have a right to know what their computers do, and what data they
send and receive']".

I later clarified that by "Chair of the TAG" I meant the Director, and
the Chair role is important to why the above seems unlikely to me. I do
not see what might be considered "inflammatory" or "ridicule" in any of
this. I would also prefer, rather than this, to discuss what the finding
should say about the trust features of transparent communications that
are in danger of being lost under ubiquitous encryption.
-- 
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjoern@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
D-10243 Berlin · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
 Available for hire in Berlin (early 2015)  · http://www.websitedev.de/

Received on Wednesday, 10 December 2014 17:05:06 UTC