[Bug 16891] Telepathy should support OTR encryption

[bugzilla-daemon at freedesktop.org]

http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16891





--- Comment #21 from Paul C. Bryan <email at pbryan.net>  2009-08-03 08:48:53 PST ---
(In reply to comment #16)

> I am worried because Empathy appears to be getting a huge userbase and being
> used as the default IM client for a number of distributions without having a
> feature I think is incredibly important and should've been built in at the
> start, almost especially because most users don't really care about it.

By far the overwhelming majority of IM clients in use are those provided by the
protocol vendors, and I can assure you, they don't ship with OTR. Empathy's
userbase is growing, but it's stil early days and it's likely not going to
dwarf the others anytime soon.

> Most people will not care about encryption.  Most people also do not care
> about ACID database semantics.  But anybody who made a database lacking the
> latter feature (i.e. Microsoft Access) would be roundly and justly flamed.

No, they should not be flamed, and this is the reason your posts are so
inappropriate: you think that because feature X is missing, developers should
be flamed. Developers in a number of projects work on a voluntary basis, and in
my opinion deserve some semblance of respect for their contributions, not being
hassled by the likes of you.

> There are a whole host of features that users do not care about but are
> critical pieces of infrastructure.

OTR is not a generally accepted critical piece of infrastructure.

> Email encryption is nearly a lost cause. But with Adium and a couple of other
> popular IM clients supporting OTR, widespread IM encryption was beginning to
> happen.

Back up your unqualified assertions about encryption uptake with some
verifiable facts.

> I don't think activists in Iran should have to worry about which IM client
> their friends are using in order to avoid being snooped on.

Perhaps a nice utopian vision of the future, but not the basis for a rational
discussion. This is an unqualified "oh-won't-someone-please-think-of-the-X"
appeal to emotion without presenting reasonable facts or arguments to base it
on. 

It sounds like you have strong convictions. Strong enough though only to sound
off about it here and not really do anything about it. If these objectives are
so important to you, why aren't you writing your own OTR extension now?

> I don't think their choice of IM client should be able to be used to single
> them out for special treatment by their government. All new IM clients should
> just do the right thing out of the box.

Reality: People's choices in the technology adoption affect their security. You
can't control the proliferation of technology, and you can't control people's
choices. You lose on both counts.

> Widespread support for good encryption is not something I care about because I
> am especially paranoid about my own IM conversations. It's because I care
> about the pernicious effects of all IM conversations being potentially public
> knowledge.

You only care enough about it to flame the volunteer developers who are working
on the IM technology -- not enough to actually do anything about it yourself
and contribute to make it better. Oh right, you're also boycotting
Empathy/Telepathy and telling all your friends not to use it.


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