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Comment by dmix | Hacker News Reader

Similar to authoritarian conservative political groups using names like "Freedom" and "Liberty"?

They can sugar-coat it however they want but I'm ok with "dark". That is the fact of life in a surveillance-state. In such an environment, one who wishes to communicate in private must do it in the dark.

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At my alma mater, we had a club named "Player's Club". Only the sketchiest of people ever went there, and thus the business suffered. One year, they made a single change - they renamed it "Indigo". Without changing a single thing besides the name, the club turned around and is now one of the most popular bars on campus.

Being a dance club, "Player's Club" might have been a more accurate name. Unfortunately, nobody wants to say to their friends "tonight I'm going to Player's Club". I'm sure you can make the connection here.

As accurate as it may be, it's terrible from a PR standpoint. The grandmother next door will be less likely to adopt its use if she associates it with darkness/nefariousness. You may be OK with it and understand its true meaning, but this isn't about just you.

They are creating a new protocol to be adopted and marketed by other email providers (including Lavabit).

Those companies can take care of Grandma.

But why create the friction in the first place? News are mostly about soundbites, do you think that if grandma hears on the news that a defendant is part of the 'dark mail' initiative that she will be sympathetic towards him?

Viewed slightly differently, given that news is mostly soundbites, which is going to be more memorable?

If I were starting a company to provide service for this protocol, or if I were an email provider considering supporting this protocol, I would be much more happy if it were called something other than Dark Mail.

If this really is just a protocol, and not a marketing name, then the main thing it needs to do is be inoffensive and distinguishable. Honestly, I would be much more comfortable starting a company around a protocol named something super-dumb like MURP or another non-descript acronym.

There are probably names that are just as bad for other reasons, but one of the top goals of naming something like this should be avoiding getting targeted as something intended for illegal use.

This.

Nobody's grandmother uses or avoids Gmail because of any connotations of "Simple Mail Transport Protocol", because they never hear about it. Only the most crazy religious people (or the least imaginative trolls) ever get upset by "mailer daemon"

This, if successful, will be marketed as "Gmail's new secure mail feature" or "SparrowSecure Mail.app" or "$ISP's privacy-enhanced mail option", not as "dark mail, the replacement for your smtp imap and pop3 service".

I would call it RockMail or some other sort of strong or hard name. You don't become the punch line of jokes if your product fails in it's security purpose like you would get wtih SafeMail or SecureMail, but you don't have the nefarious naming that DarkMail gives.

Also RockMail fits with the Lavabit / Magma naming scheme Lavar has for his company and software. Or they can call it WhisperMail, QuietMail, FlutterMail, InvisibleMail or SilentMail to fit with silent circle's naming scheme.

Just call it SafeMail. Keeping it safe from prying eyes. It sounds both positive, and implies why you would want privacy.

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