Middle-School Dropout Codes Chat Program That Foils NSA Spying | Hacker News Reader

Middle-School Dropout Codes Chat Program That Foils NSA Spying

wired.com

15 pointsprostoalex10 comments

Using encryption isn't that hard the problem is authentication - how do you know the person you're talking to is really them? You end up falling back to some NSA-hackable source (certs, emails, whatnot).

You need to implement a confluence-type system where you poll a bunch of sources unlikely to collude (i.e the EFF, PETA, China, and the US) who can authenticate an identity.

Meta question about ranking - why is this article so high? Right now it's #39, 12 pts in 17 hours. It is above an article with 43 points in 16 hours and one with 324 in 22 hours. For a while yesterday it was near the top of the front page with 3 points. Does wired.com get a big boost, or is there something else going on?

From the article, "The new version of Ricochet they plan to release in November will use the revamped protocol and have a file-transfer feature. Although the code hasn’t undergone a proper security audit yet, the group is negotiating with a code-review firm to run a scan on the completed program, and they plan to conduct a full security audit once the revamped protocol is done. They don’t anticipate any surprises, though."

So what do those of you here on Hacker News who work with security applications think? Is that group in for an unanticipated surprise?

Doing a search on John Brooks brings up a retired crypto-dude who worked for USAF in the 70's. Not to be confused with this John Brooks who's a software engineer who's interested in solving privacy-related problems.

Until this gets thorough vetting by cryptographers it's a "meh" from me.

I bet it doesn't.

Second this.

Also: HN link bait rate is increasing exponentially.

[learn about this] Middle School Dropout [and how he] codes [a] chat program that foils [the ability of the] NSA [to] spy [on communication]

What's not clear about the title in the first place?

Is English your first language? I'm not asking out of disrespect. I'm genuinely curious. The grammar of headlines and titling is often confusing to several non-native speakers. Incomplete sentences and 'news speak' play a vital role in language. For starters, it isn't a mouthful.

http://esl.about.com/od/intermediatereading/a/newsheadlines....

If you want a complete sentence that's more aligned with the meaning and intent of the original headline, try the following. "[A|This] Middle-School Dropout [Codes|Coded|Is Coding] [A] Chat Program That Foils NSA Spying." The one you wrote has some subtle, imperative differences in meaning. Adding "[the ability of the]" is hypercorrective. And it's verbose. "NSA Spying" is appositive speech; it's perfectly normal and understood.

The post was a riff on the standard "One weird trick that [does something] discovered by [quirky, unexpected source]" ads you see.

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