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Comment by ajb | Hacker News Reader

3 of 5 comments so far mentioning that the name is a mistake. Allow me to make that 4 of 6. Come on guys, authoritarians are going to argue that this is just about defending criminals and terrorists, do you want to make that argument for them? Call it 'Liberty mail' or something.

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Let me enhance the argument Joe Shmoe: "I recently read that dark net users are 90% pedophiles. So is this an email service for pedophiles only?"

Why are people downvoting this? He's not making the argument, just explaining that people will put up this strawman.

Liberty Mail is an equally bad name. Don't conflate technology with freedom. Call it Electronic Messaging or something instead.

Yes, something "boring" is the best way to go with something like this. I mean TLS is not called "Civil Liberties' Holy Grail", is it?

Sadly, I completely agree with this. From a wider public relations perspective beyond the realm of hackerdom calling it "darkmail" hands an easy propaganda win to the authoritarians.

Instead of dark scariness emphasise safety, security, protection, freedom, etc.

Isn't that bike shedding?

Not necessarily. Bike shedding refers to arguing about trivial issues. Naming can have a huge impact on how something is perceived so I wouldn't call it trivial.

How many regular users have ever heard of terms like IP, TCP or HTTP? Arguing about naming is the very definition of bike shedding and of course it is trivial.

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