In 2 weeks we'll be opening The Glass Room in #SF alongside @[email protected] - a provocative, engaging public intervention to examine tech's impact on society with over 50 exhibits, daily talks, workshops and hands on advice. Oct 16 - Nov 3, 838 Market St. http://theglassroom.org

In the wake of the poisoning of several “high-profile” #OpenPGP keys on the #SKS keyservers network, I have to say the following.

I have the utmost respect for the hackers and activists who 1) created OpenPGP in the first place, or an implementation of it; 2) have contributed or still contributes to the maintenance and evolution of OpenPGP as a whome (the standard itself, its implementations, or the various tools that interact with OpenPGP one way or another); 3) work hard to make OpenPGP better and easier to use.

About the shortcomings of the SKS network, Werner Koch single-handedly proposed the new Web Key Directory as an alternative key distribution method; Neal Walfield implemented a brand new trust model (trust-on-first-use) that completely removes the need for third-party certifications (we all know the web-of-trust never fulfilled its promises and is not a workable solution for most people, including knowledgeable users); Daniel Kahn Gillmor relentlessy advocated for better practices; Vincent Breitmoser wrote a whole new keyserver implementation and runs a public instance of it; Paul Wouters wrote the RFC to standardize the distribution of OpenPGP keys in the DNS (#DANE); Patrick Brunschwig and several others designed #Autocrypt, a method to automatically distribute keys in-band…

Don’t you dare claim that the OpenPGP community was sitting idlessly and could not be bothered to address the shortcomings of the SKS network! They are working on it, and again, they have my utmost respect.

On the other hand, I have the utmost contempt for the know-it-all who can barely conceal their glee at the sight of any bug impacting OpenPGP or anyone of its implementations (especially #GnuPG). That you can rejoice in the fall of a system instead of improving it tells me all I need to know about those people.

Encrypt all the things! #Berlin #CryptoParty tomorrow 8 pm in #Mitte: https://cryptoparty.in/berlin/c-base @cbase

More cyber! Join us on July 13th @[email protected] for privacy workshops, talks and a great party \o/