[liberationtech] 15 years later, why can't Johnny still not encrypt?

[carlo von lynX]

On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 06:00:14AM -0500, Pranesh Prakash wrote:
> Anders Thoresson <anders at thoresson.net> [2014-01-15 11:23:04 +0100]:
> > Comparing the findings made by Whittens and compare them to the software available today, not much seems to have happened. But does the conclusion still holds, that a lack of mass-adoption of email encryption is due to problematic UX 

I believe UX has no chance of fixing the usability if the
way the underpinnings work undermine any such effort. The
number one problem being that there EXISTS a way to message
unencrypted, and that the user is expected to make sure that
encryption is being used. Pond is a good example on how to
do away with that. Pond is easier to use, because it CANNOT
send unencrypted messages. Also RetroShare is easier to handle
than PGP. And both are really bad UX-wise as yet. Any UX
designer working on them half a day could improve them a lot
whereas trying to fix PGP+email is a lost game.

We discussed this topic in a usability session at the 30c3.
Videos will appear on youbroketheinternet.org in the coming
weeks and I'll keep libtech posted.

> There was a thread on LibTech titled "10 reasons not to start using PGP"[2] that you might be interested in.

Thanks for the referral, Pranesh.  :)

Since the current reason count is at 15, you may want to
read the updated version at http://secushare.org/PGP


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