Bruce Schneier says “Remember this: The math is good, but math has no agency. Code has agency, and the code has been subverted.” (read original)
What this means is that the theory behind something — in this case encryption using “hard” mathematics — may be very good, but the implementation can be full of “gotchas” — errors, omissions, faults — and that‘s what will get you in the long term. He was specifically commenting on Edward Snowden’s revelations about the US National Security Agency and whether they can read all encrypted messages, but it can apply to many other software endeavors.
If you’re thinking of writing some software whose function is critical, and especially if lives depend on it, you have to be extremely careful with your implementation. And Open Source is a big plus because other eyes can look at your code and spot mistakes that you, as author, are likely to overlook.
So whatever you’re working on, be very, very careful with the implementation.
For almost two months I’ve been quite aware of how the US Congress wants to impose their will on the Internet as a whole. Aw, comeon—e
The SOPA and PIPA bills being considered in the US Congress allow blocking of domain names by someone who simply makes a complaint. Technically they apply only to non-US-hosted web sites that are pirating digital content, but once the “machinery” is in place, they could be used to block any domain whatsoever, and without due (legal) process. And also, technically, the only person who can complain and get a domain blocked is a digital (music, text, art) rights owner, but in practice this will be almost impossible to enforce.
Far from solving all your problems,
Domain takedowns: With law-enforcement recently