The Dark Mail Initiative was successfully funded, thanks to some last-minute donors. They gave a good amount of donation. Woohoo!!! The following is the comment by one of those donors : “Somebody once said that in looking for people … you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if you don’t have the first, the other two will kill you. You think about it; it’s true. If you hire somebody without [integrity], you really want them to be dumb and lazy.” ― Warren Buffett My problem is: it can take years to develop sufficient confidence in someone’s integrity. Occasionally, an exceptional person in extraordinary circumstances can rapidly demonstrate such integrity though courage and altruism in the face of adversity. Ladar Levison, by his conduct over the past few months, clearly qualifies as such a person. Regarding intelligence and energy, meeting Edward Snowden’s crypto-requirements and attracting almost half a million customers (respectively), speak sufficiently to those qualities. By collaborating with Silent Circle, and notably Phil Zimmerman (the original crypto-dissident and creator of PGP), I feel we’re about as close to a ‘privacy dream team’ as ‘American Exceptionalism’ is likely to produce. Many others here have commented on various insufficiencies: inferior video; no whitepaper; poorly documented business model. I am not in IT, so my assessment of the viability of this venture is necessarily less complete than most others here. The hurdle, as I understand it, will be to encourage widespread adoption of a new standard by those whose business models (reading our emails) might suffer therefrom. These are valid observations for an entrepreneur seeking venture capital. But we’re not investing; we’re donating. Addressing these concerns would involve unacceptable delay. The emerging Orwellian reality, combined with Ladar’s growing celebrity, suggest that now is the time to seize momentum. I’m willing to embrace that inevitable consequence of uncertainty: faith. I do have a question. Where’s everybody else? I mean the 1%? I’m 10 000 miles away in Africa. When I discovered this project a week ago I made a commitment to make up the deficit, should any exist, on the final day of funding. Given the billions that flow through Silicon Valley and the risk facing U.S. tech companies today (Cisco earnings?), I didn’t expect that I would have to make good on that commitment. Every day Bloomberg West parades a new tech titan for its viewers, surely one of them could have thrown some ‘loose change’ Ladar’s way? A good PR move? A vote of solidarity? Just show all us consumers of your fabulous products that you care. Perhaps your media is sending a vastly different message to the one we are getting. Then again, perhaps it is ‘our’ obligation to act more than it is yours. You guys are debating the erosion of your Fourth Amendment rights. We never had such rights to begin with. kickstarter/projects/ladar/lavabits-dark-mail-initiative/comments #Privacy_definitely_matters
Posted on: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 11:19:03 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015