[ciphershed] Re: Transparency
- From: "Alain Forget" <aforget@xxxxxxx>
- To: <ciphershed@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 14:00:52 -0400
Hm, this is an excellent point, to which I can think of two possible solutions:
A) We somehow come to a consensus as to precisely what "tipping point" the
community should become involved in any informal discussions any member of the
CipherShed community is having with other parties. This tipping point could be:
Ai) Immediately; we tell the other party to post on our mailing list to ensure
everyone is always included, and that there is an open and archived record of
everything for all to see.
Aii) Only once the CipherShed member feels there is alignment and/or an actual
potential impact to the project (rather than just talk). This is the fuzziest
(most open to said member's judgement), and thus could still be problematic in
the future.
Aiii) Only once there is a firm proposal by the CipherShed member and the other
party (although the CipherShed member doesn't necessarily need to endorse the
proposal, but at least share it with the community to solicit responses).
B) We appoint 1-3 people as points of contact for these matters, as a
spokeperson, public relations, or whatever title as the point of contact. Any
other community member who is contacted by outside parties should route said
party to these PR people. If there are more than one PR person, they should
*all* be involved in any discussions with outside parties. These people should
have a deep understanding of the project and community goals (and keep in close
tune with them as it evolves), be able to articulate them, and regardless of
their own personal viewpoint, they should be able to anticipate the community's
response to particular proposals by outside parties when interacting with them,
so that the community needn't be consulted on every little thing, which has the
added benefit of allowing devs and others to focus on furthering CipherShed
without these discussion distractions, until they become very relevant and may
bear some fruit. Obviously, the community must trust these people to represent
the community accurately and as unbiased as possible, and to give outside
parties a good impression of our community/project.
Thoughts?
Alain
-----Original Message-----
From: ciphershed-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ciphershed-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of PID0
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2014 13:33
To: ciphershed@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ciphershed] Re: Transparency
If this incident has proven anything it's that we're clearly lacking any
kind of official steer as to what the "community's" response is/should
be. And I would argue that this only re-enforces the need to formalise
the core team who will steer the project going forward.
What happens the next time I'm approached by the VeraCrypt core devs? Am
I going to be accused of the same lack of transparency and clandestine
schemes? I'm no more the "official" spokesperson of the project than
Bill is, why should I make all my private comms public just because the
word CipherShed is mentioned?
On 16/06/2014 18:27, Niklas Lemcke - 林樂寬 wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Jun 2014 13:23:45 -0400
> "Alain Forget" <aforget@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> Agreed on everyone's points. I think the key issue is that it is of concern
>> to the CipherShed community is that there appears to be some form of
>> discussions being done on the community's behalf, but without the
>> community's knowledge or opportunity for input.
>
> well said
>
>>
>> However, I believe we've all been in strong agreement about CipherShed's
>> vision and goals (and where they historically differed with TCNext's
>> original mandate), of which Bill has been a very strong voice/advocate, so I
>> would be shocked if whatever comes from Bill and Jos' discussions would be
>> counter to our intentions with CipherShed.
>
> So would I! It's just bad practice, and exceptions are not a thing we
> should get used to in this environment.
>
>>
>> Furthermore, as noted by Jos
>> (http://forum.truecrypt.ch/t/working-with-ciphershed/22/21 ), should he
>> follow through with his invitation to listen in on their next conversation,
>> I certainly intend to do so.
>
> Me too (although I'll probably speak). I'd just love to hear what the
> plans and opportunities / risks are.
>
>>
>> At this time, alarm is premature. I advise merely a healthy caution, as we
>> almost always should with this project. :-)
>
> No alarm. Just practice good care, don't get used to accepting bad
> practice.
>
>>
>> Alain
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: ciphershed-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> [mailto:ciphershed-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Niklas Lemcke - ???
>> Sent: Monday, June 16, 2014 13:17
>> To: ciphershed@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Subject: [ciphershed] Re: Transparency
>>
>> On Mon, 16 Jun 2014 18:05:37 +0100
>> PID0 <p1dz3r0@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>> Would you like to know what I texted to my friends today too?
>>>
>>> Honestly this is being blown epically out of all proportion (and we all
>>> know who is whipping this controversy up).
>>>
>>> Maybe I missed the thread where we elected Bill the official
>>> spokesperson for the CipherShed project? So he had a conversation with
>>> Jos, so what? He no more represents the CipherShed project than any of
>>> us do (no disrespect to Bill of course).
>>>
>>> Yes, TC died under mysterious circumstances, but I'm not going to get
>>> sucked into demanding that everyone associated with the project put all
>>> of their comms up on the homepage. Why? Because nothing will kill this
>>> project faster than that kind of witchhunt mentality being spouted by
>>> some tinfoil hatter in a chatroom.
>>>
>>> By all means, you're free to trust or not trust Bill, Jos, or anyone.
>>> What you're not entitled to do is persecute the man for having a
>>> conversation...
>>
>> You're misunderstanding. Also I didn't see anything that guy on irc
>> wrote (I sleep when he's there), so that's not what made me think of
>> it. Stephen and others were talking about it.
>>
>> They can have conversations as much as they want.
>>
>> And no, neither Bill nor anyone else is our 'spokesperson', which is
>> exactly why I don't feel particularly good about Jos and him
>> "discussing the future of tcnext and ciphershed", without actually
>> having ciphershed in the discussion.
>>
>> Of course I don't want to know what you texted your friends. It's your
>> private life. But when the project's future is being discussed I feel
>> like the project should be involved, and not purposefully excluded.
>>
>> And I am not persecuting Bill. I know Bill has only good intentions,
>> and I can make no statement about Jos. I'm just telling Bill that I
>> think it's weird of Jos to want to discuss the projects future--without
>> the involving the project's people.
>>
>> I hope I explained myself better?
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 16/06/2014 14:30, Stephen R Guglielmo wrote:
>>>> On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 4:19 AM, Niklas Lemcke - 林樂寬
>>>> <compul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>> Hi everybody,
>>>>>
>>>>> Several people voiced their concern about a recent issue on IRC, and I
>>>>> feel with them.
>>>>>
>>>>> One of our most important principles was to be transparency. However,
>>>>> these days Jos and Bill have had private, non-transparent conversations
>>>>> on the future of TCNext and CipherShed. To my knowledge they even have
>>>>> started speaking to a lawyer(?). While I am certain that Bills
>>>>> intentions are purely good, I am not so certain about Jos.
>>>>>
>>>>> I think this is a no-go. I would like to tell Jos that any future
>>>>> dialogue will either be transparent or not take place. While I do see
>>>>> that dialogue with TCNext is important, it is not worth undermining our
>>>>> principles.
>>>>>
>>>>> I hope Bill can understand what I am talking about.
>>>>>
>>>>> What do the others think?
>>>>
>>>> I agree completely. I was going to write a similar post to the list
>>>> last night, but I didn't get a chance to do so.
>>>>
>>>> http://forum.truecrypt.ch/t/working-with-ciphershed/22/18
>>>>
>>>> The reference to "a bit that Jos wants confidential" and "less than
>>>> 100%" forthcoming makes me uneasy. A few posts down in that thread,
>>>> Jos said we can "listen in" the next time him and Bill talk. Honestly,
>>>> that's not enough. Information needs to be posted to the mailing list.
>>>> I don't use Skype.
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
--
--
At the time of writing, no warrants have been served to me, nor am I
under any legal compulsion concerning the CipherShed project. I do not
know of any searches of seizures of my assets.
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