[jsmthrowaway]

Nobody should ever type the words “every citizen can generate cryptographic certificates” in that order. That’s like saying every citizen can compose jazz; technically true, which engineers love, but basically a lie that evidences how distant the engineering mindset is from an average person. Every citizen would instead reply what is a certificate? You mean the one I got for my marriage? Do I have to go wait in line for it? It involves my computer? Oh, you mean the computer that has spyware on it to lift the private key as soon as it’s created because TPM is still, you know, only deemed worthy of corporate security?

The gap between engineering and regular human beings continues to widen. Passwords remain difficult for people, but don’t let me stop the whiteboarding of a solution to the problem that will undoubtedly involve machine learning, Facebook OAuth, and GKE at some point. Add blockchain and pitch it to USDS before Thiel guts them and you’ve got yourself a hot party!

[politician]

> Nobody should ever type the words “every citizen can generate cryptographic certificates” in that order.

This is equivalent to "Only some citizens are able to obtain the secret identifier that their government knows them as."

I'm not saying that's wrong or right, but just making an observation.