[nicoburns]

> Is there any truth to this?

Yes, symmetric cryptography is a lot more straightforward and should be preferred where it is easy to use a shared secret.

> Doesn't basically all Internet traffic rely on the security of (correctly implemented) asymmetric cryptography?

It does. This would come under the "unless you absolutely need it" exception.

[adgjlsfhk1]

note that symmetric encryption is also really hard. it wasn't until 2010 or so that GCM mode came around and provided a system that is somewhat easy to implement without accidentally breaking everything.

[0xdeadb00f]

GCM is not without it's own pitfalls though, however.