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by nl 5093 days ago
I wish he'd left the security advice out.

The whole post was excellent, but all the useful points will now be overshadowed by the armchair quarterbacking about security by people who mostly don't understand that ALL security is a compromise, and it is as important to understand and make deliberate decisions about your security as it is to try to make a secure system in the first place.

2 comments

I thought about it, but honestly, I think it's important to try to fight against all the sanctimony and handwringing that surrounds security. People should feel comfortable talking about security as a tradeoff without diluting the argument with gratuitous qualifications and apologies.
I'm glad he put the security notes in. It is so hard to get true facts about how things are actually done.
Looking again at the post, I think the author was in fact rather careful to not give away anything about security practices at Dropbox when he was there, for obvious reasons.

He keeps many comments at a high level (security/convenience) and refers to a few non-Dropbox examples.