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by busterarm 14 days ago
Like half this list + Meredith are lawyers/policy people. Add in computer security specialists/operators. They use software as a tool to achieve political ends.

"tech bros" in context of the article is pretty much referring to builders of software. The tech sisters who have built significant projects are indeed mythically rare.

Names like Radia Perlman might be a better choice.
2 comments
MetaWhirledPeas 13 days ago
> In comparison, tech sisters advocating for an absolute right to privacy seem to be a very rare, and maybe mythical, species.

Care to amend your statement? I don't see any qualification about building software there.

Face it, the author was just searching for another reason to be mad at men in the software realm.

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tommydee 13 days ago
If you refresh yourself on the thread originator comment, you will notice we are talking about "tech sisters advocating for an absolute right to privacy", not "tech sisters who have built significant technical projects". I think Dr. Perlman fits in the latter, not the former category.

Also, I think the intended meaning of "tech bros" in the article is more nuanced. Charitably: naive, sophomorically idealistic SV tech entrepreneurs who rode the "information wants to be free" wave to a world where WhatsApp & FB Messenger are E2EE by default. Uncharitably: anyone not in author's idealogical tribe, particularly ideologically impure programmers who have turned to entrepreneurism. And Americans.

Good to know you don't think Yan or Runa's technical work is significant, though.

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busterarm 13 days ago
He already previously qualified tech bros as people who literally built technology and a whole industry in the US that the EU did not build.

The advocating for privacy is the cherry on top. And I never said their work was insignificant. It’s just not foundational — not something I’ve built my own career on the back of — and the primary association that you would have with any of them is going to be advocacy.

Radia is also absolutely a privacy advocate and literally wrote the book (as usual) on the intersection between Network Security and Privacy…

Maybe she would been better served spending all her time building a Twitter following and working on press releases.

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