Posted 11:43 AM

It's a dangerous world, learn about it

Tim Bray recently posted an article ("Ethical Privacy Choices") in which he asked, well no, demanded that:

 "the on­ly sane eth­i­cal po­si­tion [for web site operators] is to op­er­ate in a mode that is pri­vate by de­fault..."

He does offer this strawman codicil:

"​Yes, it is cer­tain­ly de­sir­able that for those who are in the
un­usu­al po­si­tion of be­ing con­fi­dent that they un­der­stand the
tech­ni­cal and pol­i­cy is­sues, they be giv­en the op­tion of
choos­ing to op­er­ate in plain-text anyone-can-MITM
anyone-can-eavesdrop mod­e."  

Catch the subtle sarcasm? I beg to differ.


A site operator should set the default to what the mojority of the site visitors would prefer. That's not as difficult as it sounds. When designing the site you target a specific demographic. Set defaults to what hat demographic has shown they like. If that's full privacy/security then so be it. If not, then do that.


What is imperative, though, is that the options to fine-tune that default are easily available and the explanation for the settings is succinct but easily understandable.


The world should not be designed to save the self-naive at the expense of those who have chosen to know its dangers.