LJ -> DW? (poll)

[cellio]

Lately, every time LJ pushes a new update they break legibility and accessibility a little more. This is becoming a problem. It's beyond my ability to correct with browser adaptations.

One of the reasons I haven't moved over to DreamWidth is that a lot of the people I interact with are still here. I'm concerned that y'all might not comment as much if I went there (you can log in with OpenID, but that may be a barrier to some), and the discussions in comments are a lot of the value of LJ to me. I don't need to post my stuff out into the silent void for my own amusement.

If I move there, then I could use Dreamwidth's cross-poster to post entries here too (to make it easy on my remaining LJ readers). Doing that requires giving DW my LJ password, which might cause some people to want to remove me from some or all of their filters, an outcome I don't want. (You're not just trusting me any more; you're trusting DW.) Since you all aren't moving to DW with me, I'd still need to come here to read the LJ-only people; what access would the cross-poster cost me?

So, poll time!

[Poll #1902385]

Comments

[siderea]

I'm glad you ask!

What you did above was precisely not encouraging people to "support" a business because you approve of their business practices, and is not at all analogous to the cases you bring up.

Let us recap. The OP raises the issue of security for her collaterals of using a feature that spreads risk beyond herself. Your response is, "I can assure you that your password is completely safe with them, as much as such a thing is possible", which is:

1) False. It is an unsolved technological problem, how to store passwords securely with a third party. I have no idea if you have the technical chops to follow that discussion, but the upshot is that the way encryption works, the party ultimately authenticated against (in the case of the DW->LJ crossposter, LJ) can be secure in a way no third party (i.e. DW) you store your password with can ever be. The character of the people involves is immaterial in the face of the math of hard-to-factor numbers: until there is a technological solution it will always be less secure to provide your LJ password to DW. Your LJ password cannot be stolen from LJ; if you use the DW crossposter, your LJ password can be stolen from DW.

2) Misleading, which I assume is because you didn't understand the previous and were sharing from your ignorance. You assumed the risk in the crossposter is one thing, and it's actually something else. You assumed the risk was of the people running the crossposter being bad people who do nefarious things. While that is a risk, it's not only not the only one, it's not even a primary one.

3) Shuts down a discussion about security concerns. Let's get back to your proposed analogies. You wrote:

I might say, "This company is dedicated to re-investing its profits into the community so I like them and choose to spend my money with them"

That's a statement about a thing that the company does or has done. Behavior. Deeds. Your other examples are also about things companies and highly placed company reps do, but instead of commendations, they are criticisms. In all cases, your proposed analogs are, "Here are some facts to factor into your decision how/whether to do business with this business, and this is the conclusion I encourage you to consider."

Well, (A) nobody was discussing whether to do business with DW. It was a discussion whether to use a specific feature of their software with problematic security ramifications. "The founders are great people" may be an argument for doing business with a company, but it is an appallingly misleading response to the question of whether to use a feature with negative security ramifications.

And (B) you made it about character, not actions. Oh, you raised actions too, in the next paragraph, but none of them had anything to do with their conduct around security. If you had written, instead, "I think the founders are fabulous people with great integrity because they instituted the following security practices around storing passwords: [list]", I would still have plenty to argue with you about, but that would at least have some integrity of its own.

What you did -- telling someone not to be concerned about the security implications to collaterals of using a known problematic software affordance, because in your personal opinion the authors are great folks -- is a hair's breadth from emotional blackmail: "What's wrong, don't you like my friends?"

[continued]