Appreciated. I'll only note that if this is the kind of resistance DJB encountered when raising his objections it goes a long way toward explaining why he might choose to publish his complaints publicly and lends additional credibility to his position.

It has certainly affected my perception of the individuals involved.

Matthew Garrett is not a secret NSA propagandist.

People can reasonably disagree with the djb position. His blog posts are notoriously divisive, and that doesn't make everyone on the other side a secret NSA influencer.

Please assume good faith, or discussions turn into personal attacks and wild accusations.

I didn't claim mjg59 is NSA. I said their arguments function like NSA advocacy. Whether that's by design or coincidence doesn't change the effect. When someone consistently advances positions that serve surveillance state interests using procedural deflection to avoid security substance, noting that pattern isn't a personal attack - it's public, transparent, community-led threat assessment. Pointing out behavior that is functionally indistinguishable from NSA discourse manipulation in a community technical forum - in a conversation about NSA discourse manipulation in community technical forums, no less - isn't a personal attack, it's a social IDS system firing off an alert for a known-bad signature detection.

The effect of claiming that people act like NSA propagandists is indistinguishable from claiming they are an NSA propagandist, except that the wording allows you to weasel out of it.

This turns a thread about cryptography into a thread about attacking someone's particular posting style. This is not going to advance the discussion in any sort of useful direction, the only thing this can do is divide people further while cementing existing positions.

If your IDS thinks well-known free software people are NSA agents because they disagree in a style you don't like, the problem is with the IDS.

If someone doesn't want to be characterized as sounding like an NSA advocate, perhaps they should consider not advocating for NSA objectives.

Anyway, sounds like I'm being dismissed for being "divisive" despite raising substantive security concerns, just like djb. Readers: form your own conclusions about the repetitive patterns here; don't listen to the people telling you not to trust your own eyes.

Note the hallmarks: zero engagement with the substance of the critique (functional equivalence), ad-hom strawman attacks against my character as a response to a misrepresentation of my position, emotional manipulation techniques: demanding focus on tone / civility, maligning moral character of opponent (accusations of divisiveness), still trying to reframe a critique about behavior into an attack against identity that it isn't.

This quacking of theirs just gives them out as a duck many of us suspected them to be.

It is uncouth to accuse a person of being an X without evidence.

It is dishonest to state categorically that a person is not an X unless a person is in the position to know.

A pattern of behavior is a kind of evidence and the observed pattern of behavior does not seem to be in dispute.

There is no evidence presented that the person making a categorical statement is in a position to know about anyone's role or lack of a role in the NSA's clandestine activities.

I fully agree Matthew Garrett is not a secret NSA propagandist. There is a much simpler explanation.

In 2016, Isis Lovecruft was romantically involved with Jacob Appelbaum. Isis lost a coveted PhD student spot studying under Bernstein to… Jacob Appelbaum. Isis broke up with Jacob and accused him of sexual abuse in a spectacularly public manner.

Isis became romantically involved with Henry de Valence, another Bernstein PhD student. Valence became acquainted with Appelbaum. Later, under Isis’ direction, Valence published a wild screed full of bizarre accusations trying to get Appelbaum expelled and Bernstein fired. When this failed, Isis dumped Valence and publicly accused him of sexual abuse.

Isis Lovecruft is now married to Matthew Garrett. Obviously Matthew is going to work to discredit Bernstein, because if he fails, he knows what the next two steps are.