Boastfully ignorant reporters [Was: Zergo can do secure TTPs]

[Pete Mitchell]

Paul Leyland wrote:

>
>For a policy to be created and implemented successfully it must be
>understood.  Letting techies speak unto techies is fine as far as it goes,
>but it doesn't go far enough.  If the issues can't be explained to the
>population, the legislators and the administrators, there will be problems.
>
>
>What grates is that few journalists have found devices to catch the
>attention of non-techies without boasting of their (the journo's)
>incompetence and ignorance.  I'm sure it's possible to explain to
>non-technical audiences without the use of this approach.  

Especially since computers are now familiar everyday tools in all
offices and many homes. E-mail not quite so ubiquitous - I forget what
the figures are - but surely at least the idea is familiar to the vast
majority of Newsnight viewers.

Again, most people will have heard that you can encode text messages
with a secret key, even if they don't know about PKC (and they don't
really have to know about that unless they want to thoroughly understand
the story - which a 10-minute TV item isn't going to do for them
anyway). 

Given all that context, it surely isn't such a big deal to write a non-
techie-accessible script for the GAK story.

Of course, the Home Office would like to get the argument out of the way
(that is, won) before Joe Average realises it is important - ie before
secure e-mail becomes widespread. They will love it if journalists do
the story with big signs up all round it saying "For Train-Spotters
Only". Still, as someone said, that's better than not doing it at all.

-- 
Pete Mitchell