[132673] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Quiet in the list...
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Peter Gutmann)
Sun Sep 7 12:54:05 2008
From: pgut001@cs.auckland.ac.nz (Peter Gutmann)
To: iang@systemics.com, netsecurity@sound-by-design.com
Cc: cryptography@metzdowd.com
In-Reply-To: <48C27E6E.1010009@systemics.com>
Date: Sun, 07 Sep 2008 19:59:12 +1200
IanG <iang@systemics.com> writes:
>4. Skype. Doesn't do email, but aside from that minor character flaw, it
>cracked everything else. It's the best example of what it should look like.
The UI still leaves quite a lot to be desired. Try sitting a non-geek user in
front of a fresh Skype install and see how long it takes them to figure out
how to make a phonecall to (say) a Skype user name supplied via email. I've
seen times of 15+ minutes to make the first call (OK, so I treat neighbours
and family as UI guinea pigs :-). Skype still has a lot of fundamental
usability flaws like the inability to remember a password (requiring it to be
manually re-entered each time it's run unless you choose to start Skype on
system boot) that make it a less-than-perfect example of usable security.
The scary thing though is that even with all its flaws, it's still more usable
than virtually all other crypto-using apps around.
Peter.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The Cryptography Mailing List
Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo@metzdowd.com
