lookback: vi, sh and unix have become your vim, bash and linux systems of today. Now, while they have forward compatibility, of sorts, vi and sh, the same cannot be said in reverse, as a rule. Modern bash folks have bent bourne shell syntax into foreign looking contortions where bourne shell syntax is a) performant and conformant, b)a lot simpler when simpler is better and c) is why bash maintains posix.

I agree, learn basic vim. And bash. But not really to program with. It's more of a burden than not for a million languages and formats.

"Quote liberally" - also ripe. Mind your aPostrophes and Quotes because they do things.

I like writing for me and what I need done, not what or how others might have me write or how others might think it should be done.

The shell is a base orchestration and interface tool for your os. If you think it's just that bad then just stick to your language of choice but please refrain from suggesting lazy habits make a better shell, they don't.

Fly your own kite. It's much more fun.

  #!/usr/bin/env bash

  bell=`tput bel`
  tock='Blastoff!'

  do_ring()
  {
    if [ "$1" ]; then # true
      echo -n $bell; sleep 0.1
      echo -n $bell; sleep 0.1
      echo -n $bell; sleep 0.1
      echo $tock
    else
      echo -n $bell; sleep 0.1
    fi
  }

  i=3
  while [ "$i" -ge "0" ];
  do
    if [ $i = 0 ]; then
      sleep 0.5
      echo ok
    else
      echo $i $bell
      sleep 0.5
    fi
    i=`expr $i - 1`
  done

  do_ring $1 # do something different if arg
  sleep 1
  echo neat.
  

One should not rely on these magics, the ones that alter runtime behaviors, without truly understanding what you're after and what you're writing. Or mostly understand. They're fine and good if you have narrow routines with a very strict focus - "I'm in, I'm out, bang."

The best switches available to the shell without a bunch of feature and package and library this or that bloat are exactly

  -x
  -n

Every single utility and package on that system is at your fingertips. Demand accuracy. I do.

It's extraordinary to me how we so willingly accept policy that directly and negatively affects so, so many facets of society and economy.

You want to maintain all the effects of growth, profits and budgets of a drug war economy? If so then you're a fucking idiot.

To top poster: these two things are not the same. They are wholly different classes where at the very base level one cannot exist without the other, literally. One is a utility provisioning and the other an appliance, figuratively.

Mostly, the point is that people choose their battles based on bias or their own needs, not some sort of overall logic.

I can understand the argument over the various sorts of non-neutrality. A need to bring together cable tv and internet pricing and bandwidth needs, the opportunity to break out fixed and variable pricing on bytes moved, etc. The main point is that it simply isn't as simple as waving a sign around and getting out the vote.

Heck, we might as well all get worked up about the fact that the USPS allows you to buy 1 day shipping or that the shipping companies cut special deals with large customers. Another example is toll roads.

The world is a complicated place and doesn't succumb well to slogans.

A country that's going to mandate backdoors/access to such communications, are going to outlaw communication methods they can't backdoor.

Say Apple makes a federated end-to-end encrypted messenger app, the government will still go to Apple and say "let us read all the messages, otherwise you can't sell your devices". THAT is the problem, and it can't be solved by more technology and shouting "BLOCKCHAIN!"

If a largish group of users could create end-to-end encryption not with a single company but with "readily available materials", then stopping it could be harder.

So it's a combination of state dictate and the practical ability of users to defy that. This isn't saying I'm optimistic, I'm rather pessimistic on any ability of a wide home-grown encrypted-messaging milieu to appear - if few are aiming for this, those few can easily be picked-off. But I don't think we should just give up on any part of this.

It's too late for that, every machine, every browser, every user is using encryption software all the time.

"It's too late to criminalize possession of drugs. Half the country takes pharmaceuticals!"

It's trivial when you can pass arbitrary legislation.

Back in the 90s we had to deal with US gov restrictions on encryption export. Software companies and organisations fell into line. It was a big deal when 128-bit keyed Netscape became available globally in 1997, per State Dept approval, but even then the full-strength server-side SSL was still restricted to 'approved' entities.

And even 56-bit server SSL was only exportable with us.gov key escrow.

I used to use Apache with the 40-bit SSL option. Pathetic strength but no-one was going to risk jail-time by breaking laws.

I did at that time, it was just another law to ignore.

This isn't meatspace, the dynamics are quite different.

Well, then clearly it would quickly become ubiquitous. I mean, if a war on encryption that was just like the war on drugs were to be launched, why my local stream bed might "place burned passwords here" on the tin-can that currently reads "used needles here." (put there by the other homeless people).

You're forgetting that the average user doesn't care enough to sacrifice ease of use for greater political benefit.

At least in the US, if a US citizen is part of a potentially incriminating conversation, the government's going to have a hard time forcing a court to force the citizen to decrypt the conversation.

Lawyers, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like a conversation wouldn't be subject to the vagaries of "combination to a safe"-production loopholes.

Or, ofc, get people to adopt insecure protocols. That we know (or have good suspicion) they've tried.

They most certainly do not have cause to demand access to swaths of comms no matter whose comms they're after and most assuredly when that access actually entails enabling access to all of the comms.

I posit there is no authority that should be able to demand this as a matter of the right to human existence. Law, order, society and government should not have ultimate authority on private communications no matter what the tech is capable of. We, as humans in a modern world, can speak and if desired do so in private. This is our right as individuals and if encryption helps us accomplish and enforce that right then so be it.

If they have probable cause then they need to beat feet or beat heads but either way they need to get to work. And by work I do not mean trying to impose a different reality than the one that we currently have - where math is fact, compute is cheap and source is open.

What's it going to be? 100 go free or six lines from everyone?