Highest Rated Comments


Hidden_Heroes580 karma

Thanks, I expected this one! It’s based on a fortune cookie, a message wrapped in a container. The name “cookies” comes from a software trick from an old operating systems manual I read a few years earlier, a technique for passing information back and forth between the user and the system. For some reason, the small piece of data exchanged had been called a “magic cookie.” Inspired by that earlier model, sketched out an architecture for a web-based “cookie” that would give the medium a sense of memory without compromising privacy.

Lou

Hidden_Heroes281 karma

Ok, you’ve got us here! But only if you have a legitimate interest! :)

Hidden_Heroes109 karma

The original design limited cookies to just a single website, the one that is being sent by the HTTP request.

Lou

Hidden_Heroes64 karma

As others are saying, we're working on the answers with Lou right now and are publishing them as we speak :)

Hidden_Heroes59 karma

As Phil shared within the story he "wanted to do something with privacy tools back in the 80s—and I felt like peace activists needed protection from the White House and other government agencies.”
For a stretch of time, his work on what would become PGP was more of a hobby than a central pursuit. But then, in January of 1991, then-Senator Joe Biden co-sponsored a bill known as the “Comprehensive Counter-Terrorism Act” that included a clause that triggered alarm bells in Zimmermann’s mind—and in the minds of other privacy advocates around the country. The proposed bill made it clear that Congress was getting ready to mandate that all encryption schemes include a “back door” where government agencies could get access to the data if a judge signed off on the surveillance request.