[HN Gopher] Peter Eckersley has died
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Peter Eckersley has died
Author : dredmorbius
Score : 719 points
Date : 2022-09-03 09:03 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (community.letsencrypt.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (community.letsencrypt.org)
| wbw4 wrote:
| I wrote 10-15k rulesets for https-everywhere, starting when he
| was the maintainer. It was his generous understanding that got me
| from stupid to addicted, and I enjoyed our personal conversations
| going forward.
|
| He asked to meet up, but it would have been at least a hundred
| miles to wherever he was speaking at the time. I regretted not
| putting the effort in - as well as being curious, kind, and
| understanding, he had the kind of systematizing mind that "sync"s
| so easily that he could almost instantly know what you're talking
| about and have a conversation about anything substantive. I
| regret losing touch.
|
| I don't know what else to say. Shocked, saddened. I'm sure he'll
| be remembered for his contributions, more than most of us could
| ever hope for. Godspeed.
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| dang, could you kindly add a black bar in honor of Peter? There
| are few as deserving as he.
| dodgerdan wrote:
| Super humble guy. Chatted with Peter a few times at meet-ups,
| talks etc. Never had any idea he was so accomplished. He will be
| missed.
| ty_2k wrote:
| What an incredible career. His work made the internet so much
| better for all of us. RIP.
| blackholesRhot wrote:
| RIP Peter
| hlieberman wrote:
| This is horrible. pde was the person who asked me to get involved
| with Let's Encrypt, and introduced me to many of the people that
| I've worked with the past several years at both the EFF and ISRG.
|
| Rest peacefully, my friend.
| talhof8 wrote:
| A sad one. Rest in peace, Peter.
|
| What an impact!
| thebeardisred wrote:
| I lost count of the number of times I've danced with this
| wonderful human all through the night in cities all across the
| world.
|
| It's a kick in the gut to know that can never happen again.
| alexnewman wrote:
| I also miss dancing with peter. Fuck cancer
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| May you share those memories with others for many years to
| come. Wishing you both excellent health and peace.
| loxias wrote:
| The imagined memory of you dancing with peter brings a huge
| grin to my face. Thanks for this.
|
| Fuck (and cure) cancer.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I notice no Wikipedia page for Peter. I am interested in
| compensating someone to create one for him if someone is willing
| to do so.
| williamtrask wrote:
| https://twitter.com/john_d_beatty/status/1565942891016425473
| skilled wrote:
| RIP.
|
| Thanks for Let's Encrypt.
| Mizza wrote:
| Let's Encrypt is something we all came to take for granted very
| quickly, but lots of us remember when getting an SSL certificate
| was an expensive and tedious process. Deprecating a billion
| dollar industry overnight and providing better security for
| internet users everywhere is a hell of a legacy to leave behind,
| and I hope one that will be an inspiration for generations to
| come.
|
| Rest in peace.
| tnolet wrote:
| I remember doing validation calls with Verisign in Switzerland
| to get an "extended validation" certificate for a customer. It
| felt like applying for a passport. We had to fax them stuff too
| IIRC.
|
| Now I issue 100 certificates per day fully automated for
| customers using Caddy and LE.
|
| Indeed a legacy. RIP.
| dijit wrote:
| E.V certificates are alive and well.
|
| And don't even get me started on EV Code Signing certificates
| :(
|
| That said; it is indeed a lot easier to do TLS/SSL today;
| even the standard "DV" certs were not fun and at larger
| companies was a near-fulltime job.
| Karunamon wrote:
| Wait, really? What are EV TLS certificates actually used
| for nowadays since all browsers deprecated the "green bar"
| UI?
| dijit wrote:
| Yep.
|
| Green bar is an implementation detail.
|
| The main draw of EV certs is the insurance you get, I
| think it's even still part of PCI-DSS
| LinuxBender wrote:
| I do not recall having to get EV certs for PCI. Our
| auditors were always fine with the Geotrust/Digicert DV
| certs. Is this part of the 4.x spec? Can you link to the
| requirement for EV certs?
| zinekeller wrote:
| Not really, but a large number of auditors (not sure if
| it's "most" but it's still surprisingly many) do insist
| on EV for some reason (and as you point out, it's not
| even mandated in the spec itself, at least the current
| ones). The insurance aspect, well it depends, our lawyers
| said that "insurance" on EV products (by DigiCert and
| Globalsign at least) are simply legalese garbage but I
| can remember a broad-spectrum cyberinsurer insisting on
| EV certs. Oh well, it's ultimately their territory, not
| ours.
|
| Edit: thanks for reminding me that PCI-DSS 4.0 is now
| released - but it only states that you must securely
| deliver sensitive information over open networks
| (including internet) and explicilty bans all SSL versions
| and TLS lower than 1.2, which is the same as 3.2.1. It
| even references a NIST document which shows methods for
| automatic cert issuance featuring Certbot (https://nvlpub
| s.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.S...).
| LinuxBender wrote:
| Makes sense. I was just making sure I was not missing
| something or that it was not quietly added to a recent
| addendum/revision of the PCI spec.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| For what it's worth and given there is risk in doing
| this, but one can work with their contacts at the payment
| processor to manually pin certs on both sides. There is
| operational risk and both sides have to be vigilant with
| monitoring and communication but that can be an even
| better assurance of transport security in some fringe PCI
| cases. I recall two of the major processors were open to
| this. No idea if they still are. I just would not put it
| in the internal official documented PCI or SOC1/2
| controls or one would be stuck doing this. Could be
| useful as due diligence if legal are that nervous about
| the PCI environment. Maybe just documented in a JIRA or
| internal ticketing system.
| ricardo81 wrote:
| That industry value would have surely multiplied given how
| search engines and browsers are devaluing/warning on non-secure
| connections.
|
| Once you can figure out how to non-interactively renew those
| certs, it's fire and forget now.
| ygjb wrote:
| > That industry value would have surely multiplied
|
| Nope. The industry warning and devaluing unencrypted
| connections was enabled by low cost configuration and zero
| cost issuance.
|
| There is almost no chance that browser vendors would have
| proceeded with "deprecation" of unencrypted HTTP traffic
| without free issuers; the response from businesses would have
| been overwhelmingly negative.
| AtNightWeCode wrote:
| The big shift was done when Google said that they would
| start to demote sites not using https only.
| [deleted]
| moneycantbuy wrote:
| I met Peter at NIPS, and knew of him though the burning man tribe
| called Phage. In our brief encounter he took the time to listen,
| he seemed humble and free, like he was living his best life and
| true to himself. Sad to hear of his death, he made the world a
| better place.
| alexnewman wrote:
| Peter was an amazing friend who advised my startup hcaptcha on
| its privacy policy and was incredibly useful for coming up with
| practical solutions to hard problems. I'm pretty sure he also
| advised openai on some of the smarter things he did. On the same
| day peter died they told me they were giving up on curing my
| father's cancer . Fuck cancer
| kragen wrote:
| Oh shit, that's terrible. I was hoping to talk to him again.
| memotp wrote:
| A sad loss of a great man.
|
| It would be a lovely gesture if Let's Encrypt added a special
| field to their issued certificates in honour of Peter's memory,
| much like many web servers around the globe send the "X-Clacks-
| Overhead: GNU Terry Pratchett" HTTP header.
| williamtrask wrote:
| +1
| zadwang wrote:
| I have not met him but have used his LetsEncrypt service. I felt
| thankful for existence of such service. RIP.
| loceng wrote:
| Operyl wrote:
| You're being downvoted because his death wasn't for "unknown
| reasons," at least not that broadly. He was diagnosed with
| cancer, and he had pre operation complications that resulted in
| death. Surgery is complicated, bodies are complicated, it
| unfortunately happens. Starting conspiracy theories off the
| backs of a well liked, and imo amazing person, is unpopular.
| loceng wrote:
| memotp wrote:
| This is wildly inappropriate comment to make on a notice of
| his passing. Would you spit out all this jibber jabber at a
| funeral? Please show more respect.
| loceng wrote:
| Karunamon wrote:
| As someone who also lost the vaccine injury/side effect
| lottery:
|
| There is a time and a place for this kind of discussion.
| That time is not now and that place is probably not on HN,
| or at the very least not on a thread mourning someone's
| death. You are breaking many site guidelines here; at the
| very least conducting ideological tirades and then editing
| your posts to complain about downvotes and insulting those
| who disagree with you. Any legitimate point you might be
| making is entirely undermined by the insensitive context
| you to decided to start this conversation in.
|
| Please chill and please show some more respect.
| loceng wrote:
| dang wrote:
| The downvotes and flags were correct. You took the thread on a
| classic generic flamewar tangent. The guidelines specifically
| ask you not to do that: " _Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated
| controversies and generic tangents._ " -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
|
| Then you broke them again ("Did you know the mRNA shots") and
| again ("Pfizer tried to hide their clinical data") and again
| ("Downvotes are [etc.]") and again ("you're so reactive
| emotionally"), and so on, pouring fuel on the fire and taking
| the thread extremely offtopic. All that is obviously against
| the rules and amounts to vandalism.
|
| We've been asking you to follow the site guidelines for years
| now:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30197457 (Feb 2022)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26116840 (Feb 2021)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22274517 (Feb 2020)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21195104 (Oct 2019)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19815709 (May 2019)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18132361 (Oct 2018)
|
| ... yet you've continued to do it regularly:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32668726 (Aug 2022)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32453743 (Aug 2022)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32207241 (July 2022)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32206640 (July 2022)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32040335 (July 2022)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31706537 (June 2022)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31706382 (June 2022)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31635513 (June 2022)
|
| In fact I'm finding it hard to find a recent comment by your
| account that _isn 't_ political battle, breaking the site
| guidelines, or (most often) both.
|
| You're way into bannable territory. I'm not going to ban you
| right now, but if you keep this up we're going to have to. HN
| is trying to be a specific type of website. You're not just
| using it against the intended spirit, you're contributing to
| destroying it. We can't allow that, so please stop doing it.
| davedx wrote:
| Getting certificates used to be annoying and cost money, so many,
| many websites just didn't bother. It used to be only bigger
| websites with multiple webmasters/ops people/developers supported
| https.
|
| I don't have numbers to support this, but I think Letsencrypt and
| its related initiatives had an extremely significant impact on
| the amount of web traffic that is encrypted, resulting in a
| hugely safer and more secure experience for users and
| organizations around the world.
|
| What a legacy. Rest in peace.
| xwdv wrote:
| Rest in Peace Peter, you made the internet and perhaps the world
| a more secure place, and thus a bit better. Many will never know
| such glory.
| em1sar wrote:
| RIP
| njoubert wrote:
| Peter, I'm lucky to have called you a friend. This happened to
| suddenly and quickly, I'm reeling. You were magic.
|
| He exuded love and charm. He would be overjoyed to see me and
| give the best hugs whenever we ran into each other. He is this
| super accomplished person but that was never the conversation.
| I've known him for years and it's only now that I discover his
| LetsEncrypt involvement. It speaks volumes to him, he was so
| focused on everyone around him and filled with love for them,
| never self-promoting, just loving and being amazing. He would
| give the best hugs, and few seconds longer than most, and you
| could hear him smiling while he does so. Thank you Peter
| williamtrask wrote:
| This is the Peter I knew too.
| sinak wrote:
| Same. The hugs.
| mikeyk wrote:
| Beautiful tribute -- you captured Peter perfectly.
| njoubert wrote:
| Thanks Mike. Big hugs.
| loxias wrote:
| Thank you for this. Captures my feelings perfectly as well.
| You're right about those hugs, hah! I don't think I ever even
| noticed before, looking back on memories that are now a decade
| old. Never self-promoting indeed!
| Scootwilli90 wrote:
| nXqd wrote:
| RIP. The man has just solved mass SSL problem for internet,
| before that, things are just so tedious.
| notRobot wrote:
| > _Peter has also cofounded or [co]-created many impactful
| privacy and cybersecurity projects, including Let 's Encrypt,
| Certbot, Privacy Badger, HTTPS Everywhere, Panopticlick;_
|
| From his website: https://pde.is/about/
|
| RIP
| transpute wrote:
| https://twitter.com/bcrypt/status/1565867388741898240
| avg_dev wrote:
| > Peter's AI policy work has mostly been on setting sound
| policies around high-stakes machine learning applications such
| as recidivism prediction, self-driving vehicles, cybersecurity,
| and military uses of AI. He also has an interest in measuring
| progress in the field as a whole. His technical projects have
| included SafeLife, a benchmark environment for reinforcement
| learning safety; studying the need and role for uncertainty in
| ethical objectives of powerful optimising systems, and
| evaluating calibration and overconfidence in large language
| models.
|
| What utterly valuable work. I did not know of his existence til
| now, but I remember when I first used LetsEncrypt to get a cert
| for my website. It was so much easier than it had been before,
| and it was free.
|
| And as I have thought of so much lately, developing
| compassionate, sound policy for the technology we create is so
| often lacking in our work. https://pde.is/posts/docs/Report-on-
| Algorithmic-Risk-Assessm...
|
| I am sorry not to have known of him while he was here, and I am
| grateful for his work.
| codethief wrote:
| I had always thought that LetsEncrypt, PrivacyBadger and HTTPS
| Everywhere somehow "felt"... _similar_. And now I learn that
| the same person had been behind them. What a sad day.
| jeanlou wrote:
| May he Rest In Power
| walthamstow wrote:
| Sad to say I had never heard of Peter, I'm a younger guy and only
| been in the industry for a couple of years. What an incredible
| legacy. Hope he passed in peace and comfort. RIP
| sideproject wrote:
| He was a tutor in one of the CS subjects I took at Uni of Melb (I
| think it was Computer Graphics? not sure now). He was just way
| too smart - one of those true computer scientists. He spoke well,
| he was detailed and thorough. Wish his family all the best.
| bgmeister wrote:
| Yes, it was computer graphics. He was a great person.
| igtztorrero wrote:
| THANK YOU Peter, you did a good job in life !
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(page generated 2022-09-03 23:00 UTC)