gnupg-for-java

[Robert J. Hansen]

> For the record, my work on GnuPG was largely funded by the US 
> Government, via the State Department/Radio Free Asia/Open Technology
>  Fund.  So are other projects like Tor Project, Mailvelope, 
> crypto.cat, NoScript, and many more.  I don't think that being 
> associated with the US Government automatically disqualifies your 
> contributions of free software.

To repeat: I work in digital forensics.  That means I come into contact
with law-enforcement and intelligence agencies on a semi-regular basis.
I'm not going to say which agencies, but I will say that I have friends
at most of them -- people I genuinely like, whom I'll have a beer with
after work.  I don't see anything shameful or dubious about this, and
I'm sure 95% of the GnuPG userbase shares in this.  But 5% do not, would
consider it to be a sign of governmental subversion of GnuPG, and they'd
make a whole lot of fuss and scream and rant a lot.

Look at the guy who keeps re-opening "bug" #1858 on the tracker
(https://bugs.gnupg.org/gnupg/issue1858).  This guy devotes that much
time, effort, and anger, just to how he thinks Werner is going to get
people killed for not distributing GnuPG over a TLS connection.  Imagine
if he were to find out I had a beer a while ago with an Air Force Office
of Special Investigations nerd.

Look at the guy who threatened me with axe-murder if it turned out I had
any FBI involvement.  http://sixdemonbag.org/threat.xhtml -- given I
have friends in the FBI, oh yes, I took that one seriously, especially
after he dug up my (old, no longer current) address from WHOIS records.
That was the first death threat I've received.  There have been more
since -- I just don't publish them.

There's a significant fraction of people within this community who are
deeply unhinged.  Most of the GnuPG userbase is composed of solid,
reasonable people who are concerned about electronic privacy in the
Golden Age of Surveillance -- but some are really out there.

I don't want to deal with people who say, "you were a groomsman at an
NSA agent's wedding" (true) "and therefore you're a Fort Meade stooge"
(false) "and I'm going to scream about how the NSA has obviously
subverted GnuPG" (oh, man) "AND THEN I'M GOING TO MURDER YOU WITH AN AXE
AND YES I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE" (why did I get out of bed this morning?).

This is why I don't touch code.

Please respect my decision.  It's the best decision for GnuPG, and it's
the best decision for me.