Nor does it help the cause of explaining to the general public that encryption is something they do use and should use in their own lives.
I feel certain that the name was the critical factor that made his company so nervous. For a while he had two different names for the program, SATAN and SANTA, to try and reduce the stigma, but it didn't work.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Farmer
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_Administrator_Tool_fo...
It's okay if your audience is strictly other tech people, but this is built for general use.
> The Web site Serge had used (which has the word “subversion” in its name) as well as the location of its server (Germany) McSwain clearly found highly suspicious.
Problem solved, welcome to open source.
Edit: To put the converse: If it's a shitty idea, then no one will use it and it didn't matter that you were polite anyways.
It may be a braindead idea but it's their idea. If you don't like it, fork it.
If you don't like it, write your own.
But don't complain because someone wrote some software and kindly published it for all to use for free.
Because that's how PR works. The problem is that it's a publicity problem, not a technical problem. Technical problems are solved by forks, but publicity problems have to be solved by the community.
> But don't complain because someone wrote some software and kindly published it for all to use for free.
And then decided to give it a name that actively bombards the crypto community's efforts to bring encryption to the masses. Sure, it's free software and that's fine. But it's free software that will cause a PR nightmare for no good reason. "Hackers and terrorists are using a new app called 'Felony' to steal your money and freedom." -- That's the headline here.
You might as well just be offering to not refer to it at all by any name.
What a great missed opportunity...
Now we have an effort otherwise but... cannot... resist... doing... something... to make it unfriendly...