Depreciation and write-offs are about accounting models. Hardware will still be running after five years and still be making money. They may not be as efficient as the new hardware, but they will still be making real money even though they are valued at $0 in the books.

As someone who has been implementing such systems for 20 years, I don't buy this. In my mind, it's equivalent to saying "Seatbelts add complexity to the safety system, and it's more work. So let's get rid of it."

In this argument, the benefits of hybrid/seatbelts are not factored in adequately.

Considering that this is an election for a professional organization with thousands of members, I am going to go out on a limb and say that it should be easily possible to assemble a group of 5 people that the community/board trusts woudn't largely collude to break their privacy. If I were in the room, I would have advocated for 3 of 5 quorum.

But the lifecycle of the key is only a few months. That limits the availability risk a little bit, so I can be convinced to support a 2 of 3 quorum, if others feel strongly that the incremental privacy risk introduced by 3 of 5 quorum is unacceptable.

- Availability is a security requirement. "Availability" of critical assets just as important as "Confidentiality". While this seems like a truism, it is not uncommon to come across system designs, or even NSA/NIST specifications/points-of-view, that contradict this principle.

- Security is more than cryptography. Most secure systems fail or get compromised, not due to cryptanalytic attacks, but due to implementation and OPSEC issues.

Lastly, I am disappointed that IACR is publicly framing the root cause as an "unfortunate human mistake", and thereby throwing a distinguished member of the community under the bus. This is a system design issue; no critical system should have 3 of 3 quorum requirement. Devices die. Backups fail. People quit. People forget. People die. Anyone who has worked with computers or people know that this is what they do sometimes.

IACR's system design should have accounted for this. I wish IACR took accountability for the system design failure. I am glad that IACR is addressing this "human mistake" by making a "system design change" to 2 of 3 quorum.

But it is not a uniquely free software world problem. It is there in the industry as well. But the marketplace serves as a reality check, and kills egregious cases.

[1] Granted, "Political non sense" is a dual-purpose skill. In our context, it can be used both for "defending simplicity", as well as "resisting meaningful progress". It's not easy to tell the difference.

               # User-Defined Dictionary
                Always use the following exact terms if they sound similar in the audio:

                ```json
                {{jsonDictionary}}
                ```

Even though the above link is from Cline, you can use this approach with any coding agent.

Cryptocurrencies would be the last thing I worry about w.r.t Quantum crypto attacks. Everything would be broken. Think banks, brokerage accounts, email, text messages - everything.

- Carl Sagan in Pale Blue Dot

- T-Mobile backhaul: Users' SMS, voice call contents and internet traffic content in plain text.

- AT&T Mexico cellular backhaul: Raw user internet traffic

- TelMex VOIP on satellite backhaul: Plaintext voice calls

- U.S. military: SIP traffic exposing ship names

- Mexico government and military: Unencrypted intra-government traffic

- Walmart Mexico: Unencrypted corporate emails, plaintext credentials to inventory management systems, inventory records transferred and updated using FTP

This is insane!

While it is important to work on futuristic threats such as Quantum cryptanalysis, backdoors in standardized cryptographic protocols, etc. - the unfortunate reality is that the vast majority of real-world attacks happen because basic protection is not enabled. Good reminder not take our eyes off the basics.