Let’s get rid of “man-in-the-middle”

A man-in-the-middle attack is a form of active eavesdropping in computer security. The attacker sits in the middle of a communication and listens to each message before passing it along to the intended recipient. 

It is also part of the language that excludes women from the technology industry.

The term “man-in-the-middle” assumes that the attacker (usually a researcher in a computer science lab) is male. In order for us to make that assumption, we have to know that women don’t belong in computer security, aren’t welcome here. 

We’re perpetuating those beliefs, even if we don’t believe them. This is called a micro-aggression. 

I want to take a quick step back to make a few things clear. First, I’m a staunch feminist. Second, it’s okay with me that you’re not. We all grow up in such different circumstances, and for me to challenge the ways you speak (which I’m doing here) isn’t just about you, it confronts all of the people who you love and respect.

Your boss, your friends, your mentors, your peers, the leaders of the developer community, and a million other people have used “man-in-the-middle” to describe this attack for a long time. I’ve been using it until recently, and will probably still slip and use it in the future.

So I don’t want to tell you that you’re wrong, or tell you that you can’t or shouldn’t use an old term. 

You’re not wrong. But I want you to know that there’s a better way. It’s easy to choose more inclusive language when you speak, and it can make a huge difference to your audience.

Back to micro-aggressions. I was very resistant to “politically correct” language when I was first introduced to it.

And I fought it until the day it clicked for me. I was building an educational game for a class of 4th graders, and a friend of mine, talking to the class, said “We’re really excited to build this game for you guys!” 

I’d always used “you guys” to refer to a group of mixed gender- everyone knew what I meant, so it didn’t matter.

But when my friend said it to that class, I’m not sure they all knew what she meant. Some of the girls may have thought that video games were for boys, and so we really were just talking to the guys in the class.

We may have accidentally made the girls feel unwelcome, because of a simple habit of speech.

Since then, I’ve tried to say “y’all” instead of “you guys”. I’m not perfect, but the habit was pretty easy to make and now it’s automatic for my language to be more inclusive.

I still have a lot to learn. I make so many mistakes that exclude people I care about and want to support, but I’m getting better.

Women already play a huge role in this industry, and that influence is only going to grow in the next chapter. Being critical of the past isn’t useful, but it’s important that we work together to keep getting better.

There’s another old term for a “man-in-the-middle” attack: a bucket-brigade attack. Let’s use that instead.


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Thanks so much to Kim, Kevin, Jordan, Ana, Cynthia, and Annie for reading this before I posted.

Cultural Inflation

Your culture is becoming less valuable every second.

Culture is everything you participate in, everything you talk to your friends about. It’s the movies you like, the music you listen to, the clothes you wear, and the jokes you laugh at. 

Culture is anything you can share with another person, and it is constantly losing value to the vampiric influence of cultural inflation.

In finance, inflation is a day-one concept. As more money enters circulation, each individual piece is worth less. A ham sandwich wouldn’t buy me much in New York, since food is abundant, but on a deserted island it might be my most valuable possession, since food is scarce.

You might not have thought about cultural inflation before, but you feel its effects every day because we’re social creatures. You can be extroverted or introverted, loud or quiet, but relationships with other people are important to all of us.

At the most basic level, a relationship is about sharing culture. When you meet someone new, you start the conversation with the broadest possible talking points that ensure you find some common ground. From there, you wander into topics that are more specific and more interesting to you, searching for a deeper connection to the other person. 

If you can’t find one, the conversation and the relationship fizzle. Anyone who’s been on a bad date knows the feeling; you just can’t find anything interesting to talk about.

It only takes one connection, though, before the conversation changes completely. You’ve created a relationship.

Now you’re not looking for common ground, you’re digging into that connection. You’re into Anime too? What are your thoughts on Death Note? What do you think of the American shows like Avatar?

I thought I was the only Bieber fan in the office! Did you see that big post on his Instagram?

Culture becomes the currency of a relationship, and makes sure that everyone is contributing equally. If one person stops adding value, the other will notice immediately and the relationship will quickly fade.

At first, we’re working really hard to find something in common, and the broadest culture is the most useful. But very quickly relationships transition into an exchange of new culture. The value of the relationship comes entirely from introducing the other person to something new.

These two roles create a lifecycle for culture as it is shared to a greater audience. At first, not many people know about it, so it is easy to share to add value to a relationship. As it becomes more ubiquitous, there are fewer people to show it to, but there is a greater chance that you will have it in common with someone new. A few months ago, you could have introduced Gangnam Style to your friends, but now it’s something that you can safely bring up with almost anyone.

Since I can only profit from a piece of culture when I introduce it, there is less value in something established and ubiquitous than in something new and unknown. Culture is only as valuable as the number of people you can share it with. 

Every time you share something, you’re reducing that number and spending a piece of it.

That’s cultural inflation. 

There are a few really interesting things that come from cultural inflation. FOMO (fear of missing out) is the social anxiety that comes from watching other people sharing all of the time. 

With tools like Facebook and Twitter, we have a constant feed of other people’s sharing activity, both through the links they post and the pictures they show. What we’re actually seeing is all of the cultural value our friends are spending on each other, and it’s not surprising we’re worried about being left out. 

The reminder that “I liked it before it was cool” which we currently attribute to “hipsterism” but which is not nearly that new, is another symptom of cultural inflation. Early participators, who owned something incredibly valuable, are now faced with the depleted shadow that has been drained by other people’s sharing.

It’s not surprising that they want to reclaim the value that’s missing. Of course we all know it’s too late for that, which is why it always sounds so uncool.

This is also why it’s so easy to stop liking a band once they get popular (or at least stop talking about them). You may still be in to the music, but there’s no value left for you to share.  

Perhaps the most prominent effect, though, is the power of “new” that makes sure we keep buying more stuff. New is totally driven by this slow drain on our current wardrobe or music collection. Don Draper talks about this in “The Wheel”, though nostalgia is a topic for another post.

New “creates an itch” because no one else knows about it yet. New has the unlimited potential to be shared. New still has all of its value intact. 

New is always a risk, but it’s also the center of power. A company succeeds because of new, and fails when it runs out. If it isn’t changing, it’s dying. 

Think about the ways you relate to other people. Do you talk a lot about music? Sports? Books? Celebrity gossip? Fashion? Tech? Whatever you’re into, that’s the area where “new” will have the greatest draw on you.

Personally, I’m always talking about tech news and gadgets, and I have a corresponding tendency to buy new devices and check several tech blogs frequently during the day. 

I need the newest information and the newest gadgets so that I have something to bring to the table with my friends. We’ll talk a little bit about our opinions about big events, but the conversation is only really interesting if we have new things to share. 

Have you tried this new app? Can you believe the Surface is selling so poorly? What will you be using to replace Google Reader?

New makes it worth trying new things. If I didn’t have to constantly find new things to share, it might be tempting to slow down and get comfortable. I could stop wasting my time reading blog posts and get my work done.

Instead, we stay engaged, we keep moving forward, and we build communities around new things so we can weed out anything that will waste our time, and quickly share the best things to a crowd that cares.

Cultural inflation drives us because we’re social creatures. We constantly hunt for the best things to share, and the search keeps us from stagnating. 

Where does cultural inflation have the biggest impact in your life? How could you use it to your advantage?

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