As Brit cyber-spies drop 'whitelist' and 'blacklist', tech boss says: If you’re thinking about getting in touch saying this is political correctness gone mad, don’t bother
- Reference: 1588410185
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/02/uks_ncsc_whitelist_blacklist/
- Source link:
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), part of GCHQ, [1]said on Friday it would, following a request from a customer, eliminate the terms when describing including and excluding specific applications, websites, weak or leaked passwords, and so on.
Instead, it will use the terms "allow list" and "deny list" in material published on its website.
The aim, said NCSC head of advice and guidance Emma W, is to avoid linking "black" with bad and "white" with good, and the racial connotations they carry.
"From now on, the NCSC will use 'allow list' and 'deny list' in place of 'whitelist' and 'blacklist' on our website. Which, in fact, is clearer and less ambiguous," said Emma.
HPE celebrated diversity on International Women's Day not with pictures of its own staff but stock images of models [2]READ MORE
"So as well as being more inclusive of all, this is a net benefit to our web content. We are editing our guidance across the website to update the terms, but if you do spot any in the meantime then please do contact us."
The NCSC noted the policy change was only a small gesture in a much larger effort to drive prejudice from technology and cyber-security industries, but noted that every small step helps.
"You may not see why this matters. If you're not adversely affected by racial stereotyping yourself, then please count yourself lucky," Emma said. "For some of your colleagues (and potential future colleagues), this really is a change worth making."
The centre also shared an additional statement from technical director Ian Levy and the board of directors in anticipation of a knee-jerk internet backlash:
"If you’re thinking about getting in touch saying this is political correctness gone mad, don’t bother."
These aren't the first problematic terms to be deprecated in technical vocabularies. For instance, "master" and "slave" to describe storage drives, databases, and similar stuff [3]have been dropped by organizations and companies in favor of "primary" and "secondary."
In [4]response to the NCSC announcement, some asked if this will mean an end to "white hat" and "black hat" to describe those in defensive and offensive security roles, respectively. This is already being done in many forums, with professionals opting to use the war-games analogy of attacking red teams and defending blue teams ®
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[1] https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/blog-post/terminology-its-not-black-and-white
[2] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/03/18/hpe_women_staff_stock_images/
[3] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/09/11/python_purges_master_and_slave_in_political_pogrom/
[4] https://twitter.com/NCSC/status/1256214546848587783
[5] https://go.theregister.co.uk/tl/1936/-8579/choosing-a-low-code-vendor?td=wptl1936
Being "in the black" is seen as a positive thing when it comes to debt. Will they get rid of that term? Possibly those of fairly red skin (eczema?) may become upset.
So now that shades don't exist; do I pay the ransom money to the BlackHat or the WhiteHat hackers? Both charge large amounts.
Depends.
Is the bank using it international?
As for software, it often is, and colour (though sometimes international) is a local and social, traditional option for reference.
So it can cause confusion, or be a buzzword. Where as "allow list" and "deny list" are easier to translate and implement.
Also see time, clocks, calendars and just about anything human being way way more complex once you decide to try and program it! :D
Hm, not entirely thought through
That means that black-X is now on the deny list and white-X is on the allow list. That means, we have to associate black with deny and white with allow
How exactly is this making things better? Wasn't there a desire to remove the associations?
Turns out the theory that CV19 will get rid of non-problems like particularism was clearly wrong.
"The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), part of GCHQ, said on Friday it would, following a request from a customer, eliminate the terms"
So one customer has complained and they have to change their terminology on the documentation?
Surely the NCSC have more important things to do than be concerned about terms that have no relevance to skin colour or race any more than the light and dark side do in Starwars.
Not fine combed the article...
Are you sure it's due to reference of race? And not just to remove ambiguity in spec sheets, reference material, and those who prefer "red/green" or "orange/purple" etc etc.
I mean, "allow/deny" is less arguments in the new open plan, coffee free, avocado painted, electric scooter cluttered "office" designing the latest buzz word laden "app" than having to chose the specific colour of eggshell blue for the accept button. :P
Jesus Christ. The sooner Silicon Valley collapses, the better.
Please repaint Darth Vader in different color
But avoid the not gender neutral pink or blue.
So will THAT book be republished with a new name, something like " Fifty shades of an indeterminate monochrome colour"
So long as I'm still allowed to order black tea.
Denied.
'allow list' and 'deny list'
this is extremely offensive against my dyneist beliefs! Can I complain, and how?!
It's much easier to remove 'whitelist' and 'blacklist' than do something hard like, for example, try to reduce racial disparity in parole decisions.
I'm sure if you asked a black person whether they would prefer this linguistic change or, say, less biased policing, I'm sure they'd be ecstatic to find out that the Government has gone with removing 'blacklist'.
Irrelevent
No one is black. No one is white. We're all a shade of melanin.
Apart from gingers.
"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.”