You're going to be pretty unhappy (or pretty uninformed) if every time a subject matter expert in security starts a project, you have to discount everything they say about everything in the space their project is in.
Yes, I'm going to go ahead and say "zero conflict of interest". Also: he's simply correct. If you'd like to rebut what he said about Telegram, actually rebut it.
Don't be insulted because there is a conflict of interest. Remember: "The presence of a conflict of interest is independent of the occurrence of impropriety." Some truly awesome people have had conflicts of interest and it's still appropriate to note them. Freely admitting a conflict of interest can in fact enhance your reputation.
Sorry for the misclicked downvote (to the post I'm replying to).
It is very plausible (from my rando perspective) thatq moxie's reaction was greater than it would have been for some other badly done security. But it's also plausible that it's just frustrating to be working on something and then seeing a well-funded attempt to obliterate any good that you might be doing. Which is what Telegram was. Is it a "conflict of interest", if your interests are for secure messaging to become widely used, to attack those which are, thanks to their ineptitude and funding, a plausible threat to your goal? Taking the words "conflict of interest" literally, yes, but it's not an ulterior interest the way the phrase is usually applied.
Telegram was also doing a really good job of pushing buttons, going off about how they had Math PhD's.
Edit: Hold on, you're saying there was a conflict of interest, in the past, because he's working with WhatsApp now? Do you have any personal knowledge of the timeline here?
> You have down voted me to the bottom of hacker news
People can not down vote replies to their comments. People have a single downvote. If you see more than one downvote then more than one person is down voting you.
Since you've quoted my whole comment in a comment lateral to it rather than a response, I've again deleted mine. Readers can see what I wrote in yours. I stand by everything I said.
