Products · Broad category
Cryptography libraries
Raised as a usability problem by 7 people on Hacker News over 12 years (2013–2024), in 7 threads.
This is a broad category rather than one product, so its issues aren't ranked on the home page.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Undocumented errors, unsafe defaults, and silently accepted bad parametersUnreviewed
20132026- Crypto APIs and names are inscrutable and invite misuse, like SHA256 length extension and JWT alg none2024-10-11
- Crypto APIs take odd string arguments and sometimes return encryption, making them patience-testing2023-09-18
- Crypto tools have unsafe defaults and easy-to-make security mistakes for non-specialists2022-06-16
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 7 complaints
- Crypto APIs and names are inscrutable and invite misuse, like SHA256 length extension and JWT alg none2024-10-11
- Crypto APIs take odd string arguments and sometimes return encryption, making them patience-testing2023-09-18
- Crypto tools have unsafe defaults and easy-to-make security mistakes for non-specialists2022-06-16
- Hard to use correctly, hard for newcomers to understand, and poor interoperability2022-03-19
- Crypto libraries have such bad UX that developers must keep seeking experts2016-01-12
- Crypto APIs are hard to use: undocumented errors, unsafe defaults, silent acceptance of bad parameters2013-08-11
- Requires arcane configuration and confusing setup that is hard for novices to use2013-03-07