I get that you’re a tech writer and not a computer scientist. Mistakes are going to be made. If you fully understood all the things you wrote about, you probably wouldn’t be a writer. If you happen to be a computer scientist with a blog on the side, you likely use too much jargon that many of your readers understand incorrectly.

Whether the misunderstanding is on your part, or the part of your readers, there is a lot of confusion surrounding terms that are tossed about as if the accurate meanings were common knowledge. This generates a lot of unnecessary confusion. Therefore, when you write about something like the great encryption battle, the article may do more harm than good if your audience is confused about what encryption is. [Read more…]