<story><title>New phones aboard Air Force One</title><url>http://electrospaces.blogspot.com/2014/07/new-phones-aboard-air-force-one.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gergles</author><text>&amp;gt; red and green are some form of standard for secure&amp;#x2F;insecure notifications.&lt;p&gt;They are. If you look at photos that the military&amp;#x2F;government publishes of facilities, the secure stuff is always red, and the public stuff is always green (well, always is a strong word. It is occasionally black). (I was going to include such an image now but I can&amp;#x27;t seem to find a search term for it that will find what I want.)&lt;p&gt;I agree, it seems a little backwards, but I guess it&amp;#x27;s a piece of domain-specific knowledge you don&amp;#x27;t forget once you&amp;#x27;ve acquired it.</text></item><item><author>mootothemax</author><text>&lt;i&gt;All that red-green color-coding for secure and non-secure calls is going to ruin them...&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I was surprised by the colour coding as well, albeit more from a usability angle than colour-blindness:&lt;p&gt;What are  &amp;quot;danger&amp;quot; red and &amp;quot;success&amp;quot; green meant to represent?&lt;p&gt;My natural inclination would be to have no background colour for insecure, and then [colour of choice] for secure.&lt;p&gt;It makes me wonder how ignorant on the matter I am, and whether red and green are some form of standard for secure&amp;#x2F;insecure notifications.</text></item><item><author>joosters</author><text>The US is doomed if the country elects a colorblind president. All that red-green color-coding for secure and non-secure calls is going to ruin them...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>s_q_b</author><text>Historical German KWF secure analog telephone, with example red &amp;quot;secure&amp;quot; and green &amp;quot;clear&amp;quot; buttons. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cryptomuseum.com/crypto/ant/kwf/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cryptomuseum.com&amp;#x2F;crypto&amp;#x2F;ant&amp;#x2F;kwf&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;The convention evolved early, when secure communications were rare. The US&amp;#x2F;NATO clearly marked the secure lines with bright red phones, since the major danger is sending something in plaintext rather than secure, while the reverse error is more harmless.&lt;p&gt;The green phones followed (since green is the complementary color of red), more out of cargo cult thinking than any usability purpose, which is why you&amp;#x27;ll still see a lot of black equipment (because the colour of the unsecured line is relatively unimportant.)&lt;p&gt;And now, we have a hand-me-down convention that contravenes one of our hard-wired conventions about colors:
Green: Go, Proceed, Correct, Benign
Red: Stop, Not permitted, Incorrect, Harmful.&lt;p&gt;It is odd, but much like the wrong sign on the electron, you get used to it.</text></comment>
<story><title>New phones aboard Air Force One</title><url>http://electrospaces.blogspot.com/2014/07/new-phones-aboard-air-force-one.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gergles</author><text>&amp;gt; red and green are some form of standard for secure&amp;#x2F;insecure notifications.&lt;p&gt;They are. If you look at photos that the military&amp;#x2F;government publishes of facilities, the secure stuff is always red, and the public stuff is always green (well, always is a strong word. It is occasionally black). (I was going to include such an image now but I can&amp;#x27;t seem to find a search term for it that will find what I want.)&lt;p&gt;I agree, it seems a little backwards, but I guess it&amp;#x27;s a piece of domain-specific knowledge you don&amp;#x27;t forget once you&amp;#x27;ve acquired it.</text></item><item><author>mootothemax</author><text>&lt;i&gt;All that red-green color-coding for secure and non-secure calls is going to ruin them...&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I was surprised by the colour coding as well, albeit more from a usability angle than colour-blindness:&lt;p&gt;What are  &amp;quot;danger&amp;quot; red and &amp;quot;success&amp;quot; green meant to represent?&lt;p&gt;My natural inclination would be to have no background colour for insecure, and then [colour of choice] for secure.&lt;p&gt;It makes me wonder how ignorant on the matter I am, and whether red and green are some form of standard for secure&amp;#x2F;insecure notifications.</text></item><item><author>joosters</author><text>The US is doomed if the country elects a colorblind president. All that red-green color-coding for secure and non-secure calls is going to ruin them...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mootothemax</author><text>&lt;i&gt;I agree, it seems a little backwards, but I guess it&amp;#x27;s a piece of domain-specific knowledge you don&amp;#x27;t forget once you&amp;#x27;ve acquired it.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Thanks, I had absolutely no idea about this.&lt;p&gt;I guess red&amp;#x2F;caution makes sense if the thinking is &amp;quot;this is secure, be careful with it!&amp;quot;</text></comment>