At 8:47 AM -0800 11/21/96, John Anonymous MacDonald wrote:
Here's our target! France is the perfect testing ground for a top-notch cryptoanarchist system. Lots of computers, lots of smart users, high taxes, and a police state.
Not likely. I gave a talk a couple of years ago in France (well, Monte Carlo, actually, but the conference was heavily francocentric), and it was clear to me that France is in the Dark Ages on these issues. Sure, they've got "Minitel," an ostensibly ubiquitous network. But Minitel is actually a primitive, sub-Prodigy-class system, controlled by the government of France and associated special interests (France Telecom, etc.). The number of French persons actively on the Internet is fairly low--ask yourself how many ".fr" domain names you've seen lately, and when you last saw one on Cypherpunks? I see many more Finnish and even New Zealand domain names. Further, encryption is heavily restricted in France. As one French friend put it, "You can apply for a license to use crypto--the same way you would apply for a license to buy your own Exocet missile." So, France is somewhere near the bottom of my list of fertile grounds for crypto anarchy. --Tim May Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside" We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."