Mark's wrote:
Sandy writes:
I would like to start a new thread. I want to know what the people on this list intend to do with cryptography in the "real world." ... My interest is more than academic. I am one of the Cypherpunks involved in creating a digital bank.
Sandy -
In the real world there are already secret banks. There are already forms of untraceable cash and forms of completely fungible money. These techniques are very ancient and time honored. They are well understood. Many of them have stood the test of time and have not been compromised by various incarnations of police states.
Given the existence of efficient, accessible, secret, and widely accepted monetary exchange I can't really see the need for a digital bank from the privacy side. I can't really see anyone who uses the current techniques being interested in a new experimental form unless they are techno-junkies. Nevertheless, please continue. Some of us are techno-junkies.
I read Mark's reply to Sandy's post. I believe it was well thought. I was interested in knowing more though. Please tell me more about the secret banks that exist today. I would like to hear about the time honored techniques for cash funelling. I am sure that we all have some familarity with the different power groups that exist, and the games they play. Are these groups secure? Are their methods efficient, accessible, secret, and widely accepted? How can I use this old system if I chose to today? That would be my real interest. I think that digital banks are very needed. I think they are feasible. I even think that some power groups might start using them as opposed to the old ways (whatever those ways are!) There are many different kinds of digital money systems possible. I would suggest to Sandy that any work in the area defintely continue. The Net today is only an infant. We all know what is coming. There seems to be a real need for a secure economic system for it. Mark has very valid points about what other technologies are needed in the privacy arena. I completely agree with him that many other problems must be solved as well. I think Mark views crypto technology with a good perspective. There is much more than technology involved. I am including the rest of Mark's post:
It is already well known to privacy fanatics that you should not use credit cards, debit cards, checks, atm cards, or other forms of electronic money. All transactions are logged and are easily analyzed.
Astute people cash their pay check at the employer's bank and pay cash for everything. Admittedly, this is somewhat paranoid, but on the other hand it is fun to defeat the monolithic database builders who want to make money off of selling information that belongs to you.
Cypherpunks must concentrate on solving problems that are true problems now. Do not spend time creating a variant of an existing/workable/fun solution. Email privacy was a true problem. Clear text on your pc's hard drive was a true problem.
Right now there is the well known problem of ethernet sniffers and the trivial security breaches that can occur. A telnet/lat traffic encrypter is needed badly by the Sun/Dec/HP world. Novell needs something badly as well.
Cellular phones desperately need something. The masses just have NO IDEA how badly cellular needs something! Fax machines need a variant of PGP. Pagers probably need it too.
I think the larger issue that cypherpunks need to blue sky about is wether they will be content with a role as grey-area political criminals underneath the boot of an ever growing police state. Can crypto be more than a defensive weapon? What would people be defending against?
Crypto can do some things but it won't be the total solution. In the end we need to strengthen the rights of the little guy and devise ways to dilute any new state powers that are created by technology. Crypto is just one compartment on our batman utility belt.
People always argue that criminals would use these tools. I'm certain of it. Strengthening the state's hand to fight criminals always screws the little guy. The criminals all go to work for the state when its powerful enough! We've seen this over and over. --------- I'd like a 250 Mhz 128 bit hybrid processor with 64 meg of 8 way interleaved memory, a 10 megabyte per second i/o channel, two 3 gig hard disks, two dat drives with compression, and a large diet coke.
/**************************************************************************** Name: Scott Beaudreau Occupation: Undergrad in Computer Engineering at Texas A&M. Graduate 05/94! Signature: No signature. I am working on it, Dammit! Opinions: !(In my opinion, everybody agrees with me and I'm always right!) -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.3a mQCNAi1ZjXYAAAEEAKr/Z+hhR4svDYqZq2FG1tyBXthOne5aCHY9Ff2cbIOQDhni gNlu7B86ARjyHf0c2XufqzYga5hb5AMdxV1n0WkKCE46EKtRPsWH9fQRp+fQjv7y meLjXK3cDgO9WMaFG8xIv9zfR3u6GI7/WjNz8CF/qkZ4xi61xg6eIvS4JXE9AAUR tCpTY290dCBKLiBCZWF1ZHJlYXUgPHNqYjgxOTVAemV1cy50YW11LmVkdT4= =obz5 -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- *****************************************************************************/