Having read Tim's reply already, I'll confine myself to a point he didn't address. On 1 Sep 2001, at 22:30, Nomen Nescio wrote:
It's true that this does not directly impact the design. But we can't ignore the question, is this a market we want to pursue. For example, there are any number of papers on key escrow systems, or "fair" electronic cash (where only the government can trace it). Legitimate businesses might well be willing to use such systems. So there is profit to be made, all the more profit since the government is less likely to hassle you.
Note, however, that this IS a question of design, not merely one of marketing. The system doesn't know "terrorists" from "freedom fighters". The system doesn't know pornographers from Falun Gongers. A system does (or at least could) know clients who want to send megabytes of data from ones who only want top send a few bits. It does know clients who insist on real-time or near real-time transmission from ones who would accept substantial transmission delay times. It knows clients who insist their system be free and trivial to use from those willing to spend a fair amount and go to a certain degree of effort to make damn sure they're doing things right. It knows the difference between broadcasting and person-to-person communication. And it knows whether clients are willing to accept the idea that some "trusted third party" could compromise their identity, or whether they trust no one.
Would you say that discussions of such technologies would and should be encouraged on the cypherpunks list?
Certainly they should be "discussed", if only to point out what's wrong with them, or speculate how the escrow mechanism might be defeated or compromised.
That it doesn't matter whether this helps us in or long-term goal or not?
Long-term consequences are notoriously hard to predict. For example, it's quite possible somebody who develops and implements a digital cash system with some sort of key escrow mechanism might be doing the world a big favor, since cloning it and cutting out the escrow part might be a lot easier than developing a similar system from scratch. Or maybe not, as I said, hard to say.
Surely not. Morality plays a part in everything we do. We have goals in common. We should structure our efforts so that they are in accordance with our highest goals. Having principles is nothing to be ashamed of. We all have them, and we should be proud of that.
OK. Freedom=good. Tyranny=bad. Now that we've agreed on moral principles, time to move on. George