Responding to msg by nobody@ds1.wu-wien.ac.at: 1
if [crypto] only needs to be used once in a while, there will be no good reason to implement some of the more interesting protocols, or implement the "maximum strength" possible. 2 For the overwhelming majority of people, the benefits of "digital cash" will not be worth the time and trouble over "digital cash with anonimity removed". . . 3 As for encrypting all email, much like people use envelopes? Be honest, there isn't sufficient cause to warrant the time and trouble. 4 Nor is there sufficient cause to warrant the time and trouble of signing messages sent to mailing lists or usenet. . . . 5 Nor is there sufficient cause to warrant the time and trouble of communicating via anonymous remailers, except for say folks like Pr0duct Cypher. 6 Nor is there sufficient cause to warrant the time and trouble for banks and stores to offer digital cash. 7 As for dc-nets, give me a solid example why you ever need to communicate with one. 8 I see a limited deployment, and almost no fundamental restructuring of society. 9 . . . I suppose a discussion about atomic bombs will likely be of greater impact on our future than crypto anarchy will. 10 Cypherpunks write code, but if there is sufficient cause to warrant the time and trouble!
............................................................... You might be right, having accrued at least 10 reasons why the list discussions do not altogether convince of the importance of using encryption as a matter of course or for the re-structuring of society. The choice to use crypto is a little different from the sense of wanting to use it from desperation; I think it is the difference between determining factors: when it is the individual themselves who decide to employ the tool for whatever reason they have to either use it or not at their discretion, or when the circumstance seems to dictate for the person what they must do - that they must go to desperate means to ensure privacy, from a perceived threat which demands that they hide their communication. One of the important issues regarding the use of encryption is not necessarily whether it is used or not as a matter of course, but rather the controversy over the source of the permission to use it as well as the imposed obligation to participate in self-incriminating applications of it. i.e. do individuals have the sovereign right to use tools which result in a division between public & private existence, or are they obligated to keeping their lives accessible to intervening governing agencies? To me a cumbersome tool would require sufficient cause to use it. However, I would appreciate its existence in case of emergency, if there was no better one available, and I would protest the idea that it was anyone else's prerogative to decide for me when it was an appropriate occasion to do so. Is crypto only a toy with destructive implications for governments & societies, or a tool of subjugation with destructive implications for individuals? If only cypherpunks or only government officionados made the decisions about it the answers would be easier to predict. But they are not the only ones involved, and it is my understanding that not all future developments will be determined on this list. Blanc