(I've changed the thread name from "Fuhrman...." to the topic being discussed here.) At 10:56 PM 9/1/95, Buford Terrell wrote:
If you've ever watched Not_at_all_Funny Home Videos or any of the American Urinal school of tabloid television, you soon start feeling that the real threat to privacy is not the guvmint, but all of the yoyos with their little cam corders running around pointing them at people.
Security cameras in ATMS and at airline ticket counters do more to threaten you privacy than do FIBBIE wiretaps, and PGP won't protect you from them. (and usually neither will the courts).
I absolutely agree with this, though this doesn't mean I'll stop worrying about the government's plans for key escrow (GAK), about limits on key lengths, or about other efforts to thwart strong security. But clearly the "technologies of surveillance," ranging from massively-cross-correlated mailing lists to smaller and cheaper and more ubiquitous video cameras, are very nearly an equal threat. (Lots of issues, from the nearly universal requests for Social Security Numbers, to the growing powers of courts to compel the disclosure of private documents, to, well, you folks all know the trends.) Folks like us should not be lobbying for limitations on what other private individuals or companies are doing, but should concentrate first, on technological alternatives (encryption, unlinkable credentials, digital money, that sort of thing) and second, on educating others that security and privacy is best self-arranged and is rarely accomplished by government assuming the role of protector. --Tim May ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."