At 10:38 PM -0400 10/27/00, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
At 5:50 PM -0700 on 10/27/00, Tim May tits a tat or two, in detail...:
When privacy costs more than no privacy, we have no privacy.
Sad, but true.
Oh?
"When curtains over windows cost more than no curtains over windows, we have no curtains."
"When locks on doors cost more than no locks on doors, we have no locks on doors."
<and so on...>
Mostly, when I tossed that one off, I was remembering arguments around here -- more than once -- that anonymity, particularly in anonymous transactions, will *always* cost more than non-anonymous ones. Something I dispute rather heatedly, of course, or I wouldn't be spending so much money, or working so hard, these days to prove otherwise...
But then you are tilting at windmills, as no one who is reputable has made such a claim, that anonymity will always cost more than non-anonymity. Sometimes anonymyity costs something. Sometimes traceability (_non_anonymity) has certain benefits worth trading for. Sometimes security costs a lot, sometimes not so much, sometimes almost nothing. In general, these tradeoffs cannot be boiled down to a simple relationship of "anonymity costs more than nonanonymity." As with the lock example, a lock almost always costs more than no lock. But the costs of having no lock may be much higher. Things should not be reduced to simplicities. --Tim May -- ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.