I wrote:
Perhaps we are using wildly divergent notions of "privacy"
Donald Eastlake 3rd wrote:
You are confusing privacy with secrecy
That's not a helpful remark. My first contribution to this thread called attention to the possibility of wildly divergent notions of "privacy". Also please note that according to the US Office of Technology Assessment, such terms do not posess "a single clear definition, and theorists argue variously ... the same, completely distinct, or in some cases overlapping". Please let's avoid adversarial wrangling over terminology. If there is an important conceptual distinction, please explain the concepts using unambiguous multi-word descriptions so that we may have a collegial discussion.
The spectrum from 2 people knowing something to 2 billion knowing something is pretty smooth and continuous.
That is quite true, but quite irrelevant to the point I was making. Pick an intermediate number, say 100 people. Distributing knowledge to a group of 100 people who share a vested interest in not divulging it outside the group is starkly different from distributing it to 100 people who have nothing to lose and something to gain by divulging it. Rights Management isn't even directly connected to knowledge. Suppose I know by heart the lyrics and music to _The Producers_ --- that doesn't mean I'm free to rent a hall and put on a performance.
Both DRM and privacy have to do with controlling material after you have released it to someone who might wish to pass it on further against your wishes. There is little *tehcnical* difference between your doctors records being passed on to assorted insurance companies, your boss, and/or tabloid newspapers and the latest Disney movies being passed on from a country where it has been released to people/theaters in a country where it has not been released.
That's partly true (although overstated). In any case it supports my point that fixating on the *technical* issues misses some crucial aspects of the problem.
The only case where all holders of information always have a common interest is where the number of holder is one.
Colorful language is no substitute for a logical argument. Exaggerated remarks ("... ALWAYS have ...") tend to drive the discussion away from reasonable paths. In the real world, there is a great deal of information held by N people where (N>>1) and (N<<infinity). --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo@wasabisystems.com