At 21:32 4/29/97 -0800, Tim May wrote:

At 9:15 PM -0800 4/29/97, Jim Bell wrote:

...

For example, I consider a major nuclear powers' possession of nukes to be one of the most serious examples of "nuclear terrorism" there is, but on the other hand I believe that an appropriate use of crypto (AP) could force any owners of nuclear weapons to dismantle them. Few people challenge this claim. If I'm right, crypto is a solution rather than a problem. Why not remind that journalist that her false impression is the real problem, not crypto.

I believe you are incorrect that AP would force dismantling of nukes, for reasons I am weary of repeating (you repeat your matra, I repeat mine),

Well, you're entitled to be wrong! B^) I have always been willing to defend my assertion, and since it hasn't been discussed recently I think it's not too soon to rehash, as weary as you may be. Assuming AP works in particular, and crypto-anarchy works in general, both will work to reduce and minimize the "height" and size of government entities everywhere. Looked at from a cost/benefit standpoint, since nuclear weapons are generally of a certain minimum size and cost, they only "work" if the enemy is sufficiently numerous and segregated from the non-enemy populace to make attack with a large bomb effective. Reduce the size of the largest government unit, and it's harder to find a useful target, thus reducing the benefit of owning nukes. Also, if an AP system were available to an individual or group that previously owned nukes, it would be a far more economical (and specific) tool to defend itself from enemies of a certain limited size. (you can't nuke a terrorist cell, for instance, at least not without making far more enemies than you originally had.) At some point, nukes will become far "larger" a weapon than any owner can reasonably use, and at that point he will disassemble it due to sheer uselessness. (if you don't believe that the average size of the potential nuke-owners will get smaller, then you obviously don't believe in AP and/or crypto-anarchy!) AP dramatically increases the "cost" of owning nukes as well: If I were free to do so, I'd be happy to donate money to help force the few nuke-owners to dismantle their bombs. Assuming more than a small fraction of the population is sympathetic to this use of AP (and even if they generally would oppose other uses) this will work. Nukes won't be useful to "fight back" against AP and/or crypto-anarchy, and in fact threatening their use will do nothing except strength the argument in favor of the development and use of AP as an anti-nuke tool. Generally, in order to claim that a fully-functioning AP system WON'T dismantle all nukes, you've got to be able to postulate the kind of nuke-owning organization that could survive in a post-AP world, and further suggest what reason that organization would have to own them.

but I agree that serious discussion of such game-theoretic issues is just too scary, too extreme, too un-American for almost everyone.

You'd be surprised. Since having had at least my second "15 minutes of fame" locally, I've had many discussions of the AP concept with average citizens. Admittedly, many of them were no more familiar with the cryptographic details than you might expect, so they pretty much accepted that part of the proposal as a given. However, every one of them seemed to accept the idea that if my system would do, generally, what it appears to do from first principles, the conclusion that it would shut down militaries and dismantle nukes follows directly. Jim Bell jimbell@pacifier.com