On Fri, 12 Sep 1997 09:11:18 -0700, you wrote:

At 10:05 PM -0700 9/11/97, James S. Tyre wrote:

...

So, the last rhetorical question -- how do you convince someone who's never used a browser (the vast majority of the voting populace, I'd think) why crypto is important?

When I walk through South-of-Market in San Francisco and hear people trading URL in conversation as the walk down the street and see URLs on TV, Billboards and even the side of busses, I wonder if this assumption is really true.

A lot of these are the same people who think nothing of giving their Credit Card numbers over the phone. Or use the word "SECRET" for a password. Until they get burned, they don't think about the problem. -Doug ------------------- Douglas L. Peterson mailto:fnorky@geocities.com http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Heights/1271/

On Thu, 11 Sep 1997, James S. Tyre wrote:

So, the last rhetorical question -- how do you convince someone who's never used a browser (the vast majority of the voting populace, I'd think) why crypto is important?

You can make general pro-privacy arguments about wiretapping, which is what I did in my Netly column yesterday. Or you can describe crypto in detail, which is what I did in my February 1997 Internet Underground feature. -Declan

I'm just pointing out that we saw this situation several years ago with Clipper. The list was, predictably, sidetracked with literally

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 At 10:07 AM 9/12/97 -0700, Tim May wrote: thousands of

suggestions about how best to recruit more public supporters. T- shirts, gimmicks, and suggestions for songs about crypto, for getting t.v. producers to put crypto, pro-privacy themes in their t.v. shows, and so on. All pretty hopeless, wouldn't you say?

a)Snarf a gig or two of dirty pictures off of Usenet. (About 2 days of feed) b)PGP them all. c)Set up a 'free' porn site protected solely by AdultCheck, etc, which only costs $5.00/year to join. Or just host the site in Denmark and forget the 'protection'. d)Make it REAL easy for ten million horny geeks to download and install PGP, so that they can look at the pictures. There's a PGP for Windows, right? With a double-click to install and a key-generation wizard. (PGP/Eudora, which is what I'm using, is entirely brain-dead to install.) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQA/AwUBNBmFeDKf8mIpTvjWEQI4twCgh9IRDeCmxItOE00gcXMXmVyX2u8An1Jl L0f2AEOIQ2k8fC3L6+jCdrDg =pJn4 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

At 9:13 AM -0700 9/12/97, Glenn Hauman wrote:

At 1:42 AM -0400 9/12/97, Tim May wrote:

...

At 10:05 PM -0700 9/11/97, James S. Tyre wrote:

...

So, the last rhetorical question -- how do you convince someone who's never used a browser (the vast majority of the voting populace, I'd think) why crypto is important?

This is back to where we were four and a half years ago, when Clipper was dropped on us. "How do we educate the users?"

Trust me, it's a hopeless task. We don't have the advertising budgets, the staff for education, etc.

And it ain't our responsibility to "save" the sheeple.

True, but if it's war, we gotta get more troops. I don't want to save them, I want more troops on my side.

Education is good. Exploiting FUD is probably better. (DoJ's learned something from dealing with Microsoft.) Luckily, it ain't that hard to whip up Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt against the US Government.

Fair enough. If you can launch an education program, well and good. I'm just pointing out that we saw this situation several years ago with Clipper. The list was, predictably, sidetracked with literally thousands of suggestions about how best to recruit more public supporters. T-shirts, gimmicks, and suggestions for songs about crypto, for getting t.v. producers to put crypto, pro-privacy themes in their t.v. shows, and so on. All pretty hopeless, wouldn't you say? As Lucky Green just said, "Cypherpunks write code." (This can be either direct code, or memetic code, or things related to getting actual technological changes distributed. What Cypherpunks _don't_ do is try to play the Beltway game that Jerry Berman and his ilk play (so poorly, for our issues), or to try to play the Hollywood and Madison Avenue games of swaying popular opinion.) --Tim May There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

On Mon, 15 Sep 1997, Lucky Green wrote:

At 04:36 AM 9/15/97 GMT, Douglas L. Peterson wrote:

...

Ok, we write code. But as James S. Tyre pointed out, if the code is too difficult to use it will not be. And as Declan pointed out many/most people will not use the crypto if they must think about it.

Writing the code is no longer enough. The code must be usable by the sheeple to work. How do we do that?

Write better code.

I can think of many examples of very bad code that is difficult to use but is very popular, an obvious one is that Apple wrote better code than MS. Even most sheeple rely on whatever is built in to MSWord or Excel than on PGP, so on that basis there is *NO* existing example of such code. So, not only do cypherpunks have to write code, it has to be better quality than Apple, with more marketing push than Microsoft. And it must do something useful so they also have to invent a new application that would justify using the crypto it contains. All while they do something else to pay for things like food and heat. At this point it is easier to write laws.

On Fri, 12 Sep 1997 10:07:45 -0700, you wrote:

At 9:13 AM -0700 9/12/97, Glenn Hauman wrote:

...

At 1:42 AM -0400 9/12/97, Tim May wrote:

...

At 10:05 PM -0700 9/11/97, James S. Tyre wrote:

...

So, the last rhetorical question -- how do you convince someone who's never used a browser (the vast majority of the voting populace, I'd think) why crypto is important?

This is back to where we were four and a half years ago, when Clipper was dropped on us. "How do we educate the users?"

Trust me, it's a hopeless task. We don't have the advertising budgets, the staff for education, etc.

And it ain't our responsibility to "save" the sheeple.

True, but if it's war, we gotta get more troops. I don't want to save them, I want more troops on my side.

Education is good. Exploiting FUD is probably better. (DoJ's learned something from dealing with Microsoft.) Luckily, it ain't that hard to whip up Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt against the US Government.

Fair enough. If you can launch an education program, well and good.

I'm just pointing out that we saw this situation several years ago with Clipper. The list was, predictably, sidetracked with literally thousands of suggestions about how best to recruit more public supporters. T-shirts, gimmicks, and suggestions for songs about crypto, for getting t.v. producers to put crypto, pro-privacy themes in their t.v. shows, and so on. All pretty hopeless, wouldn't you say?

As Lucky Green just said, "Cypherpunks write code."

(This can be either direct code, or memetic code, or things related to getting actual technological changes distributed. What Cypherpunks _don't_ do is try to play the Beltway game that Jerry Berman and his ilk play (so poorly, for our issues), or to try to play the Hollywood and Madison Avenue games of swaying popular opinion.)

--Tim May

Ok, we write code. But as James S. Tyre pointed out, if the code is too difficult to use it will not be. And as Declan pointed out many/most people will not use the crypto if they must think about it. Writing the code is no longer enough. The code must be usable by the sheeple to work. How do we do that? -Doug ------------------- Douglas L. Peterson mailto:fnorky@geocities.com http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Heights/1271/

sameer <sameer@c2.net> writes:

...

Writing the code is no longer enough. The code must be usable by the sheeple to work. How do we do that?

Sell code.

Write obnoxious and threatening lawyer letters. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

At 10:09 AM 9/15/97 -0700, sameer wrote:

...

Writing the code is no longer enough. The code must be usable by the sheeple to work. How do we do that?

Sell code.

Marketing. It's not enough to have a great product -- you must also have great marketing. In the case of memewar, you need to get people to want to use something, enough to change their habits, even slightly. The less they need to change, relative to the benefit they get, the better. PGP/Eudora is a wonderful example of this. All that is needed to use it is one extra step (after install) -- typing your passphrase to sign a message before it is sent. Otherwise, it works the same as it always has. As a side effect, you can right-click to encrypt any file you can see in Explorer. Simple, quick, and usable even by the brain-dead, once you've convinced them TO use it. (And I forgot to bring my key file to work, so my Eudora here is useless for those purposes. Bother.)

Ok, we write code. But as James S. Tyre pointed out, if the code is too difficult to use it will not be. And as Declan pointed out many/most people will not use the crypto if they must think about it. Writing the code is no longer enough. The code must be usable by the sheeple to work. How do we do that?

Pay someone to write easy to use interfaces to the crypto libraries already out there.

At 12:45 AM 9/22/97 -0500, snow wrote:

...

Ok, we write code. But as James S. Tyre pointed out, if the code is too difficult to use it will not be. And as Declan pointed out many/most people will not use the crypto if they must think about it. Writing the code is no longer enough. The code must be usable by the sheeple to work. How do we do that?

Pay someone to write easy to use interfaces to the crypto libraries already out there.

The code also has to do some good. Currently there are some gaping holes that I have not seen anyone cover very well. (At least not in a way that most users could actually use.) Take, for example, the average home user. They will most likely be running Windows 95 or Windows 3.1 on a PC (486 or pentagram processor). They connect to the net via TCP/IP over a dialup link. Now since Louie "tap'em all, let the FBI sort em out" Freeh may or may not have that 1% of the phone switch tapped, the part that travels over the phone is vulnerable. (Microsoft was working on an SSL enabled winsock.dll, but it has been dropped. (Any ideas why? *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge* *say no more*)) Even if the person uses PGP for all their mail, the sites they surf, the ftp sites they visit, and all the addresses they send mail to will still be visible to the prying eyes of anyone who has the resources to tap the phone line. This is something that needs to be covered. How about an ssl enabled PPP daemon, as well as the winsock layer to support it? Then you have to get ISPs to use it. IPSec does not (as far as I can tell) resolve this problem, not does it look like an option for the home user. (From what I have seen (and I may be wrong), the key distribution is tied to IP address. What about dynamic IP addresses?) Are there any of the IP encryption key exchange protocols that deal with dynamic IP? (And/or have a windows based client?) SSH is a possible option, but it requires a fair bit of knowledge and another site to connect to that has not been compromised and where you have a shell account. (Most ISPs do not support SSH. Some do not give you a shell account.) There is also the possibility of apps not talking through the IP tunnel and revealing unintended information. Mail is another hole. Eudora now distributes PGP 5.0 with the latest version. (This version does not do RSA keys. You can get the plug in to do those keys from PGP inc.) This is helpful, but there are many other plug-ins that need to be written. Support for remailers is lacking. Windows based code for Mixmaster is also a needed thing. A good interface would help immensely. (Private Idaho was a big step in the right direction. Integrated with a remailer people already use would be another big step forward.) I am sure that people can think of all sorts of other ideas for needed apps. But to make them usable for the "general public", the apps will be needed to be written for Windows. (As much as I hate to think about it...) --- | "That'll make it hot for them!" - Guy Grand | |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | |`finger -l alano@teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.ctrl-alt-del.com/~alan/ |alan@ctrl-alt-del.com|

In the wise words of David H Dennis:

I must confess that I'm wondering what Seth Finkelstein, Pro-Government Warrior, able to jump over 50 Libertarians in a single bound, thinks of all this. Crypto restrictions are natural to oppose in a Libertarian world, due to our fundemental distrust of government. Where do they fit in a Liberal one?

I'm not Seth, but I'm also not a libertarian. (I'm also not a 'Liberal', in the sense in which you're using it, but hey...) and I think I can answer this question: Most 'Liberals' (virtually all of them) are _civil_ libertarians. This means that they support few or no restrictions on the actions of private individuals, unless (1) They are of a commercial nature or (2) They involve fraud or hurting people. Most instances of (1) which are inappropriate also involve (2), as far as they're concerned. What they don't believe is that a right to unlimited free speech translates into a right to do anything so long as it's not damaging directly to others. And a couple of other things :-) But most liberals think individuals using crypto is just fine. All the civil libertarians do, and most liberals are. Jon -- Jon Lasser (410)383-7962 jonl@post.goucher.edu http://www.goucher.edu/~jlasser/ PGP key = 1024/EC001E4D "Flap your ears, Dumbo! The feather was only a trick!"

On Fri, 12 Sep 1997, Glenn Hauman wrote:

Since you asked: about 20% of the US population has used the Internet or an online service in the past 30 days, according to Mediamark Research Spring 97. Under 40% own a PC at home, about 40% use one at work.

Now how do you convince people that strong encryption is a very good thing. I'll lay odds that the majority of those people think that all encryption should be banned. I know where I work, the idea that encryption should be legal is scoffed at. << That includes the drug dealers that work there. So much for the assertion that drug dealers use encryption. >> Hypothetical question: How will law enforcement deal with my Enochian to Linear-B / Egyptian Hieroglyphics / Maya translation program, if encryption is banned? It does provide clear text, albeit is a language that they don't understand.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In <v03007834b03f19c50d45@[207.94.249.39]>, on 09/12/97 at 09:11 AM, Bill Frantz <frantz@netcom.com> said:

At 10:05 PM -0700 9/11/97, James S. Tyre wrote:

...

So, the last rhetorical question -- how do you convince someone who's never used a browser (the vast majority of the voting populace, I'd think) why crypto is important?

When I walk through South-of-Market in San Francisco and hear people trading URL in conversation as the walk down the street and see URLs on TV, Billboards and even the side of busses, I wonder if this assumption is really true.

It is. The "Internet" is just a trendy buzz word. Little or no understanding is behind it's use in conversation and advertizing. Just take a look at how many clueless dolts use AOL & Comu$erve not to mention the millions using Net$cape "The illusion of security poster child". - -- - --------------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0 Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail. OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html - --------------------------------------------------------------- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3a Charset: cp850 Comment: Registered_User_E-Secure_v1.1b1_ES000000 iQCVAwUBNBmDB49Co1n+aLhhAQELagP9E6AZl8S0Q/RyZb9EJwR8RRgu5b4OdLOM RiAau3J9FZgrREHMC3XesuibmwbM5k/nmRneOgRmulI95qo2WmeQ/VpTntA2CdkR /wOUgU/iFC4kpfyKjpOoVUUMUl6dOufCIbOESe2Qgp1DDmktaaEXq9ceC45+wsgv gSimEvX1GEg= =H8IP -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

On Fri, 12 Sep 1997, Tim May wrote:

I'm beginning to think Federal Bureau of Inquisition Director Unfreeh must, as rumors have long had it, have the goods on Janet Reno and Bill Clinton. Left to our imagination what these items may be.

I don't know if I'd go that far. Though look at J. Edgar Hoover. Nixon tried to fire him twice, asked him to come into the Oval Office for a private meeting. Each time Hoover emerged unscathed, allegedly because of the contents of his secret files. The feeding frenzy and chaos in Washington after Hoover's death was, by all accounts, amazing. Who would maintain control of his files? (Ultimately, his secretary did. Shredded some, hid some of them in Hoover's house.) -Declan

Your general idea is right-on. If lots of folks use crypto, it'll be politically more difficult for the government to ban it. But do many browser users even //know// they're using an encrypted channel? Probably not. This is an education issue as well as a deployment issue.

I must admit that I didn't think much about crypto until this came up. You know, I think there are a couple of types of Libertarians. Type one says that government doesn't do anything right, because collectively they are incompetent, in the same way many people in big companies make bad decisions. Government is like the biggest company in the nation, with no profit pressure to restrain bureaucracy. In addition, government is a way to try and reconcile opposing views, and so we rarely get a "pure" version of anything - in fact, we often get contradictory results, such as tobacco subsidies colliding with tobacco restrictions. Because of this, smaller government is better - solve the tobacco problem by enacting /neither/ subsidies nor restrictions, and save a whole pile of money and effort. Type two says that government doesn't do anything right because of actual malicious actions within government - that government is a conspiracy between fat cat businessmen and nasty spooks, and that they very often, quite deliberately do the wrong thing. I've traditionally been a Type One libertarian, but I think you can only explain the current crypto efforts with Type Two. I must confess that I'm wondering what Seth Finkelstein, Pro-Government Warrior, able to jump over 50 Libertarians in a single bound, thinks of all this. Crypto restrictions are natural to oppose in a Libertarian world, due to our fundemental distrust of government. Where do they fit in a Liberal one? D

On Fri, 12 Sep 1997, David H Dennis wrote:

all this. Crypto restrictions are natural to oppose in a Libertarian world, due to our fundemental distrust of government. Where do they fit in a Liberal one?

Because of the infinitely recursive controls necessary to implement liberal policy. Example: farm subsidies. We must set a limit on the number of farmers and what they can produce. Farmers keep records. We need GAK to insure the farmers (or their buyers, etc) can't cheat and grow and sell more grain than their quota. They pass laws on farmers, then the wholesalers, then the grocery stores, and finally need to track your purchases (to prevent you from going to a roadside market). Example: Government paid-for health care Your patient records should be confidential, but the government might require a physical to pay for an office visit, or say one is redundant, so they must be able to see what you are being treated for. Your doctor (maybe with your cooperation) may be attempting to defraud the system. Liberalism (or socialism and faschism to avoid confusion) is the use of government force to obtain economic ends. When a freely done trade becomes a crime, they need enforcement powers to track down criminals. Even in the milder form where they simply tax everyone into poverty and then give subsidies to make those they choose rich, they need enforcement powers to prevent people from avoiding the government imposed poverty. --- reply to tzeruch - at - ceddec - dot - com ---

At 12:48 PM 9/13/97 +0000, Doug Geiger wrote:

On Thu, 11 Sep 1997, David H Dennis wrote:

...

Government is like the biggest company in the nation, with no profit pressure to restrain bureaucracy.

I wonder what would happen if we created competition for the gov't. Say, make each state compete with each other, attempting to 'sell' services (roads, welfare, real estate, etc.) for the cheapest rates (taxes). That might force the gov't to radically change. One might say that exists now, as people can choose the state they're in. But what if the state were not restricted to only 'selling' within state lines, and the federal gov't had competition as well? A true capitialist-democrasy.

Actually, states do compete with each other for Federal money. -- Jon Lebkowsky http://www.well.com/~jonl jonl@onr.com cdb, wfm, vb et al