On 31 Aug 2001, at 12:13, georgemw@speakeasy.net wrote:
On 31 Aug 2001, at 19:50, Nomen Nescio wrote:
This means that the operators choose to whom they will market and sell their services.
Here I disagree completely. I think in a properly designed anonymity system the users will be, well, anonymous, and it should be impossible to tell any more about them than that they pay their bills on time. Certainly most potential users would balk at requirements that they prove who they were and justify their desire to use such a system, since that would tend to defeat the purpose.
Yes and no. The users aren't all that anonymous, or they wouldn't need anonymous technologies, would they? The remailer network sees where this message originates. If you use Zero Knowledge software, their network knows exactly who is using it at any time. If a digital cash bank came into existence, payments transferred into the digital system from outside would largely be from identified sources. Nevertheless it's true that the operators would probably not find it cost effective to try to identify every single customer. (Although ZKS will cancel your nym if you spam with it.) The real issue is the clause above about "market and sell". This was the original point raised by Tim May: what markets do we select? His whiteboard exercise teaches that you need to identify, select and target particular markets which make sense. And if you care about the world you are creating, that's where the moral issue comes in.
I don't think it serves any purpose to discuss who constitute "valiant freedom fighters resisting a tyrannical government" and who are "bloody terrorist fanatics attempting to overthrow a benign legitimate government and replace it wth a worse one" in this forum. We may have strong opinions on this matter as individuals, but it is completely unreasonable to expect us to come to any kind of consensus as a group.
Nonsense. Most participants in this forum DO share common philosophical goals: the preservation and enhancement of individual freedom via technological means. This is our common heritage. People make moral judgements every single day on this list based on exactly this framework. And it is this moral view which tells us that bin Laden and his terrorist groups are not the market which we should target in order to advance these goals.
Nor is it necessarily beneficial to do so. Would a system useful to the "virtuous" seperatist Kurds in Iraq be different in any technical way from a system used by the "evil" seperatist Kurds in Turkey?
No, probably not. However the world seems strangely short of virtuous freedom fighters right now. In fact "freedom fighters" are probably not an appropriate target market for cypherpunks. They may be well funded but most of them are wedded to violence. If they get into power they're not going to make things any better. James Donald made this point: few countries are undergoing true popular revolutions. It would be better to target technologies that would benefit groups where there is a large, oppressed minority, people who just want to be left alone. Unfortunately, almost by definition, oppressed minorities tend to be poor. So it is a hard problem to do this profitably.
It is important to identify markets which will advance the cause rather than set it back. Tim May made a good start on this in his earlier posting. Those who reject the idea of judging groups and markets by their morality are the ones who are missing the point.
Wrong. When discussing design of a system, it makes sense to limit discussion to parameters relevant to system design. How much individuals might be willing to pay to protect their privacy, how great of injuries they might suffer if their privacy is compromised, is relevant to system design. Why they want privacy, whether you or I as individuals would think of them as "good guys" or "bad guys", really isn't.
It's true that this does not directly impact the design. But we can't ignore the question, is this a market we want to pursue. For example, there are any number of papers on key escrow systems, or "fair" electronic cash (where only the government can trace it). Legitimate businesses might well be willing to use such systems. So there is profit to be made, all the more profit since the government is less likely to hassle you. Would you say that discussions of such technologies would and should be encouraged on the cypherpunks list? That it doesn't matter whether this helps us in or long-term goal or not? Surely not. Morality plays a part in everything we do. We have goals in common. We should structure our efforts so that they are in accordance with our highest goals. Having principles is nothing to be ashamed of. We all have them, and we should be proud of that.
On Saturday, September 1, 2001, at 01:30 PM, Nomen Nescio wrote:
On 31 Aug 2001, at 12:13, georgemw@speakeasy.net wrote:
On 31 Aug 2001, at 19:50, Nomen Nescio wrote:
This means that the operators choose to whom they will market and sell their services.
Here I disagree completely. I think in a properly designed anonymity system the users will be, well, anonymous, and it should be impossible to tell any more about them than that they pay their bills on time. Certainly most potential users would balk at requirements that they prove who they were and justify their desire to use such a system, since that would tend to defeat the purpose.
Yes and no. The users aren't all that anonymous, or they wouldn't need anonymous technologies, would they? The remailer network sees where this message originates. If you use Zero Knowledge software, their network knows exactly who is using it at any time. If a digital cash bank came into existence, payments transferred into the digital system from outside would largely be from identified sources.
What can I say? You clearly don't understand: -- how remailer _networks_ work (Hint: nested encryption...all the first remailer sees when he opens a message is an encrypted message he can't read and instructions on which remailer to send it to next, and so on. Only if most/all remailers collaborate can the route be followed by them.) -- how Freedom works (Hint: They say that even they cannot know who is using it, except in terms of network usage. Which with cover traffic, forwarding of other traffic, dummy messages, etc., means the fact that Alice was using the network during a period of time does not mean they know which exit messages are hers.) -- blinding. (Hint: That Alice deposits money into a digital bank, and is identified by the bank, does not mean the bank knows who received digital money from Alice, because Alice unblinds the note before spending it--or redeeming it.)
The real issue is the clause above about "market and sell". This was the original point raised by Tim May: what markets do we select?
You have several times attempted to corral me into your "which markets are moral, which do we focus on?" point. I only cited several obvious examples (discussed _many_ times here, e.g., the distribution of birth control info in Islamic countries, e.g., dissidents in a corrupt regime (ZOG), etc.) because some of the newcomers seem so unimaginative and ill-informed that they were whining about how untraceability only helps criminals, perverts, and terrrorists. This does _not_ mean I have issued any kind of call for people to work on "moral" uses, and I wish you would stop using my name in support of your moral crusade. One man's supplier of the herb is another man's drug dealer. One man's erotica creator is another man's pervert. One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. These are all obvious points discussed many hundreds of times on this list.
His whiteboard exercise teaches that you need to identify, select and target particular markets which make sense. And if you care about the world you are creating, that's where the moral issue comes in.
It means the markets are further out from the "dollar ghetto" than many people think. And the further out from the origin (0,0), the more heated the debate becomes about terrorists, perverts, tax evaders, and so on.
I don't think it serves any purpose to discuss who constitute "valiant freedom fighters resisting a tyrannical government" and who are "bloody terrorist fanatics attempting to overthrow a benign legitimate government and replace it wth a worse one" in this forum. We may have strong opinions on this matter as individuals, but it is completely unreasonable to expect us to come to any kind of consensus as a group.
Nonsense. Most participants in this forum DO share common philosophical goals: the preservation and enhancement of individual freedom via technological means. This is our common heritage. People make moral judgements every single day on this list based on exactly this framework. And it is this moral view which tells us that bin Laden and his terrorist groups are not the market which we should target in order to advance these goals.
How about McVeigh? How about The Real IRA? How about John Brown? How about Patrick Henry/ How about Cuban exiles? (By the way, everyone should know about the time an anti-Castro group blew up a Cuban airliner. Terrorists, freedom fighters, or just a bunch who wants to be in control?) I spoke of dissident-grade untraceability, identical to pedophile-grade untraceability. Not to support either dissdents or pedophiles, but to provide a handle on just how good this untraceability must be so as to protect dissidents from arrest and execution and pedophiles from arrest and imprisonment (or execution in Islamic regimes).
Surely not. Morality plays a part in everything we do. We have goals in common. We should structure our efforts so that they are in accordance with our highest goals. Having principles is nothing to be ashamed of. We all have them, and we should be proud of that.
From your words, I doubt you support the same goals I support. In any case, please stop invoking my name in support of your "moral crypto" points. --Tim May
On Sat, 1 Sep 2001, Tim May wrote:
What can I say? You clearly don't understand:
-- how remailer _networks_ work (Hint: nested encryption...all the first remailer sees when he opens a message is an encrypted message he can't read and instructions on which remailer to send it to next, and so on. Only if most/all remailers collaborate can the route be followed by them.)
You can't make, or assume this as a universal. It may be that by using crypto on the first leg it sets flags off for Mallet. The data may have to be sent out in stego or some other format. The utility of inter-anon remialer crypto using a seperate layer does provide major utility with respect to stopping further identity leaks as well as breaking simple traffic analysis. However, if the remailers require any sort of 'instructions' then these must be in the clear, or at least use a key set different than the user/remailer. These leak information in that initial connection. If they have universal access to the network then some level of analysis can be executed without collaboration from any of the remailers. -- ____________________________________________________________________ natsugusa ya...tsuwamonodomo ga...yume no ato summer grass...those mighty warriors'...dream-tracks Matsuo Basho The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
Having read Tim's reply already, I'll confine myself to a point he didn't address. On 1 Sep 2001, at 22:30, Nomen Nescio wrote:
It's true that this does not directly impact the design. But we can't ignore the question, is this a market we want to pursue. For example, there are any number of papers on key escrow systems, or "fair" electronic cash (where only the government can trace it). Legitimate businesses might well be willing to use such systems. So there is profit to be made, all the more profit since the government is less likely to hassle you.
Note, however, that this IS a question of design, not merely one of marketing. The system doesn't know "terrorists" from "freedom fighters". The system doesn't know pornographers from Falun Gongers. A system does (or at least could) know clients who want to send megabytes of data from ones who only want top send a few bits. It does know clients who insist on real-time or near real-time transmission from ones who would accept substantial transmission delay times. It knows clients who insist their system be free and trivial to use from those willing to spend a fair amount and go to a certain degree of effort to make damn sure they're doing things right. It knows the difference between broadcasting and person-to-person communication. And it knows whether clients are willing to accept the idea that some "trusted third party" could compromise their identity, or whether they trust no one.
Would you say that discussions of such technologies would and should be encouraged on the cypherpunks list?
Certainly they should be "discussed", if only to point out what's wrong with them, or speculate how the escrow mechanism might be defeated or compromised.
That it doesn't matter whether this helps us in or long-term goal or not?
Long-term consequences are notoriously hard to predict. For example, it's quite possible somebody who develops and implements a digital cash system with some sort of key escrow mechanism might be doing the world a big favor, since cloning it and cutting out the escrow part might be a lot easier than developing a similar system from scratch. Or maybe not, as I said, hard to say.
Surely not. Morality plays a part in everything we do. We have goals in common. We should structure our efforts so that they are in accordance with our highest goals. Having principles is nothing to be ashamed of. We all have them, and we should be proud of that.
OK. Freedom=good. Tyranny=bad. Now that we've agreed on moral principles, time to move on. George
On Sat, 1 Sep 2001 georgemw@speakeasy.net wrote:
OK. Freedom=good. Tyranny=bad. Now that we've agreed on moral principles, time to move on.
Unfortunately it is neither that simple in principle or practice. Absolute freedom is clearly bad, especially the first psycho you meet. And tyranny isn't necessarily bad, consider the tyranny of social intercourse. Um, wait a second. Aren't those related?... -- ____________________________________________________________________ natsugusa ya...tsuwamonodomo ga...yume no ato summer grass...those mighty warriors'...dream-tracks Matsuo Basho The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
participants (4)
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georgemw＠speakeasy.net -
Jim Choate -
Nomen Nescio -
Tim May