On 26 Sep 96 at 16:51, Declan McCullagh wrote:

Anonymity and nonescrowed crypto are the linchpins of AP and its more general case, Maysian crypto anarchy. The withering of the nation-state. Whatever you want to call it.

To prevent it, governments will ban both. A criminal law, passed in the wake of say a bombing this fall in Washington, DC, banning nonescrowed crypto. (Freeh will assert he has evidence the terrorists used PGPhone.) And another law banning online anonymity.

I agree with the prediction but the cause will probably not be AP. AP could probably be run from BBS and direct link over a very informal and loose network made out of individual modem connections. I think it is very unlikely it would get succesfully stopped. It could even be run from physically exchanged diskettes. It would run slowly, but still, it would run. OTOH, the "Maysian" crypto anarchy will be a much more immediate problem to govts. "L'argent est le nerf de la guerre",or, loosely translated: "money is war's fuel" as we say... When they start getting financially starved, they'll have to increase taxation but the population already have them in very low esteem... AP, with a properly structured media campaing, will make govts heroes, Maysian anarchy will make them seen as looters. Did I put my foot in my mouth again?

What then, Mr. Bell?

-Declan

// declan@eff.org // I do not represent the EFF // declan@well.com Jean-Francois Avon, Montreal QC Canada DePompadour, Societe d'Importation Ltee Finest Limoges porcelain and crystal JFA Technologies, R&D consultant physicists and engineers, LabView programming PGP keys at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon ID# C58ADD0D : 529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891