On Friday, August 31, 2001, at 07:22 AM, Fisher Mark wrote:

...

When you were asked where were all the supposed wealthy freedom fighters in communist controlled regimes, you came back with Osama bin Laden.

Tim's point, which many seem to have missed, is that by design a tool that enforces the privacy, anonymity, and pseudonymity of a women striving for equal rights in Afghanistan can also be used by the Taliban in their quest to track down and kill Afghans who converted to Christianity and are now preaching the Word. Tools are tools -- the uses are what we make of them. If you don't want to create tools that can be used for evil, then you must forgo the making of tools.

Crypto anarchy is coming -- we had best prepare for it, lest it overwhelm us. In the end, I believe that it will result in more freedom for more people, by restraining those in government from doing any silly thing they like to us.

Many of those who have been quibbling about whether "freedom fighters" are terrorists, or whether Osama bin Laden is or is not a FF, etc., are MISSSING THE BIG PICTURE. Take the long view, the more agnostic view. Whether one likes the actions of bin Laden or Pablo Escobar or James Jesus Angleton is not the point Privacy and untraceability tools will be used by many who are seeking to evade others. Some we are taught in American schools are heroes, some we are taught are villains. Here's a list I distributed some years ago at a CFP Conference: (the paper is still available at Prof. Froomkin's site, http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/articles/tcmay.htm ) Appendix: Who are those Bad Guys, anyway? Depending on which nation one is in, which regime is in power, and other factors, here are some of the enemies of the people the laws against strong crypto and the banning of digital cash are intended to crush: Enemies of the People, the opposition party, the Resistance, friends of the Bad Guys, family members of the Bad Guys, conspirators, Jews, Catholics, Protestants, atheists, heretics, schismatics, heathens, leftists, rightists, poets, authors, Turks, Armenians, Scharansky, Solzhenitsyn, refuseniks, Chinese dissidents, students in front of tanks, Branch Davidians, Scientologists, Jesus, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, African National Congress, UNITA, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, colonial rebels, patriots, Tories, Basque separatists, Algerian separatists, secessionists, abolitionists, John Brown, draft opponents, communists, godless jew commies, fellow travellers, traitors, capitalists, imperialist lackeys, capitalist roaders, anarchists, monarchists, Charlie Chaplin, Galileo, Joan of Arc,, Martin Luther, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, civil rights workers, Students for a Democratic Society, Weathermen, Margaret Sanger, birth control activists, abortionists, anti-abortionists, Michael Milken, Robert Vesco, Marc Rich, Nixon's Enemies, Hoover's enemies, Clinton's enemies, Craig Livingstone's high school enemies, Republicans, Democrats, labor organizers, corporate troublemakers, whistleblowers, smut peddlers, pornographers, readers of "Playboy," viewers of images of women whose faces are uncovered, Amateur Action, Jock Sturges, violators of the CDA, alt.fan.karla-homulka readers, Internet Casino customers, Scientologists, Rosicrucians, royalists, Jacobins, Hemlock Society activists, Jimmy Hoffa, John L. Lewis, Cesar Chavez, opponents of United Fruit, land reformers, Simon Bolivar, Robin Hood, Dennis Banks, American Indian Movement, Jack Anderson, Daniel Ellsberg, peace activists, Father Berrigan, Mormons, Joseph Smith, missionaries, Greenpeace, Animal Liberation Front, gypsies, diplomats, U.N. ambassadors, Randy Weaver, David Koresh, Ayotollah Khomeini, John Gotti, Papists, Ulstermen, IRA, Shining Path, militia members, tax protestors, Hindus, Sikhs, Lech Walesa, Polish labor movement, freedom fighters, revolutionaries, Ben Franklin, Thomas Paine, and "suspects".