CDR: RE: The Market for Privacy
Tim wrote:
The real market for robust security and privacy tools is, as always, elsewhere.
The _interesting_ market has always been for those who are--demonstrably!--willing to pay big bucks to get on a plane to fly to the Cayman Islands or Luxembourg to open an offshore account. For those who are actively interested in untraceable VISA cards. For those selling arms. For those trafficking in illegal thoughts.
In short, for crypto anarchy.
Not for fluff.
In my view (I suspect this may be in agreement with Tim's comments above, though I naturally do not presume to speak for Tim) ZKS' inability to derive meaningful revenue of the Freedom (TM) product can be explained quite trivially: the product fails to meet market requirements. Those willing to pay cash to protect their Internet activities demand real privacy. Not the watered-down, Mickey Mouse "privacy" Freedom provided. Freedom does not offer the user untracable IP. Hence those seeking untracable IP didn't buy the product. Little surprise here. Freedom's current fate was predicted in detail on this list the moment ZKS' deviated from their initial anon IP promises. It appears that ZKS is yet another company that fell prey to the DigiCash "we know better than the market what the market wants" syndrome. What a shame, really. --Lucky Green <shamrock@cypherpunks.to> "Anytime you decrypt... its against the law". Jack Valenti, President, Motion Picture Association of America in a sworn deposition, 2000-06-06
On Wed, Nov 01, 2000 at 11:14:27PM -0500, Lucky Green wrote: | In my view (I suspect this may be in agreement with Tim's comments above, | though I naturally do not presume to speak for Tim) ZKS' inability to derive | meaningful revenue of the Freedom (TM) product can be explained quite | trivially: the product fails to meet market requirements. Those willing to | pay cash to protect their Internet activities demand real privacy. Not the | watered-down, Mickey Mouse "privacy" Freedom provided. | | Freedom does not offer the user untracable IP. Hence those seeking | untracable IP didn't buy the product. Little surprise here. Freedom's | current fate was predicted in detail on this list the moment ZKS' deviated | from their initial anon IP promises. I'm really curious to see who goes into business selling full-bore anonymous IP on our codebase. If anyone really wants to, we'll be happy to spend a day or two telling you about all our in-progress traffic analysis results, so you don't need to re-do that work. (It will all be published as it becomes ready for publication, but if someone really wants to pursue this business, we'll show you what we've done.) Adam -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume
Lucky Green <shamrock@cypherpunks.to> wrote:
It appears that ZKS is yet another company that fell prey to the DigiCash "we know better than the market what the market wants" syndrome. What a shame, really.
What does the market want?
SEX!!! -- A quote from Petro's Archives: ********************************************** "Despite almost every experience I've ever had with federal authority, I keep imagining its competence." John Perry Barlow
And anonymous ways to pay for it/obtain it online... -Declan On Sat, Nov 04, 2000 at 03:04:10AM -0800, petro wrote:
Lucky Green <shamrock@cypherpunks.to> wrote:
It appears that ZKS is yet another company that fell prey to the DigiCash "we know better than the market what the market wants" syndrome. What a shame, really.
What does the market want?
SEX!!! -- A quote from Petro's Archives: ********************************************** "Despite almost every experience I've ever had with federal authority, I keep imagining its competence." John Perry Barlow
And anonymous ways to pay for it/obtain it online...
It doesn't seem like they care about the anonymous part, plenty of people are willing to hand over their credit card numbers for access.
On Sat, Nov 04, 2000 at 03:04:10AM -0800, petro wrote:
Lucky Green <shamrock@cypherpunks.to> wrote:
It appears that ZKS is yet another company that fell prey to the DigiCash "we know better than the market what the market wants" syndrome. What a shame, really.
What does the market want?
SEX!!! -- A quote from Petro's Archives: ********************************************** "Despite almost every experience I've ever had with federal authority, I keep imagining its competence." John Perry Barlow
-- A quote from Petro's Archives: ********************************************** "Despite almost every experience I've ever had with federal authority, I keep imagining its competence." John Perry Barlow
participants (5)
-
Adam Shostack -
anonymous＠openpgp.net -
Declan McCullagh -
Lucky Green -
petro