At 12:39 PM 12/17/2003, Patrick Chkoreff on the dgcchat@lists wrote:

Well, Clay Shirky has done it again, writing a very insightful article on the current digital scene, this time on the unintended but beneficial consequences of RIAA's crackdown on file sharing.

Here is one particularly telling excerpt:

...

Note that the broadening adoption of encryption is not because users have become libertarians, but because they have become criminals; to a first approximation, every PC owner under the age of 35 is now a > felon.

http://www.shirky.com/writings/riaa_encryption.html I'm not sure if Clay ever hung out on the cypherpunks list. None of this comes as a surprise. Most knew early on that widespread adoption of crypto would require a killer app and that cypherpunks were not delivering these apps because one could not predict what they would be. They would surely not be PGP and other encrypted email nor digital cash unless and until there was a small but lucrative market that could be addressed by such technology or a large market with broad citizen support. That file sharing could be it was also recognized a long time ago on the cypherpunks list. The really interesting aspect of this is what it portends for the future. If, as Clay suggests, the current situation is like Prohibition from citizen perspective can we expect a similar repeal of government surveillance? If not, what will happen as large numbers of citizens adopt P2P systems that not only flaunt copyright law but communications more dear to those in power? steve "For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this." -- Albert Einstein, "My First Impression of the U.S.A.", 1921