"As for finance itself, there's a reason that I say that financial cryptography is the only cryptography that matters. Since the time of Mesopotamian bullae and grain banks, cryptography has been essential to finance. You can't do one without the other. The more cryptography you do, the more finance you can do, the better off everyone is. It's a virtuous circle." I don't agree, though I'm tempted to. What have nominally been called religious and/or race wars throughout history have almost always had at their core economics, or at least in the western world. It's easy to see how finance might be the underlying reason for lots of nominally non-crypto communications. Your statement is arguably true as t-->infinity. However, I'd bet there are short-term applications for crypto that really matter and yet have no real relationship to $$$ (for instance, what if there was widespread communications and crypto in Nazi Germany...would the holocaust have happened?) -TD

From: "R. A. Hettinga" <rah@shipwright.com> To: <cypherpunks@al-qaeda.net> Subject: Re: [IP] One Internet provider's view of FBI's CALEA wiretap push Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2004 12:43:51 -0400

At 4:32 PM +0100 4/22/04, Dave Howe wrote:

...

There isn't a worldwide ban on breaking CSS - doesn't stop the film industry trying to enforce it in the US courts.

Carl Ellison tells the story about how, with the advent of the longbow, all these peasants had to get absolution from their local priests for killing knights. Kill a noble on Wednesday, confess on Sunday, lather, rinse, repeat.

Needless to say, the impedance mismatch between reality and dogma resolved itself.

The economics of networks outweighs the economics of intellectual property law. That, too, will resolve itself, just like Clipper did.

As for finance itself, there's a reason that I say that financial cryptography is the only cryptography that matters. Since the time of Mesopotamian bullae and grain banks, cryptography has been essential to finance. You can't do one without the other. The more cryptography you do, the more finance you can do, the better off everyone is. It's a virtuous circle.

The internet and Moore's law accelerates cryptographic, and thus financial, progress. More stuff cheaper.

Cheers, RAH

-- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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