At 11:56 PM 10/5/94 -0700, Ed Carp wrote:

(BTW) violating every known law of security to do so. Denning, in a very real sense, represents the attitudes of the NSA and the people controlling this whole scheme and trying to foist it off onto people. Is she such an idiot that she actually *believes* the nonsense she spouts?

Is it wrong to suspect her motives, her judgement, her common sense, in backing such a proposal?

If we spend a little time thinking about it, I'm sure that we can figure out DD's psychology. If we can't understand her views (which are probably more mainstream than ours) we won't be able to understand anybody's. She is a conventional person and thinks that the monopoly of coercion exercised by the government must be maintained for the good of all. Many people share this view. As a cryptographer, she is aware of the same things that we are -- that unbreakable crypto combined with the "society on the nets" breaks this government monopoly of coercion. The point of Cypherpunks is not to change this almost universally held view of the legitmacy of "others" government (as opposed to self government). The point of cypherpunks is to *demonstrate* that the monopoly of coercion traditionally held by government has been *ended*. If you change the physical reality, people's views will change in turn. Don't be upset with DD. She hasn't killed anybody. If we're right about our analysis of the new balance of power between the individual and the state, her views don't matter. If we're wrong, her views *still* don't matter. DCF -- "Downsizing, Open Systems, and Distributed Networks for Berlin, London, Paris, Rome, Tokyo, & Washington, too." oops forgot Ottawa.