Authentication vs encryption: CPs on the web

Adam Shostack adam at bwh.harvard.edu
Tue Dec 13 10:52:50 PST 1994



	With all due respect, I disagree with your assessment.
Anonymity is a job, and we should build small tools to do jobs.  It is
my feeling that building anonymity into the web will make the
protocols more complex than they need to be.

	There is no anonymity in mail, but we have anonymous mail of
varying privacy.  I suspect mixmaster will greatly enhance that.  To
get privacy in the web, build a web remailer on top of the CERN or TIS
HHTPd proxies.  Encrypt between you & the proxy, let the proxy go out.

Adam


| This is IMO the standard cypherpunks wish list as applied to the WWW.
| But it does not seem to match up with either the commercial or
| institutional interests which are driving the standards process.  I
| hope those CP's who are involved in these efforts can work to spotlight
| the need for individual privacy.  We should give as much power, choice,
| and control as possible to the individual end-users of the web.
| Otherwise privacy is going to be very difficult to maintain in this
| world of electronic commerce.
| 
| Hal Finney
| hfinney at shell.portal.com

-- 
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
						       -Hume






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