CDR: Re: Zero Knowledge changes business model (press release)

Tim May tcmay at got.net
Wed Nov 1 16:08:06 PST 2000


At 5:59 PM -0500 11/1/00, Adam Shostack wrote:
>
>As to the hypothetical that Tim will ask, we'll work very hard to
>prevent laws requiring key escrow from coming into being.  We spend
>time and energy maintaining relations with law enforcement in a lot of
>places, explaining to them why we don't build in back doors.  And,
>suprisingly, when you go and talk to them, rather than hissing and
>shouting, they listen.

By the way, I've been curious about this "we spend time and energy 
maintaining relations with law enforcement" point for a while. In 
numerous comments I've seen this mentioned.

Why do you spend any of your valuable time talking to law enforcement/

Where I come from, law enforcement enters the picture during a 
criminal investigation. And then one is usually advised to say "I 
have nothing to say." Chatting with cops is rarely useful, and is 
often harmful. Ditto for lawmakers, unless one is seeking some way to 
get them to get out of the way.

I can't speak for Mojo Nation, but I think it nearly 100% certain 
that Jim McCoy is not "spending time and energy maintaining relations 
with law enforcement."

What his customers may choose to do with Mojo is not his 
concern...they are "agnostic" on such matters.

Zero Knowledge should in fact take a "zero knowledge" point of view 
on what customers may choose to do with its product. How else can it 
be?

Regrettably, the first round of criticism of Freedom, at least the 
first round that many of us were involved in, had to do with the 
"Terms and Conditions" boilerplate, with all of the many reasons ZKS 
will terminate a nym for (even a prepaid nym, of course, and with no 
refund, of course).

I surmised, as did others, that Freedom would not be usable for such 
things as running Zundelsites, distributing porn some consider 
offensive, organizing cells for liberation of their countries, and so 
on for a thousand other such examples. Whether one agrees or 
disagrees with such uses, and such ideologies, this is what "free 
speech" is all about.

Only a system where the "transport layer" is agnostic to, or unaware 
of, the underlying nyms is going to survive. For example, a chain of 
traditional encrypted remailers (closer to Chaum's mix than we've 
seen, but still in the same universe) is "agnostic of and unaware of" 
the packets passing.

Think of this as "end to end pseudonymity," by analogy with "end to 
end encryption." A packet wends its way through multiple routings 
until it arrives at its destination...and is then revealed to be 
digitally signed by, say, "Pr0duct Cypher." The remailers along the 
way, scattered in many countries, have no way to decide that a packet 
is offensive, or violates Canadian law, or is seditious, or any of 
the things which I surmise ZKS will be cancelling nyms for.

ZKS may have aspects of Wei Dai's PipeNet technology (though Wei Dai 
remains critical of what he has seen of Freedom, last I heard), but 
this additional layer of traffic analysis security is all for naught 
if the _interesting_ uses of Freedom are not possible.

Even if ZKS says they wish to tolerate such uses--Zundelsites, bomb 
instructions, child porn, money laundering, etc.--the fact that they 
have an identifiable corporate nexus and can be shut down by court 
order or by a raid on their systems should tell us this is just not 
the "architecture for crypto anarchy" some had hoped for.

(Actually, I raised these points before the product was released. 
Austin, Hammie, Lucky Green, and Jim McCoy--later of Mojo of 
course--heard my points. I can't speak for Lucky and Jim, but I 
recall they made similar points.)

In short, ZKS can have all the traffic analysis defeating measures in 
the world, but their model is basically flawed so long as their 
system has an identifiable point of attack (headquarters, them, their 
assets) and so long as they are so apparently willing to cancel nyms.

By the way, the only plausible argument for having extensive traffic 
padding measures, a la PipeNet, is to defeat the sniffers and such 
typically employed via "national technical means," i.e., NSA, GCHQ, 
SDECE, etc. An ordinary little girl using Freedom, the putative 
target candidate for Freedom, say the ads, is not going to need 
PipeNet-style traffic padding!!!

Which leaves me once again wondering what the ZKS market is.

--Tim May
-- 
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
"Cyphernomicon"             | black markets, collapse of governments.






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