CDR: Re: Hard Shelled ISP?

[Tim May]

At 4:37 PM -0400 10/26/00, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
>At 11:59 AM -0700 on 10/26/00, Ray Dillinger wrote:
>
>
>>  Here is what I envision, at a cost of something like $10/month.
>
>Go find the original archived web page for c2.net?
>
>When privacy costs more than no privacy, we have no privacy.
>
>Sad, but true.

Oh?

"When curtains over windows cost more than no curtains over windows, 
we have no curtains."

"When locks on doors cost more than no locks on doors, we have no 
locks on doors."

...and so on, for a dozen other obvious examples where "privacy" of 
one form or another costs more than the alternative of no privacy and 
yet where some, even many, choose the privacy option.

The issue with computers and networks is different for a number of reasons.

For one thing, most people have poor understandings of what's 
happening in networks and systems. They assume someone else is doing 
something to secure them, or they assume the communications must be 
too difficult to untangle (that is, they don't understand about 
sniffers, filters, etc.), and they just don't bother to give it much 
thought.

For another, most people have not themelves experience a security 
problem. While they understand how neighborhood thieves can break in 
and steal their stuff, they have no similar experience for their 
computer data. Unless and until this changes, they just won't care 
very much.

Lastly, there's the insurance issue I've written about several times. 
As with actual physical safes, the motivation for better safes came 
from insurance companies. (For the obvious reason that insurance 
companies are conversant with risk, payoffs, and think in terms of 
unlikely-but-possible events. This means that Joe Merchant sees a 
"discounted present value" of buying the better Mossler safe.)

Sloganeering is always dangerous. First articulated by Epimenides the 
Cretin (and Cretan).


--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.