CDR: Re: Hard Shelled ISP?

[Tim May]

At 10:38 PM -0400 10/27/00, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
>At 5:50 PM -0700 on 10/27/00, Tim May tits a tat or two, in detail...:
>
>
>>>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...>
>
>Mostly, when I tossed that one off, I was remembering arguments around here
>-- more than once -- that anonymity, particularly in anonymous
>transactions, will *always* cost more than non-anonymous ones. Something I
>dispute rather heatedly, of course, or I wouldn't be spending so much
>money, or working so hard, these days to prove otherwise...

But then you are tilting at windmills, as no one who is reputable has 
made such a claim, that anonymity will always cost more than 
non-anonymity.

Sometimes anonymyity costs something. Sometimes traceability 
(_non_anonymity) has certain benefits worth trading for. Sometimes 
security costs a lot, sometimes not so much, sometimes almost nothing.

In general, these tradeoffs cannot be boiled down to a simple 
relationship of "anonymity costs more than nonanonymity."

As with the lock example, a lock almost always costs more than no 
lock. But the costs of having no lock may be much higher.

Things should not be reduced to simplicities.


--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.