CDR: Re: Hard Shelled ISP?

[R. A. Hettinga]

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...


Which, unfortunately for the level of discourse around here, was my point,
and I apologize if my brevity caused confusion.

So, to put it another way, when privacy is *cheaper*, on a risk adjusted
basis, than we'll have privacy, and not much until then.

I expect most of us would agree to that, if they thought about it enough.

The "risk adjusted" bit is, of course, the most important one, as noted
quite comprehensively, in the above response to a fairly simple, albeit
catchy, observation.

	When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty.  I think
	only how to solve the problem.  But when I have finished, if the
	solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.
	  --R. Buckminster Fuller

Sometimes, the "easy" answer is, in fact, the right one.

More to the point, it seems to me that complication is usually the
handmaiden of misapprehension.

There. *That* should stir things up a bit...

Cheers,
RAH


-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'