The Privacy/Untraceability Sweet Spot

[Nomen Nescio]

On Monday, August 27, 2001, at 12:56 PM, Tim May wrote:
> On Monday, August 27, 2001, at 12:40 PM, Nomen Nescio wrote:
> > "Freedom fighters in communist-controlled regimes."  How much money
> > do they have?  More importantly, how much are they willing and able to
> > spend on anonymity/privacy/black-market technologies?  These guys aren't
> > rolling in dough.
>
> The IRA and the Real IRA have a lot of money, as the Brits have been 
> complaining about recently. Osama bin Laden is said to control more than 
> a billion dollars. And so on. I disagree with you assertion that "these 
> guys aren't rolling in dough."

Members of the IRA are not freedom fighters in a communist-controlled
country.  bin Laden did fall under that definition when he was fighting
to get the Russians out of Afghanistan but that was a long time ago.
Now he's opposing American influence in Saudi Arabia.

Some developers may nevertheless sympathize politically with such these
groups and so could work on technology for them with a clear conscience.

> > "Revolutionaries overthrowing bad governments."  The main 
> > revolutionaries
> > who will be willing to pay money are those who expect to get rich from
> > their revolution.  These are the ones who want to throw out the tyrants
> > so they can set themselves up as new tyrants.  It is people like this
> > who would be the best customers of cypherpunk technology.  You're not
> > making the world a better place by giving them tools.
>
> You make the assumption that overthrowing, say, the PRC or USSR 
> governments, would result in a "worse or just as bad" regime. I 
> disagree. And the same tools are still available to deconstruct interim 
> replacement regimes.

The point is that those who will pay large sums to acquire access to
these technologies, even for the purpose of overthrowing an evil regime,
are not doing it out of altruism.  They're not good-guy libertarians
who only want to set up a John Galt state.  Realistically they're more
likely to be interested in taking over the reins of power themselves.

And it's pretty questionable to salve your conscience by saying that
even if these guys use the tools to bad ends, someone else will then
be able to use the same tools against them.  The problem is, we're
doing this for profit, right?  We won't give the tools away once
the first generation uses them to take over.  We should sell them to
the highest bidder.  (Better to think of a service than a tool here.
Most cypherpunk technologies require a distributed infrastructure that
you can charge for.)  The high bidders are once again going to be the
bad guys who want to take over for selfish reasons.

> > "Distribution of birth control information in Islamic countries."  
> > Again,
> > selling to Planned Parenthood is not a business plan which will make
> > anyone rich.
>
> Planned Parenthood is not envisaged as the user....

Pray tell, who exactly will pay large sums to be able to distribute birth
control information in Islamic countries?

> > The conclusion is that you need to add a third axis to Tim's graph:
> > morality, in addition to value and cost.  Many of the most lucrative
> > potential uses of anonymity technologies are morally questionable.
> > If you add this additional filter you are forced to focus on just a
> > few application areas (with the additional complication that few people
> > will agree on morality, and that morality and legality often have little
> > overlap).
>
> The technology is agnostic to "morality."

This is trivial; the same can be said for any technology.  It is the users
and implementors who are moral actors, and that is who we are considering.

> Choate argues that at least 5 or 6 axes are needed. Ever the nitwit, he 
> fails to realize that the main debate doesn't even use the _two_ that I 
> have outlined. Yes, I know about phase spaces and multi-dimensional 
> diagrams. But given that the debate about privacy tools is mired at the 
> 1D level ("untracebility good, traceability bad...why don't the proles 
> see this?"), graphing the major users and suppliers on the 2D graph I 
> outlined is a step in the right direction. It goes a long way to 
> explaining why people will spend thousands to fly to the Caymans to set 
> up a bank account while others won't even bother using PGP.

Fine, if the only point you want to make is that costs must be considered.
But eventually we need to move beyond that simplistic analysis.  At that
point we do need to consider morality and other issues.

> You want to add "morality" to the chart. Fine, except I don't see how it 
> gives different answers than my chart gave.

The answers it gives depends on the questions you ask.  If your questions
are simple enough (untraceability good?) then your chart will answer
them.  If your questions are more interesting (what technologies can
be practically implemented and make a positive difference in the world)
then you need a better chart.