The Privacy/Untraceability Sweet Spot

[georgemw at speakeasy.net]

On 31 Aug 2001, at 19:50, Nomen Nescio wrote:


> But the more sophisticated technologies are not self-contained tools.
> They require a supported and maintained infrastructure to operate.
> Anonymous posters are painfully aware of how inadequate the current
> remailer system is.  A truly reliable and effective anonymity technology
> will be more like a service than a tool. 

I agree completely.

> This means that the operators
> choose to whom they will market and sell their services.
>

Here I disagree completely.  I think in a properly designed 
anonymity system the users will be, well, anonymous, and
it should be impossible to tell any more about them than that they
pay their bills on time. Certainly most potential users would balk at
requirements that they prove who they were and justify their desire
to use such a system, since that would tend to defeat the purpose. 
  
> This was one of the main points of the original message.  You can't just
> deploy a technology and hope that someone finds it useful.  You need to
> identify and target a market segment where the value exceeds the cost.
> And Tim May himself raised the issue of further looking for profitable
> markets which are morally acceptable.  He sometimes seems reluctant
> to admit it, but the point of crypto anarchy is to improve the world
> by reducing the impact of government coercion.  It's not supposed to
> be a nihilistic attempt to tear down institutions just for the sake
> of destruction.
> 
Well, Tim hasn't been excessivly shy about expressing his political
opinions IMO, but that's not really relevant. I don't think it serves 
any purpose to discuss who constitute "valiant freedom fighters
resisting a tyrannical government" and who are "bloody terrorist
fanatics attempting to overthrow a benign legitimate government
and replace it wth a worse one" in this forum.  We may have strong 
opinions on this matter as individuals, but it is completely 
unreasonable to expect us to come to any kind of consensus as a 
group.  Nor is it necessarily beneficial to do so. Would a system 
useful to the "virtuous" seperatist Kurds in Iraq be different in any
technical way from a system used by the "evil" seperatist Kurds
in Turkey? 
  

> Any cypherpunk who creates a privacy technology which targets bin Laden
> and his cohorts as a market is deluding himself if he thinks he is making
> the world a better place.  You can say all the nasty things you like
> about Western civilization, but crypto anarchy has the best chance of
> survival under a democratic government that pays at least lip service to
> values of individual freedom.  You who believe that the U.S. government
> is the epitome of evil should spend some time living in Afghanistan.

I haven't noticed anyone actually saying anything complimentary
about Bin Laden or the Taliban.  But it's pretty pointless to say,
"hey, I've got this great idea, but it's not for Islamics, it's for
anti-Castro Cubans". (We like them, right?  And some of them have
lots of money, right?)  Any discussion along those lines is only 
productive way down the line when you're actually near deploying 
something. Or at least soliciting genine bids for developement
contracts.


> It is important to identify markets which will advance the cause rather
> than set it back.  Tim May made a good start on this in his earlier
> posting.  Those who reject the idea of judging groups and markets by
> their morality are the ones who are missing the point.
> 
> 
Wrong.  When discussing design of a system, it makes sense to 
limit discussion to parameters relevant to system design.  How
much individuals might be willing to pay to protect their privacy,
how great of injuries they might suffer if their privacy is 
compromised, is relevant to system design.  Why they
want privacy, whether you or I as individuals would think of them
as "good guys" or "bad guys",  really isn't.

Unless you want to make a bizzare assertion like "anyone 
potentially willing to spend upwards of 50 bucks a message
is almost certainly a bad guy, so it's manifestly immoral to design 
a system with that kind of marke6t in mind".  Forgive my close-
mindedness, but I think that kind of argument is sufficiently absurd 
to be unworthy of consideration.

George