why market to Joe Sixpack?

[Tim May]

On Wednesday, November 21, 2001, at 08:51 PM, dmolnar wrote:

> Declan's comment on operating a physical remailer for suitably valuable
> cargo, plus some of Tim's recent comments about integration, made me 
> think
> of the question in the subject line. So far I see at least three 
> possible
> answers.
>
> 1) Make lots of money.
>
> 2) Spread awareness (that "funny feeling in the stomach" recently
> discussed) and save our fellow man. Make the world safe for privacy.
>
> 3) Ensure that cryptography and privacy-enhancing technologies have uses
> besides "Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse," so that they aren't banned.
>
> anything else?
>

I'll take the other side of the argument. Not because I have anything 
against Joe Sixpack using strong crypto, remailers, anonymous markets, 
markets for assassinating tyrants, data havens, and all the rest.

But....

* Many have knocked themselves out trying to get the masses to encrypt 
all of their e-mail...guess what? Most people don't want to jump through 
hoops to send innocuous messages to their friends. Even more so, fewer 
of us want to be lectured at that we "should" be using crypto at all 
times.

* The "sell to the masses" argument is largely why the focus of crypto 
has been spinning its wheels in issues of "integrating with common 
programs." Sounds great to do so, except that the fast rate of change of 
mailers and other programs means the established programs tend to 
"break" with distressing regularity...with not enough people around (and 
being paid) to fix the new incompatibilities.

* Worst of all, the "how do we get Joe and Alice Sixpack to use PGP?" 
focus, and the similar focus for remailers and digital money such as it 
is, has shifted the efforts into the "millicent ghetto" part of the 
value of crypto vs. cost of crypto space I have  discussed. Instead of 
looking at what makes Swiss banks worthwhile for people to fly to Geneva 
to deal with, we have schemes for people buying things they can buy with 
cash or with VISA cards just as efficiently. And instead of anoymizing 
child porn, we have schemes for anonymizing hits on Yahoo's Sports 
pages. No surprise that the customers who live in this millicent ghetto 
say "Huh?"

Put bluntly, I don't see sophisticated money traders and offshore 
bankers beating the drum to get Joe Sixpack using Swiss banks.

How the world might be _different_ or _better_ if crypto and remailer 
and ecash uses were very widespread is not the issue. The issue is that 
selling to such users is difficult for many logical reasons and that 
efforts are better spent developing the technologies and markets in such 
a way that maybe Joe Sixpack will someday follow.

I am willing to admit that it is possible that Cypherpunk notions could 
be "driven from the bottom up." but I see no evidence for this. And I 
see much evidence that the technologies will be adopted by "those who 
care" (those who have something to hide, in common parlance).

An interesting topic, to be sure.


--Tim May
"Ben Franklin warned us that those who would trade liberty for a little 
bit of temporary security deserve neither. This is the path we are now 
racing down, with American flags fluttering."-- Tim May, on events 
following 9/11/2001