The Privacy/Untraceability Sweet Spot

[georgemw at speakeasy.net]

Having read Tim's reply already,  I'll confine myself to a point he
didn't address.


On 1 Sep 2001, at 22:30, Nomen Nescio wrote:


> It's true that this does not directly impact the design.  But we can't
> ignore the question, is this a market we want to pursue.  For example,
> there are any number of papers on key escrow systems, or "fair" electronic
> cash (where only the government can trace it).  Legitimate businesses
> might well be willing to use such systems.  So there is profit to be made,
> all the more profit since the government is less likely to hassle you.

Note,  however,  that this IS a question of design,  not merely one 
of marketing. 

The system doesn't know "terrorists" from "freedom fighters".  The
system doesn't know pornographers from Falun Gongers.  

A system does (or at least could) know clients who want to send 
megabytes of data from ones who only want top send a few bits.  It 
does know clients who insist on real-time or near real-time 
transmission from ones who would accept substantial transmission 
delay times.  It knows clients who insist their system be free and 
trivial to use from those willing to spend a fair amount and go to a 
certain degree of effort to make damn sure they're doing things 
right.
It knows the difference between broadcasting and person-to-person 
communication.  And it knows whether clients are willing to accept 
the idea that some "trusted third party" could compromise their
identity,  or whether they trust no one.

> Would you say that discussions of such technologies would and should be
> encouraged on the cypherpunks list?  

Certainly they should be "discussed", if only to point out what's
wrong with them,  or speculate how the escrow mechanism
might be defeated or compromised.
 
>That it doesn't matter whether this
> helps us in or long-term goal or not?
>

Long-term consequences are notoriously hard to predict.  For 
example, it's quite possible somebody who develops
and implements a digital cash system with some sort of
key escrow mechanism might be doing the world a big favor,
since cloning it and cutting out the escrow part might be a lot
easier than developing a similar system from scratch.  Or maybe 
not,  as I said, hard to say.

> Surely not.  Morality plays a part in everything we do.  We have goals
> in common.  We should structure our efforts so that they are in accordance
> with our highest goals.  Having principles is nothing to be ashamed of.
> We all have them, and we should be proud of that.
>
OK.  Freedom=good.  Tyranny=bad.  Now that we've agreed on 
moral principles, time to move on.

George