Larry Lessig on ending anonymity through "identity escrow"

[Tim May]

DO NOT FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO ANY OTHER LISTS. I AM GETTING TIRED OF 
SEEING CYPHERPUNKS JUST BE THE DUMPING GROUND FOR STUFF FROM OTHER 
LISTS.


In almost all foreseeable cases, a system which allows identity escrow 
_cost more_ than a system which does not. This is analogous to the 
increased costs of a identity-based money system over an 
immediate-clearing, non-identity-based system.

As an example, consider the network of CP or Mixmaster sorts of 
remailers. To package a payload through N remailers is a relatively 
easy thing for a a sender to do. But to arrange for propagation of 
"escrowed identity" at each (or most) of these N remailer nodes is 
costly.

Any  of these N remailers, in K different countries/jurisdictions, may 
use the "legal warrant" access method to open the identity escrow. For 
example, Finland in the Scientology/NOTS case...Finland surely would 
have used their "legal warrant" method had such an option existed.

This is part of a larger issue, a philosophical one, about who controls 
"legal warrants." The Jew can be killed by using legal warrants, in 
Third Reich Germany. The libertarian in Soviet Russia. The pornographer 
in Canada. And nearly anyone who deviates from the official line in 
these beknighted states of america: smut peddlers, drug legalization 
advocates, supporters of Russia vs. Chechnya prior to 9/11, supporters 
of Chechnya vs. Russia after 9/11, liberators of Diebold documents 
showing the weakness of their voting machines, and so on and on. See my 
1995-6 list of our enemies (Catholics, Whigs, Mormons, Communists...) 
for a very long list of those for whom "identity escrow" would have 
meant death or imprisonment in these beknighted states.

Back to the cost issue. Prof. Lessig argues that voluntary identity 
escrow systems should be "encouraged." How/ Through nattering to people 
about how they ought to use a more expensive, less flexible system 
which exposes them to possible danger and which costs them more to use 
than the stronger alternative?

Ha!

Or "encouraged" in the sense of using state power to make stronger 
systems illegal or artificially taxed at higher rates?

Why doesn't the U.S.G. just set up a "Big Brother Remailer" with the 
kind of identity escrow proposed?

Let's then see how many freedom fighters working for the overthrow of 
the U.S. government use it. Let's see how many critics of the Church of 
Scientology, threatened with lawsuits and "legal warrants," use it. 
Let's see how much child porn gets traded on it.

--Tim May