Chaum Fathers Bastard Child To RubberHose ... PrivaTegrity cMix

[dan at geer.org]

> The 9 servers are operated by Chaum, and is the software and OS
> config open source and 3rd party verifiable as being the same as
> running on the servers?
>
> 9 servers will be operated in 9 different jurisdictions, not by 9
> separate unrelated 'entities'.
>
> 'Trust us' is just something we've become accustomed to not needing.

I'm not going to disagree with that at all, but here's the thing:
There has to be a root of trust in some way even if (or particularly
if) that root is math, pure math, and nothing but the math so help
me God.

That being said, I would suspect that any system which permits
absolutely zero recourse against things done with it that a super
majority of citizens considers abhorrent is a system that will not
be long tolerated and thus will not long exist.  What then is a
useful model of recourse?

The essential idea of checks and balances is that of prevention,
viz., that no one entity can permanently subvert the workings of
democratic society.  (Here I have to ask to please spare me the
anti-democratic invective.)  I have to agree with some poster or
other who said that Chaum's system only works if it is the only
system, otherwise the evil will just run down some other pipe than
his.  Fair enough, but if one is brilliant and paranoid, then a
system that invests absolutism in no single party is a design goal,
and a worthy design goal at that.  At the same time, if one's
paranoia, existential or otherwise, gets the better of you, then
you will want keep your hand on the tiller even while delegating
fragments of your authority all about.  So it is, I suspect, the
case here.  In other words, if you are too paranoid then you will
never be able to turn the whole thing over to its fate as embodied
in its design and its design alone -- you will wreck it all out of
the kind of paternalism that does seem to be irreducible core of
nearly every argument in the public sphere about safety.

Seriously, I am not arguing for cMix or Mr. Chaum.  I am saying,
carefully and calmly, that some understandable form of recourse is
an unavoidable condition for willing public acquiescence.  Chaum
made a proposal.  Comey made a proposal.  Proposals are likely to
now sprout like wildflowers.  Make one.

Thinking out loud,

--dan