CDR: The Market for Privacy
Tim May
tcmay at got.net
Wed Nov 1 10:58:22 PST 2000
At 11:41 AM -0500 11/1/00, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,39895,00.html
>
> Privacy Firm Tries New Gambit
> by Declan McCullagh (declan at wired.com)
> 2:00 a.m. Nov. 1, 2000 PST
>
> WASHINGTON -- Zero Knowledge Systems seems to have finally realized a
> harsh truth: Internet users don't like to pay extra to protect their
> privacy.
This is a recurring theme, and one we've talked about many times.
Fact is, most people don't think they need security. Most people
don't even think they need backups. Until their hard disk crashes.
And so on. It's a tough sell in either case.
This is why the market for crypto and security and anonymity has
tended to be at the "margins" of society: porn, warez, freedom
fighting, etc. Such has it always been, such shall it always be.
Targetting the mainstream is a tough sell.
(The most widely-deployed bits of crypto are in places where huge
deals were cut with browser makers, e.g., SSL, Verisign, etc. The
customer is only vaguely aware that such things are happening. No
sale to Joe Average is needed. Probably this is the way Web proxies
will ultimately be sold.)
ZKS was just one of many companies attempting to sell privacy tools
to "Joe Average," and his little daughter Suzy Average (pictured in
ZKS Freedom ads...). Well, Joe doesn't do much with his home computer
except check some sites and maybe download a few porn images from
Danni's Hotbox when Suzy has gone to bed and the wife is passed out
on the sofa.
_Could_ ZKS Freedom help Joe a little? Maybe, but it's not something
even on his radar screen to worry about. His bigger concern is having
Suzy or the wifey find the paltry pieces of porn he purloined.
Or he's at work and his boss has just announced that several
employees have been fired for using the company's networks for
checking sports scores, downloading porn, usng Napster, etc.
These are Joe Average's _real_ concerns about privacy. Cute ads about
little girls needing their privacy probably won't sell ZKS Freedom to
Joe Average.
ZKS may do better by bundling Freedom with Danni's Hard Drive
accounts! "Your porn is downloaded to you in "Plain Brown Wrapper"
format, disguised to look like a marketing report containing the key
words you specify. Your boss will think it's business, your wife will
be bored."
(No, I'm not suggesting this as any kind of real product. The market
is just too small, and downloading porn or Napster songs at work is a
lose for many good reasons. The proper solution is even more
straightforward: only fools download porn at company sites, and they
deserve to be fired. And if Joe Average doesn't have his own
_personal_ computer at home, they're cheap enough. No reason Little
Suzy should be doing her homework on the machine he has his porn on.
And even if he does, encrypted partitions are trivial to set up.
Plus, removable CD-RWs and Zips. "Zip--for when you don't want your
porn discovered by your wife!")
The second major use for privacy tools is preventing the "dossier
society" effect, where one's words in alt.sex.gerbils are archived
for all time and are seen by prospective employers, Senate
confirmation panels, etc. This is a likely market for ZKS Freedom.
Ah, except that utterly free and easy to use services like MyDeja and
MyYahoo and suchlike are dominant in this application area ("space").
It is routine to see "aardvaark42 at mydeja.com" posts in nearly all
newsgroups. While these are not cryptographically robust, it's
unlikely these will ever be linked to true names. Especially as they
may be set up on the fly, through proxies, etc.
Still, some fraction of people will pay for Freedom-type nyms.
Probably not $50 a year, as that is a significant fraction of their
entire ISP bill. But not a lot of people. And they won't pay much.
The real market for robust security and privacy tools is, as always, elsewhere.
The _interesting_ market has always been for those who
are--demonstrably!--willing to pay big bucks to get on a plane to fly
to the Cayman Islands or Luxembourg to open an offshore account. For
those who are actively interested in untraceable VISA cards. For
those selling arms. For those trafficking in illegal thoughts.
In short, for crypto anarchy.
Not for fluff.
Will the new ZKS business model work? Maybe. But as Simson Garfinkel
points out in the article Declan wrote, this may take years to
develop. Until then, tough sledding.
MojoNation seems to be a lower burn-rate run at the real low hanging fruit.
--Tim May
--
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
"Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
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