Re: Virtual assasins and lethal remailers

[blancw@pylon.com]

Some comments & thoughts on the following statements from Doug 
Cutrell:

". . . . .  It is not a matter of  simply discussing and 
developing the tools themselves... we should consider  how to 
achieve desirable long-term stable social dynamics in the 
presence  of strong crypto." 

. "Achieving" social dynamics has the same sound&sense as 
social engineering:  consciously planning to arrive at a 
certain kind of social dynamic -  whether a positive kind or 
a negative one.  

. Assessment/recognition of who has the greater influence over 
the flavor of this social dynamic: the tool or the maker, the 
designer or the user, the user or the circumstance within which 

a need arises:

	Liability for the consequences: 
	- responsibility of the designer, for acting as an agent of 
change, for introducing a new element  to the storehouse of 
tools already available to the social body
	- responsibility of the user for having taken up the means at 
hand and applying it to suit their own purposes

	Or liability for one's presumptions:
	- how much influence a person would like to assume over the 
minds & psychologies of others
	- how much influence an individual or group*should*  plan on 
exercising upon the social body or its dynamics:  is it moral 
to plan on determining the type&kind and the measure of 
the interactions of the individuals comprising it

"This requires carefully considering sequences of  introduction 
of various strong crypto tools into society, and predicting  
the reactions of society as these tools are introduced."

.  This is useful to calculate if you own an enterprise and are 
computing the profit which the company might bring in, 
depending upon the success of the product in the marketplace 
for cool tools.

.  This is also useful to calculate if you are planning on 
taking over the social dynamic and determining its quality in 
the way that one could preside over the development of 
children.

.  Is it possible to predict & to control precisely enough what 
adjustments to make:  how well would someone think that they 
could know the psychology of all the users in the society and 
their reactions to new ways of hiding.  I say "all the users", 
because if any of them are left out of consideration, then 
those not included would constitute elements of surprise which 
could upset the certainty of the predictions.  With such a 
potential for failure, the controls implemented would need to 
be complete -  total - with no allowance for "free radicals".

.  How much can one group really plan on achieving for another 
group: 
	- how much, historically (in the long course of time), have 
such attempts at managing a society's acceptance of new 
elements ever succeeded and been maintained as a constant, 
steady continuum; 
	- how much success should one morally aim for in such an 
endeavor, when success would mean displacing the self-control 
which the members of that society should be developing over 
their own decision-making abilities.

. Otherwise, what actions could be recommended, depending on 
whether the responses were positive, negative, or just neutral?

. The responses from the social body would depend upon:
	- the kind of people that each of them are;
	- the circumstances of their life; 
	- the occasions for which they might feel the need to use 
encryption;
	- i.e.,   which & how many, of those who were moved to use 
crypto, would be the kind who could create a devastating impact 
upon the coordinated processes of that society.
	- how well prepared "the system" or any of its members would 
be to dealing with breaks in the processes; to disturbances in 
their atmosphere

.  Given the above, if all things went well and social 
circumstances improved, who would receive the credit;
.  but,   if anything went wrong,  who would be blamed:  the 
ones who used the fire, or the ones who brought it to them in 
the first place.

I know:  there would be grass-roots campaigns against fire.

Blanc