Internet is Not the Long Term Solution

[tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)]

I want to clarify some points about my earlier posting on how remailer fees
fix the "anonymous flooding" problem which Marc Ringuette mentioned.

Implicit in my comments were some assumptions which I ought to break out
separately:

* The current Internet, glorious as it is, is not the likely long term
solution. The various bans and constraints on business interactions, on
fees, on commercial use, etc., are major limits to what we're talking about
here. (Some alternatives exist, like Alternet (sp?), but Internet is what
most of us are now using.)

* "Remailing fees" are the natural, free market solution to the costs of
transmitting, decrypting, storing, and forwarding messages. But these fees
run afoul of various Internet rules.

* The Internet policy statements are often invoked by sysadmins and
would-be censors (David Sternlight comes to mind) who are worried about
uses, abuses, and out of the ordinary situations. Ditto for Prodigy and
similar systems. The talk about bans on anonymous mail (nothing seriously
proposed, so far as I know) reflect the government-dominated nature of the
current Internet.

* Though what we are doing with anonymous mail, remailers, digital
pseudonyms, and even digital money is educational and even fun, I doubt any
of us expects our "constructions" to persist, to be a real foundation for
future digital economies. Well, at least I don't expect much to last.
Instead, what we learn with these systems will be carried over to new kinds
of networks, or on radically evolved descendants of today's networks.

* These new kinds of networks may look more like descendants of FIDONet
than of the Internet, in the sense of being more decentralized and outside
the control of institutions and government agencies. (Some have argued that
the Internet is already transnational and is already beyond the control of
governments. This sounds plausible in theory, but in practice most Internet
users _are_ subject to various rules about usage, about noncommercial use,
etc.)

* Some on this list have expressed distaste that remailing will have to be
_paid for_ by someone (other than themselves). This is the way economics
works. Remailers will act on the profit motive, and this in fact will do
more to increase the numbers and types of remailers than anything else.
When "Mom and Pop" remailer sites can be set up for the cost of a PC, hard
disk, and perhaps a "hardware mix" (a Chaum-style tamper-resistant  module
which mixes incoming messages, stores them for sufficient latency, then
remails them), then the profit motive will ensure lots of these remailers.

* I'm not saying the current Internet will not evolve into such a network.
In fact, the rapid growth in many countries and on many platforms may mean
it already has enough momentum to become the type of network we need to
develop these cyberspace constructs. But it's possible the form will be
quite different.

My crude timetable for the spread of crypto anarchy still has the 1993-5
period as a time of experimentation (such as we're doing), with more
robust, profit-oriented enterprises appearing around 1996 or so. (A few
brave souls may enter the market even earlier.) 

-Tim May

--
Timothy C. May               | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com        | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409               | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA       | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: MailSafe and PGP available.