Re: Digital warfare

[Jonathan Axelrad <jaxelrad@crl.com>]

On Sat, 11 Sep 1993, Da Mystic Homeboy wrote:

> 	What would happen if all our transactions become untraceable?  
> How is the government supposed to prove anything, except by becoming fascist
> corporate fanatics (which is what is trying to happen right now).  Better
> yet, if all our communications are in private, how are the information
> companies going to get their money?  Whos going to have established credit-
> the very basis of our modern kapitalism?  


While I'm very much in favor of digital cash & strong encryption and
excited by their potential uses, it seems to me that you're leaving out an
awful lot when you paint your vision of the "private" future.  Neither is
likely to dramatically reduce the amount of general-purpose information
available on people and businesses.  With the ATM always around the
corner, there's almost no reason for me to use a credit card, yet I do
(frequent flyer mile credits aside) because it's convenient.  The same for
giving my unlisted telephone number to the plumber (who, in the years to
come, undoubtedly will maintain it in a database and may even sell it)
because I want him to call if he's going to be three hours late to fix the
leaky pipe.  As far as who's going to have established credit, the answer
is darn near everyone who can get it.  Credit is a powerful tool in a
market economy -- to get an idea of how important it is even to average
people, just look at the number of articles published by feminists on the
plight of recently divorced women who had previously relied on their
husband's credit rating.  Rather than using the new tools for anonymity,
I'll bet that most people, most of the time, want to use them to more
securely establish *identity*  (i.e., I don't want that jerk down the
street with a Radio Shack scanner using my credit for his own purposes).

	In the end, I would suggest that a digital cash/strong encryption
future will include a delicate balance in which each of us is constantly
broadcasting personal information in the clear for purposes of convenience
(even though we will quickly lose control over how that information is
used) while simultaneously using privacy tools to permit more secure
transactions and communications.  This is not to suggest that there won't
be a continued underground economy, but I don't see it taking over the
world.