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Re: REAL WORLD ENCRYPTION
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Sandy Sandfort writes:
>I would like to start a new thread. I want to know what the
>people on this list intend to do with cryptography in the "real
>world."
I read this as an invitation to rant. :-) This is going to be a little
harsh, I'm afraid.
> What do you want? What do you fear?
I'm here for the crypto phase change.
I'm here because of a technological perception about computation in general
and encryption in particular. Crypto is a lever. Crypto is about mechanical
advantage, small actions with big consequences in the progress of a major
social change brought on by computation. Computers are changing the world
in a way comparable to the invention of iron, or the printing press, or
the steam engine. And cryptography is a pivotal point of influence in the
direction that society will take in the next fifty or a hundred years.
>My interest is more than academic. I am one of the Cypherpunks
>involved in creating a digital bank. If the 700 or so people on
>this list wouldn't open an account in a digital bank, chances are
>no one else would either. The same goes, of course, for secure
>phones, encrypted e-mail, and all the rest.
Put the digital bank on Oceana and let them both sink together. Fuck
overthrowing the government. As my mother would say, "vast plans in
half-vast ways..."
For what it's worth, I appreciate and admire the Vision. But it's
impossible to take this grandiose stuff seriously when I'm still sending my
password in cleartext over my phone line. Digicash is white noise until
somebody has something to spend it on. Nobody's going to put their life
savings in a bank named "[email protected]". Get real.
The problem is not a lack of vision or a lack of expertise, it's a lack of
social acuity. All those damn unsubscribe messages are telling us
something, and nobody seems to be listening. The problem is that the
cypherpunks can't even run a mailing list that's easy for people of limited
technical ability to use, much less a bank or an entire nation.
Somebody this last week posted a proposal about an encrypted terminal
program, something that comes up once in a while, and the only replies I
saw were from people saying "Oh, WELL, this has already been taken care of
- -- just get a TCP/IP protocol connection and implement kerberos and haven't
you read RFC 10329-2394032.9292-11193742 anyway? This is all standardized."
Except that I'm still sending my password over my phone line in cleartext.
Pr0duct Cipher is working. Mike Ingle is working. Mike Johnson and Grady
Ward are distributing. Julf and the Remailer People (who mean our net no
harm) are giving people meaningful channels for speech. John Gilmore is
insisting on observance of the law. These things are for real.
We don't need a new government. We don't need a million metric tons of
hexagonal concrete slabs floating off bermuda full of "pioneers". We don't
need any bullshit toy banks. The crypto phase change will be brought about
by a thousand small and unromantic actions. If we are to be visionaries and
subversives, let us style ourselves as visionary and subversive
bricklayers, working slowly and patiently and from the ground up.
The crypto phase change is not about anarchy, it is about insisting on
accountability from the government we already have. The crypto phase change
is about user interfaces in Windows. It's about plug-and-play software that
lets people secure their own privacy in an indifferent world. These are the
things that will effect change. The rest is ego.
>What Real World concerns you have about crypto?
>
>Talk to me.
Talk back.
-- Will
"A skilled commander seeks victory from the situation" -- Sun Tzu
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