Re: DC-Nets and sheep

[doug@OpenMind.com (Doug Cutrell)]

Rishab Aiyer Ghosh <rishab@dxm.ernet.in> writes:

>Doug goes on to suggest that to be immune from the "sheep^H^H^H^H^Hpeople"
>DC-Nets will have to have millions of members. But if anon remailers were used
>by millions, than they'd be immune too. All crypto is vulnerable to mob action
>until it's widespread.

I think that there is an important difference between the case of anonymous
remailers and DC-Nets.  Even if millions of people were using anonymous
remailers, it would still be the case that the remailer itself would
provide a single, isolatable target for control.  Although it might not be
politically popular to force the remailer out of operation, the actual
mechanics of doing so could be relatively simple.

The strength of DC-Nets lies in their distributed nature.  There is no
single target for control which can be isolated from the rest.  Even
without millions of members, a DC-Net gains strength through cooperation...
to effectively target it, all of the members of the net must be targeted in
some sense.

Whether the actual technology used is a DC-Net or something fairly
different, the basic principle of replacing single targets with large
cooperating groups seems to hold promise.

Doug