Re: Why is cryptoanarchy irreversible?

[Dale Thorn <dthorn@gte.net>]

jim bell wrote:
> At 06:25 PM 11/7/96 -0800, Peter Hendrickson wrote:
> >At 5:12 PM 11/7/1996, jim bell wrote:
> >> BTW, some of your confusion is probably based is the false assumptions in
> >> your last sentence above.  "..wide use of strong cryptography results in
> >> widely unpopular activities such as sarin attacks and political assassinations."

[snip]

> Well, uh, with all due respect, but while it's obviously true that we won't
> know EXACTLY how it'll be, that doesn't mean that no portion of we imagine
> will come true.  This is particularly true on the big issues.   For example,
> you hypothesized that "wide use of strong cryptography resuts in widely
> unpopular activities such as sarin attacks and political activities.  I
> pointed out, almost certainly correctly, that these are wrong:

[snip]

My first comment on the subject:  It's only irreversible if certain conditions hold.

First, if the masses become dependent on a large software program which has to be
updated occasionally by its corporate sponsors, somewhat like the voting software
which is controlled by those who benefit from said control (not the masses), then
those who "compile their own" would tend to stand out and be more noticeable.

Second, any truly secret messaging taking place represents a serious threat to the
military, and contrary to some naive popular opinion, those guys are not going to
lay down for this, unless it happens on an immense scale, i.e., the *majority* of
citizens are doing the "truly secret" messaging, which is not likely if paragraph
#1 above holds.