Let's look at this ....

Okay, cypherpunks -
 
I've watched enough "unsubscribe me" requests drop in, now I figure
(that's a Virginia word, BTW) that since I'm silently digesting most
of this nonsense, I can at least crop a few pennies in the mill from
time to time.
 
I've managed to irk several of you with the virus encryption post (a
bona fide topic, for those of you who snicker); then with the "Why
Anon (especially when there are twelve step programs) ?", but the
federal deficit is peanuts to popcorn compared to the bandwidth wasted
here.
 
<Soap_box_mode_off>
 
Lest I begin to resemble some cypher-drop-out (never happen), let's
re-examine what we are now discussing:
 
o Problems (solved yet?) with penet.fi
 
o Arguments and innuendo regarding:
 
   _ digital cash
   _ digital anarchy (Gee, thanks, Tim.)
   _ digital bad-mouthing
 
The one topic that _does_ interest me is the nonsensical fodder
stemming from a post regarding the (actual?) governmental
consideration to license keys. That just drops my carrier.
This is probably the one reason why I tolerate the wasted bandwidth
here -- there are many powerful souls amongst you (us) who can keep this
bullshit from happening.
 
On a serious note, I have been a programmer-slash-analyst from the
card-punch days of not_so_old. My assembly programming began in the
bowels of a IBM 360; somehow that weeded it's way into the desktop
arena. Damned odd.
 
Now I just put networks together. Much like tinker toys.
 
My (long-winded) question is this: What are cypherpunk priorities?
(NO, no, please do not cite the norms. I've heard 'em.)
 
Where are we going with anon mailers? Are they going to serve us or
cause us unlimited problems? (From a political point of view?)
 
I stand _strongly_ behind private communications, and behind the right
to privately encrypt. Personally, I do not think that it can be taken
away from us.
 
Thoughts?
 
Cheers.

Paul Ferguson                     |
Network Integration Consultant    |  "All of life's answers are
Alexandria, Virginia USA          |   on TV."
fergp@sytex.com     (Internet)    |           -- Homer Simpson
sytex.com!fergp     (UUNet)       |
1:109/229           (FidoNet)     |
         PGP public encryption key available upon request.

Paul Ferguson asks: "What are cypherpunk priorities?"

Here's my list, in order:

Technical track:

1.  More remailer usage.  You can't start rearranging the order of
incoming and outgoing messages until you have messages to reorder.
Right now routing is still hard, even using a script.  Thus priority 1
implies number 2:

2.  Outgoing rewriting systems integrated into mailers.  Until one can
say

	To: cypherpunks

in their mailer and have this turned into a double-hop, fully
encrypted message on the way out, I don't think you'll see a huge
amount of traffic.

3. Mixing remailers.  Until mailers mix, they are extremely vulnerable
to network monitoring.  Mixing is rearranging the order of incoming
and outgoing messages, with a known lower bound on the number of
messages it could have been rearranged with.  Mixing also requires
message size quantization, since reordering is only significant among
messages of identical length.  Note that this requires a significant
volume of traffic per remailer.  While this is a high priority, its
implementation is not imminent.

4. Positive reputations.  The very simplest reputation is a signature
claiming identity.  Deployment of signature-based communication fora
is the first step.


Political track:

1. Understand the nature of anonymity now and in the future.  We are
trying to improve the world, not just change it.  It is therefore
necessary that we try to the limits our ability to understand the
effects of the social changes.

2. Making our arguments public.  Once we have convinced ourselves, we
have to convince others.  This means public participation in
conferences such as CFP, in the editorial pages of newspapers, in the
IETF meetings, in Usenet newsgroups, and, if necessary, in courts.

And a word of advice: Arguments are more effective the fewer shared
assumptions between the parties there are.  In particular, while you
can convice another libertarian with a libertarian argument, you can't
convince a socialist with one.  Nevertheless, both libertarians and
socialists desire open societies and personal privacy.  We must base
our arguments on deep shared culture if they are going to succeed.

3. Going international.  There do and will exist national restrictions
on various and different aspects of privacy goals.  One can go around
many of these restrictions by going around the nation involved.
Knowledge is extremely difficult to contain, so let us make more of
it, everywhere in the world!

4. Fighting restrictions on cryptography.  In the US, that means
getting actively engaged in fighting key registration ideas.  This
means preemptively writing your elected leaders _in advance_ of a
specific issue.  It also means writing about export restrictions in
cryptography.  In France, that means raising public awareness on
cryptography restrictions and the eventual effects that will have on
the open society there.  In all countries, it requires vigilance.

5. Increasing awareness of privacy issues.  Most think they have
nothing to hide.  Most also hate it when they get extremely detailed
junk mail about their own lives.  Teach the defense of privacy.


Eric