RE: Why to Care about Others' Security

FutureNerd writes
----------
| From: FutureNerd Steve Witham  <fnerd@smds.com>
| To:  <cypherpunks@toad.com>
| Subject: Why to Care about Others' Security
| Date: Monday, July 11, 1994 5:10PM
|
| Tim May says-
|
| > Personally, my main interests is in ensuring the Feds don't tell me I
| > can't have as much security as I want to buy. I don't share the
| > concern quoted above that we have to find ways to give other people
| > security.
|
| I can think of a couple reasons to want other people to be more secure.
|
| 1) The more people protect their privacy, the less profit there is in
| privacy invasion, so that there will be fewer people doing it and
| the techniques and infrastructure of spying might develop more
| slowly.

It seems that the more people protect their privacy the greater the 
profit will be in finding ways to invade that privacy. When all kinds 
of information is available in more or less public places there is 
little, if any, reason to pay people to get this information. On the 
other hand if your information is closely guarded then it costs a lot 
more to get that information.

|
| 2) The more people protect their privacy, the less privacy afficionados
| will stand out from the crowd.
|
| 3) The more people buy privacy, the more developed the market for
| privacy techniques and services, and the more private ways of doing
| things will be available and easy to use.
|


Definitely agree with you on these two points.


=====================================================

Mike Markley <mmarkley@microsoft.com>

I'm not a Microsoft spokesperson. All opinions expressed here are mine.

=====================================================

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In list.cypherpunks, mmarkley@microsoft.com writes:

> FutureNerd writes

> | 1) The more people protect their privacy, the less profit there is in
> | privacy invasion, so that there will be fewer people doing it and
> | the techniques and infrastructure of spying might develop more
> | slowly.
> 
> It seems that the more people protect their privacy the greater the
> profit will be in finding ways to invade that privacy.

I don't think that's necessarily true. There may be a greater
incentive to penetrate privacy, but the penetration comes at greater
cost. When costs go up, profits go down (assuming the value received
remains the same).

> On the other hand if your information is closely guarded then it
> costs a lot more to get that information.

Exactly. The idea is to make it cost more to get the information than
the information is worth.
- -- 
       Roy M. Silvernail         [ ]  roy@sendai.cybrspc.mn.org
                 Freinds don't let friends spam Usenet.
          Member, Anti Spam Committee Internet, International
            "Hey, at least everyone knows our acronym!"

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