Re: Hughes Markets? (Was Re: Copyright commerce and the street musician protocol)

--- begin forwarded text


X-Sender: hutchinson@click.ncri.com
Mime-Version: 1.0
Date: Thu, 6 Nov 1997 14:52:30 -0500
To: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
From: hutchinson@ncri.com (Art Hutchinson)
Subject: Re: Hughes Markets? (Was Re: Copyright commerce and the street
musician protocol)
Cc: dcsb@ai.mit.edu
Sender: bounce-dcsb@ai.mit.edu
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Reply-To: hutchinson@ncri.com (Art Hutchinson)

Robert Hettinga wrote:

>A whole bunch of people are now talking about these cash-settled recursive
>auction processes, and they're a direct, and now obvious, consequence of
>bearer (or at least instant) settlement markets for information on geodesic
>networks. When you add anonymity to the transaction, you pretty much have
>the final straw for "rights" tracking. Watermarks just tell you who the
>information was stolen from, for instance. So, one more industrial
>information process bites the dust.

Whoa!  Hang on here.  Sure, watermarks will tell you who information
was stolen from, but they're just a stalking horse... a weak second cousin
to *persistent* content control technologies (such as IBM's Cryptolopes
and Intertrust's Digiboxes).  These allow rightsholders to manage a wide
range of parameters (including price, usage context, and any other variable
for which you can imagine having a certificate).  Whats fundamentally
different about what are generically referred to as secure envelopes, is
that they can maintain controls *indefinitely* (persistence), across an un-
known, ad hoc, web of distribution over which one otherwise has no
control.  And yes, this can all work even in a completely disconnected
environment (laptop at 35,000 feet).

They allow rightsholders, if they so choose, to *continue* being rights-
holders in a highly networked, digital world, and in a wide range of new
ways, based on entirely new (or old) business models, that take advantage
of rich/elaborate conditions for usage (e.g. you can view this picture
anonymously, but it will cost you 2X as much, and you can only get it at
low resolution, and you can't view it at all unless you can prove that you
don't live in the Middle East).  No certificate for these conditions?
Sorry, no content.

They are based the same basic stuff (public key cryptography of course)
that *can* fuel wild anarchic visions of anonymous exchange.  ;)

But they aren't at all deterministic of any particular economic model.

Regards,

- Art

Art Hutchinson                                       hutchinson@ncri.com
Northeast Consulting Resources, Inc.     phone: (617) 654-0635
One Liberty Square                                 fax: (617) 654-0654
Boston, MA 02160                                 www.ncri.com
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-----------------
Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox
e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/
Ask me about FC98 in Anguilla!: <http://www.fc98.ai/>

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In <v0311073fb08806bd261a@[139.167.130.248]>, on 11/06/97 
   at 06:44 PM, Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com> said:

>--- begin forwarded text


>X-Sender: hutchinson@click.ncri.com
>Mime-Version: 1.0
>Date: Thu, 6 Nov 1997 14:52:30 -0500
>To: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
>From: hutchinson@ncri.com (Art Hutchinson)
>Subject: Re: Hughes Markets? (Was Re: Copyright commerce and the street
>musician protocol)
>Cc: dcsb@ai.mit.edu
>Sender: bounce-dcsb@ai.mit.edu
>Precedence: bulk
>Reply-To: hutchinson@ncri.com (Art Hutchinson)

>Robert Hettinga wrote:

>>A whole bunch of people are now talking about these cash-settled recursive
>>auction processes, and they're a direct, and now obvious, consequence of
>>bearer (or at least instant) settlement markets for information on geodesic
>>networks. When you add anonymity to the transaction, you pretty much have
>>the final straw for "rights" tracking. Watermarks just tell you who the
>>information was stolen from, for instance. So, one more industrial
>>information process bites the dust.

>Whoa!  Hang on here.  Sure, watermarks will tell you who information was
>stolen from, but they're just a stalking horse... a weak second cousin to
>*persistent* content control technologies (such as IBM's Cryptolopes and
>Intertrust's Digiboxes).  These allow rightsholders to manage a wide
>range of parameters (including price, usage context, and any other
>variable for which you can imagine having a certificate).  Whats
>fundamentally different about what are generically referred to as secure
>envelopes, is that they can maintain controls *indefinitely*
>(persistence), across an un-
>known, ad hoc, web of distribution over which one otherwise has no
>control.  And yes, this can all work even in a completely disconnected
>environment (laptop at 35,000 feet).

>They allow rightsholders, if they so choose, to *continue* being rights-
>holders in a highly networked, digital world, and in a wide range of new
>ways, based on entirely new (or old) business models, that take advantage
>of rich/elaborate conditions for usage (e.g. you can view this picture
>anonymously, but it will cost you 2X as much, and you can only get it at
>low resolution, and you can't view it at all unless you can prove that
>you don't live in the Middle East).  No certificate for these conditions?
>Sorry, no content.

>They are based the same basic stuff (public key cryptography of course)
>that *can* fuel wild anarchic visions of anonymous exchange.  ;)

>But they aren't at all deterministic of any particular economic model.

Well how exactly does one prevent data from being stolen once it has been
unlocked? I pay my 2X to view the picture anonymously and now I copy it
save it and distribute it worldwide. I fail to see how any
encryption/watermark scheme can prevent me from doing so.

- -- 
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William H. Geiger III  http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii
Geiger Consulting    Cooking With Warp 4.0

Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice
PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail.
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