From: blancw@pylon.com
Date: Sun, 28 Aug 94 00:07:25 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: The Trouble With Crypto
Message-ID: <199408280645.XAA22599@deepthought.pylon.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Responding to msg by nobody@ds1.wu-wien.ac.at:

1
>if [crypto] only 
>needs to be  used once in a while, there will be no 
>good reason to implement some  of the more interesting 
>protocols, or implement the "maximum strength"  
>possible. 
2
>For the overwhelming majority of 
>people, the  benefits of "digital cash" will not be 
>worth the time and trouble over  "digital cash with 
>anonimity removed". . .
3
>As for encrypting all email, much like people use 
>envelopes?  Be  honest, there isn't sufficient cause to 
>warrant the time and trouble. 
4
>Nor is there sufficient cause to warrant the time and 
>trouble of  signing messages sent to mailing lists or 
>usenet. . . .
5
>Nor is there sufficient cause to warrant the time and 
>trouble of  communicating via anonymous remailers, 
>except for say folks like  Pr0duct Cypher. 6
>Nor is there sufficient cause to warrant the time and 
>trouble for  banks and stores to offer digital cash.  
7
>As for dc-nets, give me a solid example why you ever 
>need to  communicate with one. 
8
 I see a limited deployment, and almost no  
>fundamental restructuring of society.
9
>. . . I suppose a  discussion about 
>atomic bombs will likely be of greater impact on our  
>future than crypto anarchy will.
10
>Cypherpunks write code, but if there is sufficient 
>cause to warrant  the time and trouble! 

 
...............................................................

You might be right, having accrued at least 10 reasons why the 
list discussions do not altogether convince of the importance 
of using encryption as a matter of course or for the 
re-structuring of society.

The choice to use crypto is a little different from the sense 
of wanting to use it from desperation; I think it is the 
difference between determining factors:  when it is the 
individual themselves who decide to employ the tool for 
whatever reason they have to either use it or not at their 
discretion, or when the circumstance seems to dictate for the 
person what they must do -   that they must go to desperate 
means to ensure privacy, from a perceived threat which demands 
that they hide their communication.

One of the important issues regarding the use of encryption is 
not necessarily whether it is used or not as a matter of 
course, but rather the controversy over the source of the 
permission to use it as well as the imposed obligation to 
participate in self-incriminating applications of it.  i.e. do 
individuals have the sovereign right to use tools which result 
in a division between public & private existence, or are they 
obligated to keeping their lives accessible to intervening 
governing agencies?  To me a cumbersome tool would require 
sufficient cause to use it.  However, I would appreciate its 
existence in case of emergency, if there was no better one 
available, and I would protest the idea that it was anyone 
else's prerogative to decide for me when it was an appropriate 
occasion to do so.

Is crypto only a toy with destructive implications for 
governments & societies, or a tool of subjugation with 
destructive implications for individuals?  If only cypherpunks 
or only government officionados made the decisions about it the 
answers would be easier to predict.  But they are not the only 
ones involved, and it is my understanding that not all future 
developments will be determined on this list. 

Blanc