From: Black Unicorn <unicorn@polaris.mindport.net>
Date: Wed, 13 Sep 95 17:30:55 PDT
To: Dar Scott <dsc@swcp.com>
Subject: Re: cryptography eliminates lawyers?
In-Reply-To: <v01510101ac7d199d2ae0@[198.59.115.138]>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950913200706.7390D-100000@polaris.mindport.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain




On Wed, 13 Sep 1995, Dar Scott wrote:

> Black Unicorn wrote,
> >But won't clients insist on proper credentials in one form or another?
> 
>      Yes.
> 
> >Doesn't the practicality and accountability of a centralized authority
> >(or several authorities) provide the best answer to this?
> 
>      No.
> 
> >Who is going
> >to accept my signature promising that I did indeed get a law degree and
> >pass the bar?
> 
>      Very few.
> 
>      Certification can be from multiple private and
>      government organizations and might vary depending
>      on the type of legal service (or other lawyer service)
>      needed.

Didn't I just say this above?

A centralized, or several centralized authorities.

I guess the center of my question is, how can you apply Web of Trust to 
e.g. a university degree.  Who cares what Bob and Alice think my degree 
is in, the client only wants to know from the institution.

  Licensing can only be done by an
>      entity that can use physical force to prevent
>      buying and selling legal services.

I believe you are incorrect, but I guess my main concern is your 
characterization of "Physical force."  I am assuming you mean coercion, 
and not that you will be jailed or such (though this may be the case).

I would argue that as long as coercion exists (violence of any type, 
physical or not) you have a licensing authority.  Take the hollywood 
blacklist.  No one actually pushed around suspected pinko screenwriters 
(well, at least, if anyone did, it was incendential) but they certainly 
faced a great deal of persuasive motivation.  Look at the committee as 
the licensing authority here.  (Licensing you as a non-communist as it were).

If several governmental and private authorities were in the practice of 
certifing that Bob has a law degree from Tremont University, and that he 
is competent to practice in D.C., and given that the citizens of D.C. 
will look for these credentials, isn't this a license?  Afterall, Bob has 
to pass some test or requirement to get the signatures.  Isn't this 
coercion in your definition?  Can't the multiple authorities set common 
or near common guidelines?  Rather, don't they HAVE to in order to have 
their signatures worth the electrons they are transmitted with?

If you take the exteme position you seem to, there's an antitrust case here.

Am I not "licensing" my key signature to people provided they pass my key 
signature criteria?  Am I not doing violence by withholding my signature 
and the benefits it might convey for certain "terms?"

In this definition, all trusted authorities are by definition licensing.  

Either their signature is worth nothing, and thus they are not coercive by 
witholding it, or it is worth something, and thus to be non-coercive they 
must give it to anyone who asks, rendering their signatures worthless.

This is the trap of the licensing argument.

The evil is not licensing, which I think serves a real purpose, but 
created convenience fees, taxation through the withholding of licensing 
and the use of other government largess.   I wrote a massive piece on this 
and sent it to the list about a year and a half ago.  With interest I will 
repost it.

The real question is how you decide what an authority to license is.  Is 
it to be dictated by government?  Or by market forces (i.e. the 
reputation of the licenser).


> 
> >I don't see how the net will eliminate the basic need for highly
> >qualified professionals and the proof that they have credentials.
> 
>      It won't.  The needs might shift a little but they
>      will be there.

Then why will lawyers, or a 'professional monopoly' be broken?

> >Perhaps diplomas and such will be transfered into digital signatures for
> >the institutions, but I can't see how this "cracks" any "monopoly."
> >Perhaps the monopoly is shifted to those who have diplomas, rather than
> >those "licensed to practice" but so what?
> 
>      It might "crack" government enforced monopoly.

Now you are getting more specific.

>      Should a market monopoly survive some form of
>      crypto-anarchy it would be in the form of a
>      certification entity that does such a good and
>      efficient job that it is very hard to break
>      into the business.

Agreed.  Again, what does this do to lawyers?  See my above comments on 
what constitutes a license.

>      Not so bad if it happens,
>      but much more honest, efficient and softer-edged
>      than "licensed to practice".

I'm not so sure.  There will be a tremendous amount of corporate power in 
these authorities, and if (as you seem to be saying a few paragraphs up) it 
is hard to break into the trusted certification business, there is a 
monopoly again.

>      I suspect that
>      people have needs for varying levels and varying
>      specializations so that several kinds of
>      certifications may develop and might be supplied
>      by multiple entities.

Like the several state Bars?

Hint: An attorney licensed in Deleware has a much different speciality 
likely than one licensed in Alabama.

>      I suspect that many people would want a
>      certification that a lawyer meets the usual
>      licensing requirements of the outside world.
>      Who knows, maybe that would be the most popular kind.
>      But it won't be the only kind.

So you have estentially admitted that a central authority is required?  
Or will be more often used?

So is this a license or what?  Looks like one to me.

If your defintion of license is simply who does the coercing, I think you 
should reconsider.

> Dar
> 
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