From: "James M. Cobb" <jcobb@ahcbsd1.ovnet.com>
Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 07:37:15 +0800
To: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>
Subject: Re: No Privacy Right in UK ?
In-Reply-To: <199511172025.PAA13462@jekyll.piermont.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.BSD.3.91.951117174809.9898L-100000@ahcbsd1.ovnet.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


   
 
Perry, 
 
 
Thanks for your inquiry.  The post "No Privacy Right in UK ?" 
is closely related to cryptography in at least three ways. 
 
 
                           (1) 
 
Cryptography is a means to accomplish an end: privacy. That's 
why the epigraph 
 
         Cypherpunks assume privacy is a good thing
             and wish there were more of it 
 
heads up the post, "No Privacy Right in UK ?" 
 
 
                           (2) 
 
Farther, the case discussed in the post was a prosaic example 
of invasion of privacy by deception.  That the case is ordinary, 
and therefore liable to be lost sight of, makes it all the more 
significant that the largest London daily publicized it; and did 
so in a sympathetic manner.  That helps us here in the United 
States to propagate the importance of the right to privacy.  Cy- 
pherpunks --poetic defenders of privacy (see the epigraph)-- can 
reciprocate the favor by bringing it to people's attention. 
   
Cryptography is not the only means of reversing deceptive inva- 
sions of privacy.  But it is peculiarly suitable for reversing 
some such invasions because it uses deception to ensure, rather 
than invade, privacy.  Thus it can provide a model for the so- 
called prosaic cases: the sting.  For the sting also is designed 
to deceive deceivers, criminal or otherwise.  Privacy is, in part, 
protection from victimization. 
 
 
                           (3) 
 
Further, Clinton attended an elite university in the UK.  Can you 
imagine what notions he may have found attractive there?  Notions 
that can be "encoded" to make them attractive to us here in the 
States; then, if we buy into them, can be "decoded" and...applied! 
 
 
Cordially, 
 
Jim 
 
 
 
INCLOSURE: 
 
On Fri, 17 Nov 1995, Perry E. Metzger wrote:

 
 Could you please explain what this has to do with cryptography?
 
 "James M. Cobb" writes:
  
  11 16 95 The Electronic Telegraph runs a newsstory headed 
  
    Doorstep polish researcher was whiplash injuries spy