From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>
Date: Fri, 3 May 1996 19:46:07 +0800
To: tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)
Subject: Re: Sen. Patrick Leahy's PGP key now avail.
In-Reply-To: <adaea4ac18021004fc68@[205.199.118.202]>
Message-ID: <199605030223.WAA21946@jekyll.piermont.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Timothy C. May writes:
> Why does anyone need his public key to communicate with Senator Leahy? If
> it's for sender-anonymity, this does not do it, though other tools
> (remailers) do.
> 
> Unless the information is "secret," why bother?

I would answer Tim, but I suspect that he would ignore something I
might say. I will therefore quote Philip Zimmermann.

   Perhaps you think your E-mail is legitimate enough that encryption is
   unwarranted.  If you really are a law-abiding citizen with nothing to
   hide, then why don't you always send your paper mail on postcards? 
   Why not submit to drug testing on demand?  Why require a warrant for
   police searches of your house?  Are you trying to hide something? 
   You must be a subversive or a drug dealer if you hide your mail
   inside envelopes.  Or maybe a paranoid nut.  Do law-abiding citizens
   have any need to encrypt their E-mail?

   What if everyone believed that law-abiding citizens should use
   postcards for their mail?  If some brave soul tried to assert his
   privacy by using an envelope for his mail, it would draw suspicion. 
   Perhaps the authorities would open his mail to see what he's hiding. 
   Fortunately, we don't live in that kind of world, because everyone
   protects most of their mail with envelopes.  So no one draws suspicion
   by asserting their privacy with an envelope.  There's safety in
   numbers.  Analogously, it would be nice if everyone routinely used
   encryption for all their E-mail, innocent or not, so that no one drew
   suspicion by asserting their E-mail privacy with encryption.  Think
   of it as a form of solidarity.

Never thought I would see the day where Tim stopped being a
Cypherpunk. Everyone mark your calendars.

Perry