From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>
Date: Sun, 10 Nov 1996 11:39:42 -0800 (PST)
To: Mike Ingle <inglem@adnetsol.com>
Subject: Re: Black markets vs. cryptoanarchy
In-Reply-To: <199611100747.XAA00328@cryptical.adnetsol.com>
Message-ID: <199611101939.LAA13170@netcom4.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Mike Ingle:
>
>Cryptoanarchy will have arrived when you can openly _advertise_ these
>services and still stay in business indefinitely. Most of the things we
>talk about - even Jim Bell's assassination market - already exist, but
>they cannot be advertised. You have to go looking for them, at some
>risk to both buyer and seller. If the seller is visible enough for you
>to find him, he is visible enough to get caught.

actually "cryptoanarchy" has a lot of different definitions, and
as an exercise, during at least on cpunk meeting in SF there was
a roundtable discussion about what it meant to each person. the
definitions did vary widely. the most optimistic view of cryptoanarchy
would say that its early phases are already upon us in the crypto
inside browsers and the govt paranoia and posturing. other more
restrictive definitions would be similar to your own. 

another view would be that "cryptoanarchy" in the sense of people living
in a society where they evade govts have already existed. in my
view cryptoanarchy is a quite Machiavellian concept and I would
suggest that there are strong parallels. TCM,
originator of the term, is a bit mushy himself in his definitions
and refuses to be pinned down on many specifics. however he has
a pretty good paper out on the subject.

>Currently the techniques of anonymity are limited to two: indirection
>for source anonymity and broadcast for recipient anonymity. We are more
>or less where crypto was before the invention of public key. You can
>gain security by spreading risk among multiple parties (key
>distributors for crypto, or remailers for anonymity) but you can't 
>'make your own anonymity' like you can make your own security with 
>public key crypto.
>
>A theoretical discovery is needed particularly in the area of recipient
>anonymity. Good sender anonymity and weak recipient anonymity leads to
>'hit and run' behavior such as spamming email and newsgroups, but not
>to anonymous markets.

an encrypted reply block using remailers is pretty secure technology.
the remailers are not all that reliable however and these reply
blocks are always breaking; they depend on every link in the chain
working perfectly. I've proposed having an anonymous pool in which
remailers post status information when they successfully pass on
messages, such info could be used to make the remailers more reliable,
although possibly at the expense of having to buffer messages.

has anyone set up a remailer that accepts payment right in the message
itself? that would probably solve a lot of the economic problems, and
it seems that the technology, i.e. digicash, has evolved to the point
it would be possible to implement this. (note I am aware of c2's
web page anonymous sending feature, but as I understand it the digicash
payment here is not automated in the sense of being contained in the message).

with the ability to include a payment in the message itself, you could
pay "buffer services" that would be a layer of abstraction on top
of the current unreliable remailer network and have much greater
reliability.

it seems to me the main proponents of "cryptoanarchy" tend to suggest
a government structure is a completely useless construction. perhaps
so but they would end up erecting othre systems to deal with the
void they might not call "govt" but would have most of the features
of one, imho. something "govtlike" is a measure of a civilized society,
imho, hence my distaste in cryptoanarchy with its seeming naivete
on the legitimate and crucial role of govt in a society. the specifics
may vary between implementations, but imho in general something
"govtlike" is crucial to civilized society.