17.6.1. "What will be the effects of strong crypto, ultimately, on the social fabric?" - It's hard to know for sure. + These effects seem likely: - Starvation of government tax revenues, with concommitant effects on welfare, spending, etc. - increases in espioage - trust issues 17.6.2. The revelations of surveillance and monitoring of citizens and corporations will serve to increase the use of encryption, at first by people with something to hide, and then by others. Cypherpunks are already helping by spreading the word of these situations. - a snowballing effect - and various government agencies will themselves use encryption to protect their files and their privacy 17.6.3. People making individual moral choices - people will make their own choices as to what to reveal, what they think will help world peace, or the future, or the dolphins, or whatever - and this will be a liquid market, not just souls shouting in the desert - of course, not everything will be revealed, but the "mosaic effect" ensures that mostly the truth will emerge - every government's worst fear, that it's subjects will decide for themselves what is secret, what is not, what can be told to foreigners, etc.
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