6.7.1. "Why is cryptography good? Why is anonymity good?"
- These moral questions pop up on the List once in a while,
often asked by someone preparing to write a paper for a
class on ethics or whatnot. Most of us on the list probably
think the answers are clearly "yes," but many in the public
may not think so. The old dichotomy between "None of your
damned business" and "What have you got to hide?"
- "Is it good that people can write diaried unread by
others?" "Is it good that people can talk to each other
without law enforcement knowing what they're saying?" "Is
it good that people can lock their doors and hide from
outsiders?" These are all essentially equivalent to the
questions above.
- Anonymity may not be either good or not good, but the
_outlawing_ of anonymity would require a police state to
enforce, would impinge on basic ideas about private
transactions, and would foreclose many options that some
degree of anonymity makes possible.
- "People should not be anonymous" is a normative statement
that is impractical to enforce.
6.7.2. Speaking of the isolation from physical threats and pressures
that cyberspace provides, Eric Hughes writes: "One of the
whole points of anonymity and pseudonymity is to create
immunity from these threats, which are all based upon the
human body and its physical surroundings. What is the point
of a system of anonymity which can be pierced when something
"bad" happens? These systems do not reject the regime of
violence; rather, they merely mitigate it slightly further
and make their morality a bit more explicit.....I desire
systems which do not require violence for their existence and
stability. I desire anonymity as an ally to break the hold
of morality over culture." [Eric Hughes, 1994-08-31]
6.7.3. Crypto anarchy means prosperity for those who can grab it,
those competent enough to have something of value to offer
for sale; the clueless 95% will suffer, but that is only
just. With crypto anarchy we can painlessly, without
initiation of aggression, dispose of the nonproductive, the
halt and the lame. (Charity is always possible, but I suspect
even the liberal do-gooders will throw up their hands at the
prospect of a nation of mostly unskilled and essentially
illiterate and innumerate workers being unable to get
meaninful, well-paying jobs.)
6.7.4. Crypto gets more important as communication increases and as
computing gets distributed
+ with bits and pieces of one's environment scattered around
- have to worry about security
- others have to also protect their own products, and yet
still provide/sell access
- private spaces needed in disparate
locations...multinationals, teleconferencing, video
By Tim May, see README
HTML by Jonathan Rochkind