DO NOT FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO ANY OTHER LISTS. I AM GETTING TIRED OF
SEEING CYPHERPUNKS JUST BE THE DUMPING GROUND FOR STUFF FROM OTHER
LISTS.
In almost all foreseeable cases, a system which allows identity escrow
_cost more_ than a system which does not. This is analogous to the
increased costs of a identity-based money system over an
immediate-clearing, non-identity-based system.
As an example, consider the network of CP or Mixmaster sorts of
remailers. To package a payload through N remailers is a relatively
easy thing for a a sender to do. But to arrange for propagation of
"escrowed identity" at each (or most) of these N remailer nodes is
costly.
Any of these N remailers, in K different countries/jurisdictions, may
use the "legal warrant" access method to open the identity escrow. For
example, Finland in the Scientology/NOTS case...Finland surely would
have used their "legal warrant" method had such an option existed.
This is part of a larger issue, a philosophical one, about who controls
"legal warrants." The Jew can be killed by using legal warrants, in
Third Reich Germany. The libertarian in Soviet Russia. The pornographer
in Canada. And nearly anyone who deviates from the official line in
these beknighted states of america: smut peddlers, drug legalization
advocates, supporters of Russia vs. Chechnya prior to 9/11, supporters
of Chechnya vs. Russia after 9/11, liberators of Diebold documents
showing the weakness of their voting machines, and so on and on. See my
1995-6 list of our enemies (Catholics, Whigs, Mormons, Communists...)
for a very long list of those for whom "identity escrow" would have
meant death or imprisonment in these beknighted states.
Back to the cost issue. Prof. Lessig argues that voluntary identity
escrow systems should be "encouraged." How/ Through nattering to people
about how they ought to use a more expensive, less flexible system
which exposes them to possible danger and which costs them more to use
than the stronger alternative?
Ha!
Or "encouraged" in the sense of using state power to make stronger
systems illegal or artificially taxed at higher rates?
Why doesn't the U.S.G. just set up a "Big Brother Remailer" with the
kind of identity escrow proposed?
Let's then see how many freedom fighters working for the overthrow of
the U.S. government use it. Let's see how many critics of the Church of
Scientology, threatened with lawsuits and "legal warrants," use it.
Let's see how much child porn gets traded on it.
--Tim May
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