Re: Brin on Privacy

Mark Grant (mark@unicorn.com)
Thu, 19 Dec 1996 22:14:33 +0000


On Thu, 19 Dec 1996, Eugene Leitl wrote:

> This is the reason why PGP advocates suggest to encrypt the entire email
> traffic (I would even suggest making some speedy, unsafe encryption (e.g.
> XORing plain with CAM-generated pseudorandom stream) a part of TCP/IP
> protocol suite):

You don't need to -- the new IPv6 standard includes packet-level
encryption for all data passing over a link, and I think that DES is the
*least* secure encryption algorithm included in the standard. At this
point the main things preventing most Internet traffic being encrypted are
patents and export laws. There's already an alpha-release for Linux, some
early versions of routers, and if encrypted IPv6 appears in Windows the
amount of encrypted traffic will increase a million-fold almost overnight.

> Imo, cryptography is here to stay, as is privacy.

Seriously, unless the US government ban encryption in the next couple of
years it's going to be so ubiquitous that they'll never be able to control
it. Of course encryption != privacy, but one definitely supports the
other.

Incidentally this thread fits in with a discussion I had with Steve Mann
(http://wearcam.org), one of my net.acquaintances from the technomads
list, when I visited MIT a few weeks ago -- he actually supports both
sides in some respects. He's so upset about public surveillance that he's
built several wearable video cameras (in sunglasses or T-shirts) which he
can carry around and which broadcast direct to the Internet. He takes
great pleasure in surveilling the surveillers, who get distinctly upset
when they know that anyone on the Web can see what they're doing. I did
suggest that he wrote an article for Extropy about his gear and
experiences, but I'd rather see all the cameras eliminated.

Could I suggest that all the pro-surveillance people on the list go out
and set up WebCams around their houses? It doesn't cost that much these
days, and would go a long way to convince people that your arguments are
serious. I mean, what do you have to hide?

Mark

"[Hollywood's] way is so slow and expensive that you'll find yourself
falling asleep on the set and forgetting to say 'action'."
- Robert Rodriguez, 'The Ten Minute Film School'

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