-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 1:20 PM -0700 on 5/13/02, Morlock Elloi wrote:
>> Go after those who already _know_ they need untraceability. Go >> after niches where VALUE >> COST. Don't try to argue that the >> world needs to replace its multi-billion dollar infrastructure of > > The question is - are there enough of these to justify > development. Or maybe they all already have their private > cryptographers. And, thus, nobody will ever use the stuff. The market for criminal behavior is trivial. Puny. Nonexistent, and getting smaller all the time, no matter what political crises we face, or, paradoxically, how much our nation-states write more laws. If something's financially useful then it gets used. And I think strong financial cryptography protocols are financially useful, they reduce the risk adjusted transaction cost of moving money on the net, and thus the risk-adjusted transaction cost of money itself, since money's going to be increasingly moved around on the internet instead of closed proprietary networks that can't scale nearly as big as the net can. > Classic cypherpunk pipe dream is a dot-com syndrome - very low cost > software/devices - billions will use it - we'll (get rich & laid | > save the world). Wrong, Little Lord Morlock. The classic cypherpunk pipe dream is to smash the state and kill cops ;-) using strong crypto to free us all. Most of the people who ended up trying to make money on this stuff already left to go do it, or graduated from college or grad school and got day jobs. Except for the odd fool who keeps sticking around out of boredom or masochism... > The only other feature of untraceable money which may get larger > market attention - untaxability - is effectively preempted by > relatively low taxes. 40% cumulative tax rate is not enough reason, > for most well-off, to risk trusting scrambled bits on the wire. Right, though I'm sure you're wishing it wasn't. Again, crime, illegal markets if you will are piddly bits of pocket fluff in the global economy. $4 trillion worth of foreign exchange alone happened today. Criminal activity is in the tens of billions, max, a year. And, as you note, marginal tax rates are coming down everywhere, and all the countries which controlled business as a de facto criminal activity, except three or four totaling a non-material percentage of the world's total population, went out of business themselves a decade or more ago. Not counting academia, of course. ;-). > In other words, crypto already happened, all those who need it > already have it. Crypto is still happening. It will be the lifeblood of the world's commerce, and it will be *the* most important economic technology in less than a decade, if it doesn't happen sooner than that. I'll give you a hint, Lord Morlock: How do you expect to control property without laws? With cryptography. Financial cryptography. And why? Because it will be cheaper than doing it with lawyers and state monopolies on force. As Ronald Coase said in the 1920's and Hernando De Soto reasserts to this day, private property is the first cause of *any* economy, and financial cryptography will enable title to all kinds of property, any asset, information goods and services, manufactured goods, real estate, commodities, and of course, any financial instrument, to be traded, instantly, for ridiculously cheaper than the way we do it now. That's what people will call "cryptography" 50 years from now, not secret messages in pissant power squabbles between tyrants and their prototyrannical political opponents. > Maybe the current proliferation of "find out what your spouse does > online" spams will gradually create a need. Right. The Bastille's over there, Morelock. Have fun. Don't forget to wear your silly hat. Cheers, RAH -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 7.5 iQEVAwUBPOA9qMUCGwxmWcHhAQE9+Af+NEB0mU+Xswef64OyO2XdJleKaE8TEd3j DQGawcDNDBUQDA4FnXqEDs1/myWmrHpNnZ8441moNzKth1D/ylIglzavvCaUiuqG QL382WiEcy68gxf9Uk3eNJoZXYsyeHK9W2OZeqZsCQH6MocEXIWV9f+a0hS/lTWb UpsJVf1L37Z+uLVaJ0dvNGtLNggd3a8+itbwlpk7wRfmQ4yUXv6Bu06DVETOp4rW OLyNDxK4y1lAmTZ5iOFEvHCWQGxZXf+RlDpoPzD95THN8C8Z6Q9nS02OZLa5H3Pm Umwe3sGysgp+GXUty+hqS62jeIPqaZDl9NAvDckD7j80Qk2BjRRxxQ== =d7G5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
