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Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

philzimmermann.com

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Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#51

Post by dang »

forcry wrote: post #28
j0e1 wrote: post #10

> But while technology infrastructures can persist for generations, laws and policies can change overnight. Once a communications infrastructure optimized for surveillance becomes entrenched, a shift in political conditions may lead to abuse of this new-found power. Political conditions may shift with the election of a new government, or perhaps more abruptly from the bombing of a federal building. Prescient.

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Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#52

Post by b0rsuk »

j0e1 wrote: post #10

> But while technology infrastructures can persist for generations, laws and policies can change overnight. Once a communications infrastructure optimized for surveillance becomes entrenched, a shift in political conditions may lead to abuse of this new-found power. Political conditions may shift with the election of a new government, or perhaps more abruptly from the bombing of a federal building. Prescient.

The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities.

(Zbigniew Brzezinski, Between Two Ages, 1971)

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#55

Post by petters »

cinquemb wrote: post #46
dannyw wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin was born in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and the occupy wall street movement.[1] Events where, giant banks and institutions received trillions of dollars in unprecedented bail outs while 'main street' suffered with record unemployment, foreclosures, and destruction of small businesses. People rightfully realised that perhaps government should not have absolute and total control of the monetary…

> Unfortunately, today it's 90% people trying to get rich quick. And that is, unsurprisingly (and quite banally), used by many detractors to dismiss it all while handwaving away: > Bitcoin was born in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and the occupy wall street movement.[1] Events where, giant banks and institutions received trillions of dollars in unprecedented bail outs while 'main street' suffered with…

> And that is, unsurprisingly (and quite banally), used by many detractors to dismiss it all

There is a stronger argument against crypto: the main use case (outside speculation) seems to be illegal activities. If what you are doing is legal, why not use government currency? If what you are doing is illegal, crypto is great. A currency outside the control of the government (police) is almost by definition made for illegal activities.

In some countries, illegal activities are morally correct, though. Crypto helps here.

But crypto has enabled entirely new types of crimes that did not exist before: ransomware.

I have not completely for or against crypto. I am responding to your comment that people are dismissing because it seems like speculation only. I don't think that is true and that there are better reasons for dismissal?

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#56

Post by emilsedgh »

uncomputation wrote: post #27

There’s something… different about how people (techie people are most of my sample) would write before the 00’s. I’m not sure if it has to do with the medium, or the constraints of the time, but reading it always fills me with something I can best describe as peace/nostalgia. The belief that technology honestly can change the world for the better and that the most influential people driving it have good motives inste…

You are right. All the good movements in tech happened ~20 years ago. Free Software/Open Source, Wikipedia, etc, all date back to early days.

Now it's all about that SaaS money.I don't mind the money part, but sadly, tech has become a gold mine for predators who smell the money and are out for blood.

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#57

Post by jandrese »

XorNot wrote: post #45
jandrese wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, PGP's weakness is that the Web of Trust is an unworkable solution for the general population for key exchange. It works fine for a you and your circle of crypto nerds, but as a general solution it's impossible. IMHO this is a case where perfect was the enemy of good. Many possible solutions were rejected because there was a possibility that someone could MITM your first contact, even though in the real world this…

Web of Trust is a perfectly fine system but UI-wise a total disaster. There's also the reality that what most people need most of the time is a web of trust that includes government agencies, banks and other major institutions. For the vast majority of useful communications for users, your web of trust ideally goes You -> Government ID Agency fine - that's what people actually need. People get scammed or deceived by…

Having to physically meet people to exchange long hex strings was never going to scale.

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#58

Post by geocar »

warkdarrior wrote: post #23
toast0 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need a clipper chip to trace nuisance calls. You need an authenticated network that records the origin of calls, and hopefully passes that through when calls are forwarded and makes it simple and worthwhile to report nuisance calls and aggregates those reports and takes meaningful action against the origins. Anyway, we're getting shaken/stir or whatever RealSoonNow(TM), so we'll probably have better CallerI…

Would you want the same capability on the Internet? If not, what makes Internet communication different from POTS communication?

Yes.

Email has a "from" address that the SMTP protocol (the thing that often carries emails) that is separate from the IP address of the sending server, the exact same way "CALLER-ID" is a separate field from the billing address (called ANI, or Automatic Network Identification) in telephone networks.

Requiring that ANI match CALLER-ID would break many voicemail systems and call-forwarding systems. They can be fixed, but it will be expensive to do so.

Similarly, requiring the email "from" address agree with the SMTP server's responsibilities breaks mailing lists and email-forwarding, and again, this can be fixed, but it is proving expensive to do so.

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#59

Post by XorNot »

jandrese wrote: post #57
XorNot wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Web of Trust is a perfectly fine system but UI-wise a total disaster. There's also the reality that what most people need most of the time is a web of trust that includes government agencies, banks and other major institutions. For the vast majority of useful communications for users, your web of trust ideally goes You -> Government ID Agency fine - that's what people actually need. People get scammed or deceived by…

Having to physically meet people to exchange long hex strings was never going to scale.

No but that's the point: you do have to physically go to the DMV, or the bank, quite frequently. And for most people, the important point to point communications are interactions you want validated against those entities.

Re: Why I Wrote PGP (1999)

#60

Post by imiric »

TeeMassive wrote: post #50

Is there a good websites listing the ways being spied on can affect you personally? Would be great every time a "I don't care if the NSA watch my dick picks, bro" naive person bring this to my face again.

Not really a website, but this paper[1] breaks down and refutes the "I've got nothing to hide" argument quite well.

[1]: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565

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