Re: Brin on Privacy

From: Jsn@cris.com
Date: Mon Dec 16 1996 - 18:52:04 MST


 
David Brin writes:

> Face it, this is inevitable! Try to picture a future society filled with
> mature, self-confident grownups with ambitions but nothing to hide. Who's
> gonna skulk around encrypting then? Silly paranoics, that's who.
 
Is it really so inevitable?
The absence of any and all forms of privacy (and I draw no distinction
between privacy and secrecy) is about as likely to happen as the
disappearance of window shades and opaque doors.

How likely are the majority of people to give up window shades?

I posit that the number is exceedingly small.

I posit also that the natural counter-argument to, "You don't need
encryption methods! No one is watching you, and no one cares!" is the
emminently logical, "If no one cares whether I am using encryption,
or what I am doing, then how do you _know_ that I am using encryption
routines? Clearly, you care, since clearly, you watched and attempted
interception."

Colour me cynical.

-- 
John S. Novak, III           jsn@cris.com
The Humblest Man on the Net


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