[Cryptography] A possible alternative to TOR and PrivaTegrity without backdoors

Henry Baker hbaker1 at pipeline.com
Mon Jan 11 13:26:00 EST 2016


At 06:38 AM 1/10/2016, Bill Cox wrote:
>This is an old idea, but perhaps now there might be more reason to consider it.  I currently call this idea Alias.  Here's my dumb data-dump on it.  Thoughts?
>...
>Conclusion: Alias seems to perform better at determine somewhat evil behaviors.

Determining 'evil behavior' is undecidable.  Therefore all such "Golden Key" solutions are doomed.  Politicians had better get over it.

The Trolley Problem is old enough that it was considered an ethical problem *for the human operator*.  Nowadays, people are expecting the Trolley itself to solve the ethical problem (or the self-driving car, or the "smart" gun, or the "smart" phone, or the "smart" crypto protocol).  Obama's mythical "smart gun" epitomizes this god-like wishful thinking; a "smart gun" in the hands of police will eliminate all unnecessary (in the cold light of Monday morning, of course) police shootings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem

Following Godwin's Law, I should point out that the Nazis felt that they had finally achieved an ethical solution to a problem that had vexed the international intelligentsia for generations.  The eugenics movement (including those in the U.S.) went all quiet after the embarrassment of WWII, wherein the Nazis had simply followed through on the eugenicists' wet dreams with cold precision.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States

I daresay it would not have been difficult to satisfy Chaum's criteria prior & during WWII in the furtherance of various war crimes.

The whole point of the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth Amendments is to constrain govts *when it's difficult*.  No one needs Constitutional protections when it's easy!



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