17.6.1. "What will be the effects of strong crypto, ultimately, on
the social fabric?"
- It's hard to know for sure.
+ These effects seem likely:
- Starvation of government tax revenues, with concommitant
effects on welfare, spending, etc.
- increases in espioage
- trust issues
17.6.2. The revelations of surveillance and monitoring of citizens
and corporations will serve to increase the use of
encryption, at first by people with something to hide, and
then by others. Cypherpunks are already helping by spreading
the word of these situations.
- a snowballing effect
- and various government agencies will themselves use
encryption to protect their files and their privacy
17.6.3. People making individual moral choices
- people will make their own choices as to what to reveal,
what they think will help world peace, or the future, or
the dolphins, or whatever
- and this will be a liquid market, not just souls shouting
in the desert
- of course, not everything will be revealed, but the "mosaic
effect" ensures that mostly the truth will emerge
- every government's worst fear, that it's subjects will
decide for themselves what is secret, what is not, what can
be told to foreigners, etc.
By Tim May, see README
HTML by Jonathan Rochkind