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Cyphernomicon 4.9

Goals and Ideology -- Privacy, Freedom, New Approaches:
Education Issues


    4.9.1. "How can we get more people to use crypto?"
           - telling them about the themes of Cypherpunks
           - surveillance, wiretapping, Digital Telephony, Clipper, NSA,
              FinCEN, etc....these things tend to scare a lot of folks
           - making PGP easier to use, better integration with mailers,
              etc.
           - (To be frank, convincing others to protect themselves is
              not one of my highest priorities.  Then why have I written
              this megabyte-plus FAQ? Good question. Getting more users
              is a general win, for obvious reasons.)
    4.9.2. "Who needs to encrypt?"
           + Corporations
             - competitors...fax transmissions
             + foreign governments
               - Chobetsu, GCHQ, SDECE, Mossad, KGB
             + their own government
               - NSA intercepts of plans, investments
           + Activist Groups
             - Aryan Nation needs to encrypt, as FBI has announced their
                intent to infiltrate and subvert this group
             - RU-486 networks
             - Amnesty International
           + Terrorists and Drug Dealers
             - clearly are clueless at times (Pablo Escobar using a
                cellphone!)
             - Triads, Russian Mafia, many are becoming crypto-literate
             - (I've been appoached-'nuff said)
           + Doctors, lawyers, psychiatrists, etc.
             - to preserve records against theft, snooping, casual
                examination, etc.
             - in many cases, a legal obligation has been attached to
                this  (notably, medical records)
             - the curious situation that many people are essentially
                _required_ to encrypt (no other way to ensure standards
                are met) and yet various laws exists to limit
                encryption...ITAR, Clipper, EES
             - (Clipper is a partial answer, if unsatisfactory)
    4.9.3. "When should crypto be used?"
           - It's an economic matter. Each person has to decide when to
              use it, and how. Me, I dislike having to download messages
              to my home machine before I can read them. Others use it
              routinely.
 

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