[FYI] Ross Anderson: Confidentially yours

["Axel H Horns" <horns@t-online.de>]

http://www.newscientist.com/ns/19991106/confidenti.html

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Confidentially yours 

Everyone's doing it. Banks, shops, governments, even the British 
Civil Service--they're all trying to put services online. 
Unfortunately, e-commerce and e-government are nothing without e-
trust. How will you know who you're really dealing with when you buy 
that holiday or fill in that form online? At Cambridge University, 
Ross Anderson and his team are trying to create the ultimate 
instruments of online confidence in the shape of software tools that 
encrypt information so strongly it can be read only by people who 
hold the right decoding keys. But, as Anderson tells Ehsan Masood, 
we'll only get the e-world we want if governments regulate encryption 
wisely  


You say you are not a typical cyberlibertarian. How do you define 
this term? And why don't you see yourself as one?  

Cyberlibertarians tend to see the Internet as leading to the 
abolition of governments. Their idea is that given the advent of 
anonymous e-mail, digital cash and so on, the state will no longer be 
able to support itself by raising revenue through taxation. I don't 
think this is likely or desirable. Think what England was like when 
the government didn't really exist: anyone with any wealth or 
property had to design their house to withstand infantry-strength 
assault. That's not efficient. National governments and policemen 
will survive the electronic revolution because of the efficiencies  
they create. 

[...]

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