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Mike Shaver Moves to Zero-Knowledge
Mike Shaver, who recently left the Netscape/AOL conglomerate, has apparently landed a job with Montreal-based Zero Knowledge. The press release has more details, but it appears that Zero Knowledge is privacy company which promises the ability to post, browse and all those good things anonyomously. Mike will be their Chief Software Officer, while continuing to work on Mozilla as time permits.
can be found here. The interesting part is this:
The Zero-Knowledge software works using three servers, located at leased sites in scattered locations worldwide. Client software encrypts Internet access requests and information using three layers of public-key encryption software. Each of the three servers only knows part of the information needed to identify a user and the contents of an Internet session. Even Zero-Knowledge itself doesn't know the identity of the owner of particular pseudonyms, so it can't divulge that information if subpoenaed.
Of course implementation is everything, but I'm all in favor of any step towards ubiquitous encryption and pervasive privacy.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Things like ZKS make me wonder about what we are striving for in terms of privacy. There is the "real" world and the digital world -- is one meant to be an analogue of the other? Obviously, we want privacy because we don't want the digital world to be worse than the real world in certain ways. For instance, if we didn't encrypt credit card data during transactions, the digital world would be broken compared to the real when it comes to purchasing. Similarly, I want to be able to secure documents that I send to someone so that they are at least as good as taking certain "security" measures in the real world (registered mail, envelopes that aren't transparent, etc).
There seems to be a distinction between the desire for online security (which seeks to emulate the security we can find in the real world) and the desire for online privacy (which seeks to surpass the real). There is no real-world equivalent to what ZKS proposes. If I walk down the street, people may not recognize me (unless they know me), but I clearly have an identity -- I can be distinguished from someone else on the street by a third-party observer, even though the observer may not be able to identify either of us. ZKS would allow me to walk down the street and appear identical to everyone else -- not just nameless, but faceless.
Obviously, a lack of privacy dehumanizes; but couldn't an overabundance dehumanize as well? I'm interested in where exactly we're going with all this.