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Clay Shirky: RIAA Succeeds Where Cypherpunks Fail
scubacuda writes "Clay Shirky has an interesting take on encryption: 'The RIAA is succeeding where the Cypherpunks failed, convincing users to trade a broad but penetrable privacy for unbreakable anonymity under their personal control. In contrast to the Cypherpunks "eat your peas" approach, touting encryption as a first-order service users should work to embrace, encryption is now becoming a background feature of collaborative workspaces. Because encryption is becoming something that must run in the background, there is now an incentive to make its adoption as easy and transparent to the user as possible. It's too early to say how widely casual encryption use will spread, but it isn't too early to see that the shift is both profound and irreversible.'"
...for some reason it's not listed (at least, I couldn't find it) on the front page of shirky.com yet:
m l.
http://www.shirky.com/writings/riaa_encryption.ht
The Army reading list
what eating peas has to do with encyprtion? I'm totally lost.
Shirky means that using encryption is good for you and that's the approach that proponents (Cypherpunks) have used, even though using encryption has historically been difficult and an unpleasant experience for the average user. Hence the "eat your peas" reference, similar to parents who try to get children to eat vegetables which they find distasteful (an unpleasant dining experience).
The RIAA isn't setting out to do this, it's happening as a result of peoples' fear of a RIAA lawsuit.
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The reference to RIAA is not about their use of encryption in the form of DRM. It's about how conflict with the RIAA has resulted in many mainstream non-nerd people using privacy-enhancing tools (and more broadly: gaining a pro-privacy mentality).
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Where does that claim come from? I'm pretty sure it's not true because more than 10% of encryption is PGP (not counting government crypto, anyway), and PGP isn't snake oil.
It's pretty easy to find snake oil, just read the Doghouse section of Bruce Schneier's monthly Crypto-Gram. But there are also a lot of good companies out there providing a lot of crypto solutions (although admittedly most of them actually license the technology from a small handful of good companies, like RSA and Certicom).
Encryption also does little when physical security can't be controlled
But the issue at hand, with regard to the RIAA and anonymity, is about network security. The RIAA finds it much easier to subpoena your ISP than to sneak into your house and steal your USB keys.
Good and ubiquitous crypto certainly isn't the end-all-and-be-all of security, as you point out, but it would indeed make for 'profound and irreversible' changes in the Internet, in the vulnerability landscape, and in the threat models of pretty much everyone on it.
Well said, but the RIAA is (IMO) way too fat in middle management to ever be able to give musicians the better terms we all instinctively know that they deserve. The answer (and yes, I'm both biased and financially self-interested -- but no, I don't speak for e-gold or anyone else but Jim Ray) is for musicians to "take-back the guitar-case" (the money is where the REAL control lies) and set up their own internet tipjars. It's been possible and easy for a few years, and finally they're going to learn to think in new ways about how to get paid by a planet-wide audience. They have had the technology for a while (since 1996 in some form or other).
Imagine a 'one-hit wonder' like Normal Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky," garnering 7 million or so direct tips for a quarter worth of gold (most tips would probably be more, if you actually liked the song enough to bother tipping the artist, and Norman's old "Spirit in the Sky" tune kinda rocks IMNSHO). I'm talking about more than a million dollars -- AFTER taxes. I have no idea what Norman's made from the song, but I doubt he did that well...
JMR
Speaking ONLY for Jim Ray.
Try e-gold - (contact me). I'm NOT e-
That's why I'm hoping that private, encrypted p2p systems like WASTE or Foldershare take off! I don't think either of those systems are quite ready for mass acceptance, but they certainly point in the right direction -- private, encrypted file sharing networks that anybody can use.