🚀 go-pugleaf

strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight) writes:
>
>Karl Denninger asserts that registration is a prelude to confiscation.
>
>In most of the world cars have been registered for many years, yet no
>democratic government has used that as a way to confiscate cars
>(except for those used in law violations).

On the other hand, cars are not dangerous to the state and encryption
keys are.

In the early 1970s, all rifles in New York City were registered. At
the time the law was passed, we were assured that the lists would
never be used to seize weapons.

After the assault weapon ban was passed last year in New York, the
lists were of course used in precisely that way.

Similarly, population registry systems in Holland created before the
Germans invaded were used in World War II to track down Jews to find
them and take them to extermination camps.

It is not unreasonable to believe that government registration lists
of private keys might not be used to determine who is and who is not
using encryption systems and to selectively monitor one of those
groups, especially in the case where cryptography was later banned
entirely. Government, in spite of its protests to the contrary, has a
very poor record when it comes to collecting information that could be
abused. We find that the later abuse of such information has not
merely occured but has occured quite commonly.

--
Perry Metzger		pmetzger@shearson.com
--
"They can have my RSA key when they pry it from my cold dead fingers."
Libertarian Party info: Phone 1-800-682-1776, E-Mail 345-5647@mcimail.com