jerry berman on pseudonymous privacy hello all i thought you all might like to see this it s a letter from jerry berman to david chaum from november of in response to information that mr chaum sent to mr berman while i have to congratulate eff for its prompt response to the clipper chip announcement from the white house i think it s important to recognize the philosophy of their executive director as explained below i agree that legal remedies are important but when pressed i d prefer to retain the ability to use purely technical solutions to preserve my privacy because they ll hold up under fire mr chaum has consented to the publication of this letter on the net i don t work for nor am i a member of eff aclu or any similar organizations but i do agree with them on a great many things aristophanes american civil liberties union washington office maryland avenue ne november washington dc national headquarters mr david chaum west rd street centre for mathematics and computer science new york ny p o box o ab amsterdam norman dorsen president dear mr chaum ira glasser executive director eleanor holmes norton chair national advisory council thank you for sending me a most interesting article a society of individuals and organizations that would expend the time and resources to use a series of digital pseudonyms to avoid data linkage does not in my opinion make big brother obsolete but acts on the assumption that big brother is ever present i view your system as a form of societal paranoia as a matter of principle we are working to enact formal legal protections for individual privacy rather than relying on technical solutions we want to assume a society of law which respects legal limits rather than a society that will disobey the law requiring citizens to depend on technical solutions e g require a judical warrant for government interception of data communications rather than encrypt all messages on the assumption that regardless of the lawt the government will abuse its power and invade privacy as a matter of practicality i do not think your system offers much hope for privacy first the trend toward universal identifiers is as much a movement generated by government or industry s desire to keep track of all citizens as it is by citizens seeking simplicity and convenience in all transactions at best your system would benefit the sophisticated and most would opt for simplicity the poor and the undereducated would never use or benefit from it finally where there s a will there s a way if government wants to link data bases it will by law require the disclosure of various individual pseudonyms used by citizens or prohibit it for data bases which the government wants to link since corporations make money by trading commercial lists with one another they will never adopt the system or if it is adopted will use fine printn contracts to permit selling various codes used by their customers to other firms the solution remains law policy and consensus about limits on government or corporate intrusion into areas of individual autonomy technique can be used to enforce that consensus or to override it it cannot be used as a substitute for such consensus sincerely yours sig jerry j berman chief legislative counsel direrector aclu privacy technology project cc john shattuck
