[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> the architecture of survival

[Drazen Pantic <drazen@location1.org>]

> Thanks for this clarification! A question about the importance. What was
> your experience, did people feel much safer when using encryption? Do you
> think they would have communicated differently without it?


That is an interesting question. My impression is that
people did feel much more safer, and had the basic trust
that their messages would not be intercepted and stored in
some database for further use. Back in '97-99 no one had the
clear picture of how Serbian regime will use information it
was obviously gathering. I have written some about it on
nettime, especially about their attempts to implant a
"sleeper" into OpenNet. What, up to my knowledge, did not
happen. 

Either way, the surveillance was there and people did feel
the need to protect themselves, one way or another. Use of
encryption was one of the ways to make it more difficult for
the government to collect information and evidence about
traitors and mercenaries...How much that feeling of being
protected did eliminate self-censorship I do not know, but I
think it was not entirely without effect.

Finally, this technique of seamless encryption led to an
interesting technique. Namely, last mile traffic from home
computer to OpenNet dial-up server was clearly
unencrypted. So, some people used to dial-in from different
locations or send email using public Web access places. That
proved to be successful (whatever the success might be),
so that technique of constant move was much used later in
'99 and later...

D


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