[6645] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Stefan Brands, ZKS patents, and true anonymity
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Declan McCullagh)
Wed Feb 23 09:24:22 2000
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 05:53:33 -0800 (PST)
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
To: cryptography@c2.net, cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.10.10002230552061.6488-100000@well.com>
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http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,34496,00.html
A Patented Approach To Crypto
by Declan McCullagh <mailto:declan@wired.com>
3:00 a.m. 23.Feb.2000 PST
ANGUILLA, British West Indies -- Stefan Brands doesn't think of himself as
a privacy extremist, not exactly.
"I'm not going to claim that I've been a privacy fanatic from the start,"
he said.
But the once-obscure technology "minimal digital disclosure certificates"
he patented nearly a decade ago has the potential to erect a new form of
electronic shield that protects personal information from both government
surveillance and corporate data collection.
Brands, a 32-year-old wunderkind who recently sold
<http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,34477,00.html> Zero Knowledge
Systems an exclusive license to his patents, was once an impoverished grad
student in Utrecht, the Netherlands -- interested in encryption solely
because of the field's unusual math problems.
Not anymore. Brands said he's spent the last few years weighing the social
implications of technology -- and concluded that encryption, digital cash,
and identity certificates are going to change the world. He envisions a
future where "Brandian" digital IDs replace mundane technology like dollar
bills, lottery tickets, cinema tickets, and government-issued
identification cards.
"I'm not interested in just the math anymore -- I decided I don't want to
be doing academics just for the sake of writing papers," he said.
He and ZKS chief scientist Ian Goldberg are only half joking when they say
in practiced unison: "Our goal is total world domination."
[...]
Another concern is that ZKS appears to have no intention to enable the
most powerful -- and controversial -- technology that Brands' patents
cover: one that lets banks mint and customers spend truly anonymous
digital cash.
That prospect of unfettered technology alarms governments, which uniformly
worry it could permit people to buy and sell products in ways that avoid
taxation, as well as allowing criminals to evade detection.
Which may be why Brands' presentation here this week at the Financial
Cryptography '00 <http://fc00.ai/> conference raised eyebrows when he
addressed law enforcement's access to digital certificate information.
"Major banks have commented.... They think this is unacceptable. Total
anonymity is way too much," Brands said. "I personally would recommend
that it be [disabled]."
[...]
