Attention Shoppers: Internet Is Open (1994) | Hacker News Reader

Attention Shoppers: Internet Is Open (1994)

nytimes.com

85 pointssjcsjc21 comments

Open articleView on HN

So where's the CEO of NetMarket, Daniel Kohn, now?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dankohn

* CTO of Spreemo, a healthcare marketplace

* previously the #2 person at the Linux Foundation

* dankohn1 on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dankohn1

Nice to see where pioneers end up.

Is there a problem? I am not sure if I am supposed to read between the lines.

Sometimes the space between the lines is just there so you can read the text.

""Even if the N.S.A. was listening in, they couldn't get his credit card number," said Daniel M. Kohn"

Oh boy.

"Mr. Kohn was referring to the National Security Agency, the arm of the Pentagon that develops and breaks the complex algorithms that are used to keep the most secret electronic secrets secret"

Funny how this needed explaining back then. The story was also accidentally right, the NSA was indeed breaking those "complex algorithms" already during development!

I found it funny how much of everything in this article needed explaining. Cryptography and NSA sure. But also the very concept of online retail, computer operating systems, the word "algorithm", a web browser, the web itself, etc., etc. So startling when so much of this is now so pervasive among regular people. Today's general public NYT readership might need some brief explanation of the finer points, but could be assumed to have some passing familiarity with all of it. Hell, that might have even been largely the case five years after this article.

Yeah, that comes off as extra naive today, although I'll point out that even Snowden didn't show that the NSA can crack PGP or properly-configured TLS (assuming we're only talking about on-the-wire eavesdropping and not a black bag job).

Also interesting was the mention of the Clipper key escrow debacle, and how this theme has recently popped up again.

"Experts have long seen such iron-clad security as a necessary first step before commercial transactions can become common on the Internet, the global computer network." - "Even if the N.S.A. was listening in, they couldn't get his credit card number"

Huh. Guess this necessity didn't really pan out. Yeah, need to at least feel somewhat secure giving a CC - but, with all the government snooping and massive data hacks that have going on, I wouldn't call it "Iron Clad". Yet will still shop on-line

That's because critical mass has been achieved so now you have little choice.

This part seems eerily prescient, doesn't it?

> "I think it's an important step in pioneering this work, but later on we'll probably see more exciting things in the way of digital cash," said Philip R. Zimmermann, a computer security consultant in Boulder, Colo., who created the PGP program.

> Digital cash, Mr. Zimmermann explained, is "a combination of cryptographic protocols that behave the way real dollars behave but are untraceable."

> In other words, they are packets of worth that have value in cyberspace, the same way dollars have value in the real world, except that they have the properties of anonymity, privacy and untraceability. Many details remain to be worked out, Mr. Zimmermann said.

Not really prescient. Cryptographic cash has been something that people have been talking about for a while, and there have even been startups trying to commercialize it. Chaum's ecash was invented in 1983, and he was in the process of trying to commercialize it when this was written (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecash).

Bitcoin is just the first cryptocurrency that has actually managed to take off, but it's been a problem that cryptographers, and in particular cypherpunks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypherpunk), have been working on for a while.

Basically, what's happened is that this stuff that was kind of fringe and crazy back in the day, but people who were into it were really sure was the future, has actually made a major impact on the world.

Without mixing, Bitcoin is neither untraceable nor anonymous.

Bitcoin without mixing is nice open ledger where everyone can follow transactions. Openness might be good or bad thing.

Bitcoin with mixing is subject to many laws against money laundering (anti-smurfing laws for example). Mixing is not new innovation that came with cryptocurrency.

Laws that compromise privacy are irrelevant.

Phil Zimmerman would have been well aware of attempts at the time to develop untracable digital cash, particularly by David Chaum, which date to 1981.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Chaum#Digital_cash

Although not referring specifically to the Internet Arthur C Clarke said in 2016 the megawatt hour will be the universal unit of exchange.

This article is so charming! I get the same feeling reading this as I do watching a puppy waddle around.

Hi, I'm the Dan Kohn from the article. I'm not quite sure what inspired the post (since we already passed the 20 year anniversary), but please AMA.

What would you do differently if you could go back and give yourself a clue from the future?

Wow. The difference in quality between the NYT 20 years ago and today is simply astonishing. It seems that this prescient article ironically also marked the beginning of the end for the New York Times.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com