What we don't want is soft surveillance, a foggy sense of being tracked and monitored, the shock of confronting an earlier instantiation of ourselves in a compromising situation. As the research results in the Communications of the ACM suggest, these goals are mutually achievable. They take a commitment on the part of software companies to create the technology, of Internet servers to install it, of governments to punish infractions, and of the general public not to be hornswoggled. Yes, I know the goals raise problems. The field of computer security is a continuous wresting match.
New leaks pop up in communication pipes as old ones are patched.
There are people who exploit anonymity to organize illegal and dangerous activities. Yet the negative results of these activities usually take place in the real world, through crimes and transactions of physical products, and can be caught there. I think the most serious misuse of electronic networks will turn out not to involve drugs, pornography, or weapons of mass destruction. It will involve money-laundering and other illicit transfers of funds to avoid taxation or the discovery of illegality. These reprobate activities will always be hard to prosecute, because they are so lucrative that they are accompanied almost automatically by sophisticated evasive techniques and corruption.