Dr Washington Sanchez
parent
8ef39d4bd4
commit
f18279c7f2
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,604 @@
|
|||
4. Goals and Ideology -- Privacy, Freedom, New Approaches
|
||||
|
||||
4.1. copyright
|
||||
THE CYPHERNOMICON: Cypherpunks FAQ and More, Version 0.666,
|
||||
1994-09-10, Copyright Timothy C. May. All rights reserved.
|
||||
See the detailed disclaimer. Use short sections under "fair
|
||||
use" provisions, with appropriate credit, but don't put your
|
||||
name on my words.
|
||||
|
||||
4.2. SUMMARY: Goals and Ideology -- Privacy, Freedom, New Approaches
|
||||
4.2.1. Main Points
|
||||
4.2.2. Connections to Other Sections
|
||||
- Crypto Anarchy is the logical outgrowth of strong crypto.
|
||||
4.2.3. Where to Find Additional Information
|
||||
- Vernor Vinge's "True Names"
|
||||
- David Friedman's "Machinery of Freedom"
|
||||
4.2.4. Miscellaneous Comments
|
||||
- Most of the list members are libertarians, or leaning in
|
||||
that direction, so the bias toward this is apparent.
|
||||
- (If there's a coherent _non_-libertarian ideology, that's
|
||||
also consistent with supporting strong crypto, I'm not sure
|
||||
it's been presented.)
|
||||
|
||||
4.3. Why a Statement of Ideology?
|
||||
4.3.1. This is perhaps a controversial area. So why include it? The
|
||||
main reason is to provide some grounding for the later
|
||||
comments on many issues.
|
||||
4.3.2. People should not expect a uniform ideology on this list.
|
||||
Some of us are anarcho-capitalist radicals (or "crypto
|
||||
anarchists"), others of us are staid Republicans, and still
|
||||
others are Wobblies and other assored leftists.
|
||||
|
||||
4.4. "Welcome to Cypherpunks"
|
||||
4.4.1. This is the message each new subscriber to the Cypherpunks
|
||||
lists gets, by Eric Hughes:
|
||||
4.4.2. "Cypherpunks assume privacy is a good thing and wish there
|
||||
were more of it. Cypherpunks acknowledge that those who want
|
||||
privacy must create it for themselves and not expect
|
||||
governments, corporations, or other large, faceless
|
||||
organizations to grant them privacy out of beneficence.
|
||||
Cypherpunks know that people have been creating their own
|
||||
privacy for centuries with whispers, envelopes, closed doors,
|
||||
and couriers. Cypherpunks do not seek to prevent other
|
||||
people from speaking about their experiences or their
|
||||
opinions.
|
||||
|
||||
"The most important means to the defense of privacy is
|
||||
encryption. To encrypt is to indicate the desire for privacy.
|
||||
But to encrypt with weak cryptography is to indicate not too
|
||||
much desire for privacy. Cypherpunks hope that all people
|
||||
desiring privacy will learn how best to defend it.
|
||||
|
||||
"Cypherpunks are therefore devoted to cryptography.
|
||||
Cypherpunks wish to learn about it, to teach it, to implement
|
||||
it, and to make more of it. Cypherpunks know that
|
||||
cryptographic protocols make social structures. Cypherpunks
|
||||
know how to attack a system and how to defend it.
|
||||
Cypherpunks know just how hard it is to make good
|
||||
cryptosystems.
|
||||
|
||||
"Cypherpunks love to practice. They love to play with public
|
||||
key cryptography. They love to play with anonymous and
|
||||
pseudonymous mail forwarding and delivery. They love to play
|
||||
with DC-nets. They love to play with secure communications
|
||||
of all kinds.
|
||||
|
||||
"Cypherpunks write code. They know that someone has to write
|
||||
code to defend privacy, and since it's their privacy, they're
|
||||
going to write it. Cypherpunks publish their code so that
|
||||
their fellow cypherpunks may practice and play with it.
|
||||
Cypherpunks realize that security is not built in a day and
|
||||
are patient with incremental progress.
|
||||
|
||||
"Cypherpunks don't care if you don't like the software they
|
||||
write. Cypherpunks know that software can't be destroyed.
|
||||
Cypherpunks know that a widely dispersed system can't be shut
|
||||
down.
|
||||
|
||||
"Cypherpunks will make the networks safe for privacy." [Eric
|
||||
Hughes, 1993-07-21 version]
|
||||
|
||||
4.5. "Cypherpunks Write Code"
|
||||
4.5.1. "Cypherpunks write code" is almost our mantra.
|
||||
4.5.2. This has come to be a defining statement. Eric Hughes used it
|
||||
to mean that Cypherpunks place more importance in actually
|
||||
changing things, in actually getting working code out, than
|
||||
in merely talking about how things "ought" to be.
|
||||
- Eric Hughes statement needed here:
|
||||
- Karl Kleinpaste, author of one of the early anonymous
|
||||
posting services (Charcoal) said this about some proposal
|
||||
made: "If you've got serious plans for how to implement
|
||||
such a thing, please implement it at least skeletally and
|
||||
deploy it. Proof by example, watching such a system in
|
||||
action, is far better than pontification about it."
|
||||
[Karl_Kleinpaste@cs.cmu.edu, news.admin.policy, 1994-06-30]
|
||||
4.5.3. "The admonition, "Cypherpunks write code," should be taken
|
||||
metaphorically. I think "to write code" means to take
|
||||
unilateral effective action as an individual. That may mean
|
||||
writing actual code, but it could also mean dumpster diving
|
||||
at Mycrotronx and anonymously releasing the recovered
|
||||
information. It could also mean creating an offshore digital
|
||||
bank. Don't get too literal on us here. What is important
|
||||
is that Cypherpunks take personal responsibility for
|
||||
empowering themselves against threats to privacy." [Sandy
|
||||
Sandfort, 1994-07-08]
|
||||
4.5.4. A Cypherpunks outlook: taking the abstractions of academic
|
||||
conferences and making them concrete
|
||||
- One thing Eric Hughes and I discussed at length (for 3 days
|
||||
of nearly nonstop talk, in May, 1992) was the glacial rate
|
||||
of progress in converting the cryptographic primitive
|
||||
operations of the academic crypto conferences into actual,
|
||||
workable code. The basic RSA algorithm was by then barely
|
||||
available, more than 15 years after invention. (This was
|
||||
before PGP 2.0, and PGP 1.0 was barely available and was
|
||||
disappointing, with RSA Data Security's various products in
|
||||
limited niches.) All the neat stuff on digital cash, DC-
|
||||
Nets, bit commitment, olivioius transfer, digital mixes,
|
||||
and so on, was completely absent, in terms of avialable
|
||||
code or "crypto ICs" (to borrow Brad Cox's phrase). If it
|
||||
took 10-15 years for RSA to really appear in the real
|
||||
world, how long would it take some of the exciting stuff to
|
||||
get out?
|
||||
- We thought it would be a neat idea to find ways to reify
|
||||
these things, to get actual running code. As it happened,
|
||||
PGP 2.0 appeared the week of our very first meeting, and
|
||||
both the Kleinpaste/Julf and Cypherpunks remailers were
|
||||
quick, if incomplete, implementations of David Chaum's 1981
|
||||
"digital mixes." (Right on schedule, 11 years later.)
|
||||
- Sadly, most of the abstractions of cryptology remain
|
||||
residents of academic space, with no (available)
|
||||
implementations in the real world. (To be sure, I suspect
|
||||
many people have cobbled-together versions of many of these
|
||||
things, in C code, whatever. But their work is more like
|
||||
building sand castles, to be lost when they graduate or
|
||||
move on to other projects. This is of course not a problem
|
||||
unique to cryptology.)
|
||||
- Today, various toolkits and libraries are under
|
||||
development. Henry Strickland (Strick) is working on a
|
||||
toolkit based on John Ousterhout's "TCL" system (for Unix),
|
||||
and of course RSADSI provides RSAREF. Pr0duct Cypher has
|
||||
"PGP Tools." Other projects are underway. (My own longterm
|
||||
interest here is in building objects which act as the
|
||||
cryptography papers would have them act...building block
|
||||
objects. For this, I'm looking at Smalltalk of some
|
||||
flavor.)
|
||||
- It is still the case that most of the modern crypto papers
|
||||
discuss theoretical abstractions that are _not even close_
|
||||
to being implemented as reusable, robust objects or
|
||||
routines. Closing the gap between theoretical papers and
|
||||
practical realization is a major Cypherpunk emphasis.
|
||||
4.5.5. Prototypes, even if fatally flawed, allow for evolutionary
|
||||
learning and improvement. Think of it as engineering in
|
||||
action.
|
||||
|
||||
4.6. Technological empowerment
|
||||
4.6.1. (more needed here....)
|
||||
4.6.2. As Sandy Sandfort notes, "The real point of Cypherpunks is
|
||||
that it's better to use strong crypto than weak crypto or no
|
||||
crypto at all. Our use of crypto doesn't have to be totally
|
||||
bullet proof to be of value. Let *them* worry about the
|
||||
technicalities while we make sure they have to work harder
|
||||
and pay more for our encrypted info than they would if it
|
||||
were in plaintext." [S.S. 1994-07-01]
|
||||
|
||||
4.7. Free Speech Issues
|
||||
4.7.1. Speech
|
||||
- "Public speech is not a series of public speeches, but
|
||||
rather one's own
|
||||
words spoken openly and without shame....I desire a society
|
||||
where all may speak freely about whatever topic they will.
|
||||
I desire that all people might be able to choose to whom
|
||||
they wish to speak and to whom they do not wish to speak.
|
||||
I desire a society where all people may have an assurance
|
||||
that their words are directed only at those to whom they
|
||||
wish. Therefore I oppose all efforts by governments to
|
||||
eavesdrop and to become unwanted listeners." [Eric Hughes,
|
||||
1994-02-22]
|
||||
- "The government has no right to restrict my use of
|
||||
cryptography in any way. They may not forbid me to use
|
||||
whatever ciphers I may like, nor may they require me to use
|
||||
any that I do not like." [Eric Hughes, 1993-06-01]
|
||||
4.7.2. "Should there be _any_ limits whatsoever on a person's use of
|
||||
cryptography?"
|
||||
- No. Using the mathematics of cryptography is merely the
|
||||
manipulation of symbols. No crime is involved, ipso facto.
|
||||
- Also, as Eric Hughes has pointed out, this is another of
|
||||
those questions where the normative "should" or "shouldn't"
|
||||
invokes "the policeman inside." A better way to look at is
|
||||
to see what steps people can take to make any question of
|
||||
"should" this be allowed just moot.
|
||||
- The "crimes" are actual physical acts like murder and
|
||||
kidnapping. The fact that crypto may be used by plotters
|
||||
and planners, thus making detection more difficult, is in
|
||||
no way different from the possibility that plotters may
|
||||
speak in an unusual language to each other (ciphers), or
|
||||
meet in a private home (security), or speak in a soft voice
|
||||
when in public (steganography). None of these things should
|
||||
be illegal, and *none of them would be enforceable* except
|
||||
in the most rigid of police states (and probably not even
|
||||
there).
|
||||
- "Crypto is thoughtcrime" is the effect of restricting
|
||||
cryptography use.
|
||||
4.7.3. Democracy and censorship
|
||||
- Does a community have the right to decide what newsgroups
|
||||
or magazines it allows in its community? Does a nation have
|
||||
the right to do the same? (Tennessee, Iraq, Iran, France.
|
||||
Utah?)
|
||||
- This is what bypasses with crypto are all about: taking
|
||||
these majoritarian morality decisions out of the hands of
|
||||
the bluenoses. Direct action to secure freedoms.
|
||||
|
||||
4.8. Privacy Issues
|
||||
4.8.1. "Is there an agenda here beyond just ensuring privacy?"
|
||||
- Definitely! I think I can safely say that for nearly all
|
||||
political persuasions on the Cypherpunks list. Left, right,
|
||||
libertarian, or anarchist, there's much more to to strong
|
||||
crypto than simple privacy. Privacy qua privacy is fairly
|
||||
uninteresting. If all one wants is privacy, one can simply
|
||||
keep to one's self, stay off high-visibility lists like
|
||||
this, and generally stay out of trouble.
|
||||
- Many of us see strong crypto as the key enabling technology
|
||||
for a new economic and social system, a system which will
|
||||
develop as cyberspace becomes more important. A system
|
||||
which dispenses with national boundaries, which is based on
|
||||
voluntary (even if anonymous) free trade. At issue is the
|
||||
end of governments as we know them today. (Look at
|
||||
interactions on the Net--on this list, for example--and
|
||||
you'll see many so-called nationalities, voluntary
|
||||
interaction, and the almost complete absence of any "laws."
|
||||
Aside from their being almost no rules per se for the
|
||||
Cypherpunks list, there are essentially no national laws
|
||||
that are invokable in any way. This is a fast-growing
|
||||
trend.)
|
||||
+ Motivations for Cypherpunks
|
||||
- Privacy. If maintaining privacy is the main goal, there's
|
||||
not much more to say. Keep a low profile, protect data,
|
||||
avoid giving out personal information, limit the number
|
||||
of bank loans and credit applications, pay cash often,
|
||||
etc.
|
||||
- Privacy in activism.
|
||||
+ New Structures. Using cryptographic constructs to build
|
||||
new political, economic, and even social structures.
|
||||
- Political: Voting, polling, information access,
|
||||
whistleblowing
|
||||
- Economic: Free markets, information markets, increased
|
||||
liquidity, black markets
|
||||
- Social: Cyberspatial communities, True Names
|
||||
- Publically inspectable algorithms always win out over
|
||||
private, secret algorithms
|
||||
4.8.2. "What is the American attitude toward privacy and
|
||||
encryption?"
|
||||
+ There are two distinct (and perhaps simultaneously held)
|
||||
views that have long been found in the American psyche:
|
||||
- "A man's home is his castle." "Mind your own business."
|
||||
The frontier and Calvinist sprit of keeping one's
|
||||
business to one's self.
|
||||
- "What have you got to hide?" The nosiness of busybodies,
|
||||
gossiping about what others are doing, and being
|
||||
suspicious of those who try too hard to hide what they
|
||||
are doing.
|
||||
+ The American attitude currently seems to favor privacy over
|
||||
police powers, as evidenced by a Time-CNN poll:
|
||||
- "In a Time/CNN poll of 1,000 Americans conducted last
|
||||
week by Yankelovich Partners, two-thirds said it was more
|
||||
important to protect the privacy of phone calls than to
|
||||
preserve the ability of police to conduct wiretaps. When
|
||||
informed about the Clipper Chip, 80% said they opposed
|
||||
it." [Philip Elmer-Dewitt, "Who Should Keep the Keys,"
|
||||
_TIME_, 1994-03-04.]
|
||||
- The answer given is clearly a function of how the question
|
||||
is phrased. Ask folks if they favor "unbreakable
|
||||
encryption" or "fortress capabilities" for terrorists,
|
||||
pedophiles, and other malefactors, and they'll likely give
|
||||
a quite different answer. It is this tack now being taken
|
||||
by the Clipper folks. Watch out for this!
|
||||
- Me, I have no doubts.
|
||||
- As Perry Metzger puts it, "I find the recent disclosures
|
||||
concerning U.S. Government testing of the effects of
|
||||
radiation on unknowing human subjects to be yet more
|
||||
evidence that you simply cannot trust the government with
|
||||
your own personal safety. Some people, given positions of
|
||||
power, will naturally abuse those positions, often even if
|
||||
such abuse could cause severe injury or death. I see little
|
||||
reason, therefore, to simply "trust" the U.S. government --
|
||||
and given that the U.S. government is about as good as they
|
||||
get, its obvious that NO government deserves the blind
|
||||
trust of its citizens. "Trust us, we will protect you"
|
||||
rings quite hollow in the face of historical evidence.
|
||||
Citizens must protect and preserve their own privacy -- the
|
||||
government and its centralized cryptographic schemes
|
||||
emphatically cannot be trusted." [P.M., 1994-01-01]
|
||||
4.8.3. "How is 1994 like 1984?"
|
||||
- The television ad for Clipper: "Clipper--why 1994 _will_ be
|
||||
like 1984"
|
||||
+ As Mike Ingle puts it:
|
||||
- 1994: Wiretapping is privacy
|
||||
Secrecy is openness
|
||||
Obscurity is security
|
||||
4.8.4. "We anticipate that computer networks will play a more and
|
||||
more important role in many parts of our lives. But this
|
||||
increased computerization brings tremendous dangers for
|
||||
infringing privacy. Cypherpunks seek to put into place
|
||||
structures which will allow people to preserve their privacy
|
||||
if they choose. No one will be forced to use pseudonyms or
|
||||
post anonymously. But it should be a matter of choice how
|
||||
much information a person chooses to reveal about himself
|
||||
when he communicates. Right now, the nets don't give you
|
||||
that much choice. We are trying to give this power to
|
||||
people." [Hal Finney, 1993-02-23]
|
||||
4.8.5. "If cypherpunks contribute nothing else we can create a real
|
||||
privacy advocacy group, advocating means of real self-
|
||||
empowerment, from crypto to nom de guerre credit cards,
|
||||
instead of advocating further invasions of our privacy as the
|
||||
so-called privacy advocates are now doing!" [Jim Hart, 1994-
|
||||
09-08]
|
||||
|
||||
4.9. Education Issues
|
||||
4.9.1. "How can we get more people to use crypto?"
|
||||
- telling them about the themes of Cypherpunks
|
||||
- surveillance, wiretapping, Digital Telephony, Clipper, NSA,
|
||||
FinCEN, etc....these things tend to scare a lot of folks
|
||||
- making PGP easier to use, better integration with mailers,
|
||||
etc.
|
||||
- (To be frank, convincing others to protect themselves is
|
||||
not one of my highest priorities. Then why have I written
|
||||
this megabyte-plus FAQ? Good question. Getting more users
|
||||
is a general win, for obvious reasons.)
|
||||
4.9.2. "Who needs to encrypt?"
|
||||
+ Corporations
|
||||
- competitors...fax transmissions
|
||||
+ foreign governments
|
||||
- Chobetsu, GCHQ, SDECE, Mossad, KGB
|
||||
+ their own government
|
||||
- NSA intercepts of plans, investments
|
||||
+ Activist Groups
|
||||
- Aryan Nation needs to encrypt, as FBI has announced their
|
||||
intent to infiltrate and subvert this group
|
||||
- RU-486 networks
|
||||
- Amnesty International
|
||||
+ Terrorists and Drug Dealers
|
||||
- clearly are clueless at times (Pablo Escobar using a
|
||||
cellphone!)
|
||||
- Triads, Russian Mafia, many are becoming crypto-literate
|
||||
- (I've been appoached-'nuff said)
|
||||
+ Doctors, lawyers, psychiatrists, etc.
|
||||
- to preserve records against theft, snooping, casual
|
||||
examination, etc.
|
||||
- in many cases, a legal obligation has been attached to
|
||||
this (notably, medical records)
|
||||
- the curious situation that many people are essentially
|
||||
_required_ to encrypt (no other way to ensure standards
|
||||
are met) and yet various laws exists to limit
|
||||
encryption...ITAR, Clipper, EES
|
||||
- (Clipper is a partial answer, if unsatisfactory)
|
||||
4.9.3. "When should crypto be used?"
|
||||
- It's an economic matter. Each person has to decide when to
|
||||
use it, and how. Me, I dislike having to download messages
|
||||
to my home machine before I can read them. Others use it
|
||||
routinely.
|
||||
|
||||
4.10. Libertarian Issues
|
||||
4.10.1. A technological approach to freedom and privacy:
|
||||
- "Freedom is, practically, given as much (or more) by the
|
||||
tools we can build to protect it, as it is by our ability
|
||||
to convince others who violently disagree with us not to
|
||||
attack us. On the Internet we have tools like anon
|
||||
remailers and PGP that give us a great deal of freedom
|
||||
from coercion even in the midst of censors. Thus, these
|
||||
tools piss off fans of centralized information control, the
|
||||
defenders of the status quo, like nothing else on the
|
||||
Internet." [<an50@desert.hacktic.nl> (Nobody), libtech-
|
||||
l@netcom.com, 1994-06-08]
|
||||
+ Duncan Frissell, as usual, put it cogently:
|
||||
- "If I withhold my capital from some country or enterprise
|
||||
I am not threatening to kill anyone. When a "Democratic
|
||||
State" decides to do something, it does so with armed
|
||||
men. If you don't obey, they tend to shoot....[I]f
|
||||
technological change enhances the powers of individuals,
|
||||
their power is enhanced no matter what the government
|
||||
does.
|
||||
|
||||
"If the collective is weakened and the individual
|
||||
strengthened by the fact that I have the power of cheap
|
||||
guns, cars, computers, telecoms, and crypto then the
|
||||
collective has been weakened and we should ease the
|
||||
transition to a society based on voluntary rather than
|
||||
coerced interaction.
|
||||
|
||||
"Unless you can figure out a new, improved way of
|
||||
controlling others; you have no choice." [D.F., Decline
|
||||
and Fall, 1994-06-19]
|
||||
4.10.2. "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
|
||||
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
|
||||
[Benjamin Franklin]
|
||||
4.10.3. a typical view of government
|
||||
- "As I see it, it's always a home for bullies masquerading
|
||||
as a collective defense. Sometimes it actually it actually
|
||||
has to perform its advertised defense function. Like naked
|
||||
quarks,
|
||||
purely defensive governments cannot exist. They are
|
||||
bipolar by nature, with some poles (i.e., the bullying
|
||||
part) being "more equal than others." [Sandy Sandfort, 1994-
|
||||
09-06]
|
||||
4.10.4. Sadly, several of our speculative scenarios for various laws
|
||||
have come to pass. Even several of my own, such as:
|
||||
- "(Yet Another May Prediction Realized)...The text of a
|
||||
"digital stalking bill" was just sent to Cyberia-l." [L.
|
||||
Todd Masco, 1994-08-31] (This was a joking prediction I
|
||||
made that "digital stalking" would soon be a crime; there
|
||||
had been news articles about the horrors of such
|
||||
cyberspatial stalkings, regardless of there being no real
|
||||
physical threats, so this move is not all that surprising.
|
||||
Not surprising in an age when free speech gets outlawed as
|
||||
"assault speech.")
|
||||
4.10.5. "Don't tread on me."
|
||||
4.10.6. However, it's easy to get too negative on the situation, to
|
||||
assume that a socialist state is right around the corner. Or
|
||||
that a new Hitler will come to power. These are unlikely
|
||||
developments, and not only because of strong crypto.
|
||||
Financial markets are putting constraints on how fascist a
|
||||
government can get...the international bond markets, for
|
||||
example, will quickly react to signs like this. (This is the
|
||||
theory, at least.)
|
||||
4.10.7. Locality of reference, cash, TANSTAAFL, privacy
|
||||
- closure, local computation, local benefits
|
||||
- no accounting system needed
|
||||
- markets clear
|
||||
- market distortions like rationing, coupons, quotas, all
|
||||
require centralized record-keeping
|
||||
- anything that ties economic transactions to identity
|
||||
(rationing, entitlements, insurance) implies identity-
|
||||
tracking, credentials, etc.
|
||||
+ Nonlocality also dramatically increases the opportunities
|
||||
for fraud, for scams and con jobs
|
||||
- because something is being promised for future delivery
|
||||
(the essence of many scams) and is not verifiable locally
|
||||
- because "trust" is invoked
|
||||
- Locality also fixes the "policeman inside" problem: the
|
||||
costs of decisions are borne by the decider, not by others.
|
||||
|
||||
4.11. Crypto Anarchy
|
||||
4.11.1. The Crypto Anarchy Principle: Strong crypto permits
|
||||
unbreakable encrypion, unforgeable signatures, untraceable
|
||||
electronic messages, and unlinkable pseudonomous identities.
|
||||
This ensures that some transactions and communications can be
|
||||
entered into only voluntarily. External force, law, and
|
||||
regulation cannot be applied. This is "anarchy," in the sense
|
||||
of no outside rulers and laws. Voluntary arrangements, back-
|
||||
stopped by voluntarily-arranged institutions like escrow
|
||||
services, will be the only form of rule. This is "crypto
|
||||
anarchy."
|
||||
4.11.2. crypto allows a return to contracts that governments cannot
|
||||
breach
|
||||
- based on reputation, repeat business
|
||||
- example: ordering illegal material untraceably and
|
||||
anonymously,,,governments are powerless to do anything
|
||||
- private spaces, with the privacy enforced via cryptographic
|
||||
permissions (access credentials)
|
||||
- escrows (bonds)
|
||||
4.11.3. Technological solutions over legalistic regulations
|
||||
+ Marc Ringuette summarized things nicely:
|
||||
- "What we're after is some "community standards" for
|
||||
cyberspace, and what I'm suggesting is the fairly
|
||||
libertarian standard that goes like this:
|
||||
|
||||
" Prefer technological solutions and self-protection
|
||||
solutions
|
||||
over rule-making, where they are feasible.
|
||||
|
||||
"This is based on the notion that the more rules there
|
||||
are, the more people will call for the "net police" to
|
||||
enforce them. If we can encourage community standards
|
||||
which emphasize a prudent level of self-protection, then
|
||||
we'll be able to make do with fewer rules and a less
|
||||
intrusive level of policing."[Marc Ringuette, 1993-03-14]
|
||||
+ Hal Finney has made cogent arguments as to why we should
|
||||
not become too complacent about the role of technology vis-
|
||||
a-vis politics. He warns us not to grow to confident:
|
||||
- "Fundamentally, I believe we will have the kind of
|
||||
society that most people want. If we want freedom and
|
||||
privacy, we must persuade others that these are worth
|
||||
having. There are no shortcuts. Withdrawing into
|
||||
technology is like pulling the blankets over your head.
|
||||
It feels good for a while, until reality catches up. The
|
||||
next Clipper or Digital Telephony proposal will provide a
|
||||
rude awakening." [Hal Finney, POLI: Politics vs
|
||||
Technology, 1994-01-02]
|
||||
- "The idea here is that the ultimate solution to the low
|
||||
signal-to-noise ratio on the nets is not a matter of
|
||||
forcing people to "stand behind their words". People can
|
||||
stand behind all kinds of idiotic ideas. Rather, there
|
||||
will need to be developed better systems for filtering news
|
||||
and mail, for developing "digital reputations" which can be
|
||||
stamped on one's postings to pass through these smart
|
||||
filters, and even applying these reputations to pseudonyms.
|
||||
In such a system, the fact that someone is posting or
|
||||
mailing pseudonymously is not a problem, since nuisance
|
||||
posters won't be able to get through." [Hal Finney, 1993-
|
||||
02-23]
|
||||
4.11.4. Reputations
|
||||
4.11.5. I have a moral outlook that many will find unacceptable or
|
||||
repugnant. To cut to the chase: I support the killing of
|
||||
those who break contracts, who steal in serious enough ways,
|
||||
and who otherwise commit what I think of as crimes.
|
||||
+ I don't mean this abstractly. Here's an example:
|
||||
- Someone is carrying drugs. He knows what he's involved
|
||||
in. He knows that theft is punishable by death. And yet
|
||||
he steals some of the merchandise.
|
||||
- Dealers understand that they cannot tolerate this, that
|
||||
an example must be made, else all of their employees will
|
||||
steal.
|
||||
- Understand that I'm not talking about the state doing the
|
||||
killing, nor would I do the killing. I'm just saying such
|
||||
things are the natural enforcement mechanism for such
|
||||
markets. Realpolitik.
|
||||
- (A meta point: the drug laws makes things this way.
|
||||
Legalize all drugs and the businesses would be more like
|
||||
"ordinary" businesses.)
|
||||
- In my highly personal opinion, many people, including most
|
||||
Congressrodents, have committed crimes that earn them the
|
||||
death penalty; I will not be sorry to see anonymous
|
||||
assassination markets used to deal with them.
|
||||
4.11.6. Increased espionage will help to destroy nation-state-empires
|
||||
like the U.S., which has gotten far too bloated and far too
|
||||
dependent on throwing its weight around; nuclear "terrorism"
|
||||
may knock out a few cities, but this may be a small price to
|
||||
pay to undermine totally the socialist welfare states that
|
||||
have launched so many wars this century.
|
||||
|
||||
4.12. Loose Ends
|
||||
4.12.1. "Why take a "no compromise" stance?"
|
||||
- Compromise often ends up in the death of a thousand cuts.
|
||||
Better to just take a rejectionist stance.
|
||||
- The National Rifle Association (NRA) learned this lesson
|
||||
the hard way. EFF may eventually learn it; right now they
|
||||
appear to be in the "coopted by the power center" mode,
|
||||
luxuriating in their inside-the-Beltway access to the Veep,
|
||||
their flights on Air Force One, and their general
|
||||
schmoozing with the movers and shakers...getting along by
|
||||
going along.
|
||||
- Let's not compromise on basic issues. Treat censorship as a
|
||||
problem to be routed around (as John Gilmore suggests), not
|
||||
as something that needs to be compromised on. (This is
|
||||
directed at rumblings about how the Net needs to "police
|
||||
itself," by the "reasonable" censorship of offensive posts,
|
||||
by the "moderation" of newsgroups, etc. What should concern
|
||||
us is the accomodation of this view by well-meaning civil
|
||||
liberties groups, which are apparently willing to play a
|
||||
role in this "self-policing" system. No thanks.)
|
||||
- (And since people often misunderstand this point, I'm not
|
||||
saying private companies can't set whatever policies they
|
||||
wish, that moderated newsgroups can't be formed, etc.
|
||||
Private arrangements are just that. The issue is when
|
||||
censorship is forced on those who have no other
|
||||
obligations. Government usually does this, often aided and
|
||||
abetted by corporations and lobbying groups. This is what
|
||||
we need to fight. Fight by routing around, via technology.)
|
||||
4.12.2. The inherent evils of democracy
|
||||
- To be blunt about it, I've come to despise the modern
|
||||
version of democracy we have. Every issue is framed in
|
||||
terms of popular sentiment, in terms of how the public
|
||||
would vote. Mob rule at its worst.
|
||||
- Should people be allowed to wear blue jeans? Put it to a
|
||||
vote. Can employers have a policy on blue jeans? Pass a
|
||||
law. Should health care be provided to all? Put it to a
|
||||
vote. And so on, whittling away basic freedoms and rights.
|
||||
A travesty. The tyranny of the majority.
|
||||
- De Toqueville warned of this when he said that the American
|
||||
experiment in democracy would last only until citizens
|
||||
discovered they could pick the pockets of their neighbors
|
||||
at the ballot box.
|
||||
- But maybe we can stop this nonsense. I support strong
|
||||
crypto (and its eventual form, crypto anarchy) because it
|
||||
undermines this form of democracy. It takes some (and
|
||||
perhaps many) transactions out of the realm of popularity
|
||||
contests, beyond the reach of will of the herd. (No, I am
|
||||
not arguing there will be a complete phase change. As the
|
||||
saying goes, "You can't eat cyberspace." But a lot of
|
||||
consulting, technical work, programming, etc., can in fact
|
||||
be done with crypto anarchic methods, with the money gained
|
||||
transferred in a variety of ways into the "real world."
|
||||
More on this elsewhere.)
|
||||
+ Crypto anarchy effectively allows people to pick and choose
|
||||
which laws they support, at least in cyberspatial contexts.
|
||||
It empowers people to break the local bonds of their
|
||||
majoritarian normative systems and decide for themselves
|
||||
which laws are moral and which are bullshit.
|
||||
- I happen to have faith that most people will settle on a
|
||||
relatively small number of laws that they'll (mostly)
|
||||
support, a kind of Schelling point in legal space.
|
||||
4.12.3. "Is the Cypherpunks agenda _too extreme_?"
|
||||
- Bear in mind that most of the "Cypherpunks agenda," to the
|
||||
extent we can identify it, is likely to provoke ordinary
|
||||
citizens into _outrage_. Talk of anonymous mail, digital
|
||||
money, money laundering, information markets, data havens,
|
||||
undermining authority, transnationalism, and all the rest
|
||||
(insert your favorite idea) is not exactly mainstream.
|
||||
4.12.4. "Crypto Anarchy sounds too wild for me."
|
||||
- I accept that many people will find the implications of
|
||||
crypto anarchy (which follows in turn from the existence of
|
||||
strong cryptography, via the Crypto Anarchy Principle) to
|
||||
be more than they can accept.
|
||||
- This is OK (not that you need my OK!). The house of
|
||||
Cypherpunks has many rooms.
|
||||
Loading…
Reference in New Issue