605 lines
36 KiB
Markdown
605 lines
36 KiB
Markdown
4. Goals and Ideology -- Privacy, Freedom, New Approaches
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4.1. copyright
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THE CYPHERNOMICON: Cypherpunks FAQ and More, Version 0.666,
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1994-09-10, Copyright Timothy C. May. All rights reserved.
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See the detailed disclaimer. Use short sections under "fair
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use" provisions, with appropriate credit, but don't put your
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name on my words.
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4.2. SUMMARY: Goals and Ideology -- Privacy, Freedom, New Approaches
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4.2.1. Main Points
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4.2.2. Connections to Other Sections
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- Crypto Anarchy is the logical outgrowth of strong crypto.
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4.2.3. Where to Find Additional Information
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- Vernor Vinge's "True Names"
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- David Friedman's "Machinery of Freedom"
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4.2.4. Miscellaneous Comments
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- Most of the list members are libertarians, or leaning in
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that direction, so the bias toward this is apparent.
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- (If there's a coherent _non_-libertarian ideology, that's
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also consistent with supporting strong crypto, I'm not sure
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it's been presented.)
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4.3. Why a Statement of Ideology?
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4.3.1. This is perhaps a controversial area. So why include it? The
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main reason is to provide some grounding for the later
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comments on many issues.
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4.3.2. People should not expect a uniform ideology on this list.
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Some of us are anarcho-capitalist radicals (or "crypto
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anarchists"), others of us are staid Republicans, and still
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others are Wobblies and other assored leftists.
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4.4. "Welcome to Cypherpunks"
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4.4.1. This is the message each new subscriber to the Cypherpunks
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lists gets, by Eric Hughes:
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4.4.2. "Cypherpunks assume privacy is a good thing and wish there
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were more of it. Cypherpunks acknowledge that those who want
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privacy must create it for themselves and not expect
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governments, corporations, or other large, faceless
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organizations to grant them privacy out of beneficence.
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Cypherpunks know that people have been creating their own
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privacy for centuries with whispers, envelopes, closed doors,
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and couriers. Cypherpunks do not seek to prevent other
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people from speaking about their experiences or their
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opinions.
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"The most important means to the defense of privacy is
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encryption. To encrypt is to indicate the desire for privacy.
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But to encrypt with weak cryptography is to indicate not too
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much desire for privacy. Cypherpunks hope that all people
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desiring privacy will learn how best to defend it.
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"Cypherpunks are therefore devoted to cryptography.
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Cypherpunks wish to learn about it, to teach it, to implement
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it, and to make more of it. Cypherpunks know that
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cryptographic protocols make social structures. Cypherpunks
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know how to attack a system and how to defend it.
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Cypherpunks know just how hard it is to make good
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cryptosystems.
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"Cypherpunks love to practice. They love to play with public
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key cryptography. They love to play with anonymous and
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pseudonymous mail forwarding and delivery. They love to play
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with DC-nets. They love to play with secure communications
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of all kinds.
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"Cypherpunks write code. They know that someone has to write
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code to defend privacy, and since it's their privacy, they're
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going to write it. Cypherpunks publish their code so that
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their fellow cypherpunks may practice and play with it.
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Cypherpunks realize that security is not built in a day and
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are patient with incremental progress.
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"Cypherpunks don't care if you don't like the software they
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write. Cypherpunks know that software can't be destroyed.
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Cypherpunks know that a widely dispersed system can't be shut
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down.
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"Cypherpunks will make the networks safe for privacy." [Eric
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Hughes, 1993-07-21 version]
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4.5. "Cypherpunks Write Code"
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4.5.1. "Cypherpunks write code" is almost our mantra.
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4.5.2. This has come to be a defining statement. Eric Hughes used it
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to mean that Cypherpunks place more importance in actually
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changing things, in actually getting working code out, than
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in merely talking about how things "ought" to be.
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- Eric Hughes statement needed here:
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- Karl Kleinpaste, author of one of the early anonymous
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posting services (Charcoal) said this about some proposal
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made: "If you've got serious plans for how to implement
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such a thing, please implement it at least skeletally and
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deploy it. Proof by example, watching such a system in
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action, is far better than pontification about it."
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[Karl_Kleinpaste@cs.cmu.edu, news.admin.policy, 1994-06-30]
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4.5.3. "The admonition, "Cypherpunks write code," should be taken
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metaphorically. I think "to write code" means to take
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unilateral effective action as an individual. That may mean
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writing actual code, but it could also mean dumpster diving
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at Mycrotronx and anonymously releasing the recovered
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information. It could also mean creating an offshore digital
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bank. Don't get too literal on us here. What is important
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is that Cypherpunks take personal responsibility for
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empowering themselves against threats to privacy." [Sandy
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Sandfort, 1994-07-08]
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4.5.4. A Cypherpunks outlook: taking the abstractions of academic
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conferences and making them concrete
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- One thing Eric Hughes and I discussed at length (for 3 days
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of nearly nonstop talk, in May, 1992) was the glacial rate
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of progress in converting the cryptographic primitive
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operations of the academic crypto conferences into actual,
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workable code. The basic RSA algorithm was by then barely
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available, more than 15 years after invention. (This was
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before PGP 2.0, and PGP 1.0 was barely available and was
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disappointing, with RSA Data Security's various products in
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limited niches.) All the neat stuff on digital cash, DC-
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Nets, bit commitment, olivioius transfer, digital mixes,
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and so on, was completely absent, in terms of avialable
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code or "crypto ICs" (to borrow Brad Cox's phrase). If it
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took 10-15 years for RSA to really appear in the real
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world, how long would it take some of the exciting stuff to
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get out?
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- We thought it would be a neat idea to find ways to reify
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these things, to get actual running code. As it happened,
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PGP 2.0 appeared the week of our very first meeting, and
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both the Kleinpaste/Julf and Cypherpunks remailers were
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quick, if incomplete, implementations of David Chaum's 1981
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"digital mixes." (Right on schedule, 11 years later.)
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- Sadly, most of the abstractions of cryptology remain
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residents of academic space, with no (available)
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implementations in the real world. (To be sure, I suspect
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many people have cobbled-together versions of many of these
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things, in C code, whatever. But their work is more like
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building sand castles, to be lost when they graduate or
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move on to other projects. This is of course not a problem
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unique to cryptology.)
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- Today, various toolkits and libraries are under
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development. Henry Strickland (Strick) is working on a
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toolkit based on John Ousterhout's "TCL" system (for Unix),
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and of course RSADSI provides RSAREF. Pr0duct Cypher has
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"PGP Tools." Other projects are underway. (My own longterm
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interest here is in building objects which act as the
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cryptography papers would have them act...building block
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objects. For this, I'm looking at Smalltalk of some
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flavor.)
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- It is still the case that most of the modern crypto papers
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discuss theoretical abstractions that are _not even close_
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to being implemented as reusable, robust objects or
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routines. Closing the gap between theoretical papers and
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practical realization is a major Cypherpunk emphasis.
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4.5.5. Prototypes, even if fatally flawed, allow for evolutionary
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learning and improvement. Think of it as engineering in
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action.
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4.6. Technological empowerment
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4.6.1. (more needed here....)
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4.6.2. As Sandy Sandfort notes, "The real point of Cypherpunks is
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that it's better to use strong crypto than weak crypto or no
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crypto at all. Our use of crypto doesn't have to be totally
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bullet proof to be of value. Let *them* worry about the
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technicalities while we make sure they have to work harder
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and pay more for our encrypted info than they would if it
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were in plaintext." [S.S. 1994-07-01]
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4.7. Free Speech Issues
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4.7.1. Speech
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- "Public speech is not a series of public speeches, but
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rather one's own
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words spoken openly and without shame....I desire a society
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where all may speak freely about whatever topic they will.
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I desire that all people might be able to choose to whom
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they wish to speak and to whom they do not wish to speak.
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I desire a society where all people may have an assurance
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that their words are directed only at those to whom they
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wish. Therefore I oppose all efforts by governments to
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eavesdrop and to become unwanted listeners." [Eric Hughes,
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1994-02-22]
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- "The government has no right to restrict my use of
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cryptography in any way. They may not forbid me to use
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whatever ciphers I may like, nor may they require me to use
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any that I do not like." [Eric Hughes, 1993-06-01]
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4.7.2. "Should there be _any_ limits whatsoever on a person's use of
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cryptography?"
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- No. Using the mathematics of cryptography is merely the
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manipulation of symbols. No crime is involved, ipso facto.
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- Also, as Eric Hughes has pointed out, this is another of
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those questions where the normative "should" or "shouldn't"
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invokes "the policeman inside." A better way to look at is
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to see what steps people can take to make any question of
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"should" this be allowed just moot.
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- The "crimes" are actual physical acts like murder and
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kidnapping. The fact that crypto may be used by plotters
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and planners, thus making detection more difficult, is in
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no way different from the possibility that plotters may
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speak in an unusual language to each other (ciphers), or
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meet in a private home (security), or speak in a soft voice
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when in public (steganography). None of these things should
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be illegal, and *none of them would be enforceable* except
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in the most rigid of police states (and probably not even
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there).
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- "Crypto is thoughtcrime" is the effect of restricting
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cryptography use.
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4.7.3. Democracy and censorship
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- Does a community have the right to decide what newsgroups
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or magazines it allows in its community? Does a nation have
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the right to do the same? (Tennessee, Iraq, Iran, France.
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Utah?)
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- This is what bypasses with crypto are all about: taking
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these majoritarian morality decisions out of the hands of
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the bluenoses. Direct action to secure freedoms.
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4.8. Privacy Issues
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4.8.1. "Is there an agenda here beyond just ensuring privacy?"
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- Definitely! I think I can safely say that for nearly all
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political persuasions on the Cypherpunks list. Left, right,
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libertarian, or anarchist, there's much more to to strong
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crypto than simple privacy. Privacy qua privacy is fairly
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uninteresting. If all one wants is privacy, one can simply
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keep to one's self, stay off high-visibility lists like
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this, and generally stay out of trouble.
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- Many of us see strong crypto as the key enabling technology
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for a new economic and social system, a system which will
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develop as cyberspace becomes more important. A system
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which dispenses with national boundaries, which is based on
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voluntary (even if anonymous) free trade. At issue is the
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end of governments as we know them today. (Look at
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interactions on the Net--on this list, for example--and
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you'll see many so-called nationalities, voluntary
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interaction, and the almost complete absence of any "laws."
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Aside from their being almost no rules per se for the
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Cypherpunks list, there are essentially no national laws
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that are invokable in any way. This is a fast-growing
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trend.)
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+ Motivations for Cypherpunks
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- Privacy. If maintaining privacy is the main goal, there's
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not much more to say. Keep a low profile, protect data,
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avoid giving out personal information, limit the number
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of bank loans and credit applications, pay cash often,
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etc.
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- Privacy in activism.
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+ New Structures. Using cryptographic constructs to build
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new political, economic, and even social structures.
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- Political: Voting, polling, information access,
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whistleblowing
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- Economic: Free markets, information markets, increased
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liquidity, black markets
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- Social: Cyberspatial communities, True Names
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- Publically inspectable algorithms always win out over
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private, secret algorithms
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4.8.2. "What is the American attitude toward privacy and
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encryption?"
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+ There are two distinct (and perhaps simultaneously held)
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views that have long been found in the American psyche:
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- "A man's home is his castle." "Mind your own business."
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The frontier and Calvinist sprit of keeping one's
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business to one's self.
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- "What have you got to hide?" The nosiness of busybodies,
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gossiping about what others are doing, and being
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suspicious of those who try too hard to hide what they
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are doing.
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+ The American attitude currently seems to favor privacy over
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police powers, as evidenced by a Time-CNN poll:
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- "In a Time/CNN poll of 1,000 Americans conducted last
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week by Yankelovich Partners, two-thirds said it was more
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important to protect the privacy of phone calls than to
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preserve the ability of police to conduct wiretaps. When
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informed about the Clipper Chip, 80% said they opposed
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it." [Philip Elmer-Dewitt, "Who Should Keep the Keys,"
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_TIME_, 1994-03-04.]
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- The answer given is clearly a function of how the question
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is phrased. Ask folks if they favor "unbreakable
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encryption" or "fortress capabilities" for terrorists,
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pedophiles, and other malefactors, and they'll likely give
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a quite different answer. It is this tack now being taken
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by the Clipper folks. Watch out for this!
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- Me, I have no doubts.
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- As Perry Metzger puts it, "I find the recent disclosures
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concerning U.S. Government testing of the effects of
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radiation on unknowing human subjects to be yet more
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evidence that you simply cannot trust the government with
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your own personal safety. Some people, given positions of
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power, will naturally abuse those positions, often even if
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such abuse could cause severe injury or death. I see little
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reason, therefore, to simply "trust" the U.S. government --
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and given that the U.S. government is about as good as they
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get, its obvious that NO government deserves the blind
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trust of its citizens. "Trust us, we will protect you"
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rings quite hollow in the face of historical evidence.
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Citizens must protect and preserve their own privacy -- the
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government and its centralized cryptographic schemes
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emphatically cannot be trusted." [P.M., 1994-01-01]
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4.8.3. "How is 1994 like 1984?"
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- The television ad for Clipper: "Clipper--why 1994 _will_ be
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like 1984"
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+ As Mike Ingle puts it:
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- 1994: Wiretapping is privacy
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Secrecy is openness
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Obscurity is security
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4.8.4. "We anticipate that computer networks will play a more and
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more important role in many parts of our lives. But this
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increased computerization brings tremendous dangers for
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infringing privacy. Cypherpunks seek to put into place
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structures which will allow people to preserve their privacy
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if they choose. No one will be forced to use pseudonyms or
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post anonymously. But it should be a matter of choice how
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much information a person chooses to reveal about himself
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when he communicates. Right now, the nets don't give you
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that much choice. We are trying to give this power to
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people." [Hal Finney, 1993-02-23]
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4.8.5. "If cypherpunks contribute nothing else we can create a real
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privacy advocacy group, advocating means of real self-
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empowerment, from crypto to nom de guerre credit cards,
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instead of advocating further invasions of our privacy as the
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so-called privacy advocates are now doing!" [Jim Hart, 1994-
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09-08]
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4.9. Education Issues
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4.9.1. "How can we get more people to use crypto?"
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- telling them about the themes of Cypherpunks
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- surveillance, wiretapping, Digital Telephony, Clipper, NSA,
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FinCEN, etc....these things tend to scare a lot of folks
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- making PGP easier to use, better integration with mailers,
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etc.
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- (To be frank, convincing others to protect themselves is
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not one of my highest priorities. Then why have I written
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this megabyte-plus FAQ? Good question. Getting more users
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is a general win, for obvious reasons.)
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4.9.2. "Who needs to encrypt?"
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+ Corporations
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- competitors...fax transmissions
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+ foreign governments
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- Chobetsu, GCHQ, SDECE, Mossad, KGB
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+ their own government
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- NSA intercepts of plans, investments
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+ Activist Groups
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- Aryan Nation needs to encrypt, as FBI has announced their
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intent to infiltrate and subvert this group
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- RU-486 networks
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- Amnesty International
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+ Terrorists and Drug Dealers
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- clearly are clueless at times (Pablo Escobar using a
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cellphone!)
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- Triads, Russian Mafia, many are becoming crypto-literate
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- (I've been appoached-'nuff said)
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+ Doctors, lawyers, psychiatrists, etc.
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- to preserve records against theft, snooping, casual
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examination, etc.
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- in many cases, a legal obligation has been attached to
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this (notably, medical records)
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- the curious situation that many people are essentially
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_required_ to encrypt (no other way to ensure standards
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are met) and yet various laws exists to limit
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encryption...ITAR, Clipper, EES
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- (Clipper is a partial answer, if unsatisfactory)
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4.9.3. "When should crypto be used?"
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- It's an economic matter. Each person has to decide when to
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use it, and how. Me, I dislike having to download messages
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to my home machine before I can read them. Others use it
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routinely.
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4.10. Libertarian Issues
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4.10.1. A technological approach to freedom and privacy:
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- "Freedom is, practically, given as much (or more) by the
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tools we can build to protect it, as it is by our ability
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to convince others who violently disagree with us not to
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attack us. On the Internet we have tools like anon
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remailers and PGP that give us a great deal of freedom
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from coercion even in the midst of censors. Thus, these
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tools piss off fans of centralized information control, the
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defenders of the status quo, like nothing else on the
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Internet." [<an50@desert.hacktic.nl> (Nobody), libtech-
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l@netcom.com, 1994-06-08]
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+ Duncan Frissell, as usual, put it cogently:
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- "If I withhold my capital from some country or enterprise
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I am not threatening to kill anyone. When a "Democratic
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State" decides to do something, it does so with armed
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men. If you don't obey, they tend to shoot....[I]f
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technological change enhances the powers of individuals,
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their power is enhanced no matter what the government
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does.
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"If the collective is weakened and the individual
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strengthened by the fact that I have the power of cheap
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guns, cars, computers, telecoms, and crypto then the
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collective has been weakened and we should ease the
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transition to a society based on voluntary rather than
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coerced interaction.
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"Unless you can figure out a new, improved way of
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controlling others; you have no choice." [D.F., Decline
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and Fall, 1994-06-19]
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4.10.2. "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
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temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
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[Benjamin Franklin]
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4.10.3. a typical view of government
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- "As I see it, it's always a home for bullies masquerading
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as a collective defense. Sometimes it actually it actually
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has to perform its advertised defense function. Like naked
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quarks,
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purely defensive governments cannot exist. They are
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bipolar by nature, with some poles (i.e., the bullying
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part) being "more equal than others." [Sandy Sandfort, 1994-
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09-06]
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4.10.4. Sadly, several of our speculative scenarios for various laws
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have come to pass. Even several of my own, such as:
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- "(Yet Another May Prediction Realized)...The text of a
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"digital stalking bill" was just sent to Cyberia-l." [L.
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Todd Masco, 1994-08-31] (This was a joking prediction I
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made that "digital stalking" would soon be a crime; there
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had been news articles about the horrors of such
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cyberspatial stalkings, regardless of there being no real
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physical threats, so this move is not all that surprising.
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Not surprising in an age when free speech gets outlawed as
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"assault speech.")
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4.10.5. "Don't tread on me."
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4.10.6. However, it's easy to get too negative on the situation, to
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assume that a socialist state is right around the corner. Or
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that a new Hitler will come to power. These are unlikely
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developments, and not only because of strong crypto.
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Financial markets are putting constraints on how fascist a
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government can get...the international bond markets, for
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example, will quickly react to signs like this. (This is the
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theory, at least.)
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4.10.7. Locality of reference, cash, TANSTAAFL, privacy
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- closure, local computation, local benefits
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- no accounting system needed
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- markets clear
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- 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.
|