16.22.1. "What are data havens?"
+ Places where data can be hidden or protected against legal
action.
- Sterling, "Islands in the Net," 1988
+ Medical experiments, legal advice, pornography, weapons
- reputations, lists of doctors, lawyers, rent deadbeats,
credit records, private eyes
- What to do about the mounting pressure to ban certain kinds
of research?
- One of the powerful uses of strong crypto is the creation
of journals, web sites, mailing lists, etc., that are
"untraceable." These are sometimes called "data havens,"
though that term, as used by Bruce Sterling in "Islands in
the Net" (1988), tends to suggest specific places like the
Cayman Islands that corporations might use to store data. I
prefer the emphasis on "cypherspace."
- "It is worth noting that private "data havens" of all sorts
abound, especially for financial matters, and most are not
subject to governmental regulation....Some banks have
research departments that are older and morecomprehensive
than credit reporting agencies. Favored customers can use
them for evaluation of private deals....Large law firms
maintain data banks that approach those of banks, and they
grow with each case, through additions of private
investigators paid for by successive clients....Security
professionals, like Wackenhut and Kroll, also market the
fruits of substantial data collections....To these add
those of insurance, bonding, investment, financial firms
and the like which help make or break business deals."
[John Young, 1994-09-07]
16.22.2. "Can there be laws about what can be done with data?"
- Normative laws ("they shouldn't keep such records and hence
we'll outlaw them") won't work in an era of strong crypto
and privacy. In fact, some of us support data havens
precisely to have records of, say, terminal diseases so
we'll not lend money to Joe-who-has-AIDS. It may not be
"fair" to Joe, but it's my money. (Same idea as in using
offshore or cryptospatial data havens to bypass the
nonsense in the "Fair Credit Reporting Act" that outlaws
the keeping of certain kinds of facts about credit
applicants, such as that they declared bankruptcy 10 years
ago or that they left a string of bad debts in Germany in
the 1970s, etc.)
16.22.3. Underground Networks, Bootleg Research, and Information
Smuggling
+ The Sharing of Forbidden Knowledge
- even if the knowledge is not actually forbidden, many
people relish the idea of trafficking in the forbidden
+ Some modern examples
+ drugs and marijuana cultivation
- drugs for life extension, AIDS treatments
- illegal drugs for recreational use
+ bootleg medical research, AIDS and cancer treatments,
etc.
- for example, self-help user groups that advise on
treatments, alternatives, etc.
+ lockpicking and similar security circumvention
techniques
- recall that possession of lockpicks may be illegal
- what about manuals? (note that most catalogs have a
disclaimer: "These materials are for educational
purposes only, ...")
- defense-related issues: limitations on debate on
national security matters may result in "anonymous
forums"
+ BTW, recent work on crab shells and other hard shells
has produced even stronger armor!
- this might be some of the genetic research that is
highly classified and is sold on the anonymous nets
+ Alchemists and the search for immortality
+ theory that the "Grandfather of all cults" (my term)
started around 4500 B.C.
- in both Egypt and Babylonia/Sumeria
+ ancestor of Gnostics, Sufis, Illuminati, etc.
- The Sufi mystic Gurdjieff claimed he was a member
of a mystical cult formed in Babylon about 4500
B.C.
- spider venom?
+ Speculation: a group or cult oriented toward life
extension, toward the search for immortality-perhaps
a link to The Epic of Gilgamesh.
+ The Gilgamesh legend
- Gilgamesh, Akkadian language stone tablets in
Nineveh
- made a journey to find Utnapishtim, survivor of
Babylonian flood and possessor of secret of
immortality (a plant that would renew youth)
- but Gilgamesh lost the plant to a serpent
+ Egyptians
- obviously the Egyptians had a major interest in
life extension and/or immortality
+ Osiris, God of Resurrection and Eternal Life
- also the Dark Companion of Serius (believed to
be a neutron star?)
- they devoted huge fraction of wealth to pyramids,
embalming, etc. (myrhh or frankincense from
desert city in modern Oman, discovered with
shuttle imaging radar)
+ "pyramid power": role on Great Seal, as sign of
Illuminati, and of theories about cosmic energy,
geometrical shapes, etc.
- and recall work on numerological significance
of Great Pyramid dimensions
-
+ Early Christianity
- focus on resurrection of Jesus Christ
+ Quest for immortality is a major character
motivation or theme
+ arguably for all people: via children,
achievements, lasting actions, or even "a good
life"
- "Living a good life is no substitute for living
forever"
- but some seek it explicitly
- "Million alive today will never die." (echoes of
past religious cults....Jehovah's Witnesses?)
- banned by the Church (the Inquisition)
+ research, such as it was, was kept alive by secret
orders that communicated secretly and in code and that
were very selective about membership
- classes of membership to protect against discovery
(the modern spy cell system)
- red herrings designed to divert attention away
+ all of this fits the structure of such groups as the
Masons, Freemason, Illuminati, Rosicrucians, and other
mystical groups
- with members like John Dee, court astrologer to Queen
Elizabeth
+ a genius writer-scientist like Goethe was probably a
member of this group
- Faust was his message of the struggle
- with the Age of Rationalism, the mystical, mumbo-jumbo
aspects of alchemical research were seen to be passé,
and groups like Crowleys O.T.O. became purely mystical
showmanship
+ but the need for secrecy was now in the financial
arena, with vast resources, corporate R & D labs, and
banks needed
- hence the role of the Morgans, Rothschilds, etc. in
these conspiracies
+ and modern computer networks will provide the next
step, the next system of research
- funded anonymously
- anonymous systems mean that researchers can publish
results in controversial areas (recall that
cryobiologists dare not mention cryonics, lest they
be expelled from American Cryobiology xxx)
+ Bootleg Medical Research (and Cryonics)
+ Cryonics Research and Anti-aging Treatments
+ Use of Nazi Data
- hypothermia experiments at Dachau
+ Anti-aging drugs and treatments
- fountain of youth, etc.
- many FDA restrictions, of course
- Mexico
+ Switzerland
- foetal calf cells?
- blood changing or recycling?
+ Illegal Experiments
- reports that hyperbaric oxygen may help revival of
patients from neat-death in freezing accidents
+ Black Markets in Drugs, Medical Treatments
+ RU-486, bans on it
- anti-abortion foes
- easy to synthesize
- NOW has indicated plans to distribute this drug
themselves, to create networks (thus creating de
facto allies of the libertarian-oriented users)
+ Organ Banks
+ establishing a profit motive for organ donors
- may be the only way to generate enough donations,
even from the dead
- some plans are being made for such motives,
especially to motivate the families of dying
patients
- ethical issues
+ what about harvesting from the still-living?
- libertarians would say: OK, if informed consent was
given
- the rich can go to overseas clinics
+ AIDS patients uniting via bulletin boards to share
treatment ideas, self-help, etc.
- with buying trips to Mexico and elsewhere
- authorities will try to halt such BBSs (on what
grounds, if no money is changing hands?)
+ Doctors may participate in underground research networks
to protect their own reputations and professional status
- to evade AMA or other professional organizations and
their restrictive codes of ethics
+ or lawsuits and bad publicity
- some groups, the "Guardian Angels" of the future,
seek to expose those who they think are committing
crimes: abortionists (even though legal), etc.
- "politically incorrect" research, such as vitamin
therapy, longevity research, cryonics
- breast implant surgery may be forced into black markets
(and perhaps doctors who later discover evidence of such
operations may be forced to report such operations)
+ Back Issues of Tests and Libraries of Term Papers
- already extant, but imagine with an AMIX-like frontend?
+ Different kinds of networks will emerge, not all of them
equally accessible
+ the equivalent of the arms and drug networks-one does not
gain entree merely by asking around a bit
- credibility, reputation, "making your bones"
- these networks are not open to the casual person
+ Some Networks May Be For the Support of Overseas
Researchers
+ who face restrictions on their research
- e.g., countries that ban birth control may forbid
researchers from communication with other researchers
+ suppose U.S. researchers are threatened with
sanctions-loss of their licenses, censure, even
prosecution-if they participate in RU-486 experiments?
- recall the AIDS drug bootleg trials in SF, c. 1990
- or to bypass export restrictions
- scenario: several anonymous bulletin boards are set
up-and then closed down by the authorities-to facillitate
anonymous hookups (much like "anonymous FTP")
+ Groups faced with debilitating lawsuits will "go
underground"
- Act Up! and Earth First! have no identifiable central
office that can be sued, shut down, etc.
- and Operation Rescue has done the same thing
16.22.4. Illegal Data
- credit histories that violate some current law about
records
- bootleg medical research
- stolen data (e.g., from competitors....a GDS system could
allow remote queries of a database, almost "oracular,"
without the stolen data being in a U.S. jurisdiction)
- customers in the U.K or Sweden that are forbidden to
compile data bases on individuals may choose to store the
data offshore and then access it discreetly (another reason
encryption and ZKIPS must be offered)
16.22.5. "the Switzerland of data"
- Brussells supposedly raises fewer eyebrows than
Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, Switzerland, etc.
- Cayman Islands, other small nations see possibilities
16.22.6. Information markets may have to move offshore, due to
licensing and other restrictions
- just as stock brokers and insurance brokers are licensed,
the government may insist that information resellers be
licensed (pass exams, be subject to audits and regulations)
By Tim May, see README
HTML by Jonathan Rochkind