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.
By Tim May, see README
HTML by Jonathan Rochkind