December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: What Will Revolution Look Like?
by Adam Shostack 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The distinction between civilians and soldiers, which came about in the 17th and 18th centuries, is close to meaningless in the context of a modern revolution. However, this distinction, and the Clausewitzian claim that war is the continuation of politics by other means, underly the 'law of war.' War as the continuation of politics implies that the State sends soldiers to war against other soldiers to fight for policy rights. War to gain teritory, war over insults or honor, religious war, is seen as a thing of the past. Barbaric. Modern warriors can not understand people who play by other rules. To some extent, this has been good for us civilians. The firebombings of German cities were an exception, not the rule. However, as the anti-colonial movement demonstrated, a people can effectively fight a modern army, and win. They are marked as terrorists, defamed for their capitalist activites such as drug smuggling to finance the struggle, and hanged when caught. A modern revolution, as Mao taught, is based on forcing people to decide if they are with you or against you. There are no neutrals who simply want the status quo to continue, because once the revolutionaries have started to do their job, the state lashes out, passing facist new laws (see Northern Ireland, Peru, the United States). The status quo disappears, and the revolutionaries are committed. It is only by making starkly clear who stands where that enough people to fuel the revolution can have the manpower to sucseed. The alternative to the revolution becomes living under the government that killed your family members. In Algeria, once the first few thousands of martyrs died, every additional person the French killed was a new reason to fight. Surrender, to the Alerians, became inconcievable. Life as French was not worth living. So they fought. When the revolution comes to the United States, it will not be a pretty thing. Our best hope is for a rapid surrender of the current government, which is not likely. By deploying now the tools of communication (remailers, strong encryption, directions for building bombs and traps, cheap radio transmitters), as well as the tools for deception (how hard is it to build a fake GPS transmitter?), and the understanding that the US governemnt has grown cancerous, we bring closer the begenning and the end of the revolution. We bring its start closer by forcing the Government to show its true colors, turning more people against it. We bring its finish closer by having ready the tools to render ineffective the large fighting machines we have paid for, by making it clear tht the government does not have the support of the people, and by making it clear that once committed, we will have to fight. So, Tim, we disagree that it will be like nothing seen before. It will be like many modern revolutions, because we can't force the government to fight on our terms today. 20 years later, we will look back, and realize that governments have murdered most of the innocents they will ever kill, because will can deploy technology to make government voluntary. But we're not there, and getting there may be bloody. There is, of course, Duncan's Berlin Wall theory, but I fear things will have to get worse before they get better. Adam Tim May wrote: | Some of the questions by Mark Rogaski and others ask about the nature of | the revolution I and others are predicting and encouraging. | | What will a just revolution, like those anticipated by Jefferson, Franklin, | and others, look like? | | The British thought the colonial rebels were "playing dirty" by shooting | from behind trees instead of marching in bright uniforms with drums and | bugles to herald their way. | | Modern armies think freedom fighters are "terrorist scum" for not fighting | honestly and fairly in their own M-1 Abrams tanks and aircraft carriers. | | So, too, will revolutionaries be seen as fighting "unfairly" and being | unethical sneaks, child killers, and terrorists. | | (As if children and other innocents did not die in various incidents in | past wars, on all sides.) | | When Jefferson predicted that a revolution was needed every 20 years or so, | he surely was not saying that throwing one party out of leadership and | putting the other party in was an example of such a revolution, or that | "campaign reform" is such an example. Nor was he saying that the only valid | revolution would be when a buch of citizens or states got together their | own army and marched on Washington. | | (Actually, raising such an army is in violation of numerous laws about | heavy weaons, licenses to carry weapons, etc. No doubt illegal. Ironically.) | | No, the revolution, when it comes, will likely be different from anything | quite like we've seen to date. -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume

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Re: democracy?! (Re: Terrorism is a NON-THREAT (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Fri, 31 Oct 1997 13:28:22 GMT > From: Adam Back <aba(a)dcs.ex.ac.uk> > The real problem as I see it with democracy is that not only do your > neighbours get to vote to have you locked up for something which is > none of their business, and has no conceivable effect up on them; but > they actually get to vote for you to be charged for the "service" of > being locked up to protect you from yourself. Exactly what kind of democracy are you speaking of? Sounds like you are lumping them all into one big bucket, a disservice to all involved in this discussion and a popular spin-doctor tactic. If so, please be so kind as to demonstrate how a representative, constitutional, and majority democracy are the same? And for the record, we have a constitutional representative democracy. Personaly, I figure you must be one of those folks with a cognitive disfunction. What part of "Congress shall make no law..." do you not understand? > The wild west was better than this state of affairs -- people didn't > have the energy or inclination to waste their own resources being nosy > parkers, and those that did were apt to wind up full of lead. Boy, you history is simply fucked. If you seriosly think the west was like television you should spend more time reading books and period newspapers and less time looking at the boob-tube. At the height of the range wars there were only 9 murders associated with the conflict, not hundreds as the popular entertainment media and spin-doctor culture would have you believe. Get your fucking facts straight. Face off's at high-noon simply didn't happen and poeple didn't run around having gun fights all the time. I would suggest *strongly* that if nothing else you review the western history series by Time*Life, should be at your local library, and UT Press put out a book called "The Texas Rangers". I have both of them but unfortunately they are in my shop 30 miles away. A lookup at your local bookstore should get them if you are truly interested in how it was. "The Quick & The Dead" was a movie, not a historical documentary. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there | | be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. | | | | -Alan Greenspan- | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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Re: democracy?! (Re: Terrorism is a NON-THREAT (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Sat, 1 Nov 1997 20:06:10 GMT > From: Adam Back <aba(a)dcs.ex.ac.uk> > Subject: Re: democracy?! (Re: Terrorism is a NON-THREAT (fwd) > > Jim Choate <ravage(a)ssz.com> writes: > > > > Exactly what kind of democracy are you speaking of? Sounds like you are > > lumping them all into one big bucket, > > I figure it's a reasonable summary of a lot of democracies right now. What is a reasonable summary? Reasonable to who? What 'lot' of democracies? > > If so, please be so kind as to demonstrate how a representative, > > constitutional, and majority democracy are the same? And for the > > record, we have a constitutional representative democracy. > > Didn't say they were "the same". No, but you certainly imply it with your broad brush. > But they do share a characteristic: > distortions of free market in the form of voting for theft and > redistribution of other peoples money leading to annoying government > micro-management, and general do-gooder busy-body-ness, and the many > laws on thought crimes. Again, demostrate your assertion(s). Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? > > Personaly, I figure you must be one of those folks with a cognitive > > disfunction. What part of "Congress shall make no law..." do you not > > understand? > > I understand it, but US politicians either don't, or don't care and > largely ignore the constitution. What does it matter whether I > understand it or not? If you don't understand it you can't use it, effectively or otherwise. > Your constitution says you can own and carry > guns; your politicians and law enforcement increasingly say that you > can not. Your response to my saying that is that _I_ don't understand > the constitution? No, my responce is prove your assertions. Explain to me why you believe these are valid views and why they provide a more usable environment for understanding what is going on then others. > > > The wild west was better than this state of affairs -- people didn't > > > have the energy or inclination to waste their own resources being nosy > > > parkers, and those that did were apt to wind up full of lead. > > > > Boy, you history is simply fucked. If you seriosly think the west was like > > television you should spend more time reading books and period newspapers > > and less time looking at the boob-tube. > > I don't own a TV, and so don't watch much (by choice -- it's mostly > garbage); printed mass media is a bit better, but not that much. Nice side step. > > At the height of the range wars there were only 9 murders associated > > with the conflict, not hundreds as the popular entertainment media > > and spin-doctor culture would have you believe. Get your fucking > > facts straight. > > I know, that was my point; recall that I said the murder rate was low. No, you said *nothing* about murder rate. What you did say was that back in the old days people ran around killing those who bothered them. Which isn't true either. > The point was there were way less laws, and few were telling their > neighbours what they could think. Really? What was the law count say in 1865 versus 1965? 1897 v 1997? Demonstrate your point.

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PGPsdk is out, but not for free
by lcs Mixmaster Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

More proof that the PGP folks have some kind of alterior motive. Translation: They created a software package which purposefully breaks the previous free versions of that package. Then they release a development kit for that package with outrageous licensing fees. Welcome to the new PGP Inc. >First, PGPsdk has been released: > http://www.pgp.com/sdk/ >The bad news: the licensing fees are so high that there will be no >freeware or shareware applications using it. Here's an example of the >licensing: >License Plan #1 > Authentication, Encryption/Decryption, > PGP/MIME, Key Management: $25,000 advance on >royalties + 2% of product revenues (minimum $1 per client and $35 per >server) >Add Certificate Server Integration: > $5,000 advance on royalties >Support/Upgrades > (includes email support by a trained > developer support technician) > $1,500 per year + 15% of royalty payments

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PGPsdk is out, but not for free
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

More proof that the PGP folks have some kind of alterior motive. Translation: They created a software package which purposefully breaks the previous free versions of that package. Then they release a development kit for that package with outrageous licensing fees. Welcome to the new PGP Inc. >First, PGPsdk has been released: > http://www.pgp.com/sdk/ >The bad news: the licensing fees are so high that there will be no >freeware or shareware applications using it. Here's an example of the >licensing: >License Plan #1 > Authentication, Encryption/Decryption, > PGP/MIME, Key Management: $25,000 advance on >royalties + 2% of product revenues (minimum $1 per client and $35 per >server) >Add Certificate Server Integration: > $5,000 advance on royalties >Support/Upgrades > (includes email support by a trained > developer support technician) > $1,500 per year + 15% of royalty payments

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No Subject
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

## In-reply-to: <19971101145349.14850(a)ultra7.umr.edu> (message from Matthew Nuckolls on Sat, 1 Nov 1997 14:53:49 -0600) Subject: Re: cute. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Matthew Nuckolls says > Warning: The following message is apolitical. > > > -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- > > mQCNAzRbd7MAAAEEAONwsEpUgiezyfP6lxBzM5SfHJS6MK12JyR09KBZp2rrW680 > > ... > > =6dKS > > -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- > > What's the point in distribuing your public key through the same > channels as a signature? Kinda defeats the purpose. The purpose is to create a persistent nym. The signature, and public key ensures that you know that this message is from the same person as you were attempting to nit pick :-] > I can't verify that the given public key is indeed yours, since > you're anonymous. True. So it's only as good as the keys you might fetch from a keyserver that you have no connection to in the web of trust. You aren't supposed to link it to my True Name. All that can be done is to get a signature from a timestamp server, and a signature from Bill Stewart's nym key signing service. I don't think there are any timestamp servers which provide key signatures. Anyone want to start one? This is important because it prevents someone else from generating more keys with the same userID, such as happened with Tim May's blacknet key. The only protection I have against that is the public record of my key being posted to cypherpunks. The http://infinity.nus.sg/cypherpunks/ archive helps as a public record of first publishing of a key with this userID. A timestamp service signature on my key would be a better solution. Amad3us -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQCVAwUBNFugu/KMuKFNFivhAQEJUwP7BUCoER9V60RDWQHLRNB1tGudDwWtQsRy lnZJuI+VK9ljr5ze6O8b7/3WLItSqxyd4o+yyf/hx7SARqyZ1BV6KEljUXe7i3RQ 4Dy5H7/E+hZe9B4cN9OYs8A2oAcLKs5fIYSKqyEado6+IL4G9YrDTNmz28z/flmY kvfVsPWKk7w= =oXSI -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- mQCNAzRbd7MAAAEEAONwsEpUgiezyfP6lxBzM5SfHJS6MK12JyR09KBZp2rrW680 4vbKAO/oteftRRM1jYYaQM6pUd2Tbb9z+cSuQGr2GH9kQ0Y7bllh89E1PItj7frG ARSCbt1gbbXDXEICY8Ne1zZB7FfMt2qGVBdrKG/i2vfdZa5+n/KMuKFNFivhAAUR tCNBbWFkM3VzIDxjeXBoZXJwdW5rc0BjeWJlcnBhc3MubmV0PokAlQMFEDRbjMPy jLihTRYr4QEB38ED/1P9L2yLURl5B2GJok3eIf6EnF1ahFxSK7wuK++YfKRKb3Ku oPTzwSXH+92PZX28dpC+aYu8Qb0dMSCk4Cadn9cxz4n42u509JU4z0o897lB4u2I TxV3YKbBAQSv/jZ/Gq8drdFtemQXUPigNL6IjDAPc/REiHv7IZNKAniSBo1P =N8Gg -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

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PGPsdk is out, but not for free (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Sat, 1 Nov 1997 16:36:05 -0500 > From: Anonymous <anon(a)anon.efga.org> > Subject: PGPsdk is out, but not for free > >License Plan #1 > > > Authentication, Encryption/Decryption, > > PGP/MIME, Key Management: $25,000 advance on > >royalties + 2% of product revenues (minimum $1 per client and $35 per > >server) > > >Add Certificate Server Integration: > > $5,000 advance on royalties > > >Support/Upgrades > > (includes email support by a trained > > developer support technician) > > $1,500 per year + 15% of royalty payments > Hmmm, will have to rethink suggesting any PGP based products to my customers now. I simply refuse to pay anybody any percentage of my product revenues simply because I use their tool. I buy a SDK for a flat fee like I buy a book, screwdriver, or a car. I can't imagine Black & Decker wanting a percentage of the house sale simply because the carpenter used their hammers and saws. Ford or Chevy wanting to see my income statement each year so they can figure out how much I owe them because I drive their brand of vehicle to my customers sites...yeah right. $25k?...PGP Inc.....Get a clue. Hell, at those kinds of license fees I can afford to develop my own libraries. What I do with it and how much money I make with it is my income alone (minus taxes) *unless* they want to cover some percentage of my business costs (which I don't want). ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there | | be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. | | | | -Alan Greenspan- | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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Re: effective GACK fighting
by Blanc 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim May wrote: >Where have you folks been the last couple of years? Given that the list has >been discussing the Bernstein case (and 30 of us even attended some of >Judge Patel's hearings in SF), and the Junger and Karn cases have been >extensively reported, and the CDA was overturned, I'd certainly say court >battles have been a priority for a long time. ............................................. The Bernstein, Junger, and Karn cases are all about a single issue. The EFF focuses on the same computer/internet/privacy issues. What I was envisioning was the fundamental conflicts like a basic observance of respect for human beings in their pursuit of the Three Virtues (the opposite of the Four Horsement <g>) - Life, Liberty, Happiness, and for legitimate consent - not the manufactured "voluntary" complicity to demands like taxation and all the other crimes which have been discussed on the list. >Certainly I don't know of any Cypherpunks pushing for legislative >solutions. Most of us have explicitly condemned the legislative actions, >realzing that Congress can only make things worse. I wouldn't expect any new laws to be passed as a result of this kind of court battle, nor expect Congress or even the Supremes to approve of and support it. The only purpose would be to challenge the whole lot of government agencies who accept the above-mentioned flaws as unquestionable government rights-of-way. A revolutionary sort of action, in other words, not for the purpose of getting legislation/legislators on "our side", but to back them up against the wall and squish them. (Operation Squish. heh-heh. Ya'll remember that?) I don't know exactly how this could be brought about, but I would expect it would have more the structure and sense of a 'noble cause' such as the Originals brought to their revolution, than simply to gather into groups like the 'Patriots' and the 'Freemen' and such, who are more incoherent than admirable. The Originals also made their attempts at negotiating their case with unsympathetic rulers, preceding their realization that they were getting nowhere. And it is more than likely that current court judges are just as dull and dense and morally asleep at the wheel as King George. But the thing is to bring out these flaws explicitly, in the place designed for such things, where they may be attended to in the civilized manner created for such conflicts of MO. The Case of the Individual against the State. I can dream, can't I? It would make a great TV series. (You, of course, would rather spit-polish your guns and buy more ammo.) .. Blanc

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Re: democracy?! (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Sat, 1 Nov 1997 22:06:03 GMT > From: Adam Back <aba(a)dcs.ex.ac.uk> > Subject: Re: democracy?! > > Jim Choate <ravage(a)ssz.com> writes: > > What is a reasonable summary? Reasonable to who? What 'lot' of > > democracies? > > This is getting kind of repetitive. I agree, I keep asking for your examples and proof and you keep avoiding providing them. You should consider being a politician or a lawyer. It's a real pity you can't seem to approach this discussion in good faith and with a sense of open analysis. > Perhaps you could provide a > counter example to disprove my claim that democracies result in more > petty privacy and freedom invasive laws than would be the case with a > pure market anarchy Pure market anarchy? What the hell is a pure market? I know what a free market is. Define it first. Explain how it, without an explicit bill of rights, will protect my rights? Explain how we don't end up with a Microsoft that owns everything which effectively reduces to a commercial communism? Where are my 'exit' choices then? What in the world would motivate such an entity to provide me with the resources to be a direct competitor, something clearly not in its best interest for long-term survival? How will others learn the technology and its applications outside the purvue of these economic regulatory entities. The unlimited expansion of the rail-roads in the 1800's is a excellent simili for comparison for both what such a system would be like as well as the major problems it *doesn't* address. Taminy Hall ring any bells? There was a free market political system if there ever was one; pay me and I'll do it for you, don't and you can freeze in hell. A more modern example is the history of the telecommunications companies which even after being broken up have now re-combined so that we in effect only have 3 domestic tel-comm providers, and they are discussing how to combine their resources. Further explain why such a system will guarantee that my views will at least be addressed at some level and not relegated a priori to a trash-heap because it goes against the market analysis of some bunch of bean-counters? Who do I go to for resolution of claims against these entities, the self-same entities? You call that justice, equality, or even representation? Explain why and how such a economic based system will guarantee my right to free speech or even to run a small business which I currently do when it is clear that I am in open competition with the very entities which provide me the resources to make the money? What is the economic motivation for the resource controlling entities to support my freedoms when it reduces their income? Explain how your system prevents economic black-balling? Another implication is that we will see more of the sort of business stategies implimented by PGP Inc. (for example) where they want a percentage of your income *without* accepting a percentage of the risk, economic tyrany is tyrany just the same. What recourse do I have if the monopolies which arise in such a system decide that the services or resources I need won't be provided? Am I then supposed to just calmly accept becoming some prole for some zaibatsu? What happens when those monopolies decide that if they work together they can further streamline the market, and my going to church or taking a vacation goes against those business requirements? It sounds like you are supporting Hirshleifer who says: "The mere fact of low income under anarchy... of itself provides no clear indication as to what is likely to happen next." [Personly, Hirshleifer is an idiot who apparently doesn't hang out on the wrong side of the tracks and therefore has no clue as to what motivates the poor or stupid.] Which in effect breaks down into one of two results for individuals (which all free market anarchists admit openly) who don't have sufficient income to buy their indipendance and their say: 1. they devote a great deal of effort to fighting to gain control over resources. or 2. they capitulate to some other party and turn over their resources for food and shelter. History would argue that people will accept neither of these as a solution to day-to-day living. Economists should stay out of politics. It's one of the reasons that at no point in either the Declaration of Indipendance or the Constitution that businesses are given rights are even given consideration except in regards of taxation of inter-state commerce. People should have seperation of government and religion and that includes the worship of wealth. > (perhaps old Iceland would be a suitable anarchy > to consider as a comparison). If it's so damn good how come it doesn't exist anymore? If it provided such a superior governmental system providing the maximum return on investment why did it go away? Why did they instead elect to go with a king? Futher, explain how such an anarchic system can be expanded without demonstrating the exact same sorts of scaling problems consensual democracies such as ancient Greek ran into? It's one thing to rule a few 10's of thousands of people who are related, share world-models and have limited resources and quite another to rule 4+ Billion people who speak hundreds if not thousands of languages and concommittent cultural beliefs? > Do you have a democracy in mind which > doesn't result in lots thought crimes and other "crimes" which are so > far removed from normal free market schelling points. It's just a > natural tendency of a democracy. Thought crimes and such are not a result of any political system but a result of the psychology of people. Please be so kind as to demonstrate (along with my previous questions I am still waiting on) how a political system effects the basic psychological development of the participants. Further, explain how the belief in the resolving power of money is any different than the resolving power of Buddha? You seem to be claiming that if we pray to the all mighty dollar all will be right with the world. > > > But they do share a characteristic: > > > distortions of free market in the form of voting for theft and > > > redistribution of other peoples money leading to annoying government > > > micro-management, and general do-gooder busy-body-ness, and the many > > > laws on thought crimes. > > > > Again, demostrate your assertion(s). > > > > Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? > > Who? What? Current democracices. When? Now. Why? Market > distortion. How? Politicians brokering legalised mass theft and > market distortion for game theoretic reasons. You seriously expect any reasonable person to be satisfied with such a side-step? And in case you hadn't realized it, the entire concept of free-market is a result of those same game theories. Are you claiming that such free market based systems will abandon game theory when it clearly provides insight into how those free markets operate? > > > Your constitution says you can own and carry > > > guns; your politicians and law enforcement increasingly say that you > > > can not. Your response to my saying that is that _I_ don't understand > > > the constitution? > > > > No, my responce is prove your assertions. > > You prove your assertion: are you saying there are no gun controls in The simply fact that one has a constitution that guarantees certain rights is *not* a guarantee that others won't find those rights threatening and want to take them away (see Hirshleifer's two alternatives above). And your assertion is that if we go to a free market anarchy then we no longer have to worry about anyone telling us what we can and can't do? Please be so kind as to demonstrate why a free market anarchy will prohibit monopolistic organizations who would be just as threatened by armed individuals as any other centralized organization? > > Explain to me why you believe these are valid views > > because they are a statement of readily observable reality? Where do I observe them? Give examples. Whose reality? Are you seriously claiming that there is one absolute reality? > > What you did say was that back in the old days people ran around > > killing those who bothered them. Which isn't true either. > > That bit was a statement of a belief that few people would be inclined > to invade someones privacy and attempt to impose sanctions for what > they viewed as thought crimes. It takes governments or religions to > do this kind of thing, individuals aren't likely to Governments and religions *ARE* people. There are times where I think you have said the stupidist thing possible and then you keep typing. Individuals are the ones who killed the Jews, put pepper spray in the eyes of demonstrators, and just about everything else that gets done. > > > The point was there were way less laws, and few were telling their > > > neighbours what they could think. > > > > Really? What was the law count say in 1865 versus 1965? 1897 v 1997? > > Demonstrate your point. > > I say: there were less laws in 1897 US than 1997 US. > > Tell me: do you refute that claim? I don't know, never looked at the numbers *AND* it isn't my job to refute it. *IT IS* your job to prove it since it is *YOUR* claim and apparently has some relevance to your thesis' validity. The number of laws at any given time is irrelevant and immaterial to my position (nice attempt at a straw man). It is plain stupidity to make claims and not have a clue as to the reality. I shure as hell won't be asking people to put their lives in my hands unless I could address such issues in a manner that they would feel comfortable with. Gut feelings are almost always wrong. The mere fact that you feel that we should take such claims at face value is a clear indication of what kind of worth you place in others. You believe yourself to be an angel apparently. Oh, and for the record. Studies of deaths during the 1800's indicate that the vast majority were accidental self-inflicted gunshot wounds, far more than the Indians or other 3rd parties inflicted combined. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there | | be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. | | | | -Alan Greenspan- | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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Re: Technology 'secures' gunfire [CNN]
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jonathan Wienke wrote: > At 09:06 PM 10/31/97 -0600, Jim Choate wrote: > >> Now police have an electronic witness that can provide similar > >> assistance: a device called SECURES that pinpoints the time and > >> location of gunshots. > In order for this system to be worth anything, it would have to be able to: ... > 3. Monitor conversations throughout the coverage area. A suspicious sound > preceded by a male voice saying "Give me your money, bitch" would be much > more interesting than one preceded by a revving engine. This would have > the added benefits of allowing LEO's to track fugitives via the sound of > their footsteps, their breathing, vehicle engine sounds, etc., as well as > gathering voiceprint data from crimes in progress. > > I think point 3 is the scariest. A properly designed system could do > voiceprint analysis of almost every word spoken in public, tie the > conversations to the identities of the speakers, and archive the time, > location, content and participants of every spoken conversation for long > periods of time in a database that could be searched by keyword, speaker > identity, time, and/or location. The following searches could be done: > > 1. "I want a list of everyone who uttered the words 'buy' and 'crack' in > the same sentence between 2100 and 0330 hours within 500 feet of 123 Maple > Drive between August 7 and December 5." > > 2. "I want a list of all participants in conversations with Citizen-Unit > 754-35-9710 which included the phrase 'BATF agent' in the last 6 months. > > 3. "I want a map of Citizen-Unit 754-35-9710's movements for the last 2 > weeks." ... Jonathan has hit on a point which illustrates the danger of the surveillance technologies that are _already_ in place, vis a vis, the Internet. Something lost in the euphoria over the citizen's radical new ability to access information: Yahoo Search--"Posts by _me_." is that the same technolgy, and more, is at the fingertips of the proverbial 4 Horsemen AND (now for the _really_ bad news) at the fingertips of "John Law, the Citizen's Friend." Sadly, "garbage in--garbage out" _has_ always, and _will_ always, result(ed) in such inanities as Drug Counselors being 'rated' at the same level as Drug Dealers when the computer spits out the results of a badly structured "search for the _bad_guys_." Naturally, when the police mistakenly kick in the door of a Drug Counselor, it is always a 'regretable tragedy' when they shoot holes in the ten year old boy in the hallway who is holding an over-ripe banana which 'looked like a weapon.' (Almost a true life example, told to me by a friend who left her career in law enforcement because she was still in possession of a conscience which was capable of recognizing that children killed by those who are 'just following orders' are just as dead as the children killed by those who are 'out of control.') {The person in question 'pulled' her shot at the last moment, upon realizing she was about to murder a child with a banana. Because the banana "could have been a weapon," an investigation was not required for an officer firing upon an unarmed citizen. I regard this lady as a wonderful example of someone who has held themself to a higher standard than their government regulators and their peers. What is a shame is that someone who _should_ be the type of person charged with protecting us had to leave the system because there is no future for those who choose sanity, logic and humanity over 'following orders.'} If you stop to consider Jonathan's examples of (paraphrased), "give me the names of every citizen in location 'A' at time 'B' who has used the word 'normal' in an email in the last ten years, etc., etc." in light of Internet search engine capabilities being extended to such technologies as 'citizen physical location monitoring', 'voice recognition', 'DNA pattern analysis' (e.g. heriditary potential for violence, etc.), then the future may be very scary, indeed. Think about this: "Ladies and gentleman of the jury, the person who is reading this post is the 'only' individual, out of over 20 million processed by the Never Wrong Criminal Identification Compter System, who is in the post reader's general location, today, has completed their high school education and has a family member who has committed murder in the last five generations." (What? You claim you are not the _only_ person in New York City, with a high school education. Nice try, pal, but the computer is never wrong.) "Although no murder has been committed yet, statistics show that someone in that area will be, within the next two days, so I ask that you return a verdict of 'Guilty of murder in the first degree' and we will pick up and execute the reader of this post as soon as a body turns up." ...in light of _this_: A citizen was found guilty of murder by a jury, based on the slim eyewitness testimony of a passerby who caught a fleeting glimpse of the murderer, despite testimony from over a dozen people that the defendant was, at the time of the murder, attending a wedding thousands of miles away. Some of those giving testimony did not even know the man prior to meeting him at the wedding, and were in no way related to the man, but the jury was still swayed by the prosecutor's claim that this wide variety of law-abiding, average citizens were lying to try and protect the defendant. Do you have a great-great-grandfather who committed murder? Then you are, by heridity, a potential murderer. It's in your blood! This is '10 points against' you. All of the kindness you have don in your life does not count in your favor, because any fool can see that it was done in an attempt to trick the jury. > The Big Brother potential of such a system should be obvious. What is > really scary is that such a system could be built mostly with currently > existing hardware, and at most a few man-years of software development. If > each node in the network performs its own speech to text conversion and > archiving, and coordinates with a central voiceprint ID server, (which > could also provide the sync signal that the nodes would use to > cross-reference between nodes to locate sounds) each node could consist of > a Pentium 200 with some specialized audio signal processing cards and 15-20 > GB of storage. The only really new thing required would be an .AVI-style > format for storing MPEG audio, a text transcript of said audio (which would > need to include keywords for gunshots, passing vehicles, and other events > of interest), and location coordinates (updated on a second to second > basis) which could be indexed for reasonably efficient searching. Of course, Jonathan is a raving lunatic for suggesting these outlandish possibilities, much like the mentally unstable people who history records as believing that one day people would be able to send electromagnetic waves through the atmosphere and have their images and voices appear on machines in distant places. Seriously, history has shown that any technology capable of being used for great evil _will_ be used for great evil. The reason that technology radically increases the ante in the game between good and evil is that if one 'evil' person is in control of technology that ten million 'good' people do not have access to, then the basic humanity or inhumanity of humankind, in general, is really not an important part of the equation which will determine the future. (I challenge all other cypherpunks to a fistfight, the only rule being that I can use an Uzi, and you can't.) Remember...when all is said and done, my dad was an optomist. George Orwelle Jr.

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