August 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Net anonymity service un-backdoored
by R. A. Hettinga 01 Sep '03

01 Sep '03

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/32533.html> The Register 28 August 2003 Updated: 17:42 GMT Net anonymity service un-backdoored By Thomas C Greene in Washington Posted: 28/08/2003 at 13:31 GMT The Java Anonymous Proxy (JAP) service, a collaborative effort of Dresden University of Technology, Free University Berlin and the Independent Centre for Privacy Protection Schleswig-Holstein, Germany (ICPP), has been allowed to suspend its monitoring of users' IP traffic pending a decision on the legality of back-dooring it. Collectively known as the AN.ON Project, the operators appealed a lower court's decision allowing the German Feds to obtain reports on users' access to a particular IP address (no doubt having to do with KP or bomb-making, etc). The appeals court has allowed the operators to discontinue logging until their appeal has been answered. When a decision has been reached, the JAP team says they will document the whole affair, but cannot do so until the court issues its ruling. A single record of access to the forbidden IP address has been logged but not yet disclosed to the Feds pending the higher court's decision, the JAP team says . In a previous article The Register criticised the way the JAP team handled its initial confrontation with the Feds, ie., by waiting quietly until a user discovered the back door before acknowledging the situation. We believe there were better ways of dealing with the court order, either by posting a prominent warning that the service might be subject to monitoring by the authorities, by leaking the information to the press outside Germany, or by disabling the affected proxies temporarily in protest. We hope that if the JAP team should lose its appeal and be ordered to resume monitoring, particularly under a gag order, it will find a way of giving the public a proper heads up. Their previous performance hardly inspires confidence, but there is always opportunity for redemption. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Re: "Terror Reading"
by Anonymous 01 Sep '03

01 Sep '03

>Some librarians are probably now thinking they have a patriotic duty to >see what people are reading and to report any "suspicious" behavior. >Part of the intent of the Patriot Act and the Library Awareness Program >was to bamboozle the nation's librarians into acting as the kind of >"ward watchers" that were once so common in the Soviet Union (the >babushkas who sat on each floor of apartment buildings and filed >reports on the comings and goings of their flock). The purpose of this is purely a show and indoctrination. 1. No self-respecting terrorist would go to a fucking library to do terror reading (maybe there is something positive here - I think that we should get protected by pigs from extremely dumb terorists.) 2. No library that I am aware of requires ID to do on-site anything. The same goes for internet cafes and open wireless access points. 3. Buying books for cash is anonymous as it gets - it's unlikely that a library will have something that university bookstore or Internet doesn't have. Again, poor terorists should be caught. I want to be terorized by professionals.

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DoS of spam blackhole lists
by Andrew Thomas 01 Sep '03

01 Sep '03

Hi, Considering that it appears that spammers are now resorting to DoS'ing sites that host spam lists, wouldn't now be a good time to investigate the possibilities of a distributed, or at least, load balanced blacklist provider? Even something as simple as round-robin DNS with sufficient nodes (couple of hundred?) should be enough to make such attacks highly inefficient and far, far less likely to be effective. Of course, with round robin DNS, one can target the DNS servers. Would this make for an interesting community project? Any comments appreciated. -- Andrew G. Thomas Hobbs & Associates Chartered Accountants (SA) (o) +27-(0)21-683-0500 (f) +27-(0)21-683-0577 (m) +27-(0)83-318-4070

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Cypherpunks List Info
by cpunk＠lne.com 31 Aug '03

31 Aug '03

Cypherpunks Mailing List Information Last updated: Sep 12, 2002 This message is also available at http://www.lne.com/cpunk Instructions on unsubscribing from the list can be found below. 0. Introduction The Cypherpunks mailing list is a mailing list for discussing cryptography and its effect on society. It is not a moderated list (but see exceptions below) and the list operators are not responsible for the list content. Cypherpunks is a distributed mailing list. A subscriber can subscribe to one node of the list and thereby participate on the full list. Each node (called a "Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer", although they are not related to anonymous remailers) exchanges messages with the other nodes in addition to sending messages to its subscribers. A message posted to one node will be received by the list subscribers on the other nodes, and vice-versa. 1. Filtering The various CDRs follow different policies on filtering spam and to a lesser extent on modifying messages that go to/from their subscribers. Filtering is done, on nodes that do it, to reduce the huge amount of spam that the cypherpunks list is subjected to. There are three basic flavors of filtering CDRs: "raw", which send all messages to their subscribers. "cooked" CDRs try to eliminate the spam on that's on the regular list by automatically sending only messages that are from cypherpunks list subscribers (on any CDR) or people who are replying to list messages. Finally there are moderated lists, where a human moderator decides which messages from the raw list to pass on to subscribers. 2. Message Modification Message modification policy indicates what modifications, if any, beyond what is needed to operate the CDR are done (most CDRs add a tracking X-loop header on mail posted to their subscribers to prevent mail loops). Message modification usually happens on mail going in or out to each CDR's subscribers. CDRs should not modify mail that they pass from one CDR to the next, but some of them do, and others undo those modifications. 3. Privacy Privacy policy indicates if the list will allow anyone ("open"), or only list members, or no one ("private") , to retrieve the subscribers list. Note that if you post, being on a "private" list doesn't mean much, since your address is now out there. It's really only useful for keeping spammers from harvesting addresses from the list software. Digest mode indicates that the CDR supports digest mode, which is where the posts are batched up into a few large emails. Nodes that support only digest mode are noted. 4. Anonymous posting Cypherpunks encourages anonymous posting. You can use an anonymous remailer: http://www.andrebacard.com/remail.html http://anon.efga.org/Remailers http://www.gilc.org/speech/anonymous/remailer.html or you can send posts to the list via cpunks_anon(a)einstein.ssz.com and your mail's headers will be stripped before posting. Note that this doesn't provide complete anonymity since the receiving site will still have log file entries showing the source of the mail (or you have to trust that they delete them). You also will be 'sharing' a reputation with the other entities that post through this alias, and some of them are spammers, so some subscribers will have this alias filtered. 5. Unsubscribing Unsubscribing from the cypherpunks list: Since the list is run from a number of different CDRs, you have to figure out which CDR you are subscribed to. If you don't remember and can't figure it out from the mail headers (hint: the top Received: line should tell you), the easiest way to unsubscribe is to send unsubscribe messages to all the CDRs listed below. How to figure out which CDR you are subscribed to: Get your mail client to show all the headers (Microsoft calls this "internet headers"). Look for the Sender or X-loop headers. The Sender will say something like "Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)lne.com". The X-loop line will say something like "X-Loop: cypherpunks(a)lne.com". Both of these inticate that you are subscribed to the lne.com CDR. If you were subscribed to the algebra CDR, they would have algebra.com in them. Once you have figured out which CDR you're subscribed to, look in the table below to find that CDRs unsubscribe instructions. 6. Lunatics, spammers and nut-cases "I'm subscribed to a filtering CDR yet I still see lots of junk postings". At this writing there are a few sociopaths on the cypherpunks list who are abusing the lists openness by dumping reams of propaganda on the list. The distinction between a spammer and a subscriber is nearly always very clear, but the dictinction between a subscriber who is abusing the list by posting reams of propaganda and a subscriber who is making lots of controversial posts is not clear. Therefore, we tolerate the crap. Subscribers with a low crap tolerance should check out mail filters. Procmail is a good one, although it works on Unix and Unix-like systems only. Eudora also has a capacity for filtering mail, as do many other mail readers. An example procmail recipie is below, you will of course want to make your own decisions on which (ab)users to filter. # mailing lists: # filter all cypherpunks mail into its own cypherspool folder, discarding # mail from loons. All CDRs set their From: line to 'owner-cypherpunks'. # /dev/null is unix for the trash can. :0 * ^From.*owner-cypherpunks@.* { :0: * (^From:.*ravage@ssz\.com.*|\ ^From:.*jchoate@dev.tivoli.com.*|\ ^From:.*mattd@useoz.com|\ ^From:.*proffr11@bigpond.com|\ ^From:.*jei@cc.hut.fi) /dev/null :0: cypherspool } 7. List of current CDRs All commands are sent in the body of mail unless otherwise noted. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Algebra: Operator: Subscription: "subscribe cypherpunks" to majordomo(a)algebra.com Unsubscription: "unsubscribe cypherpunks" to majordomo(a)algebra.com Help: "help cypherpunks" to majordomo(a)algebra.com Posting address: cypherpunks(a)algebra.com Filtering policy: raw Message Modification policy: no modification Privacy policy: ??? Info: ??? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- CCC: Operator: drt(a)un.bewaff.net Subscription: "subscribe [password of your choice]" to cypherpunks-request(a)koeln.ccc.de Unsubscription: "unsubscribe <password>" to cypherpunks-request(a)koeln.ccc.de Help: "help" to to cypherpunks-request(a)koeln.ccc.de Web site: http://koeln.ccc.de/mailman/listinfo/cypherpunks Posting address: cypherpunks(a)koeln.ccc.de Filtering policy: This specific node drops messages bigger than 32k and every message with more than 17 recipients or just a line containing "subscribe" or "unsubscribe" in the subject. Digest mode: this node is digest-only NNTP: news://koeln.ccc.de/cbone.ml.cypherpunks Message Modification policy: no modification Privacy policy: ??? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Infonex: Subscription: "subscribe cypherpunks" to majordomo(a)infonex.com Unsubscription: "unsubscribe cypherpunks" to majordomo(a)infonex.com Help: "help cypherpunks" to majordomo(a)infonex.com Posting address: cypherpunks(a)infonex.com Filtering policy: raw Message Modification policy: no modification Privacy policy: ??? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lne: Subscription: "subscribe cypherpunks" to majordomo(a)lne.com Unsubscription: "unsubscribe cypherpunks" to majordomo(a)lne.com Help: "help cypherpunks" to majordomo(a)lne.com Posting address: cypherpunks(a)lne.com Filtering policy: cooked Posts from all CDR subscribers & replies to threads go to lne CDR subscribers. All posts from other CDRs are forwarded to other CDRs unmodified. Message Modification policy: 1. messages are demimed (MIME attachments removed) when posted through lne or received by lne CDR subscribers 2. leading "CDR:" in subject line removed 3. "Reply-to:" removed Privacy policy: private Info: http://www.lne.com/cpunk; "info cypherpunks" to majordomo(a)lne.com Archive: http://archives.abditum.com/cypherpunks/index.html (thanks to Steve Furlong and Len Sassaman) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Minder: Subscription: "subscribe cypherpunks" to majordomo(a)minder.net Unsubscription: "unsubscribe cypherpunks" to majordomo(a)minder.net Help: "help" to majordomo(a)minder.net Posting address: cypherpunks(a)minder.net Filtering policy: raw Message Modification policy: no modification Privacy policy: private Info: send mail to cypherpunks-info(a)minder.net --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Openpgp: [openpgp seems to have dropped off the end of the world-- it doesn't return anything from sending help queries. Ericm, 8/7/01] Subscription: "subscribe cypherpunks" to listproc(a)openpgp.net Unsubscription: "unsubscribe cypherpunks" to listproc(a)openpgp.net Help: "help" to listproc(a)openpgp.net Posting address: cypherpunks(a)openpgp.net Filtering policy: raw Message Modification policy: no modification Privacy policy: ??? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ssz: Subscription: "subscribe cypherpunks" to majordomo(a)ssz.com Unsubscription: "unsubscribe cypherpunks" to majordomo(a)ssz.com Help: "help cypherpunks" to majordomo(a)ssz.com Posting address: cypherpunks(a)ssz.com Filtering policy: raw Message Modification policy: Subject line prepended with "CDR:" Reply-to cypherpunks(a)ssz.com added. Privacy policy: open Info: http://www.ssz.com/cdr/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunder: Subscription: "subscribe" to sunder(a)sunder.net Unsubscription: "unsubscribe" to sunder(a)sunder.net Help: "help" to sunder(a)sunder.net Posting address: sunder(a)sunder.net Filtering policy: moderated Message Modification policy: ??? Privacy policy: ??? Info: ??? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pro-ns: Subscription: "subscribe cypherpunks" to majordomo(a)pro-ns.net Unsubscription: "unsubscribe cypherpunks" to majordomo(a)pro-ns.net Help: "help cypherpunks" to majordomo(a)pro-ns.net Posting address: cypherpunks(a)pro-ns.net Filtering policy: cooked Posts from all CDR subscribers & replies to threads go to local CDR subscribers. All posts from other CDRs are forwarded to other CDRs unmodified. Message Modification policy: 1. leading "CDR:" in subject line removed 2. "Reply-to:" removed Privacy policy: private Info: http://www.pro-ns.net/cpunk

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Re: Responding to orders which include a secrecy requirement
by Tyler Durden 31 Aug '03

31 Aug '03

"Tim May is the perfect example why vigilante justice is generally considered to be a bad thing -- stupid assholes like Tim May spout off & take action based on paranoia instead of facts & principles of anarchy instead of justice and innocent parties get hurt." Well, on one hand taking justice into one's own hands opens the doors to pretty much anything anybody can think of that ticks them off. On the other hand, there are clearly times and societies where such an approach is warranted. The usual exmples have already been given. These examples seem to have at their intersection a time where the government (and the powers that be) are themselves immune from legal consequence and above the law, while 'enforcing' laws that are innately evil. Such a society has pretty much boiled down to "might makes right", and such a government is a government in name only. The question then becomes, when do we know when we've entered such a time? More specifically, have we in the US entered such a time? And if we have not, does it not at least appear that we might, soon? If the answer to either of these questions is yes, then Tim May's suggestion is not a matter of "if", but "when". If the Koran becomes outlawed but a librarian rats on a Muslim trying to access the Koran online, then is this not much different from the Nazi days? Of course, we believe that the librarian is trying to "do the right thing". But do you really think that enthusiastic Hitler followers believed they were evil? No, Tim May's statement is not scary because he's suggesting anarchy. It's scary because sometime in the near future it may actually be a reasonable response. (Well, I dont agree with the 'killing the kids' thing.) If Mike Hawash can be grabbed off the streets without any acknowledgement by the Feds and then go to prison for NOT fighting against the US (but clearly thinking about it), then we are in deep trouble. -TD >From: Tim May <timcmay(a)got.net> >To: cypherpunks(a)lne.com >Subject: Re: Responding to orders which include a secrecy requirement >Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2003 18:01:52 -0700 > >On Sunday, August 31, 2003, at 04:20 PM, James A. Donald wrote: > >> -- >>>Tim May is the perfect example why vigilante justice is >>>generally considered to be a bad thing -- stupid assholes >>>like Tim May spout off & take action based on paranoia >>>instead of facts & principles of anarchy instead of justice >>>and innocent parties get hurt. >> >>Talk is cheap. Actions are done more carefully. Tim implied >>he would kill stoolies that shopped him to the police, not that >>stoolies had shopped him to the police. Indeed, the one may be >>connected to the other -- the absence of stoolies may well be >>connected to the presence of hot talk. > >And there is nothing immoral in discussing the fact that actions may have >consequences. > >Take the work camps described in Solzhenitsyn's "One Day in the Life of >Ivan Denisovitch." (Or, of course, the Nazi extermination camps. Or the >U.S. concentration camps in Gitmo.) The camp management clearly sought a >docile, "policeman inside," stoolie-oriented system where informers and >"capos" (those who cooperate and act as de facto guards) see no reason NOT >to be stoolies and capos. > >But merely the threat that stoolies and capos will be found with their >throats slit is often enough to deter such behaviors. > >My point is that if librarians even think there is some small chance that >someone they narc out to Big Brother will kill them or their families, such >stoolie behavior may drop precipitously. > > >--Tim May >"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher >a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, >build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, >cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, >program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. >Specialization is for insects." --Robert A. Heinlein _________________________________________________________________ Help protect your PC: Get a free online virus scan at McAfee.com. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963

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Re: Responding to orders which include a secrecy requirement
by Major Variola (ret) 31 Aug '03

31 Aug '03

At 06:54 PM 8/29/03 -0700, Tim May wrote: >On Friday, August 29, 2003, at 03:28 PM, Steve Schear wrote: >> All covered in my previous postings. This approach should be >> particularly applicable to ISPs as they generally have billing >> arrangement and can add this on as an extra service fee for each >> inquiry. Instead of court orders being a cost they become a revenue >> source. >> >This has been proposed for, but it fails for the usual reasons. > >An ISP is free to say "anyone requesting a tap is required to pay a >fee," just as any ISP is free to say that it will handle installation >of special Carnivore equipment for a certain fee. My (perhaps flawed) reading of Steve's post was different from Tims: the ISP bills the *tapped* person for "misc unplanned network work", not the *tappers*. The ISP puts it into their contract: if tapped by court order, we'll bill you for our effort. If your CPA has his time spent on govt things, can he bill you for it? If your ISP is hassled by RIAA, can they bill you? Certainly, if its in your contract. --- Got Mink?

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Re: Responding to orders which include a secrecy requirement
by Jim Dixon 31 Aug '03

31 Aug '03

On Sat, 30 Aug 2003, Major Variola (ret) wrote: > >This has been proposed for, but it fails for the usual reasons. > > > >An ISP is free to say "anyone requesting a tap is required to pay a > >fee," just as any ISP is free to say that it will handle installation > >of special Carnivore equipment for a certain fee. > > My (perhaps flawed) reading of Steve's post was different from Tims: the > ISP bills the > *tapped* person for "misc unplanned network work", not the *tappers*. > The ISP puts it into their contract: if tapped by court order, we'll > bill you for our effort. In the UK ISPs certainly can bill the police for any taps installed at their standard rates, just as the telcos have always billed the police for the cost of wire taps. There was a lot of opposition from ISPs to taps 2-3 years ago; it largely disappeared when it became clear that they would be paid. The FBI made a presentation on Carnivore a couple of years ago at a NANOG conference in Washington. In a side remark, the guy giving the presentation made it clear that the practice in the US is the same: ISPs are paid by the police for any taps, paid at their normal rates. > If your CPA has his time spent on govt things, can he bill you for it? > If your ISP is hassled by RIAA, can they bill you? Certainly, if its in > your contract. I ran an ISP for seven years and was involved in a number of industry associations. Never heard of anyone anywhere billing a customer for the cost of taps, or of anyone putting such a provision in their contracts (I reviewed quite a few such contracts very carefully). It would amount to a form of tax without any basis in legislation and would, I believe, arouse very strong opposition. But perhaps I miss the point of the thread ;-) -- Jim Dixon jdd(a)dixons.org tel +44 117 982 0786 mobile +44 797 373 7881

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The Word Spy for 08/28/2003 -- darknet
by R. A. Hettinga 31 Aug '03

31 Aug '03

I'm sure certian Virginia boys around here would say that that there's a misspelling in there, somewhere... Cheers, RAH --- begin forwarded text

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Re: Responding to orders which include a secrecy requirement
by Tyler Durden 30 Aug '03

30 Aug '03

Tim May wrote... "If cops ask local neighborhood members to report any suspicious activity, the folks know that any benefits they gain from acting as informants tend to be a lot smaller than the danger of being beat up or even killed by the Mafia. When the cost of acting as an informant is zero, no risk, more people act as informants. I think restoring some risk to being a rat is a good thing." There is of course the old argument about states such as Nazi Germany: what percentage of the population would have participated had they known that in wearing the Nazi uniform (even just on the streets of Berlin), there'd be a nonzero chance of them coming home alive? The problem in the present situation of course is underlined by the fact that the mafia is a fairly coherent set of relational organizations, acting in conjunction with centrally identified aims, but actintg on those aims across a wide swath of territory/etc. A "restoration of risk" would require some form of large-scale activities along these lines. A "lone nut" or unabomber that does something like this can be ignored as insane. And indeed, his actions will probably end up being counter-productive. If it were commonly understood that lots of people (who may live next door) take offence at being narced, then (and only then) would things be a little different. How do you get there from here? Dunno, but the obvious paradigm these days is P2P. -TD PS: One possible thing missing from the "response" list. Anyway to make a virus that will install fake/random name lists? >From: Tim May <timcmay(a)got.net> >To: cypherpunks(a)lne.com >Subject: Re: Responding to orders which include a secrecy requirement >Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2003 09:10:48 -0700 > >On Saturday, August 30, 2003, at 06:10 AM, Eric Murray wrote: > >>On Fri, Aug 29, 2003 at 06:54:03PM -0700, Tim May wrote: >> >>>But when Big Brother commands that his Carnivore boxes be added, ISPs >>>are afraid to shoot his agents who trespass. >> >>>I think my solution may be best: take a few ISPs who have bent over for >>>Big Brother and kill their owners and staff. A few ISP owners found >>>necklaced and smoking may send a message to others. >> >>The message it sends is to accept the cops offer of on-site "protection" >>when the ISP is faced with allowing the tap or being put in jail. >>By upping the stakes you force the business >>owner to accept the cops as the lesser of two evils. >> >>The mafia's actions tended to make business owners clamor for >>more police and more intrusive police protection. Not less. >> >>This is a problem that's better solved with crypto. >> > >If cops ask local neighborhood members to report any suspicious activity, >the folks know that any benefits they gain from acting as informants tend >to be a lot smaller than the danger of being beat up or even killed by the >Mafia. > >When the cost of acting as an informant is zero, no risk, more people act >as informants. > >I think restoring some risk to being a rat is a good thing. > > >--Tim May _________________________________________________________________ Get MSN 8 and help protect your children with advanced parental controls. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/parental

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The new information ecosystem Part 1: It's a peer-to-peer world
by R. A. Hettinga 30 Aug '03

30 Aug '03

<http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article.jsp?id=8&debateId=101&articleI…> The new information ecosystem: cultures of anarchy and closure Siva Vaidhyanathan - openDemocracy 30/8/2003 search advanced search | join openDemocracy help P2P: the new information war? Journalism & war e-Democracy Politics of Digital TV The people vs. copyright The 9/11 media fall-out Public service futures Global media ownership Governing the Net feature articles web resources stories Solana Larsen Caspar Melville P2P: the new information war? Overview Articles Discussion Links return to the debate open easy read version download printable version (free to supporters) The new information ecosystem: cultures of anarchy and closure Siva Vaidhyanathan 26 - 6 - 2003 Part 1 of The new information ecosystem: cultures of anarchy and closure Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of the forthcoming The Anarchist in the Library and a true scholar of the internet age, presents a compelling, five-part panorama of the implications of electronic peer-to-peer networks for culture, science, security, and globalisation. His provocative argument registers peer-to-peer as a key site of contest over freedom and control of information. Bill Thompson of openDemocracy responds to Siva in a sparkling exchange of powerful, lucid intelligence. Part 1: It's a peer-to-peer world In the first of his five-part series, Siva Vaidhyanathan maps the fluid new territory of electronic peer-to-peer networks that are transforming the information ecosystem. Is this a landscape of enlarging freedoms where citizens shape the forms and meanings of social communication, or does it offer an invitation to entrenching state surveillance and closure? Part 2: 'Pro-gumbo': culture as anarchy Peer-to-peer technologies have precedents in the anarchistic and hybrid processes by which cultures have always been formed. Decoding anxious cultural preservationists from Matthew Arnold to Samuel Huntington, the second instalment of Siva Vaidhyanathan's five-part series reframes p2p in the light of other technologies and practices - cassettes, creolisation world music - which likewise reveal the energetic promiscuity of culture. Any attempt to censor or limit this flow would leave cultures stagnant. Part 3: The anarchy and oligarchy of science Science is knowledge in pursuit of truth that can expand human betterment. But part three of Siva Vaidhyanathan's powerful series sees the free information flows at the heart of science being pressured by the copyright economy, the post-9/11 security environment, proprietary capture of genetic databases, and science policies of governments and universities. If commerce and control defeat openness and accumulation, what happens to science impacts on democracy itself. Part 4: The nation-state vs. networks In the last decade, the nation-state has survived three challenges to its hegemony - from the Washington Consensus, the California Ideology, and Anarchy. The promise of a borderless globalisation unified by markets and new technology has been buried. The fourth part of Siva Vaidhyanathan's compelling series asks: what then remains of the utopian vision of global peer-to-peer networks that would bypass traditional structures of power? Part 1: It's a peer-to-peer world The rise of electronic peer-to-peer networks has thrown global entertainment industries into panic mode. They have been clamouring for more expansive controls over personal computers and corporate and university networks. They have proposed radical re-engineering of basic and generally open communicative technologies. And they have complained quite loudly - often with specious data and harsh tones that have had counterproductive public relations results - about the extent of their plight. But the future of entertainment is only a small part of the story. In many areas of communication, social relations, cultural regulation, and political activity, peer-to-peer models of communication have grown in influence and altered the terms of exchange. What is at stake? This is the story of clashing ideologies: information anarchy and information oligarchy . They feed off of each other dialectically. Oligarchy justifies itself through "moral panics" over the potential effects of anarchy. And anarchy justifies itself by reacting to the trends toward oligarchy. The actors who are promoting information anarchy include libertarians, librarians, hackers, terrorists, religious zealots, and anti-globalisation activists. The actors who push information oligarchy include major transnational corporations, the World Trade Organisation , and the governments of the United States of America and the Peoples' Republic of China. Rapidly, these ideologies are remaking our information ecosystem. And those of us uncomfortable with either vision, and who value what we might call "information justice", increasingly find fault and frustration with the ways our media, cultural, information and political systems are changing. The most interesting thing about these challenges and battles is that we can observe how ideologies alter our worlds. Ideologies are, to use a phrase from Pierre Bourdieu, "structuring structures". Ideologies are lenses, ways of thinking and seeing, that guide our perceptions and habits. They are permeable and malleable. They are not determinative. But they make a difference in the judgments we make and the habits we develop. In recent years we have seen the rise of anarchy as a relevant ideology in many areas of life. Our ideologies affect the technologies we choose to adopt. And using certain technologies can alter our ideologies. Anarchy is not just a function of small political groups and marginal information technologies any more. Anarchy matters. This is more than a battle of ideologies. It is also the story of specific battles. There are dozens of examples of recent and current conflicts that arose out of efforts to control the flows of information: The story of the "Locust Man," an imprisoned dissident democratic activist in China who distributed political messages by attaching them to the backs of locusts. The ordeal of the public library in Arlington, Virginia, at which two of the hijackers of 11 September 2001 used public terminals in the days preceding their attack. An increasing number of American librarians have had to endure federal law enforcement agencies asking them to violate their code of ethics and their patrons' privacy since this incident. The controversy over the complaint that some Canadian women can no longer get tested for genes that indicate a predisposition for breast cancer because an American company has patented those genes and charges too much for the test. Through such incidents, we can examine the following issues: The battle to control democratic sources of information such as public libraries, which are suddenly considered dens of terrorism and pornography. Libraries are under attack through technological mandates and legal restrictions. Efforts to radically re-engineer the personal computers and networks to eliminate the very power and adaptability that makes these machines valuable. The cultural implications of allowing fans and creators worldwide sample cultural products at no marginal costs through peer-to-peer computer networks. Futile attempts to restrict the use and distribution of powerful encryption technology out of fear that criminals and terrorists will evade surveillance. Commercial and governmental efforts to regulate science and mathematics, including control over the human genome. Attempts to stifle the activities of political dissidents and religious groups. The information policy implications of recent United States policies including the USA Patriot Act ,Total Information Awareness , and the Department of Homeland Security . This essay is the first of a series for openDemocracy that will consider these battles for control of information. This introductory piece will examine the proliferation of peer-to-peer systems. The nature of peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer electronic networks such as Napster, KaZaa, and Gnutella, solve two communicative problems and create two more. The first problem is somewhat trivial. Where do we find a convenient index to files on other people's hard drives? Or, in the case of Napster founder Sean Fanning, a Boston-area university student, how can I find music on other people's computers without asking them to expose themselves to threats by copyright holders? The second problem is more substantial. How do we exploit two of the great underused resources of the digital age: surplus storage space and surplus processing power? More significantly, how do we do this in a way that is effectively anonymous and simple? Fundamentally, peer-to-peer file-sharing systems such as KaZaa, Gnutella, Freenet, and the dearly-departed Napster attempt to recapture or at least simulate the structure and function of the original internet, when all clients were servers and all servers were clients. This original vision of the internet, call it Internet 1.0, arose in the 1970s and devolved around 1994 with the rise of ISPs and dynamic Internet Protocol (IP) numbers. The handful of netizens of Internet 1.0 worked with mainframe computers linked to each other through the Domain Name System (DNS), which helped direct packets of data to the proper destination. Each sender and each destination had a discreet and constant IP number that identified it to the network hubs. But as Internet Service Providers (ISPs) proliferated in the mid-1990s and connected millions of personal computers to networks for only several minutes or hours at a time, it became clear that rotating and re-using IP numbers would allow many more users to share the internet. Thus began Internet 2.0, in which increasingly personal computers allowed their users to receive and consume information, but allowed limited ability to donate to the system. This extension of the network cut off personal computers from the server business. Most users donated information only through e-mail. And it became clear that while the internet once seemed like a grand bazaar of homemade goods and interesting (albeit often frightening) texts generated through community dynamics, it would soon seem more like a shopping mall than a library or bazaar. Two new problems Peer-to-peer file-sharing technology is a set of protocols that allow users to open up part of their private content to public inspection, and thus, copying. In the digital world, one cannot access a file without making a copy of it. From this fact arose the first peer-to-peer problem: there is no way to enforce scarcity on these systems. The popularity and common uses of these protocols produce massive anxiety within the industries that rely on artificial scarcity to generate market predictability. The second problem is less well understood because there is no special interest constituency complaining about it. So states have stepped up to take the lead in confronting it. That problem is irresponsibility. Because most of what happens over peer-to-peer networks is relatively anonymous, servers and clients are not responsible for the ramifications of their communicative acts. Using widely available forms of encryption or networks that assure privacy, one may traffic in illicit material such as child pornography with almost no fear. In many places in the world, the availability of adult pornography or racist speech through peer-to-peer systems undermines a decade of efforts to cleanse the more visible and therefore vulnerable World Wide Web. This second problem is actually a solution to another communicative problem that exists primarily in illiberal communicative contexts. Many of the same states that hope to quash pornography also want to quash the speech and organisational communications of democratic activists. So the very existence of these communicative technologies creates moral panics throughout the illiberal world as well as the liberal world. While some worry about the erosion of commerce, others worry about the erosion of power. And the same technologies that liberal societies would use to protect commerce might find more effective uses in Burma or China. Listening to Napster But most of the popular discussion about the rise and effects of peer-to-peer technology has read like a sports story: who is winning and who is losing? Some has read like a crime story: how do we stop this thievery? I am more interested in looking at peer-to-peer communication in its most general sense. How do we explain the peer-to-peer phenomenon? How do we get beyond the sports story or the crime story? Peer-to-peer communication is unmediated, uncensorable, and virtually direct. It might occur between two computers sitting on different continents. It might occur across a fence in a neighborhood in Harare, Zimbabwe. What we are hearing when we listen to peer-to-peer systems are " bruits publics ", or public noises - not the reasonable, responsible give and take of the bourgeois public sphere. This is very old. What we call 'p2p' communicative networks actually reflect and amplify - revise and extend - an old ideology or cultural habit. Electronic peer-to-peer systems like Gnutella merely simulates other, more familiar forms of unmediated, uncensorable, irresponsible, troublesome speech; for example, anti-royal gossip before the French Revolution, trading cassette tapes among youth subcultures such as punk or rap, or the distribution of illicit Islamist cassette tapes through the streets and bazaars of Cairo. Certain sectors of modern society have evolved with and through the ideology of peer-to-peer. Academic culture and science rely on an ideal of raw, open criticism: peer-to-peer review, one might call it. The difference, of course, is that academia and science generally require a licensing procedure to achieve admission to the system. The Free Software movement is the best example of what legal theorist Yochai Benkler calls "peer production" , but what we might as well, for the sake of cuteness and consistency, call "peer-to-peer production". This form of speech has value. But it has different value in different contexts. And while peer-to-peer communication has an ancient and important, although under-documented, role, we are clearly seeing both an amplification and a globalisation of these processes. That means that what used to occur only across fences or on park benches now happens between and among members of the Chinese diaspora who might be in Vancouver and Singapore, Shanghai and Barcelona. As cultural groups disperse and reify their identities, they rely more and more on the portable elements of their collective culture which are widely available through electronic means. The clampdown strategy Several technological innovations have enabled this amplification and globalisation of peer-to-peer communication: The protocols that makeup the internet (i.e. TCP/IP) and the relative openness of networks that make up the internet. The modularity, customisability, portability, and inexpense of the personal computer. The openness, customisability, and insecurity of the major personal computer operating systems. The openness, insecurity, and portability of the digital content itself. Understandably, states and corporations that wish to impede peer-to-peer communication have been focusing on these factors. These are, of course, the very characteristics of computers and the internet that have driven this remarkable - almost revolutionary - adoption of them in the past decade. These are the sites of the battle. States and media corporations wish to: Monitor and regulate every detail of communication and shift liability and regulatory responsibility to the Internet Service Providers. Redesign the protocols that run the internet. Neuter the customisability of the personal computer and other digital devices. Impose "security" on the operating systems so that they might enable "trust" between a content company and its otherwise untrustworthy users. These efforts involve both public and private intervention, standard setting by states and private actors. The United States Congress, the Federal Communication Commission, the Motion Picture Association of America, Microsoft and Intel have all been involved in efforts to radically redesign our communicative technologies along these lines. And they are appealing for complementary legal and technical interventions by the European Union and the World Trade Organisation. These moves would create Internet 3.0, although it would not actually look like the internet at all. It would not be open and customisable. Content - and thus culture - would not be adaptable and malleable. And what small measures of privacy these networks now afford would evaporate. These are the dangers that Lawrence Lessig warned us about in 1998 in his seminal work Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace . Only now are we coming to understand that Lessig was right. These regulatory efforts have sparked an arms race. The very suggestion of such radical solutions generated immediate reactions by those who support anarchistic electronic communication. Every time a regime rolls out a new form of technological control, some group of hackers or "hacktivists" break through it or evade it in a matter of weeks. The only people who really adhere to these controls are those not technologically proficient: most of the world. It might surprise casual observers of these battles that the important conflicts are not happening in court. The Napster case had some interesting rhetorical nuggets. But basically this was classic contributory infringement by a commercial service. KaZaa is a bit more interesting because it is a distributed company with assets under a series of jurisdictions and a technology that limits its ability to regulate what its clients do. KaZaa might collapse and only fully distributed, voluntary networks might remain: namely, Gnutella and Freenet. The real conflicts will be in the devices, the networks, and the media products themselves. And there seems to be few areas of healthy public discussion or critique about the relationships between technology and culture. Meanwhile, the strategies and structures that limit peer-to-peer communication also quash dissent, activism, and organisation in illiberal contexts - that is, oppressive, totalitarian and authoritarian states. And for this reason, p2p systems like Freenet - encrypted, completely anonymous, and unquenchable - are essential tools for democratic activists in places like Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Burma and China. The lessons for the public sphere Where there is no rich, healthy public sphere we should support anarchistic communicative techniques. Where there is a rich, healthy public sphere, we must take an honest, unromantic account of the costs of such anarchy. And through public spheres we should correct for the excesses of communicative anarchy. Still, we must recognise that poor, sickly, fragile public spheres are more common than rich, healthy public spheres. And the battles at play over privacy, security, surveillance, censorship and intellectual property in the United States right now will determine whether we will count the world's oldest democracy as sickly or healthy. Anarchy is radical democracy. But it is not the best form of democracy. But as a set of tools, anarchy can be an essential antidote to tyranny. return to the debate open easy read version download printable version (free to supporters) Got something to say about this article? Join the discussion Copyright ) Siva Vaidhyanathan ,2003. Published by openDemocracy Ltd. You may download and print extracts from this article for your own personal and non-commercial use only. If you are a library, university, teaching institution, business or media organisation, you must acquire an Academic License or Organisational License from openDemocracy , or seek permission directly from the author, before making copies, circulating or reproducing this article for teaching or commercial. openDemocracy Ltd | hello(a)openDemocracy.net -- ----------------- R. A. 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