At 9:18 AM -0700 8/1/01, jamesd@echeque.com wrote:
-- On 31 Jul 2001, at 11:53, Black Unicorn wrote:
I wanted to make sure to correct the common misconception among cypherpunks that you can just thumb your nose at a court with impunity.
And I would like to correct the common misconception spread by lawyers that there are magic legal formulas that will stop the state from using its power as it damn well pleases.
The basic formula for avoiding inconvenient legislation is "ignore, do not confront"
Cryptography will do what no legal incantation can ever do: Stop the state from getting what it wants.
The basic problem with any legal incantation is that at some point you must explain to the authorities: "My actions were legal for this reason and that reason", explaining in inconveniently great detail what you are doing, and their response your complicated and highly informative explanation will almost certainly be to hit a few times, and then lock you up. With cryptography they have a mysterious block of unexplained and useless bits.
Exactly so. This list, like so many other lists, is gradually moving toward "public politics" and "the law" as the focus of many members. The "public politics" part is obvious: discussions of boycotts of Adobe, letter-writing campaigns to Washington, complaining about Ashcroft and Feinstein and all of the other vermin, and hand-wringing about the need for different laws. The "law" part is about the above, and exhortations by the lawyers here (5, by my count) about what one mustn't do, how courts will react, the need to be scrupulously legal in all of one's actions, etc. "Laws of mathematics, not men." We risk becoming just a pale--a very, very pale!--imitation of the Cyberia-L list. --Tim May -- Timothy C. May tcmay@got.net Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns