On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 4:30 PM, StealthMonger <StealthMonger@nym.mixmin.net> wrote:
Nico Williams <nico@cryptonector.com> writes:
Crypto will NOT protect you from the state.
Hmm? Protection from the state is the very reason some of us are here. Even Philip Zimmermann wrote twenty years ago [1]
In a pinch crypto will not protect you. Let's say you have an unbreakable code. But there's still traffic analysis, and even with onion routing and such, you don't know if your peers are ratting you out, or if the state has infiltrated the onion to a sufficient degree to find out a bit of what you're up to. And so on. Push comes to shove, the truth is that power still comes from the barrel of a gun. Do the same thought experiment regarding cryptographic coins if you like. The state could easily make it so insignificant amounts of business gets transacted in a cryptographic coin that the state cannot subvert or control. We use crypto to protect ourselves from non-state actors and insufficiently motivated, _civilized_ state actors. That's it. And even regarding non-state actors, you still depend on the civil law system administered by the state. If there's no state then you have to arm yourself to the teeth and be willing to fight. Uncivilized state actors will not give a damn about your crypto. They will torture you, your friends, your family. They may enslave you. Ultimately they may kill you. The trick regarding uncivilized state actors is to stay under their radar, or to take advantage of such somewhat civilized subset of their behaviors as might remain, and ultimately to get rid of the uncivilized state actors (by emigration, revolution, or just waiting until you get lucky and they civilize on their own). Civilized state actors granting you due process of law might also not give a damn about your crypto (see, e.g., the UK, where you can be compelled, under criminal penalties, to produce cryptographic keys). They won't torture you, etcetera, but they might deprive you of your freedom. So: don't live in an uncivilized state (either civilize it or emigrate), and then refrain from doing the sorts of things that might cause even a civilized state to come down you like a ton of bricks (i.e., refrain from committing crimes). For added safety use crypto. Nico -- _______________________________________________ cryptography mailing list cryptography@randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE