On Killing Blaster

"When faced with force, you reply with force when you can." Nah. This isn't even true in a fistfight, except when the guy you're fighting is a) significantly smaller than you, and b) less trained. More often than not, if someone attacks you, it's because they either have or perceive themselves to have an overwhelmingly superior force. In such a situation it's often best to run. Barring that, then "soft" methods are by far the best alternative, but soft methods normally require intelligence, or at least the ability to utilize an opponent's force against him (I think I can unequivocally state that I have had the opportunity to test such a principal here on the streets of NYC). And of course, if it's possible to diarm your opponent without actually killing or maiming him, that's sometimes far more appropriate...reference 'Aikido' and remember the unmasked "MasterBlaster". Every once in a while, somebody makes a mistake they eventually regret. As someone said better than myself, Crypto is one little tool in an aresenal against "Men with Guns"...in the end Men With Guns will probably try to shoot away bits, but it's not going to work too well. Meanwhile, P2P, WiFi, Crypto,and lots of other stuff will slowly start to chip away at things on the edges, until the core is exposed. -TD

From: "Major Variola (ret)" To: "cypherpunks@al-qaeda.net" Subject: Re: On Needing Killing Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2004 09:42:58 -0700

At 05:38 AM 4/11/04 -0400, An Metet wrote:

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And the responsibles need killing.

No, they don't.

There are two alternative solutions to the problem of restrictions on information flow, or more generally restrictions on any sort of voluntary and cooperative activity. One is to use force to fight back, even to the point of killing the perpetrators. This is what you are advocating

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when you say they "need killing".

When faced with force, you reply with force when you can.

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The other is to evade the restrictions. This does not involve killing,

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force, or violence of any sort. Cryptography is an ideal tool for this

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purpose. It allows people to communicate and exchange data even when outsiders want them to stop. Via digital cash they can even contract together, and buy and sell information and services. BlackNet is intended to be an example of how this could work.

Correct. But the existence of technical means for playing with bits and

hiding from oppression does not change the ethics of the material world.

When the State's otherwise legitimate monopoly on force is abused the appropriate response is not to hope the oppressors go away.

When the Jews were put in the ghettos, an abuse of State force, the appropriate response was more than merely publishing anonymous flyers or mumbling in secret languages. There are times when agents have earned killing.

Blacknet is a robust archive for words, immune to force (by State or private actors), but merely words.

----- "How we burned in the prison camps later thinking: What would things have been like if every security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive?" --Alexander Solzhenitzyn, Gulag Archipelago

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