I see Bob is incorrectly assuming that the folks at the Cato Institute knew nothing about cryptoanarchy before David's speech this fall... (The audience may be a different story, though.) -Declan At 01:14 PM 12-21-98 -0500, Robert Hettinga wrote:

Wherein David Friedman teaches cryptoanarchy 101 to the folks at the Cato Institute.

A RealAudio transcription from the Cato/Forbes ASAP conference on cryptography held earlier this year.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 2:06 PM -0500 on 12/21/98, Declan McCullagh wrote:

I see Bob is incorrectly assuming that the folks at the Cato Institute knew nothing about cryptoanarchy before David's speech this fall...

I see Declan is correctly picking nits about my use of the word "the". :-). Your definition of "is" may vary, of course. Must be the water in DC, or something. ;-). The actual content of Freidman's speech aside (apparently), I stand upbraided, your honor, as I'm sure *you* told the Catons all about CryptoA way before they *ever* heard of Friedman. ;-). (Yes, I know, Declan, you *know* Freidman, he was a good friend of yours, and so forth and so on...)

(The audience may be a different story, though.)

- From the questions, which were the standard clueless ones one gets from the "policy" establishment on cryptoanarchy and anarchocapitalism, and, frankly, cryptography in general, it sounded to me like they were receiving a first hearing of Dr. Friedman, the putative (philosophical) godfather of all cypherpunkery. An attack on flatland from the sky, and all that. One way or another, the proof is in the .ra viewing, for anyone who wants to go look for themselves. Which segues me, in an attempt to ad value to the thread, other than thrashing Declan for his nits :-), viz: Given the remarkable cypherpunk-like sound of Dr. Friedman, the real question here is, who came first, Freidman-egg, or cypherpunk-chickens? The first edition of "The Machinery of Freedom" came out in the early 1980's, (83?, though somewhat-recently revised), yet Freidman leans heavily on post-mid-80's Chaum in his talk to Cato, and uses heretofore cypherpunk neology, like "anonymous remailers", "reputation capital", and the like. Not to mention actual citation of the list itself in reference to Brin's book about the hopelessness of all privacy. And, of course, cash-settled information purchases. He mentions IPiracy in his Cato talk, and tries to work around it contractually, and intimates that watermarking might be silly unless you can recompile your code with canary-traps for every customer, but doesn't say anything, like he should, about Hughes'"organized piracy" idea, much less recursive (geodesic) auctions, and so forth, as the obvious emergent solution to the whole problem of "intellectual" property. Maybe he prefers contracts because he's employed by a law school, or something? :-). Personally, I think myself that people haven't read Coase closely enough. That is, it seems to me that an encrypted copy of something in storage of my exclusive control is about as private as private property can get, and as such, I can sell it for whatever I can get for it. If it's on my hard drive, it ain't yours anymore, in other words. Somewhere, in my rants-to-do stack, is something on this topic, especially in light of the explosively emerging MP3 market out there, and, paradoxically, the market for the blind signature patent. Cheers, RAH -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.5.5 iQEVAwUBNn6yaMUCGwxmWcHhAQGn7AgAnFh2pumeFsOQBhrcyQbKV2omDNEEpFcU xktNynBgxivNl52mhdJICQGtCsYR2s1riiPK5Z5e+y7n4VJ1sEI+x4t8msnHDxmP ushpr9hjVpRBXB6+CinuMsZoWljFUwQzGjeHvoLPKAk2xyzZ1HxP2ZofBKqKvi3h SZw/m/ZtcooasDPkl5M4dAXs95/+MclddiTTgeVkytnW0MTMfiNIdUHICAxZBWmX sxJfLan66sIvKwmDJsH/Ilhq/Ng4vYKtFTBic2qJGql1oTPi3wX3fv/VYY0eB68J +wdo90a7Q7SLsYtX3s0QE/gxSMtcmj8CaZ9iMPECBRjFO4hcZRmVmQ== =moEV -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.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'

On Mon, Dec 21, 1998 at 03:41:53PM -0500, Robert Hettinga wrote:

Given the remarkable cypherpunk-like sound of Dr. Friedman, the real question here is, who came first, Freidman-egg, or cypherpunk-chickens? The first edition of "The Machinery of Freedom" came out in the early 1980's, (83?, though somewhat-recently revised), yet Freidman leans heavily on post-mid-80's Chaum in his talk to Cato, and uses heretofore cypherpunk neology, like "anonymous remailers", "reputation capital", and the like. Not to mention actual citation of the list itself in reference to Brin's book about the hopelessness of all privacy.

"The Machinery of Freedom" far from being published in the early '80s was published in 1971 and is based on writings from the late '60s. It is very much aimed at 60s alternative types a with relaxed writing style, anti-drug law and pro freedom line. This book when I read it through FCS in the early '80s convinced me I was a libertarian. I didn't come across cypherpunk theory until much later and, when I did, I saw it obviously followed libertarianism. I am sure Friedman was well aware on how technological advances could weaken the state and to accuse him of "copying" is facile. -- 1024/D9C69DF9 steve mynott steve@tightrope.demon.co.uk http://www.pineal.com/ one page principle: a specification that will not fit on one page of 8.5x11 inch paper cannot be understood. -- mark ardis