Re: On Killing Blaster
At 04:26 PM 4/11/04 -0400, Tyler Durden wrote:
"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.
See "asymetric warfare" Sometimes a stronger adversary decides its not worth it. See Lebanon and a few hundred dead Marines. See Vietnam. (Speaking of which, I heard McCain arguing that if we leave .iq the place becomes a hotbed of 'terrorism'. Anyone remember the Domino theory?) And of course, if it's possible to
diarm your opponent without actually killing or maiming him, that's sometimes far more appropriate...
No, then he'll sue you.
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.
You forget that there are no bits which are not physical. Physical things reside on land leased from the State (try not paying your real estate taxes). All cables make a landing somewhere. 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.
Where are you going to buy your hardware from, that it can't be shut down? How are you going to hide your TX from the DXing white vans?
On Mon, 12 Apr 2004, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
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.
You forget that there are no bits which are not physical. Physical things reside on land leased from the State (try not paying your real estate taxes). All cables make a landing somewhere.
Then the magic has to be in making the "bad" bits indistinguishable from the "good" bits. Any crackdown that would have to net more than a minuscule fraction of the "bad" ones would then take disproportionate amount of false positives. In effect, using the luser population of the Net as a human shield. At least they will be finally good for something.
the edges, until the core is exposed.
Where are you going to buy your hardware from, that it can't be shut down?
Dual-use technologies. Repurpose of "consumer-grade" off-the-shelf devices. Shutting down all the PC hardware vendors would be too unpopular move to pass. Microcontroller and FPGA suppliers are a bit different, as there is less demand for them between the plebs, but both the vendors and the customers would get pretty annoyed if somebody would try to pass such measure. Not mentioning the adverse impact on "legitimate" innovation, the suboptimal efficiency of such measure, and the vibrant black market segment that would get created. Smuggled shipments of chips, black market with software - but all this was already described in better or worse way in many cyberpunk fiction books.
How are you going to hide your TX from the DXing white vans?
Use directional optical links? See eg. http://ronja.twibright.com/ for an open-source one. Still possible to find and eavesdrop on, but much more difficult than radio link, and outside of the jurisdiction of FCC. Optionally, use technology that's so common it doesn't raise eyebrows; Fry's is full of toys. Recent developments in consumer wireless tech also allow some toys in the area of "proximity computing" (as I call it). Just carry a PDA in your pocket, sit for a while next to the right person, and then find the required files in the PDA later. Nothing more than passing presence in the same space without any visible interaction between the two people is recorded in the security cams (and in eg. a subway it has not much meaning anyway), no call records in the phone switchboards. Again, nothing that a prepared adversary can't defeat, but as long as you're still under the radar, you are likely to be missed by fishing expeditions. We will need four things in the future: creative use (or non-use) of available technology, knowledge of the Adversary, improvisation skills, and - most important - luck.
participants (2)
-
Major Variola (ret) -
Thomas Shaddack