On Wed, 8 Jun 1994 rishab@dxm.ernet.in wrote:

Uhh. When I started this thread with "Cyberspace is by nature crime-free," I meant crime as what at least _I_ perceive as morally wrong enough to justify the intervention of society as a whole, usually represented by functionaries of the state - police, judiciary, etc.; and NOT what may or not be wrong in the eyes of existing law, which as we all know, is an ass.

I like to use the Common Law distiction between Malum in Se and Malum Prohibitum. ("wrong because it is wrong" and "wrong because it is prohibited.") There are lots of "legislative crimes" that are creatures of their time and place. Cyberspace is a hard place to commit real wrongs in. Those of us of a more libertarian bent think that the major benefit of cyberspace is that it makes certain crimes like "legislation" less effective. Note that Common Law crimes were "discovered" by judges without legislatures. DCF "Was there ever anything so impolite as a group of guys sitting around ruling others?"

I've stayed out of this thread on what's criminal and what's not, mainly because I'm spending all my waking hours (and more) trying to finish up the %&*#$%^$ FAQ, but I perk up when my name is mentioned: rishab@dxm.ernet.in said:

Unless we want a totally "everyone for him/herself" society (which is contradictory - society is a framework or protocol by which individuals interact with each other), and become like Rwanda, say, we need the intervention of [police/state/society/collective] to ensure that basic social agreements are kept - thou shalt not rape, for instance. Even anarchist Tim May has in previous posts conceded the possible need for a police force to investigate murders.

But generally I don't favor such governmental police forces, and especially not national police forces. (That is, cops should be local to the community...and perhaps even privately contracted-for...no time here (or direct relevance) to go into how such privatization works.) The Rwanda example is especially important. It is mainly two rival "statist" camps that are killing civilians, butcheing members of the rival camp, etc. And of course the farmers and peasants were long ago disarmed by the Tutsi and Hutu "governments," in the interests of ensuring safety and order (codewords), with predictable results. Same thing happened in Somalia...jeep-loads of teenaged "soldiers" terrorizing, raping, looting, and pillaging. A familiar pattern. States and statists have killed several hundred million people this century, in various purges, forced famines, holocausts, etc. (the names of Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot come to mind). This makes the "dangers" of cyberspatial pedophiles and tax cheats rather invisible by comparison. I don't often rant here about crypto anarchy, having written about it extensively, but it's important for folks to understand that it is not about tearing down all governments and adopting a "red of tooth and claw" jungled survival situation. Rather, it involves personal forms of withdrawing from the system of government, to various extents. Initially in cyberspace--just like this list (this list spans many nations, with no intervention by states, no legal system...sounds like "anarchy" to me...). As tax collection wanes, as interactions in cyberspace come to be even more important than they are today, crypto anarchy becomes more important. But of course nobody is forced into this...they can vote in their local elections, appoint censors of what they see in non-crypto channels, vote to tax transactions they can identify, and form armies to invade North Korea for the "sin" of doing what our "friends" like South Africa, Israel, and even Risha's own India have been doing for 20 years. (Sorry to digress on this last point, and I have no brief for North Korea....I just hate Orwellian propaganda disguising hypocrisy.) Enough on anarchy for now. Back to the FAQ. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."