At 05:29 PM 4/13/04 -0400, An Metet wrote:

Major Variola writes:

...

Crypto *can* keep bits free. And so maybe language.

But Men with Guns control physical reality, which limits what those bits can do. Read the archives on the problems with linking "credits" to dollars or physical merchandise.

Fine; you are questioning the feasibility of the cypherpunk model for achieving freedom through cryptographic anonymity.

Isn't it within the Official Charter to explore the limits of social crypto? The constraints imposed by possible states? It is true that

power in the physical world can, in principle, prevent the operation of the information infrastructure necessary for the cypherpunk dream to be realized.

Bingo.

Whether it can do so without also impairing "good" information transfers to an unacceptable level remains to be seen.

Why do you think this would stop certain states? Look at the content-filters used in public libraries and schools. (Can't find poultry recipes or oncology info because of mammary glands.)

But suppose you're right; suppose men with guns keep crypto anarchy from working, and the only recourse is to use force of your own.

They can't control crypto, which is math; and they can't control individual behavior, even if they can control bulk behavior. But they do control commerce and mass production and the physical bit-handlers. The FCC has vans. Your mesh won't work so well when the only meshers are afraid of being caught, and sparse besides. Don't you regard the limits of the (e.g., cypherpunk) model as part of the study? When I say "the FCC has vans" (etc) it is sometimes only representative of precursors of trends and possibilities, if it isn't obvious.

Your goals of anarchy and freedom are never going to be popular enough to let you win by using force in this way.

You are projecting. I don't have goals of anarchy. (I'm a lib.) I'm interested in the social implications of, and tech behind, crypto things. I assume most are like this, though some are socialist, and you are a troll.

Some have said they want to use cypherpunk technology to facilitate their plans for using force to fight the oppressors. They can set up assassination markets; or more simply, hire hitmen anonymously using ecash. In this way they can bring force to bear without risk.

AP is sci-fi (for now) precisely because of the control over the physical implementations of bits and currency. That some here predicted, even advocated that such a technical system would be used to clean up the civil servant population is another matter entirely. Both are valid if orthogonal points. (Civilian-authorities get fragged even without compooters) And IMHO you'd be immoral, for some possible future (and past) civil servant populations, to object to this encouragement, to feel a little hope that one possible future isn't a boot stomping a face, forever (even if that face is reading uncensorable news while being stomped)

But the reverse is true as well: if and when such markets come to exist, it can only be because the cypherpunk dream has succeeded beyond our wildest hopes. A world in which such applications exist despite the most stringent efforts on the part of the State to eradicate them is one in which cypherpunks have truly succeeded in burrowing so deep into the

information infrastructure that they can never be stopped. It is a world in which anonymity is preserved, one where contracts and payment systems have been developed for even the most risky and uncertain enterprises.

If cypherpunk technology works to this degree, then it will open up tremendous new opportunities for people to evade the power of government. The one overwhelming trend as we move into the 21st century is the

I don't think my membership card requires me to believe that there is only one possible future outcome. It requires me to understand how such a system works, including how it might work on a social level. power

of information. This is why governments more and more are trying to crack down and limit its propagation. If cypherpunk technologies are able to

transcend these restrictions, as is implied by the potential existence of assassination markets, there is essentially no limit to what they can do.

Get off the assassination thang. Yes, uncensorable news & views will be possible. That's not sufficient.

The physical world is going to be increasingly less important as we go forward. What counts is the flow of information.

Freedom of expression (bits) is one of many rights. Crypto can do the most here. But bits don't exist outside of physical implementations, so they rely on physical rights. Also, most rights are physical rights ("the right to be left alone" is more general than "the right to be free of compelled speech"). That is what needs

to be protected and made free from interference. If we can achieve that, the physical world won't much matter. You won't need your guns, and assassination markets, if they exist, won't be a force for freedom,

but merely another hazard of the physical world, that most people avoid

as much as possible.

Um, we're talking about meshing radios, not guns or AP. And social (govt) control of things like those radios, and networks, and the devices that use them. And how such physical control might affect reaching the cypherpunk-predicted future. Sorry that I pissed on your orthodoxy by doubting that everything was inevitable in its strongest form..