Re: The Privacy/Untraceability Sweet Spot
Declan McCullagh
On Tue, Aug 28, 2001 at 05:28:24PM -0700, Ray Dillinger wrote:
For Tim: Why are you attempting to provoke public discussion about things that could get people jailed or worse for discussing them? It's interesting to see you post your "sweet spot" message and then call someone *else* an agent provocateur.
I suspect Bear has good intentions and may even honestly believe this, but it is nevertheless misleading.
Talking about the political implications of technologies -- and taking no actions! -- is protected by the full force of the First Amendment.
Johnson got in trouble for allegedly making direct threats of physical violence. Bell is in jail for most of the next decade because he crossed state lines and showing up at homes of current or former federal agents.
It is true that the Feds are monitoring cypherpunks closely, and it is also probably true that without the stalking charges, they may have found other charges to levy against Bell. It is also true that if you embrace AP-type concepts, they may pay closer attention to you. But even given the tattered First Amendment, there is still a difference between speech and action.
-Declan
Bear may not be as far off the mark as you think. Remember back when the hot news of the day was militia groups how advocating the violent overthrow of the government and playing soldier in the woods could constitute intent? Can that twisted reasoning be applied to advocating the use of code to obsolete the government and then actually creating code? Should the political speech and coding action be separated? Is participating in both risky? I consider code to be publishing and speech but look at some of the recent GRUsa activity that addresses that issue. Get ready for "to code is to act." Whoops, it's here. Just title your application "Espionage Communications Suite with Government Overthrow Features" and package the speech and the act up nice and neat for the GRU. This can't really be the case, can it? Mike This little gizmo is not new but I like it and it's only $30 at an AT&T Wireless store. It looks like it would be a nice companion ( assuming one could make a very tiny uP-based adapter ) for an iPaq. I find those folding kybs to be ugly. http://www.ericsson.com/infocenter/news/The_Chatboard.html
On Thursday, August 30, 2001, at 12:42 PM, mmotyka@lsil.com wrote:
Bear may not be as far off the mark as you think. Remember back when the hot news of the day was militia groups how advocating the violent overthrow of the government and playing soldier in the woods could constitute intent?
Before going further, let's examine your "could constitute intent" point. Do you know of any prosecutions, successful or not, of groups who "played soldier in the woods"? Assuming, of course, that the prosecutions were not for weapons law violations, trespassing, hunting out of season, possession of illegal explosives, noise violations, etc. If you know of any such cases, I would like to hear about them. Note, by the way, that the Aryan Nation(s) routinely does as you say, i.e., they practice in the woods, but the only thing that they have been charged (as individuals or as an organization) were connected with actual crimes (the murder of radio talk show host Alan Berg in Denver, a couple of bank robberies) or political thoughtcrimes involving supposed harassment (a woman who claims she was "chased and terrorized" by AN thugs after driving past their compound several times. Do you know of any actual cases where this confluence to "create intent" (not even clear what that means in this context, though) was claimed?
Can that twisted reasoning be applied to advocating the use of code to obsolete the government and then actually creating code? Should the political speech and coding action be separated? Is participating in both risky? I consider code to be publishing and speech but look at some of the recent GRUsa activity that addresses that issue.
Assuming your hypo, there is little protection in the "Alice talks, Bob codes" solution, if Alice and Bob associate. For a conspiracy charge, the fact that some talk and some build things is not important.
Get ready for "to code is to act." Whoops, it's here. Just title your application "Espionage Communications Suite with Government Overthrow Features" and package the speech and the act up nice and neat for the GRU.
This can't really be the case, can it?
No, it can't. --Tim May
On Thursday, August 30, 2001, at 12:42 PM, mmotyka@lsil.com wrote:
Can that twisted reasoning be applied to advocating the use of code to obsolete the government and then actually creating code?
'Twisted reasoning' could lead to anything, so its not too useful to use it as a constraint. A stray bayonet-mount could turn your code into assault software... That being said: There are *no* tools which are useful *only* for powering down government. File sharing tools are useful; that they also erode copyright is collateral damage. Anonymous systems are useful. That you can build AP systems, or worse, spam with them, is collateral damage. 'Damage' of course implies a value system where copyright is good and AP is bad. Side-effect is a more neutral term. At 12:49 PM 8/30/01 -0700, Tim May wrote:
Assuming your hypo, there is little protection in the "Alice talks, Bob codes" solution, if Alice and Bob associate. For a conspiracy charge, the fact that some talk and some build things is not important.
Besides, code *is* speech. Though some men who wear black dresses during office hours have trouble digesting that.
There are *no* tools which are useful *only* for powering down government.
Well, there are some *biased* tools. Anuthing that builds real or virtual walls impedes the spread of monocultural fungal infection (aka the government). The more power an entity has, the less walls it needs. So wall-building tools inherently help smaller/weaker entities. Crypto is one of these. ===== end (of original message) Y-a*h*o-o (yes, they scan for this) spam follows: Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger http://im.yahoo.com
On Thu, Aug 30, 2001 at 12:42:24PM -0700, mmotyka@lsil.com wrote:
Bear may not be as far off the mark as you think. Remember back when the hot news of the day was militia groups how advocating the violent overthrow of the government and playing soldier in the woods could constitute intent? Can that twisted reasoning be applied to advocating the use of code to obsolete the government and then actually creating code? Should the political speech and coding action be separated? Is participating in both risky? I consider code to be publishing and speech but look at some of the recent GRUsa activity that addresses that issue.
Can you get put in jail for writing code? Sure. Just ask Dmitry Sklyarov. Or read the old crypto regs. Or write a bot that posts child porn and start it going. Lots of ways to run afoul of the law -- and that's in the U.S., where we may even be a bit more liberal about such things, and where some circuits even believe source code is free speech. But it does not logically follow that just because you code something, such as an anonymous mix or similar system, that you have broken the law. In fact, you probably haven't. -Declan
Declan McCullagh wrote:
On Thu, Aug 30, 2001 at 12:42:24PM -0700, mmotyka@lsil.com wrote:
Bear may not be as far off the mark as you think. Remember back when the hot news of the day was militia groups how advocating the violent overthrow of the government and playing soldier in the woods could constitute intent? Can that twisted reasoning be applied to advocating the use of code to obsolete the government and then actually creating code? Should the political speech and coding action be separated? Is participating in both risky? I consider code to be publishing and speech but look at some of the recent GRUsa activity that addresses that issue.
Can you get put in jail for writing code? Sure. Just ask Dmitry Sklyarov. Or read the old crypto regs. Or write a bot that posts child porn and start it going. Lots of ways to run afoul of the law -- and that's in the U.S., where we may even be a bit more liberal about such things, and where some circuits even believe source code is free speech.
But it does not logically follow that just because you code something, such as an anonymous mix or similar system, that you have broken the law. In fact, you probably haven't.
-Declan
Agreed, but the parallel is noticeable. Mike
participants (5)
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David Honig -
Declan McCullagh -
mmotyka＠lsil.com -
Morlock Elloi -
Tim May