Re: Is Cyberspace Rich Enough?
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That theme is this: Is cyberspace, or the Net/Web/Etc., sufficiently rich or complex to meet our needs?
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Consider how the abstractions of the World Wide Web, URLs, HTML, HTTP, and Web browsers have *increased the size of cyberspace* rather dramatically in just the past two years. More places to visit, more interconnectedness, more difficulties in controlling access to stuff, etc. Home pages containing banned material are proliferating (a la the Homolka-Teale ritualistic cannibalism trial in Canada, the Scientology material, and so on--this is not the place for me to recap this). Sure, ftp sites used to do this pretty well; in fact, I'm considering ftp sites in this "evolution" toward greater complexity (in the richness sense).
I agree that cyberspace is certainly becoming more complex and interconnected. However, just as a complex ecosystem is not necessarily more stable than a simple one, and a complex cipher is not necessarily more secure than a simple one, greater complexity in cyberspace does not necessarily imply that it is less vulnerable to to centralized control. [more stuff deleted]
What Cypherpunks should be pushing for, in my view, is this increased dimensionality. More places to stick things, more places to escape central control, and more degrees of freedom (which has a nice dual meaning I once used as the working title for a novel I was working on).
But if you wanted to exert greater control over others, you would also be pushing for increased dimensionality, because that shrinks the world and moves everyone closer to you. If you look at history, increased connectivity has always been necessary for increased central control. What I am saying is that increased connectivity alone does not necessarily favor decentralization. What makes the difference is the details -- the nature of the connectivity.
Is Cyberspace already rich enough (= high enough dimensionality) so that central control cannot be reestablished (to the extent it ever existed)?
Many of this think that it probably already is past this point, that the "point of no return" has been reached. After all, the Soviets couldn't stop samizdats, the Chinese couldn't stop fax machines, and the Americans can't stop drug use, so what hope is there in controlling modems, crypto, cellular phones, satellites, Web links, stegonography, terabytes of data flowing unobstructed across borders, and so on. Just to "stop the Net" would disrupt the entire financial system, which not even Clinton or the next (Republican) President would be tempted to do....they might as well launch a nuclear war as try to shut down this "anarchic" ( = high dimensionality) system.
I'm not quite so optimistic. One way to control a distributed system such as the Internet would be to use a distributed method. I.e., use something like the Internet Worm, but a thousand times subtler and more powerful. There is no need for them to "stop the Net", just to subvert a substantial part of it. Wei Dai -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBLz/I0Tl0sXKgdnV5AQGEewP7BGVcIdtKv5UIh8z3ydSoMdOdvLyBxww3 N3f4NKaXTwS6PPfdmRafcN7i3mKEDIlB6CKBBEL5qV2GkDpmTi9rehD2q5hZFzEX vdHYg8k/YRo8ZNnLdaelZO7EPFpFwX3XCeyd2Ap6efzrr7djX98ckJWb5ZMnK/Xp BOLeEwxTF6Y= =hcI1 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- E-mail: Wei Dai <weidai@eskimo.com> URL: "http://www.eskimo.com/~weidai" =================== Exponential Increase of Complexity =================== --> singularity --> atoms --> macromolecules --> biological evolution --> central nervous systems --> symbolic communication --> homo sapiens --> digital computers --> internetworking --> close-coupled automation --> broadband brain-to-net connections --> artificial intelligence --> distributed consciousness --> group minds --> ? ? ?
Wei Dai wrote:
I agree that cyberspace is certainly becoming more complex and interconnected. However, just as a complex ecosystem is not necessarily more stable than a simple one, and a complex cipher is not necessarily more secure than a simple one, greater complexity in cyberspace does not necessarily imply that it is less vulnerable to to centralized control.
No, it doesn't ncecessarily imply less vulnerability, but the two are empirically correlated. Monocultures are usually easier to control than in systems where the citizen-units have rich connections and diverse options.
But if you wanted to exert greater control over others, you would also be pushing for increased dimensionality, because that shrinks the world and moves everyone closer to you. If you look at history, increased
It's always dangerous reasoning from imprecise analogies, and all the more dangerous reasoning about the mental images others have of such analogies. Thus, I won't dispute Wei Dai's image of "moving closer" to the government except to say that as the space shrinks, _many people_ move closer...and this means transactions not visible to the government _also_ become more common. In other words, one may be only "2 Internet handshakes from Al Gore," but this doesn't give Al Gore control over Joe User's encrypted transactions with Ivan Hackerovich.
connectivity has always been necessary for increased central control. What I am saying is that increased connectivity alone does not necessarily favor decentralization. What makes the difference is the details -- the nature of the connectivity.
Yes, of course. The nature is critical, and I would not claim otherwise. (This is another reason long posts are often losers in the Ratings Game: the longer the post the more nits can be picked. And so threads often devolve into word games. And if I try to fix things by writing even _more_, it just gets worse! :-} )
I'm not quite so optimistic. One way to control a distributed system such as the Internet would be to use a distributed method. I.e., use something like the Internet Worm, but a thousand times subtler and more powerful. There is no need for them to "stop the Net", just to subvert a substantial part of it.
In fact, I almost mentioned the Morris Worm, but held back. For one thing, in a crypto-dominated, reputation-centered era, such rogue programs are probably less likely. Safe computing, etc. I'm less fearful that the Net will be attacked in this way than that liability laws will be used to try to scare people into compliance. But these are other topics, which I'll treat separately. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero | 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. Cypherpunks list: majordomo@toad.com with body message of only: subscribe cypherpunks. FAQ available at ftp.netcom.com in pub/tc/tcmay
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Wei Dai