Re: Why is cryptoanarchy irreversible?
At 3:03 PM 11/7/1996, Timothy C. May wrote:
However, if guns are not outlawed, are not hard to get, may be bought and sold at flea markets and gun shows (which is where most of my guns have come from, and which is where over the years I bought and sold about a dozen or so various guns, none of them transferred with any paperwork, identities asked for, etc.), and once gun ownership reaches some threshold, later attempts to ban guns, seize them, halt ammunition sales, etc., require draconian steps. (This is why so many gun owners have schemes to bury spare guns in plastic pipes deep underground, place them in safe deposit boxes, etc. And why so many of us reload our own ammo.)
Without taking a stand on the issues of whether guns should or should not be restricted, the situation is quite similar to the ongoing deployment of strong cryptography. Once widely deployed and "ingrained" in the habits of many, later attempts to seize the newly-outlawed items are problematic.
Speech is similar to this. Once mechanisms for free speech are present in a society, once people are used to having the "right" to speak freely, once many channels of communication are widely available, and so on, it becomes well nigh impossible to go back to a non-free-speech situation.
I believe, Peter, that your arguments naively ignore this sort of point. Those in D.C. actually understand it well, and would laugh at your argument of "If crypto turns out to be a problem, we can always ban it later."
The key here is that in these cases the practice has become widely accepted. By widely accepted, I mean that very significant numbers of people believe that there is nothing all that wrong with the practice. Those who disagree do not feel it is worth the trouble to put a stop to it. If the Four Horseman of the Crypto-apocolypse were real, we could certainly put a stop to cryptoanarchy if we wanted to. Very few people would be willing to tolerate strong cryptography if it meant that it was real easy to have people killed, resulted in many sarin attacks, or widespread kidnappings. I doubt you could find many readers of even this list who would find such scenarios acceptable. You are right that the people in D.C. understand your point quite well. And I am naive for expecting them to honestly discuss their policies. The reason they fear cryptoanarchy is not because it will be something people won't like - quite the opposite. If they are to succeed they have to stop it now before it is widely recognized to not be a problem for people who earn their living. I believe that if the people in D.C. honestly believed that the Four Horsemen were coming, they would wait for the first real evidence of it to rally the society behind their cause and write themselves into the history books as heroes. Today, strong cryptography has caused no noticeable problems. People who want to forbid it can only justify such intrusive and politically risky policies on the grounds that something irreversible occurs after deployment. But, I don't believe I have yet seen any sort of explanation for irreversibility that is not based on "well, it won't be all that bad."
I don't imagine the parallel argument, for free speech, would go over well in, say, China: "We'll let people say what they want, publish what they want, set up newspapers, buy whatever foreign magazines they want, use computers, and gather as they wish to make whatever plans they wish to. If we don't like the results, we'll just go back to what we had before."
This argument would certainly not go over well with the leaders of China. The people of China may have another point of view. Peter Hendrickson ph@netcom.com
[snip]
The key here is that in these cases the practice has become widely accepted. By widely accepted, I mean that very significant numbers of people believe that there is nothing all that wrong with the practice. Those who disagree do not feel it is worth the trouble to put a stop to it. [snip]
While this might be the case, I don't believe it is "key". Also, I'm not sure why you used this as a counterpoint. Are you saying that there are not a significant number of people who think there is nothing wrong with sending truly private messages? I would disagree with such an assertion based on my own converastions with crypto-ignorant aquaintances. Most people either trust the gov't implicitly or haven't thought about it or (erroneously) consider it irrelevant - but deep down they definitely value their privacy. Take the flip side for example: Quite a few people think it "wrong" to receive radio signals in the 800-900 Mhz band; and laws have been passed regulating scanners with the intention of inhibiting this practice. However the practice continues to proliferate. This genie is also out of the bottle, and it has the effect of creating demand for crypto. (This is actually yet another method in which the battle for crypto can be fought.) Doug
participants (2)
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Douglas B. Renner
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ph@netcom.com