Adam Shostack wrote:

Brin's argument has two ideas that I find annoying. One is that the changes he forsees are inevitable, the other is that security is not about economics. The idea that universal surveillance is inevitable is based on the assumption that everyone lives in a city, and the technologies of spying can be cheaply deployed. A good deal of privacy can be obtained by moving a small or large distance away. Monitoring technology is not cheap. When it is cheap, the network links to connect it all will still be expensive. (etc. The economics of a surveillance state lead to something in the mix, people, cameras, policemen to make arrests etc, being expensive.)

[snippo] The rich, whether living alone or in an enclave, will have security technology several generations behind Big Brother. But then, Big Bro' is not just one agency. The NSA will be able to monitor the rich 100% no matter what they do, whereas the FBI (in 1996 for example) will not be so well equipped. As far as the unit cost of surveillance goes, it's cheaper every day. Hard disk (and other storage) space is way, way up per dollar, processing speeds and I/O are improving greatly per dollar, and the type of custom database software and O/S employed by the top surveillance pros is not at all analogous to the stuff most people use on Unix, DOS, or other common small computer systems. I did some pioneer work in high-speed database work, and the software makes a BIG difference in unit cost of surveillance. Sometimes, when ordinary controls don't work because specific groups of people put up more than the normal amount of resistance, stronger measures are employed to counter the resistance, i.e., Willie Williams bombing the Move neighborhood in Philly, Reno burning down the Waco "compound", or W.T. "Burn-'em" Sherman making his point in Georgia (USA).

Hal Finney wrote: | As I mentioned a couple of days ago, science fiction writer David Brin | has an argument against not only anonymity, but _privacy_ as well. | Where cypherpunks tend to think of privacy as both beneficial and | inevitable, Brin sees it as harmful and doomed. He has an article in | the December 1996 issue of Wired discussing his ideas. | | BTW cypherpunk Doug Barnes is also quoted several times in the long | article in that issue by Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash, The Diamond Age) | about the undersea cables that carry most transnational information | traffic. | | Hal |

Our December Wired has yet to put in its appearance, so I haven't had a chance to read it yet, except for a quick scan of Neal's article (at Fry's) to make sure the intrepid editors at Wired hadn't screwed up my quotes. I did, however, review some notes on this subject that David Brin gave to Steve Jackson, back when Steve and I were working on IO.COM a couple years ago. There are many arguments against David's position; let's grant the possibility of near-perfect surveilance if it has popular support (which is pretty dubious, but has been addressed by others), and see what arguments remain: 1) I would conjecture that popular approval would make or break this kind of system. It's amazing what kind of spontaneous civil disobedience can spring up once there's a critical mass of distaste for something like this. (Taiwan story warning...) This reminds me of the pirate cable TV wars, which hit their peak during my stay there -- essentially, the government had outlawed cable TV altogether, mostly because they controlled most of the existing media outlets, and didn't believe the citizen-units needed more than what they had. Various entrepreneurs began wiring Taipei for cable -- sloppy, ad-hoc cable lays that were strung from building to building. The gov't would come and cut the cables; new cables would be laid. People paid their cable bills, but could never quite manage to identify the cable installer when the government came around asking. Programming consisted of a van with a bunch of VCRs and a small satellite dish, that would plug into the network at various places. It go to the point where in some areas there was so much cable, it was tricky to figure out which were the old ones and which were the new. Eventually, the government gave up and licensed some cable operators. One could very much see this sort of thing working in reverse. 2) At the moment in this country, we're seeing civil liberties in general being rolled back because right now most people are more afraid of crime that they're afraid of the government. This was not always the case, and it's unlikely to remain the case. We're essentially losing these liberties because people have MTV- attention spans, the media is complacent, and, frankly, the government hasn't done enough awful things recently enough, to enough different kinds of people to provoke general disquiet. Give it time, and a few more Wacos. 3) I would argue that perfect surveilance lives in the same realm of Platonic ideals as "chairness" and "perfect security." So there are going to be some exceptions, and some flaws. Now, given this less-than-perfect surveilance state, that is, surveilance is easier than privacy; a few people can have some privacy, but it's really expensive and requires spending some multiple of what opponents spend on surveilance (this is the opposite of how things are now, but humor me.) Who is going to have this privacy? What are they going to do with it? What is the public reaction going to be to the abuses that grow out of this? My guess is that large governments and large corporations will have this privacy (a matter of national security, etc.) and will eventually succumb to temptation and use it to perpetrate various nasty things on the general populace while keeping themselves in power. Full knowledge != full wisdom. Also, in time, all monopolists get complacent and stupid. 4) Assuming that enough people get riled up, see #1. If the state of affairs can be reversed, folks will try to reverse it; if not, it's been nice knowing you, citizen-units. Contrast this to what happens against a backdrop of privacy; it's possible for much smaller entities to take larger entities (such as governments or large corporations) by surprise, to outmaneuver them, swarm over them, and pull them down. (I can't seem to shake the image of primitive hunters going for a mastodon, here...) It helps prevent the perpetuation of especially dense concentrations of wealth & power, it allows markets to function properly, and enables folks to plot against tyrannical governments. In Brin's world, how does the little startup protect its technology from Microsoft? In Brin's world, how does a new political party campaign against the unscrupulous incumbents, who have access to the tiny bit of remaining privacy, while they have none? In Brin's world, how does a Christian in Iran avoid that knock on the door? Some things to think about. Doug PS -- DO read Neal Stephenson's article in the same Wired; it's a bit boosterish, but it's the funniest tract on fiber optic cable you'll ever read. It gives a good idea of where things are headed (deregulation, disintermediation of cable laying services, cable as speculative investment as opposed to guaranteed utility, etc.). I'd argue things aren't headed that way as quickly as Neal indicates, but certainly where FLAG is landing, it's acting as a catalyst for change of this sort. PPS -- Does anyone know why Fry's gets Wired _weeks_ before actual subscribers?

Doug Barnes writes:

(Taiwan story warning...) This reminds me of the pirate cable TV wars, which hit their peak during my stay there -- essentially, the government had outlawed cable TV altogether, mostly because they controlled most of the existing media outlets, and didn't believe the citizen-units needed more than what they had. Various entrepreneurs began wiring Taipei for cable -- sloppy, ad-hoc cable lays that were strung from building to building. The gov't would come and cut the cables; new cables would be laid. People paid their cable bills, but could never quite manage to identify the cable installer when the government came around asking. Programming consisted of a van with a bunch of VCRs and a small satellite dish, that would plug into the network at various places. It go to the point where in some areas there was so much cable, it was tricky to figure out which were the old ones and which were the new. Eventually, the government gave up and licensed some cable operators.

Now, what would the U.S. government (state or los federales) do in a similar situation? They'd probably fine any resident found with a cable TV thousands of dollars and if that didn't work, they'd start jailing people. Maybe even burn a few TV viewers, a la Waco. :-) --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

Doug Barnes wrote:

...

Hal Finney wrote: | As I mentioned a couple of days ago, science fiction writer David Brin | has an argument against not only anonymity, but _privacy_ as well. | Where cypherpunks tend to think of privacy as both beneficial and | inevitable, Brin sees it as harmful and doomed. He has an article in | the December 1996 issue of Wired discussing his ideas.

[snip]

There are many arguments against David's position; let's grant the possibility of near-perfect surveilance if it has popular support (which is pretty dubious, but has been addressed by others), and see what arguments remain: 1) I would conjecture that popular approval would make or break this kind of system. It's amazing what kind of spontaneous civil disobedience can spring up once there's a critical mass of distaste for something like this. (Taiwan story warning...) This reminds me of the pirate cable TV wars, which hit their peak during my stay there -- essentially, the government had outlawed cable TV altogether, mostly because they controlled most of the existing media outlets, and didn't believe the citizen-units needed more than what they had. Various entrepreneurs began wiring Taipei for cable -- sloppy, ad-hoc cable lays that were strung from building to building. The gov't would come and cut the cables; new cables would be laid. People paid their cable bills, but could never quite manage to identify the cable installer when the government came around asking. Programming consisted of a van with a bunch of VCRs and a small satellite dish, that would plug into the network at various places. It go to the point where in some areas there was so much cable, it was tricky to figure out which were the old ones and which were the new. Eventually, the government gave up and licensed some cable operators.

[mo' snip] The above comments, and the snipped comments about "a few more Wacos will wake the people up etc.", assume that the govt. hasn't learned anything about the politics of mass surveillance over the past few decades. In fact, they've learned a lot. The surveillance can be kept completely quiet, and when they need to take someone out, they can do that very quietly as well. And not a whole lot of people will be angry, because they'll crank up the reputation destructo-machine/P.R. press to preclude any problems there. Waco was an aberration, because key people were hiding behind a quantity of other non-key people, and the FBI blundered in and grandstanded to the point of creating a Kent State kind of scene. To suggest that future Waco's are necessary to take out troublemakers is shortsighted.