Eric Murray said:

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OTOH, there certainly has been another attempt by government to villify crypto users with the recent spate of articles on Osama bin Oceania and other terrorists supposed use of crypto and stego. The Red scare of the 50s was also to a large extent promoted and fanned into flame by elements of the government. While there isn't a "moral boundary crisis" amongst the general public about crypto, there is an attempt at "vilification" and "patterned labelling" of crypto users by the government. And many cypherpunks have predicted the government causing events similar to "crystallization of the crisis through a dramatic act" and "appropriation of the appropriate social apparatus and suppression of critique" of crypto users by the government. (However, few of those believe that "and finally restoration of a normal situation" would then occur.)

I appreciate the small confirmation that I am not living on another planet, Mr. Murray.

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The paper doesn't mention the political aspects of either of its examples (another of it's flaws). If you can think of "mass hate" as a politically-motivated inflaming of the masses fears, then the steps that it describes are remarkably similar to the expected political response to crypto-anarchy.

So far, they haven't had much to hang their hat on, at least no specific instance that has become a public focal-point. Informational anarchy and small-time monkeywrenching does certainly seem to be mainstreaming, but "terrorist tool" is a high-caliber metaphor, especially if used in conjunction with a domestic act of terrorism. Oh, blah, I'm sure I'm not adding to the intellectual group capital...I'll follow Prof. May's advice and sift the archives.

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