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essential understanding - Kafkatrapping
by Zenaan Harkness 03 Dec '15

03 Dec '15

The points raised in this blog are essential in today's SJW/ "Social Justice Warrior" (how politically correct that sounds) climate of communication - the Kafkatrapping techniques described here may provide an important "ahah!" moment to those who have been subjected to such emotional/ linguistic constructs in the past, or who may have to face such constructs in the future. Here's to competently handling more of today's pervasive bullshit. Zenaan http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2122 Kafkatrapping Posted on 2010-07-18 by Eric Raymond Good causes sometimes have bad consequences. Blacks, women, and other historical out-groups were right to demand equality before the law and the full respect and liberties due to any member of our civilization; but the tactics they used to “raise consciousness” have sometimes veered into the creepy and pathological, borrowing the least sane features of religious evangelism. One very notable pathology is a form of argument that, reduced to essence, runs like this: “Your refusal to acknowledge that you are guilty of {sin,racism,sexism, homophobia,oppression…} confirms that you are guilty of {sin,racism,sexism, homophobia,oppression…}.” I’ve been presented with enough instances of this recently that I’ve decided that it needs a name. I call this general style of argument “kafkatrapping”, and the above the Model A kafkatrap. In this essay, I will show that the kafkatrap is a form of argument that is so fallacious and manipulative that those subjected to it are entitled to reject it based entirely on the form of the argument, without reference to whatever particular sin or thoughtcrime is being alleged. I will also attempt to show that kafkatrapping is so self-destructive to the causes that employ it that change activists should root it out of their own speech and thoughts. My reference, of course, is to Franz Kafka’s “The Trial”, in which the protagonist Josef K. is accused of crimes the nature of which are never actually specified, and enmeshed in a process designed to degrade, humiliate, and destroy him whether or not he has in fact committed any crime at all. The only way out of the trap is for him to acquiesce in his own destruction; indeed, forcing him to that point of acquiescence and the collapse of his will to live as a free human being seems to be the only point of the process, if it has one at all. This is almost exactly the way the kafkatrap operates in religious and political argument. Real crimes – actual transgressions against flesh-and-blood individuals – are generally not specified. The aim of the kafkatrap is to produce a kind of free-floating guilt in the subject, a conviction of sinfulness that can be manipulated by the operator to make the subject say and do things that are convenient to the operator’s personal, political, or religious goals. Ideally, the subject will then internalize these demands, and then become complicit in the kafkatrapping of others. Sometimes the kafkatrap is presented in less direct forms. A common variant, which I’ll call the Model C, is to assert something like this: “Even if you do not feel yourself to be guilty of {sin,racism,sexism, homophobia,oppression…}, you are guilty because you have benefited from the {sinful,racist,sexist,homophobic,oppressive,…} behavior of others in the system.” The aim of the Model C is to induce the subject to self-condemnation not on the basis of anything the individual subject has actually done, but on the basis of choices by others which the subject typically had no power to affect. The subject must at all costs be prevented from noticing that it is not ultimately possible to be responsible for the behavior of other free human beings. A close variant of the model C is the model P: “Even if you do not feel yourself to be guilty of {sin,racism,sexism, homophobia,oppression…}, you are guilty because you have a privileged position in the {sinful,racist,sexist,homophobic,oppressive,…} system.” For the model P to work, the subject must be prevented from noticing that the demand to self-condemn is not based on the subject’s own actions or choices or feelings, but rather on an in-group identification ascribed by the operator of the kafkatrap. It is essential to the operation of all three of the variants of the kafkatrap so far described that the subject’s attention be deflected away from the fact that no wrongdoing by the subject, about which the subject need feel personally guilty, has actually been specified. The kafkatrapper’s objective is to hook into chronic self-doubt in the subject and inflate it, in much the same way an emotional abuser convinces a victim that the abuse is deserved – in fact, the mechanism is identical. Thus kafkatrapping tends to work best on weak and emotionally vulnerable personalities, and poorly on personalities with a strong internalized ethos. In addition, the success of a model P kafkatrap depends on the subject not realizing that the group ascription pinned on by the operator can be rejected. The subject must be prevented from asserting his or her individuality and individual agency; better, the subject must be convinced that asserting individuality is yet another demonstration of denial and guilt. Need it be pointed out how ironic this is, given that kafkatrappers (other than old-fashioned religious authoritarians) generally claim to be against group stereotyping? There are, of course, other variants. Consider the model S: “Skepticism about any particular anecdotal account of {sin,racism,sexism,homophobia,oppression,…}, or any attempt to deny that the particular anecdote implies a systemic problem in which you are one of the guilty parties, is itself sufficient to establish your guilt.” Again, the common theme here is that questioning the discourse that condemns you, condemns you. This variant differs from the model A and model P in that a specific crime against an actual person usually is in fact alleged. The operator of the kafkatrap relies on the subject’s emotional revulsion against the crime to sweep away all questions of representativeness and the basic fact that the subject didn’t do it. I’ll finish my catalog of variants with the verson of the kafkatrap that I think is most likely to be deployed against this essay, the Model L: “Your insistence on applying rational skepticism in evaluating assertions of pervasive {sin,racism,sexism,homophobia, oppression…} itself demonstrates that you are {sinful,racist,sexist,homophobic,oppressive,…}.” This sounds much like the Model S, except that we are back in the territory of unspecified crime here. This version is not intended to induce guilt so much as it is to serve as a flank guard for other forms of kafkatrapping. By insisting that skepticism is evidence of an intention to cover up or excuse thoughtcrime, kafkatrappers protect themselves from having their methods or motives questioned and can get on with the serious business of eradicating thoughtcrime. Having shown how manipulative and psychologically abusive the kafkatrap is, it may seem almost superfluous to observe that it is logically fallacious as well. The particular species of fallacy is sometimes called “panchreston”, an argument from which anything can be deduced because it is not falsifiable. Notably, if the model A kafkatrap is true, the world is divided into two kinds of people: (a) those who admit they are guilty of thoughtcrime, and (b) those who are guilty of thoughtcrime because they will not admit to being guilty of thoughtcrime. No one can ever be innocent. The subject must be prevented from noticing that this logic convicts and impeaches the operator of the kafkatrap! I hope it is clear by now that the particular flavor of thoughtcrime alleged is irrelevant to understanding the operation of kafkatraps and how to avoid being abused and manipulated by kafkatrappers. In times past the kafkatrapper was usually a religious zealot; today, he or she is just as likely to be advancing an ideology of racial, gender, sexual-minority, or economic grievance. Whatever your opinion of any of these causes in their ‘pure’ forms may be, there are reasons that the employment of kafkatrapping is a sure sign of corruption. The practice of kafkatrapping corrupts causes in many ways, some obvious and some more subtle. The most obvious way is that abusive and manipulative ways of controlling people tend to hollow out the causes for which they are employed, smothering whatever worthy goals they may have begun with and reducing them to vehicles for the attainment of power and privilege over others. A subtler form of corruption is that those who use kafkatraps in order to manipulate others are prone to fall into them themselves. Becoming unable to see out of the traps, their ability to communicate with and engage anyone who has not fallen in becomes progressively more damaged. At the extreme, such causes frequently become epistemically closed, with a jargon and discourse so tightly wrapped around the logical fallacies in the kafkatraps that their doctrine is largely unintelligible to outsiders. These are both good reasons for change activists to consider kafkatraps a dangerous pathology that they should root out of their own causes. But the best reason remains that kafkatrapping is wrong. Especially, damningly wrong for anyone who claims to be operating in the cause of freedom. UPDATE: A commenter pointed out the Model D: “The act of demanding a definition of {sin,racism,sexism,homophobia,oppression} that can be consequentially checked and falsified proves you are {sinful,racist,sexist, homophobic, oppressive}.” UPDATE2: The Model M: “The act of arguing against the theory of anti-{sin,racism,sexism,homophobia,oppression} demonstrates that you are either {sinful,racist,sexist, homophobic, oppressive} or do not understand the theory of anti-{sin,racism,sexism,homophobia,oppression}, and your argument can therefore be dismissed as either corrupt or incompetent.” Model T: Designated victims of {sin,racism,sexism,homophobia,oppression} who question any part of the theory of {sin,racism,sexism,homophobia,oppression} demonstrate by doing so that they are not authentic members of the victim class, so their experience can be discounted and their thoughts dismissed as internalized {sin,racism,sexism,homophobia,oppression}.

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Retired Obama, pensioner Kerry, US President Snowden: RT’s 2035 promo
by Zenaan Harkness 03 Dec '15

03 Dec '15

:) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THrZZ95i8zQ

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The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work
by Riad S. Wahby 03 Dec '15

03 Dec '15

Phillip Rogaway (Professor of CS at UC Davis) has released in the form of an essay his keynote talk from Asiacrypt. Very interesting reflection on the politics of crypto, historically and at present. -- "The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work" Phil Rogaway http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/papers/moral-fn.pdf Cryptography rearranges power: it configures who can do what, from what. This makes cryptography an inherently political tool, and it confers on the field an intrinsically moral dimension. The Snowden revelations motivate a reassessment of the political and moral positioning of cryptography. They lead one to ask if our inability to effectively address mass surveillance constitutes a failure of our field. I believe that it does. I call for a community-wide effort to develop more effective means to resist mass surveillance. I plea for a reinvention of our disciplinary culture to attend not only to puzzles and math, but, also, to the societal implications of our work. -- -=rsw

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Vuvuzuela Messaging App
by grarpamp 03 Dec '15

03 Dec '15

https://github.com/davidlazar/vuvuzela Vuvuzela is a messaging system that hides metadata using noise. The Github README has more information and a link to the paper. The issue tracker highlights some of the remaining challenges.

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Re: [Cryptography] Sadly predictable: Terrorism used as excuse to attack encryption
by grarpamp 03 Dec '15

03 Dec '15

On Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 1:07 PM, Henry Baker <hbaker1(a)pipeline.com> wrote: > With enough fear, anything comes to look threatening: a gaming console, a toilet, a smartphone. Will destroying them make us more or less powerful? It makes "us" look like cowards, because you're not addressing the source of the fear, you're taking the *apparrent* easy route, while still leaving the source to reign. It takes courage to conquer your fears. Grow some.

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PSA: fas.org is now https://www.fas.org/
by coderman 03 Dec '15

03 Dec '15

we thought it would never happen, perhaps outlasting cryptome.org for TLS resistance, and yet, behold! https://www.fas.org/ best regards, [ don't tell them about COMODO HACKAR ;P ... ]

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Cryptome.biz (RU) not affiliated with Cryptome.org.
by John Young 03 Dec '15

03 Dec '15

Cryptome.biz, a Russian virtual currency site registered 25 November 2015, is not affiliated with Cryptome.org. https://cryptome.biz http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/registry-data.jsp?domain=cryptome.biz

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DuckDuckGo
by Ryan Carboni 02 Dec '15

02 Dec '15

Nevermind. I just got an ad for an NSA career on DuckDuckGo when searching for "NSA budget."

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Re: Paris Attacks Blamed on Strong Cryptography and Edward Snowden
by John Young 02 Dec '15

02 Dec '15

Wheedling about crypto and Snowden diverts from CIA Director's full speech and broader critique. CIA version omits Q&A. <https://t.co/d6tAq2PiZi>http://csis.org/files/attachments/151116_GSF_OpeningSession.pdf To be sure, commentators must promote their products to flatter their consumers as do spies, officials and armaments (crypto) producers. Officials buy the armaments to gain votes and post-service directorships, word artists blow wind to fan the flames. "This Is War!" Perfect for all consumers except the slaughtered, a few of which get ritual mourning (most ignored, unreported, unsacrelized, unheroricized, unencrypted). Hard to tell the difference between opportunistic warmongerers or anti-warmongerers, so ying and yang in complicity. At 10:03 AM 11/17/2015, you wrote: >1. ><https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/11/paris_attacks_b.html>https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/11/paris_attacks_b.html >2. >https://theintercept.com/2015/11/15/exploiting-emotions-about-paris-to-blam… > ><<As Paris reels from terrorist attacks that >have claimed at least 128 lives, fierce blame >for the carnage is being directed toward >American whistleblower Edward Snowden and the >spread of strong encryption catalyzed by his >actions. Now the Paris attacks are being used an excuse to demand back doors>> > > ><<how can âofficialsâ and their media >stenographers persist in trying to convince >people of such a blatant, easily disproven >falsehood: namely, that Terrorists learned to >hide their communications from Snowdenâs >revelations? They do it because of how many >benefits there are from swindling people to >believe this. To begin with, U.S officials are >eager here to demonize far more than just Snowden >They want to demonize encryption generally as >well as any companies that offer it. Indeed, as >these media accounts show, theyâve been trying >for two decades to equate the use of encryption > anything that keeps them out of peopleâs >private onlinee communications with aiding and abetting The Terrorists>> > ><<Above all, thereâs the desperation to >prevent people from asking how and why ISIS was >able to spring up seemingly out of nowhere and >be so powerful, able to blow up a Russian >passenger plane, a market in Beirut, and the >streets of Paris in a single week. Thatâs the >one question Western officials are most >desperate not to be asked, so directing >peopleâs ire to Edward Snowden and strong >encryption is beneficial in the extreme>> > > ><<Thereâs the related question of how ISIS has >become so well-armed and powerful. There are >many causes, but a leading one is the role >played by the U.S. and its âallies in the >regionâ (i.e., Gulf tyrannies) in arming them>>

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Cryprocontracts hackathon 1-5 Dec online peepshow style
by ksenia serova 01 Dec '15

01 Dec '15

There was a lot of digital ink spilled over the topic of smartcontracts. If anyone is interested to have a look at them contracts (in Solidity) being built and deployed to the chain live - there is an online smartcontracts hackathon here http://hack.ether.camp/ for the next 5 days. People usually use npm packages to compile and web3 package to send a contract to the chain via http rpc or lpc socket. In this case it is a bit of a smartcontract peepshow -each team IDE is open for viewers. Will be interesting to see what comes out of it, and what challenges people are actually experiencing etc. The registration stays open towards the end, if anyone wants to give it a go.

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