A Sign of the Future

[James M. Cobb]

  Friend, 
 
 
          A 02 04 96 Reuter Information Service newsstory 
          ----------------------------------------------- 
 
         GERMANS' INTERNET CRACKDOWN A SIGN OF THE FUTURE 
 
                     datelined BONN, Germany 
 
                             reports: 
 
    ...growing alarm among governments at the uglier side of the 
    worldwide computer network. 
 
 
  What is this "uglier side"? 
 
  German Research and Technology Minister Juergen Ruettgers shouts: 
 
    "We cannot tolerate a situation in which anything goes." 
 
 
                               THAT 
 
                           intolerance 
 
 
               is the U*G*L*I*E*S*T side of the 'Net. 
 
 
  Last week Ruettgers declared 

    ...that Bonn respected free speech but must also do more to 
    regulate the Internet.... 
 
 
  When it comes to wiping out free speech 
 
                     --A*N*Y*T*H*I*N*G goes! 
 
 
  The prosecutors have even 
 
    ...contacted the Deutsche Forschungsnetz, the national scien- 
    tific research network. 
 
 
  Following orders from the superpower, its puppet "nation states" 
  are wrecking the genuine Internet. 
 
  Nicholas Negroponte, director of MIT's Media Lab, popped up in 
  Bonn last week to put a high gloss on the "situation": 
 
    "The Internet cannot be regulated.  It's not that laws aren't 
    relevant, it's that the nation state is not relevant.  
 
                    [ DECEPTION IS VIOLENCE ] 
 
    This is the next discussion we will have.  
 
                 [ If the superpower permits! ]  
 
    Cyberlaw is by its nature global and 
 
                 [ You had better sit down... ] 
 
    we're not very good at global law." 
 
 
  Nick's a big shot at Wired magazine.  So it should be no surprise 
  to learn that Wired attacked cypherpunks in its 01 96 issue.  In 
  a fake interview with "Wired's patron saint," Marshall McLuhan is 
  made to say (p 130): 
 
    Concerns about privacy and anonymity are outdated. Cypherpunks 
    think they are rebels with a cause, but they are really senti- 
    mentalists. 
 
 
    The era of politics based on private identities, anonymous indi- 
    viduals, and independent citizens began with the French Revolution 
    and Napoleon's armies...and ended with Hitler....  The cypherpunks 
    are still marching to the same martial music. 
 
 
  Please note HOW Wired equates liberty, equality, fraternity with 
  capitalistic fascism, as David Kahn calls it.  Equating the two in 
  that manner is the same as rejecting the former while embracing the 
  latter.  Further: ending one sentence with "Hitler" while ending the 
  very next sentence with "the same [Nazi rally] martial music" tends 
  to identify Nazis and cypherpunks.  (Of course those few cypherpunks 
  who fancy themselves an "elite" SERVE the wolves at Wired.) 
 
  Deception is violence: it accustoms people to being violated. 
 
 
  Cordially, 
 
  Jim 
 
 
 
 
  NOTE.  "...in the 1930s...capitalistic fascism did not inspire the 
  dread among many establishment figures that communism did."  --David 
  Kahn.  Kahn on Codes: Secrets of the New Cryptology.  Macmillan Pub- 
  lishing Co.  1983.  Page 277. 
 
  The Nando News online filename of the newsstory is: 
 
                         info5_28474.html 
 
 
  Gary Wolf wrote "Channeling McLuhan. The Wired Interview with Wired's 
  patron saint."  He is executive editor of HotWired. 
 
  This critical essay was composed 02 04 96.