Cryptographic protocols for government?
Ray Dillinger
bear at sonic.net
Thu Apr 5 14:03:18 PDT 2001
I've been thinking about the Bell case and what it represents.
The case really turns on a central point, I think; an individual's
right or lack thereof to do the things for himself that government
traditionally does for him.
The government normally investigates crooks, ostensibly for the
benefit of the citizens. But what happens when a citizen
attempts to do the same? Well, we get the sort of thing that's
happening in that courtroom. Bell made it pretty personal,
evidently, and his idea of what constitutes a "crook" may differ
from yours, mine, and (especially) that of the government of the
US, and he was evidently bungling the investigation anyway
(wasn't able to find whom he was looking for and wound up
pestering people who had the same name or lived at the same h
ouse...).
But seriously, what was he doing? At least in his own mind,
he was investigating a crook.
And what was AP? (besides being unimplementable and susceptible
to all kinds of abuse by anyone with money?) It was an attempt
at a cryptographic protocol to regulate the use of force. In
effect, it was a protocol intended to replace government.
And this brings up some very fundamental points about the
distinction between private citizens and agents of a government,
especially if you ascribe to the view that all government
powers are derived from and ultimately belong to the people.
I personally think that, as information becomes more and more
available, government becomes less and less necessary. Or
maybe the idea should be expressed as "Government is a protocol
for collaborative or collective action in the absence of the
availability of complete information and the bandwidth to
disseminate it. As the information becomes available, the
need for this protocol declines."
And in a crypto-enabled world, where anyone can say anything
anonymously and as publicly as they like, information will be
available. (insert caveat re: sturgeon's law)
But Bell's behavior brings up other issues. For collaborative
or collective action, you can't have one guy haring off with
his own definitions of everything and trying to enforce laws
nobody else believes exist.
So, a question. How could a reasonably peacable and stable
society, lacking government-as-we-know-it but rich in automation
and cryptographic protocols, deal with crime and criminals?
Is there any way to ensure that the actions taken by the group
(you may think of it as "laws enforced", but "law" has an odd
flavor of meaning in the absence of government-as-we-know-it)
actually conform to a consensus of what the people want enforced,
without unduly trampling the dissenters nor creating positions
of disproportionate power for individuals? How could people
doing investigations be compensated and sustained at an
appropriate level by the group? Do some information resources
need to be restricted to those doing investigations?
I have some ideas on how to do similar things for moderating
mailing lists, but no solid ideas yet on how to regulate the
use of physical force.
Bear
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