Making the Agora Vanish | OSINT distributed haven (Intellagora)

[Aimee Farr]

Tim May wrote:
> At 1:51 PM -0500 4/13/01, Aimee Farr wrote:
> >Even though I'm PLUNKED, and he is currently on a lawyer-hate rampage...
> >
> >Tim May said:
> >>  For those of you who don't fully appreciate what I am getting at,
> >>  being newcomers, let me move away from such banalities as "kiddie
> >>  porn" market--though this is a real market which any truly
> >>  untraceable tools will facilitate, obviously--and focus instead on
> >>  the "credit rating market."
> >
> >Ah, yes. The (illicit) "credit rating market."
>
> If you claim to know about it, how do you actually know so
> _little_ about it?
> Yes, I have your post filtered into my Trash folder. Sometimes I
> look, sometimes I don't.
> For someone who presumably graduated from a real law school and
> passes a real bar exam, you have a demonstrated tendency to ramble
> and just "ditz" your way through arguments.
> Do you ever write in
> complete sentences, in complete paragraphs, arguing complete points?

I agree with you, I did not put forth my argument well, and I was lazy to
snip out context from several offlist conversations. And, you are correct,
it is difficult for me to make a compelling argument, due to the fact that I
am a far cry from an expert in this area. These are challenging concepts.
However, with respect, I did take on a mega-proposition for the application
of your concepts.

> >Thank you for the "Dick & Jane" version. I may not be the smartest kid in
> >the class, but I am going to skip a grade, and address the value
> proposition
> >Mr. May is *really* talking about, although with a twist of legitimacy:
> >
> >
> >Found in my inbox:
> >========================
> >	> 1. MERCHANT INFORMATION BANKING - "Open Source Intelligence Haven"
> >	> STEELE:
> >	http://www.oss.net/infoMerchantBank.html
>
> "A twist of legitimacy"? Some kind of appeal to authority/

An appeal for a contract. I was trying to hypothesize a value proposition
for a legitimate application of these technologies. What you proposed, via a
"credit rating market," is an open source information mercantile system. I
was looking for a better market, which attaches high value to information:
intelligence. I wonder if these applications would find the most relevance
in the intelligence sector, despite thoughts of subversive applications. If
there is not a value proposition for an information marketplace between the
government and the private sector, there could be a value proposition within
the private sector intelligence channels, moving closer to your "credit
rating market" proposition.

> As it happens, I've known Robert Steele since his first got invited
> to the Hackers Conference...must have been around 1993-4 or so.
> Talked to him at length. Several other list members know him, too.
> He's been pushing this Del Torto-esque "hackers will be our real
> agents" project for a while.

We do have some most recent evidence of this.

> Nothing wrong with the "open
> intelligence" idea...except that it's not his idea.

However, Steele does have an interesting prototype community. Furthermore,
he has explored private sector opportunities as the intelligence community
restructures and privatizes.

> The intelligence
> agencies of the world have been vacuum sweeping the Net since its
> earliest days. I don't mean in some paranoid sense, but in the sense
> of what is readily known.

But much strategically valuable information is not online. I said "NOT
ONLINE." The intelligence needed is in regard to third-world countries and
hotspots. This insight is damn sure not on the Net. I can't find the
intricacies in regard to [fill-in-the-blank] on the Net. There are some
things you can't mine. Even where you can, it's raw information, stale, and
not analysis. Furthermore, I would think this information is often of little
strategic value.

> The "Analyst" project at the CIA, for example, has been going on
> since at least the early 80s, monitoring publically visible (and
> perhaps less visible stuff gotten from the NSA, DIA, NRO, etc.)
> material.

Yes. But when they get this information... "what does it mean?" They are
drowning in information that they can't make sense of. Any such an endeavor
would target information that is NOT SIPHONABLE AND OUTSIDE OF EXISTING
INTELLIGENCE FLOWS. The endeavor would tap the private intelligence sector,
developing nonexistent intelligence channels to tap private experts, agents,
analysts, primary sources, etc. - information available, but for a price.

> We knew by 1993 that the NSA and CIA had folks reading our list...I
> talked to a couple of these readers at the Hackers Conference in Lake
> Tahoe and at a conference at Asilomar.

Well, in the unlikely event the NSA and CIA folks are still around: They
need LESS noise - more private analysis and sourcepoint intelligence. The
problem with the US intelligence community, as seen by many, is that they
are over-focused on mass mining strategies and related technologies, and
need to re-focus on securing intelligence from the private sector.
Intelligence on resources, corporations, ETC. now that the Cold War is
kaput.

> "Open source intelligence" is just his buzz phrase for "observe
> what's happening."

That is an over-simplification, but yes. Intelligence is not headlines. To a
large extent, "what's happening" is not analyzed correctly, because the
intelligence community lacks sufficient expert analysis to cope with the
dataload. This capability is in the private sector. These information flows,
between the government sector and the private sector, are unmapped.

(I know I am just mouthing Steele's arguments, but I find them compelling.)

> >Steele, March 23 Letter to President:
> >http://www.oss.net/Papers/white/LettertothePresident.doc)
> >
> >>Making the agora disappear into cyberspace, whether by sheer numbers
> >>of sellers and buyers (peer-to-peer) or by robust encryption (a la
> >>BlackNet) is an important goal.
> >
> >Agora, hm.
>
> Learn our terms as we learn your terms.

I'M TRYING.

> >I find open source information banking/trading/merchant
> (whatever) systems
> >problematic propositions, beyond anonymous cash, especially
> viewed in light
> >of this hypothetical on a distributed open source intelligence
> >haven-brokerage.
> >
> >	i.e. How do you set yourself up as an anonymous, neutral,
> >info-Switzerland?
> >...How will you	obtain critical mass and critical trust?
> >...Where is your
> >back-door, infosec accountability	if you are nothing but digital wind?
> >...How do you set up a buy-sell marketplace for	intelligence
> >-- the value
> >of which cannot be determined prior to analysis, even where there	is a
> >robust reputation capital metric in place? ...How do you enforce
> polycentric
> >merchant	society rules in the context of an anonymous
> >transactional system?
> >...Requirements for	admission?  ...Quality control? Reputational
> >systems?...What is your post-transactional	enforcement
> mechanism? ...MUST
> >you have anon cash? (Just lotsa questions.)
>
> Read the hundreds of articles on these matters. Read "The Enterprise
> of Law: Justice without the State," by Bruce Benson. Read David
> Friedman's "Machinery of Freedom," and his other books. Read...
>
> The point is, Aimee, _read the background material_.

> Then you can ask specific questions, instead of just throwing a dozen
> or two dozen points of confusion you have against the wall and asking
> me to make it all clear to you.

Tim, I didn't expect you to make it all clear to me. (i.e., "Just lotsa
questions." Indeed, I have some answers, but thank you for the book recs.) I
was merely reflecting that anonymous cash is not a cure-all, and that it
might not even necessary for a highly sensitive information marketplace. I
was questioning the value proposition that you posed in the context of a
more sophisticated model -- an admittedly fantastical one. Finally, I
questioned if it was so fantastical, given Steele (et. al.) and thoughts of
functioning OSINT communities.

> As it is, you have yet to contribute anything interesting, at least
> that I have seen. I admit I don't see most of your contributions
> these days, but the lack of follow-up from others tells me that
> others are also not finding much of substance.
> Given that you write in a confusing, ditzy way, perhaps they just
> can't extract the nuggets from the mud.

I can understand how conversations are frustrating for you, especially mine,
due to the level of my naiveti.

Still, you proffered an illicit "credit rating market" as a metaphor for an
information mercantile system tapping private, analytical intelligence --
intelligence that is not online, not siphonable or subject to mining, and
which lies outside legacy intelligence channels.

Is my value proposition so different than yours? I could argue that it
targets information of like character, in a like system, between parties of
like needs.

It remains to be seen if your "crypto-anarchy" can find a sustainable value
proposition. I was trying to envision one, usually necessary for somebody to
"do something." (This is your big bitch, no?)

You are a prickly, philosophical, violence-inclined prick tease that won't
put out for me. Clearly, I stand little chance of EVER getting into your
intellectual pants. Give me some indication of how good your dick really is,
because I'm thinking it isn't worth continued loss of blood on my end to
even entertain thoughts of pursuing such a long-term, high-risk,
book-reading, flesh-eating endeavor.

However, you have looked at this too long to have not considered
intelligence applications. If you say it's a really dumb idea, there is
probably some truth to it.

~ Aimee