Making the Agora Vanish

Greg Broiles gbroiles at well.com
Tue Apr 17 09:38:21 PDT 2001


At 10:16 AM 4/17/2001 +0300, Sampo Syreeni wrote:
>Agreed, to a degree. But it isn't very difficult to outlaw crypto, and to
>effectively control its use for online anonymity - to get a workable
>anonymity infrastructure, you need common protocols, participants to create
>the mixnets and a certain amount of publicity to make your effort matter. It
>is extremely difficult to run such a usable setup without being detected by
>a determined TLA. Unlike with IP, porn, prostitution and drug trade, control
>of online activities can largely be automated.

You're still thinking like a nice middle-class person with a normal job. 
People who are serious about participating in black markets use human and 
technological cutouts to do their business, as well as good old-fashioned 
graft and corruption. In some criminal cultures, prison time is a badge of 
honor. In many criminal cultures, it's low-level disposable people who 
commit the actual crimes - it's the John Gottis and the Pablo Escobars and 
the Dick Nixons back sleeping in their beds who profit from it.

If it was easy to stop crime by passing laws, we'd have done it already.

Consider Jim Bell in light of your objections above - do you consider him 
"controlled"? If so, then the control you speak of is hardly sufficient to 
prevent forbidden activity. If not, then what makes you think that other, 
more clueful people can be controlled?


--
Greg Broiles
gbroiles at well.com
"Organized crime is the price we pay for organization." -- Raymond Chandler





More information about the cypherpunks-legacy mailing list