Borders UK and privacy

[Jim Choate]

On Wed, 29 Aug 2001, Declan McCullagh wrote:

> Maybe, but it seems like offense just got a boost. Passive biodefenses
> don't work against an active offense.

Ablative, camouflage, and contact poison ones do. Nature is full of
'passive' defenses that are effective.

Evolutionary Wars: A 3 Billion Year Arms Race
The battle of species on land, at sea, and in the air
C.K. Levy
ISBN 0-7167-3775-2

> If sniffers start landing on your skin and taking a microscopic sample, then
> they won't be trivial to  defend against.

Then you build nano-hunters. If the thing is mobile enough and smart
enough then the technology is suitable to build a hunter-killer. Since you
built it, and programmed it the security is quite high. Since the security
is high the safety factor is high 'for you with respect to your
technology'. This is another reason that 'reputation' is not as important
as one would believe. Because of the requisite safety/security requirement
of technology vetting nobody is going to believe a word that is said. The
reason people will exist in transactions/relationships is as exchange
brokers or personal interest.

The ONLY(!!!) defence against a technological attack is a technological
defence; passive/active, pro/re-active, etc. are digressions into minutea.
They don't effect the fundamental balance of the situation. Attack/Defend.

This is exactly why 'economics' and 'government' as we know it will cease
to exist over the next couple of hundred years (maybe quicker). You will
get your population of nano-bots when you're born from your parents.
You'll inherit as a matter of course both a nano- and bio-technology when
you become an adult. It will be keyed to you via a variety of mechanisms.
They will get it from others in their 'chreche' (my 'zaibatsu') related
by blood and long term personal relationships (note that this is not a
driving force for inter-creche transfers). People will not have 'jobs' as
we know them. Automation, bio-engineering, and intelligence technology
will make that pointless. Exchages between chreche will be people and
technology. People will have duties, obligations, responsibilities with
respect to the business of the creche and inter-creche relations. Those
relations will consist of almost nothing but
technology/research/information transfers.

As the technology increases the need for heirarchy with respect to
survival and social behaviour limitations becomes less. Because of the
(apparent) nature of technology growth two things will happen. The first
is that individuals will be able to better fend for themselves. Consider
an aggregate technology (psycho/digital/nano/bio-technology) that will
allow a person to walk out into a field; filled with trees, grass,
bushes, birds.... Program their nano-bots to create a steak. And within a
couple of hours the field and its raw minerals and bio-mass are consumed,
transformed, and delivered at your feet.

A steaming steak sitting on a fine china plate; accompanied by a heap of
gray goo piled next to it. Awaiting their next orders from your PDA...all
in a silent, barren, stripped field.

Weapons of mass destruction? You ain't seen nothing yet...

What will keep some nutcase from killing everyone? Everyone will be
providing both individual and community service with respect to building
pro-active defences. You won't die from some Mujahadin bio-bug or
nano-hunter-kill because it's against the law (and just exactly whos law
might that be?), you'll do it because you've deployed(!) an active
pre-emptive counter-measure technology. Probably both bio- and nano-.

The thesis has been made that a critical point will be reached when
countries become, as a matter of course, armed to such a point they can
take on other countries 1-1. Now consider the sorts of societies that will
be needed when that is person to person. Consider what it means when, as a
result of this technology we must finally come to grips with the fact that
the depravities of mankind are one of psychology and that the bad will
always be with us. Consider what it means for things like 'trust',
'reputation', 'nation', 'independent', 'individual'.

It is also a strong argument why freedom of speech with respect to taboo
subjects like bombs is the wrong way to go. If everyone knows how to do it
then nobody can hide their actions since they must collect and arrange
resources. It also means that the number of potential observants goes way
up. This increases the chances of early detection. The rational thing to
do is teach people how to make bombs so they can recognize when some
nutcase decides they want to make a bomb. The FBI should be teaching
public classes.

Jefferson said something about when a nation is threatened by the
ignorance of the people, you don't change the law. You educate the people.


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