On Killing Blaster

[Thomas Shaddack]

On Mon, 12 Apr 2004, Major Variola (ret) wrote:

> >against "Men with Guns"...in the end Men With Guns will probably try to
> >shoot away bits, but it's not going to work too well.
>
> You forget that there are no bits which are not physical.  Physical
> things reside on land leased from the State (try not paying your
> real estate taxes).  All cables make a landing somewhere.

Then the magic has to be in making the "bad" bits indistinguishable from
the "good" bits. Any crackdown that would have to net more than a
minuscule fraction of the "bad" ones would then take disproportionate
amount of false positives.

In effect, using the luser population of the Net as a human shield. At
least they will be finally good for something.

> >the edges, until the core is exposed.
>
> Where are you going to buy your hardware from, that it can't be
> shut down?

Dual-use technologies. Repurpose of "consumer-grade" off-the-shelf
devices. Shutting down all the PC hardware vendors would be too unpopular
move to pass. Microcontroller and FPGA suppliers are a bit different, as
there is less demand for them between the plebs, but both the vendors and
the customers would get pretty annoyed if somebody would try to pass such
measure. Not mentioning the adverse impact on "legitimate" innovation, the
suboptimal efficiency of such measure, and the vibrant black market
segment that would get created. Smuggled shipments of chips, black market
with software - but all this was already described in better or worse way
in many cyberpunk fiction books.

> How are you going to hide your TX from the DXing white vans?

Use directional optical links? See eg. http://ronja.twibright.com/ for an
open-source one. Still possible to find and eavesdrop on, but much more
difficult than radio link, and outside of the jurisdiction of FCC.
Optionally, use technology that's so common it doesn't raise eyebrows;
Fry's is full of toys.

Recent developments in consumer wireless tech also allow some toys in the
area of "proximity computing" (as I call it). Just carry a PDA in your
pocket, sit for a while next to the right person, and then find the
required files in the PDA later. Nothing more than passing presence in the
same space without any visible interaction between the two people is
recorded in the security cams (and in eg. a subway it has not much meaning
anyway), no call records in the phone switchboards. Again, nothing that a
prepared adversary can't defeat, but as long as you're still under the
radar, you are likely to be missed by fishing expeditions.

We will need four things in the future: creative use (or non-use) of
available technology, knowledge of the Adversary, improvisation skills,
and - most important - luck.