[From xorcist offlist] Cloudflare & NoDAPL again w/ a ROTF

[xorcist at sigaint.org]

> On Sun, 18 Sep 2016 16:22:44 -0000
> 	So, how effective have your crypto techniques and tools been
> 	against the state?

Depends on what your metric is, I suppose. But, I'd argue that absent Matt
Blaze's Clipper chip hack, your land line phones would have been entirely
tapped well before 9/11. Sure, it didn't matter longer term because cell
phones became the defacto standard. It remains to be seen whether Silent
Circle will have an impact.

Bitcoin is causing a stir, and providing the budding opportunity for an
economy absent a state.

These two examples, to my way of thinking, have had a more tangible
outcome than observation, and discussion.. and perhaps, even more than
outright protest. Because I don't see Wall St. responding to protests..
but they ARE responding to Bitcoin, and implementing their own block-chain
mechanisms.


> 	And what is stoping you from discussing crypto? Rhetorical
> 	question of course. The answer is, you and others can discuss
> 	whatever you want and ignore whatever posters you want to
> 	ignore. It's not like the list has a 100kb quota per day that's
> 	all being used up by 'off topic' posts.

Yeah, sure. I can ignore the pissing and moaning about the media, and the
state. And likewise you can ignore my pissing and moaning about this list.

Or, I can engage - as you can. It seems we're both favoring the later.

> 	Is that supposed to mean : only 'abuses' of power are a
> 	problem, not power per se?

"I tried being an anarchist but there are too many rules."

It's not supposed to mean anything other than what I said. People that
make it to cypherpunks are already quite likely informed. I don't see the
need in pointing out the obvious.

But, to answer your inquiry about power directly, I'll bite. Do I think
there are "legitimate" forms of power? Depends on what you mean by
legitimate. Do I like it? No. But I accept reality. I wish that reality
was different. It would be nice if power structures were different, and
while I'm at it, I think I'd like to add more purples, and some green to
the daily sunset. But that is all nonsense. Reality just IS.

And reality IS that every social animal has a pecking order.. an
alpha/beta dynamic. Humans are not exempt from this, and it manifests for
us, in various forms, and governments and our institutions are among them.
It's why the most driven, "alpha" sociopaths rise to power, and the whiny
betas piss and moan about it, and don't.

Changing that game is about a lot more than changing any individual
institution. It is about more than changing ALL the institutions.

Crypto won't help there, except as a tool to avoid state oppression.
Activism and protests won't help, except as a means to draw attention to
minor issues. Even if you manage to effect full-on insurrection, and get
rid of alpha-male school bully #1, unless you change the very dynamic of
behavior, some other douche will just take his place.

And that, in a nutshell, is why I don't favor even bothering with most of
this stuff. The depths of "the problem" go deep enough that all it does is
to become its own form of distraction. Rather, I prefer to proceed this
way:

Find a small, soluble problem that fills a need. Propose a solution. 
Implement it. Repeat.

If everyone does a little, a lot will get done.

> 	"Don't get me wrong", I would love to have secure computing and
> 	telecom platforms, but it's painfully obvious that in the last
> 	20 years we've moved in the exact opposite direction. Now the
> 	hardware comes compromised. "out of the box". And that's not
> 	because of off-topic posts to the cpunks mailing list.

No different than 20 years ago. You know Win95 wasn't secure. The remote
exploits for Linux and BSD were laughable.

If you want shit secure, then, as now, you have to work it over.

In many respects, its a matter of shoveling shit against the tide, sure ..
but actually doing the shoveling is more effect than philosophizing about
the gravitational pull of the Moon, and the exact mechanisms of its
producing tides.

The moon exists. The alpha/beta dynamic exists. You fucking DEAL with it,
you suck it up, and you shovel shit trying to clean up the fucking mess.
Or, you deal with it, and shovel shit working for "the Man."

It's just the nature of things.

I'd love to be proven wrong, however.