Re: Crypto Anarchy (jrk@...)

[Stanton McCandlish <mech@eff.org>]

> smb@research.att.com wrote:
> 
> >Do you want an example?  Here's how to shut down an anonymous remailer.
> >First, find a name for a host that no longer exists.  Send a note through
[...]
> >send a message through the remailer to president@whitehouse.gov, threatening
> >the president.  Poof -- the Secret Service *will* come investigating
[...]

> Well, this apocraphyl scene is easily avoided - remailers can be
> configured to refuse remailing to whitehouse.gov.

I don't think that's quite the point.  The point that's just one instance.
This is part of the problem of our current govt. and current law being
obsolete.  The recent child porn BBS busts are another good example.  The
law is clear on kiddie porn.  If you have it, and don't know it it doesn't
matter.  All someone has to do is upload a child porno file to your BBS in
the middle of the night and immediately call the cops and report you, to
get you arrested and quite possibly convicted.  All I have to do to shut
down your remailer, or your anything, is *tell* the SS that you want to kill
the president.  By policy, they treat all threats as real, so you WILL
probably get a visit from them (as I understand SS operating procedures,
anyway).

> But then this is the Secret Service.  Are they more likely to
> a) seize all equipment peripherally related and a bunch that isn't
> b) inquire about having anonymous mail blocked

Given the SJG case, I think they'd be much more cautious and thorough in
their preparations, and would not repeat the mistakes that would lead to
supposing outcome a). 

I don't think the SS would even understand what b). is.

The NSA, on the other hand... >:)

> Undoubtedly we could launch into a discussion of why it is anybody
> with a pocket full of change can walk up to a payphone and leave a
> variety of threats at the whitehouse switchboard - the phone
> company need not fear having its equipment seized, while a computer
> used in forwarding mail containing the same threats will probably be
> taken along with anything else the SS feels like taking.

Probably because the phone service is regulated, national, well established,
while BBSs or Internet sites are not.  This does not mean that the lack of
common carrier status is just, by any means, but I think this is the
rationale that would come into play, like it or not.
 
> The point is we are in a research & development stage (if you will)
> with anonymous remailers, reputations, filters, digital cash, dc-nets,
> etc.  It is very likely that the projected reality, desired reality,
> and actual reality will be quite different; nevertheless,
> experimentation continues.

Count on it.  Things are moving much too slowly on "our" side.  Entities
like AT&T, Warner, etc. stand a good chance of controlling much of what
becomes "the net" in the future, if much of this technology is not:

1) in place and functional
2) easy to use by the clueless and lazy as well as techies
3) accepted for use within the network, indeed considered *part of* the
   network both as "flavour" and technical specifications
4) impossible to remove - no govt/corporate turning back of the tide
 
VERY soon.  In addition the populace has to become aware of:

1) the fact that computers are not to be feared, but are an empowering tool
2) the fact that a computer that cost $2000 10 years ago costs $200 now.
3) what networking is, what it is good for, and how they can get in on it
4) HOW to do all of this - easy "newbie" software is needed - plug-n-play
5) that privacy is possible.  Most have forgotten this.
6) what good privacy and control over their electronic acitivies is for them
7) that it's easy
8) that the govt/corps/media do not like it and are not to be trusted to look
   after one's own rights.  They need to see that it is exactly this misplaced
   trust that has yielded wiretapping, work place monitoring, TRW, the
   ment to use SSN for almost everything, non-secure purchasing (credit
   cards, etc.)  Media falsehood, inaccuracy, and ignorance of important
   topics, even deliberate ignoring of relevant facts, in media "service"
   that is one-way, dictated, censored, and unexpandable.
9) what alternatives exist
10) what they can do about it.

There's a lot of work to do.


-- 
-=> mech@eff.org <=-
Stanton McCandlish     Electronic Frontier Foundation Online Activist & SysOp
"A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood of
ideas in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people." -JFK
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