Re: Crypto Anarchy, the Government, and the National InformationInfrastructure

[tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)]

Well, Mike Godwin and I have argued about NII/Data Highway before, and we
see things differently. When I read the main position papers, and look to
the "big picture," the future being envisioned, I get a differenct sense of
it than Mike gets.

The NII papers (ftp.ntia.doc.gov, in /pub as "agenda.asc") and the CPSR
docs (distributed on this list) are clearly not leading to an anarchic net.
For example, what will be the NII management's response to a "No blacks
allowed" area? To a "women need not apply" on-line consulting situation? To
a cyberspatial version of the "old boy's network" that Gloria Allred and
her feminista compadres are constantly filing lawsuits against?

(I go to a health club/gym that has a "women only" facility. There are no
longer any "men only" gyms anywhere in California, but "women only"
facilities are flourishing.)

Please understand that I'm not proposing a "no blacks allowed" service,
only arguing that freedom of association is a basic principle I support,
and one on which free societies are based. Yes, I support the right of a
store owner to hang a sign out that says "No straights allowed," or "No
ragheads allowed." Of course, the general population would probably find
this fairly offensive and the store owner would reconsider or go out of
business. Sounds fair to me. (Sorry for a digresssion into Libertarianism
101.)

Somehow I think the "fair access" and "nondiscriminatory environment"
language used in many of these proposals is a clue about what's coming.


>For what it's worth, I don't think this interpretation can be read into
>EFF's Open Platform paper. EFF doesn't care about making money off the
>Data Highway, nor does it think the debate should be about the number of
>channels cable offers.
>
>Instead, EFF wants an infrastructure in which Tim May's anarchic vision
>can flourish along with the visions of anarchophobes. On an Open Platform,
>a hundred flowers can and will bloom, and a thousand schools of
>thought will contend.

EFF indeed has a more libertarian view than does, say, the CPSR (I almost
typed CPUSA). Mitch Kapor, Mike Godwin, Stanton McClandish, and others
certainly understand the dangers of a surveillance state. 

I've heard it argued by some of them (sorry for forgetting exactly who said
what) that some form of data superhighway will be built regardless of our
objections, so we might as well get involved and be helpful. The better to
ensure our vision.

Well, I take the more radical view that to get involved with them is to run
the risk of getting co-opted by them, to be manouvered into accepting their
views.

I support the Open Platform ideas about ending the current local monopoly
on cable and phone provision, but that's as far as I go.

>Anarchists like Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassidy could find
>individualistic redemption on the (government-built) road.
>EFF thinks private-enterprise roads are better, but we also think 
>its promise is unfulfilled if it doesn't allow net.kerouacs and
>net.cassidys to create there.

Oh, to be sure, _literary anarchists_ like Cassidy and Kerouac will be
tolerated. They're no threat, they're covered by artistic license standards
(notwithstanding Mapplethorpe and his censors), and they're even a very
useful social pressure releaf valve.

I'm more concerned about the regulation of business transactions on the Net
of the future, on the ease with which access to the Data Highway can be
denied to anyone who fails to have the proper business license, the
properly approved encryption algorithms, the "tax stamp" on data packets,
and the wrong views about taxation and black markets.

As commerce moves onto the Nets in an even large way, there is every reason
to believe government and special interest groups will seek to use the
state monopoly or regulation to control the types of transactions. Wonder
how long the newsgroups on child porn will last when the Net is "the data
interstate" instead of a loose anarchic collection? How about the White
Aryan Resistance Net, featuring the latest in anonymous communication
systems?


We don't need no steenking data superhighway!


--Tim May

--
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: by arrangement
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