Anarchy Gone Awry (fwd)

[Anonymous <nowhere@bsu-cs.bsu.edu>]

Computer underground Digest    Sun  Dec 5 1993   Volume 5 : Issue 91
                           ISSN  1004-042X

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Date: Thu, 02 Dec 93 04:36:10 -0700
From: "L. Detweiler" <ld231782@LONGS.LANCE.COLOSTATE.EDU>
Subject: File 1--Anarchy Gone Awry

Mr. Leichter raises some extremely pivotal issues in CUD #5.90 related
to the `anarchy' of the Internet. B.Sterling is the author of one of
the most brilliantly colorful characterizations and metaphors of the
Internet as `anarchic', comparing its evolution and development to that
of the English language:

  > The Internet's `anarchy' may seem strange or even unnatural,  but
  > it makes a certain deep and basic sense.  It's rather like the
  > `anarchy' of the English language.  Nobody rents English, and
  > nobody owns English.  As an English-speaking person, it's up
  > to you to learn how to speak English properly and make whatever
  > use you please of it (though the government provides certain
  > subsidies to help you learn to read and write a bit).
  > Otherwise, everybody just sort of pitches in, and somehow the
  > thing evolves on its own, and somehow turns out workable.  And
  > interesting.  Fascinating, even.  Though a lot of people earn
  > their living from using and exploiting and teaching  English,
  > `English' as an institution is public property, a public good.
  > Much the same goes for the Internet.  Would English  be improved
  > if the `The English Language, Inc.' had a board of directors
  > and a chief executive officer, or a President and a Congress?
  > There'd probably be a lot fewer new words in English, and a lot
  > fewer new ideas.

Unfortunately, though, having attended a lecture by Mr. Sterling and
having read `The Hacker Crackdown', I think he has a tendency to
overdramatize and glorify quasi-criminal behavior and rebellious,
subversive, revolutionary aspects of social structures, including those
of the Internet. In my view, to the contrary the Internet is largely
held together with the glue of social cohesion and human civility, and
ingredients that are destructive to that order are likewise toxic to
Cyberspace, and that, conversely, virtually all of the excruciating
poison in the bloodstream today can be traced to violations and
perversions of that trust. (Unfortunately, the English language is
itself subject to unpleasant, corrupt, or toxic uses such as for
profanity, disinformation, and lies, which are prevented or at least
minimized through rejections by honest people.) I agree with Mr.
Leichter in the belief (to paraphrase Twain) that `reports of the
anarchy on the Internet are greatly exaggerated'.

Leichter:
>The Internet has been
>described as an anarchy, but in fact only relatively small parts of
>the Internet are actually anarchic.

I would like to go further than this and suggest that the Internet has
been over-promoted as `anarchic' by certain subversive, quasi-criminal
segments that have found a tenacious hold there, namely extremist
libertarians and `Cryptoanarchists'. The Cryptoanarchist cause is
closely associated with the Cypherpunk founders E.Hughes and T.C.May
(characterized particularly by the latter's infamous signature), who in
my view appear to promote not merely `privacy for the masses' and `the
cryptographic revolution', but at least condone or tolerate the use of
collections of imaginary identities to manipulate and deceive others,
and even to evade legitimate government actions such as criminal
prosecutions. My most strident requests for their position, personal
knowledge, and potential involvement in this practice have gone
unanswered, evaded, and repressed over many weeks, but I have many
statements from followers that might be regarded as `cult fanatics'
about the Liberating Effects of `pseudoanonymity', which they exalt as
True Anonymity.

In my opinion, in this regard of the ease of creating fake identities,
the `anarchic' vulnerability of the Internet reaches its peak in
undesirable and socially poisonous consequences, which people are
bloodily battling daily on many diverse mailing lists and Usenet
groups. In my experience, the Internet inhabitants I have found who
most fanatically worship the Internet `anarchy' seem to be closely
associated with criminally subversive aims of pornography distribution,
tax evasion, black marketeering, and overthrow of governments, goals
which are all masked in much of the eloquent Cryptoanarchist dogma and
rhetoric. While some of us have glimpsed various hideous corners of
Cyberspatial Hell, those who subscribe to the Liberating Religion of
Anarchy are in their Paradise on the Internet As We Know It. I call
their Utopia a Ticking Time Bomb and a Recipe for an Apocalypse.

I have come to these (admittedly melodramatic) conclusions after ~10
months and ~3500 messages of generally unpleasant and at times
excruciatingly troubling and painful reading and participation on the
Cypherpunks list and many personal communications with the Cypherpunk
leaders including E.Hughes, T.C.May, and J.Gilmore. In fact, in my
opinion the `Psychopunk Manifesto' parody in CUD #5.89, which longtime
cypherpunk list subscriber P.Ferguson describes in 5.90 as having `made
its rounds in the cyberspatial world', actually in many ways comes
closer to delineating the actual cypherpunk agenda than the one
authored by founder E.Hughes on soda.berkeley.edu:
/pub/cypherpunks/rants/A_Cypherpunk's_Manifesto.  The satire is
actually a reformulated version of the original Manifesto, and the
former's amazing meme-virus penetration of the  into the cyberspatial
psyche that P.Ferguson alludes to is indicative of its resonance over the
 latter.

I gave the Cypherpunks the most extraordinary benefit of the doubt for
months, far beyond that of a reasonable cyberspatial inhabitant. But
now I must warn everyone who can hear me that if they assign the
`cypherpunks' as an organization the same credibility as a group like
EFF or CPSR they are dangerously, perhaps disastrously, misguided. They
appear to me to the contrary to be the cultivators of a flourishing
conspiracy and essentially the first Cyberspatial guerilla and
terrorist group! The Psychopunk satirization of the Cryptoanarchists is
representative of this Internet Anarchy Gone Awry.

More information on the CryptoAnarchist & Cypherpunk agenda can be
found in RISKS 15.25, 15.27, and 15.28x (FTP crvax.sri.com, directory
RISKS:). I also have an essay `Joy of Pseudospoofing', regarding the
dangerous consequences and poisonous effects of the manipulations of
fake cyberspatial identities such as on the Internet by
Cryptoanarchists, available to anyone who requests it from me by email
at <ld231782@longs.lance.colostate.edu>.

* * *

I think that many people have mistaken the word `anarchic,' implying no
overseeing authority or order (which the Internet is less) with the
word `decentralized' (which the Internet is more). Again, the
Internet has many regulatory and self-governing systems and orders.
For example, connecting sites are required to implement a certain
minimum set of software standards and prevent or even root out
corruptions in their local sites and software. We have centralized
databases that require the registration of domains for fees. A complex
network of agreements and policies governs interconnectivity and
communication, and a complicated interplay of elements affects basic
content such as `commercial vs. academic.' Lack of some of these
regulations and protocols would be disastrous.

Leichter:
>Most of the Internet, in fact, is
>better described as self-governing.  There are a variety of social
>norms concerning network use and interactions.  One doesn't post
>messages to unrelated groups.  One doesn't evade moderation
>restrictions.  One maintains a certain (rather limited, it must be
>admitted) degree of restraint in how one describes other network
>participants.  There are few effective mechanisms for enforcing these
>norms, and they are certainly broken on an all-too-regular basis; but
>the network continues to function because social pressure *can* be
>applied to those who become too annoying; and in the most outrageous
>cases, it's possible to remove the offenders' access to the net.

I advocate that we build new formal mechanisms to enforce this order!
We have for too long pretended that a central element of the Internet
is not integral to it, namely that of the `degree of restraint over
network participants' exerted through `social pressure'. Let us codify
and formalize these `norms concerning network use and interactions' and
develop systems that enforce them! I believe such systems can be
developed that do not stray from the sacred Internet tradition of
decentralization of control and freedom from censorship. Why should we
continue to subject ourselves to the torture of `few effective
mechanisms for enforcing these norms broken on an all-too-regular basis'?

One of my most enduring Cyberspatial hallucinations is that of a
Ratings server. A Ratings server would be a massive distributed network
for the propagation of information similar to Usenet, and could
conceivably be built upon it. But the Ratings server is not
Information, as Usenet is, it is Information about Information. Anyone
can post an arbitrary message to the Ratings server that refers to
Information somewhere else in Cyberspace. It is in a sense a Rating of
that Information. The Information could be *anything* -- a mailing
list, a person, a particular Usenet posting, an FTP site. But postings
on the Ratings server can be perused by anyone, and anyone can
contribute Ratings to the server or indicate their own opinion on the
existing Ratings. Different mechanisms exist such that some Ratings are
`local' and some are updated globally.

The fantastic possibilities of this system are evident upon some
reflection and consideration. We could establish arbitrary new groups
that have *formal* requirements that are matched by Ratings servers.
For example, we could require that new sites that enter the Internet be
`trusted' by an existing site. We could require that membership in
certain groups requires a certain amount of collateral peer approval,
with automatic suspension or expulsion as the consequences for
violating it! We could have *meaningful* polls on arbitrary issues. We
could have news servers that automatically sort and archive articles
according to their passing certain Ratings thresholds. We could
restrict the influence of troublemakers! These are all examples of
strengthening and formalizing the informal social orders that are, in
my opinion, today just barely holding the Internet together. With a
Ratings system, I think the civility of the Internet would increase to
a fantastic degree. In short, we could have our *own* cyberspatial government!

Note that there is no centralized authority or unfair influence in this
system, unless people corrupt their servers. When everyone who has
joined a group *individually* decides to screen their postings of
messages that fail to meet a certain `quality' or posters who have a
certain `reputation', that is not Orwellian Censorship but the
beautiful Internet freedom and right of Bozo Filtering. When everyone
who joins a group *agrees* to a charter that may bar troublemakers
based on Ratings, no one can claim they are being unfairly oppressed.

Other extremely interesting implementation issues in the use of the
Ratings servers can be addressed in detail. For example, the use of
cryptographic protocols to ensure the integrity of voting or privacy of
certain entries will certainly prove invaluable and even critical to
their development. The optimal protocols for the localization or
distribution of votes will surely be subject to extremely fascinating
and fruitful research. In my view the concept of a Ratings server is
wide open territory and holds some immensely promising potential in
finally, valiantly slaying the dreaded, ugly, vicious Signal to Noise
Monsters harassing, terrorizing, and torturing us everywhere on the
Internet, to be replaced with Shining Castles.

I urge anyone interested in developing `civilized systems for
cyberspace' to subscribe to a new group I have helped start with
J.Helgingius (owner of the popular and revolutionary anon.penet.fi
anonymous server) called the Cypherwonks, dedicated to openness,
honesty, and cooperation on the Internet, and building sophisticated
new systems to promote social harmony in Future Cyberspace. We are
particularly fascinated with the possibilities of `Electronic
Democracy'. (Send a message to `MajorDomo@lists.eunet.fi' with the body
the commands `info' or `subscribe cypherwonks'.)

I fervently hope that the glorifications and manipulations of Internet
Anarchy by mouth-frothing libertarian extremists, Cryptoanarchists,
and sympathizers can be adequately controlled and minimized in the
future, and some harmonious systems and effective countermeasures
along the lines of the Rating server can be established by visionaries
and tinkerers, but in any case, for the sake of humanity's integrity,
sanity, and well-being, I pray that Future Cyberspace is far less
Anarchic than the Current Internet.

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