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Re: BIX musings on Zimmermann
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[email protected] muses on Zimmerman:
I think about that, it was Isaac Asimov in his story about an invention
which allowed people to see back into time. Suppressed by the Government,
it was independently re-invented by a professor who only got curious about
the topic when he realised it was classified. The catch; when does time begin?
one second ago?, one nano-second ago?. With the invention, privacy became
a thing of the past; you could go anywhere, see anything. Its kind of a neat
twist on this issue. The government would have us believe encryption is a
*bad thing* because bad guys will use it to hide their activities.
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You've joggled my memory. The Isaac Asimov story referred to in "BIX musings
on Zimmermann" is "The Dead Past". Another twist on this issue is that the
government was cast as the good guys actually protecting the rest of the world
from the wide spread use of the "neutrino-gravitic" time-viewing technology
whereas the scientists were acting out of "misguided" notions of freedom of
access to the information and technology. When the scientists are finally
apprehended they gloat over the fact that the technology is now freely
available. The gov't failed to stop them. (The time-viewing apparatus is easy
to build.) When the official makes clear what the consequences are (the past
is now dead - anybody with a TV set can now monitor anybody anywhere anywhen),
the scientists are ashamed of themselves. However, it's important to note that
the government was not above using the technology to suppress the spread of
the technology. What such a monitoring agency would become in twenty years or
so is clear. Just how paranoid could it get? ("Crisis and Leviathan" - When
the crisis has passed, the institutions set up to deal with it remain.) It is
interesting to speculate on the analogy between Zimmerman's PGP and Clipper
and the "neutrino-gravitic" time-viewing technology which the government is
not above using for ostensibly noble ends.
Walter A. Kehowski <[email protected]>