Re: Crime and punishment in cyberspace - 3 of 3

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

rishab@dxm.ernet.in said:

> All this brings us to a related issue - another one hinging on principles:
> Do cypherpunks accept the need for wiretapping?
> 
> Wiretapping is necessary to solve many 'crimes'. If we accept that these crimes
> are important enough to justify wiretapping, than there is little difference
> between wiretapping analog phones and tapping data.

As an anarchist, anarchocapitalist, crypto anarchist, etc., I prefer
to think in different terms. I don't think in terms of "rights," but
in terms of avoidance. 

Some points on wiretapping and privacy:

* If I suspect someone is plotting against me--perhaps I suspect my
neighbor across the street is preparing to torch my house--I'd have
no problem placing microphones so as to hear him. Or bugging a
girlfriend I suspected of planning to kill me for my money.

(These are personal statements, to show that I'm not a moral
absolutist, a believer in abstractions over practicality.)

* If someone else tries to wiretap or bug me, I'll seek ways to bypass
this. To fight back.

* If a band of folks called "the government" seeks my vote to "allow"
wiretaps and bugs, I'll generally shrug and still try to avoid such
laws. (I'll admit to some ambivalence and confusion here....I can
support _some_ government wiretaps, as in kidnapping cases, bomb
plotters, etc., and not others. Mostly I view governments as having no
more moral authority than I have, or that others have.)

* If, however, governments seek my approval to pass laws making
curtains illegal (because it makes surveillance harder), or requires
"conversation escrow" (all conversations must be taped, with a copy of
the tape filed with the police), and so on, then I will strongly
oppose these laws.

I don't know if this clarifies things. My preference is to avoid
talking about the "right to wiretap" and instead to take steps to make
it harder for a band of thugs to do so.

Things will get very complicated in the next few years, as sensor
technology and other privacy-invading technology gets dramatically
more powerful. To name but one example, video technology and
storage/search technology makes it trivially possible to place
traffic-monitoring cameras ubiquitously...it makes the Chaumian issues
of digicash toll payments moot. (Source on this: my brother works for
City of Los Angeles traffic department....deploying high resolution
cameras at intersections is one of his projects.)

So, do we argue for "rights" of privacy? Or do we monkeywrench such
technologies? Or do we develop tools and systems to protect our own
privacy as best we can?

Tough choices.

Thanks to Rishab for raising these issues again.


--Tim May



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Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
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