cypherpunk "Zen" victories

["Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>]

I was recently marvelling at how much the "cypherpunk agenda"
is being advanced even in light of what would seem to be setbacks.
Particularly in the area of anonymous remailers. We now have a very
major article on remailers and Julf's setup in the NYT that portrays
them in an unbiased, unhysteria-stricken mode. Also in the article,
it quotes the police as regretting their falling victim to
Scientology manipulation and investigating the remailer "without
cause". A major officer is quoted as saying, roughly, "we are
going to need a crime before we investigate in the future". 

Look what we got out of this: 

1) incredible positive publicity for Julf,
Hero of the Net 

2) introduction of the concept of anonymous remailers
to the layman 

3) police awareness. increased reluctance to go on anonymous remailer
witchhunts. advice to other police to do the same.

4) only *one* address was compromised on Julf's system. a small price
to pay for all this

5) Time Magazine also did an article on Julf a few months ago and
this compromise in identity. *astonishing* publicity.

All in all, I would say the effect was an overall "net positive".
It reminds me of a zen-like saying, "sometimes you lose by winning
and win by losing". It would seem on the face of it that  the
Helsingius Affair was a debacle from the point of view  of pseudonymity.
However I would consider it a extraordinary success. 

The major foes of pseudonymity have so far been misguided police forces 
in Finland, who now say they resent the solicitude of the US into their own
affairs, and would not be so eager to cooperate in the future;
another foe is a radical religious cult that is finding its own
set of 20th century heretics, and attempting to excommunicate them.
In the meantime, with each exposure, the idea of anonymity and
pseudonymity is gaining powerful friends.

Also, a long time ago a major foe of anonymity was Dick Depew. An
article came out on him in the WSJ that made him look awfully
silly.  He is roundly considered one of the more legendary net
crackpots today. 

===

I'd also like to point out that the recent Rimm job affair is
another "net positive" for the net. Rimm has been so utterly
thoroughly discredited and blackened by his own personality
and background, as reported by Brock Meeks recently, it is 
amazingly hilarious. Rimm has become the laughingstock of
cyberspace in the way that Cantor and Siegal were

We could not have asked for a better setup for embarrassing
and humiliating the media into realizing the core issues
involving pornography on the internet. If someone did this
intentionally, it would have been considered a brilliant
trap. Time and DeWitt have been savaged by very reputable people, and 
I'm sure they consider the article a fiasco from a credibility standpoint.
Any magazine that covers pornography in cyberspace in the future
will be very gunshy and will not be so flippant, if they can
stand poking the hornet's nest at all.

===

Another area is in the bills that are being introduced in congress.
It would seem these are a fiasco from the point of view of
those interested in cyberspace. But there are backlashes even
in congress. Was it Markey that introduced a bill that made
cyberspace off limits to future draconian legislation? All this
also forces legislators to figure out what the hell they are dealing
with, and they are finding out what their own authority in the 
matter is. I think the wise ones may figure out that if they
don't play nice, we may take our marbles away and go play with
someone else. D.Frissell said something profound in his letter
to the editor, "Congress thinks the Internet can be controlled.
We who built it, and continue to build it, think it cannot be.
It will be interesting to see who is right". His comparing it
with the ideas in the declaration of independence, that "when
a government no longer serves the people, they have a right to
overthrow it", is extremely apropos in cyberspace, where it
may be more possible than ever for those who desire freedom
to make those who are apposed to it, completely irrelevant.

T.May suggest that we just give up the fight in congress, saying
that bills can be introduced faster than we can fight them. I
agree with the observation but not the conclusion. 
Bills have a very hard time getting to be law.
They are very fragile in initial stages, and at these points they
can indeed be killed with a little pressure in the right spots.
We are learning where those spots are.

At this point I think it is not in the interests of those promoting
cyberspace to try to evade congress. So far, it has not proved itself
to be completely hostile to the point of trying to shut down cyberspace
to the degree it does not fit its own agenda. And as long as they
are not outright enemies, some could be turned into powerful
promoters. The idea of abandoning educating/influencing congress 
entirely seems like a kind of unhealthy nihilism to me. There are
allies in congress and there are people listening there. Their 
unawareness seems amazingly proportional to the cluelessness of
the general population about cyberspace (and I see extremely
encouraging signs both are rapidly diminishing).

The bills seem to becoming more desperate and draconian in their
language. This is a sign of fear and dread on the side that seeks
to regulate bits. They are in a tricky position, because the more
draconian the language, the less likely it is to be passed and
taken seriously. People become suspicious and hypersensitive to
the infractions. To a large degree, many parts in the government
only gain their power through secrecy. As people become more aware
of the power flow, they disrupt and seize it themselves. Every bill
that has more desperate language is the other side revealing
their secret agenda, to control thought, which I think reasonable 
people are increasingly considering and recognizing as bogus
and bankrupt.

Congress will eventually polarize into being generally promoting
of cyberspace, or outrightly hostile to it. Cyberspace will
inevitably escape its grip if congress goes in this direction. To use
Zen analogies again, there is the idea that water is the most
powerful force on the earth, because it simply flows around
that which opposes it. I find that cyberspace is wholly analogous.
In fact it seems to me that cyberspace would give Lao Tzu
a whole new cuttingly apt metaphor for his philosophies!!

===

So the next time that you rant about how some bill or another
means the Death of the Net, or the police investigating a remailer
means the downfall of cryptoanarchy, or a lousy article with a
zillion distortions comes out, think again. The greatest cypherpunk
victories are emerging through what would appear at first to be the 
"blackest" moments.

viva la cryptoanarchy!!!


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