Laws, Politics, and Crypto Anarchy

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

(Those interested in discussions of Fermat numbers should skip this message.)


At 2:33 PM 12/28/95, David Mandl wrote:

>I have very strong feelings about this subject, but I'll keep them to
>myself for now since I'm posting from work.  We were all informed a
>week or two ago that Bear Stearns is now archiving every piece of
>email coming into or leaving the company.
>
>All I'll say here is that I disagree strongly with the views Tim May
>posted about employees' property rights, etc. (though we agree on most
>other things).

Yes, Dave and I agree about many things, but disagree about some things. I
would not like to have my e-mail into and out of Bear Stearns--were I an
employee--archived, monitored, and so forth, but I can certainly see why
they feel the need to do it (their liability for SEC violations, insider
trading, etc. is enormous). And were I an employer, I would not want some
government telling me I am forbidden to see if my employees are selling me
out over the Net. Just an example.

(Important Historical Note: The thing that got me interested in
cryptography, beyond my longstanding interest in the elegant mathematics of
public key cryptography, was an evaluation I did in 1987 of an "information
trading" business startup. My friend Phil Salin asked me to review his
business plan for a company which later became "American Information
Exchange" (AMIX). It allowed for people with information to sell to reach
the potential buyers, and for buyers to reach potential sellers. Like a
classified ad system. I thought about the system and said: "As an employer,
I could not let my employees use your system." Phil's reaction was "Huh?"
So I outlined a scheme whereby employees could begin "digital
moonlighting," not only selling their expertise to my competitors on
_company time_, but, infinitely worse, selling specific trade secrets to my
competitors! I cited to Phil the prospect of a "BlackNet" (yes, I named it
that in '87) which bought and sold corporate (and military, as I elaborated
on the concept) secrets through digital pseudonyms and Chaum-style mixes.
It became apparent to me what the Brave New World was going to look like.
And thus were the ur-cypherpunkish ideas born.)

It was not my intention to begin a debate about the nature of civil
liberties and the role of property. In fact, I don't think "libertarian"
debates are very useful here, for various reasons. (Though I don't go as
far as some in thinking that only pure crypto should be discussed....the
mix of crypto, programming, personal privacy, and technological empowerment
is what we talk about.)

Moreover, if political and economic issues never get discussed at all, some
folks may think that Cypherpunks are "obviously" supportive of things like
Data Protection Laws (which place limits on the compilation of dossiers and
files on people), Electronic Privacy Laws (which tell employers they cannot
snoop on employees), and Web Index Laws (which may limit the archiving and
indexing of Usenet and Web items).

In fact, I am against all of these laws.

However, I won't take the list's time now to explain why, as the political
discussion would take too long. Past articles have touched on these points,
and references are scattered throughout the Cyphernomicon.

--Tim May

Views here are not the views of my Internet Service Provider or Government.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
Corralitos, CA              | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^756839      | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."