"Nations see Internet.." continued

[Mike Ang <mang@lisgar.edu.on.ca>]

Sorry about that -- here's the whole thing again


"Nations see Internet as threat to security" made the front page of the 
Saturday _Globe and Mail_.

There are some really nice lines in the article, which basically states 
that electronic freedoms through the Internet are a direct challenge to 
the power of nation states.  They mention all of the more recent 
examples in China, Germany, France, and the States.

The author obviously wasn't afraid of making large claims.  Most of them 
were acceptable, but some seemed completely unsubstantiated (see below).

Here are some of the more interesting paragraphs:

But as China, Germany, the United States and now France have discovered 
recently, data sent electronically over the Internet can be every bit as 
threatening to a country's laws or its culture as armies of yesteryear.  
But its elusive nature makes it difficult to track down and impossible to 
eradicate.  And there is growing concern that the very existence of the 
Internet is a threat to the nation-state.

[..]

"We think of states as unitary bodies, but what they really are is a 
bundle of sovereignties -- economic sovereignty, military sovereignty, 
cultural and social sovereignty."  That bundle is now coming undone, or 
as Mr. Saffo put it, "Digital technology is the solvent leaching the glue 
out of the state as we know it."

..

It's not just cultural or social sovereignty that governments worry 
about.  The power to tax is also being eroded by the increase in economic 
transactions that take place over the Internet, some encrypted so that 
prying eyes at the tax department could not read them even if a tax 
inspector was fortunate enough to stumble upon them.  Drug dealers and 
terrorists are resorting increasingly to this means of moving funds.

..

However, advocates of unregulated cyberspace says [sic] this just means 
that the only people using encryption programs at the moment are those 
doing it illegally.  It's a similar argument to the one often made in 
Canada against gun control -- the bad guys already have weapons.

..


Yay, more FUD.  The article does a good job of raising some of the 
important issues.  But I _highly_ doubt that "drug dealers and 
terrorists" are using digital cash to transfer funds.  They also 
characterize strong encryption as something evil.

The author implies that main reason for encrypting financial
transactions is to evade the tax department - if I'm sending my credit 
card # across the net, _of course_ I'm going to encrypt it, and
when using digital cash, encryption is generally part of authentication.

Comparing crypto to guns works in the sense that the "bad guys" will 
always be able to have access to them.  However, I for one support gun 
control but do not support mandatory limits on crypto.  Where I live,
there are no theats that justify allowing everyone to carry guns - the 
threat to privacy and freedom of speech justifies allowing everyone to 
use strong crypto.  You can use a gun to deprive another person of their 
life - what harm can you do another with PGP?  Perhaps you can harm them 
by being able to spread hate propaganda, but I don't think that that is a 
strong enough argument.

	- Mike.

If you've got to flame me, do it by email.