Jew Bits, Credentials, and the Cypherpunk Way

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

At 5:12 PM 8/1/96, Alex de Joode wrote:
>Ernest Hua (hua@chromatic.com) wrote:
>: How does one verify that an IP address is coming from a U.S. site?
>: How do most FTP site (e.g. those which carry crypto) determine the
>: origins of a connection?
>
>What's the use ? It makes it only nominally more difficult to access
>an US crypto site, one needs first to esthablish an US beachhead ie.
>open an US account, and ftp the eleet crypto warez using the newly
>created US account as an intermediary.
>
>So the next step will be a tag that a user is an 'alien' ?

Along with the "Jew bit."

(Credit goes to Hugh Daniel, as I recall, for this one. At the CFP in '95
he made up various badges with things like this, including "Is your Jew bit
set?")

On a serious note, the whole thrust of the CDA discussion raised this
issue, of having "age bits" in all packets and/or credentials. There is the
very real danger, I fear, that the current swirl of topics (terrorism,
exports, G7 New World Order, pornography, bomb-making, etc.) will lead to
moves for "credentials" of various sorts.

(I'm sure the IETF folks can point out the problems with such schemes. I'm
not sure they'd fly, but they may get proposed.)

Such credentials--aka "the Internet Driver's License"--could have fields
for name, true name, key, age, sex, and perhaps even things like special
orders from courts (e.g., "Tim May is under court order in Idaho, U.S., not
to have access to aptical foddering information"). Many countries, which do
not have the nominal separation of church and state the U.S has, will want
fields for religious affiliation, etc.

We cannot fight this at the ballot box, as the trends are simply too strong
(as Lucky notes, Americans will cheer when strong crypto is outlawed). The
only way is the Cypherpunk Way: Direct Action Through Technology.

Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software!
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Licensed Ontologist         | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."