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Re: Prof Shamir arrested
At 04:28 PM 10/22/96 -0500, Douglas B. Renner wrote:
>On Tue, 22 Oct 1996, Bert-Jaap Koops wrote:
>> Excuse me if I don't react on this in detail. We have already
>> explained it, and there it stands: fraud means playing a game without
>> abiding by its rules. It's perfectly legitimate to establish a game
>> and to introduse rules of the game with it. If you want to play the
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>BIG Problem here.
>
>> game, play by its rules, otherwise don't play it. If you play it
>> while cheating, though, you must bear the consequences ("go directly
>> to jail" ;-).
>> Bert-Jaap
>I sincerely wish the world were THAT simple - there would be fewer problems.
[much good stuff deleted]
>In short, I disagree very strongly that it is as simple as playing by the
>rules. The first rule is that you cannot know all the rules. Further, any
>rule you _do_ know may be subject to change. You have to become an
>expert on what is likely to be static for your own purposes, and act
>within the limits of your own knowledge. Self-knowledge being perhaps our
>greatest challenge, there are _bound_ to be problems on all sides.
>
>Perhaps the widespread dissemination of strong crypto will ultimately
>have a scale-tilting effect on matters of taxation.
>-Doug
Thanks for helping to demolish Koops' argument, what little there is of it.
It's particularly inappropriate that he would try to use a "game" analogy to
defend his idea, because games are generally considered voluntary and it's
obvious that his invention would not be used in a purely voluntary basis.
Even if the only interference is the taxation of people who don't "play" and
the subsidy of people who do, that can't be consider a voluntary arrangement.
I look at it this way: Koops is building only one piece in a jigsaw puzzle
of tyranny. He doesn't want to talk about the complete picture, but it's
there and it's not pretty.
Jim Bell
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