Re: Why is cryptoanarchy irreversible?

[ph@netcom.com (Peter Hendrickson)]

At 3:03 PM 11/7/1996, Timothy C. May wrote:
> However, if guns are not outlawed, are not hard to get, may be bought and
> sold at flea markets and gun shows (which is where most of my guns have
> come from, and which is where over the years I bought and sold about a
> dozen or so various guns, none of them transferred with any paperwork,
> identities asked for, etc.), and once gun ownership reaches some threshold,
> later attempts to ban guns, seize them, halt ammunition sales, etc.,
> require draconian steps. (This is why so many gun owners have schemes to
> bury spare guns in plastic pipes deep underground, place them in safe
> deposit boxes, etc. And why so many of us reload our own ammo.)

> Without taking a stand on the issues of whether guns should or should not
> be restricted, the situation is quite similar to the ongoing deployment of
> strong cryptography. Once widely deployed and "ingrained" in the habits of
> many, later attempts to seize the newly-outlawed items are problematic.

> Speech is similar to this. Once mechanisms for free speech are present in a
> society, once people are used to having the "right" to speak freely, once
> many channels of communication are widely available, and so on, it becomes
> well nigh impossible to go back to a non-free-speech situation.

> I believe, Peter, that your arguments naively ignore this sort of point.
> Those in D.C. actually understand it well, and would laugh at your argument
> of "If crypto turns out to be a problem, we can always ban it later."

The key here is that in these cases the practice has become widely
accepted.  By widely accepted, I mean that very significant numbers of
people believe that there is nothing all that wrong with the practice.
Those who disagree do not feel it is worth the trouble to put a stop
to it.

If the Four Horseman of the Crypto-apocolypse were real, we could certainly
put a stop to cryptoanarchy if we wanted to.  Very few people would be
willing to tolerate strong cryptography if it meant that it was real easy
to have people killed, resulted in many sarin attacks, or widespread
kidnappings.  I doubt you could find many readers of even this list who
would find such scenarios acceptable.

You are right that the people in D.C. understand your point quite well.
And I am naive for expecting them to honestly discuss their policies.
The reason they fear cryptoanarchy is not because it will be something
people won't like - quite the opposite.  If they are to succeed they have
to stop it now before it is widely recognized to not be a problem for
people who earn their living.

I believe that if the people in D.C. honestly believed that the Four
Horsemen were coming, they would wait for the first real evidence
of it to rally the society behind their cause and write themselves
into the history books as heroes.

Today, strong cryptography has caused no noticeable problems.  People who
want to forbid it can only justify such intrusive and politically risky
policies on the grounds that something irreversible occurs after deployment.
But, I don't believe I have yet seen any sort of explanation for
irreversibility that is not based on "well, it won't be all that bad."

> I don't imagine the parallel argument, for free speech, would go over well
> in, say, China: "We'll let people say what they want, publish what they
> want, set up newspapers, buy whatever foreign magazines they want, use
> computers, and gather as they wish to make whatever plans they wish to. If
> we don't like the results, we'll just go back to what we had before."

This argument would certainly not go over well with the leaders of China.
The people of China may have another point of view.

Peter Hendrickson
ph@netcom.com