Re: Why is cryptoanarchy irreversible?

[ph@netcom.com (Peter Hendrickson)]

At 4:08 PM 11/7/1996, Timothy C. May wrote:
>At 2:38 PM -0800 11/7/96, Peter Hendrickson wrote:
>
>> If you can get a life prison term for your strong crypto you may
>> hesitate to use it.  If not, then you may get to be an example
>> for everybody else.

> Well, this is what in private e-mail to Peter I was referring to when I
> said "only a police state" could pull the plug on free speech and strong
> crypto once it was ubiquitously deployed.

While the term "police state" is not well defined, I do not believe it
applies to what I am describing.  (There is a risk that it could develop,
however.)

Laws forbidding the use of cryptography have ominous free speech
implications as we would be attempting to outlaw concealed meaning.
Concealed meaning can be pretty well concealed and that makes
for difficult and dangerous legal questions.

On the other hand, the action of running a program which uses forbidden
crypto systems is pretty unambiguous and could be effectively isolated
from other kinds of speech.

Many kinds of speech are already illegal.  For instance, I am not allowed
to copy somebody else's speech because it would violate copyright laws.
I am not allowed to break verbal contracts.  In essence, I am punished
later for the something I said if I am forced to keep my word.  But,
this does not constitute a police state.

What I am proposing would not require an end to fair trials or warrants
or really any other legal customs we have.

In case anybody has any doubts, and I doubt Tim does, the existence of
a life sentence does not imply the presence of a police state.

> Throwing people in prison for life for using crypto is something that is
> certainly _possible_, though I rather doubt taxpayers will be keen on
> paying for this. Simply executing those who use random numbers makes more
> sense.

The taxpayers will be happy to pay to keep a small number of criminals
in jail if it keeps the rest of us fairly safe within our homes and on
the streets.

> All implausible, of course.

> By the way, I've never claimed that I know crypto anarchy is irreversible,
> I just think it is. I've presented some plausibility arguments on why I
> think this is so, drawing parallels to other developments in history, but
> logical proofs and predictions about the future don't usually go together
> very well.

Actually, I agree with Tim.  I think the deployment of strong cryptography
will be irreversible.  But, it will be irreversible because the bad aspects
of it won't be all that bad and in general it will be a very positive
development.  The reason it must be stopped now is to stop the voters
from discovering this.  (Certainly we have seen a strong anti-democratic
sentiment among the proponents of GAK, when they propose that we cannot
even be allowed to hear the scenarios which should concern us, the
ultimate repository of political legitimacy in the United States.)

A good comparison can be made to the recreational drug situation.  Many
people, probably a majority of people, believe that they should be allowed
to take whatever drugs they like and many do.  Efforts have been made to
forbid it, but they are almost universally unsuccessful because of the
tremendous popular support for recreational drug use.

Peter Hendrickson
ph@netcom.com