Re: Why is cryptoanarchy irreversible?

[ph@netcom.com (Peter Hendrickson)]

At 9:52 PM 11/7/1996, Huge Cajones Remailer wrote:
> Look around at all the laws in a community that are unenforceable and
> largely ignored by significant sections of the community. Taxes are a
> classic with many people receiving cash and not declaring it..I suppose
> you could say they just opt not to pay taxes while law abiders (to varying
> degrees) opt in to pay tax.

I agree.  It would be necessary to marshal widespread public support
to eliminate strong crypto.  If the Four Horsemen scenario is
available, this support would be available.

> It is estimated here where all dogs, for example, are required to be
> registered, that only 40 percent are in fact registered (ie pay the dog
> tax). The authorities simply do not, with their current technology, have
> the ability or political will to break down everyone's front door and
> complete house to house dog searches then deal with court cases and bring
> eveidence as to the actual owner of the animal where this is a relevant
> matter to be proved.

Sure, it's not really worth the effort.  How much effort will you
go to prevent your children from being kidnapped?

> Consider the difficulty of actually outlawing say PGP and making it
> stick. To ban its use on a network compliance measures such as routine
> traffic scanning would be implimented. So users may say resort to direct
> modem to modem systems thus forcing authorities to routinely tap
> telephone calls, identify modem calls, and analyse these calls. The
> authorities start to use scarce resources provided by those members of
> the public that choose to pay taxes to them.

In the case of a largely compliant public, this isn't all that expensive.

> The authorities have to spend even more resources on publicity and scams
> to align privacy advocates with terrorists. Some privacy advocates may
> even become terrorists who before didn't really care for such tactics.

This is a highly likely scenario.  But in the scenarios proposed by
the GAKers, even the privacy advocates would be reluctant to defend
crypto.

> Assume the snail mail route is effectively sqaushed what then? Well you
> could voice call your friend and read the encyphered text to them over
> the phone and they could then run it through pgp and decrypt it. If the
> authorities effectively made this too costly (in terms of risk etc) then
> you could always just jump on a plane and tell them the message
> personally or send someone else to do that for you.

Gee, I hope you don't have to send many messages if you have to travel
across the country to deliver them.  How will you operate an anonymous
business this way?  It doesn't sound like cryptoanarchy to mean.

> The costs of compliance increase as the authorities take measures to put
> the genie back in the bottle. Stealth versions of popular programs get
> released, and further technological advances are made so that the problem
> becomes greater with respect to compliance as do the costs to the
> taxpayer of ensuring compliance. Encrypted data that cannot be easily
> distinguished form noise would require routine analysis and attempted
> cracking of every bit of data transmitted..a task that would soon bring
> even the great US economy to its knees assuming the people didn't put a
> stop to the madness before it reached that point.

I think people probably would put a stop to the madness.  But, under
the Four Horsemen scenario, most people, even Mr. Huge Cajones Remailer,
would not consider it to be madness.

> Just as an aside, I am sure the various spook angencies in the 'free
> world' are well aware of these issues and no doubt other issues I have
> not imagined and such considerations have played a part in so far stalling
> an outright ban on the use of effective encryption programs and devices.

This is interesting.  I would be quite interested to see real evidence
that various spook agencies have been foot dragging on the GAKers plans.

> There are always costs to a government in the reduction in freedoms, and
> the ultimate cost to any particular government is that it may stir the
> beast so much that it awakens and takes away that governments authority
> whether by democratic means or otherwise.

Yes, this is correct.

Peter Hendrickson
ph@netcom.com