Re: Why is cryptoanarchy irreversible?

[ph@netcom.com (Peter Hendrickson)]

At 3:51 AM 11/8/1996, jim bell wrote:
>At 06:25 PM 11/7/96 -0800, Peter Hendrickson wrote:
>>At 5:12 PM 11/7/1996, jim bell wrote:
>>> BTW, some of your confusion is probably based is the false assumptions in
>>> your last sentence above.  "..wide use of strong cryptography results in
>>> widely unpopular activities such as sarin attacks and political
>>> assassinations."

>> No, you're confused, but it's probably my fault.  We don't really know
>> what cryptoanarchy will be like.  We all have ideas about it.  Some
>> we share and some we don't.  But we won't really know until we see it
>> happen.

> Well, uh, with all due respect, but while it's obviously true that we won't
> know EXACTLY how it'll be, that doesn't mean that no portion of we imagine
> will come true.

At last some respect!  (I agree with your point.)

> This is particularly true on the big issues.   For example, you hypothesized
> that "wide use of strong cryptography resuts in widely unpopular activities
> such as sarin attacks and political activities.  I pointed out, almost
> certainly correctly, that these are wrong:

Yes, I think they are probably wrong.  But, not everybody shares our view.
Some people claim that we should not be allowed to communicate privately
because of the terrible things that would happen if cryptoanarchy were
to develop.  But, these people want to make it illegal now (a big hassle)
long before it is clear that we are going to have these problems.

Imagine for a moment that LSD was just invented.  Somebody then pointed
out that it was possible to randomly dose people without their knowledge.
The amounts required are virtually indetectible until it is too late.

This is certainly possible, but in practice it almost never happens.  I
can only think of one incident I have heard about where somebody took
a recreational drug involuntarily, and that was an accident.

A lot of the things we talk about are that way.  If they are not, it
is entirely possible to put a stop to them, should there be broad
popular support to do so.

> 1.  To believe that use in cryptography will result in greater numbers of
> random attacks on innocent civilians.  As I pointed out, the exact opposite
> should be true:  A greater ability to target the guilty means less reason to
> kill the innocent.

I imagine the guilty will never figure out that a pre-emptive attack
on the innocent would be advisable.

> 2.  To believe that political assassination will be unpopular even if the
> ordinary citizen has an effective say in who's going to die.

Why don't you take an off-list poll of core cypherpunks and see how
many of them share your view?  I suspect not many.  If not even cypherpunks
are open to the idea, how many voters will be?

> In other words, based on my understanding these beliefs are diametrically
> opposed to the truth.  Not simply a difference in extent, we're talking a
> 180-degree change.

> Your response is a sheepish, "but we won't really know until we see it
> happen."   Harrumph!

What happened to my "all due respect"? ;-)

>> My whole point is based on the proposition that the doomsayers are right.

> Which doomsayers?  What version of "doom"?

Take a look at this essay by D. Denning:
http://www.cosc.georgetown.edu/~denning/crypto/Future.html

Denning writes:
> A few years ago, the phrase crypto anarchy was coined to suggest the
> impending arrival of a Brave New World in which governments, as we
> know them, have crumbled, disappeared, and been replaced by virtual
> communities of individuals doing as they wish without interference.
> Proponents argue that crypto anarchy is the inevitable -- and highly
> desirable -- outcome of the release of public key cryptography into
> the world. With this technology, they say, it will be impossible for
> governments to control information, compile dossiers, conduct
> wiretaps, regulate economic arrangements, and even collect taxes.
> Individuals will be liberated from coercion by their physical
> neighbors and by governments. This view has been argued recently by
> Tim May [1].

> Behind the anarchists' vision is a belief that a guarantee of
> absolute privacy and anonymous transactions would make for a civil
> society based on a libertarian free market. They ally themselves
> with Jefferson and Hayek who would be horrified at the suggestion
> that a society with no government control would be either civil or
> free. Adam Ferguson once said "Liberty or Freedom is not, as the
> origin of the name may seem to imply, an exemption from all
> restraints, but rather the most effectual applications of every just
> restraint to all members of a free society whether they be
> magistrates or subjects." Hayek opens The Fatal Conceit, The Errors
> of Socialism (The University of Chicago Press, 1988, ed. W.W.
> Bartley III) with Ferguson's quote.

> Although May limply asserts that anarchy does not mean lawlessness
> and social disorder, the absence of government would lead to exactly
> these states of chaos.

Leaving aside Denning's snide (and evasive) remark about Tim, if her
assessment of cryptoanarchy is correct, that will become clear in
due time.  There is no reason at all to think that it cannot be
rolled back in the unlikely event that a disaster results.

I would comment parenthetically that Denning's understanding of
Jefferson is limited.  Jefferson once said he preferred a free
press to government.  Jefferson once said that he thought a revolution
every twenty years was healthy for a society.  Jefferson was an
accomplished mathematician.  Jefferson invented a pretty good cipher.
Jefferson was a cypherpunk to the marrow!

>> I believe D. Denning has suggested that cryptoanarchy will result in
>> the breakdown of our society.

> I suppose that depends a lot on what a person means by the phrase, "our
> society."  Used as you (and maybe she, as well) this sounds like a
> code-word.  To a statist, "society" is basically the stratification system
> that has developed to let one group of people control another.  By that
> standard, cryptoanarchy WILL "result in the breakdown of our society."   But
> that's all for the good.

While I may not have paraphrased Denning and her (few) cohorts as
accurately as I would have liked, I think your question is better
directed towards them.

Presumably when Denning says "social disorder" she is not thinking of
disorderly relationships such as choosing your own job, or friends,
or spouse, or whatever.

Peter Hendrickson
ph@netcom.com