"Research Havens" and Pseudonymous Journals

[tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)]

Mike Duvos brings up an important issue: what to do about the mounting
pressure to ban certain kinds of research.

One of the powerful uses of strong crypto is the creation of journals,
web sites, mailing lists, etc., that are "untraceable." These are
sometimes called "data havens," though that term, as used by Bruce
Sterling in "Islands in the Net" (1988), tends to suggest specific
places like the Cayman Islands that corporations might use to store
data. I prefer the emphasis on "cypherspace."

Mike writes:

> Yes, the Canadians are way ahead of us in the area of censorship.  In 
> addition to drawings and stories, anything which suggests that sexual 
> relationships between adults and minors are not always harmful is also 
> prohibited by law.  If you do a piece of scientific research on 
> intergenerational relationships, it can only be published in Canada if it 
> concludes such relationships are harmful.  One sex study which came to 
> the "wrong" conclusion has already been banned by the Canadian government.

Uses for research havens:

- medical experimentation deemed "illegal" by authorities (use of Nazi
freezing data, for example, or research into live donors for organ
transplants)

- sexual research of the sort mentioned above

- research into racial and gender differences in intelligence or other
abilities

- drug research that violates some norm

- tons of similar examples


Strong crypto allows for the creation and distribution of journals or
article distribution methods that allow for novel features:

- anonymous receipt (a la the "anonymous anonymous ftp" system)

- refereeing of articles by truly untraceable pseudonyms (but still
reputation-based)

- scientists doing controversial or speculative research could adopt a
digitally signed pseudonym (as several Cypherpunks have done) and
publish their illegal, controversial, hare-brained, or otherwise
speculative research under this pseudonym. If the research succeeds,
or the stigma attached diminishes (think of RU-486), then they could
of course reveal the mapping between their identities.

(lots more to say here)

What might be some first steps?

1. Investigate ways to create an "anonymous Web site," that is, a WWW
site that can be reached only through a system of remailers. Actually,
due to the slow response (else traffic analysis is a big danger), this
would be more like a "CryptoGopher." (But gopher is being subsumed
into the Mosaic/lynx model, I suspect, and will be obsolete soon.)

2. Anonymous moderation. Publication of cryptographically-sensitive
information, illegal research, etc., by anonymous means and with some
modertation. (The moderation could be bypassed by users who don't want
it, or set for a higher threshold...I'm not arguing for moderation
per se, but for reputation-based systems. Another topic.)

3. Create such a journal in an area unrelated directly to
cryptography, but using the methods of cryptography. For example,
imagine the allusive implications of this journal: "The Haight-Ashbury
Journals of Reproductive Freedom," containing "illegal" articles by
non-licensed researchers (non-doctors....note that the medical
profession controls the publication by various rules saying who can
practice medicine).

I can think of several variants on this, all in the medical area:

- "The Journal of Assisted Suicide"

- "Advances in Experimentation on Humans"

- "Illegal Drugs and Your Health"


You get the picture. Some of these are quite controversial, and might
not "help the cause." And I'm not endorsing experimentation on Jews or
other humans...I just don't think it right that many countries have
banned the publication of results from the WW2 experiments on Jewish
concentration camp results....imagine being imprisoned for the "sin"
of citing the statistics on how long it took people to die when
immersed in cold water? (Yes, it may offend some Jews, especially
those whose relatives were the ones dunked in the water, but so what?
Free speech and free exchange of ideas is what it's all about. Using
the data can't send a signal backward in time and cause Mengele and
his cronies to do more such experiments.)

I'm especially intrigued by the prospects for getting traditionally
left-leaning groups such as the "women's movement" involved in strong
crypto. Research into RU-486 results would seem to be one fertile
area. Clinton has lifted some of the restrictions, but certainly not
all of them (and the medical union has of course retained control).

Wouldn't it be interesting to have an anonymous site in cypherspace
that acts as a repository for RU-486 test results of all sorts?
Official results, as they dribble out, plus more unofficial,
anecdotal, and person results.

The "web of trust" model could be used to increase/decrease credence
given to reports in this crypto-repository.

Lots more to talk about. But I'll stop now.


--Tim May


-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
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"National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."