The Implications of Strong Cryptography

[Mats Bergstrom <matsb@sos.sll.se>]

On 13 May Timothy C. May wrote:

> By the way, lest there be any confusion about the term "anarchy," it
> is not a synonym for everyobody killing everybody else, etc. Rather,
> the term has a well-established meaning: "no head," as in no "arch"
> running things.

A 100+ years ago the anarchists (Kropotkin et al) were ousted from the
mainstream socialist movement (Marx et al) mainly because they opposed
strong government. Some years later came a decade of freak murders of 
several heads of state and other prominent persons by disillusioned
anarchists. The image of anarchist = mad assassin has stayed in public
mind ever since and will most probably not change in the near future.
The original anarchists (tm) strongly denounced not only capitalism
but private ownership of everything but your most intimate belongings
(and perhaps your house, this was discussed a lot). There are still
(dis)organized remnants of the traditional anarchistic movement around,
at least in Europe. All this makes the term anarcho-capitalism rather
difficult to interpret. Crypto-anarchy, if not more of a joke, might
share a similar fate and forever associate to mad/criminal hacking
instead of liberty by cipher.

> Anarchy is about freedom and choice. It's really the norm, and not
> nearly as bad as it sounds. I'd say give it a try, but the fact is
> that you're practicing it right now. Think about it.

This is true for a literal interpretation of the word, freed of recent
historical ballast. Or perhaps my knowledge of the English language is
failing me. There might be a big difference between anarchy and anarchism.
Anyway, in spite of interpretational difficulties, I welcome the rebirth of
anarchism, the political passion of my youth, through strong crypto.

//mb