"Fortress Crypto" (was: Suggested Book)

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

Duncan Frissell writes:

> There was a discussion a while ago on books for cypherpunks.  A very good
> fictional discussion of the issues that motivate us in a non-crypto context
> can be found in Poul Anderson's book "Shield."
> 
> It is the story of an explorer who returns from Mars with the technology for
> a (semi-impenetrable) personal force  field.
> 
> The story is relevant because the current FBI briefing book on how to pitch
> the Digital Telephony Initiative to the press emphasizes the "what if your
> daughter's kidnappers had a wall or a shield that couldn't be broken, you'd
> demand that we be able to break it, wouldn't you?" argument.

These are related. Law enforcement is already referring to unbreakable
crypto as "fortress crypto" and is trying to scare the public into
banning strong crypto by invoking the Four Horsemen of the
Infocalypse: terrorism, pedophilia, money laundering, and drug
dealing.

The comments of Donn Parker along these lines are especially chilling.

> The "force field" is a fair analogy to crypto  since, as Tim May, has
> argued, the energy cost necessary to break strong cypto is the equivalent of
> a journey to the end of the universe and back (or whatever).

Indeed, this is what has excited me for so long about strong crypto. I
certainly knew about the public-key work, and I met Diffie and Hellman
many years ago. But it was not until late 1987-early 1988 that I put
it all together and realized what all this stuff meant for personal
liberty and the eventual undermining of states. "Crypto anarchy" was
born in the spring of 1988. (As I've said before, I approached David
Chaum at the 1988 Crypto Conference in Santa Barbara and told him
about my ideas on remailer networks, on how a "Labyrinth" of anonymous
remailers could ensure electronic mail transmission that was not
traceable and not regulatable, that cyberspatial economies could then
evolve, independent of states. Chaum looked at me, nodded with
bemusement, and pointed out that his 1981 paper had anticipated and
examined these points! I was both pleased and chagrinned. Pleased that
I had duplicated Chaum's "mix" idea, though not in the same
cryptographic detail Chaum used, and chagrinned that it was not my
invention.

> "Shield" displays the attitudinal differences between control freaks and
> libertarians (like Poul Anderson) quite well.  Impenetrable shields scare
> control freaks and give hope to believers in personal autonomy.
> 
> Also, the climax of "Shield" includes a decades-old version of the technique
> that some members of cypherpunks have used to solve secrecy problems --
> uploading the "secret" document to the nets to forestall censorship.

I'd forgotten this point...it's been 22 years since I read "Shield."
Have to find a copy and read it again.


> "Who for decades hoped for the two inventions that would bring about a de
> facto free society without having to change anybody's politics -- a force
> field or a $5 a pound orbital launch system -- but who never predicted the
> direction from which Liberation Technology would sneak up on him."

Yes, crypto technology makes for the equivalent of Anderson's
"shields," of Vernor Vinge's "bobbles." (in "Peace War" and "Marooned
in Realtime") More energy needed to penetrate these crypto bobbles
than exists in the universe.

[This is the point where believers in reversible computation usually
step in and explain that reversible nanocomputers--or the legendary
"quantum computers"--can overcome this energy limit. I remaine
skeptical, but if they've read this far and wish to comment, go right
ahead.]

The important point is that crypto technology offers a *technological
means* to ensure personal liberty and a lessening of collectivist
power, much as the *technology* of printing nuked the power of
medieval guilds and ushered in the modern information age.


--Tim May


-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
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