Re: Voluntary Governments?

[wcs@anchor.ho.att.com (bill.stewart@pleasantonca.ncr.com +1-510-484-6204)]

> From: Hal
> What does it mean to speak of a government in cyberspace?  It is the 
> government in physical space I fear.  Its agents carry physical guns 
> which shoot real bullets.
> ................................................................

Yeah.  I recently reread Vinge's _True Names_; the protagonist is
disturbed one day by a bunch of armed government thugs walking up
to his house and letting him know they know his cyberspace alias,
and that he'd better help them catch his friends or he'll lose his
National Information Infrastructure Users' License.
(It's not called that, but it's still a good prediction of
what happens when you let government build the superhighways -
he gives in because 98% of the jobs, and all of the good ones,
require use of computer terminals.)  

Without cryptography, all you've got left is security by obscurity, 
the main technique used by the hackers in the book;
even cryptographic systems need strong enough implementations
built around the mathematically-strong parts to be truly safe.

		Bill