From: Eugen Leitl (eugen@leitl.org)
Date: Wed Oct 16 2002 - 11:08:44 MDT
On Wed, 16 Oct 2002, Anders Sandberg wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 16, 2002 at 02:52:52PM +0200, Eugen Leitl wrote:
> >
> > Technology is an asymmetrical enabler, since favouring centralism.
>
> Could you expand on this, and especially give some evidence for it?
Technology in forms of distributed surveillance and centralized databases
with statistical methods gives an edge to the rulers, not the ruled. In
theory the ruled could develop decentralized software and user-owned
infrastructure to control the LEOs, and work around the power monopoly
handicap.
In practice there's both no talent and no drive.
Deployment of such pedestrian cryptography techniques as MUA-MTA and
MTA-MTA is dependent upon single activists. How lame is that? Do you see
the video feeds of literally millions of surveillance cameras in UK and
Germany being made avaliable to anybody but the LEOs? I don't think so.
How many of us here could write a really useful machine vision package to
robustly extract biometrics from lousy video feeds, and to make hundreds
of thousands of people run the software, especially if it's illegal to
record your friendly LEO at work (it is, and where it isn't we can think
of something to harass you until you think twice before doing it again).
Thus there is a consensus amongst any cypherpunks with a modicum of clue
that going Brinworld in the current world order is a massively Bad Idea.
The chips may turn some day, but unlikely, given human nature.
If you've been watching the trends in technology over the last two decades
you'll see that so far the technology, even wielded inefficiently, has
deepened the power asymmetry. There's definitely a danger of going
Emergent in our future.
Terrorists, schmerrorists. The prudent approach is to resist the erosion
of privacy. Unconditionally.
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