From: Brett Paatsch (paatschb@ocean.com.au)
Date: Thu Dec 26 2002 - 10:02:23 MST
Spike wrote:
> Phil Osborn wrote:
> >
> > To wit: suppose Bush & Co. understands what Conrad
> > Schneiker was saying in 1978 about the exponential
> > growth of the power of destruction outpacing the
> > capacity of defense, and Conrad's follow-up corollary
> > that the only surviveable high-tech society is one of
> > universal surveillance.
> Phil, I have never heard of Conrad Schneiker, but
> I came to exactly the same conclusion after the
> terrorist bombing of Oklahoma City in 1995.
>
> Regardless of what it does, society will have a
> 3 sigma element whose fantasy is to slay as many
> as possible. Over time, technology empowers
> individuals to do ever more damage. In 1995,
> shortly before I started reading extropians,
> I became convinced that regardless of what path
> the future takes, universal surveillance will
> result. Terrorists take away our right to
> privacy. spike
What would universal surveillance actually mean?
Does universal mean *everyone* is watched to
some extent (perhaps we approach that now) or
does it mean everyone is watched *completely* like
a prisoner in Bentham's jail?
Assuming the thesis is correct. Then one question
that arises is how do we get "universal surveillance"
even in principle? I can't offhand think of a scenario
where surveillance isn't at least partially stratified.
What sort of threat does the surveillance need to
detect? A polio virus builder in the back shed as
opposed to an amateur bomb maker using info
off the 'net? A nanotech designer willing to sell
designs for an assembler to a rouge regime?
A quantum computer engineer who doesn't like the
financial markets or public key infrastructure?
Perhaps to have peace one does need to prepare for
war, but there seems to be no reason to assume all are
equally capable or well equipped warriors.
At present the US govt seems to be in the position to
do most of the surveillance and I'm not sure that's all
that healthy for non-US commercial interests or the
citizens of even countries that are friendly to the US.
There is no reciprocality in accountabilities.What if the
US decides its national interest extend to breaking the
virtual private networks of commercial corporations
that are simply protecting their trade secrets as
part of legitimate business practise.
If large scale ambitious projects of the "lets go to
the moon" or "the lets build a nanoassembler" variety
are going to happen at all, either governments or private
enterprise will have to fund them. Outside of war
first world governments seem to be limited in how much
planning and spending on large projects with uncertain
outcomes they can undertake. The space race was a race
between rival powers. Then there were at least two. The
only way I can see either the Democrats or the Republicans
making the construction of a nanoassembler a national
objective is if it was considered to be of military significance.
I have considerably less trouble imagining a government
deeming such technology to be too dangerous to be left in
private hands. Or even allowing it to be developed without
government surveillance.
It might be hard to keep promises to investors (and thereby)
a real innovation stifler if commercial companies everywhere
felt that all IP in high technology such as quantum computing
and nanoassemblers were subject to an unofficial first right of
refusal from the American NSA.
Could it really afford not to spy on say even a European
country or one of its allies or its allies corporations if it
thought that corporation had stolen a march on the rest of
the field and was about to develop either an assembler
potentially able to mass produce any weapon or a quantum
computer able to crack existing financial codes?
What if anything I wonder would ultimately stop the US from
nationalising all technologies and the IP of foreign corporates
that it deems to be *potentially* either an economic or military
threat and therefore "in accordance with the national interest"?
Brett
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