From extropians-request@extropy.org Fri Mar 11 09:21:43 1994 Return-Path: extropians-request@extropy.org Received: from usc.edu (usc.edu [128.125.253.136]) by chaph.usc.edu (8.6.4/8.6.4) with SMTP id JAA10228 for ; Fri, 11 Mar 1994 09:21:40 -0800 Received: from news.panix.com by usc.edu (4.1/SMI-3.0DEV3-USC+3.1) id AA16967; Fri, 11 Mar 94 09:21:23 PST Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: by news.panix.com id AA19624 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for more@usc.edu); Fri, 11 Mar 1994 12:00:35 -0500 Date: Fri, 11 Mar 1994 12:00:35 -0500 Message-Id: <199403111700.AA19624@news.panix.com> To: Extropians@extropy.org From: Extropians@extropy.org Subject: Extropians Digest #94-3-118 - #94-3-132 X-Extropian-Date: March 11, 374 P.N.O. [12:00:08 UTC] Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Status: RO Extropians Digest Fri, 11 Mar 94 Volume 94 : Issue 69 Today's Topics: ANTHRO: Multiple origins of modern homo-sapiens [1 msgs] BIO: Codons and amino acids [1 msgs] Forward: The Coming Police State [1 msgs] In Memoriam [1 msgs] LANG: Evolution of language (was ANTHRO: Mulitple origins) [1 msgs] LANG: Limits and Implied Consent [3 msgs] PCR [1 msgs] PCR: Causality (Creation Ex Nihilo) [1 msgs] PCR: Uncertain Criticism [1 msgs] The Optimal State [4 msgs] Administrivia: Note: I have increased the frequency of the digests to four times a day. The digests used to be processed at 5am and 5pm, but this was too infrequent for the current bandwidth. Now digests are sent every six hours: Midnight, 6am, 12pm, and 6pm. If you experience delays in getting digests, try setting your digest size smaller such as 20k. You can do this by addressing a message to extropians@extropy.org with the body of the message as ::digest size 20 -Ray Approximate Size: 87956 bytes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: sjw@liberty.demon.co.uk (Stephen J. Whitrow) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 94 19:58:08 GMT Subject: [#94-3-118] The Optimal State James Baker writes: >>Steve Whitrow writes in responce to Tim Starr, on extortion-rackets: >> >>Yes, I'd like to have some idea of how States would be affected by a 50% >>drop in income, what would happen after a 75% drop, etc. At some point it >>would seem to be almost exponential with loss of control of the military, >>but then possibly tailing off if we must allow for the optimal state / >>minimal state / temporary neighborhood crime racket. >> > >Sounds like Russia today. Friends who lived there recently say the forces >molding society these days are; > >-the party >-the KGB >-the mafia, actually many temporary neighborhood crime rackets At least, in the West we only have to contend with being impoverished by centuries of statism and mysticism, compared to the same plus decades of socialist paradise in the former Soviet bloc. We should have better prospects for a more peaceful collapsing of states. But rather than wait for spontaneous order to fill the vacuum, designed order should do better. As government currency is rejected by the private sector, we must ensure PPL private protection agencies are waiting in the wings, and are powerful enough to take on private criminal organizations. (Including the remnants of government forces, since they would be part of a former private criminal organization that just happened to call itself "government".) Even if there is initially insufficient local competition between protection agencies, and some of these private agencies evolve into, or are, the temporary neighborhood crime rackets, at least things would still be moving in the right direction. As prosperity increases, private citizens will find themselves better placed to band together and organize action against local protection rackets. But smoothness of the transition will be dependent on the extent to which victim disarmament and people emasculation has been enforced by the statists. Steve Whitrow sjw@liberty.demon.co.uk Support the Internet Petition to oppose the Clipper Proposal! Send a message to: Clipper.petition@cpsr.org | with the text: I oppose Clipper | ............................................................ If you haven't yet, see the recently forwarded Tim May essay. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The above sentence is an example of _ambiguity with intent_. ------------------------------ From: Reilly Jones <70544.1227@CompuServe.COM> Date: 10 Mar 94 18:43:36 EST Subject: [#94-3-119] PCR: Causality (Creation Ex Nihilo) Mike Price wrote 2/18/94: Mike, this sounds very interesting to me. Could you either give me a run-through of it, or a solid reference or both? Thanks! I'm sorry I have been very slow to respond in a more timely fashion on Creation Ex Nihilo posts of the past month. I have been very bogged down. I would like to post some of my thoughts on it, but I am not sure when I will get to it. Please be patient. Mike again 3/2/94: Your jibes don't bother me any more than my assertion that belief in Big Bang cosmologies of creation ex nihilo is not science but mysticism, bothers you. You are far more expert than me in cosmology, that is why I am very interested in your opinions (no matter how far-fetched they are to me). I am a generalist, I am approaching the temple of neo-Gnostic high priests of physics with great trepidation, reverence and awe. I am a humble supplicant looking for a sign of common-sense in the holy of holies, the secret abode of Einstein's nonlinear relativity equations, Schrodinger's nonlinear QM equations, Feynman's non-discrete sum-of-the-histories, etc. Without doing the post I promised I would try to do, I will say this about causality: Aristotle's uncaused cause is inescapable if we are to accept the idea of logical consistency. One thing follows another. Two things do not occur at the same time in the same space, otherwise, there would be no truth, only relativism and mysticism. My uncaused cause which causes all else, is the discrete space-time particle. Your uncaused cause is the energy fluctuation within the true vacuum. I say my particles cause your fluctuation, you say your fluctuation cause my particles. I say particles are existence, they are concrete and your energy fluctuation wouldn't exist without them. You say energy fluctuation in the true vacuum in the absence of any concrete particles is existence. I say what causes the energy fluctuation? ------------------------------------------------------------------ Reilly Jones | Philosophy of Technology: 70544.1227@CompuServe.COM | The rational and moral foundations | of our creative drive ------------------------------ From: Reilly Jones <70544.1227@CompuServe.COM> Date: 10 Mar 94 18:44:32 EST Subject: [#94-3-120] PCR: Uncertain Criticism Steve Whitrow wrote: Yes, certainty exists within the subjective reality of "I". It's foundation is certainty of purposes. There is no infinite regress in certainty within subjective reality, since an individual simply decides on their purposes. There is nothing deeper than this decision. "I think" and "I am" are subjective certainties, they are self-referential. When we move out beyond subjective reality towards objective reality, our certainties become coupled with knowledge of the epistemological boundaries between consensual reality, subjective reality and objective reality. As long as we know these boundaries, we can be certain of events within consensual reality. We can also be uncertain of events (which is what I think you mean by "certainly relative"), and frequently are, particularly of what other people's purposes are. Knowing these boundaries, we can be certain within objective reality that "You are" and "You think", and within consensual reality that "We are" and "We think". Steve again: <"To be uncertain is to be unable to decide" is true if referring to subjective reality, but I don't believe this applies to objective reality. I can assign a confidence value [very close to one] to a belief, and although I admit the belief is not certainly true, I can be certain that it's a better belief to hold than the alternatives. Although I'm uncertain as to the truth of the belief, that doesn't make me unable to decide to believe it. But anyone who was so mixed up in their beliefs that they were unable to decide what their values and purposes were would be in danger of losing their marbles.> All decisions originate in subjective reality, therefore the statement is true. When decisions are shared with one another in consensual reality, we can be certain of our beliefs as long as we know the boundaries between subjective reality and consensual reality. For example, you and I may agree that we don't like entropic death-worshippers. I am certain that I have decided on it because I have access to my own decision within subjective reality. I am certain that you have decided on it up to the epistemological limits of observation of your actions, your words and your inaccesible neurophysiology. I will not doubt you without cause. I am either certain of your decision or I am uncertain. I am never "relatively" certain. Eric Forste wrote: No, I am saying that according to the dictionary definition and my own life experience of the usage of the word "certain" (beyond doubt, indisputable), that "certain" is digital, not analog. You either are certain, or you are uncertain. You are using the digital word "certain" when I think you should be using the analog word "belief." "Certainty" is not relative, but "belief" is. The phrase "absolute certainty" is redundant. Eric again: When I am certain, I am certain. When I am uncertain, I am uncertain. I am not both certain and uncertain at the same time because I am not a relativist. Eric again: and I act with certainty. I may make poor decisions, but at the time of the decision, I am certain of my purposes, the coherent structure of beliefs surrounding these purposes, and the epistemological boundaries that limit my access to perfect knowledge of the past, present and future. You flip a coin when you are certain that the consequences of any decision you make will achieve your purpose. Eric again: This does not follow, this is not how coherency epistemology works (which apparently is what PCR is beyond it's role as a prescription for rationality). You are certain until something causes you to be uncertain. Eric again: And I still contend that doubt disables action and dissipates the constructive, focused use of your energy that naturally flows from certainty. Eric again: Then it is not relativism, because this is exactly what relativism means. Relativism is Greek skepticism and produces a decline in any extropic civilization as it did to Greece. Eric again: Mussolini's quote used by Tim Starr is a true portrayal of relativism. The quote is a very concise encapsulation of Nietzsche's philosophy. Nietzsche is very extropian when approached from the Right as Mussolini did, and very entropic death-worshipping when approached from the Left as the French compost-modernists did. Mussolini was an authority on Nietzsche and relativism whether you consider him to be or not. Your statement about "authority" smacks of debilitating credentialism. Concepts stand on their own, judgments of "authority" are purely secondary consideration when it comes to belief formation and only are made by divining common purpose. If Mussolini's quote wasn't true (which it is), then the fact that you divine Mussolini's purposes to be different from your own would allow you to beef up your rejection of his concept by denigrating his "authority." Eric again: Placing Popper and Bartley on the pedastal of "authority" rather than dealing with specific concepts no matter where they come from is very limiting. This distinction between "historical" and "philosophical" interest is strictly compost-modernist historicist relativism (the French disease). If Socrates' concepts were not very much alive and relevant today, then Nietzsche wouldn't have felt driven to spend his entire philosophical career attacking him. Every concept regardless of when it was articulated or by whom, is of philosophical interest, and not just historical interest, if it points to the truth, the beautiful, how to live the good life, how to build political structures that advance civilization and all the other great philosophical questions. Rejecting the old, or the out of fashion, *because* they are old or unfashionable, and not because every one of their specific concepts don't further your purposes is simply a bad strategy. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Reilly Jones | Philosophy of Technology: 70544.1227@CompuServe.COM | The rational and moral foundations | of our creative drive ------------------------------ From: Reilly Jones <70544.1227@CompuServe.COM> Date: 10 Mar 94 18:43:55 EST Subject: [#94-3-121] LANG: Limits and Implied Consent grigsby wrote: My inoculation against PC multiculturist Leftist entropic death-worshippers just kicked in. First, it is incorrect to use the term "Native American" or "Amerind cultures." Technically speaking, it should be either "Native Siberians" or "Siberian-Americans." Secondly, "white settler culture" is used here as a pejorative (otherwise, why the sadness in defense of it) instead of being celebrated as a major extropian movement to advance technologically complex civilization. Denigration of advanced civilization in favor of celebration of primitive tribes is entropic death-worship. Concepts that help increase the technological complexity of civilization are welcome from any source whatsoever. However, there is no need to engage in PC obeisance to multicultural values when using these concepts. Sorry if this sounds harsh, maybe it was that "Gender Roles in a Multicultural Society Seminar" I took (aka Leftist Immersion Therapy). grigsby again: Again, talk of "oppression" and "victimization" hits my anti-PC buttons even when used appropriately. Sorry. Is this saying we want openness as opposed to secrecy? Openness from the Right is openness to criticism. Openness from the Left is openness to closedness. When it comes to technological advances, silence from society is far preferable to Luddite reactions. Why isn't secrecy a valuable strategy when it comes to advanced uses of technology as long as it is moral usage instead of immoral usage? Ray Cromwell wrote: E-mail is vital to thinkers and doers who are actively shaping the future while real-time interactivity is vital to radically present-oriented individuals who are merely partaking of the now while they wait to die. It's the difference between the remnants from the Age of Reason and the new cadres from the present Age of Feeling. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Reilly Jones | Philosophy of Technology: 70544.1227@CompuServe.COM | The rational and moral foundations | of our creative drive ------------------------------ From: sjw@liberty.demon.co.uk (Stephen J. Whitrow) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 94 23:50:36 GMT Subject: [#94-3-122] ANTHRO: Multiple origins of modern homo-sapiens Nan Wolfslayer writes: >all image and imageless, like the ark of God. [excerpt from Rilke] > >Perhaps by the use of metaphor, we expand language to create images or >ideas within the mind that language has not grown to cover. what is > >all image >yet imageless Sounds like Jung's archetypes. imageless: "...an irrepresentable, unconscious, pre-existent form that seems to be part of the inherited structure of the psyche..." all image: When specific contents are added by consciousness or by cultural influences, the archetype will become an archetypal image. The image will vary from person to person or from culture to culture, but the archetype, the underlying form, is part of the collective unconscious of mankind. (Examples: the concepts of absolute morality and rights.) >But what is 'the ark of God'? Does it exist in the physical sense as a >thing within some world? Is it a symbolic expression? If it refers to the Ark of the Covenant, the gold-covered sacred chest with a solid gold lid, the information I have on its last known whereabouts are that it was in the temple of Solomon until the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC; then Jeremiah hid it in a cave. By post-exilic and New Testament times it no longer existed / was lost. >Is language organic in the sense that it can and does evolve? In common with us, it's an evolving spontaneous order. >If language >is organic - is it alive in some way? Only to the extent that memes or genetic algorithms are, for instance. >Can life be a networked creation of >linked electronic impluses which is understood in some basic way by the >units (um, I mean us) of the network? The thing to remember is that the human brain is currently the most complex structure, at least in this sector of the galaxy. Collectivists make the mistake of assuming that "society" is somehow more important than the people comprising it. If true, then socialism would work. Purpose and causation flow from the more complex structure to the less complex structure. So when the individuals are free to follow their own chosen purposes, a bottom-up praxeology, this allows the emergence of a spontaneous order, an "invisible hand", which works for the benefit of all. But holistic top-down praxeologies of Keynesians / Marxists et al go against this flow of causation, hence failing. But the important thing about life is its potential to be conscious, and to understand concepts. There's not much point in it otherwise. We can understand concepts because we have neural net brains -- each concept may be represented by a structure which interconnects with other structures representing other concepts which interconnect with other structures almost ad infinitum, like a giant hypertext. A particular structure would have no absolute meaning, it's just a bunch of neurons, but provide all the interconnections and associations, and meaning emerges. Take 'red' for example, by itself it's just a position in color qualia space, but its association with 'blood' and 'bacon' start to give it meaning. And their associations make them meaningful in their turn... And each meme would have its visual and verbal representation, and perhaps distant memories of when the concept was first learned. States and ecosystems could never be conscious in this way -- they could never experience meaningful subjective mental events. Steve Whitrow sjw@liberty.demon.co.uk ------------------------------ From: grigsby@agames.com (JUMP IN THE FIRE) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 1994 17:33:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: [#94-3-123] LANG: Limits and Implied Consent On a fine spring day, Reilly Jones sez: > My inoculation against PC multiculturist Leftist entropic death-worshippers just > kicked in. No, your blind prejudice just kicked in. Your whole rant is against things I did not say and views I do not espouse. How many damn times do I have to say this to people on this list? Every time I mention something I find I have to defend myself against random gunfire directed at straw men (usually over on the left). > First, it is incorrect to use the term "Native American" or "Amerind > cultures." Technically speaking, it should be either "Native Siberians" or > "Siberian-Americans." Well, if you want to get pedantic, we are all African-Americans, or wherever the latest "origin(s) of mankind" are postulated. How many thousands of years must elapse before a population is considered "native"? > Secondly, "white settler culture" is used here as a > pejorative (otherwise, why the sadness in defense of it) instead of being > celebrated as a major extropian movement to advance technologically complex >civilization. Denigration of advanced civilization in favor of celebration of > primitive tribes is entropic death-worship. I pointed out a _single feature_ of such societies that seems to increase communication clarity and density, and you interpreted this as an espousal of every negative (to you) feature of such a culture. I'm over here, Mr. Jones, not hiding in that "PC liberal" straw man that you're currently beating up on. > Concepts that help increase the > technological complexity of civilization are welcome from any source whatsoever. This contradicts your rant, which is against the whole culture and not the part of it I was pointing out as of interest to us. > However, there is no need to engage in PC obeisance to multicultural values when > using these concepts. Sorry if this sounds harsh, maybe it was that "Gender > Roles in a Multicultural Society Seminar" I took (aka Leftist Immersion > Therapy). And there's no need to engage in knee-jerk reaction to such a phrase as "white settler culture". Are you implying that these people were not (mostly) white, not settlers, or not a distinct culture from the natives? You are demanding the same sort of PC bullshit that you are attacking. What do you suggest I call them: "geographically displaced persons of little melanin?" > grigsby again: > consequences can be justified by the argument "Well, no one said anything..." > So: to my mind, questioning this assumption is central to building any sort of > value system that will forestall the growth of oppresive institutions.> > > Again, talk of "oppression" and "victimization" hits my anti-PC buttons even > when used appropriately. Sorry. Is this saying we want openness as opposed to > secrecy? Openness from the Right is openness to criticism. Openness from the > Left is openness to closedness. Yo! I'm over here! Can't you see the straw leaking out of that scarecrow when you hit it? > When it comes to technological advances, > silence from society is far preferable to Luddite reactions. > > Why isn't secrecy > a valuable strategy when it comes to advanced uses of technology as long as it > is moral usage instead of immoral usage? If the technology is so unequivocally beneficial, why must you hide it? It sounds like you are espousing an authoritarian view here, which is that you have the "right" to force the primary or side effects of your desires onto other people because you are enlightened and they are just backward old Luddites. Also, this is circular reasoning because your definition of Luddite is "does not necessarily accept the consequences of my desires". What you are saying here is that you are the judge, jury, and executioner of other people's rights because you get to decide whether you are being moral or immoral in your usage _as it affects them_. If you don't give a shit about me or anyone else, just say so, but don't pretend you are somehow privileged to decide for me or others due to your superior Extropian (or whatever) nature. > E-mail is vital to thinkers and doers who are actively shaping the future while > real-time interactivity is vital to radically present-oriented individuals who > are merely partaking of the now while they wait to die. You have evidently decided that nothing about the present is worthwhile and have elected to live solely in the future. Well, I have bad news for you: the future will be composed of an infinite number of presents in which you will be dissatisfied because you still aren't in the future! Life is the only real-time interactive experience. By living it, you "are merely partaking of the now". I am reminded of the Tom Tomorrow comic with the guy washing through bizarre op-art panels -- "Cruising the information superhighway! Surfing the wave of digital information! Virtual interactivity through worlds of ." The last panel has the ubiquitous penguin reminding him, "Actually, you're sitting on your butt staring at a computer screen." -- an activity rich in mental nutrients but sorely deficient in input for the senses. Email is not conversation, netnews is not a coffeehouse, and TinySex is masturbation no matter how you juggle your terms. What you are suffering from is a technological variation on Calvinism, where any present pleasure is bad because it does not come from the technotopia of the future ("Lead a virtuous life on earth and maybe you'll get to go to Extropian heaven"). I choose to strive for a better present, keeping in mind that the future is composed of such presents. So, I plan ahead to get 1) a better future and 2) more of it, and try to have as much fun as possible on the way. > It's the difference > between the remnants from the Age of Reason and the new cadres from the present > Age of Feeling. How about both? I demand to have my cake, eat it, and have a food fight with it too. Isn't that what Extropy is all about, anyway? // g -- -- -- grigsby@agames.com -- -- -- -- The views expressed above are to be taken as literal truth and are -- -- official policy statements of Volkswagenwerk AG, the Trilateral -- -- Commission, Hyundai Heavy Industries, and the Church of the Sub-Genius. -- -- -- ------------------------------ From: LEVY%BESSIE@venus.cis.yale.edu Date: Thu, 10 Mar 1994 23:51:44 -0500 (EST) Subject: [#94-3-124] LANG: Evolution of language (was ANTHRO: Mulitple origins) Nan Wolfslayer asks: > Is language organic in the sense that it can and does evolve? If language > is organic - is it alive in some way? Can life be a networked creation of > linked electronic impluses which is understood in some basic way by the > units (um, I mean us) of the network? Language clearly evolved at some point in the distant past, but it makes more sense to say that, since that time, language hasn't evolved, but rather changed. The changes are not directed toward some end state; in fact, they are more likely cyclic, or like movement through some multi-dimensional state space. The kinds of changes that interest linguists aren't obvious ones, like non- Western cultures adpoting lots of new words for pieces of Western technology. (I've heard of Pacific islanders who name their kids "Radio" and "Television" out of adoration for such gadgets!) Instead, the changes are more along the lines a language having one set of sounds at one stage in its history and another set at another stage; a language going from Subject-Object-Verb word order to S-V-O, the way German is currently going (and by currently I mean for the past several hundred years and for the next several hundred years); and, more rarely (but more interestingly to members of this list like Nan), how languages use metaphor to extend semantic categories. The best- known researcher in that last area is George Lakoff, author of _Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things_, and _Metaphors We Live By_. I would recommend the latter, as the former tends to be overly technical at many points. *** SPOILER *** The title of _W, F, a D T_ is taken from an Austronesian language that groups those three categories together in the same noun class. The joke is that Lakoff recognizes the reader's belief that speakers of the language have some "wisdom" about women being dangerous like fire, when in fact women ended up in the category by a Rube-Goldberg process of metaphorical extension that has nothing to do with women being dangerous. -- Simon! ------------------------------ From: freeman@netcom.com (Jay Reynolds Freeman) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 1994 23:33:08 -0800 Subject: [#94-3-125] LANG: Limits and Implied Consent Reilly Jones and JUMP IN THE FIRE debate: > > First, it is incorrect to use the term "Native American" or "Amerind > > cultures." Technically speaking, it should be either "Native Siberians" or > > ""Siberian-Americans." > > Well, if you want to get pedantic, we are all African-Americans [...] In the cladistic sense, increasingly preferred for contemporary biological taxonomy, we are for that matter all bacteria, too. Hmn... "Fellow Extropian Scum..." -- Jay Freeman, First Extropian Self-Replicating RNA Molecule ------------------------------ From: freeman@netcom.com (Jay Reynolds Freeman) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 1994 00:01:02 -0800 Subject: [#94-3-126] BIO: Codons and amino acids Mike Price wants more information on variants in the genetic code. I quote from Becker, Wayne M., and Deamer, David W., _The_World_of_the_Cell_, Benjamin/Cummings, 1991. (The book is suitable for an undergraduate first course on cell biology.) The (Near) Universality of the Genetic Code A final property of the genetic code that is worth noting is its near- universality. All organisms studied so far}V_, both prokaryotes and eukaryotes, use the same code for synthesis of proteins by cytoplasmic ribosomes. The only known exception occurs in mitochondria. In common with chloroplasts, mitochondria contain their own genetic information and can carry out both transcription and translation. They differ from all other known genetic systems, however, in that they deviate from the standard genetic code in several ways (see Table 16-1). For example, the codon UGA, which is otherwise a stop codon, is read in mitochondria as tryptophan. As table 16-1 indicates, there are even differences in codon assignments between the mitochondria of yeast and those of mammals. It is not yet clear why mitochondria have a genetic code that differs from that of all other systems. Table 16-1 The Genetic Code of the Mitochondrion Meaning in Mitochondrion ------------------------ Codon Normal Meaning Mammalian Yeast UGA Stop Tryptophan Tryptophan AUA Isoleucine Methionine Methionine CUA Leucine Leucine Threonine AGA Arginine Stop Arginine In a previous post, I said that I thought there were differences in the genetic code for bacteria. I was almost completely wrong; the saving throw being that a current guess for the origin of mitochondria is as symbiotic bacteria living within the cell. -- Jay Freeman, First Extropian Squirrel ------------------------------ From: timstarr@netcom.com (Tim Starr) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 1994 00:49:36 -0800 Subject: [#94-3-127] The Optimal State >From: nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu >Date: Thu, 10 Mar 94 2:51:38 GMT >Subject: [#94-3-102] The Optimal State > >In re the decline of government: There's a recent news story about >a German man who blew up a courtroom which denied his appeal...if >the individual capacity for attack continues to be get greater >than the group capacity for defense, is government possible without >mind control? I don't really think "the individual capacity for attack" is getting greater. I think the State's mind control is slipping. American Empire unity was predicated upon the existence of an external military threat that many found credible (wrongly, in my mind, but that doesn't matter in this case. All that matters is that enough people believed in it to hold the Empire together) - the Soviet Empire. Before that, it was predicated upon the threat of the German Empire. The whole US corporate welfare-warfare state was developed in order to get people to support opposition to these threats and/or quell internal domestic dissension until the enemy was defeated. The problem with this strategy is that the Soviet Empire has fragmented, and no credible threat has taken its place. People actually feared Soviet invasion of the USA. No one is afraid of any invasion by Somalia, Iraq, Serbia, Panama, Libya, Grenada, etc. For one thing, they don't have any nukes yet, but no one even fears that Korea will launch nuclear missiles against the USA if it has them. Despite the enormous incentives the Empire has to come up with new threats, they've failed to pull it off, leaving them high and dry without a rationale for the military-industrial complex ($300 billion per year and growing) - that much is obvious. But what is less obvious is that far more than that is at stake. Social Security, the largest transfer payment program, was instituted by FDR to win the loyalty of the working class voters he needed to get re-elected over to the American Empire as a pre-emptive strike against similar attempts by the Soviets and Nazis, through the American socialist and Nazi parties. That's another $300 billion or so per annum. The whole New Deal fits this pattern, as does the Great Society, in part. The escalation of the war on drugs by the Nixon administration was done in order to neutralize opposition to the Vietnam War and the anti-interventionist movement in general - hence the accusations that Clinton was a draft-dodging, pot-smoking traitor. The Reagan administration extended this by escalating it again, going even further as far as the criminal penalties went, but also used the drug trade to finance anti-Soviet foriegn policy goals in central america. That's another bunch of millions of dollars a year. These all got the rug pulled out from under them when the Soviet Empire collapsed, when the Cold War ended. The whole anti-communist mind-control ideology that the American Empire was built on is gone. As for the individual capacity for attack, the fantastic thing is how little domestic terrorism there has been in the USA. The World Trade Center bombing was done by rank amateurs. Molotov cocktails are trivial to make and use. People just haven't had the incentive to engage in terrorism while they believed they needed to unite against the Soviets. Now they don't believe that any more, they're going to start paying more attention to Soviet-like Empires closer to home, starting with the Federal government. Which brings me to an action item: one of the activist frontlines right now is persuading potential jurors to acquit people for killing Federal agents in self-defense - truly in self-defense, not a license to kill them without cause. The Branch Davidians got off on most of the major charges, but it would be nice if we could make it so the next jury acquits on the lesser ones as well. Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! Assistant Editor: Freedom Network News, the newsletter of ISIL, The International Society for Individual Liberty, 1800 Market St., San Francisco, CA 94102 (415) 864-0952; FAX: (415) 864-7506; 71034.2711@compuserve.com Think Universally, Act Selfishly - timstarr@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: timstarr@netcom.com (Tim Starr) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 1994 00:50:08 -0800 Subject: [#94-3-128] The Optimal State >From: fnerd@smds.com (FutureNerd Steve Witham) >Date: Wed, 9 Mar 94 21:10:06 EST >Subject: [#94-3-100] The Optimal State >...I meant the means of anti-extortion. Tech to *deal with* >crime. Right? Right. That's what I meant. They're inversely related. I like your smallpox metaphor, now that I get it. Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! Assistant Editor: Freedom Network News, the newsletter of ISIL, The International Society for Individual Liberty, 1800 Market St., San Francisco, CA 94102 (415) 864-0952; FAX: (415) 864-7506; 71034.2711@compuserve.com Think Universally, Act Selfishly - timstarr@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: timstarr@netcom.com (Tim Starr) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 1994 00:50:34 -0800 Subject: [#94-3-129] The Optimal State >From: sjw@liberty.demon.co.uk (Stephen J. Whitrow) >Date: Wed, 09 Mar 94 21:23:08 GMT >Subject: [#94-3-97] The Optimal State > >Inflation, a tax on savings, is effectively a second shot at extorting >from people's past incomes that which wasn't taken first time around. I think that's a derivative effect of inflation, but primarily it's wholesale breach of contract - the issuance of more promissory notes than one can redeem. The extortion comes in when people have to be coerced into accepting them, and the hyper part refers to the fact that it's done wholesale. Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! Assistant Editor: Freedom Network News, the newsletter of ISIL, The International Society for Individual Liberty, 1800 Market St., San Francisco, CA 94102 (415) 864-0952; FAX: (415) 864-7506; 71034.2711@compuserve.com Think Universally, Act Selfishly - timstarr@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: timstarr@netcom.com (Tim Starr) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 1994 00:52:27 -0800 Subject: [#94-3-130] PCR Eric Forste refuses to define certainty as he uses it, doesn't like being corrected about the proper meaning of "relativism," and doesn't consider Mussolini an authority on the subject. In other words, he's just totally defected from the conversation. Fine. Two can play that game. Tit for Tat! Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! Assistant Editor: Freedom Network News, the newsletter of ISIL, The International Society for Individual Liberty, 1800 Market St., San Francisco, CA 94102 (415) 864-0952; FAX: (415) 864-7506; 71034.2711@compuserve.com Think Universally, Act Selfishly - timstarr@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: timstarr@netcom.com (Tim Starr) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 1994 01:52:21 -0800 Subject: [#94-3-131] In Memoriam I'd arranged for Sandy to come give a talk about crypto-anarchy at the SFLP meeting the night she died. So, not only did I miss out on the opportunity to become better friends with her, but we didn't get to hear Sandy, either. I feel terrible about it all. It would really be nice if there was something we could do for him to make him feel better, but I've no idea what that could be. Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! Assistant Editor: Freedom Network News, the newsletter of ISIL, The International Society for Individual Liberty, 1800 Market St., San Francisco, CA 94102 (415) 864-0952; FAX: (415) 864-7506; 71034.2711@compuserve.com Think Universally, Act Selfishly - timstarr@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: "Harry Shapiro Hawk" Date: 10 Mar 1994 10:17:53 -0400 Subject: [#94-3-132] Forward: The Coming Police State FYI, I thought this would be of interest. /hawk > To: Cypherpunks@toad.com > From: netcom.com!tcmay@panix.UUCP (Timothy C. May) > Subject: The Coming Police State > Sender: toad.com!owner-cypherpunks@panix.UUCP > Precedence: bulk An alarmist title? Perhaps. But likely accurate. Since the theme of the upcoming Cypherpunks meeting on March 12th, with sites around the world tied together, is "politics" and since Eric Hughes has encouraged "rants," I'm making these comments now. The war is upon us. All _three_ of the major U.S. weekly news magazines have articles on cops in cyberspace, the threat of Clipper, and the fast computerization of the surveillance society. Books are being written on crypto issues (beyond the excellent Schneier book, I mean), and the issues have resonance amongst a skeptical public. Strange bedfellows, ranging from Pat Robertson and Phyllis Schlafly to civil libertarians on the other side have come out against Clipper. (I suspect had Bush won, Robertson and Schlaffly would be much quieter about Clipper, just as many Democrats are being somewhat circumspect in their criticisms of Clipper today. People need to realize this issue cuts across all party lines. Ditto for non-U.S. people as well, despite the U.S.-centric focus of these comments.) The Cypherpunks fill an important niche that none of the other major groups wants to--or are able to--fill. The EFF, CPSR, and ACLU have different skills than we have, have more money (we have _none_, of course, as an organization), and are mostly "centralized lobbying" groups (all are headquartered in Washington, D.C.). Cypherpunks are scattered around the world, with only this mailing list and the physical meetings creating any real nexus. By default, of course, the Bay Area has tended to dominate, in raw numbers, in physical meetings, and in the early history of the list, but hopefully this will change as the Cypherpunks continue to grow and as other sites become more active in their chose areas of expertise. And the Cypherpunks mailing list has an interactive mailing list filled with some of the world's best cryptographers and security experts (you know who you are), and several hundred creative folks, many of whom actually write code! Plenty of problems face us, but we have plenty of talent, too. And of course we have justice and the inevitability of technology on our side. IS A POLICE STATE REALLY COMING? "Not if we can help it," of course. But right now things look pretty grim. George Orwell got it mostly right, even in choosing a corporatist model of Britain as the setting instead of the more-expected Stalinist models of the time. (I'm an anarcho-capitalist, personally, so I have nothing against corporations _per se_. But I despise the situation of "state socialism," which is what fascism really is, in which corporations are given special rights and responsibilities in exchange for being supported or selectively rewarded by the State.) In the U.S. at least (and more on Europe and Asia later), the cyberspatial police state is no longer associated with just one political party. The Clipper program and Digital Telephony were started under the Reagan (probably_ and Bush (for sure) administrations, and now the Clinton and Gore folks have shown themselves to be enthusiastic supporters of Big Brother. The National Health Care program, perhaps temporarily stalled on a side street by the current Whitewater/Hillary circus, may have implications for this police state that are unclear....national ID cards, FinCEN-type monitoring of alcohol and tobacco purchases, even biometric identity systems. And the National Information Infrastructure, the NII, has the potential for further concentrating and regulating the presently anarchic networks. Driver's licenses for the information highway? Learner's permits? Revoked licenses for "hurtful speech" and other thoughtcrimes? WHAT ARE WE FACING? -- Digital Telephony II for easy access to _all_ communications channels. If this becomes law, expect all equipment makers to add wiretapping capabilities. All operating system makers may have to add tap points to allow government access (so much for "secure operating systems," such as Norm Hardy and others are working on). -- Clipper and its Big Brethren for easy access to the contents of files. The State will use its power to enforce standards, control exports, and punish corporations so as to ensure competitors do not arise. -- The likely criminalization (via civil forfeiture, a la the Drug War) of unapproved crypto alternatives. (As Whit Diffie has noted, this will not completely stop unapproved use, but will force it underground and marginalize it, causing most folks to so fear prosecution and forfeiture of their homes and companies that they'll avoid unapproved crypto and will help narc out others.) -- Expansion of these tools to other "New World Order" nations, including rapidly-developing systems in Germany, France, Britain, Japan, and other countries. (Reports of "family keys" being prepared for these countries, of restrictions on private use of crypto already in place in some of these countries, and of positive reaction to the American Clipper system.) -- The State getting involved in the "Digital Superhighway" increases the potential for licensing, control, speech codes, etc. For example, one can imagine "fair access" laws which ostensibly make getting on the Net easier and cheaper (not really, of course) but which come with strings attached. Limitations on pseudonyms, restrictions to only RSA-approved public keys (cf. a frightening proposal by Carl Malamud to "nationalize" public-key technology and then give every citizen his own public key...such a system would destroy most of the exciting possibilities some of us foresee and would create a complete surveillance market--this is just one possible future being bandied about by the technocrats and "policy wonks"). (I know some List members, especially those connected with the EFF, have a more charitable view of the NII. But even Mike Godwin has quipped about the "Digital Snooperhighway.") So, is it all hopeless? WHAT COULD DERAIL THE CYBERSPACE POLICE STATE? 1. Defeat of the Digital Telephony Bill. Groups like the EFF and CPSR effetively stopped the first attempt, but a new one was recently unveiled. In many ways, much worse than the first one. This one has to be stopped as well! (In general, all readers of this List should be signing the various petitions that come along, including the "I oppose Clipper" and "I support the Cantwell Bill" ones. You should make your own decisions, of course, but it is hard to imagine that any of you would be opposed to these sentiments. The key is to to make sure a significant fraction of you 700-800 readers sign these petitions! That's a hefty voting bloc, and would give Cypherpunks some additional respect or influence amongst the petition circulators.) 2. Work closely with EFF, CPSR, and other groups (ACLU?) in their efforts to stop these developments. Being that many of us know a fair amount about crypto, security, and computers, we could provide technical assistance to these organizations. (The Washington, D.C. group could, as we have often discussed, have an especially beneficial effect on the debate, as Congressional staffers could be brought up to speed by Cypherpunks in the area. Be sure to concentrate equally on Republicans and right wingers as on Democrats and left wingers!) (In my opinion, our "outlaw" image continues to serve us well. While the "suits" talk to Congresscritters, there's still a role to be played for more guerilla-oriented folks such as ourselves. Sure, there's a downside, and not all are comfortable being portrayed as "anarchists" or "cypher criminals," but that's how we got started--not that we are all either anarchists or criminals!--and there's been little pressure to change. For now, it lets us play a kind of "good cop-bad cop" game....or, "hybrid vigor," with the Cypherpunks filling a different niche than the suits of EFF and CPSR fill.) 3. Widespread repudiation of the Clipper program and its evil Big Brethren, the Capstone, Skipjack, Tessera, "iPower," and related technologies. We talk about Clipper a lot here, and about ways to defeat it, so I won't go into this here. 4. Active sabotage, to include: - Boycotts of AT&T for building Clipperphones, of VLSI Tech for building the Mykotronx chips, of National Semiconductor for building the "iPower" PCMCIA card, and of others who are becoming known for being involved (more on this later, when I am liberty to say more). (My old company, Intel, is a 20% owner of VLSI Tech, actual manufacturer of the Clipper chip--draw your own conclusions.) - "Big Brother Inside" stickers. Thanks to the several of you who actually got these stickers _made_....it was at the special meeting last April that I drew this logo on the whiteboard and then did a posting of the ASCII design. While I will not encourage you to surreptitiously place these stickers on boxes containing the products of the aforementioned companies, let your conscience be your guide. Wink. - Ridicule and "psychological warfare." I upset a few people when I called this "disinformation" a while back. I don't mean actual lies, but, rather, *creative speculation* and the sowing of doubts in people's minds. For example, most of us (safe to say, I think) understand that the real danger, the real threat, of Clipper is the imminent outlawing of alternatives to Clipper. We understand this even though the "facts" on Clipper are nominally that Clipper will be "voluntary." We "know" this is not so, both in terms of reasonable historical projections and in terms of the already-developing policies on exports which will make non-Clipper schemes much harder to export than Clipper. Hence, we need to "fill in the gaps" for people and point out to them that crypto alternatives to Clipper are likely to be banned or otherwise made nearly impossible to use. This banning may happen in various ways, ranging from outright bans on non-escrow crypto methods (yes, enforcement difficulties abound) to use of RICO and conspiracy laws to effectively make alternatives to Clipper too difficult to use--how'd you like to face subpoena of your bank records or IRS visits everytime a non-Clipper crypto scheme was detected? (IRS is understaffed, so this won't be trivial, but other things may be possible.) - Help to convince companies _not_ to use Clipjacked phones. Ideally, create a mood in which the use of Clipper marks one as a stooge of Big Brother and as not having a good work environment. (This can begin to work as potential hires ask pointedly, for example, about the Clipper policy of the company.) - Talks with journalists. We can reach far more people this way than by nearly anything else we do. Steven Levy will be at the Saturday meeting, preparing both an article on these issues, and a book for future publication (being an optimist, even I don't believe he'll be barred from publishing such a book). Other journalists are similarly interested. And the coverage by the major news magazines and newspapers is increasing, as noted above. WHAT ELSE CAN WE DO? - Increase deployment of crypto tools. Get the genie _all of the way_ out of the bottle. Make outlawing crypto too painful. Integrate PGP with standard mailers (a project that's been stalled for more than a year now). - Voice PGP or similar. A half-dozen projects are reportedly in various stages of completion. 486 PC prices are dropping into the noise, so that even dedicated Mac users (like me) can consider buying a 50 MHz or better 486 box and using it with a SoundBlaster-type processor card. But when will these systems actually appear? Time is of the essence. - New systems. I've said it before: we had some early wins with the Cypherpunks remailers, but follow-ons have been slow in coming. We often see a spate of good ideas--such as on digital money, or steganography, or the like--but then these ideas don't become "standards." This could be for a variety of reasons, so I'm not casting stones here. But it's a phenomenon we should think about and try to resolve. Let's find a way to get more "outposts" in cypherspace built, deployed, and maintained. Voice PGP, as mentioned above, would be a natural one. - Remailer sites in non-U.S. countries. This needs to be a higher priority. Get a robust remailer, using PGP or ViaCrypt PGP (for bulletproof legality reasons), in at least a dozen countries. Digital postage will help incentivize remailer operators to get into the business, to maintain the systems in a less-lackadaisical way (no offense, but seeing remailers drop like flies as student accounts expire or vanish mysteriously is not confidence-building). The "second generation remailer" stuff needs to be incorporated at least partly. - Private networks, like Little Garden, offer greater robustness against intrusions by regulatory authorities. The more of these ad hoc, anarchic nets, the less chance the State will have of (somehow) nationalizing or otherwise taking control of them. Especially if nodes are outside the U.S. - Several of us have expressed some serious interest in leaving the U.S., for various reasons. I am one of these folks. Many issues here, but creating more offshore locales for Cyperpunks activity, with good connections to other Nets, lots of encryption, etc., will be helpful. (Compiling a kind of "Cyberspace Retirement Places Rated" database is one project I am thinking of taking on after I finish the Cypherpunks FAQ. Lists of various places, their local laws and policies, tax situation, extradition treaties with the main police states, Net connections, etc. Maybe even some R&D trips down to the Caymans, Turks and Caicos Islands, Belize, etc. Contact me if interested.) - "Active Measures." More covert efforts to disrupt Clipper-type activities. Use your own imagination here. - Research the deep and disturbing links between various government programs. FinCEN and the siphoning-off of S&L funds by CIA proprietaries, the NSA's economic intelligence units and the surveillance of business dealings, the infiltration of Silicon Valley companies by government "sheep-dipped" agents, the links between the NSA and the German Bundesnachrichtendienst, the links between the Witness Protection Program and the three main credit reporting agencies (to falsify credit records, to hide assets, etc.). Granted, some of this stuff borders on "conspiracy theory" (a hobby of mine, perhaps unsurprisingly). But a lot of it is substantiated, if one knows where and how to look. James Bamford has been quoted as saying that he could fill an entire new book with the machination of the Surveillance State. And a lot more.... CONCLUSIONS We are at one of those important cusp points in history. The technologies of networks and of encryption make it very easy for exciting new structures to develop (cryptoanarchy, privacy, transnational entities, persistent organizations, anonymous systems, digital banks). But the same technologies make it possible for a cyberspatial police state to develop. The race is on. Some on this list (sometimes me, too) say "We've already won." Duncan Frissell and Sandy Sandfort often point out just how unenforceable the existing laws are, how few people comply with the tax laws, and how the internationalization of commerce has made national borders into permeable membranes. As I like to say, in my .sig, "National borders are just speed bumps on the information highway." But there are dangers of a repressive crackdown brought on by these new technologies, or as a _result_ of them. National ID cards like the "baby blue" cards the French are preparing, could allow checkpoints at all points-of-sale terminals (gotta collect sales tax, you know), monitoring of health status, and all sorts of other "security state" (both sense of the word) accouterments. The long-rumored "ban on cash" could occur, with draconian penalties for illicit cash (tax-avoiding!) transactions...confiscation of property works well here. (Some of the very same things that the crypto enthusiasts advocate, like ATMs tied to offshore bank havens, could actually be the reason cash is banned. That is, maybe they can't stop you from accessing your Bank of Caicos account, but they sure can try to make it hard for you to spend you CaicosCredits!) Who will win? I hope we will. But even the optimists--in whose camp I place myself--must surely concede the victory will not come without effort. We Cypherpunks may be remembered by generations hence as the MinuteMen of this revolution. --Tim May, who hopes to see many of you, physically or virtually, at the Saturday meeting. ........................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway." ------------------ Enclosed/Nested Letter Follows ------------------ Received: from panix.UUCP by uucp.warwick.com (5.64/3.2.083191-Warwick) id AA00600; Thu, 10 Mar 94 07:24:07 -0500 (EST) Received: from relay2.UU.NET by news.panix.com with SMTP id AA27512 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Wed, 9 Mar 1994 21:17:39 -0500 Received: from toad.com by relay2.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AAwgoe24793; Wed, 9 Mar 94 21:03:33 -0500 Received: by toad.com id AA17011; Wed, 9 Mar 94 17:57:49 PST Received: from mail.netcom.com (netcom.netcom.com) by toad.com id AA17004; Wed, 9 Mar 94 17:57:41 PST Received: from DialupEudora by mail.netcom.com (8.6.4/SMI-4.1/Netcom) id RAA27863; Wed, 9 Mar 1994 17:58:23 -0800 Message-Id: <199403100158.RAA27863@mail.netcom.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Wed, 9 Mar 1994 18:02:30 -0800 To: Cypherpunks@toad.com From: netcom.com!tcmay@panix.UUCP (Timothy C. May) Subject: The Coming Police State Sender: toad.com!owner-cypherpunks@panix.UUCP Precedence: bulk Status: O An alarmist title? Perhaps. But likely accurate. Since the theme of the upcoming Cypherpunks meeting on March 12th, with sites around the world tied together, is "politics" and since Eric Hughes has encouraged "rants," I'm making these comments now. The war is upon us. All _three_ of the major U.S. weekly news magazines have articles on cops in cyberspace, the threat of Clipper, and the fast computerization of the surveillance society. Books are being written on crypto issues (beyond the excellent Schneier book, I mean), and the issues have resonance amongst a skeptical public. Strange bedfellows, ranging from Pat Robertson and Phyllis Schlafly to civil libertarians on the other side have come out against Clipper. (I suspect had Bush won, Robertson and Schlaffly would be much quieter about Clipper, just as many Democrats are being somewhat circumspect in their criticisms of Clipper today. People need to realize this issue cuts across all party lines. Ditto for non-U.S. people as well, despite the U.S.-centric focus of these comments.) The Cypherpunks fill an important niche that none of the other major groups wants to--or are able to--fill. The EFF, CPSR, and ACLU have different skills than we have, have more money (we have _none_, of course, as an organization), and are mostly "centralized lobbying" groups (all are headquartered in Washington, D.C.). Cypherpunks are scattered around the world, with only this mailing list and the physical meetings creating any real nexus. By default, of course, the Bay Area has tended to dominate, in raw numbers, in physical meetings, and in the early history of the list, but hopefully this will change as the Cypherpunks continue to grow and as other sites become more active in their chose areas of expertise. And the Cypherpunks mailing list has an interactive mailing list filled with some of the world's best cryptographers and security experts (you know who you are), and several hundred creative folks, many of whom actually write code! Plenty of problems face us, but we have plenty of talent, too. And of course we have justice and the inevitability of technology on our side. IS A POLICE STATE REALLY COMING? "Not if we can help it," of course. But right now things look pretty grim. George Orwell got it mostly right, even in choosing a corporatist model of Britain as the setting instead of the more-expected Stalinist models of the time. (I'm an anarcho-capitalist, personally, so I have nothing against corporations _per se_. But I despise the situation of "state socialism," which is what fascism really is, in which corporations are given special rights and responsibilities in exchange for being supported or selectively rewarded by the State.) In the U.S. at least (and more on Europe and Asia later), the cyberspatial police state is no longer associated with just one political party. The Clipper program and Digital Telephony were started under the Reagan (probably_ and Bush (for sure) administrations, and now the Clinton and Gore folks have shown themselves to be enthusiastic supporters of Big Brother. The National Health Care program, perhaps temporarily stalled on a side street by the current Whitewater/Hillary circus, may have implications for this police state that are unclear....national ID cards, FinCEN-type monitoring of alcohol and tobacco purchases, even biometric identity systems. And the National Information Infrastructure, the NII, has the potential for further concentrating and regulating the presently anarchic networks. Driver's licenses for the information highway? Learner's permits? Revoked licenses for "hurtful speech" and other thoughtcrimes? WHAT ARE WE FACING? -- Digital Telephony II for easy access to _all_ communications channels. If this becomes law, expect all equipment makers to add wiretapping capabilities. All operating system makers may have to add tap points to allow government access (so much for "secure operating systems," such as Norm Hardy and others are working on). -- Clipper and its Big Brethren for easy access to the contents of files. The State will use its power to enforce standards, control exports, and punish corporations so as to ensure competitors do not arise. -- The likely criminalization (via civil forfeiture, a la the Drug War) of unapproved crypto alternatives. (As Whit Diffie has noted, this will not completely stop unapproved use, but will force it underground and marginalize it, causing most folks to so fear prosecution and forfeiture of their homes and companies that they'll avoid unapproved crypto and will help narc out others.) -- Expansion of these tools to other "New World Order" nations, including rapidly-developing systems in Germany, France, Britain, Japan, and other countries. (Reports of "family keys" being prepared for these countries, of restrictions on private use of crypto already in place in some of these countries, and of positive reaction to the American Clipper system.) -- The State getting involved in the "Digital Superhighway" increases the potential for licensing, control, speech codes, etc. For example, one can imagine "fair access" laws which ostensibly make getting on the Net easier and cheaper (not really, of course) but which come with strings attached. Limitations on pseudonyms, restrictions to only RSA-approved public keys (cf. a frightening proposal by Carl Malamud to "nationalize" public-key technology and then give every citizen his own public key...such a system would destroy most of the exciting possibilities some of us foresee and would create a complete surveillance market--this is just one possible future being bandied about by the technocrats and "policy wonks"). (I know some List members, especially those connected with the EFF, have a more charitable view of the NII. But even Mike Godwin has quipped about the "Digital Snooperhighway.") So, is it all hopeless? WHAT COULD DERAIL THE CYBERSPACE POLICE STATE? 1. Defeat of the Digital Telephony Bill. Groups like the EFF and CPSR effetively stopped the first attempt, but a new one was recently unveiled. In many ways, much worse than the first one. This one has to be stopped as well! (In general, all readers of this List should be signing the various petitions that come along, including the "I oppose Clipper" and "I support the Cantwell Bill" ones. You should make your own decisions, of course, but it is hard to imagine that any of you would be opposed to these sentiments. The key is to to make sure a significant fraction of you 700-800 readers sign these petitions! That's a hefty voting bloc, and would give Cypherpunks some additional respect or influence amongst the petition circulators.) 2. Work closely with EFF, CPSR, and other groups (ACLU?) in their efforts to stop these developments. Being that many of us know a fair amount about crypto, security, and computers, we could provide technical assistance to these organizations. (The Washington, D.C. group could, as we have often discussed, have an especially beneficial effect on the debate, as Congressional staffers could be brought up to speed by Cypherpunks in the area. Be sure to concentrate equally on Republicans and right wingers as on Democrats and left wingers!) (In my opinion, our "outlaw" image continues to serve us well. While the "suits" talk to Congresscritters, there's still a role to be played for more guerilla-oriented folks such as ourselves. Sure, there's a downside, and not all are comfortable being portrayed as "anarchists" or "cypher criminals," but that's how we got started--not that we are all either anarchists or criminals!--and there's been little pressure to change. For now, it lets us play a kind of "good cop-bad cop" game....or, "hybrid vigor," with the Cypherpunks filling a different niche than the suits of EFF and CPSR fill.) 3. Widespread repudiation of the Clipper program and its evil Big Brethren, the Capstone, Skipjack, Tessera, "iPower," and related technologies. We talk about Clipper a lot here, and about ways to defeat it, so I won't go into this here. 4. Active sabotage, to include: - Boycotts of AT&T for building Clipperphones, of VLSI Tech for building the Mykotronx chips, of National Semiconductor for building the "iPower" PCMCIA card, and of others who are becoming known for being involved (more on this later, when I am liberty to say more). (My old company, Intel, is a 20% owner of VLSI Tech, actual manufacturer of the Clipper chip--draw your own conclusions.) - "Big Brother Inside" stickers. Thanks to the several of you who actually got these stickers _made_....it was at the special meeting last April that I drew this logo on the whiteboard and then did a posting of the ASCII design. While I will not encourage you to surreptitiously place these stickers on boxes containing the products of the aforementioned companies, let your conscience be your guide. Wink. - Ridicule and "psychological warfare." I upset a few people when I called this "disinformation" a while back. I don't mean actual lies, but, rather, *creative speculation* and the sowing of doubts in people's minds. For example, most of us (safe to say, I think) understand that the real danger, the real threat, of Clipper is the imminent outlawing of alternatives to Clipper. We understand this even though the "facts" on Clipper are nominally that Clipper will be "voluntary." We "know" this is not so, both in terms of reasonable historical projections and in terms of the already-developing policies on exports which will make non-Clipper schemes much harder to export than Clipper. Hence, we need to "fill in the gaps" for people and point out to them that crypto alternatives to Clipper are likely to be banned or otherwise made nearly impossible to use. This banning may happen in various ways, ranging from outright bans on non-escrow crypto methods (yes, enforcement difficulties abound) to use of RICO and conspiracy laws to effectively make alternatives to Clipper too difficult to use--how'd you like to face subpoena of your bank records or IRS visits everytime a non-Clipper crypto scheme was detected? (IRS is understaffed, so this won't be trivial, but other things may be possible.) - Help to convince companies _not_ to use Clipjacked phones. Ideally, create a mood in which the use of Clipper marks one as a stooge of Big Brother and as not having a good work environment. (This can begin to work as potential hires ask pointedly, for example, about the Clipper policy of the company.) - Talks with journalists. We can reach far more people this way than by nearly anything else we do. Steven Levy will be at the Saturday meeting, preparing both an article on these issues, and a book for future publication (being an optimist, even I don't believe he'll be barred from publishing such a book). Other journalists are similarly interested. And the coverage by the major news magazines and newspapers is increasing, as noted above. WHAT ELSE CAN WE DO? - Increase deployment of crypto tools. Get the genie _all of the way_ out of the bottle. Make outlawing crypto too painful. Integrate PGP with standard mailers (a project that's been stalled for more than a year now). - Voice PGP or similar. A half-dozen projects are reportedly in various stages of completion. 486 PC prices are dropping into the noise, so that even dedicated Mac users (like me) can consider buying a 50 MHz or better 486 box and using it with a SoundBlaster-type processor card. But when will these systems actually appear? Time is of the essence. - New systems. I've said it before: we had some early wins with the Cypherpunks remailers, but follow-ons have been slow in coming. We often see a spate of good ideas--such as on digital money, or steganography, or the like--but then these ideas don't become "standards." This could be for a variety of reasons, so I'm not casting stones here. But it's a phenomenon we should think about and try to resolve. Let's find a way to get more "outposts" in cypherspace built, deployed, and maintained. Voice PGP, as mentioned above, would be a natural one. - Remailer sites in non-U.S. countries. This needs to be a higher priority. Get a robust remailer, using PGP or ViaCrypt PGP (for bulletproof legality reasons), in at least a dozen countries. Digital postage will help incentivize remailer operators to get into the business, to maintain the systems in a less-lackadaisical way (no offense, but seeing remailers drop like flies as student accounts expire or vanish mysteriously is not confidence-building). The "second generation remailer" stuff needs to be incorporated at least partly. - Private networks, like Little Garden, offer greater robustness against intrusions by regulatory authorities. The more of these ad hoc, anarchic nets, the less chance the State will have of (somehow) nationalizing or otherwise taking control of them. Especially if nodes are outside the U.S. - Several of us have expressed some serious interest in leaving the U.S., for various reasons. I am one of these folks. Many issues here, but creating more offshore locales for Cyperpunks activity, with good connections to other Nets, lots of encryption, etc., will be helpful. (Compiling a kind of "Cyberspace Retirement Places Rated" database is one project I am thinking of taking on after I finish the Cypherpunks FAQ. Lists of various places, their local laws and policies, tax situation, extradition treaties with the main police states, Net connections, etc. Maybe even some R&D trips down to the Caymans, Turks and Caicos Islands, Belize, etc. Contact me if interested.) - "Active Measures." More covert efforts to disrupt Clipper-type activities. Use your own imagination here. - Research the deep and disturbing links between various government programs. FinCEN and the siphoning-off of S&L funds by CIA proprietaries, the NSA's economic intelligence units and the surveillance of business dealings, the infiltration of Silicon Valley companies by government "sheep-dipped" agents, the links between the NSA and the German Bundesnachrichtendienst, the links between the Witness Protection Program and the three main credit reporting agencies (to falsify credit records, to hide assets, etc.). Granted, some of this stuff borders on "conspiracy theory" (a hobby of mine, perhaps unsurprisingly). But a lot of it is substantiated, if one knows where and how to look. James Bamford has been quoted as saying that he could fill an entire new book with the machination of the Surveillance State. And a lot more.... CONCLUSIONS We are at one of those important cusp points in history. The technologies of networks and of encryption make it very easy for exciting new structures to develop (cryptoanarchy, privacy, transnational entities, persistent organizations, anonymous systems, digital banks). But the same technologies make it possible for a cyberspatial police state to develop. The race is on. Some on this list (sometimes me, too) say "We've already won." Duncan Frissell and Sandy Sandfort often point out just how unenforceable the existing laws are, how few people comply with the tax laws, and how the internationalization of commerce has made national borders into permeable membranes. As I like to say, in my .sig, "National borders are just speed bumps on the information highway." But there are dangers of a repressive crackdown brought on by these new technologies, or as a _result_ of them. National ID cards like the "baby blue" cards the French are preparing, could allow checkpoints at all points-of-sale terminals (gotta collect sales tax, you know), monitoring of health status, and all sorts of other "security state" (both sense of the word) accouterments. The long-rumored "ban on cash" could occur, with draconian penalties for illicit cash (tax-avoiding!) transactions...confiscation of property works well here. (Some of the very same things that the crypto enthusiasts advocate, like ATMs tied to offshore bank havens, could actually be the reason cash is banned. That is, maybe they can't stop you from accessing your Bank of Caicos account, but they sure can try to make it hard for you to spend you CaicosCredits!) Who will win? I hope we will. But even the optimists--in whose camp I place myself--must surely concede the victory will not come without effort. We Cypherpunks may be remembered by generations hence as the MinuteMen of this revolution. --Tim May, who hopes to see many of you, physically or virtually, at the Saturday meeting. ........................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway." ------------------ End of Enclosed/Nested Letter ------------------ Harry Shapiro Hawk Manager of Computer Services Warwick Baker & Fiore habs@uucp.warwick.com ------------------------------ End of Extropians Digest V94 #69 ********************************