From: Da Mystic Homeboy <praveen@carina.unm.edu>
Date: Sat, 11 Sep 93 08:24:07 PDT
To: ld231782@longs.lance.colostate.edu (L. Detweiler)
Subject: Re: Digital warfare
In-Reply-To: <9309110548.AA06074@longs.lance.colostate.edu>
Message-ID: <9309111519.AA04072@carina.unm.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


According to L. Detweiler:
>
>Mr. McCoy <mccoy@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu> of `strong cryptography' and `anarchy':
>
>>the ability to tell the IRS where to stick thier noses than pretending it
>>would never happen in the "crypto-enlightened age" and have an opponent
>>bring it up as a point against strong crypto.
>
>I think this is absolutely baseless. Cash is just as untraceable as a
>cryptographically encoded message. Have governments collapsed on the
>existence of cash? (well, there's this thing called inflation, but
>that's something else...)
	Actually, yes.  Like it or not, most major transactions ever since
probably the fifties, are not at all done in "real money".  Its all existed
as checks, credits, assets, etc. on some bank note somewhere, and now as
ones and zeroes in the international info markets.  Cash has become a *big*
worry for governments nowadays because of the "shadow economy" thats developed
with cash.  Its completely untraceable, mostly unrecorded, and so the IRS (or
any other government agency for that matter) has NO way to know whats
Happening.  The U.S. gova'ment is losing billions of dollars because of these
transactions, and many people have seriously considered outlawing cash.  
	What would happen if all our transactions become untraceable?  
How is the government supposed to prove anything, except by becoming fascist
corporate fanatics (which is what is trying to happen right now).  Better
yet, if all our communications are in private, how are the information
companies going to get their money?  Whos going to have established credit-
the very basis of our modern kapitalism?  

>Do we really think that criminals will
>flourish if only they could get their hands on digital cash? don't
>criminals make a pretty ingenious use of all the rudimentary tools in
>use today? is lack of strong cryptography or digital cash preventing
	Up until about the 70s it was damn near impossible to enforce
what the modern day fascists call the "drug war".  This was because
the world had not become superbly networked as it is, and so, any strange
transactions or series of transactions could go virtually unnoticed.
It was only in the eighties, with the microcomputer and increased
interconnectivity, was it possible to catch, for example, money laundering.
Yet, at the same time, for "criminals" it was pretty damn hard to
communicate.  So, what happens when you have all the freedom of privacy,
and all the power of communication?  The crash of the drug war and the
governments spellbinding and gestapo-like control of the public.

>powerful new technology, despite all the rampant and paranoid fears of
>the populace, has always inherently favored virtue and order in the long run.
	Bzzzzt.  Wrong again.  All major technologies have only *increased*
freedom, not the opposite.  Technology has always caused more opportunity
to think and to do, something that holders of power have never wanted you
to do.  Of course, it also depends on what you consider being virtue.
Being a discordian/anarchist, I consider the chaos and freedom the virtue.
	
>unfortunately it will be so unlike anything in historical experience --
>so unlike any `order' we've ever imagined -- that perhaps the crude
>term `anarchy' is the most apropos of all in our vocabulary. Bush was
	Agreed, but cryptography IMNSHO, is a very strong step toward
the natural progression towards true anarchy.

>proliferation of strong cryptography.  Cryptography is not synonymous
>with tax evasion, terrorism, or utter chaos. It is simply as neutral,
>powerful, and liberating as communication itself. In fact, for the
>first time we are beginning to realize what `communication' truly entails.
>
	Again, agreed.  But, as you pointed out, the effects of communication
is more often liberating than not.  Such the same with crypto.  The reason
crypto is getting so much hype is because its the safety protection for 
communication- the true weapon against the powermongrels.