From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)
Date: Fri, 1 Oct 93 14:33:39 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: BlackNet Investigations--the Truth (fwd)
Message-ID: <9310012129.AA15204@netcom5.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Cypherians,

Here's a posting I sent to the "Extropians" list, which many of you
are already on..sorry about getting this twice.

Hit "delete" now if you are not interested in the "crypto-anarchy"
side of what we are doing. I say this because when I post on these
topics, which are apparently of interest to some, I often get notes or
postings saying "Not all of us are anarchists, so keep this stuff off
the list!"

Now we are a diverse bunch. Some of us are fairly radical libertarians
and see strong crypto as the technological tool to demolish
governments (including the U.S. government). Others of us are anti-big
business and see crypto as a means of reducing the power of large
corporations over individuals. Others are socialists, acid freaks,
even military cadets. Whatever. 

Some want to talk about using thermite bombs to melt hard disks (a
current hot topic, as it were). Others are deeply into Perl scripts,
MIME, and so on. For others, patent law and the ins and outs of the
ECPA are the big excitement. The point is, there are a lot of loosely related
items in the Cypherpunks agenda.

What follows is related to _my_ main interest, the colonization of
cyberspace and the institutions and methods which will arise. Don't
read it if it doesn't interest you.

And if you're scared that talking about using technology to bypass
laws and ultimately overthrow national governments as we know them
today will get you into trouble with the authorities or with your
company, well, then this list is probably not for you.

Me, I say what I think. Others can say what they think, too.

-Tim May



Forwarded message:
To: Extropians@extropy.org
Date: Fri, 1 Oct 93 14:06:16 -0700
From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)
Subject: BlackNet Investigations--the Truth



BlackNet Investigations Announces New Dossier Services


FLASH: BlackNet Investigations is pleased to announce the immediate
availability of dossiers from the former East Germany (DDR) and the former
Soviet Union. We have obtained tens of millions of dossiers on activists,
dissidents, extropians, and ordinary people and have meticulously scanned
and digitized the essence of these files (many of these files were already
in magnetic format, albeit primitive).

Now you can learn what the KGB had on your business associates! Now you can
discover if that little German pastry is as innocent as she seems. And you
can even find out what the GRU had on you from your visit to Vienna in
1984.

Contact us for details. Competitive rates, as always.

And coming soon: the previously secret files of the KriminalStaatsPolizei.
Plus, the now-privatized dossiers of the South American police states!

Sources close to the FBI may soon make their files available as well!

We are also negotiating with personnel at hospitals and insurance companies
to obtain black market copies of insurance records, describing in gory
detail all medical and psychiatric conditions for tens of millions of
Americans.

Onward and Upward!

-BlackNet Investigations, a Cyberspace Entity


.........


By now many of you know that BlackNet Investigations is not quite
real...yet. More than just a Klaus!-style put-on, it's a basically
plausible implication of current trends.

Some of you requested your dossiers, others even wrote threatening notes.
And a few of you even played along, saying how "shocked, simply shocked"
you were to see the dossiers compiled on you. (Thanks! You know who you
are.)

As Dave Krieger noted in his piece on BlackNet Investigations, folks need
to keep the inevitability of such dossier-based systems in mind. Others may
not "advertise" the way BlackNet does, but they're just as surely keeping
dossiers. I don't think it's overly paranoid to suggest that things you
write on Usenet, or in mailing lists like Extropians and Cypherpunks, are
being compiled by some into dossiers of sorts...call them "databases" if
you like, but they're still dossiers.

And in fact I do have a lot of Extropians and Cypherpunks postings tucked
away in places that my Mac databases can access them easily, via keyword
searches, tagged fields, etc. I'm quote sure a lot of people are doing
this, quite likely some TLA agencies.

All of the Extropians and Cypherpunks traffic for the past couple of years,
and a lot more, fits on a single 128 MB magneto-optical cartridge...and
I've got 10 or so of them. All Usenet postings are archived on CD-ROMs,
available by subscription (Walnut Creek Software, or somesuch...and maybe
multiple sources). Easy to obtain. Expect ftp sites to carry these back
postings, if they aren't already available.

In the next 10 years it'll be essentially a trivial exercise for any
person--your child, your potential employer, credit agencies, etc.--to sift
through the 20 or 30 gigabyes of Usenet traffic for a 10-year period and
look for juicy items, for admissions of unusual sexual practices, for
extreme political statements, etc. Data storage increases (CDs, DATs, MOs,
new media) and processor speed increases will make searches easy and fast.

Rather than having all this data on one's own machine, many people will
compile it into files or dossiers, and then charge access fees. Customized
searches, specialized grepping, and database "engines" optimized for search
(like the Connection Machines, the Teradata hypercubes, neural net and
fuzzy logic engines, etc.) will make this even easier.

As jurisdictions attempt to pass laws restricting these accesses, as with
the convoluted U.S. laws regarding credit, tenant (renter) credit, medical
malpractice databases, etc. (the whole credit market, in other words),
these databases will be moved offshore. Or the access may go offshore, and
then back again! (You can set up the databases in your bedroom, then sell
access through "cut-outs" that lie beyond the reach of U.S. laws.)

Private investigation as we know it today will be radically changed.
(Actually, much of current P.I. work is already accessing records and
databases, so-called "skip-tracing" work, to see where vanished people have
ended up...deadbeat dads, missing children, etc.)

Entities like BlackNet will flourish in the crypto-anarchic world of
cyberspace (or "cypherspace," as John Draper dubbed it). Positive
reputations will be of utmost importance, as we've discussed so many times.
Digital pseudonyms will of necessity become more widespread.

Offshore data havens, credit agencies that aren't restricted to the "7
years" allowed by U.S. law, repositories of stolen software, all will be
accessible by "BlackNet"-style "wormholes" (the public key access methods
that allow entities to communicate anonymously and untraceably).


Wake up and prepare for this future. Embrace it, or be left behind.


Crypto-anarchy is inevitable, and changes everything.


-Tim May


--
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: 2^756839 | Public Key: by arrangement
Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it.