From: mccoy@io.com (Jim McCoy)
Date: Mon, 28 Nov 94 15:42:42 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: A possible solution
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.941128172650.13011A-100000@discover>
Message-ID: <199411282342.RAA19093@pentagon.io.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> From: Aron Freed <s009amf@discover.wright.edu>
> On Sun, 27 Nov 1994, Rick Busdiecker wrote:
> > [...]  If someone commits a
> > `crime' without using cryptography is there less harm to society than
> > if they did use cryptography?
> 
> The use of cryptography makes it virtually impossible to know anything.

Bullshit.  Advances in technology are making many things easier to do.  In
addition to making it harder to tap into an arbitrary data communication
that is encrypted it has made actually monitoring a specific individual
much easier.  Bugs are getting much better and much more sophisticated.  It
is almost at the point where Joe Citizen-Unit can walk into a "Spy Shop
(tm)" and pick out a set of gear that will allow him to monitor his
friends, enemies, and lovers without fear of detection.  Bugs, and cameras
are getting smaller, better, and cheaper.  

The ability of the state to monitor those it suspects of breaking laws is
in no danger, and anyone who tells you that it encryption is a legitimate
threat to law enforcement is either ignorant or a liar.  What it does
prevent is "fishing expeditions"; it prevents someone from just going out
and listening in on thousands of conversations in the hopes of catching a
criminal or two.  It places the burden of proof upon the prosecutors when
it comes to gathering evidence, an American value that is older than our
current government.

> [...] You might as well get your 
> self your own arsenal of weapons because if you can't trust the govt. 
> you're going to be only trusting yourself. IF that's what ya want, do it. 
> But I want to live in a world where I can at least step outside and 
> breathe in the fresh air..

At least you can at the moment.  Who knows what may happen.  One
interesting thing about governments is that they do not last as long as
societies do and struggle to thier last gasp to prevent thier own decay
(societies in the cultural-identity/shared-values/common location sense of
the word.)  In 1917 a wacky Austrian corporal was just another cog in the
great machine of the germanic society, in less than twenty years he molded
a state that is closer to Orwell's vision than just about any we have ever
seen.  Twenty years ago an American president could subvert chunks of the
national security apparatus in the interests of maintaining his hold on
power (and he is remarkable for being the only one that has been caught,
IMHO...) 

I trust the people I work with and live with far more than I do any
government agency.  The U.S. federal governement, for example, has become
so isolated from the reality of it's own citizens that if you trust it as
much as you seem to then one day it is quite possible that you will wake up
to a very rude surprise.

Please stand in line over there with the rest of the sheep...

jim