From: Rudi Raith <rra@feilmeier.de>
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 21:35:30 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: No Subject
Message-ID: <199601041317.OAA04812@aws26.muc.feilmeier.de>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Some thoughts on the possibility or well-definedness
of banning specific (indecent?) contents on the net (or elsewhere):


1)

All contents (files) can be seen as natural numbers.
(Use your favourite encoding function.)


2)

I suppose that there is a predicate indecent_p(n), which is true if n
represents something indecent, false otherwise. (Some implementation
of such a predicate could be a police officer arresting you upon
presentation of the number to him, yielding true. :-) ) Such numbers
may be called "Indecent Numbers", their "posession", "transfer",
etc. be banned.


3)

Every natural number n can be perceived as the encryption of every other
one m (including itself) by some function enc. n = enc(m). 
(Proof by cardinality)

Examples:

Trivial enc: "If the number is n, return m."

Not so trivial enc: "Take m as a one time pad to encrypt n."


4)

As a consequence, every natural number can be perceived as the
encryption of an Indecent Number, hence should be banned, shouldn't it?


5)

The decimal representation of any irrational number (e.g. pi, e)
contains the decimal representation of every natural number
somewhere. (Proof by diagonalization.) Hence the algorithm for creating
this decimal representation should be banned, too, shoudn't it?


6)

Finally I hope this shows what great an achievement to legislation
and jurisdiction such banning might become, once established. 
This creates a universal crime (or vice?), everybody is guilty of 
automatically without the tedious procedure of seeking evidence. 
(maybe those not knowing about numbers at all be exempt?)


Virtually Yours,

Rudi Raith (raith@feilmeier.de)