From: nobody@hidden.net (Anonymous)
Date: Sat, 17 May 1997 23:38:53 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Re: Civil Disobediance
Message-ID: <199705171253.FAA02681@jefferson.hidden.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Thu, 15 May 1997, Adam Back wrote:
>Dr Roberts writes:
>> Perhaps there is a way to turn the training on the trainers?  Civil
>> disobediance is the best way to do this.  Were a relatively small
>> number of people, a thousand for instance, to post the "RSA in 3
>> lines" code to the world, it would be highly unlikely that anybody
>> at all would be prosecuted,

> Many 1000s of people have exported it.

This was a step in the right direction.  The response of the USG has
been to pretend it isn't happening.

However, if 1000 people announced publically and openly that on a
certain date they were all going to post it to this and similar lists,
it would have a strong political impact, particularly if followed
regularly by longer works of mathematics.  Of course, if the "RSA in 3
lines" posting is considered a done deal, it may be time to move on to
longer postings.

The fact is the USG has been reluctant to make any overt moves.
Instead, they have tried to quietly put in "the crypto fix" without
making too many waves.  Over and over again we have seen their lack of
confidence in their ability to get away with making some math illegal.
It may be the case that a number of mass postings of mathematics,
which anybody can look at and see to be harmless, is all that it will
take to finish off the whole ridiculous scheme.

Simple ridicule has its value, but what I intend is the use of
organized civil disobediance as a political action, and one which is
almost impossible for thugs to respond to, particularly in time of
peace.  The nice thing about this form of civil disobediance is that
it occurs on the Net in the most public way so that it will be very
difficult for the newspapers to misrepresent what is going on.

> Well, it does seem to me at times that people in the US are being
> too timid about the whole situation.  I mean if everyone just openly
> ignored the stupid laws, you might think they would go away by
> default, just to catch up with reality.

Ironically, the very people who lay awake at night worrying about
whether factoring is hard are the least likely to take risks!

> Much hand-wringing is spent putting no-export warnings on code,
> obfuscating the download process to discourage non-US people, and
> warning others not to export.

Nobody wants to be the first one to cross the line and be arrested.
Fortunately, posting is easy and anybody can participate.  Nobody has
to be (in any meaningful way) the first to go.

There is simply no way that the government will be able to lock up
1000s of professors, grad students, businessmen, programmers, or
politicians for sharing mathematics when in the consensual
hallucination we call the news, the country is being overrun by
violent criminals.

Maybe July 4 would be a good date?

Dr. Roberts