From: Tim May <tcmay@got.net>
Date: Mon, 1 Dec 1997 03:42:43 +0800
To: Lucky Green <shamrock@cypherpunks.to>
Subject: Re: Freemen and Serfs
In-Reply-To: <v03102806b0a6dbb52bae@[207.167.93.63]>
Message-ID: <v03102808b0a75dbeb8b4@[207.167.93.63]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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At 12:10 PM -0700 11/30/97, Lucky Green wrote:
>On Sun, 30 Nov 1997, Tim May wrote:
>>
>> Sure, and I've said the same thing many times. The governments of the world
>> are cracking down on "illegal thoughts," and illegal vegetables, illegal
>> defense items, illegal television programs, and on and on. At the same
>> time, bootleg channels are proliferating, copyright is being skirted, money
>> laundering is exploding, and on and on.
>
>I am told that the recent criminalization of warez has led to a rush on
>crypto by the warez crowd. A certain Internet juke box I am aware of and
>which is serving months worth of uninterupted MP3's just might add SSL
>with client certs.

And look for "copyright violators" to be sold to the public as a Fifth
Horsemen. It may be a tough sell, claiming that those who sell CD-ROMs of
Microsoft Office in Bangkok for $10 are on a par with nuclear terrorists,
but the drumbeats of the WIPO (I think it is called), the OECD, the GATT,
Software Publishers Association, etc., and  concerned interest by Clinton
and Magaziner and the rest of the Gang of the West (sorry for drifting into
Youngspeak here) will cause more crackdowns. After all, if the SPA can
initiate uninvited visits on corporations to look for unregistered copies
of WordPerfect, surely the SPA/GATT/WIPO can order raids on C2Net for
selling "unbreakable crypto" to "software pirates"?

(Cynics might see increased enforcment of Microsoft's claimed property
rights as part of the quid pro quo in the deal they eventually cut with the
Justice Department, the consent decree MS enters into AND the consent
decree Justice secretly enteres into. Such things are hardly new...it's how
the New World Order Military-Industrial Complex has _always_ conducted
business. Pressure is applied, deals are negotiated, and Cabinet officials
become senior corporate officers after leaving the Beltway Swamp...and they
don't even leave the swamp itself, except in title. )

>> The crackdown has the effect of making the sheeple even more obedient and
>> making the adventurers (the wolves?) even bolder. Technology works for
>> those who use it.
>>
>> Very Nietzscheian.
>
>Futhermore, if using crypto gets you the gas chamber and putting a
>bullet through the head of a fed gets you the gas chamber, it stands  to
>reason that more otherwise benign crypto users will be willing to put
>bullets through the heads of feds. See the war on illegal vegetables.

Yep. Some of the cops I encounter at the range and elsewhere are _very_
nervous about the War on Nearly Everything that is going on. They
understand that making more and more things felonies, and mandatory
sentencing guidelines, is turning law enforcement increasingly into a
military situation. Like Chicago during the height of Prohibition, where
the Thompson submachine gun gained fame...and for unsurprisingly similar
reasons....

Cops see the "other side" as having little to lose by responding in kind
with firefights.

(I was chatting with a guy yesterday about a Steyr SSG sniper rifle I've
had my eyes on. With a Kahles scope and match grade ammo, it's been shown
to produce 9-inch groups at 1000 yards...just the thing for reaching out
and touching someone. It turned out, after we'd talked for a while that
he's with the SWAT team for one of the local major counties. He understands
full well that many of those he may be called to go up against are
equipping themselves with the most advanced countersniping weaponry
available to anyone. )

As Lucky and others have noted, if the sentence for drug- or gun-dealing is
death, as it is in more and more countries (when bribery fails, of course),
then law enforcement will increasingly lead to Waco-type
standoffs...military firefights.

If this be war, unleash the dogs of war, or make the most of it, or however
that line goes.

--Tim May

The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^2,976,221   | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."