From: Eric Murray <ericm@lne.com>
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 1998 01:14:06 +0800
To: weidai@eskimo.com
Subject: Re: cypherpunks and guns
In-Reply-To: <19980106005136.23824@eskimo.com>
Message-ID: <199801061655.IAA23107@slack.lne.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Wei Dai writes:
> 
> I don't understand why there is so much talk about guns here lately.
> Unless someone comes up with a weapon that has some very unusual economic
> properties, individuals cannot hope to compete with governments in the
> domain of deadly force. If we have to resort to physical violence, we've
> already lost!
> 
> Think about it: if we can defend ourselves with guns, why would we need
> crypto?

I agree- the fedz will always have better firepower than any of
us.  Tim's strategy of letting them know that he won't take
a 'no-knock' raid sitting down might keep them honest.  Or it
might make them come in with 80 special agents and a heliocopter to
drop napalm on his house.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time setting up defenses against a
massive police attack- the costs are too high (expensive weapons, time
practicing on the range) and the hassle is great... who wants to
live barricaded in their house, jumping at every noise?

Better to do the things that we're good at- writing code, cracking
codes, writing about crypto-liberation ideas.

However, guns are good for a couple things- they're still useful
against non-government thugs, and they're a hell of a lot of fun.


-- 
Eric Murray  Chief Security Scientist  N*Able Technologies  www.nabletech.com
(email:  ericm  at  lne.com   or   nabletech.com)          PGP keyid:E03F65E5