From: Mok-Kong Shen <mok-kong.shen@stud.uni-muenchen.de>
Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 04:13:58 +0800
To: Jim Choate <ravage@EINSTEIN.ssz.com>
Subject: Re: The politics of crypto archives
In-Reply-To: <199812091742.LAA18947@einstein.ssz.com>
Message-ID: <366EC969.DA01FF3F@stud.uni-muenchen.de>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Jim Choate wrote:
> 

>  > Let there be a large number of sites. If part of these fail, there
>  > are others that are successful. (Compare evolution.)
> 
>  But two sites don't reproduce to make a 3rd site, some set of sites don't
>  deny environmental resources to others, etc. etc. Your analogy is flawed on
>  many levels.

It simply means survival of the fittest.

> 
>  If the sites go down that often what motive would somebody else have if they
>  know they'll face the same sorts of problems and won't have any additional
>  resources to help them face it?
> 
>  Why would you put up a site if you knew that the 14 others before had failed
>  and that nobody would help with your legal fees when you did go down?
> 
>  It's one thing to put your neck on the block for yourself, it's a whole
>  other issue when you start asking other people to do it for your benefit
>  (they obviously don't need an archive since they have the resources already)
>  when you make it clear that you won't reimburse or otherwise recognize their
>  efforts for YOU.

We were talking about a site that has to be closed because of (new)
crypto laws, not technically down which is seldom with modern hardware.
And also you said that money is no problem!

Why you care so much about people who voluteer to run sites? They
certainly know what kind of risks that they probably face, financial
or otherwise. Do you care your neighbour who opens up a new company
and do you feel unconditionally have to give him advices?? Are you 
the one who is cleverer than all the others?


> 
>  > > > If the 'economies', 'infrastructure' 'religon' and what not of the
>  > > > countries do not (yet) affect crypto laws, why care about them? If
>  > >
>  > > They effect crypto by defintion.
>  >
>  > How, for example, can they affects the functioning of an archive, if
>  > you get the right people and machine?
> 
>  Because those machines have to be available and paid for, their utilities need
>  to exist and need to be reliable, the police need to have some sort of legal
>  boundary to cross, and you need some recognized and guaranteed legal recourse
>  for your own self defence.
> 
>  Those are just a couple of the issues involved in running a archive site.
> 
>  Things don't exist in vacuum. You naively take WAY(!!!) too much for
>  granted.
> 
>  I'll tell you what. Just as an experiment put up a CDR node for 6 months
>  and see what it's like. Keep the box up 24 hours a day, pay the electricity,
>  phone lines, domain name, etc. We're talking less than $500 total if you
>  already own a box. Such an experiment is within the reach of just about
>  any person who has sufficient resources (even students) to surf the web.
> 
>  If you don't have the infrastructure to send the email in the clear then
>  crypto won't effect that one whit. And putting up an archive that nobody
>  can get to is not worth the effort either.

Then why did you tell me previously that the finacial problem is
nothing?? Any cite connected to the internet is certainly available
everywhere as long as the machine is up.

> 
>  > > If they don't have crypto laws it's likely they don't have a lot of other
>  > > sorts of laws and the social and economic structure those laws imply. This
>  > > makes it very difficult to operate a archive with any sort of stability or
>  > > protection.
>  >
>  > It is not true that there are more gangsters in the small than in
>  > the powerful nations. What do you mean by stability (which has plenty
>  > of meanings)?
> 
>  Well of course not, the populations aren't comparable. However, it is clear
>  that smaller 3rd world countries have much more stringent regulations or
>  because the instability causes there to be no standards to regulation and
>  lack many of the protections we in the US take for granted. It makes the
>  continued existance of the archive problematic. Putting up an archive on
>  Monday only to have it go down on Tuesday is pyrrhic at best.
> 
>  I use stability in the commen political meaning. The country has a
>  political and social system that is long-lived, has a well defined mechanism
>  for transfer of power (if they even recognize transfer of power), etc.
> 
>  If you're in a situation where some rebels or other forces start lobbing
>  mortar shells into your immediate area then crypto is the least of your
>  worries. Or as in Columbia where a group drove into town, drug people out
>  into the street and shot them in the head.
> 
>  Consider S. Korea. Even though it's a democracy it's illegal to operate a
>  firewall. The closest place S. Koreans can get in many cases to a firewall
>  and network security (for groups outside of S. Korea) is Australia. Now how
>  do you expect to seriously run a crypto site when the military and police
>  have a legal authority to come rummage in your system at will? And can put
>  you in detention if you deny them that access?
> 
>  Those sorts of places are where crypto is needed but clearly can't do the
>  job for themselves.

Remember the assumption is that a site is in a country which has
yet have no crypto laws. It then runs till that country poses
crypto laws. So you can exclude your example. If a country turns
out to be unstable than the effect is that we have one site less
from that time point. If there are plenty of sites, what problem
do you see??


> 
>  > > And what about the costs and effects incurred by that person you so glibly
>  > > throw away?
>  >
>  > I suppose that running an archive is a voluntary (self-sacrificing)
>  > act of a benovolent person ready to offer his service to the public.
>  > If his site has to close down sometime later, he has to accept his
>  > bad luck. Why should you care so much minutely for him? (And you
>  > say below that the money problem is trivial!)
> 
>  No, it isn't self-sacrifice. It's sacrifice for the users of that archive.
>  Their motives are not self-centered, they're society centered. As users of
>  those archives you OWE them.
> 
>  I would suggest strongly(!) that you spend more time studying ethics and
>  morality.

If you want to discuss ethics and morality then you should better
switch to other groups where there are more people who like to hear
you.

M. K. Shen