Sender: •••@••.••• (Kurt Guntheroth)
>Sender: •••@••.••• (Allen L Marshall)
>1. The question:
> How effective do you think government measures against encryption
>(The Clipper Chip, the EuroCouncil's recent legislation, etc.) will be
>against encrypted messages. The Internet seems to teach one thing: There
>is always another way to do it. Would this not be true of encryption?
1. The answer:
It doesn't matter. The feds want to make it illegal to keep
criminal activity a secret (ignore for a moment the effect on non-criminal
activity). If using an unescrowed or unauthorized encryption method is a
felony, the feds get what they want whether they convict you for drug
smuggling or for illegal coding. If the government has no reason to hassle
you, then your act of civil disobedience -- using unauthorized codes -- can
go unnoticed...until they want to hassle you, like if you become too much of
an irritant.
>2. The general statement:
> I believe the Internet is a threat to the power now held by
>national governments.
The internet is a "threat" to all centrally organized power, including
governments, churches, political parties, and corporations. The internet
is an *example* of a successful distributed organization. Some pretty basic
microeconomic theory predicts that distributed organizations will succeed
hierarchical ones in an environment of increasingly perfect information.
Managers, generals, priests, and politicians have power because they
control the flow of information. They will not benefit from ready
availability of information, so they will resist the changes that are
inevitably coming. But they don't have much say in the long run.
Either we (and they) retreat to the middle ages, or they watch their
power erode away to nothing. I know it *will* happen with the
certainty of natural law. I just wish I could predict the date.
I'd be soooooo rich.
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Sender: "T. Bruce Tober" <•••@••.•••>
In your message dated Thursday 28, September 1995, •••@••.•••
(Allen L Marshall) wrote :
> 2. The general statement:
> I believe the Internet is a threat to the power now held by
> national governments.
Agreed.
Why? Because the Internet, no matter how hard we try to fight it,
> causes us to think on a global level. Perhaps I'm a bit biased. I go
out
> of my way to experience the Internet as a world entity. Some never want
to
> communicate with people outside of their nations borders. They'd never
> have to.
And again.
> In the US, we seem to be entering another isolationist phase.
> Xenophobia is high, as are other forms of hatred. I think we'll fall
> behind other non-nationalist movements in the next few years, but I
believe
> a global society is unavoidable.
We can but hope.
> Would anyone like to respond to either of these? I've been writing on
the
> above statements, and I'd like to receive your opinions.
Unless we begin thinking globablly (regardless of whether we act locally or
not) very soon, we're in for an all out war in the not unforeseeable
future.
tbt
--
|Bruce Tober - •••@••.••• - B'ham, Eng|
| Publisher/Editor of The Write Byte monthly newsletter |
| WebSite address to come shortly |
| TWB - The computer newsletter specifically for Writers |
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