From 6a0494c46149e5ccea528db10c0609cb3968bd78 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Dr Washington Sanchez Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2014 12:05:31 +1000 Subject: [PATCH] Create 17-The-Future.md Chapter 17 unformatted --- 17-The-Future/17-The-Future.md | 766 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 766 insertions(+) create mode 100644 17-The-Future/17-The-Future.md diff --git a/17-The-Future/17-The-Future.md b/17-The-Future/17-The-Future.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f97ca2d --- /dev/null +++ b/17-The-Future/17-The-Future.md @@ -0,0 +1,766 @@ +17. The Future + + 17.1. copyright + THE CYPHERNOMICON: Cypherpunks FAQ and More, Version 0.666, + 1994-09-10, Copyright Timothy C. May. All rights reserved. + See the detailed disclaimer. Use short sections under "fair + use" provisions, with appropriate credit, but don't put your + name on my words. + + 17.2. SUMMARY: The Future + 17.2.1. Main Points + - where things are probably going + 17.2.2. Connections to Other Sections + 17.2.3. Where to Find Additional Information + 17.2.4. Miscellaneous Comments + + 17.3. Progress Needed + 17.3.1. "Why have most of the things Cypherpunks talk about *not* + happened?" + + Except for remailers and basic crypto, few of the main + ideas talked about for so long have actually seen any kind + of realization. There are many reasons: + A. Difficult to achieve. Both Karl Kleinpaste and Eric + Hughes implemented simple first-generation remailers in a + matter of _days_, but "digital cash" and "aptical + foddering," for example, are not quite so + straightforward. (I am of course not taking anything away + from Kleinpaste, Hughes, Helsingius, Finney, etc., just + noting that redirecting mail messages--and even + implementing PGP and things like delay, batching, etc., + into remailers--is a lot easier conceptually than DC-Nets + and the like. + B. Protocols are confusing, tough to implement. Only a tiny + fraction of the "crypto primitives" discussed at Crypto + Conferences, or in the various crypto books, have been + realized as runnable code. Building blocks like "bit + commitment" have not even--to my knowledge--been + adequately realized as reusable code. (Certainly various + groups, such as Chaum's, have cobbled-together things + like bit commitment....I just don't think there's a + consensus as to the form, and this has limited the + ability of nonspecialists to use these "objects.") + C. Semantic confusion as well. While it's fairly clear what + "encrypting" or "remailing" means, just what is a + "digital bank"? Or a "reputation server"? + D. Interoperablity is problematic. Many platforms, many + operating systems, many languages. Again, remailers and + encryption work because there is a de facto lowest common + denominator for them: the simple text block, used in e- + mail, editors, input and output from programs, etc. That + is, we all mostly know exactly what an ASCII text block + is, and crypto programs are expected to know how to + access and manipulate such blocks. This largely explains + the success of PGP across many platforms--text blocks are + the basic element. Ditto for Cypherpunks remialers, which + operate on the text blocks found in most mail systems. + The situation becomes much murkier for things like + digital money, which are not standalone objects and are + often multi-party protocols involving time delays, + offline processing, etc. + E. Lack of an economic motive. We on this list are not being + paid to develop anything, are not assisted by anyone, and + don't have the financial backing of corporations to + assist us. Since much of today's "software development" + is actually _deal-making_ and _standards negotiation_, we + are left out of lots of things. + + 17.4. Future Directions + 17.4.1. "What are some future directions?" + 17.4.2. The Future of the List + + "What can be done about these situations?" + - That is, given that the Cypherpunks list often contains + sensitive material (see above), and given that the + current membership list can be accessed by..... what can + be done? + - Move central server to non-U.S. locale + - Or to "cyberspace" (distributed network, with no central + server...like FidoNet) + - subscribers can use pseudonyms, cutouts, remailers + 17.4.3. What if encryption is outlawed? + - can uuencode (and similar), to at least slow down the + filter programs a bit (this is barely security through + obscurity, but....) + - underground movements? + - will Cypherpunks be rounded up? + 17.4.4. "Should Cypherpunks be more organized, more like the CPSR, + EFF, and EPIC?" + - Those groups largely are lobbying groups, with a staff in + Washington supported by the membership donations of + thousands or tens of thousands of dues-paying members. They + perform a valuable service, of course. + - But that is not our model, nor can it plausibly be. We were + formed as an ad hoc group to explore crypto, were dubbed + "Cypherpunks," and have since acted as a techno-grasssroots + anarchy. No staff, no dues, no elections, no official rules + and regulations, and no leadership beyond what is provided + by the power of speech (and a slight amount of "final say" + provided by the list maintainer Eric Hughes and the machine + owner, John Gilmore, with support from Hugh Daniel). + - If folks want a lobbying group, with lawyers in Washington, + they should join the EFF and/or CPSR. + - And we fill a niche they don't try to fill. + 17.4.5. Difficult to Set Directions + - an anarchy...no centralized control + - emergent interests + - everyone has some axe to grind, some temporary set of + priorities + - little economic motivation (and most have other jobs) + 17.4.6. The Heart and Soul of Cypherpunks? + + Competing Goals: + + Personal Privacy + - PGP, integration with mailers + - education + + Reducing the Power of Institutions + - whistelblowers group + - + - Crypto Anarchy + + Common Purposes + + Spreading strong crypto tools and knowledge + - PGP + + Fighting government restrictions and regulations + - Clipper/Skipjack fight was a unifying experience + + Exploring new directions in cryptology + - digital mixes, digital cash, voting + 17.4.7. Possible Directions + + Crypto Tools...make them ubiquitous "enough" so that the + genie cannot be put back in the bottle + - can worry about the politics later (socialists vs. + anarchocapitalists, etc.) (Although socialists would do + well to carefully think about the implications of + untraceable communications, digital cash, and world-wide + networks of consultants and workers--and what this does + to tax collection and social spending programs--before + they work with the libertarians and anarchocapitalists to + bring on the Crypto Millenium.) + + Education + - educating the masses about crypto + - public forums + - this was picked by the Cambridge/MIT group as their + special interest + + Lobbying + - talking to Congressional aides and committee staffers, + attending hearings, submitting briefs on proposed + legislation + - coordinating with EFF, CPSR, ACLU, etc. + - this was picked by the Washington group as their special + interest, which is compellingly appropriate (Calif. group + is simply too far away) + - Legal Challenges + + mixture of legal and illegal + - use legal tools, and illegal tools + - fallback positions + - enlist illegal users as customers...help it spread in + these channels (shown to be almost uncontrollable) + 17.4.8. Goals (as I see them) + + Get strong crypto deployed in such a way as to be + unstoppable, unrecallable + - "fire and forget" crypto + - genie out of the bottle + - Note that this does _not_ necessarily that crypto be + _widely_ deployed, though that's generally a good idea. + It may mean seeding key sites outside the U.S. with + strong crypto tools, with remailers, and with the other + acouterments. + + Monkeywrench threats to crypto freedom. + - economic sabotage of those who use statist contracts to + thwart freedom (e.g., parts of AT&T) + + direct sabotage + - someday, viruses, HERF, etc. + 17.4.9. A Vision of the Future + - encrypted, secure, untraceable communications + - hundreds of remailers, in many countries + - interwoven with ordinary traffic, ensuring that any attempt + to quash crypto would also have a dramatic effect on + business + - data havens, credit, renters, etc. + - information markets + - ability to fight wars is hindered + - U.S. is frantic, as its grip on the world loosens...Pax + Americana dies + 17.4.10. Key concepts are the way to handle the complexity of crypto + - The morass of protocols, systems, and results is best + analyzed, I think, by not losing sight of the basic + "primitives," the things about identity, security, + authentication, etc. that make crypto systems work the way + they do. + + Axiom systems, with theorems and lemmas derivable from the + axioms + - with alternate axioms giving the equivalent of "non- + Euclidean geometries" (in a sense, removing the physical + identity postulate and replacing it with the "the key is + the identity" postulate gives a new landscape of + interactions, implications, and structures). + - (Markets, local references, voluntary transactions, etc.) + - (ecologies, predators, defenders, etc.) + - (game theory, economics, etc..) + + 17.5. Net of the Future + 17.5.1. "What role, if any, will MUDs, MOOs, and Virtual Realities + play?" + - "True Names," "Snow Crash," "Shockwave Rider" + - Habitat, online services + + the interaction is far beyond just the canonical "text + messages" that systems like Digital Telephony are designed + to cope with + - where is the nexus of the message? + - what about conferences scattered around the world, in + multiple jurisdictions? + - crypto = glue, mortar, building blocks + - "rooms" = private places; issues of access control + - Unless cops are put into these various "rooms," via a + technology we can barely imagine today (agents?), it will + be essentially impossible to control what happens in these + rooms and places. Too many degrees of freedom, too many + avenues for exchange. + - cyberspaces, MUDs, virtual communities, private law, + untouchable by physical governments + 17.5.2. keyword-based + - can be spoofed by including dictionaries + 17.5.3. dig sig based (reputation-based) + 17.5.4. pools and anonymous areas may be explicitly supported + 17.5.5. better newsreaders, screens, filters + 17.5.6. Switches + - "switching fabrics" + - ATM + - Intel's flexible mesh interconnects, iWARP, etc. + - all of these will make for an exponential increase in + degrees of freedom for remailer networks (labyrinths). On- + chip remailing is esentially what is needed for Chaum's + mixes. ATM quanta (packets) are the next likely target for + remailers. + 17.5.7. "What limits on the Net are being proposed?" + - NII + + Holding carriers liable for content + - e.g., suing Compuserve or Netcom + - often done with bulletin boards + - "We have to do something!" + + Newspapers are complaining about the Four Horsemen of the + Infocalypse: + - terrorists, pedophiles, drug dealers, and money + launderers + + The "L.A. Times" opines: + - "Designers of the new Information Age were inspired by + noble dreams of free-flowing data as a global + liberating force, a true democratizing agent. Sadly, + the crooks and creeps have also climbed aboard. The + time has come for much tighter computer security. + After all, banks learned to put locks on their vaults." + ["L.A. Times," editorial, 1994-07-13] + + 17.6. The Effects of Strong Crypto on Society + 17.6.1. "What will be the effects of strong crypto, ultimately, on + the social fabric?" + - It's hard to know for sure. + + These effects seem likely: + - Starvation of government tax revenues, with concommitant + effects on welfare, spending, etc. + - increases in espioage + - trust issues + 17.6.2. The revelations of surveillance and monitoring of citizens + and corporations will serve to increase the use of + encryption, at first by people with something to hide, and + then by others. Cypherpunks are already helping by spreading + the word of these situations. + - a snowballing effect + - and various government agencies will themselves use + encryption to protect their files and their privacy + 17.6.3. People making individual moral choices + - people will make their own choices as to what to reveal, + what they think will help world peace, or the future, or + the dolphins, or whatever + - and this will be a liquid market, not just souls shouting + in the desert + - of course, not everything will be revealed, but the "mosaic + effect" ensures that mostly the truth will emerge + - every government's worst fear, that it's subjects will + decide for themselves what is secret, what is not, what can + be told to foreigners, etc. + + 17.7. New Software Tools and Programming Frameworks + 17.7.1. Needed software + - Drop-in crypto modules are a needed development. As V. + Bontchev says, "it would be nice if disk encryption + software allowed the user to plug in their own modules. + This way everybody could use whatever they trust - MDC/SHA, + MDC/MD5, DES, IDEA, whatever." [V.B., sci.crypt, 1994-07- + 01] + + Robustness + - Security and robustness are often at odds + - Files that are wiped at the first hint of intrusion + (digital flash paper), remailer sites that go down at the + first signs of trouble, and file transmission systems + that split files into multiple pieces--any one of which + can be lost, thus destroying the whole transmission--are + not exactly models of robustness. + - Error correction usually works by decreasing entropy + through redundancy, which is bad for crypto. + - The military uses elaborate (and expensive) systems to + ensure that systems do not go down, keys are not lost, + etc. Most casual users of crypto are unwilling to take + these steps. + - And so keys are lost, passphrases are forgotten (or are + written down on Post-It Notes and taped to terminals), + and remailers are taken down when operators go on + vacation. All very flaky and non-robust. + - Look at how flaky mail delivery is! + + A challenge is to create systems which are: + - robust + - not too complicated and labor-intensive to use + - where redundancy does not compromise security + + Crypto workbench + - An overused term, perhaps, but one that captures the + metaphor of a large set of tools, templates, programming + aids, etc. + + QKS and "Agents Construction Kit" (under development) + - along with Dylan, DylanAgents, Telescript, and probably + several other attempts to develop agent toolkits + - Henry Strickland is using "tcl" (sort of a scripting + language, like "perl") as a basis. + + Software crisis + - tools, languages, frameworks, environments, objects, + class libraries, methods, agents, correctness, + robustness, evolution, prototyping + + Connections between the software crisis and cryptography + - complex systems, complicated protocols + - price of being "wrong" can be very high, whether it's + an airport that can't open on time (Denver) or a + digital bank that has its assets drained in seconds + - agents, objects are hoped to be the "silver bullets" + + The need for better software methodologies + - "silver bullets" + - failures, errors, flaws, methods + - provably correct designs? (a la Viper) + - It is often said that much better methodologies are + needed for _real time programming_, due to the time- + criticality and (probably) the difficulty of doing + realistic testing. But surely the same should be said + of _financial programming_, a la the banking and + digicash schemes that interest us so much. + - "the one aspect of software that most makes it the + flaky industry it is is that it is unusual for + practitioners to study the work of others. Programmers + don't read great programs. Designers don't study + outstanding designs. The consequences ... no, just look + for yourself. [Cameron Laird, comp.software-eng, 1994- + 08-30] + + Large Software Constructs + - The software crisis becomes particularly acute when + large systems are built, such as--to apply this to + Cypherpunks issues--when digital money systems and + economies are built. + 17.7.2. Object-oriented tools + + While tres trendy, some very real gains are being reported; + more than just a buzzword, especially when combined with + other tools: + - frameworks, toolkits + + dynamic languages + - greater flexibility than with static, strongly-typed + langueages (but also less safety, usually) + - OpenStep, Visual Age, Visual Basic, Dylan, Telescript (more + agent-oriented), Lisp, Smalltalk, etc + 17.7.3. Protocol Ecologies + - Behavioral simulations of agents, digital money, spoofing, + etc. + - the world in which Alice and Bob and their crypto friends + live + - defense, attack, spoofing, impersonation, theft + - elements that are cryptographically strong (like D-H key + exchanges), but combined in complex ways that almost have + to be simulated to find weaknesses + - "middle-out" instead of "top-down" (conventional, formal) + or "bottom-up" (emergent, A-LIFE) + - like Eurisko (Lenat), except oriented toward the domain of + financial agents + 17.7.4. Use of autonomous agents (slaves?) + - "An advanced telecommunications environment offers a number + of ways to protect yourself against the problems involved + in dealing with anonymous entities in a situation in which + there is no monopoly Government.....When one's PBX finds + that one's call is not going through via a particular long + distance carrier, it automatically switches to another one. + It is easy to imagine one's intelligent agents testing + various sorts of transaction completions and switching + vendors when one fails. Professional checkers can supply + information on vendor status for a fee. After all, we don't + care if a company we are dealing with changes if its + service is unaffected." [Duncan Frissell, 1994-08-30] + 17.7.5. Tools + + "Languages within languages" is a standard way to go to + implement abstractions + - "Intermediate Design Languages" (IDLs) + - abstract concepts: such as "engines" and "futures" + - Lisp and Scheme have been favored languages for this + - other languages as well: Smalltalk, Dylan + + For crypto, this seems to be the case: abstractions + represented as classes or objects + - with programming then the selective subclassing + - and sometimes gener + + "type checking" of crypto objects is needed + - to ensure compliance with protocols, with forms expected, + etc. + - check messages for form, removal of sigs, etc. (analogous + to checking a letter before mailing for proper + addressing, for stamp, sealing, etc.) + - much of the nonrobustness of mail and crypto comes from + the problems with exception handling--things that a human + involved might be able to resolve, in conventional mail + systems + - "dead letter department"? + - Note: In the "Crypto Anarchy Game" we played in + September, 1992, many sealed messages were discarded for + being in the wrong form, lacking the remailer fee that + the remailer required, etc. Granted, human beings make + fairly poor maintainers of complex constraints....a lot + of people just kept forgetting to do what was needed. A + great time was had by all. + 17.7.6. "What programming framework features are needed?" + - What follows are definitely my opnions, even more my own + opinions than most of what I've written. Many people will + disagree. + + Needed: + - Flexibility over speed + - Rapid prototyping, to add new features + - Evolutionary approaches + - Robustness (provably correct would be nice, but...) + 17.7.7. Frameworks, Tools, Capabilities + - Nearly all the cutting-edge work in operating systems, from + "mutually suspicious cooperating processes" to "deadlock" + to "persistence," show up in the crypto areas we are + considering. + + Software of the Net vs. Software to Access the Net + - The Net--is current form adequate? + - Software for Accessing the Net + + OpenDoc and OLE + - components working together, on top of various operating + systems, on top of various hardware platforms + + Persistent Object Stores + - likely to be needed for the systems we envision + - robust, so that one's "money" doesn't evaporate when a + system is rebooted! + - interesting issues here... + - CORBA. OpenDoc, OLE II, SOM, DOE, Gemstone, etc. + + Programming Frameworks + - Dynamic languages may be very useful when details are + fuzzy, when the ideas need exploration (this is not a + call for nondeterminism, for random futzing around, but a + recognition that the precise, strongly-typed approach of + some languages may be less useful than a rich, + exploratory environment. This fits with the "ecology" + point of view. + - + + Connectivity + - needs to be more robust, not flaky the way current e-mail + is + - handshakes, agents, robust connections + - ATM, SONET, agents, etc....the "Net of the Future" + + 17.8. Complexity + 17.8.1. The shifting sands of modern, complex systems + - lots of cruft, detail...changing..related to the "software + crisis"...the very flexibilty of modern software systems + promotes the frequent changing of features and behaviors, + thus playing hob with attempts of others to understand the + structure...evolution in action + - humans who use these systems forget how the commands work, + where things are stored, how to unsubscribe from lists, + etc. (This is just one reason the various sub-lists of our + list have seldom gotten much traffic: people use what they + are most used to using, and forget the rest.) + - computer agents (scripts, programs) which use these systems + often "break" when the underlying system changes. A good + example of this are the remailer sites, and scripts to use + them. As remailer sites go up and down, as keys change, as + other things change, the scripts must change to keep pace. + - This very document is another example. Scattered throughout + are references to sites, programs, sources, etc. As time + goes by, more and more of them will (inevitably) become + obsolete. (My hope is that enough of the pointers will + point to still-extant things so as to make the pointers + remain useful. And I'll try to update/correct the bad + pointers.) + 17.8.2. "Out of Control" + - Kevin Kelly's book + - inability to have precise control, and how this is + consistent with evolution, emergent properties, limits of + formal models + - crypto, degrees of freedom + + imagine nets of the near future + - ten-fold increase in sites, users, domains + - ATM switching fabrics..granularity of transactions + changes...convergence of computing and communications... + + distributed computation ( which, by the way, surely needs + crypto security!) + - Joule, Digital Silk Road + - agents, etc. + + can't control the distribution of information + + As with the Amateur Action BBS case, access can't be + controlled. + - "The existance of gateways and proxy servers means that + there is no effective way to determine where any + information you make accessible will eventually end up. + Somebody in, say, Tennessee can easily get at an FTP + site in California through a proxy in Switzerland. + Even detailed information about what kind of + information is considered contraband in every + jurisdiction in the world won't help, unless every + *gateway* in the world has it and uses it as well." + [Stephen R. Savitzky, comp.org.eff.talk, 1994-08-08] + 17.8.3. A fertile union of cryptology, game theory, economics, and + ecology + + crypto has long ignored economics, except peripherally, as + an engineering issue (how long encryption takes, etc.) + - in particular, areas of reputation, risk, etc. have not + been treated as central idea...perhaps proper for + mathematical algorithm work + - but economics is clearly central to the systems being + planned...digital cash, data havens, remailers, etc. + + why cash works so well...locality of reference, immediate + clearing of transactions, forces computations down to + relevant units + - reduces complaints, "he made me do it" arguments...that + is, increases self-responsibility...caveat emptor + + game theory + + ripe for treatment of "Alice and Bob" sorts of + situations, in which agents with different agendas are + interacting and competing + - "defecting" as in Prisoner's Dilemma + - payoff matrices for various behaviors + - evolutionary game theory + - evolutionary learning, genetic algorithms/programmming + - protocol ecologies + + 17.9. Crypto Standards + 17.9.1. The importance of standards + - a critical role + + Part of standards is validation, test suites, etc. + - validating the features and security of a remailer, + through pings, tests, performance tests, reliability, + etc. + - thus imposing a negative hit on those who fail + + There are many ways to do this standards testing + - market reports (as with commercial chips, software) + - "seals of approval" (especially convenient with digital + sigs) + +17.10. Crypto Research + 17.10.1. Academic research continues to increase + 17.10.2. "What's the future of crypto?" + - Predicting the future is notoriously difficult. IBM didn't + think many computers would ever be sold, Western Union + passed on the chance to buy Bell's telephone patents. And + so on. The future is always cloudy, the past is always + clear and obvious. + - We'll know in 30 years which of our cypherpunkish and + cryptoanarchist predictions came to pass--and which didn't. + 17.10.3. Ciphers are somewhat like knots...the right sequence of moves + unties them, the wrong sequence only makes them more tangled. + ("Knot theory" is becoming a hot topic in math and physics + (work of Vaughn Jones, string theory, etc.) and I suspect + there are some links between knot theory and crypto.) + 17.10.4. Game theory, reputations, crypto -- a lot to be done here + - a missing link, an area not covered in academic cryptology + research + - distributed trust models, collusion, cooperation, + evolutionary game theory, ecologies, systems + 17.10.5. More advanced areas, newer approaches + + some have suggested quasigroups, Latin squares, finite + automata, etc. Quasigroups are important in the IDEA + cipher, and in some DES work. (I won't speculate furher + about an area I no almost nothing about....I'd heard of + semigroups, but not quasigroups.) + - "The "Block Mixing Transform" technology which I have + been promoting on sci.crypt for much of this spring and + summer is a Latin square technology. (This was part of + my "Large Block DES" project, which eventually produced + the "Fenced DES" cipher as a possible DES + upgrade.)....Each of the equations in a Block Mixing + Transform is the equation for a Latin square. The + multiple equations in such a transform together represent + orthogonal Latin squares. [Terry Ritter, sci.crypt, 1994- + 08-15] + + But what about for public key uses? Here's something Perry + Metzger ran across: + - ""Finte Automata, Latin arrays, and Cryptography" by Tao + Renji, Institute of Software, Academia Sinica, Beijing. + This (as yet unpublished) paper covers several + fascinating topics, including some very fast public key + methods -- unfortunately in too little detail. Hopefully + a published version will appear soon..." [P.M., + sci.crypt, 1994-08-14] + 17.10.6. Comments on crypto state of the art today vs. what is likely + to be coming + - Perry Metzger comments on today's practical difficulties: + "...can the difference between "crypto can be transforming + when the technology matures" and "crypto is mature now" be + that unobvious?....One of the reasons I'm involved with the + IETF IPSP effort is because the crypto stuff has to be + transparent and ubiquitous before it is going to be truly + useful -- in its current form its just junk. Hopefully, + later versions of PGP will also interface well with the new + standards being developed for an integrated secure message + body type in MIME. (PGP also requires some sort of scalable + and reverse mapable keyid system -- the current keyids are + not going to allow key servers to scale in a distributed + manner.) Yes, I've seen the shell scripts and the rest, and + they really require too much effort for most people -- and + at best, once you have things set up, you can now securely + read some email at some sites. I know that for myself, + given that I read a large fraction of my mail while working + at clients, where I emphatically do not trust the hardware, + every encrypted message means great inconvenience, + regardless." [Perry Metzger, 1994-08-25] + +17.11. Crypto Armageddon? Cryptageddon? + 17.11.1. "Will there be a "Waco in cyberspace"?" + - while some of us are very vocal here, and are probably + known to the authorities, this is not generally the case. + Many of the users of strong crypto will be discreet and + will not give outward appearances of being code-using + crypto anarchist cultists. + 17.11.2. Attacks to come + - "You'll see these folks attacking anonymous remailers, + cryptography, psuedonymous accounts, and other tools of + coercion-free expression and information interchange on + the net, ironically often in the name of promoting + "commerce". You'll hear them rant and rave about + "criminals" and "terrorists", as if they even had a good + clue about the laws of the thousands of jurisdictions + criss-crossed by the Internet, and as if their own attempts + to enable coercion bear no resemblance to the practice of + terrorism. The scary thing is, they really think they + have a good idea about what all those laws should be, and + they're perfectly willing to shove it down our throats, + regardless of the vast diversity of culture, intellectual, + political, and legal opinion on the planet." + [ (Nobody), libtech-l@netcom.com, + 1994-06-08] + + why I'm not sanguine about Feds + - killing Randy Weaver's wife and son from a distance, + after trumped-up weapons charges + - burning alive the Koresh compound, on trumped-up charges + of Satanism, child abuse, and wife-insulting + - seizures of boats, cars, etc., on "suspicion" of + involvement with drugs + +17.12. "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades" + 17.12.1. Despite the occasionally gloomy predictions, things look + pretty good.No guarantees, of course, but trends that are + favorable. No reason for us to rest, though. + 17.12.2. Duncan Frissell puts it this way: + - "Trade is way up. Wealth is way up. International travel + is way up. Migration is way up. Resource prices are the + lowest in human history. Communications costs are way + down. Electronics costs are way down. We are in a zero or + negative inflation environment. The quantity and quality + of goods and services offered on the markets is at an all- + time high. The percentage of the world's countries headed + by dictators is the lowest it's ever been. + + "What all this means is that political philosophies that + depend on force of arms to push people into line, will + increasingly fail to work. Rich people with choices will, + when coerced, tend to change their investments and + business affairs into a friendlier form or to move to a + friendlier environment. Choice is real. If choices + exist, they will be made. An ever higher proportion of the + world's people will be "rich" in wealth and choice as the + years go on. + + "Only a political philosophy that depends on the uncoerced + cooperation of very different people has a chance of + functioning in the future." [Duncan Frissell, 1994-09-09] + +17.13. "Will cryptography really bring on the Millenium?" + 17.13.1. Yes. And cats will move in with dogs, Snapple will rain from + the sky, and P will be shown unequal to NP. + 17.13.2. Seriously, the implications of strong privacy, of + cyberspatial economies, and of borders becoming transparent + are enormous. The way governments do business is already + changing, and this will change things even more dramatically. + The precise form may be unpredictable, but certain end states + are fairly easy to predict in broad brush strokes. + 17.13.3. "How do we know the implications of crypto are what I've + claimed?" + - We can't know the future. + - Printing, railroads, electrification + 17.13.4. "When will it all happen? When will strong crypto really + begin to have a major effect on the economy?" + + Stages: + - The Prehistoric Era. Prior to 1975. NSA and other + intelligence agencies controlled most crypto work. + Cryptography seen as a hobby. DES just starting to be + deployed by banks and financial institutions. + - The Research Era. 1975-1992. Intense interest in public + key discovery, in various protocols. Start of several + "Crypto" conferences. Work on digital money, DC-Nets, + timestamping, etc. + - The Activism Era. 1992--?? (probably 1998). PGP 2.0 + released. Cypherpunks formed. Clipper announced--meets + firestorm of protest. EFF, CPSR, EPIC, other groups. + "Wired" starts publication. Digital Telelphony, other + bills. Several attempts to start crypto businesses are + made...most founder. + - The Transition Era. After about 1999. Businesses start. + Digital cash needed for Net transactions. Networks and + computers fast enough to allow more robust protocols. Tax + havens flourish. "New Underworld Order" (credit to Claire + Sterling) flourishes. + - It is premature to expect that the current environment-- + technological and regulatory--will be beneficial to the + type of strong crypto we favor. Too many pieces are + missing. Several more advances are needed. A few more + failures are also needed (gulp!) to show better how not to + proceed. + 17.13.5. "But will crypto anarchy actually happen?" + - To a growing extent, it already is happening. Look at the + so-called illegal markets, the flows of drug money around + the world, the transfer of billions of dollars a day on + mere "chop marks," and the thriving trade in banned items. + - "Grey and black capitalism is already a major component of + international cash flows....Once adequate user friendly + software is available, the internet will accellerate this + already existing trend....Crypto anarchy is merely the + application of modern tools to assist covert capitalism." + [James Donald, 1994-08-29] + - There are arguments that a Great Crackdown is coming, that + governments will shut down illegal markets, will stop + strong crypto, will force underground economies + aboveground. This is doubtful--it's been tried for the past + several decades (or more). Prohibition merely made crime + more organized; ditto for the War on (Some) Drugs. + 17.13.6. "Has the point of no return been passed on strong crypto?" + - Actually, I think that in the U.S. at least, the point was + passed decades ago, possibly a century or more ago, and + that any hope of controlling strong crypto and private + communication evaporated long ago. Abuses by the FBI in + wiretapping Americans, and reports of NSA monitoring of + domestic communications notwithstanding, it is + essentially..... + +17.14. Loose Ends + 17.14.1. firewalls, virtual perimeters, swIPe-type encrypted tunnels, + an end to break-ins, + 17.14.2. "What kind of encryption will be used with ATM?" + - (ATM = Asynchronous Transfer Mode, not Automated Teller + Machine) + - some reports that NSA is developing standards for ATM + 17.14.3. Shapes of things to come, maybe....(laws of other countries) + + India has a fee schedule for BBS operators, e.g., they have + to pay $50,000 a year to operate a bulletin board! (This + sounds like the urban legend about the FCC planning a modem + tax, but maybe it's true.) + - "The Forum for Rights to Electronic Expression (FREE) has + been formed in India as a body dedicated to extending + fundamental rights to the electronic domain....FREE owes + its creation to an attack on Indian datacom by the Indian + government, in the form of exorbitant licence fees (a + minimum Rs. 1.5 million = US$50,000 each year for a BBS, + much higher for e-mail)." [amehta@doe.ernet.in (Dr. Arun + Mehta), forwarded by Phil Agre, comp.org.cpsr.talk, 1994- + 08-31] + - for more info: ftp.eff.org + /pub/EFF/Policy/World/India/FREE + 17.14.4. Cyberspace will need better protection + - to ensure spoofing and counterfeiting is reduced (recall + Habitat's problems with people figuring out the loopholes)