RE: Symantec labels China censor-busting software as Trojan

[Tyler Durden]

Hum, well, I always kind of thought May felt/wrote that some dis-assembly of 
the state was inevitable given the possibility of strong crypto, and even in 
China I would maintain that there's already enough computer power+anonymity 
that encrypted communications can/will occur. (Remember, China is BIG...as 
big as the mainland US plus Alaska, and much of it far less accessible...and 
let's not forget that there are areas the size of Western Europe where Han 
dominance is not particularly appreciated.) I tend to agree, though that the 
bootstrapping process can be greatly retarded in the presence of a heavy 
police state....but above a certain threshold it can unfold quickly.

What I wonder if whether W and his buddies were up late drinkin' one night 
and figured out that we were nearing the threshold you speak of, a threshold 
they believed they had to save humanity from. I mean, what if just anyone 
could send any message they wanted without their government listening in? 
Someone's gotta be in charge, after all, and it better be us and not the 
ragheads 'cause God loves US and plans on sending all of them to hell unless 
they see the error of their distinctly non-American ways.

-TD

From: "Major Variola (ret)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: RE: Symantec labels China censor-busting software as Trojan
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 16:45:00 -0700
At 09:45 AM 9/15/04 -0400, Tyler Durden wrote:
>Hum. Seems the Chinese government is pretty effective at
self-preservation.
>Does this contradict the widely-held Cypherpunk belief in the
inevitability
>of deterioration of the state?
"We" have always held that a sufficiently policed state can defeat
crypto.
If the RIAA could put a vidcam in your computer room, things are easy.
If crypto is illegal, things are easy.  (We have remarked on how,
modulo stego, crypto traffic is trivial to detect with any entropy
measure.  Got PGP headers?)
China is a police state.  A state with freedom of expression ---which
does
not include much or all of Europe--- is less so.   China is also a
nukepower,
so it is likely to persist.
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