At 08:38 PM 4/12/00 -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>At 15:07 4/12/2000 -0700, Tim May wrote:
>>First, we have seen a lot of political junk discussion here lately, about
>>the tired subjects of socialism, Microsoft, Nazis, and (presumably) even
>>Heinlein.
>>
>>Second, code is indeed preferable to rhetoric.
>
>Right. Cypherpunks has turned into a spam list, in which some 80 percent
>of the posts are junk. Thoughtful folks have largely turned to some of the
>other c-lists or even (to a much lesser extent) one of the lists I run.
This is because the list has viewed such spam as "freedom of speech",
instead of what it is. A denial of service attack. Between the spam and
the script kiddies asking for bomb making recipes and the like, the
Cypherpunks list as a meaningful symbol has been destroyed.
I do not believe that this is an accident.
>I suspect it's because these subjects have become somewhat institutionalized:
>
>* Instead of obscure cypherpunk types writing in the early 90s about how
>governments will see their tax base wither because of jurisdictional
>arbitrage online etc., it's the top story
>(http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,35617,00.html) on news sites.
Yet the prediction of decrease in government power and influence has not
happened. The "withering away of the state" has not happened due to to
many people and corporations relying on the state for favors.
>* Instead of the government attempting to ban private use of crypto, a
>longtime cypherpunk fear, we've see increasing relaxation of rules. The
>Feds argue Bernstein can do whatever he wants
>(http://www.politechbot.com/p-00950.html), and we learned today the case
>has been derailed for years, as it goes back down to the district court
>for a rehearing.
This is due to the activities of those who have promoted crypto. The
reason they have not banned private use of crypto is that it would finally
reveal to all that we no longer live in a free society. It would also make
on-line e-commerce (as well as selling other vowels) an unsellable
concept. The monetary forces, as well as the Cyperpunk publicity have made
the outlawing of crypto very difficult, if not impossible in the post-IPO
world of the net.
>* Instead of digital cash taking over the world, we're all using credit
>cards. Cybercash has, I'm told, not just moved to credit cards, but it's
>even purchased a cash register -- yep, the meatspace kind -- company.
This is one I was never convinced would work. Cybercash is just too
unwieldy of a financial instrument. It is more like a money order than
cash. But they tried to treat it like cash instead of what it was. You
could not hold onto it for the fear of someone copying it and spending it.
You could not accept it without verifying it's worth. It was just a pain
to use in any meaningful sense. It is not surprising it has been abandoned.
>* Instead of Zero Knowlege, the company that wanted to be as cypherpunkly
>as possible, doing the right thing, it still has not released source code,
>it has acquired exclusive rights to key patents and said it will not
>license them freely, and it has not implemented (last I checked) basic
>features like link padding in its technology.
This is sad. Abandoning their Cypherpunk roots for a mass of IPO pottage.
>* Instead of intelligent discussions about cutting-edge topics, we get Jim
>Choate.
That is because alot of the good folk are off on other lists or doing good
in the real world. Doing, not talking, is what needs to be done now.
>Some of the cypherpunkly goals have succeeded; online privacy is certainly
>all the rage. Yet the responses seem so, well, weak, like enonymous.com's
>quaint but seriously flawed rating scheme.
>(http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,35587,00.html)
That is because of the doubletalk involved. The people making the rules
want to be able to snoop on whomever they want, but don't want the same for
themselves. There is also the large financial pressures of companies
wanting to use information as a moneymaking opportunity. (I have fought
that one for the last couple years with our former marketing department.)
Part of the problem is that privacy is being used as a buzzword, without
any real serious definitions about what is meant by the term. Privacy from
marketdroids? Privacy from the government? privacy from your neighbors?
Privacy from your employer? And who makes and enforces the rules?
>And now much of the focus is on corporate misbehavior, such as
>Doubleclick. At last week's CFP conference, everyone was nattering about
>how Big Brother is the corporation, or employer, or credit bureau,
>something that cypherpunks do not have a detailed response to (except let
>contract law sort it out, which is reasonable, but not satisfying enough
>for those who fear the unknown, or the chaos of the marketplace). Privacy
>International at CFP passed over the NSA to give its "lifetime achievement
>award" to some obscure credit bureau. Congress is holding hearings this
>week on a federal privacy commission, which would primarily regulate the
>private sector.
>(http://www.mccullagh.org/cgi-bin/photosearch.cgi?name=privacy+commission)
This is because many cypherpunks have confused support of free markets with
support of anyone doing business. They fail to realize that most current
corporations would not exist in their present form (including Microsoft)
without substantial favors and benefits from Government. Contract law does
not save you when you live in a system where the group with the most
lawyers wins or they can stall until the legal fees forces you into bankruptcy.
>That's just a symptom of the increasing bureaucratization -- if that's
>even a word -- of the Net. We all know about Microsoft hiring Ralph Reed
>(http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_709000/709254.stm) to
>lobby George Bush. That may be interesting for political types, but it's
>about as unremarkable from a cypherpunkly perspective as Netscape hiring
>Bob Dole as a spokescritter, as they did a few years back. James Glassman
>has written that "the environment that helped produce the high-tech boom
>-- low regulation, low taxes, minimal government intervention and a low
>level of corporate rent-seeking -- is changing profoundly," and maybe he's
>right. (http://www.politechbot.com/p-01067.html)
Or maybe it was inevitable once the technology became popular and profitable.
>Tim wrote a few years back -- there's no date, but I'm guessing 1995
>-- "Untraceable digital cash is here. It will become easier to use and
>more established in the next several years."
>(http://www.privacyexchange.org/iss/confpro/cfpuntraceable.html) He may
>well turn out to be correct sometime in the future, but there's scant
>evidence of it so far.
"Here" and "usable" are two different things.
>"It's going to be an exciting world," Tim wrote.
>
>Not yet.
He did not say for whom.
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