The main issue centralized technologies is that they don't need to be
centralized in the first place, but they are as that warrants greater
powers to their operators. Most users and technology workers cannot even
imagine anything else ("how could you do X without one server farm for
the whole planet ?"). This is ideological/religious issue and requires
appropriate methods to deal with.
The same ideology is barrier to the legislation: the current shape of
technological solutions is presented as "natural", "mathematical', and
attempts to regulate it are ridiculed as attempts to regulate gravity.
This happens on all sides of the issue - from the ruling party that
wants to expand absolute control, mediation and sensing 24/7 onto
everyone, to crypto revelers that deny right to anyone to touch their bits.
The advanced technology has effectively become a mediator between those
who control it and the controlled ones. Any exchange between them is
first interpreted and conditioned by the (concept of the) machine. For
most people, there are things that simply cannot be said any more.
(On a personal note, I recently had exchange with a company that owes me
money, but is instead sending me threatening fraudulent bills. I talked
with their rep, she acknowledged everything and agreed with me, said
that it will take time to get my money back, but she also said that they
can not stop bills and the collection process, because "it is
automatically generated" (the phrase was repeated several times.) After
failing to find an angle to communicate the absurdity of that, I
realized that she firmly believes it, and she was getting irritated with
me for not understanding the natural inevitability of the process.)
The notion that a machine is the law is already firmly embedded. I don't
see any force changing this any time soon, so you better start equipping
yourself with your own machines instead of begging for mercy. Perhaps
the 2nd amendment needs to be expanded.
On 7/21/16, 23:14, carlo von lynX wrote:
respected we could have more laws that enforce our rights by
requiring technologies to be used in certain ways.
In particular I want to stress the untapped potential of
requiring specific protocol messages with specific contents,
that is - denying companies the ability to send encrypted or
# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
# more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
# archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
# @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: