Ma questo che data ha? Il 29/dic/2013 09:46 "mutek" <[email protected]> ha scritto:
> Cypherpunk movement started as a mailing list in 1992. In 1993 Eric > Hughes publishes a “A Cypherpunk’s Manifesto” [1]. In 1994 Timothy C. May > publishes “Cypherpunks FAQ” [2]. > > Here’s an excerpt from the FAQ: > > 2.3. “What’s the ‘Big Picture’?” > > Strong crypto is here. It is widely available. It implies many changes in > the way the world works. Private channels between parties who have never > met and who never will meet are possible. Totally anonymous, unsinkable, > untraceable communications and exchanges are possible. > > Transactions can only be voluntary, since the parties are untraceable and > unknown and can withdraw at any time. This has profound implications for > the conventional approach of using the threat of force, directed against > parties by governments or by others. In particular, threats of force will > fail. > > What emerges from this is unclear, but I think it will be a form of > anarcho-capitalist market system I call “crypto anarchy.” (Voluntary > communications only, with no third parties butting in.) > > In 1998 Wei Dai publishes a proposal of “b-money”, a practical way to > enforce contractual agreements between anonymous actors [3]. He captured > the essence of the movement in an immortal quote: > > I am fascinated by Tim May’s crypto-anarchy. Unlike the communities > traditionally associated with the word “anarchy”, in a crypto-anarchy the > government is not temporarily destroyed but permanently forbidden and > permanently unnecessary. It’s a community where the threat of violence is > impotent because violence is impossible, and violence is impossible because > its participants cannot be linked to their true names or physical locations. > > In 2005 Nick Szabo publishes a proposal for “Bit gold” [4], a purely > digital collectible based on a proof-of-work algorithm borrowing ideas from > RPOW server (“Reusable proof of work”) by Hal Finney [5]. Proposal does not > mention contract enforcement mechanism, but Nick Szabo himself already > proposed several ideas about smart contracts back in the nineties [6]. > > In late 2008 Satoshi Nakamoto publishes an overview of Bitcoin [7] and on > January 3rd, 2009 releases the code and begins the blockchain. > > Bitcoin is an exact implementation of the system envisioned by Tim C. May, > Wei Dai and Nick Szabo. The only requirement is for transacting parties to > remain anonymous. If there’s no trace to physical persons, there is no > place for the violent intervention and thus the contracts can only be > enforced according to the voluntarily agreed-upon rules between the > parties. Bitcoin allows encoding these rules right in the transactions so > they are automatically enforced by the whole network. > > In practice, we cannot imagine living in full anonymity. Human beings live > in a physical world and enjoy a lot of physical things. Anonymity is not > something you can easily manage like a single encryption key. It must be > maintained via careful dissemination of one’s actions among actions of > others. And since the network activity is easily recordable, one mistake is > enough to reveal oneself. In other words, the cost of anonymity is rather > high compared to the benefits. Does this mean crypto-anarchy is an utopia? > > I would argue, it’s far from it. Cypherpunks being rigorous scientists > made a much stronger assumption than needed in practice. For transacting > parties it is enough to have costs of cheating meaningfully higher than the > cost of following the contract. If that condition holds for the majority of > the interactions in society, there will be a great incentive for people to > protect themselves against remaining rare cases of cheating thus keeping > the system sustainable. Anonymity is simply one of the ways to raise the > cost of the attack. > > Bitcoin raises the cost of many kinds of attacks, going far beyond > protecting against central banks meddling with money supply. > > First, all sorts of computational services will flourish. Machines never > need to disclose their physical locations and can freely automate both > payment verification and payments themselves. Denial-of-service and spam > can be largely eliminated by simply requiring a smallish payment for every > request. > > Second, personal services can be protected by peer-to-peer insurance > deposits [8] that quite literally raise the cost of cheating by making both > parties agree to a greater sacrifice. > > Third, in a similar manner, crowdfunding can be fully insured by allowing > raised funds to be reverted if the majority of shareholders decides to do > so. > > Finally, systemic predation by the state becomes economically impossible. > Most modern states get their funding from debasing money supply (also known > as “bond issuance”, “budget deficit”, “inflation”, “quantitative easing”, > “stimulus package”). Bitcoin-based economy simply does not allow this as it > is very cheap to store bitcoins and verify transactions yourself and > completely avoid all kinds of fraud associated with modern banking. As > central banking disappears from the state’s arsenal, federal government > activities including wars become unfunded and quickly come to an end. > > Local governments may continue their operations funded by local taxes, but > that would become increasingly voluntary. Extracting bitcoins costs much > more than protecting them. There is no highly centralized and monitored > banking network, so it’s much harder to track taxable transactions. Every > additional tax evader defunds the local police department and makes it > safer for the next person to underreport earnings if he wishes to do so. > Considering that the law enforcement is paid only a small portion of the > total budget to be extracted (50% goes to bureaucrats and the rest to other > public services), consistently extracting bits of information from millions > of individuals is unsustainable in the long run. If anyone is good at > stealing bitcoins, they are much better off doing it alone and taking all > profits for themselves. > > Governments, of course, can also tax in kind (like your underreported > Ferrari or a house), but this would be even costlier than seizing any kind > of money and those costs must be paid by the state in bitcoins that it does > not have to start with. > > If this speculation does not sound to you like a complete lunacy yet, here > is the fun part. Most governments are completely broke and can only pay > with the IOUs they print. When people start a massive run for bitcoins to > protect their wealth, everyone will be able to earn bitcoins for their > work, except those who work for the government. Policemen, public school > teachers and alike will be the first ones to notice prices rising faster > than their salaries. They will the first to change jobs or become largely > corrupt on all levels (like it was in Russia after the fall of the Soviet > Union). Bureaucrats will smell the approaching panic and, instead of trying > to retain control over the employees, will privatize as much public goods > as possible, again, exactly like during the fall of the Soviet Union. > People will see how all promised public services are either abandoned or > stolen, and this time everyone will have a method to protect their own > property and do business voluntarily and in an even safer and cheaper way > than before. Crypto-anarchy will quickly become a boring reality without > the need for anyone to remain fully anonymous. > > [1]http://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/manifesto.html > > [2]http://www.cypherpunks.to/faq/cyphernomicron/cyphernomicon.txt > > [3]http://www.weidai.com/bmoney.txt > > [4]http://unenumerated.blogspot.co.uk/2005/12/bit-gold.html > > [5]http://cryptome.org/rpow.htm > > [6]http://szabo.best.vwh.net/smart_contracts_idea.html > > [7] http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf > > [8] > http://blog.oleganza.com/post/58240549599/contracts-without-trust-or-third-parties > > > _______________________________________________ > Open > https://lists.partito-pirata.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/open > _______________________________________________ Open https://lists.partito-pirata.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/open
