Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[James A. Donald]

--
On 16 Feb 2005 at 0:30, Justin wrote:
> Judging from social dynamics and civil advancement in the 
> animal kingdom, monarchies developed first and property 
> rights were an afterthought.

Recently existent neolithic agricultural peoples, for example 
the New Guineans, seldom had kings, and frequently had no form 
of government at all other than that some people were 
considerably wealthier and more influential than others, but 
they always had private property.

This corresponds to the cattle herding people we read depicted 
in the earliest books of the old testament.  They had private 
property, wage labor, and all that from the beginning, but they 
do not develop kings until the book of Samuel, long after they 
had settled down and developed vineyards and other forms of 
sedentary agriculture: Judges 17:6 "In those days there was no 
king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes"

Thus both our recent observation of primitive peoples, and our 
written historical record, shows that private property rights 
long preceded government.

Our observations of governments being formed show that 
governments are formed primarily for the purpose of attacking 
private property rights.   You want to steal something like 
land or women, you need a really big gang. 

--digsig
 James A. Donald
 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
 of/pZSLkKATIjG0fWzPvEZnxIsBE/Q0Se80Gx178
 4LGYWiIfc2+Us4l38hwPX8mK0CR7hBpVkJ952v8/D

Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[James A. Donald]

--
James A. Donald
> > > As governments were created to smash property rights,
> > > they are always everywhere necessarily the enemy of those
> > > with property, and the greatest enemy of those with the
> > > most property.

Steve Thompson
> > Uh-huh.  Perhaps you are using the term 'government' in a
> > way that is not common to most writers of modern American
> > English?

Justin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> I think it's fair to say that governments initially formed to
> protect property rights

Where we have historical record, this is not the case.  Romulus
was made King in order that the Romans could abduct and rape
women.  William the bastard became William the conqueror by
stealing land and enserfing people.

After George Washington defeated the British, his next
operation was to crush the Whisky rebellion.   You could say
that he defeated the British in order to protect property
rights, but his next military operation was to violate property
rights, not uphold them. 

--digsig
 James A. Donald
 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
 h5r7X0d4z7lq2vVpAOdecOCy2txrOnv9O/ymDY+3
 4VE2saGBeSH+48fFJ9nuHVOypb45jH6pBBteu3f+Z

Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[Steve Thompson]

[snip]
> > Agreements and accords such as the Berne convention and the DCMA, to
> say
> > nothing of human-rights legislation, are hobbled by the toothlessness
> of
> > enforcement, pulic apathy to others' rights, and a load of convenient
> > exceptions to such rules made for the agents of state.
> 
> Okay.  So it's fair to say, then, that we have compromises between
> property rights protections and other (perceived yet imaginary?)
> property rights protections.  Which is really what it boils down to.

Absolutely.

> There's no property rights usurpation without some motive behind it.

Unless if it's by accident.

> And motives generally stem from wanting to redistribute property or deny
> it to another individual, group, or an entire nation.  Sometimes that
> property is land (the excuse for such property redistribution or denial
> of ownership is called "self determination")

Operative word:  excuse.

>  , sometimes it is
> intellectual property (the excuse is "information wants to be free")...

Or like maybe the NSA needs to steal something that they can't buy because
they "NEED" to conceal the project that requires the stolen item.  Or
maybe a wealthy interest has a commercial interest to protect and bribes
an official to steal land that threatens said interest.  Or maybe it's a
Klan member who thinks that niggers shouldn't own property, and so he
steals it.  Or perhaps it's a Xtian who believes it's God's will to deny
property rights to heathens, as a lesson in coming to God.  Or maybe it's
a bunch of fucking theives who use any excuse they have at hand to justify
their own greed.

> sometimes it's explosives (they're TOO DANGEROUS, and only terrorists
> have them... are you a terrorist?).

Sometimes it's a complete load of shit, and there's no real valid reason
that will stand intelligent scrutiny as to why some people are allowed to
do one thing that is denied to another people.

Personally, I believe that the people who run the US, the dirty ones, are
too well aware of the liabilities they have assumed as a matter of course
in their history, and who will do anything rather than face paying the
debt.  Anything.   And futher, this conclusion is not so foreign as to be
beyond comprehension, but rather represents a problem that no-one is
willing to deal with -- thus compounding the error.


Since you still aren't bothering to address messages I write in good
faith, I suggest that you should go fuck yourself.


Regards,

Steve


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Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[Steve Thompson]

 --- Justin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
> On 2005-02-16T13:31:14-0500, Steve Thompson wrote:
> >  --- "R.A. Hettinga" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
> > [snip]
> > > Property is like rights. We create it inherently, because we're
> human,
> > > it
> > > is not bestowed upon us by someone else. Particularly if that
> property
> > > is
> > > stolen from someone else at tax-time.
> > 
> > But as long as property rights are generally considered to be a tenet
> and
> > characteristic of society, excuses for officiated theft, for instance,
> > merely put a veneer of legitimacy over certain kinds of theft.  I
> doubt
> > that RMS will ever be framed, arrested and thrown in to the gulag, his
> > property confiscated; but for someone like myself, that is certainly
> an
> > option, eh?  
> 
> Is there a difference between property rights in a society like a pride
> of lions, and property rights that are respected independent of social
> status?  Or are they essentially the same?  They seem to be different,
> but I can't articulate why.  Obviously the latter needs enforcement,
> possibly courts, etc., but I can't identify a more innate difference,
> other than simply as I described it -- property rights depending on
> social status, and property rights not depending on social status.
> 
> I don't think any society has ever managed to construct a pure property
> rights system where nobody has any advantage.  Without government it's
> the strong.  With government, government agents have an advantage, and
> rich people have an advantage because they can hire smart lawyers to get
> unfair court decisions.  So maybe this is just silly, in which case I
> believe even more strongly that formal status-independent property
> rights are not the basis of government.

Whatever.  See the sentence I wrote last in my previous message.
When you grow the fuck up, drop me a line.


Regards,

Steve

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Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[Justin]

On 2005-02-16T13:31:14-0500, Steve Thompson wrote:
>  --- "R.A. Hettinga" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
> [snip]
> > Property is like rights. We create it inherently, because we're human,
> > it
> > is not bestowed upon us by someone else. Particularly if that property
> > is
> > stolen from someone else at tax-time.
> 
> But as long as property rights are generally considered to be a tenet and
> characteristic of society, excuses for officiated theft, for instance,
> merely put a veneer of legitimacy over certain kinds of theft.  I doubt
> that RMS will ever be framed, arrested and thrown in to the gulag, his
> property confiscated; but for someone like myself, that is certainly an
> option, eh?  

Is there a difference between property rights in a society like a pride
of lions, and property rights that are respected independent of social
status?  Or are they essentially the same?  They seem to be different,
but I can't articulate why.  Obviously the latter needs enforcement,
possibly courts, etc., but I can't identify a more innate difference,
other than simply as I described it -- property rights depending on
social status, and property rights not depending on social status.

I don't think any society has ever managed to construct a pure property
rights system where nobody has any advantage.  Without government it's
the strong.  With government, government agents have an advantage, and
rich people have an advantage because they can hire smart lawyers to get
unfair court decisions.  So maybe this is just silly, in which case I
believe even more strongly that formal status-independent property
rights are not the basis of government.

-- 
Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who
have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for
anything else thereafter.   --Hemingway, Esquire, April 1936

Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[Justin]

On 2005-02-16T13:18:16-0500, Steve Thompson wrote:
>  --- Justin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
> > On 2005-02-15T13:23:37-0500, Steve Thompson wrote:
> > >  --- "James A. Donald" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [snip]
> > > > As governments were created to smash property rights, they are
> > > > always everywhere necessarily the enemy of those with property,
> > > > and the greatest enemy of those with the most property.
> > > 
> > > Uh-huh.  Perhaps you are using the term 'government' in a way that
> > > is not common to most writers of modern American English?
> > 
> > I think it's fair to say that governments initially formed to
> > protect property rights (although we have no historical record of
> > such a government because it must have been before recorded history
> > began).

As I said, I think this is wrong.  Mammals other than primates recognize
property in a sense, but it depends entirely on social status.  There is
no recognition of property rights independent of social position.  If a
lion loses a fight, he loses all his property.

Chimp and gorilla communities have the beginnings of monarchy.  Yet they
don't care about religion, and their conception of property rights still
derives from their position in the social ladder.  If not primates, do
any animals besides humans recognize property rights independent of
social position?

> I think it's fair to say that governments were initially, and still
> largely remain today, the public formalisation of religious rule
> applied to the  civil sphere of existence.  It's more complicated than
> that, but generally speaking, somewhat disparate religious populations
> (protestant, catholic, jew, etc.) accepted the fiction of secular
> civil governance when in reality religious groups have tended to
> dominate the shape and direction of civil government, while professing
> to remain at arms-length.

I think it's fair to say that religion post-dates government, at least
informal government.  Maybe the first monarchs/oligarchs came up with
religious schemes to keep the peons in line, but I would think that was
incidental, as was the notion of property rights.  Both property rights
and religion depend heavily on the ability for communication, but
monarchy can be established without it.  All the monarch needs is a big
stick and an instinctual understanding of some of the principles much
later described by our good Italian friend Niccolo M.

> 'Fiction' is the operative term here, and I contend that nowhere is this
> more evident in the closed world of clandestine affairs -- civilian OR
> military.  Religion has always been about 'powerful' and educated in-sect
> sub-populations organising civil and intellectuall affairs in such a way

I think it's fair to say that religion may be more important than
property rights for keeping people in line.  But I think they're both
incidental.

> > When democratic states inevitably fold into tyranny, some of those
> > restrictions remain.  Right now most states have a strange mix of
> > property rights protections (e.g. the Berne convention and the DMCA) and
> > property rights usurpations (e.g. no right to own certain weapons; equal
> > protection).
> 
> Agreements and accords such as the Berne convention and the DCMA, to say
> nothing of human-rights legislation, are hobbled by the toothlessness of
> enforcement, pulic apathy to others' rights, and a load of convenient
> exceptions to such rules made for the agents of state.

Okay.  So it's fair to say, then, that we have compromises between
property rights protections and other (perceived yet imaginary?)
property rights protections.  Which is really what it boils down to.
There's no property rights usurpation without some motive behind it.
And motives generally stem from wanting to redistribute property or deny
it to another individual, group, or an entire nation.  Sometimes that
property is land (the excuse for such property redistribution or denial
of ownership is called "self determination"), sometimes it is
intellectual property (the excuse is "information wants to be free")...
sometimes it's explosives (they're TOO DANGEROUS, and only terrorists
have them... are you a terrorist?).

-- 
Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who
have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for
anything else thereafter.   --Hemingway, Esquire, April 1936

Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[Steve Thompson]

 --- "R.A. Hettinga" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
[snip]
> Property is like rights. We create it inherently, because we're human,
> it
> is not bestowed upon us by someone else. Particularly if that property
> is
> stolen from someone else at tax-time.

Bzzt.  I call you on your bullshit.

Supposedly by convention, individuals attach some of a set of symbol
relations to physical objects and ideas and processes.   Such relations,
when observed consistently, confer rights of posession and use to groups
or individuals.  Individuals employed by governments, as well as special
interest groups, are certainly no longer satisfied with a democratic
arrangement of property rights and have manufactured consent, as it were,
to establish a bunch of exceptions to property rights that allow for
`legalised' theft.

But as long as property rights are generally considered to be a tenet and
characteristic of society, excuses for officiated theft, for instance,
merely put a veneer of legitimacy over certain kinds of theft.  I doubt
that RMS will ever be framed, arrested and thrown in to the gulag, his
property confiscated; but for someone like myself, that is certainly an
option, eh?  


Regards,

Steve


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Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[Steve Thompson]

 --- Justin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
> On 2005-02-15T13:23:37-0500, Steve Thompson wrote:
> >  --- "James A. Donald" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
> > [snip]
> > > As governments were created to smash property rights, they are 
> > > always everywhere necessarily the enemy of those with property, 
> > > and the greatest enemy of those with the most property.
> > 
> > Uh-huh.  Perhaps you are using the term 'government' in a way that is
> not
> > common to most writers of modern American English?
> 
> I think it's fair to say that governments initially formed to protect
> property rights (although we have no historical record of such a
> government because it must have been before recorded history began).

I think it's fair to say that governments were initially, and still
largely remain today, the public formalisation of religious rule applied
to the  civil sphere of existence.  It's more complicated than that, but
generally speaking, somewhat disparate religious populations (protestant,
catholic, jew, etc.) accepted the fiction of secular civil governance when
in reality religious groups have tended to dominate the shape and
direction of civil government, while professing to remain at arms-length.

'Fiction' is the operative term here, and I contend that nowhere is this
more evident in the closed world of clandestine affairs -- civilian OR
military.  Religion has always been about 'powerful' and educated in-sect
sub-populations organising civil and intellectuall affairs in such a way
as to mobilise the serfs to the advantage of the privilaged, all the while
presenting convenient systems of fiction to the masses that are expected
to suffice as the broad official reality of society; a reality fully
accessable to some who quite naturally use their position of possibly
intellectual privilage to order the affairs of the serf/slaves.

> They then developed into monarchies which were only really set up to
> protect property rights of the ruler(s).

If I'm not mistaken, it was in Germany where the concept of public
figureheads-as-leaders was evolved to a system in which the figurehead
(king, pontiff, leader) was presented as the soruce of state power, but
who in actuality was groomed, controlled, and ruled by a non-public
contingent of privilaged political and intellectual elite who, in general,
ran the affairs of state and/or religion from the back room, so to speak.

This way of organising the public affairs of government has, I think,
roots that date back to the ancient Greeks, but is also largely in favour
today.
 
> With the advent of various quasi-democratic forms of government, the law
> has been compromised insofar as it protects property rights.  You no
> longer have a right to keep all your money (taxes), no longer have a
> right to grow 5' weeds in your front yard if you live in a city, and no
> longer have a right to own certain evil things at all, at least not
> without special governmental permission.  There were analogous
> compromises in democratic Athens and quasi-democratic Rome.

It's rather different today.  
 
> When democratic states inevitably fold into tyranny, some of those
> restrictions remain.  Right now most states have a strange mix of
> property rights protections (e.g. the Berne convention and the DMCA) and
> property rights usurpations (e.g. no right to own certain weapons; equal
> protection).

Agreements and accords such as the Berne convention and the DCMA, to say
nothing of human-rights legislation, are hobbled by the toothlessness of
enforcement, pulic apathy to others' rights, and a load of convenient
exceptions to such rules made for the agents of state.  For instance, the
copyright on my computer software was blithely subverted by the fascist
ubermench involved and responsible for the surveillance detail that I have
suffered over the past two decades.  I listened to some of these people
make excuses for stealing my intellectual property, fashioning rumours to
lessen the wrong of their theft, or 'merely' applying pressure or making
plans to 'encourage' the release of my code in the public domain so their
prior theft could be buried.  Failing that, they have simply stolen all my
computer equipment and delayed my life, possibly so my code could be
`developed' by their own programmers and a history shown -- perhaps with
the partial aim of finally accusing me of stealing "their" intellectual
property after it is released in their own product.

These people are nothing more than jack-booted thugs, and whether they are
Nazis or not is immaterial to the fact that their methods and ideology
closely resemble a modernised version of it.   Whatever the EXCUSE
offered, it is a triumph of putocratic-fascist zeaotry in the sense that
nominally modern and democratic institutions and groups in this world have
acquired some of the memes that drove the Gestapo/SS/Abwher.  There is no
excuse, but since Orwellian political and intellectual abdications and
maneuvers are quite well in fashion t

Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[R.A. Hettinga]

At 9:40 PM + 2/15/05, Justin wrote:
>I think it's fair to say that governments initially formed to protect
>property rights (although we have no historical record of such a
>government because it must have been before recorded history began).

BZZZT. Wrong answer. Governments first steal property, then control it.
Property is created when someone applies thought to matter and gets
something new. It is theirs until they exchange it for something that
someone else has, or discard it. But property is created by *individuals*,
not some collective fraud and extortion racket called a "government".


Governments are "founded" when someone creates a monopoly on force.
Actually, people use force against each other, and, in agrarian societies
at least, the natural tend in force 'markets' is towards monopoly.

We tend to get bigger governments (like political economist Mancur Olsen
says, "bandits who don't move") when people become sedentary and there's
more property to steal, and that hunter-gatherers are more anarchistic,
egalitarian, than "civilized" people. But that's more a function of the
resources a given group controls. The San bushmen, for instance, are much
more egalitarian than the Mongols, for instance, because the San have fewer
material goods to control than the Mongols did, especially after the
Mongols perfected warfare enough to control cities -- which, I suppose,
proves my point.

Property is like rights. We create it inherently, because we're human, it
is not bestowed upon us by someone else. Particularly if that property is
stolen from someone else at tax-time.

Cheers,
RAH

-- 
-
R. A. Hettinga 
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[Justin]

On 2005-02-15T21:40:34+, Justin wrote:
> On 2005-02-15T13:23:37-0500, Steve Thompson wrote:
> >  --- "James A. Donald" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
> > [snip]
> > > As governments were created to smash property rights, they are 
> > > always everywhere necessarily the enemy of those with property, 
> > > and the greatest enemy of those with the most property.
> > 
> > Uh-huh.  Perhaps you are using the term 'government' in a way that is not
> > common to most writers of modern American English?
> 
> I think it's fair to say that governments initially formed to protect
> property rights (although we have no historical record of such a
> government because it must have been before recorded history began).
> They then developed into monarchies which were only really set up to
> protect property rights of the ruler(s).

It seems I've been brainwashed by classical political science.  What I
wrote above doesn't make any sense.  Judging from social dynamics and
civil advancement in the animal kingdom, monarchies developed first and
property rights were an afterthought.

-- 
Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who
have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for
anything else thereafter.   --Hemingway, Esquire, April 1936

Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[Justin]

On 2005-02-15T13:23:37-0500, Steve Thompson wrote:
>  --- "James A. Donald" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
> [snip]
> > As governments were created to smash property rights, they are 
> > always everywhere necessarily the enemy of those with property, 
> > and the greatest enemy of those with the most property.
> 
> Uh-huh.  Perhaps you are using the term 'government' in a way that is not
> common to most writers of modern American English?

I think it's fair to say that governments initially formed to protect
property rights (although we have no historical record of such a
government because it must have been before recorded history began).
They then developed into monarchies which were only really set up to
protect property rights of the ruler(s).

With the advent of various quasi-democratic forms of government, the law
has been compromised insofar as it protects property rights.  You no
longer have a right to keep all your money (taxes), no longer have a
right to grow 5' weeds in your front yard if you live in a city, and no
longer have a right to own certain evil things at all, at least not
without special governmental permission.  There were analogous
compromises in democratic Athens and quasi-democratic Rome.

When democratic states inevitably fold into tyranny, some of those
restrictions remain.  Right now most states have a strange mix of
property rights protections (e.g. the Berne convention and the DMCA) and
property rights usurpations (e.g. no right to own certain weapons; equal
protection).

-- 
Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who
have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for
anything else thereafter.   --Hemingway, Esquire, April 1936

Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[Steve Thompson]

 --- "James A. Donald" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
[snip]
> As governments were created to smash property rights, they are 
> always everywhere necessarily the enemy of those with property, 
> and the greatest enemy of those with the most property.

Uh-huh.  Perhaps you are using the term 'government' in a way that is not
common to most writers of modern American English?


Regards,

Steve


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Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[Steve Thompson]

 --- ken <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
> James A. Donald wrote:
> 
> > The state was created to attack private property rights - to
> > steal stuff.  Some rich people are beneficiaries, but from the
> > beginning, always at the expense of other rich people.
> 
> More commonly states defend the rich against the poor.  They are 
> what underpins property rights, in the  sense of "great property" 

More of the usual bullshit, SOP for the quasi-anonymised defenders of
local trvth.

State _workers_ attack property rights; state _workers_ act to aid 'the
rich' in consolidating and concentrating property and property rights
against 'the poor'.  In exchange for a little job security, state
_workers_ have passivly evolved a neat little system which may be
exploited by knowledgeable insiders for their own malign purposes.  

Congratulations to the defenders of Truth, Freedom, and Democracy for in
effect rolling back property rights (to say nothing of human and civil
rights), in effect cancelling the legal advances brought about by the
Magna Carta and succeeding documents.  It is a testament to the success
and current fashion of reality simplification that state agents may
arbitrarily employ the tools of terrorism, appropriation and confiscation,
arbitrary detention, and not insignificantly, micromanage _de facto_
slaves according to their whims, or at least those of their privilaged
benefactors.  This is accomplished by the strategic use of pretexts --
some secret, others validated by tenets of pop culture; none of which may
be assailed by reasonable means -- to lend a veneer of legitimacy to the
acts of violence.  And in this vein I should not need to remind anyone of
the fact that theft, as much as a boot to the head or back of the neck, is
an act of violence; and no matter if it is perpetrated by seeming
officiousness by way in some farcical one-sided and secret legal process,
or by dint of a convenient and contrived necessity.  

> - until the industrial revolution that was mostly rights to land 
> other people farm or live on. Every society we know about has had 
> laws and customs defending personal property (more or less 
> successfully) but it takes political/military power to defend the 
> right to exact rent from a large estate, and state power to defend 
> that right for thousands or millions of landowners.

Uh-huh.  And what of the state of affairs where rights of property, for
example, may be subverted by fraud and the means of legal redress (no
matter how unjust, inefficient and ineffective they may be for practical
purposes) are closed off, one by one, so that the victims of state
violence are allowed NO OPTIONS or RELEIF, perhaps to start again from
scratch, but more likely to whither and die on the vine, ignored except
when it is necessary to reinforce the conditioning to ruin by the
application of a periodic boot to the back of the neck.
 
> > Again, compare the burning of Shenendoah with the Saint
> > Valentine's day massacre.  There is just no comparison.
> > Governmental crimes are stupendously larger, and much more
> > difficult to defend against.
> 
> True.
> 
> The apposite current comparison is 9/11 the most notorious piece 
> of private-enterprise violence in recent years, and the far more 
> destructive  US revenge on Afghanistan and Iraq. Which was 
> hundreds of times more destructive but hundreds of thousands of 
> times more expensive, so far less cost-effective - but in a a war 
> of attrition that might not matter so much. Of course the 
> private-enterprise AQ & their friends the Taliban booted 
> themselves into a state, of sorts in Afghanistan, with a little 
> help from their friends in Pakistan and arguable amounts of US 
> weaponry. Not that Afghanistan was the sort of place from which 
> significant amounts of tax could be collected to fund further 
> military adventures.
> 
> States can get usually get control of far larger military 
> resources than private organisations, and have fewer qualms about 
> wasting them.  Not that it makes much difference to the victims - 
> poor peasants kicked off land wanted for oilfields in West Africa 
> probably neither know nor care whether the troops who burned their 
> houses were paid by the oil companies or the local government.

And you all may cluck cluck safely in your ivory towers at the sorry state
of others affairs, pontificating (again, safely) at an intellectual remove
from the ground that is in conflict and at issue.  Obvioulsly the best way
to seem comitted to change and a solution to difficult problems without
actually risking engagement with the core matter.


This list is becoming a chore to read.  Would someone find out where Tim
May and Detwellier (for a start) are hiding, and please recommend them
back to Cypherpunks?   When such as they were active, we could be assured
of lively and entertaining debate.  These days, the air is rather too thin
to support vigorous and sincere exchange.


Regards,

Steve


_

Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[James A. Donald]

--
James A. Donald wrote:
> > The state was created to attack private property rights - 
> > to steal stuff.  Some rich people are beneficiaries, but 
> > from the beginning, always at the expense of other rich 
> > people.

On 14 Feb 2005 at 13:18, ken wrote:
> More commonly states defend the rich against the poor.  They 
> are what underpins property rights, in the  sense of "great 
> property"

Observe that rich people around the world are hiding their 
money in America, despite the fact that progressive taxes, 
speculative lawsuits and money laundering laws show the 
American government is no friend of the rich.  Still less is 
any other government a friend of the rich, or even the 
moderately well off, any more than a wolf is the friend of the 
deer.

As governments were created to smash property rights, they are 
always everywhere necessarily the enemy of those with property, 
and the greatest enemy of those with the most property.

> - until the industrial revolution that was mostly rights to 
> land other people farm or live on. Every society we know 
> about has had laws and customs defending personal property 
> (more or less successfully) but it takes political/military 
> power to defend the right to exact rent from a large estate, 
> and state power to defend that right for thousands or 
> millions of landowners.

For thousands indeed - but not for millions - which is why only 
massive state confiscation of property can create a society 
where landowners number in the mere thousands.

The old west, and australian squatters, show that fairly large
estates, texan size, can exist even in the face of active
hostility from a state that refuses to recognize those property
rights, and actively seeks to destroy them. 

--digsig
 James A. Donald
 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
 NSa2rHCplLHx15v3Gnuif4Ikp13vGHgGAD4FsQ/L
 4sfxn6VBdoXUsN8RPTiWcftpni6ER6qYlKqWLq0Ys

Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[ken]

James A. Donald wrote:

The state was created to attack private property rights - to
steal stuff.  Some rich people are beneficiaries, but from the
beginning, always at the expense of other rich people.
More commonly states defend the rich against the poor.  They are 
what underpins property rights, in the  sense of "great property" 
- until the industrial revolution that was mostly rights to land 
other people farm or live on. Every society we know about has had 
laws and customs defending personal property (more or less 
successfully) but it takes political/military power to defend the 
right to exact rent from a large estate, and state power to defend 
that right for thousands or millions of landowners.


Again, compare the burning of Shenendoah with the Saint
Valentine's day massacre.  There is just no comparison.
Governmental crimes are stupendously larger, and much more
difficult to defend against.
True.
The apposite current comparison is 9/11 the most notorious piece 
of private-enterprise violence in recent years, and the far more 
destructive  US revenge on Afghanistan and Iraq. Which was 
hundreds of times more destructive but hundreds of thousands of 
times more expensive, so far less cost-effective - but in a a war 
of attrition that might not matter so much. Of course the 
private-enterprise AQ & their friends the Taliban booted 
themselves into a state, of sorts in Afghanistan, with a little 
help from their friends in Pakistan and arguable amounts of US 
weaponry. Not that Afghanistan was the sort of place from which 
significant amounts of tax could be collected to fund further 
military adventures.

States can get usually get control of far larger military 
resources than private organisations, and have fewer qualms about 
wasting them.  Not that it makes much difference to the victims - 
poor peasants kicked off land wanted for oilfields in West Africa 
probably neither know nor care whether the troops who burned their 
houses were paid by the oil companies or the local government.

Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[R.A. Hettinga]

At 9:44 PM -0800 2/10/05, James A. Donald wrote:
>The state was created to attack private property rights - to
>steal stuff.

"A prince is a bandit who doesn't move." -- Mancur Olsen


Cheers,
RAH

-- 
-
R. A. Hettinga 
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"Camels, fleas, and princes exist everywhere."  -- Persian proverb

Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[James A. Donald]

--
James A. Donald wrote:
> > If, however, you decline to pay taxes, men with guns will 
> > attack you.
> >
> > That is the difference between private power and government 
> > power.

ken wrote:
> But in most places at most times the state is run at least
> partly by and for the rich and the owners of property and
> supports and privileges their continuing private power.

The state was created to attack private property rights - to
steal stuff.  Some rich people are beneficiaries, but from the
beginning, always at the expense of other rich people.

> And there are circumstances where private individuals send
> men with guns to attack you if you  cross them.

Compare mafia "extortion" with government "taxation".  The
mafia charges are small in proportion as their power is small.
The Gangsta disciples charged drug dealers thirty dollars a
month for protection, and, unlike the state, actually provided
protection.   The mafia cannot afford to seriously piss off its
customers, because there is no large difference between
customer firepower and mafia firepower.  The government, on the
other hand, can afford to seriously piss of its subjects.

The federal government established its monopoly of force by
burning Atlanta and Shenendoah.  Al Capone did the Saint
Valentine's day massacre.  Big difference.

> Quite a lot of them, from the feudal barons, to drug-dealers
> in modern cities, to just about anywhere out of easy reach of
> the state's police.

Again, compare the burning of Shenendoah with the Saint
Valentine's day massacre.  There is just no comparison.
Governmental crimes are stupendously larger, and much more
difficult to defend against.

--digsig
 James A. Donald
 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
 sE92+Z9bMSzulF42TGzG/hIjoDv+qod3IBzFehdT
 4O/i5gQElpUPn6EYOMIETP8gkc9EP5DSN2QYuq83i

Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[James A. Donald]

--
James A. Donald:
> > Corporate lawyers did not descend on Linux until there were 
> > enough wealthy linux users to see them in court, and send
> > in their own high priced lawyers to give them the drubbing
> > they deserved.

Eugen Leitl
> You're misinterpreting the events. Industry has so far been
> fighting with propagada only. Outside of FOSS IP wars are the
> rule.

What has happened so far is that "corporate lawyers" have lost,
and linux has won - that is to say, corporations using linux
have successfully defended their right to do so.  Compare with
what happens to tax evaders.

The state is your enemy.  The corporation is your friend.  It
was corporations that defended linux in court, and created
substantial parts of linux - for example a lot of linux was
written by IBM employees on IBM salary - presumably as an anti
microsoft measure.   Corporations deal with competition by
creating stuff, governments deal with competition by shooting
it.

The corporation is free and voluntary association.  The
alternative is state imposed association. 

--digsig
 James A. Donald
 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
 mCPvNIMCElEgaF3RT8krDyySbf6TRivdp5TOTL3/
 45fmEJA1E7SZ6GhiXjBjgr5i6tT7dfRXf3teVziId

Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[Tyler Durden]

Which reminds me...they apparently found those nickels buried in some guy's 
back yard:

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/palmbeach/sfl-pdnickels05feb05,0,5206467.story?coll=sfla-news-palm
-TD
From: "R.A. Hettinga" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: What is a cypherpunk?
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 07:37:51 -0500
At 10:55 PM -0800 2/9/05, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
>A cypherpunk is one who is amused at the phrase "illicit
>Iraqi passports".
:-).
I prefer to call them "fungible identification", myself...
Cheers,
RAH
--
-
R. A. Hettinga 
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[R.A. Hettinga]

At 10:55 PM -0800 2/9/05, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
>A cypherpunk is one who is amused at the phrase "illicit
>Iraqi passports".

:-).

I prefer to call them "fungible identification", myself...

Cheers,
RAH

-- 
-
R. A. Hettinga 
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[ken]

James A. Donald wrote:
If, however, you decline to pay taxes, men with guns will
attack you.
That is the difference between private power and government
power.
But in most places at most times the state is run at least partly 
by and for the rich and the owners of property and  supports and 
privileges their continuing private power.

And there are circumstances where private individuals send men 
with guns to attack you if you  cross them.Quite a lot of 
them, from the feudal barons, to drug-dealers in modern cities, to 
 just about anywhere out of easy reach of the state's police.

And there are places where corporations do that as well. Even 
well-run respectable British or American corporations that have 
annual reports and  shareholder's meetings.

State power and private power are different but not distinct, and 
everywhere more or less mixed up with each other and involved with 
each other, and in most places the same sorts of people have both. 
Economic power is a kind of political power.

Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[Eugen Leitl]

On Wed, Feb 09, 2005 at 04:58:22PM -0800, James A. Donald wrote:

> Corporate lawyers did not descend on Linux until there were

Corporations never saw Linux coming. Now that FOSS is on the radar
screen, you'll see lots of very obvious ramming through of IP protection in
software.

You haven't noticed the software patent charade happening in EU 
right now? It is not at all obvious who's going to win.

> enough wealthy linux users to see them in court, and send in
> their own high priced lawyers to give them the drubbing they
> deserved.

You're misinterpreting the events. Industry has so far been fighting with
propagada only. Outside of FOSS IP wars are the rule.
 
> > > If, however, you decline to pay taxes, men with guns will 
> > > attack you.
> 
> > If you ignore a kkkorporate cease & desist, men with guns
> > will get you, too.
> 
> You live in a world of your own.
> 
> In civil court, the guy with no assets has a huge advantage
> over the guy with huge assets -because the guy with huge assets

What a nice boolean universe you live in. Fact is that FOSS can be easily
DoSed by lawyers of a party with deeper pockets (basically, any party with
deeper pocket than a couple of bearded hackers).

> *cannot* send men with guns to beat him up and put him in jail
> - he can only seize the (nonexistent) assets of the guy with no
> assets.   So what we instead see is frivolous and fraudulent

Excellent strawman. Where are you getting these? I need to order a couple.

> lawsuits by people with no assets against big corporations, for
> example the silicone scam.
> 
> It is in criminal court where the guy with no assets goes
> unjustly to jail, and that is the doing of the state, not the
> corporation. 

Again, neither state nor the corporate has your wellbeing as optimization
criterium. It does frequently happen that superpersonal organization units
result in a better world than the alternatives. Then, quite often not.

We need smarter agents. 

-- 
Eugen* Leitl http://leitl.org";>leitl
__
ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144http://www.leitl.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net


pgpoQNzX1XRps.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[Major Variola (ret)]

A cypherpunk is one who is amused at the phrase "illicit
Iraqi passports".  Given that the government of .iq has been
replaced by a conquerer's puppet goverment, who exactly has authority
to issue passports there?  And why does this belief about the
1-to-1-ness of passports to meat puppets or other identities fnord
persist?

A CP is not an anarchist; and anarchists are ill defined by current
authors, since the word merely means no head, rather than no rules,
as Herr May frequently reminded.
(In fact, the rules would de facto be set by the local gangster, rather
than
a DC based gang claiming to be the head.  A better form is libertarian
archy, but that is perhaps another thread.)

A CP, removing arguable claims about political idealogy,
is one who understands the potential effects of certain
techs on societies, for good or bad.  And is not, like
a good sci fi writer, afraid to consider the consequences.

And, ideally, a CP is one who can write code, and does so,
code that might be useful for free sentients, not even
necessarily free (in the beer sense) code.  (Albeit 'tis hard to
write useful code in the uninspectable sense of not-free,
and inspectability facilitates beer-free copying )
But this is an ideal, and perhaps three meanings of "free" in
one rant is too many for most readers.


At 12:04 PM 2/7/05 -0500, R.A. Hettinga wrote:
>While officials in Baghdad and Washington berate Iraq's neighbours for
>failing to block insurgency movements across their borders, one of the
most
>dangerous security lapses thrives in Baghdad's heart - a trade in
illicit
>Iraqi passports.

Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[Major Variola (ret)]

At 10:38 PM 2/9/05 -0600, Shawn K. Quinn wrote:
>On Wed, 2005-02-09 at 09:09 -0800, James A. Donald wrote:
>> There is nothing stopping you from writing your own operating
>> system, so Linus did.
>
>Linus Torvalds didn't write the GNU OS. He wrote the Linux kernel,
which
>when added to the rest of the existing GNU OS, written by Richard
>Stallman among others, allowed a completely free operating system.
>Please don't continue to spread the misconception that Linus Torvalds
>wrote the entire (GNU) operating system.

Who gives a fuck?  RMS was fermenting in his own philosophical stew, to
put
it politely.  The shame is that BSD didn't explode like L*nux did, and
that
all that work had to be re-done, and with a nasty ATT flavor to boot
(no pun intended).

Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[Justin]

On 2005-02-09T22:38:05-0600, Shawn K. Quinn wrote:
> On Wed, 2005-02-09 at 09:09 -0800, James A. Donald wrote:
> > --
> > There is nothing stopping you from writing your own operating
> > system, so Linus did.
> 
> Linus Torvalds didn't write the GNU OS. He wrote the Linux kernel, which
> when added to the rest of the existing GNU OS, written by Richard
> Stallman among others, allowed a completely free operating system.
> Please don't continue to spread the misconception that Linus Torvalds
> wrote the entire (GNU) operating system.

I think everyone who reads Cypherpunks knows what Linus did and did not
do, and that "operating system" in JAD's post means "kernel".

-- 
Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those
who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really
care for anything else thereafter. --Hemingway, Esquire Apr/1936

Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[Shawn K. Quinn]

On Wed, 2005-02-09 at 09:09 -0800, James A. Donald wrote:
> --
> On 6 Feb 2005 at 19:18, D. Popkin wrote:
> > Yes, but Big Brother governments are not the only way such
> > "wisdom" gets imposed.  Bill Gates came close to imposing it
> > upon all of us, and if it hadn't been for Richard Stallman
> > and Linus Torvalds, we might all be suffering under that yoke
> > today.
> 
> There is nothing stopping you from writing your own operating
> system, so Linus did.

Linus Torvalds didn't write the GNU OS. He wrote the Linux kernel, which
when added to the rest of the existing GNU OS, written by Richard
Stallman among others, allowed a completely free operating system.
Please don't continue to spread the misconception that Linus Torvalds
wrote the entire (GNU) operating system.

-- 
Shawn K. Quinn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[James A. Donald]

--
James A. Donald wrote:
> > There is nothing stopping you from writing your own
> > operating system, so Linus did.

Eugen Leitl wrote
> Yes. Corporate lawyers descending upon your ass, because you
> -- allegedly -- are in violation of some IP somewhere. See
> you in court.

Corporate lawyers did not descend on Linux until there were
enough wealthy linux users to see them in court, and send in
their own high priced lawyers to give them the drubbing they
deserved.

> > If, however, you decline to pay taxes, men with guns will 
> > attack you.

> If you ignore a kkkorporate cease & desist, men with guns
> will get you, too.

You live in a world of your own.

In civil court, the guy with no assets has a huge advantage
over the guy with huge assets -because the guy with huge assets
*cannot* send men with guns to beat him up and put him in jail
- he can only seize the (nonexistent) assets of the guy with no
assets.   So what we instead see is frivolous and fraudulent
lawsuits by people with no assets against big corporations, for
example the silicone scam.

It is in criminal court where the guy with no assets goes
unjustly to jail, and that is the doing of the state, not the
corporation. 

--digsig
 James A. Donald
 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
 LHaZt4XXRKhPMhtKPS5CggL+KGd7QTAqTuygm1P1
 45bORHg+DoDEtRSoju+baDDEgsaWOIrgPHd/pMAuj

Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[Steve Thompson]

 --- Eugen Leitl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
> On Wed, Feb 09, 2005 at 09:09:56AM -0800, James A. Donald wrote:
> 
> > There is nothing stopping you from writing your own operating
> > system, so Linus did.
> 
> Yes. Corporate lawyers descending upon your ass, because you --
> allegedly --
> are in violation of some IP somewhere. See you in court.
> 
> > If, however, you decline to pay taxes, men with guns will
> > attack you.
> 
> If you ignore a kkkorporate cease & desist, men with guns will get you,
> too.
> Eventually. Corporations can play the system, whether they hire bandits,
> or
> use the legal system, or buy a politician to pass a law.
> 
> > That is the difference between private power and government
> > power.
> 
> There is no difference. Both are coercive. Some of the rules are good
> for
> you, some are good for the larger assembly of agents, some are broken on
> arrival.
> 
> We need smarter agents.

Too late.  Stupidity is an entrenched aspect of the system.

If you try to remove stupidity (assuming for the moment that
it could be done in principle) stupid men with guns will 
hunt you down and shoot you in order to protect their
jealously guarded stupidity _and_ ignorance.  For as we
all know, and particularly in non-trivial fields of 
knowledge, knowledge often implies or demands action of
a particular kind, according to the logic of the situation.

Strategic ignorance is therefore extremely valuable -- 
particularly to corrupt government and corporate officers.


Regards,

Steve


__ 
Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca

Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[Eugen Leitl]

On Wed, Feb 09, 2005 at 09:09:56AM -0800, James A. Donald wrote:

> There is nothing stopping you from writing your own operating
> system, so Linus did.

Yes. Corporate lawyers descending upon your ass, because you -- allegedly --
are in violation of some IP somewhere. See you in court.
 
> If, however, you decline to pay taxes, men with guns will
> attack you.

If you ignore a kkkorporate cease & desist, men with guns will get you, too.
Eventually. Corporations can play the system, whether they hire bandits, or
use the legal system, or buy a politician to pass a law.
 
> That is the difference between private power and government
> power.

There is no difference. Both are coercive. Some of the rules are good for
you, some are good for the larger assembly of agents, some are broken on
arrival.

We need smarter agents. 

-- 
Eugen* Leitl http://leitl.org";>leitl
__
ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144http://www.leitl.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net


pgpUxa1Qqzayq.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[James A. Donald]

--
On 6 Feb 2005 at 19:18, D. Popkin wrote:
> Yes, but Big Brother governments are not the only way such
> "wisdom" gets imposed.  Bill Gates came close to imposing it
> upon all of us, and if it hadn't been for Richard Stallman
> and Linus Torvalds, we might all be suffering under that yoke
> today.

There is nothing stopping you from writing your own operating
system, so Linus did.

If, however, you decline to pay taxes, men with guns will
attack you.

That is the difference between private power and government
power.


--digsig
 James A. Donald
 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
 IQOesrdAqVhLdsZtGiFJzVPm4eKemvE0rvMznIRG
 4e37sO5HcxzRajhvHvVBldBgvI0YdW75A0FNQwWi9

Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[Shawn K. Quinn]

On Sun, 2005-02-06 at 19:18 -0800, D. Popkin wrote:
> The true danger of TCPA is not that "free" MP3s and movies will become
> unavailable, but the de facto loss of privacy as non-TCPA gear becomes
> unavailable or prohibitively expensive.

Agreed, in part. I don't think it'll fly too well if any hardware
manufacturer builds in TCPA such that only a Microsoft-certified OS will
run on it, for one, it's a bad idea to piss off the geeks (and certainly
there's a higher geek to ordinary user ratio in the free software
world), and also this would be a great way for Microsoft to piss off
even the current (far-right Republican) administration. I would expect
the setting to disable the TCPA chip to be present in new hardware for
as long as TCPA lasts, and indeed, there may be cases where even an
ordinary user would want to disable the TCPA chip.

I personally don't trust Microsoft at all. They had their chance to keep
my trust, and they blew it, big time.

-- 
Shawn K. Quinn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Re: What is a cypherpunk?

[D. Popkin]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-

"Cypherpunks generally distrust the collectivist wisdom ..."

Yes, but Big Brother governments are not the only way such "wisdom"
gets imposed.  Bill Gates came close to imposing it upon all of us,
and if it hadn't been for Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds, we
might all be suffering under that yoke today.

The genius of Bill Gates is in knowing that most people don't notice
or care that to agree to a EULA is to make a vow of ignorance, and not
being ashamed to stoop to their level.

The true danger of TCPA is not that "free" MP3s and movies will become
unavailable, but the de facto loss of privacy as non-TCPA gear becomes
unavailable or prohibitively expensive.

D. Popkin

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RE: What is a cypherpunk?

[Steve Thompson]

 
Anonymous wrote:
>I challenge anyone here to answer the question of what it means to be
>a cypherpunk.  What are your goals?  What is your philosophy?  Do you

In this day and age, do you realy expect anyone to answer questions like
that openly and honestly?   Really.  There's a similar and simple label
that gets used and abused by people who might either be technically
competent engineers, or merely script kiddies: hacker.

These days, being a hacker is nearly enough the moral equivalent of being
a Communist in California during the Fifties.  Or a leper.  Note how the
term 'hacker' is normally used, as a perjorative, in writings and speech
found in the mainstream media.  If a journalist for Time Magazine uses the
label 'hacker' in a perjorative context, chances are that a letter-writing
campaign launched in earnest for the purpose of reclaiming the defintion
preferred by engineers, will at best produce a tiny correction buried in a
corner of a subsequent issue.  And then some other writer will make the
same mistake later.  

The same applies to the term `cyperhpunk', only the term is rarely used
outside of the Internet.  Quite frankly, I couldn't care less what label
applies to me.  I'm somewhat knowledgeable on issues that are said to be
characteristic of the focus of 'cypherpunks', but I don't pray every day
with a reading from the Cypherpunk Manifesto.

>even recognize the notion of right and wrong?  Or is it all simply a
>matter of doing whatever you can get away with, of grabbing what you can
>while you can, of looting your betters for your own short term benefit?

Depends on the person, I guess.  

>Is that what it means to be a cypherpunk today?  Because that's how it
>looks from here.

Perhaps a comprehensive survey should be done.  A comprehensive
questionaire in the form of a purity test might do it, as might something
like a geek code for 'cypherpunks'...

Do you read Applied Cryptography?
Have you ever generated a 16 kbit RSA key?
Do you have a picture of Ralph Merkle hanging on the wall in your bedroom?
etc.


Face it.  You aren't going to get straight answers to questions from
highly technical internet sophisticates, even if you ask politely.  They
have better things to do than to justify and explain their ideologies when
in fact such is easily read from the body of their work, and implicit to
their writings.
  

Regards,

Steve


__ 
Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca

RE: What is a cypherpunk?

[Tyler Durden]

Well, I agree with the general gist of this post though not it's specific 
application.

OK...a Cypherpunk ultimately believes that technology and, in particular, 
crypto give us the defacto (though, as you point out, not dejure) right to 
certain levels of self-determination and that this 'right' is ultimately 
exerted indepedent of any governing bodies. In the end, most likely despite 
any governing bodies. Moreover, it has been argued (in general fairly well, 
I think) that attempting to exert one's 'rights' through a 'democratically 
elected' mob is rarely much more than mob rule. "We have voted to ransack 
your home." OK, that I think is well understood.

BUT, an essentially Cypherpunkly philosophy does not preclude any kind of 
action in the legal/governing realm, particularly when it's recognized that 
said government can easily make it very difficult to live the way one wants. 
In other words, if Kodos is promising to start curfew laws and make 
possession or use of crypto a crime, I'll probably vote for Kang in the dim 
hopes this'll make a difference.

Things get sticky when you start talking private sector...unlike most 
Cypherpunks I don't subscribe to the doctrine that, 
"Private=Good=Proto-anarchy"...Halliburton is a quasi-government entitity, 
AFAIC, the CEO of which 'needs killing' ASAP. In the US Private industry has 
a way of entangling it's interests with that of the Feds, and vice versa, so 
I don't see any a priori argument against establishing some kind of "rear 
guard" policy to watch the merger and possibly vote once in a while. With 
Palladium it's easy to see the Feds one day busting down your doors when 
they find out you broke open the lock box and tore out their little 
citzen-monitoring daemon inside, which they put in there working with 
Microsoft.

With respect to TCPA, however, I happen to agree with you. IN particular, I 
think most people will put 2 and 2 together and remember that it was 
Microsoft in the first place that (in effect) caused a lot of the security 
problems we see. Watch mass scale defections from Microsoft the moment they 
try a lock-box approach...or rather, the moment the first big 
hack/trojan/DoS attack occurs leveraging the comfy protection of TCPA.

-TD
From: Anonymous <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: What is a cypherpunk?
Date: Sat,  5 Feb 2005 22:12:16 +0100 (CET)
Justin writes:
> No, I want the right to fair use of material I buy.  If someone sells
> DRM-only material, I won't buy it at anything approaching non-DRM
> prices.  In some cases, I won't buy it at all.
Well, that's fine, nobody's forcing you to buy anything.  But try to think
about this from a cypherpunk perspective.  "Fair use" is a government
oriented concept.  Cypherpunks generally distrust the collectivist wisdom
of Big Brother governments.  What fair use amounts to is an intrustion
of government regulation into a private contractual arrangement.  It is
saying that two people cannot contract away the right to excerpt a work
for purposes of commentary or criticism.  It says that such contracts
are invalid and unenforceable.
Now, maybe you think that is good.  Maybe you think minimum wage is
good, a similar imposition of government regulation to prevent certain
forms of contracts.  Maybe you think that free speech codes are good.
Maybe you support all kinds of government regulations that happen to
agree with your ideological preferences.
If so, you are not a cypherpunk.  May I ask, what the hell are you
doing here?
Cypherpunks support the right and ability of people to live their
own lives independent of government control.  This is the concept
of crypto anarchy.  See that word?  Anarchy - it means absence of
government.  It means freedom to make your own rules.  But part of the
modern concept of anarchy is that ownership of the self implies the
ability to make contracts and agreements to limit your own actions.
A true anarchic condition is one in which people are absolutely free
to make whatever contracts they choose.  They can even make evil,
immoral, wicked contracts that people like you do not approve of.
They can be racists, like Tim May.  They can avoid paying their taxes.
They can take less money than minimum wage for their work.  They can
practice law or medicine without a license.  And yes, they can agree to
DRM restrictions and contract away their so-called fair use rights.
One of the saddest things I've seen on this list, and I've seen it many
times, is when people say that the laws of their country give them the
right to ignore certain contractual elements that they have agreed to.
They think that it's morally right for them to ignore DRM or limitations
on fair use, because their government said so.  I can't describe how
appalling I consider this view.  That anyone, in this day and age,
could consider _government_ as an arbiter of morality is so utterly
bizarre as to be incredible.  And yet not only is this view common, it
is even expressed here on this