[liberationtech] Thank You

[Yosem Companys]

Hi All,

I want to thank all of you for the wonderful emails you have sent me and
the good wishes.

I also want to thank all of you who have written to me clamoring that we
keep Liberationtech going independent of Stanford University.

I've been swamped by emails, except this time I was both happy and sad to
read them. I was sad because it is the end of an era for Stanford and our
community. But I was also happy because you have all expressed a desire to
do more to promote Liberationtech around the world, so it is the start of a
new one that may take Liberationtech to unprecedented heights now that it
can operate without Stanford restrictions.

I will try to respond to each and every one of your emails as soon as
possible. But I want you to know that I have read each one, and I truly
appreciate them.

There will be a lot to do to keep Liberationtech going, and we will need as
many volunteers as we can get to do so. So please do shoot me an email if
you'd like to volunteer with the kinds of interests and skills that you
have.

You don't need to be a "techie." We definitely need tech volunteers for
sure. But we will need people to volunteer to be moderators of mailing
lists. We will need volunteers to help us tweet Liberationtech news. And we
will need volunteers for things that I cannot even envision right now that
you may be envisioning that Liberationtech should do going forward.

If you already have a vision for Liberationtech as an independent entity,
please share it with the group.

Thank you all,
Yosem
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Re: [liberationtech] Thank You

[Griffin Boyce]

Yosem Companys wrote:

On a more serious note, I want to thank all of you for a wonderful 9
years of discussions about Liberationtech issues.


Hi Yosem,

Thanks for shepherding this list for 9 (!) years. I've really enjoyed 
the list and your moderation has been fairly hands-off, which is fairly 
rare/great.  =)  Look forward to reading your new discussion posts!


best,
Griffin

--
Accept what you cannot change, and change what you cannot accept.
PGP: 0x03cf4a0ab3c79a63
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Re: [liberationtech] Thank You

[Arzak Khan]

Dear Yosem,

You have done an awesome job and I am sure it will not end here.

Thank you for your incredible superman alike support.

With Gratitude,

Arzak

Get Outlook for Android<https://aka.ms/ghei36>


From: Wendy Dent
Sent: Friday, 24 February, 12:49
Subject: Re: [liberationtech] Thank You
To: liberationtech

You did a great job.

Thank you Yosem. I've always found your posts and moderation enlightening and 
constructive. As the new New York Times' Oscars ad says "Truth is Hard". You 
took it on, and helped it reach us.

I'm sad to learn of the end of the LiberationTech mail list, but will be happy 
to support it's liberation from here.

Warmly,

Wendy Dent




On Thu, Feb 23, 2017 at 4:46 PM, Yosem Companys 
mailto:ycompa...@gmail.com>> wrote:

Dear List Subscribers,

As of today, I have ceased to be a moderator of all Stanford Liberationtech 
lists.

I feel like Superman when he loses his powers, except I hope the ending is more 
like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUORL-bvwA0.

Just kidding. :)

On a more serious note, I want to thank all of you for a wonderful 9 years of 
discussions about Liberationtech issues.

I also want to thank you all for the arguing and jousting and name calling 
and... No, seriously, you were all great. I rarely had to step in to moderate.

Although I know some disagreed with my moderation style of letting every 
message through and only permanently moderating those who were extremely 
disruptive, I feel proud that the list always tried to ensure unfettered 
freedom of expression.

We now have approximately 4K members from around the world working to make the 
world a better place.

I am not leaving, so this is not goodbye. It's more like, "see you later." I'll 
now be a regular member and as such be able to participate much more freely in 
discussions than I was able to do when I was a moderator.

Take care, everyone, and keep up the good fight to protect pro-democracy 
activists fighting against authoritarian regimes.

Best,

Yosem

--
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change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at 
compa...@stanford.edu<mailto:compa...@stanford.edu>.


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Re: [liberationtech] Thank You

[Wendy Dent]

You did a great job.

Thank you Yosem. I've always found your posts and moderation enlightening
and constructive. As the new New York Times' Oscars ad says "Truth is
Hard". You took it on, and helped it reach us.

I'm sad to learn of the end of the LiberationTech mail list, but will be
happy to support it's liberation from here.

Warmly,

Wendy Dent




On Thu, Feb 23, 2017 at 4:46 PM, Yosem Companys  wrote:

> Dear List Subscribers,
>
> As of today, I have ceased to be a moderator of all Stanford
> Liberationtech lists.
>
> I feel like Superman when he loses his powers, except I hope the ending is
> more like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUORL-bvwA0.
>
> Just kidding. :)
>
> On a more serious note, I want to thank all of you for a wonderful 9 years
> of discussions about Liberationtech issues.
>
> I also want to thank you all for the arguing and jousting and name calling
> and... No, seriously, you were all great. I rarely had to step in to
> moderate.
>
> Although I know some disagreed with my moderation style of letting every
> message through and only permanently moderating those who were extremely
> disruptive, I feel proud that the list always tried to ensure unfettered
> freedom of expression.
>
> We now have approximately 4K members from around the world working to make
> the world a better place.
>
> I am not leaving, so this is not goodbye. It's more like, "see you later."
> I'll now be a regular member and as such be able to participate much more
> freely in discussions than I was able to do when I was a moderator.
>
> Take care, everyone, and keep up the good fight to protect pro-democracy
> activists fighting against authoritarian regimes.
>
> Best,
> Yosem
>
> --
> Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations
> of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/
> mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change
> password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
>
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Re: [liberationtech] Thank You

[Andreas Bader]

Thanks for your work, Yosem.

-Andreas


Am 24.02.2017 um 01:46 schrieb Yosem Companys:
> Dear List Subscribers,
>
> As of today, I have ceased to be a moderator of all Stanford Liberationtech
> lists.
>
> I feel like Superman when he loses his powers, except I hope the ending is
> more like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUORL-bvwA0.
>
> Just kidding. :)
>
> On a more serious note, I want to thank all of you for a wonderful 9 years
> of discussions about Liberationtech issues.
>
> I also want to thank you all for the arguing and jousting and name calling
> and... No, seriously, you were all great. I rarely had to step in to
> moderate.
>
> Although I know some disagreed with my moderation style of letting every
> message through and only permanently moderating those who were extremely
> disruptive, I feel proud that the list always tried to ensure unfettered
> freedom of expression.
>
> We now have approximately 4K members from around the world working to make
> the world a better place.
>
> I am not leaving, so this is not goodbye. It's more like, "see you later."
> I'll now be a regular member and as such be able to participate much more
> freely in discussions than I was able to do when I was a moderator.
>
> Take care, everyone, and keep up the good fight to protect pro-democracy
> activists fighting against authoritarian regimes.
>
> Best,
> Yosem
>
>
>

-- 
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Re: [liberationtech] Thank You

[Nathan of Guardian]

What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been 

Thanks, Yosem, for all the attempts at community building on such a
broad issue, and the unforgiving moderation work!

+n

On Thu, Feb 23, 2017, at 07:46 PM, Yosem Companys wrote:
> Dear List Subscribers,
> 
> As of today, I have ceased to be a moderator of all Stanford
> Liberationtech
> lists.
> 
> I feel like Superman when he loses his powers, except I hope the ending
> is
> more like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUORL-bvwA0.
> 
> Just kidding. :)
> 
> On a more serious note, I want to thank all of you for a wonderful 9
> years
> of discussions about Liberationtech issues.
> 
> I also want to thank you all for the arguing and jousting and name
> calling
> and... No, seriously, you were all great. I rarely had to step in to
> moderate.
> 
> Although I know some disagreed with my moderation style of letting every
> message through and only permanently moderating those who were extremely
> disruptive, I feel proud that the list always tried to ensure unfettered
> freedom of expression.
> 
> We now have approximately 4K members from around the world working to
> make
> the world a better place.
> 
> I am not leaving, so this is not goodbye. It's more like, "see you
> later."
> I'll now be a regular member and as such be able to participate much more
> freely in discussions than I was able to do when I was a moderator.
> 
> Take care, everyone, and keep up the good fight to protect pro-democracy
> activists fighting against authoritarian regimes.
> 
> Best,
> Yosem
> -- 
> Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations
> of list guidelines will get you moderated:
> https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech.
> Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator
> at compa...@stanford.edu.


-- 
  Nathan of Guardian
  nat...@guardianproject.info
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Re: [liberationtech] Thank You

[Yosem Companys]

I truly appreciate the kind words, Lina.

On Thu, Feb 23, 2017 at 7:40 PM, Lina Srivastava 
wrote:

> Thank you, Yosem!
> Appreciate your work.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 23, 2017 at 7:46 PM, Yosem Companys 
> wrote:
>
>> Dear List Subscribers,
>>
>> As of today, I have ceased to be a moderator of all Stanford
>> Liberationtech lists.
>>
>> I feel like Superman when he loses his powers, except I hope the ending
>> is more like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUORL-bvwA0.
>>
>> Just kidding. :)
>>
>> On a more serious note, I want to thank all of you for a wonderful 9
>> years of discussions about Liberationtech issues.
>>
>> I also want to thank you all for the arguing and jousting and name
>> calling and... No, seriously, you were all great. I rarely had to step in
>> to moderate.
>>
>> Although I know some disagreed with my moderation style of letting every
>> message through and only permanently moderating those who were extremely
>> disruptive, I feel proud that the list always tried to ensure unfettered
>> freedom of expression.
>>
>> We now have approximately 4K members from around the world working to
>> make the world a better place.
>>
>> I am not leaving, so this is not goodbye. It's more like, "see you
>> later." I'll now be a regular member and as such be able to participate
>> much more freely in discussions than I was able to do when I was a
>> moderator.
>>
>> Take care, everyone, and keep up the good fight to protect pro-democracy
>> activists fighting against authoritarian regimes.
>>
>> Best,
>> Yosem
>>
>> --
>> Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations
>> of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/m
>> ailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change
>> password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
>>
>
>
>
> --
>
> --
> Lina Srivastava
> --
> twitter   |  linkedin
>  |  facebook
>   | instagram
> 
> www.cielab.in
>
>
>
> --
> Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations
> of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/
> mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change
> password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
>
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Re: [liberationtech] Thank You

[Lina Srivastava]

Thank you, Yosem!
Appreciate your work.





On Thu, Feb 23, 2017 at 7:46 PM, Yosem Companys  wrote:

> Dear List Subscribers,
>
> As of today, I have ceased to be a moderator of all Stanford
> Liberationtech lists.
>
> I feel like Superman when he loses his powers, except I hope the ending is
> more like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUORL-bvwA0.
>
> Just kidding. :)
>
> On a more serious note, I want to thank all of you for a wonderful 9 years
> of discussions about Liberationtech issues.
>
> I also want to thank you all for the arguing and jousting and name calling
> and... No, seriously, you were all great. I rarely had to step in to
> moderate.
>
> Although I know some disagreed with my moderation style of letting every
> message through and only permanently moderating those who were extremely
> disruptive, I feel proud that the list always tried to ensure unfettered
> freedom of expression.
>
> We now have approximately 4K members from around the world working to make
> the world a better place.
>
> I am not leaving, so this is not goodbye. It's more like, "see you later."
> I'll now be a regular member and as such be able to participate much more
> freely in discussions than I was able to do when I was a moderator.
>
> Take care, everyone, and keep up the good fight to protect pro-democracy
> activists fighting against authoritarian regimes.
>
> Best,
> Yosem
>
> --
> Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations
> of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/
> mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change
> password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
>



-- 

--
Lina Srivastava
--
twitter   |  linkedin
 |  facebook
  | instagram

www.cielab.in
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[liberationtech] Thank You

[Yosem Companys]

Dear List Subscribers,

As of today, I have ceased to be a moderator of all Stanford Liberationtech
lists.

I feel like Superman when he loses his powers, except I hope the ending is
more like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUORL-bvwA0.

Just kidding. :)

On a more serious note, I want to thank all of you for a wonderful 9 years
of discussions about Liberationtech issues.

I also want to thank you all for the arguing and jousting and name calling
and... No, seriously, you were all great. I rarely had to step in to
moderate.

Although I know some disagreed with my moderation style of letting every
message through and only permanently moderating those who were extremely
disruptive, I feel proud that the list always tried to ensure unfettered
freedom of expression.

We now have approximately 4K members from around the world working to make
the world a better place.

I am not leaving, so this is not goodbye. It's more like, "see you later."
I'll now be a regular member and as such be able to participate much more
freely in discussions than I was able to do when I was a moderator.

Take care, everyone, and keep up the good fight to protect pro-democracy
activists fighting against authoritarian regimes.

Best,
Yosem
-- 
Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of 
list guidelines will get you moderated: 
https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, 
change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at 
compa...@stanford.edu.

Re: [liberationtech] Thank you for choosing cyberpunk dystopia.

[Evan Hanson]

On 2013-07-10 17:43, Eugen Leitl wrote:
> https://medium.com/surveillance-state/b804de3b5b
> 
> In a 1928 case before the Supreme Court, Olmstead v.United States,
> [...] The court ruled with the defendant

This is incorrect -- the court ruled against Olmstead, and the opinions
quoted in the piece are those of Brandeis, dissenting.

Evan
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Re: [liberationtech] Thank you for choosing cyberpunk dystopia.

[armersuender]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Reading through this: I was about it remark that, while sometimes
reworded, the thoughts and even sentences were ripped from talks given
by Marlenspike and Appelbaum. I was very pleased to have seen the
disclaimer at the end of the article. Kudos to give credit where
credit's due.

- -RJ
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Re: [liberationtech] Thank you for choosing cyberpunk dystopia.

[LilBambi]

Shava you are like a breath of fresh air after dealing with the so called
normal people and government idiocracy.

Like Spike, I very much look forward to reading your posts.


On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 4:13 PM, Spike (Chris Foote) wrote:

>
> Thank you Shava,
>
> I so look forward to reading your posts.
>
> Spike
>
>
> On 10/07/2013 20:07, Shava Nerad wrote:
>
>> I have to say, this is why I am proposing we must turn to traditional
>> community organizing, using the net only as a means of totally
>> transparent communications at this point for organizing facilitations.
>>
>> We have a strong history in this country of successful insurgent formal
>> nonviolent social movements.  And I am afraid if we do not mobilize the
>> consequences are in fact dystopian.
>>
>> We have two generations essentially detached not only from civic
>> activism but largely from the social contract in general.  I feel as
>> though society is inviting renewal or despotism.
>>
>> So, what are we looking at?  The vague shadows of a Spanish Civil War?
>> I hope the hell not.  Shadows of 1930s Germany is what I hear more
>> often, ducking Godwin, but just reporting.
>>
>> The point is that there is one piece of compassion we might have here:
>> while we are horrified as activists in a democracy in America regarding
>> our government, our government -- our friends and people we see not as
>> friends -- is somewhat justifiably horrified looking over our shoulders
>> at the electorate.
>>
>> Government can not change the electorate in a democracy -- at least, not
>> quickly.  That really only works the other way around.
>>
>> Our people do not understand their own government any more.  They have
>> been reality engineered into a market-of-votes. Elections here are
>> transmedia, and are game theoried to death.  Party platforms are minor
>> lore and backstory.  Political principals that actually relate to real
>> world consequences have very little place in electoral politics except
>> as they are adopted as plot elements in the transmedia drama, which
>> often holds no reliance, especially, on facts.
>>
>> If you have felt like every bit of this has been social engineering
>> since about Clinton and Gingrich started influencing their parties, I
>> think you would be right.  Both men are very fond of a marketing/game
>> theory chase to the middle.  The DLC and the Contract for America both
>> displayed strong ideological platforms while candidates pursued whatever
>> it took to take the unaffiliated vote.  So we entered the age where
>> everyone complained that the parties were indistinguishable.  For
>> decades.  Until that became, in market research, too unpopular.
>>
>> Nearly instantly, our two dominant parties went, in the public
>> perception, from being indistinguishable, from having always been too
>> polarized and unable to work with one another, ever.
>>
>> And, although this made approval ratings of Congress as a whole drop (at
>> 11-17% now but they have no reason to fear consequences), it made
>> approval of your local congresscritters go up -- your own delegation is
>> seen as aggressive, fighting for you, and standing up to bad
>> government.  Teflon.  And totally unaccountable.
>>
>> We are so fucked.  This is the perfect morph of "we have always been at
>> war with Eurasia" in politics.
>>
>> You have to be carefully taught... This is not an electorate.  It's an
>> arena of futbol yahoos who never had a chance to learn what it means to
>> be a citizen of a democracy, drunk on cheap beer and cheering for the
>> guys wearing the right color uniforms, and ready to brawl with the other
>> fans if they lose.
>>
>> This is why, yes they are outraged about Prism -- they have been taught
>> to be outraged because in a neuromarketing sense, it retains their
>> attention quivering at the TV for three minutes through the next series
>> of ads, and they retain more information from those ads and are grateful
>> for their soothing effect, so it makes for greater brand affinity.  So
>> as long as Snowdon keeps adrenaline moving as political porn, he will
>> get equal time on CNN, MS-NBC, and FOX News, and as soon as he stops
>> selling stuff, the sleeping giant will roll over and go back to
>> hibernation until next crisis or the Superbowl.
>>
>> Like a light switch, by manufactured consent, the spotlights will go
>> off, go on again perhaps as a footnote if some bad consequences happen
>> to Snowden after the NSA decides enough people don't care any more, then
>> fade, entirely, to black.
>>
>> But it is possible to change things.
>>
>> It takes the ones who are still learning, and that means the young, the
>> geeks, the intellectuals.  It takes forming a movement based on
>> principals, so it doesn't rely on one set of people coming up with
>> ideas.  It must be nonviolent and coherent with how the current system
>> purports to work (and often that ends up working against the system as a
>> shaming mechanism).  I am hoping it will be 

Re: [liberationtech] Thank you for choosing cyberpunk dystopia.

[Spike (Chris Foote)]

Thank you Shava,

I so look forward to reading your posts.

Spike

On 10/07/2013 20:07, Shava Nerad wrote:

I have to say, this is why I am proposing we must turn to traditional
community organizing, using the net only as a means of totally
transparent communications at this point for organizing facilitations.

We have a strong history in this country of successful insurgent formal
nonviolent social movements.  And I am afraid if we do not mobilize the
consequences are in fact dystopian.

We have two generations essentially detached not only from civic
activism but largely from the social contract in general.  I feel as
though society is inviting renewal or despotism.

So, what are we looking at?  The vague shadows of a Spanish Civil War?
I hope the hell not.  Shadows of 1930s Germany is what I hear more
often, ducking Godwin, but just reporting.

The point is that there is one piece of compassion we might have here:
while we are horrified as activists in a democracy in America regarding
our government, our government -- our friends and people we see not as
friends -- is somewhat justifiably horrified looking over our shoulders
at the electorate.

Government can not change the electorate in a democracy -- at least, not
quickly.  That really only works the other way around.

Our people do not understand their own government any more.  They have
been reality engineered into a market-of-votes. Elections here are
transmedia, and are game theoried to death.  Party platforms are minor
lore and backstory.  Political principals that actually relate to real
world consequences have very little place in electoral politics except
as they are adopted as plot elements in the transmedia drama, which
often holds no reliance, especially, on facts.

If you have felt like every bit of this has been social engineering
since about Clinton and Gingrich started influencing their parties, I
think you would be right.  Both men are very fond of a marketing/game
theory chase to the middle.  The DLC and the Contract for America both
displayed strong ideological platforms while candidates pursued whatever
it took to take the unaffiliated vote.  So we entered the age where
everyone complained that the parties were indistinguishable.  For
decades.  Until that became, in market research, too unpopular.

Nearly instantly, our two dominant parties went, in the public
perception, from being indistinguishable, from having always been too
polarized and unable to work with one another, ever.

And, although this made approval ratings of Congress as a whole drop (at
11-17% now but they have no reason to fear consequences), it made
approval of your local congresscritters go up -- your own delegation is
seen as aggressive, fighting for you, and standing up to bad
government.  Teflon.  And totally unaccountable.

We are so fucked.  This is the perfect morph of "we have always been at
war with Eurasia" in politics.

You have to be carefully taught... This is not an electorate.  It's an
arena of futbol yahoos who never had a chance to learn what it means to
be a citizen of a democracy, drunk on cheap beer and cheering for the
guys wearing the right color uniforms, and ready to brawl with the other
fans if they lose.

This is why, yes they are outraged about Prism -- they have been taught
to be outraged because in a neuromarketing sense, it retains their
attention quivering at the TV for three minutes through the next series
of ads, and they retain more information from those ads and are grateful
for their soothing effect, so it makes for greater brand affinity.  So
as long as Snowdon keeps adrenaline moving as political porn, he will
get equal time on CNN, MS-NBC, and FOX News, and as soon as he stops
selling stuff, the sleeping giant will roll over and go back to
hibernation until next crisis or the Superbowl.

Like a light switch, by manufactured consent, the spotlights will go
off, go on again perhaps as a footnote if some bad consequences happen
to Snowden after the NSA decides enough people don't care any more, then
fade, entirely, to black.

But it is possible to change things.

It takes the ones who are still learning, and that means the young, the
geeks, the intellectuals.  It takes forming a movement based on
principals, so it doesn't rely on one set of people coming up with
ideas.  It must be nonviolent and coherent with how the current system
purports to work (and often that ends up working against the system as a
shaming mechanism).  I am hoping it will be multipartisan, but I am
pretty unabashedly old-line liberal and conservative-friendly -- my
attitude is that politics is RvR gaming and beers after, and geeks are
good at fighting fair in design meetings. ;)

I want to open source politics.  It's gotten ikky, and it's getting
ikkier, but contrary to popular belief, it isn't inherent on all
scales.  And it's gotten worse rather than better due to people
neglecting the institution.  Someone has to clean the loos dammit, or
they get gros

[liberationtech] Thank you for choosing cyberpunk dystopia.

[Eugen Leitl]

https://medium.com/surveillance-state/b804de3b5b


in Surveillance State14 min read

Thank you for choosing cyberpunk dystopia.

encryption, capitalism, and law

June has been a pretty surreal month. As the Guardian and the Washington Post
continue to publish internal NSA documents in what has become a torrential
TOP SECRET/NOFORN early Christmas bonanza, many of us in hacker and activist
communities have now seen what we long suspected confirmed: that the
government is indiscriminately collecting and storing massive quantities of
data, and that the distinction between the “law enforcement” and foreign
intelligence use of this data has become increasingly blurred. For people who
have family ties in Pakistan or regularly attend Mosque,for those who were a
part of Occupy Wall Street, or have participated in the blockade of the KXL
Pipeline, the fact that the national security apparatus conducts domestic
operations on a racial and political basis is no surprise; it has often been
a daily fact of life for years.

Yet, being right is obviously not reassuring, and how to turn these
revelations into substantive change is far from clear. Unlike in 1976, when
the Church Committee was formed to address the abuses of the Nixon era, there
is now a broad spectrum of established legal precedent and business practices
which make widespread surveillance both legal and profitable. The courts have
consistently ruled that when we turn our data over to a third party, we have
no reasonable expectation of privacy. Never mind that it is pretty much
impossible to communicate online today without handing your information to a
third party, whether that is Apple, Facebook, Google, Dropbox, or any email
server, for that matter. At the same time, the dominant business model for
online services has come to be based on user data exploitation and targeted
advertisements. Companies that can’t access their users’ data because it is
encrypted deny themselves revenue from targeted ads. Users who have become
accustomed to not having to pay to access online services are less likely to
buy into a fee-for service business model that might offer them greater
privacy. These two aspects of the world we now find ourselves in, the legal
architecture supporting surveillance and the profit motive driving private
data exploitation, together compose a mutually re-enforcing bulwark defending
the state’s panopticon from both passive individual resistance and organized
direct attack. All of this is happening in a world where the real-time
location tracking of millions of people has become trivial, where commercial
facial recognition is becoming ubiquitous, and in which the president
reserves the right to murder anyone, at any time, with a flying killer robot.
If there are prophets of our time, they are Kafka, Alan Moore, and Phillip K.
Dick.

The Failed Cypherpunk Insurgency

That to defy the surveillance state should be harder today than it was twenty
years ago is tragically ironic, since today there are publicly available
cryptographic tools that can effectively shield individuals’ communications
from interception. Free software such as LUKS, GnuPG, and OTR theoretically
allow anyone to secure their hard drive, their email, and their conversations
online. For much of the 1990s, there was a fight to make these tools publicly
available. Many of the most secure crypto algorithms, such as RSA, were
patented and couldn’t be used without first paying a hefty license fee.
Cryptography was legally considered to be a type of “munition” by the US
government, and anyone who developed software that employed crypto risked
being prosecuted in the US for unlawfully trafficking in ordinance. The
cypherpunks of the 1990s were committed to spreading cryptography through any
means necessary. Phil Zimmermann, who wrote PGP, the free software for
encrypting email, successfully circumvented the legal blockade on the export
of cryptography by publishing his source code as a book, “PGP Source Code and
Internals.” The text was written in machine readable format, so that anyone
who purchased a copy of the book would be able to scan in the software, then
use it or distribute it themselves. Although he was charged with violating
the ban on munitions exports, Zimmermann was able to successfully argue that
his book was not software, but first amendment protected speech. The 90s are
littered with similar cypherpunk battles; some hackers set off to countries
with laws favorable to exporting cryptography, so that they could safely
write code and share it with the world. They believed that if encryption was
widely available, government surveillance would be impossible, censorship
would become a historical relic, and untraceable digital currency would
become ubiquitous. Without the ability to monitor citizens or collect tax
revenue, governments would fall and the people of the world would build a new
society on the ashes of the old. If this sounds grandiose or naive, that’s
because it was