552 lines
28 KiB
Plaintext
552 lines
28 KiB
Plaintext
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
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From: whitaker@eternity.demon.co.uk (Russell Earl Whitaker)
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Subject: Cryptosystems are our defensive weapons!
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Organization: Extropy Institute
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Reply-To: whitaker@eternity.demon.co.uk
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Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1992 13:17:28 +0000
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FROM CROSSBOWS TO CRYPTOGRAPHY: THWARTING THE STATE VIA
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TECHNOLOGY
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Given at the Future of Freedom Conference, November 1987
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You know, technology--and particularly computer
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technology--has often gotten a bad rap in Libertarian cir-
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cles. We tend to think of Orwell's 1984, or Terry Gilliam's
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Brazil, or the proximity detectors keeping East Berlin's
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slave/citizens on their own side of the border, or the so-
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phisticated bugging devices Nixon used to harass those on
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his "enemies list." Or, we recognize that for the price of
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a ticket on the Concorde we can fly at twice the speed of
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sound, but only if we first walk thru a magnetometer run by
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a government policeman, and permit him to paw thru our be-
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longings if it beeps.
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But I think that mind-set is a mistake. Before there
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were cattle prods, governments tortured their prisoners with
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clubs and rubber hoses. Before there were lasers for
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eavesdropping, governments used binoculars and lip-readers.
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Though government certainly uses technology to oppress, the
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evil lies not in the tools but in the wielder of the tools.
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In fact, technology represents one of the most promis-
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ing avenues available for re-capturing our freedoms from
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those who have stolen them. By its very nature, it favors
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the bright (who can put it to use) over the dull (who can-
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not). It favors the adaptable (who are quick to see the
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merit of the new (over the sluggish (who cling to time-
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tested ways). And what two better words are there to de-
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scribe government bureaucracy than "dull" and "sluggish"?
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One of the clearest, classic triumphs of technology
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over tyranny I see is the invention of the man-portable
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crossbow. With it, an untrained peasant could now reliably
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and lethally engage a target out to fifty meters--even if
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that target were a mounted, chain-mailed knight. (Unlike
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the longbow, which, admittedly was more powerful, and could
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get off more shots per unit time, the crossbow required no
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formal training to utilize. Whereas the longbow required
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elaborate visual, tactile and kinesthetic coordination to
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achieve any degree of accuracy, the wielder of a crossbow
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could simply put the weapon to his shoulder, sight along the
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arrow itself, and be reasonably assured of hitting his tar-
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get.)
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Moreover, since just about the only mounted knights
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likely to visit your average peasant would be government
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soldiers and tax collectors, the utility of the device was
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plain: With it, the common rabble could defend themselves
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not only against one another, but against their governmental
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masters. It was the medieval equivalent of the armor-
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piercing bullet, and, consequently, kings and priests (the
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medieval equivalent of a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
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Crossbows) threatened death and excommunication, respec-
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tively, for its unlawful possession.
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Looking at later developments, we see how technology
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like the firearm--particularly the repeating rifle and the
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handgun, later followed by the Gatling gun and more advanced
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machine guns--radically altered the balance of interpersonal
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and inter-group power. Not without reason was the Colt .45
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called "the equalizer." A frail dance-hall hostess with one
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in her possession was now fully able to protect herself
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against the brawniest roughneck in any saloon. Advertise-
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ments for the period also reflect the merchandising of the
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repeating cartridge rifle by declaring that "a man on
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horseback, armed with one of these rifles, simply cannot be
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captured." And, as long as his captors were relying upon
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flintlocks or single-shot rifles, the quote is doubtless a
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true one.
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Updating now to the present, the public-key cipher
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(with a personal computer to run it) represents an equiv-
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alent quantum leap--in a defensive weapon. Not only can
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such a technique be used to protect sensitive data in one's
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own possession, but it can also permit two strangers to ex-
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change information over an insecure communications
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channel--a wiretapped phone line, for example, or
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skywriting, for that matter)--without ever having previously
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met to exchange cipher keys. With a thousand-dollar com-
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puter, you can create a cipher that a multi-megabuck CRAY
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X-MP can't crack in a year. Within a few years, it should
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be economically feasible to similarly encrypt voice communi-
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cations; soon after that, full-color digitized video images.
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Technology will not only have made wiretapping obsolete, it
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will have totally demolished government's control over in-
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formation transfer.
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I'd like to take just a moment to sketch the mathemat-
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ics which makes this principle possible. This algorithm is
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called the RSA algorithm, after Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman
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who jointly created it. Its security derives from the fact
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that, if a very large number is the product of two very
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large primes, then it is extremely difficult to obtain the
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two prime factors from analysis of their product. "Ex-
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tremely" in the sense that if primes p and q have 100
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digits apiece, then their 200-digit product cannot in gen-
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eral be factored in less than 100 years by the most powerful
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computer now in existence.
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The "public" part of the key consists of (1) the prod-
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uct pq of the two large primes p and q, and (2) one fac-
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tor, call it x , of the product xy where xy = {(p-1) *
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(q-1) + 1}. The "private" part of the key consists of the
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other factor y.
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Each block of the text to be encrypted is first turned
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into an integer--either by using ASCII, or even a simple
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A=01, B=02, C=03, ... , Z=26 representation. This integer
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is then raised to the power x (modulo pq) and the resulting
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integer is then sent as the encrypted message. The receiver
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decrypts by taking this integer to the (secret) power y
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(modulo pq). It can be shown that this process will always
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yield the original number started with.
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What makes this a groundbreaking development, and why
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it is called "public-key" cryptography," is that I can
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openly publish the product pq and the number x , while
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keeping secret the number y --so that anyone can send me
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an encrypted message, namely
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x
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a (mod pq) ,
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but only I can recover the original message a , by taking
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what they send, raising it to the power y and taking the
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result (mod pq). The risky step (meeting to exchange cipher
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keys) has been eliminated. So people who may not even trust
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each other enough to want to meet, may still reliably ex-
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change encrypted messages--each party having selected and
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disseminated his own pq and his x , while maintaining
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the secrecy of his own y.
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Another benefit of this scheme is the notion of a "dig-
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ital signature," to enable one to authenticate the source of
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a given message. Normally, if I want to send you a message,
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I raise my plaintext a to your x and take the result (mod
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your pq) and send that.
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However, if in my message, I take the plaintext a and
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raise it to my (secret) power y , take the result (mod my
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pq), then raise that result to your x (mod your pq) and
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send this, then even after you have normally "decrypted" the
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message, it will still look like garbage. However, if you
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then raise it to my public power x , and take the result
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(mod my public pq ), so you will not only recover the ori-
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ginal plaintext message, but you will know that no one but I
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could have sent it to you (since no one else knows my secret
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y).
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And these are the very concerns by the way that are to-
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day tormenting the Soviet Union about the whole question of
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personal computers. On the one hand, they recognize that
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American schoolchildren are right now growing up with com-
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puters as commonplace as sliderules used to be--more so, in
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fact, because there are things computers can do which will
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interest (and instruct) 3- and 4-year-olds. And it is pre-
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cisely these students who one generation hence will be going
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head-to-head against their Soviet counterparts. For the
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Soviets to hold back might be a suicidal as continuing to
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teach swordsmanship while your adversaries are learning
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ballistics. On the other hand, whatever else a personal
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computer may be, it is also an exquisitely efficient copying
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machine--a floppy disk will hold upwards of 50,000 words of
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text, and can be copied in a couple of minutes. If this
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weren't threatening enough, the computer that performs the
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copy can also encrypt the data in a fashion that is all but
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unbreakable. Remember that in Soviet society publicly ac-
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cessible Xerox machines are unknown. (The relatively few
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copying machines in existence are controlled more inten-
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sively than machine guns are in the United States.)
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Now the "conservative" position is that we should not
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sell these computers to the Soviets, because they could use
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them in weapons systems. The "liberal" position is that we
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should sell them, in the interests of mutual trade and
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cooperation--and anyway, if we don't make the sale, there
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will certainly be some other nation willing to.
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For my part, I'm ready to suggest that the Libertarian
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position should be to give them to the Soviets for free, and
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if necessary, make them take them . . . and if that doesn't
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work load up an SR-71 Blackbird and air drop them over
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Moscow in the middle of the night. Paid for by private sub-
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scription, of course, not taxation . . . I confess that this
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is not a position that has gained much support among members
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of the conventional left-right political spectrum, but, af-
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ter all, in the words of one of Illuminatus's characters, we
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are political non-Euclideans: The shortest distance to a
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particular goal may not look anything like what most people
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would consider a "straight line." Taking a long enough
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world-view, it is arguable that breaking the Soviet govern-
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ment monopoly on information transfer could better lead to
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the enfeeblement and, indeed, to the ultimate dissolution of
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the Soviet empire than would the production of another dozen
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missiles aimed at Moscow.
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But there's the rub: A "long enough" world view does
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suggest that the evil, the oppressive, the coercive and the
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simply stupid will "get what they deserve," but what's not
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immediately clear is how the rest of us can escape being
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killed, enslaved, or pauperized in the process.
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When the liberals and other collectivists began to at-
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tack freedom, they possessed a reasonably stable, healthy,
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functioning economy, and almost unlimited time to proceed to
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hamstring and dismantle it. A policy of political
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gradualism was at least conceivable. But now, we have
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patchwork crazy-quilt economy held together by baling wire
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and spit. The state not only taxes us to "feed the poor"
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while also inducing farmers to slaughter milk cows and drive
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up food prices--it then simultaneously turns around and sub-
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sidizes research into agricultural chemicals designed to in-
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crease yields of milk from the cows left alive. Or witness
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the fact that a decline in the price of oil is considered as
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potentially frightening as a comparable increase a few years
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ago. When the price went up, we were told, the economy
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risked collapse for for want of energy. The price increase
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was called the "moral equivalent of war" and the Feds swung
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into action. For the first time in American history, the
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speed at which you drive your car to work in the morning be-
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came an issue of Federal concern. Now, when the price of
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oil drops, again we risk problems, this time because Ameri-
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can oil companies and Third World basket-case nations who
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sell oil may not be able to ever pay their debts to our
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grossly over-extended banks. The suggested panacea is that
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government should now re-raise the oil prices that OPEC has
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lowered, via a new oil tax. Since the government is seeking
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to raise oil prices to about the same extent as OPEC did,
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what can we call this except the "moral equivalent of civil
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war--the government against its own people?"
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And, classically, in international trade, can you imag-
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ine any entity in the world except a government going to
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court claiming that a vendor was selling it goods too
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cheaply and demanding not only that that naughty vendor be
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compelled by the court to raise its prices, but also that it
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be punished for the act of lowering them in the first place?
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So while the statists could afford to take a couple of
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hundred years to trash our economy and our liberties--we
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certainly cannot count on having an equivalent period of
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stability in which to reclaim them. I contend that there
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exists almost a "black hole" effect in the evolution of
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nation-states just as in the evolution of stars. Once free-
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dom contracts beyond a certain minimum extent, the state
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warps the fabric of the political continuum about itself to
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the degree that subsequent re-emergence of freedom becomes
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all but impossible. A good illustration of this can be seen
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in the area of so-called "welfare" payments. When those who
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sup at the public trough outnumber (and thus outvote) those
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whose taxes must replenish the trough, then what possible
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choice has a democracy but to perpetuate and expand the tak-
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ing from the few for the unearned benefit of the many? Go
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down to the nearest "welfare" office, find just two people
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on the dole . . . and recognize that between them they form
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a voting bloc that can forever outvote you on the question
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of who owns your life--and the fruits of your life's labor.
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So essentially those who love liberty need an "edge" of
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some sort if we're ultimately going to prevail. We obvi-
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ously can't use the altruists' "other-directedness" of
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"work, slave, suffer, sacrifice, so that next generation of
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a billion random strangers can live in a better world."
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Recognize that, however immoral such an appeal might be, it
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is nonetheless an extremely powerful one in today's culture.
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If you can convince people to work energetically for a
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"cause," caring only enough for their personal welfare so as
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to remain alive enough and healthy enough to continue
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working--then you have a truly massive reservoir of energy
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to draw from. Equally clearly, this is just the sort of ap-
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peal which tautologically cannot be utilized for egoistic or
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libertarian goals. If I were to stand up before you tonight
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and say something like, "Listen, follow me as I enunciate my
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noble "cause," contribute your money to support the "cause,"
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give up your free time to work for the "cause," strive
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selflessly to bring it about, and then (after you and your
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children are dead) maybe your children's children will actu-
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ally live under egoism"--you'd all think I'd gone mad. And
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of course you'd be right. Because the point I'm trying to
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make is that libertarianism and/or egoism will be spread if,
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when, and as, individual libertarians and/or egoists find it
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profitable and/or enjoyable to do so. And probably only
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then.
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While I certainly do not disparage the concept of poli-
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tical action, I don't believe that it is the only, nor even
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necessarily the most cost-effective path toward increasing
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freedom in our time. Consider that, for a fraction of the
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investment in time, money and effort I might expend in try-
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ing to convince the state to abolish wiretapping and all
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forms of censorship--I can teach every libertarian who's in-
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terested how to use cryptography to abolish them
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unilaterally.
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There is a maxim--a proverb--generally attributed to
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the Eskimoes, which very likely most Libertarians have al-
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ready heard. And while you likely would not quarrel with
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the saying, you might well feel that you've heard it often
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enough already, and that it has nothing further to teach us,
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and moreover, that maybe you're even tired of hearing it. I
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shall therefore repeat it now:
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If you give a man a fish, the saying runs, you feed him
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for a day. But if you teach a man how to fish, you feed him
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for a lifetime.
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Your exposure to the quote was probably in some sort of
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a "workfare" vs. "welfare" context; namely, that if you
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genuinely wish to help someone in need, you should teach him
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how to earn his sustenance, not simply how to beg for it.
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And of course this is true, if only because the next time he
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is hungry, there might not be anybody around willing or even
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able to give him a fish, whereas with the information on how
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to fish, he is completely self sufficient.
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But I submit that this exhausts only the first order
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content of the quote, and if there were nothing further to
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glean from it, I would have wasted your time by citing it
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again. After all, it seems to have almost a crypto-altruist
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slant, as though to imply that we should structure our ac-
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tivities so as to maximize the benefits to such hungry
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beggars as we may encounter.
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But consider:
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Suppose this Eskimo doesn't know how to fish, but he
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does know how to hunt walruses. You, on the other hand,
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have often gone hungry while traveling thru walrus country
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because you had no idea how to catch the damn things, and
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they ate most of the fish you could catch. And now suppose
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the two of you decide to exchange information, bartering
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fishing knowledge for hunting knowledge. Well, the first
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thing to observe is that a transaction of this type
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categorically and unambiguously refutes the Marxist premise
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that every trade must have a "winner" and a "loser;" the
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idea that if one person gains, it must necessarily be at the
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"expense" of another person who loses. Clearly, under this
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scenario, such is not the case. Each party has gained some-
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thing he did not have before, and neither has been dimin-
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ished in any way. When it comes to exchange of information
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(rather than material objects) life is no longer a zero-sum
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game. This is an extremely powerful notion. The "law of
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diminishing returns," the "first and second laws of
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thermodynamics"--all those "laws" which constrain our possi-
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bilities in other contexts--no longer bind us! Now that's
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anarchy!
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Or consider another possibility: Suppose this hungry
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Eskimo never learned to fish because the ruler of his
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nation-state had decreed fishing illegal. Because fish
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contain dangerous tiny bones, and sometimes sharp spines, he
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tells us, the state has decreed that their consumption--and
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even their possession--are too hazardous to the people's
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health to be permitted . . . even by knowledgeable, willing
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adults. Perhaps it is because citizens' bodies are thought
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to be government property, and therefore it is the function
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of the state to punish those who improperly care for govern-
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ment property. Or perhaps it is because the state gener-
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ously extends to competent adults the "benefits" it provides
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to children and to the mentally ill: namely, a full-time,
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all-pervasive supervisory conservatorship--so that they need
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not trouble themselves with making choices about behavior
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thought physically risky or morally "naughty." But, in any
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case, you stare stupefied, while your Eskimo informant re-
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lates how this law is taken so seriously that a friend of
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his was recently imprisoned for years for the crime of "pos-
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session of nine ounces of trout with intent to distribute."
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Now you may conclude that a society so grotesquely
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oppressive as to enforce a law of this type is simply an
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affront to the dignity of all human beings. You may go far-
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ther and decide to commit some portion of your discretion-
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ary, recreational time specifically to the task of thwarting
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this tyrant's goal. (Your rationale may be "altruistic" in
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the sense of wanting to liberate the oppressed, or
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"egoistic" in the sense of proving you can outsmart the
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oppressor--or very likely some combination of these or per-
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haps even other motives.)
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But, since you have zero desire to become a martyr to
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your "cause," you're not about to mount a military campaign,
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or even try to run a boatload of fish through the blockade.
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However, it is here that technology--and in particular in-
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formation technology--can multiply your efficacy literally a
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hundredfold. I say "literally," because for a fraction of
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the effort (and virtually none of the risk) attendant to
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smuggling in a hundred fish, you can quite readily produce a
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hundred Xerox copies of fishing instructions. (If the tar-
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geted government, like present-day America, at least permits
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open discussion of topics whose implementation is re-
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stricted, then that should suffice. But, if the government
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attempts to suppress the flow of information as well, then
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you will have to take a little more effort and perhaps write
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your fishing manual on a floppy disk encrypted according to
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your mythical Eskimo's public-key parameters. But as far as
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increasing real-world access to fish you have made genuine
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nonzero headway--which may continue to snowball as others
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re-disseminate the information you have provided. And you
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have not had to waste any of your time trying to convert id-
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eological adversaries, or even trying to win over the unde-
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cided. Recall Harry Browne's dictum from "Freedom in an
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Unfree World" that the success of any endeavor is in general
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inversely proportional to the number of people whose persua-
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sion is necessary to its fulfilment.
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If you look at history, you cannot deny that it has
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been dramatically shaped by men with names like Washington,
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Lincoln, . . . Nixon . . . Marcos . . . Duvalier . . .
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Khadaffi . . . and their ilk. But it has also been shaped
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by people with names like Edison, Curie, Marconi, Tesla and
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Wozniak. And this latter shaping has been at least as per-
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vasive, and not nearly so bloody.
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And that's where I'm trying to take The LiberTech
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Project. Rather than beseeching the state to please not en-
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slave, plunder or constrain us, I propose a libertarian net-
|
||
work spreading the technologies by which we may seize
|
||
freedom for ourselves.
|
||
|
||
But here we must be a bit careful. While it is not (at
|
||
present) illegal to encrypt information when government
|
||
wants to spy on you, there is no guarantee of what the fu-
|
||
ture may hold. There have been bills introduced, for exam-
|
||
ple, which would have made it a crime to wear body armor
|
||
when government wants to shoot you. That is, if you were to
|
||
commit certain crimes while wearing a Kevlar vest, then that
|
||
fact would constitute a separate federal crime of its own.
|
||
This law to my knowledge has not passed . . . yet . . . but
|
||
it does indicate how government thinks.
|
||
|
||
Other technological applications, however, do indeed
|
||
pose legal risks. We recognize, for example, that anyone
|
||
who helped a pre-Civil War slave escape on the "underground
|
||
railroad" was making a clearly illegal use of technology--as
|
||
the sovereign government of the United States of America at
|
||
that time found the buying and selling of human beings quite
|
||
as acceptable as the buying and selling of cattle. Simi-
|
||
larly, during Prohibition, anyone who used his bathtub to
|
||
ferment yeast and sugar into the illegal psychoactive drug,
|
||
alcohol--the controlled substance, wine--was using technol-
|
||
ogy in a way that could get him shot dead by federal agents
|
||
for his "crime"--unfortunately not to be restored to life
|
||
when Congress reversed itself and re-permitted use of this
|
||
drug.
|
||
|
||
So . . . to quote a former President, un-indicted co-
|
||
conspirator and pardoned felon . . . "Let me make one thing
|
||
perfectly clear:" The LiberTech Project does not advocate,
|
||
participate in, or conspire in the violation of any law--no
|
||
matter how oppressive, unconstitutional or simply stupid
|
||
such law may be. It does engage in description (for educa-
|
||
tional and informational purposes only) of technological
|
||
processes, and some of these processes (like flying a plane
|
||
or manufacturing a firearm) may well require appropriate li-
|
||
censing to perform legally. Fortunately, no license is
|
||
needed for the distribution or receipt of information it-
|
||
self.
|
||
|
||
So, the next time you look at the political scene and
|
||
despair, thinking, "Well, if 51% of the nation and 51% of
|
||
this State, and 51% of this city have to turn Libertarian
|
||
before I'll be free, then somebody might as well cut my
|
||
goddamn throat now, and put me out of my misery"--recognize
|
||
that such is not the case. There exist ways to make your-
|
||
self free.
|
||
|
||
If you wish to explore such techniques via the Project,
|
||
you are welcome to give me your name and address--or a fake
|
||
name and mail drop, for that matter--and you'll go on the
|
||
mailing list for my erratically-published newsletter. Any
|
||
friends or acquaintances whom you think would be interested
|
||
are welcome as well. I'm not even asking for stamped self-
|
||
addressed envelopes, since my printer can handle mailing la-
|
||
bels and actual postage costs are down in the noise compared
|
||
with the other efforts in getting an issue out. If you
|
||
should have an idea to share, or even a useful product to
|
||
plug, I'll be glad to have you write it up for publication.
|
||
Even if you want to be the proverbial "free rider" and just
|
||
benefit from what others contribute--you're still welcome:
|
||
Everything will be public domain; feel free to copy it or
|
||
give it away (or sell it, for that matter, 'cause if you can
|
||
get money for it while I'm taking full-page ads trying to
|
||
give it away, you're certainly entitled to your capitalist
|
||
profit . . .) Anyway, every application of these principles
|
||
should make the world just a little freer, and I'm certainly
|
||
willing to underwrite that, at least for the forseeable fu-
|
||
ture.
|
||
|
||
I will leave you with one final thought: If you don't
|
||
learn how to beat your plowshares into swords before they
|
||
outlaw swords, then you sure as HELL ought to learn before
|
||
they outlaw plowshares too.
|
||
|
||
--Chuck Hammill
|
||
|
||
THE LIBERTECH PROJECT
|
||
3194 Queensbury Drive
|
||
Los Angeles, California
|
||
90064
|
||
310-836-4157
|
||
|
||
[The above LiberTech address was updated June 1992, with the
|
||
permission of Chuck Hammill, by Russell Whitaker]
|
||
|
||
Please address all enquiries to the LiberTech Project address,
|
||
above, or call the telephone number. Chuck Hammill does not yet
|
||
have an email address; this will change in the near future, however.
|
||
|
||
Those interested in the issues raised in this piece should participate
|
||
in at least these newsgroups:
|
||
|
||
alt.privacy
|
||
alt.security.pgp
|
||
sci.crypt (*especially this one*)
|
||
|
||
A copy of the RSA-based public key encryption program, PGP 2.0 (Pretty
|
||
Good Privacy), can be obtained at various ftp sites around the world.
|
||
One such site is gate.demon.co.uk, where an MS-DOS version can be had by
|
||
anonymous ftp as pgp20.zip in /pub/ibmpc/pgp.
|
||
|
||
There are, of course, other implementations of PGP 2.0 available; use
|
||
your nearest archie server to find them. All source code for PGP is
|
||
available, as well.
|
||
|
||
If you've enjoyed this message, please distribute it freely! Drop in on
|
||
sci.crypt and discover that we're living in what the Chinese call
|
||
"interesting times"...
|
||
|
||
Russell Earl Whitaker whitaker@eternity.demon.co.uk
|
||
Communications Editor 71750.2413@compuserve.com
|
||
EXTROPY: The Journal of Transhumanist Thought AMiX: RWHITAKER
|
||
Board member, Extropy Institute (ExI)
|
||
-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
|
||
Version: 2.0
|
||
|
||
mQCNAiqwg10AAAEEAMVNMI766ljeuW01xqXKYYV5lmDPvb+6dCQK3m1iBQdan0no
|
||
pm35j1DIRp3UJZogAe5eimsQg1TALDhTq310OZs9+L6B/HxeX3+4BadIDad4g+xI
|
||
lvaFY1Ut/hMdZNkw0tzNZOdUPiO4jYIyirReAUiMCm6jXzkTRITj7/vxxWtPAAUR
|
||
tDNSdXNzZWxsIEUuIFdoaXRha2VyIDx3aGl0YWtlckBldGVybml0eS5kZW1vbi5j
|
||
by51az4=
|
||
=LOCL
|
||
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
|
||
|