Cyphernomicon Top
Cyphernomicon 13.7

Activism and Projects:
Political Action and Opposition


   13.7.1. Strong political action is emerging on the Net
           - right-wing conspiracy theorists, like Linda Thompson
           + Net has rapid response to news events (Waco, Tienenmen,
              Russia)
             - with stories often used by media (lots of reporters on
                Net, easy to cull for references, Net has recently become
                tres trendy)
           - Aryan Nation in Cyberspace
           - (These developments bother many people I mention them to.
              Nothing can be done about who uses strong crypto. And most
              fasicst/racist situations are made worse by state
              sponsorship--apartheid laws, Hitler's Germany, Pol Pot's
              killing fields, all were examples of the state enforcing
              racist or genocidal laws. The unbreakable crypto that the
              Aryan Nation gets is more than offset by the gains
              elsewhere, and the undermining of central authority.)
           - shows the need for strong crypto...else governments will
              infiltrate and monitor these political groups
   13.7.2. Cypherpunks and Lobbying Efforts
           + "Why don't Cypherpunks have a lobbying effort?"
             + we're not "centered" near Washington, D.C., which seems
                to be an essential thing (as with EFF, ACLU, EPIC, CPSR,
                etc.)
               - D.C. Cypherpunks once volunteered (April, 1993) to make
                  this their special focus, but not much has been heard
                  since. (To be fair to them, political lobbying is
                  pretty far-removed from most Cypherpunks interests.)
             - no budget, no staff, no office
           + "herding cats" +  no financial stakes = why we don't do
              more
             + it's very hard to coordinate dozens of free-thinking,
                opinionated, smart people, especially when there's no
                whip hand, no financial incentive, no way to force them
                into line
               - I'm obviously not advocating such force, just noting a
                  truism of systems
           + "Should Cypherpunks advocate breaking laws to achieve
              goals?"
             - "My game is to get cryptography available to all, without
                violating the law.  This mean fighting Clipper, fighting
                idiotic export restraints, getting the government to
                change it's stance on cryptography, through arguements
                and letter pointing out the problems ...  This means
                writing or promoting strong cryptography....By violating
                the law, you give them the chance to brand you
                "criminal," and ignore/encourage others to ignore what
                you have to say." [Bob Snyder, 4-28-94]
   13.7.3. "How can nonlibertarians (liberals, for example) be convinced
            of the need for strong crypto?"
           - "For liberals, I would examine some pet cause and examine
              the consequences of that cause becoming "illegal."  For
              instance, if your friends are "pro choice," you might ask
              them what they would do if the right to lifers outlawed
              abortion.  Would they think it was wrong for a rape victim
              to get an abortion just because it was illegal?  How would
              they feel about an abortion "underground railroad"
              organized via a network of "stations" coordinated via the
              Internet using "illegal encryption"?  Or would they trust
              Clipper in such a situation?
              
              "Everyone in America is passionate about something.  Such
              passion usually dispenses with mere legalism, when it comes
              to what the believer feels is a question of fundamental
              right and wrong.  Hit them with an argument that addresses
              their passion.  Craft a pro-crypto argument that helps
              preserve the object of that passion." [Sandy Sandfort, 1994-
              06-30]
   13.7.4. Tension Between Governments and Citizens
           - governments want more monitoring...big antennas to snoop on
              telecommunications, "
           - people who protect themselves are sometimes viewed with
              suspicion
           + Americans have generally been of two minds about privacy:
             - None of your damn business, a man's home is his
                castle..rugged individualism, self-sufficiency, Calvinism
             - What have you got to hide? Snooping on neighbors
             + These conflicting views are held simultaneously, almost
                like a tensor that is not resolvable to some resultant
                vector
               - this dichotomy cuts through legal decisions as well
   13.7.5. "How does the Cypherpunks group differ from lobbying groups
            like the EFF, CPSR, and EPIC?"
           - We're more disorganized (anarchic), with no central office,
              no staff, no formal charter, etc.
           - And the political agenda of the aforementioned groups is
              often at odds with personal liberty. (support by them for
              public access programs, subsidies, restrictions on
              businesses, etc.)
           - We're also a more radical group in nearly every way, with
              various flavors of political extremism strongly
              represented. Mostly anarcho-capitalists and strong
              libertarians, and many "no compromises" privacy advocates.
              (As usual, my apologies to any Maoists or the like who
              don't feel comfortable being lumped in with the
              libertarians....if you're out there, you're not speaking
              up.) In any case, the house of Cypherpunks has many rooms.
           - We were called "Crypto Rebels" in Steven Levy's "Wired"
              article (issue 1.2, early 1993). We can represent a
              _radical alternative_ to the Beltway lawyers that dominate
              EFF, EPIC, etc. No need to compromise on things like
              Clipper, Software Key Escrow, Digital Telephony, and the
              NII. But, of course, no input to the legislative process.
           - But there's often an advantage to having a much more
              radical, purist body out in the wings, making the
              "rejectionist" case and holding the inner circle folks to a
              tougher standard of behavior.
           - And of course there's the omnipresent difference that we
              tend to favor direct action through technology over
              politicking.
   13.7.6. Why is government control of crypto so dangerous?
           + dangers of government monopoly on crypto and sigs
             - can "revoke your existence"
             - no place to escape to (historically an important social
                relief valve)
   13.7.7. NSA's view of crypto advocates
           -  "I said to somebody once, this is the revenge of people
              who couldn't go to Woodstock because they had too much trig
              homework.  It's a kind of romanticism about privacy and the
              kind of, you know, "you won't get my crypto key until you
              pry it from my dead cold fingers" kind of stuff.  I have to
              say, you know, I kind of find it endearing." [Stuart Baker,
              counsel, NSA, CFP '94]
   13.7.8. EFF
           - eff@eff.org
           + How to Join
             - $40, get form from many places, EFFector Online,
             - membership@eff.org
           + EFFector Online
             - ftp.eff.org, pub/EFF/Newsletters/EFFector
           + Open Platform
             - ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/EFF/Policy/Open_Platform
           - National Information Infrastructure
   13.7.9. "How can the use of cryptography be hidden?"
           + Steganography
             - microdots, invisible ink
             - where even the existence of a coded message gets one shot
           + Methods for Hiding the Mere Existence of Encrypted Data
             + in contrast to the oft-cited point (made by crypto
                purists) that one must assume the opponent has full
                access to the cryptotext, some fragments of decrypted
                plaintext,  and to the algorithm itself, i.e., assume the
                worst
               - a condition I think is practically absurd and
                  unrealistic
               - assumes infinite intercept power (same assumption of
                  infinite computer power would make all systems besides
                  one-time pads breakable)
               - in reality, hiding the existence and form of an
                  encrypted message is important
               + this will be all the more so as legal challenges to
                  crypto are mounted...the proposed ban on encrypted
                  telecom (with $10K per day fine), various governmental
                  regulations, etc.
                 - RICO and other broad brush ploys may make people very
                    careful about revealing that they are even using
                    encryption (regardless of how secure the keys are)
             + steganography, the science of hiding the existence of
                encrypted information
               - secret inks
               - microdots
               - thwarting traffic analysis
               - LSB method
             + Packing data into audio tapes (LSB of DAT)
               + LSB of DAT: a 2GB audio DAT will allow more than 100
                  megabytes in the LSBs
                 - less if algorithms are used to shape the spectrum to
                    make it look even more like noise
                 - but can also use the higher bits, too (since a real-
                    world recording will have noise reaching up to
                    perhaps the 3rd or 4th bit)
                 + will manufacturers investigate "dithering"  circuits?
                    (a la fat zero?)
                   - but the race will still be on
             + Digital video will offer even more storage space (larger
                tapes)
               - DVI, etc.
               - HDTV by late 1990s
             + Messages can be put into GIFF, TIFF image files (or even
                noisy faxes)
               - using the LSB method, with a 1024 x 1024 grey scale
                  image holding 64KB in the LSB plane alone
               - with error correction, noise shaping, etc., still at
                  least 50KB
               - scenario: already being used to transmit message
                  through international fax and image transmissions
             + The Old "Two Plaintexts" Ploy
               - one decoding produces "Having a nice time. Wish you
                  were here."
               - other decoding, of the same raw bits, produces "The
                  last submarine left this morning."
               - any legal order to produce the key generates the first
                  message
               + authorities can never prove-save for torture or an
                  informant-that another message exists
                 - unless there are somehow signs that the encrypted
                    message is somehow "inefficiently encrypted,
                    suggesting the use of a dual plaintext pair method"
                    (or somesuch spookspeak)
               - again, certain purist argue that such issues (which are
                  related to the old "How do you know when to stop?"
                  question) are misleading, that one must assume the
                  opponent has nearly complete access to everything
                  except the actual key, that any scheme to combine
                  multiple systems is no better than what is gotten as a
                  result of the combination itself
             - and just the overall bandwidth of data...
  13.7.10. next Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference will be March
            1995, San Francisco
  13.7.11. Places to send messages to
           - cantwell@eff.org, Subject: I support HR 3627
           - leahy@eff.org, Subject: I support hearings on Clipper
  13.7.12. Thesis: Crypto can become unstoppable if critical mass is
            reached
           - analogy: the Net...too scattered, too many countries, too
              many degrees of freedom
           - so scattered that attempts to outlaw strong crypto will be
              futile...no bottlenecks, no "mountain passes" (in a race to
              the pass, beyond which the expansion cannot be halted
              except by extremely repressive means)
  13.7.13. Keeping the crypto genie from being put in the bottle
           - (though some claim the genie was never _in_ the bottle,
              historically)
           - ensuring that enough people are using it, and that the Net
              is using it
           - a _threshold_, a point of no return
  13.7.14. Activism practicalities
           + "Why don't we buy advertising time like Perot did?"
             + This and similar points come up in nearly all political
                discussions (I'm seeing in also in talk.politics.guns).
                The main reasons it doesn't happen are:
               - ads cost a lot of money
               - casual folks rarely have this kind of money to spend
               - "herding cats" comes to mind, i.e., it's nearly
                  impossible to coordinate the interests of people to
                  gather money, set up ad campaigns, etc.
           - In my view, a waste of efforts. The changes I want won't
              come through a series of ads that are just fingers in the
              dike. (More cynically, Americans are getting the government
              they've been squealing for. My interest is in bypassing
              their avarice and repression, not in changing their minds.)
           - Others feel differently, from posts made to the list.
              Practically speaking, though, organized political activity
              is difficult to achieve with the anarchic nonstructure of
              the Cypherpunks group. Good luck!
 

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