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The history of civilization is full of battles over technology between the people and the government. New technology arrives that disrupts government functions
by narrator 11y ago
The history of civilization is full of battles over technology between the people and the government. New technology arrives that disrupts government functions and the government had to go about banning and controlling it. It's a pretty regular thing. The mandarins cracked down on tech development in China leading to stagnation. The Ottomans banned the printing press. The Japanese shut out all outside influence for a few hundred years. Now we ban encryption. Go figure.
- oh_sigh 11y agoThere seems to be a difference between your examples and encryption though. All of your examples were developments that created positive value. AFAICT encryption in itself doesn't create positive value, it only prevents negative value. If, for example, our letters couldn't be opened, encryption would only be a waste of resources.
- emXdem 11y agoThat's not true. Being able to programatically verify (via public private key) makes things like ssl/key authorities possible. That's a multi-billion dollar industry.
- oh_sigh 11y agoCryptographic signatures are not the same as encryption.
- nateabele 11y agoIt is an undisputed historical fact that ubiquitous strong encryption was the primary enabler in the explosion of online commerce. What are you even talking about?
- oh_sigh 11y agoSource?
- toomuchtodo 11y agohttp://cyber.law.harvard.edu/ecommerce/encrypt.html http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/ecommerce/encrypt.html http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Internet/ssl.asp http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Internet/ssl.asp Those were the two most relevant links from Googling "ecommerce encryption". Regardless, without the ability encrypt personal and payment data for ecommerce transactions, it would've never succeeded.
- api 11y agoRobust distributed systems that cross trust boundaries are impossible without crypto. That creates quite a lot of value.
- oh_sigh 11y agoWhy wouldn't cryptographic signatures be enough?
- diego_moita 11y agoOh, you never heard about online banking? You never shopped at Amazon? Do you know what SSL means and how it works?
- oh_sigh 11y agoI have. I have. I do.
- kazinator 11y agoThat just means you have a broken way of assigning value which gives zero credit to inventions which enable other inventions, or provide safety, or mitigate risk. Do tools have value? If you make something with tools, it's not the tools themselves which made it.
- oh_sigh 11y agoThe implication of my post wasn't "therefore encryption is worthless". It was more of "therefore I would like more relevant historical analogs".
- kazinator 11y agoHow about this one: the invention of the concept of a written contract with authenticating signatures and seals, allowing business to take place. (Together with a legal system for enforcing contracts.) Courts and documents themselves don't produce tangible value. Insurance doesn't product value, but it protects. It has monetary value, demonstrated by the fact that people make premium payments to maintain it. Many never collect a dime over the life of an insurance term. All kinds of infrastructure is an indirect example.
- justaaron 11y agonone of the regimes that you mention purport to be ruling by popular mandate: aka a modern bi-cameral elected body running the show (allegedly) none of these regimes are "by the people, of the people, for the people" so, I'm not really comfortable aping the examples you list...