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Do you have an alternative idea? Or are we doomed to police-statism? Serious question.

by aristus 16y ago

tptacek 16y ago
I don't think it matters if I have an alternative idea. The world is under no obligation to be equitable. Meanwhile: "best effort" isn't good enough when the penalty for failure is someone being hung from a construction crane. I think a state-sponsored circumvention tool, backed by one or more western governments, would --- if procured properly, which would never happen, and instead would involve Lockheed or SAIC --- stand enough of a chance against a foreign adversary to be worth considering. Short of that, you run right into a very simple wall: once your tool starts to matter, Iran will happily spend many millions of dollars to have it turned.
jerf 16y ago
I would say we are not doomed to police-statism, because there is a countervailing force: An open network is more valuable than a closed network. There are forces that will work to keep the network open so they can tap that value, though they may face a coordination problem. Google would be one example of a company that, for all its many missteps and concerning moves, is broadly speaking fighting for a more open net rather than a more closed net. (I'm not saying they've been 100% successful or 100% aligned to openness, but net-net I've been reasonably impressed with their vision on this point; and again, by "reasonably impressed" I do not mean "in love with".) Even a government may be convinced that the more valuable open network is in their best interests, as it represents a larger tax base to work from. Perhaps we should be encouraging Internet taxes now, instead of fighting them! But the police state won't be defeated by broad-scale usage of some technical tool. Small-scale usage by a small core group of hackers who constantly adapt (and, frankly, constantly suffer attrition by the police and face the non-zero chance of making one mistake that allows the police to catch them all) might be possible, but if we're going to defeat a police state it will have to be on something other than a purely technical level like that.
- mindslight 16y ago
  A network that acts open most of the time, but can actually be controlled at any time (by say ICANN and Verisign) is even more valuable.

Do you have an alternative idea? Or are we doomed to police-statism? Serious question.

by aristus 16y ago

Do you have an alternative idea? Or are we doomed to police-statism? Serious question.

I don't think it matters if I have an alternative idea. The world is under no obligation to be equitable. Meanwhile: "best effort" isn't good enough when the penalty for failure is someone being hung from a construction crane. I think a state-sponsored circumvention tool, backed by one or more western governments, would --- if procured properly, which would never happen, and instead would involve Lockheed or SAIC --- stand enough of a chance against a foreign adversary to be worth considering. Short of that, you run right into a very simple wall: once your tool starts to matter, Iran will happily spend many millions of dollars to have it turned.

jerf 16y ago

I would say we are not doomed to police-statism, because there is a countervailing force: An open network is more valuable than a closed network. There are forces that will work to keep the network open so they can tap that value, though they may face a coordination problem. Google would be one example of a company that, for all its many missteps and concerning moves, is broadly speaking fighting for a more open net rather than a more closed net. (I'm not saying they've been 100% successful or 100% aligned to openness, but net-net I've been reasonably impressed with their vision on this point; and again, by "reasonably impressed" I do not mean "in love with".) Even a government may be convinced that the more valuable open network is in their best interests, as it represents a larger tax base to work from. Perhaps we should be encouraging Internet taxes now, instead of fighting them! But the police state won't be defeated by broad-scale usage of some technical tool. Small-scale usage by a small core group of hackers who constantly adapt (and, frankly, constantly suffer attrition by the police and face the non-zero chance of making one mistake that allows the police to catch them all) might be possible, but if we're going to defeat a police state it will have to be on something other than a purely technical level like that.

mindslight 16y ago
A network that acts open most of the time, but can actually be controlled at any time (by say ICANN and Verisign) is even more valuable.