4 ms·

It won't but luckily no government is powerful enough to govern math and therefore cryptography. Mathematics is more of a liberator than the second amendment in

It won't but luckily no government is powerful enough to govern math and therefore cryptography. Mathematics is more of a liberator than the second amendment in this respect. Physical hardware can be controlled, yes. Decentralization and obfuscation similar to TOR is probably needed here.

IG_Semmelweiss 1y ago
Cryptography is privacy. Privacy can taken away by law. It is the same as free speech. You can say what you want, but you can go to jail for saying the wrong thing in many countries.
lxgr 1y ago
Ah yes, fortunately governments have never in history successfully declared certain large integers illegal and prosecuted people for sharing them. Shooting someone is also "just physics", yet many governments have been known to frown upon it (depending on the context).
- dylan604 1y ago
  You'll be okay as long as you print them on a t-shirt
  - lxgr 1y ago
    Yep, good thing nobody has ever been jailed for wearing a t-shirt with the wrong slogan.
    - dylan604 1y ago
      you missed the reference. as a history lesson, the deCSS code was written on a t-shirt and was deemed acceptable. having the deCSS compiled as an executable was deemed not acceptable.
      - lxgr 1y ago
        I got the reference. Seems like it worked out quite nicely for the government/court though, given that deCSS isn't much use printed on a t-shirt, compared to in a binary on a computer?
        dylan604 1y ago
        you can't share the compiled binary, but you can share a shirt. if you have the shirt, you can compile on your own. the t-shirt became the sharing network
        lxgr 1y ago
        That’s the thing about speech: It’s very hard for governments to physically prevent it, but attaching consequences to making use of that capability usually works just as well.
        iamnothere 1y ago
        The government failed to stop the spread of the DeCSS code and subsequent tools that were developed using that code. That’s kind of the point.
    - lucianbr 1y ago
      Even a blank sheet of paper I think was enough to get someone in jail.
      - JohnLocke4 1y ago
        It is true: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blank_paper_protest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blank_paper_protest More than anything, this is a good lesson in information theory. A blank sheet of paper isn't devoid of information just because it doesn't contain ink - rather, it is the context of the current situation that defines the information being conveyed. This is true in all forms of communication. This reminds me of a story I read once about when Victor Hugo had just published Les Miserables. Just after publication, he went to his vacation home due to the controversy he was sure was going to follow the publication of the book. Wanting to know how the reception was going, he mailed his publisher a letter simply containing a question mark. The publisher responded with only an exclamation mark, and Hugo immediately understood - he had written an eternal classic. (BTW, I read this in the book The User Illusion - a fantastic read)
dylan604 1y ago
If running a mesh network is illegal, does it matter that the traffic is just math? Without a network, there's no data transmission of that math. The government controls the airwaves. It doesn't matter if you're broadcasting Top40 or encrypted messages, if they say no to your transmitting, you're going nowhere.
- fkyoureadthedoc 1y ago
  > if they say no to your transmitting, you're going nowhere. > if they say no to your forgetting to scan the case of water on the bottom of your cart, you're going nowhere. > if they say no to your hacked cable box, you're going nowhere. > if they say no to your speeding, you're going nowhere. > if they say no to your weed, you're going nowhere. > if they say no to your growing a mushroom and mailing it to your friend, you're going nowhere. There's a whole spectrum of how illegal something is to consider. People break the law every day for a range of reasons from accident, to ignorance, to convenience, to want, to need, etc.
  - tavavex 1y ago
    In the hypothetical world that you've set out, where surveillance is so extreme and overreaching as to help finish off the entirety of the internet for good, there's no way it would stop at the internet. The goal isn't controlling this set of standards and protocols that defines just the internet, the goal is controlling communication and the internet is the #1 way of communicating between people at the moment. If people all started talking through letter mail, you'd get Letter Control, they wouldn't just forget about it because it's not the internet. If the people somehow become smart and coordinated enough to move to some cryptographically-secure method of communication, your government will probably outlaw the equipment and actions associated with using it in the first place instead of trying to decrypt all communications. The goal is control of information, and the way of doing that is to force everyone to use unsecured communication with no feasible alternatives. I wouldn't expect kid glove treatment with that, unlike speeding or minor shoplifting.
    - leshenka 1y ago
NoImmatureAdHom 1y ago
¿Por qué no los dos?

IG_Semmelweiss 1y ago

Cryptography is privacy. Privacy can taken away by law. It is the same as free speech. You can say what you want, but you can go to jail for saying the wrong thing in many countries.

lxgr 1y ago

Ah yes, fortunately governments have never in history successfully declared certain large integers illegal and prosecuted people for sharing them. Shooting someone is also "just physics", yet many governments have been known to frown upon it (depending on the context).

dylan604 1y ago
You'll be okay as long as you print them on a t-shirt
- lxgr 1y ago
  Yep, good thing nobody has ever been jailed for wearing a t-shirt with the wrong slogan.
  - dylan604 1y ago
    you missed the reference. as a history lesson, the deCSS code was written on a t-shirt and was deemed acceptable. having the deCSS compiled as an executable was deemed not acceptable.
    - lxgr 1y ago
      I got the reference. Seems like it worked out quite nicely for the government/court though, given that deCSS isn't much use printed on a t-shirt, compared to in a binary on a computer?
      - dylan604 1y ago
        you can't share the compiled binary, but you can share a shirt. if you have the shirt, you can compile on your own. the t-shirt became the sharing network
        lxgr 1y ago
        That’s the thing about speech: It’s very hard for governments to physically prevent it, but attaching consequences to making use of that capability usually works just as well.
        iamnothere 1y ago
        The government failed to stop the spread of the DeCSS code and subsequent tools that were developed using that code. That’s kind of the point.
  - lucianbr 1y ago
    Even a blank sheet of paper I think was enough to get someone in jail.
    - JohnLocke4 1y ago
      It is true: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blank_paper_protest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blank_paper_protest More than anything, this is a good lesson in information theory. A blank sheet of paper isn't devoid of information just because it doesn't contain ink - rather, it is the context of the current situation that defines the information being conveyed. This is true in all forms of communication. This reminds me of a story I read once about when Victor Hugo had just published Les Miserables. Just after publication, he went to his vacation home due to the controversy he was sure was going to follow the publication of the book. Wanting to know how the reception was going, he mailed his publisher a letter simply containing a question mark. The publisher responded with only an exclamation mark, and Hugo immediately understood - he had written an eternal classic. (BTW, I read this in the book The User Illusion - a fantastic read)

dylan604 1y ago

If running a mesh network is illegal, does it matter that the traffic is just math? Without a network, there's no data transmission of that math. The government controls the airwaves. It doesn't matter if you're broadcasting Top40 or encrypted messages, if they say no to your transmitting, you're going nowhere.

fkyoureadthedoc 1y ago
> if they say no to your transmitting, you're going nowhere. > if they say no to your forgetting to scan the case of water on the bottom of your cart, you're going nowhere. > if they say no to your hacked cable box, you're going nowhere. > if they say no to your speeding, you're going nowhere. > if they say no to your weed, you're going nowhere. > if they say no to your growing a mushroom and mailing it to your friend, you're going nowhere. There's a whole spectrum of how illegal something is to consider. People break the law every day for a range of reasons from accident, to ignorance, to convenience, to want, to need, etc.
- tavavex 1y ago
  In the hypothetical world that you've set out, where surveillance is so extreme and overreaching as to help finish off the entirety of the internet for good, there's no way it would stop at the internet. The goal isn't controlling this set of standards and protocols that defines just the internet, the goal is controlling communication and the internet is the #1 way of communicating between people at the moment. If people all started talking through letter mail, you'd get Letter Control, they wouldn't just forget about it because it's not the internet. If the people somehow become smart and coordinated enough to move to some cryptographically-secure method of communication, your government will probably outlaw the equipment and actions associated with using it in the first place instead of trying to decrypt all communications. The goal is control of information, and the way of doing that is to force everyone to use unsecured communication with no feasible alternatives. I wouldn't expect kid glove treatment with that, unlike speeding or minor shoplifting.
  - leshenka 1y ago

NoImmatureAdHom 1y ago

¿Por qué no los dos?