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Just as a thought experiment, what do you think of an alternative reality in which even more of reality is transparent - including the operations of commercial,

by jka 14y ago

Just as a thought experiment, what do you think of an alternative reality in which even more of reality is transparent - including the operations of commercial, political, and other entities? Preferably collated and maintained by the community rather than centralized entities, crucially; somewhat akin to a shared wikipedia. The thing that worries me about this push towards encryption and anonymity is that it does afford nefarious elements a lot of safe harbor. I imagine it's fairly possible to identify individuals given a few message traces, even in an encrypted anonymous environment, and layfolks simply aren't going to have the skills to cover all their digital tracks - can even expert cypherpunks? Meanwhile, a few malevolent elements in unison could easily co-ordinate and harvest details, with enough cover to be hard to track down (and even harder to prosecute). An alternative is a world of transparency and openness - with a huge loss of privacy, but also a loss of privacy for those who would push their own causes of power and control, and/or commit crimes. I honestly don't know what the long-term best path would be - or if there is even a genuine dichotomy between anonymity/privacy at all. I value my privacy, but I also value the opportunity to identify the sources of problems and use the structures of society to deal with them.

yason 14y ago
I don't think the transparent reality would work. For thousands of years people are known to gather in the back of the woods to hatch plans that must be kept secret before the execution. That's just how people want to deal with a part of the things in their lives. The secret might be a terrorist plan, a plan to open a new business, a plan to rob a neighbouring village or a plan to arrange a surprise birthday party. You never know, but people like their privacy. Even before the internet and telephone people could talk to other people to arrange things to come, while in the outside it just looked like the folks are walking around the town. A transparent government and officials would be nice but I think that would never happen either. There are always matters that must be processed with confidentiality in the first stages, or the system just wouldn't work. Consider the old-fashioned hard-boiled journalism: people will talk if they can remain anonymous and confidential, and by talking they can prevent something worse from happening. Limiting the secrecy of government/public sector affairs to a certain, absolute period of time might work, though. Things should be public as soon as they're finished. I think that equal anonymity and confidentiality is better than the current world where most people are not anonymous and the powers to be can snoop on the rest and yet retain their own confidentiality in their actions.
- halfcat 14y ago
  >For thousands of years people are known to gather in the back of the woods to hatch plans that must be kept secret before the execution. The solution is therefore to cut down all trees.
- jka 14y ago
  Thanks for the reply! Would I be mis-representing things to say that you feel that the need for privacy/hidden communication is predicated by the fact that it has beneficial purposes as well? The world might certainly be a very dull place if nothing was private - no more surprise birthday parties as you mention, for example - but perhaps there would be equal and opposite benefits to shared knowledge/information? The situation regarding whistle-blowing itself requires that there is something worth reporting, which wouldn't be the case if the knowledge was already available (unless, perhaps, the knowledge was available but simply not highlighted well enough for people to spot any malicious behaviour). Totally agree with your final point - it's a very strange dichotomy that as average people are finding less and less privacy, those with privilege or power are the ones who are afforded it.
tomp 14y ago
I would prefer a reality/society where everything is public and transparent, however, we cannot do that yet. We would need much more evenly distributed social power and means of production. Maybe robots can enable that in a few decades? See http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
- betterunix 14y ago
  At the turn of the 20th century, this optimism was widespread: science and industrialization would, according to popular thought, bring about a golden age where disease, famine, and war would all be forgotten. Some people, like H. G. Wells, had different ideas; rather than bringing about an age of peace, new technology would be used as a tool of war. H. G. Wells thought that radioactivity (which was cutting edge at the time) would be used to make bombs so powerful that whole cities could be destroyed and that airplanes would be key to military tactics (he was a bit off the mark on some things: he thought submarines would not work, that airplanes would not be invented until the 1950s, and that nuclear bombs would explode continuously for an entire day -- nobody said he had a crystal ball). Robots distributing social power? I think it will be the exact opposite. Robots will be used to maintain social power, to prevent people from every gaining it. Your robot will be like an iPhone: you will be locked out of the software, forbidden to make modifications, forbidden to hack. Your robot will produce only as much as you need to survive; you will not receive enough to gain any more power than you already had. Your robot will also spy on you, so that if you start organizing a group of people to rebel against those with power, you will be thwarted by some means (perhaps your food will be drugged to reduce your cognitive abilities, or maybe for simplicity you will just stop receiving food). The people with power will never have to worry about being unseated, because they will have total control over the means of production. The only threat to the powerful at the point will be their own incompetence; only when they are not able to make the right decisions about managing society will society have a chance to rebel. Here is a microcosm of what a world where robots run everything would be like: http://www.wired.com/cars/coolwheels/news/2006/08/71554 http://www.wired.com/cars/coolwheels/news/2006/08/71554
betterunix 14y ago
"The thing that worries me about this push towards encryption and anonymity is that it does afford nefarious elements a lot of safe harbor" I have yet to see any evidence that this is true; all I see are anecdotes from law enforcement agencies who are pushing for less crypto, and even those anecdotes only tenuously describe "nefarious" elements. You cannot encrypt a blood stain or a fingerprint, nor can you use an anonymity system to hide the fact that a known terrorist group is increasing the volume of data it sends and receives. So what nefarious elements do you think are going to avoid prosecution by using crypto? A few years ago, there was a case of a group of child molesters using PGP and anonymous remailers (and possibly other privacy technologies) to communicate and exchange photos of themselves abusing children over Usenet. They were caught, arrested, and prosecuted following a well-coordinated investigation -- otherwise known as "good police work." Only a handful managed to avoid identification or prosecution, and it is worth noting that this was the case with investigations of criminal organizations long before good encryption was widely available. It should hardly be surprising that such a group was ultimately caught: they were sending each other photographic evidence of their own crimes. It is also worth pointing out that anonymity systems are used by the police to catch criminals. In the case described above, the police used the very anonymity system that the child abusers were using, and were thus able to observe their messages while maintaining the secrecy of their investigation. Similar scenarios have played out with Tor. Criminals who use the Internet will eventually figure out which IP addresses belong to the police; it will be critical for the police to use anonymity systems to mask their IP addresses (this, in fact, is closely related to the reason the Navy created Tor in the first place). It is not so much that society's nefarious elements are more empowered now; it is more that the nature of the game has changed, that new tactics and strategies will be developed by both criminals and the police to utilize and cope with these systems. I would argue that crypto and anonymity systems have benefited society more than they have harmed it. The same crypto and anonymity technologies used by the group I mentioned above have been used by political dissidents and activists to protect themselves from abusive governments; human rights activists have used such systems to protect the people they work with. Whistleblowers have used such systems in the past, and will have to do so in the future. For people who do not have an army at their command, these sorts of systems are necessary for their protection. If you were going to report Mafia activity to the police, would you rather use Tor/remailers/etc. or would you walk into the police station in person? There is no such thing as a world of transparency and openness, because crime is part of human nature and because political ambition is part of human nature, and both of these behaviors exploit openness and transparency. I am all for an open government, but even I acknowledge that the government will need to keep some things secret -- military plans, investigations of dangerous criminal enterprises, the locations of witnesses to crimes, and many other things must be kept secret for society's benefit. Open and transparent government does not mean "secret free," it means "secrecy when it is absolutely necessary;" it is the responsibility of citizens to ensure that their representatives in the government are not declaring too many things to be secret, and it is the job of journalists to report to the citizens what is being kept secret from them. The sooner society realizes that, the better.

by jka 14y ago

yason 14y ago

I don't think the transparent reality would work. For thousands of years people are known to gather in the back of the woods to hatch plans that must be kept secret before the execution. That's just how people want to deal with a part of the things in their lives. The secret might be a terrorist plan, a plan to open a new business, a plan to rob a neighbouring village or a plan to arrange a surprise birthday party. You never know, but people like their privacy. Even before the internet and telephone people could talk to other people to arrange things to come, while in the outside it just looked like the folks are walking around the town. A transparent government and officials would be nice but I think that would never happen either. There are always matters that must be processed with confidentiality in the first stages, or the system just wouldn't work. Consider the old-fashioned hard-boiled journalism: people will talk if they can remain anonymous and confidential, and by talking they can prevent something worse from happening. Limiting the secrecy of government/public sector affairs to a certain, absolute period of time might work, though. Things should be public as soon as they're finished. I think that equal anonymity and confidentiality is better than the current world where most people are not anonymous and the powers to be can snoop on the rest and yet retain their own confidentiality in their actions.

halfcat 14y ago
>For thousands of years people are known to gather in the back of the woods to hatch plans that must be kept secret before the execution. The solution is therefore to cut down all trees.
jka 14y ago
Thanks for the reply! Would I be mis-representing things to say that you feel that the need for privacy/hidden communication is predicated by the fact that it has beneficial purposes as well? The world might certainly be a very dull place if nothing was private - no more surprise birthday parties as you mention, for example - but perhaps there would be equal and opposite benefits to shared knowledge/information? The situation regarding whistle-blowing itself requires that there is something worth reporting, which wouldn't be the case if the knowledge was already available (unless, perhaps, the knowledge was available but simply not highlighted well enough for people to spot any malicious behaviour). Totally agree with your final point - it's a very strange dichotomy that as average people are finding less and less privacy, those with privilege or power are the ones who are afforded it.

tomp 14y ago

I would prefer a reality/society where everything is public and transparent, however, we cannot do that yet. We would need much more evenly distributed social power and means of production. Maybe robots can enable that in a few decades? See http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

betterunix 14y ago
At the turn of the 20th century, this optimism was widespread: science and industrialization would, according to popular thought, bring about a golden age where disease, famine, and war would all be forgotten. Some people, like H. G. Wells, had different ideas; rather than bringing about an age of peace, new technology would be used as a tool of war. H. G. Wells thought that radioactivity (which was cutting edge at the time) would be used to make bombs so powerful that whole cities could be destroyed and that airplanes would be key to military tactics (he was a bit off the mark on some things: he thought submarines would not work, that airplanes would not be invented until the 1950s, and that nuclear bombs would explode continuously for an entire day -- nobody said he had a crystal ball). Robots distributing social power? I think it will be the exact opposite. Robots will be used to maintain social power, to prevent people from every gaining it. Your robot will be like an iPhone: you will be locked out of the software, forbidden to make modifications, forbidden to hack. Your robot will produce only as much as you need to survive; you will not receive enough to gain any more power than you already had. Your robot will also spy on you, so that if you start organizing a group of people to rebel against those with power, you will be thwarted by some means (perhaps your food will be drugged to reduce your cognitive abilities, or maybe for simplicity you will just stop receiving food). The people with power will never have to worry about being unseated, because they will have total control over the means of production. The only threat to the powerful at the point will be their own incompetence; only when they are not able to make the right decisions about managing society will society have a chance to rebel. Here is a microcosm of what a world where robots run everything would be like: http://www.wired.com/cars/coolwheels/news/2006/08/71554 http://www.wired.com/cars/coolwheels/news/2006/08/71554

betterunix 14y ago

"The thing that worries me about this push towards encryption and anonymity is that it does afford nefarious elements a lot of safe harbor" I have yet to see any evidence that this is true; all I see are anecdotes from law enforcement agencies who are pushing for less crypto, and even those anecdotes only tenuously describe "nefarious" elements. You cannot encrypt a blood stain or a fingerprint, nor can you use an anonymity system to hide the fact that a known terrorist group is increasing the volume of data it sends and receives. So what nefarious elements do you think are going to avoid prosecution by using crypto? A few years ago, there was a case of a group of child molesters using PGP and anonymous remailers (and possibly other privacy technologies) to communicate and exchange photos of themselves abusing children over Usenet. They were caught, arrested, and prosecuted following a well-coordinated investigation -- otherwise known as "good police work." Only a handful managed to avoid identification or prosecution, and it is worth noting that this was the case with investigations of criminal organizations long before good encryption was widely available. It should hardly be surprising that such a group was ultimately caught: they were sending each other photographic evidence of their own crimes. It is also worth pointing out that anonymity systems are used by the police to catch criminals. In the case described above, the police used the very anonymity system that the child abusers were using, and were thus able to observe their messages while maintaining the secrecy of their investigation. Similar scenarios have played out with Tor. Criminals who use the Internet will eventually figure out which IP addresses belong to the police; it will be critical for the police to use anonymity systems to mask their IP addresses (this, in fact, is closely related to the reason the Navy created Tor in the first place). It is not so much that society's nefarious elements are more empowered now; it is more that the nature of the game has changed, that new tactics and strategies will be developed by both criminals and the police to utilize and cope with these systems. I would argue that crypto and anonymity systems have benefited society more than they have harmed it. The same crypto and anonymity technologies used by the group I mentioned above have been used by political dissidents and activists to protect themselves from abusive governments; human rights activists have used such systems to protect the people they work with. Whistleblowers have used such systems in the past, and will have to do so in the future. For people who do not have an army at their command, these sorts of systems are necessary for their protection. If you were going to report Mafia activity to the police, would you rather use Tor/remailers/etc. or would you walk into the police station in person? There is no such thing as a world of transparency and openness, because crime is part of human nature and because political ambition is part of human nature, and both of these behaviors exploit openness and transparency. I am all for an open government, but even I acknowledge that the government will need to keep some things secret -- military plans, investigations of dangerous criminal enterprises, the locations of witnesses to crimes, and many other things must be kept secret for society's benefit. Open and transparent government does not mean "secret free," it means "secrecy when it is absolutely necessary;" it is the responsibility of citizens to ensure that their representatives in the government are not declaring too many things to be secret, and it is the job of journalists to report to the citizens what is being kept secret from them. The sooner society realizes that, the better.