On Fri, Mar 28, 2014 at 05:03:11PM +0000, John Hebert wrote:
> I wanted to start another thread about Troy's following comments:
>
>
> To continue in my apparent addiction to tilting at windmills and creative
>
> > destruction of groupthink wherever I encounter it, I also seem to like
> > getting
> > into arguments about anonymity, and calling into question the claims of
> > various
> > groups (including the unsystem Darkwallet developers) about privacy and
> > anonymity. Dissent to the majority view is the most powerful tool to ensure
> > freedom, and I seem to find myself arguing counter to the group consensus.
> >
>
> Could you expand on your thoughts about privacy and anonymity? I found it
> surprising that you call into question the Darkwallet's developer's stance
> on privacy and anonymity, as I assumed you would be on the same page. But,
> it is an opportunity for me to learn. I try to question everything, even
> myself!

If you want privacy and anonymity, do what the experts do. Hide in the noise.

Hide your traffic in plain sight inside high-frequency trading engines, in
which the sheer volume of data overwhelms any attempt at analysis. If you
are indistinguisable from the trading patterns of a political campaign,
then I can expect you might be able to remain anonymous.

I have met exceedingly brilliant mathematicians and coders who work for Cray,
and they provide hardware to several TLAs in the US, and probably others as
well, AND they market hardware for the 'Big Data' market.

If you assume that the opponent (the NSA, big corporate data, an organized
crime) have the ability to employ people who are smarter than you are, AND
the ability to infiltrate, then the only defense is simplicity, and the
honesty of free individuals.

I take a very suspicious view of any privacy or anonymity system that requires
advanced 'breakthrough' theories, or depends on pre-infiltrated commodity
computing hardware. Only if you can build it, (or at least validate the design,
down to the silicon), can you know that the anonymity being advertised actually
works. And then if you HAD the ability to do that, you probably wouldn't have
any need for anonymity anyway.

I also follow David Brin in his theories on transparency, and basically,
that the illusion of privacy only gives power to those than can hide their
invasions of privacy.

If we all have no privacy, paradoxically, I believe we have more, for we
can watch the watchers, ad-infinitum.

Back to the government.. I believe non-coercive Government, Of the People,
By the people, and For the people is the ONLY force in the world which can
stand up to totalitarian fascist states. Thus why it is critical for the
UnSystem to work hand-in-hand with individual politicians, and explain
to them why transparent campaign-finance oriented cryptocurrencies in which
every transaction, and every private key is strongly linked to a real-live
person are the only way to be free.

I respect the Darkwallet team's intention, but it is my view that in the
long-run, anonymity only benefits the strongest totalitarian force-using
state, which uses it as a weapon to forment 'popular' revolution when the
puppet dictators do not go along with the plan.

In the short term, it may be a necessary evil to combat larger coercive
evil, but I see no way to limit coercive evil through hiding.

Someone must take a public stand in front of a tank, and dare the government
to run them down, and make the people who implement the coercive evil question
their loyalty to the system.

If you are standing in the square, shoulder to shoulder with people AND most
importantly, members of your local city council, the coercive evil must unmask
itself for what it is, or shrink back into the shadows.

> In the unsystem context, I strongly dissent to the characterization and
> > mythology of 'evil government'. Those of us that HAVE at one point had
> > @something.gov email address are likely to be your strongest supporters,
> >
>
> Now here is a topic I'd like to chew on. The US government has done more
> evil than good with the development of the atom bomb and the subsequent
> Cold War. The destruction of the fascist states before the Cold War was
> justified. The ongoing pseudo-occupation of those states through the
> continued presence of US military bases calls into question our
> government's commitment to "spreading liberty and freedom" around the
> world. And the US government's foreign policy to stop the "spread of
> communism" was a failure and a threat to the freedoms of US citizens.
>
> I can't say much on whether or not all systems of government are evil. I've
> mostly read about the governments of other nations. I have traveled to the
> Auvergne region of France, and found the people and culture (and cheese, no
> pun intended) there to be very pleasant. It seemed to me that the French
> government is committed to the well-being of its citizens. I welcome any
> criticism to the contrary. My stay there was only a few weeks.
>
>
> > and involvement and acceptance of local, state, and world government
> > involvement in a healthy multiple-cryptocoin ecosystem is what is going
> > to bring about fundamental change in the world.
>
>
> This last section is worthy of much debate. Where to begin?
>
> Some governments restrict involvement by force. Acceptance of such a
> government is contradictory to freedom.

Quite. However toppling 'enemy' governments that restrict involvement of
their citizens by force is damn near a stated goal of the United States
Military Industrial Surveillance complex. Their failure is the use of
force to stop 'bad guys' who use force.

So we have a potential for an uneasy truce.. Can the unSystem work with
the enemy of our enemies, even though this 'frenemy' might be counter to
our own ideals?

> The establishment of alternative currencies does not require government
> involvement, especially in the quickly evolving ecosystem of the Internet.
> IMO, the current Internet closely resembles the revolutionary political
> environments during the 1) downfall of Western monarchies, 2) the European
> Revolutions of 1848-49 and the 3) post-Austro-Hungarian Empire Revolutions.
> My point being those revolutions were not the exclusively the direct effect
> of a totalitarian state, but instead happened in a state of political,
> cultural and even technological flux.
>
> What we have now, because of the Internet, is a similar opportunity to live
> in an environment of post-representational and post-geographical
> governments. We _now_ have effective communities that span from the local
> to the global level. I am typing these thoughts from my small home in San
> Antonio, Texas and they go out to you spread around the world. This
> community is participating in a nascent effort with the potential impact to
> change governments permanently, or at least piss off a lot of Wall St.
> bankers.
>
> Is the cooperation with any current government of a nation state required
> to fulfill the goals of unSYSTEM and Darkwallet? No. Could it help? I don't
> know. The recent historical record indicates not. We are an unknown to
> most, a thorn to some, and a threat to a privileged few.
>
> Here is a point to strengthen my argument:
>
> Did the evolution of open source and its communities require the
> involvement and acceptance of the governments of nation states? Hell no. In
> most cases, it was a fight against those governments and it continues
> today. It is easy to argue that open source gives people more freedom. In
> fact, the open source movement is an excellent example that people can give
> themselves more freedom without the involvement or acceptance of the
> governments of nation states.
>
> I posit it is pointless to wait for nation states to evolve and give
> individuals more liberty and freedom. And if we give away our liberty and
> freedom, for any reason, we are longer individuals. If individuality
> defines being human, those who give up their individuality for safety,
> comfort or the greater good are _no_ longer human. Humans are capable of
> self-government, and therefore being individuals in a larger self-governing
> community. Hopefully we can create some of the tools to help that come
> about.

> _______________________________________________
> unSYSTEM mailing list: http://unsystem.net
> https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/unsystem

-- 
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Troy Benjegerdes                 'da hozer'                  hozer@???
7 elements      earth::water::air::fire::mind::spirit::soul        grid.coop

      Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel,
         nor try buy a hacker who makes money by the megahash