Very interesting!

By the way, this thread can (and probably should) be considered long and
tedious. Please indulge us. If you don't find it worth your while, please
delete and/or filter.


On Fri, Mar 28, 2014 at 6:18 PM, Troy Benjegerdes <hozer@???> wrote:
>
> > 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.
>

This is obfuscation and is not secure. You won't know when you are found.
Strong encryption is proven to be more secure than obfustication. Regularly
changing a passphrase is more secure than changing to a new obfustication
scheme.

Hide your traffic in plain sight inside high-frequency trading engines, in
> which the sheer volume of data overwhelms any attempt at analysis.


I am not sure what you mean by "high-frequency trading engines". I doubt it
is possible to overwhelm analysis of a high volume of data by an enemy with
reasonable and sufficient resources.


> If you are indistinguisable from the trading patterns of a political
> campaign,
>

What are "trading patterns of a political campaign"? How much data (and
randomness) do they generate?


> 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.
>

I'm not sure what your point is with this paragraph.

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.
>

Wouldn't it be simpler and more realistic to develop open hardware and
software to communicate securely and privately over a network than trying
to hide in high-frequency trading engines? It is possible for an individual
to be "smarter". Communities even more so. And it is also possible that
there are smart people that do not choose to work for opponents, such as
Phil Zimmerman, author of PGP.

I agree; real and effective communication requires honest and free-thinking
individuals. It has always been so. With global spanning networks, strong
encryption is a _much_ better solution for establishing trust that the
other individual is honest.

I take a very suspicious view of any privacy or anonymity system that
> requires advanced 'breakthrough' theories,


You are free to think that. But I trust mathematics and physics more than I
trust a politician that claims to have my best interests in mind.


> 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.


Open hardware is being designed, developed and built now. Knowing how to
think critically and being scientifically literate are reasonable
requirements for an individual to be accepted into a community, not to
mention being an informed citizen in a democracy. This kind of literacy is
much more effective at making changes happen.


> And then if you HAD the ability to do that, you probably wouldn't have
> any need for anonymity anyway.
>

*Puzzled* Why are you assuming that? Wouldn't it be up to the individual
to choose to be anonymous?

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.
>

Er, I must be dumb, but this seems like a meaningless tautology. I respect
Brin, so I must be misunderstanding something. I'll check him out.

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

In the "Republic", Glaucon says it would be absurd that a guard would need
a guardian. Plato says the solution is a class of guards whose souls have
been perfected will guard the guardians. Again, I trust math over the
perfection of a guardian's soul. To put it another way, we are debating the
plot of "Robocop", and I know the robots are less prone to exploits
(corruption) than humans are.


> 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.


I can't really argue that point, since a non-coercive Government, Of the
People, By the people, and For the people has never existed. But, you are
free to believe that. Coercive governments, however, have stood up to
fascist states. Not that I support them.


> 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 think I understand your point: political campaign funding has corrupted
US government. And, your solution is to make campaign funding transparent
and accountable. Not that I agree with those points, however. Note you are
requiring private keys. I don't mean to be pedantic, but didn't you just
say privacy is bad?

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.
>

Restricting anonymity IS government by force. I feel we are discussing two
different definitions of anonymity.

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.
>

Crypto-anarchy and crypto-libertarianism means no compromises need to be
made as a necessary evil.


> 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.
>

Standing in front of a tank did not stop the Tiananmen Square Massacre. The
protests caused martial law to be declared in Beijing and a massive
crackdown on demonstrations throughout China. Did it give more freedom to
Chinese citizens? I don't know. I wish I had more time to learn about it.


> > 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.
> >
> > > 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.
>

It may be a stated goal, but in actuality our foreign policy is the
protection and acquisition of US financial interests, NOT freedom and
liberty. Should I start providing a list of countries where the US
supported dictators?

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?


I'll admit I'm not sure what unSYSTEM's ideals are actually. Where can I
read about them? If they require compromises with 'frenemies', I will go my
own way.

My concern is experiencing liberty NOW. I will practice and protect my
freedom to think, speak and act as I want, when I want. I am not my
brother's keeper. If someone else realizes they are not free and want to
live freely, I welcome them. We are different in that I don't need to
change someone else to be free.