re: SOC/CRYPTO/LAW: Establishing Big Brother using covert channels and other covert techniques

From: Michael Wiik (mwiik@messagenet.com)
Date: Tue Feb 13 2001 - 09:37:34 MST


Chris Rasch <crasch@openknowledge.org> wrote:
> Establishing Big Brother using covert channels and other covert
> techniques
> Yvo Desmedt

Thanks for this link. This ties in with my current interests as lately I
have been thinking of sort of a 'soft' version of ubiquitous law
enforcement (ULE). Such 'soft' ULE doesn't rely on Vinge's idea of
giving the government a percentage area of CPU chips or the idea of
making each device a law enforcement device. It may not even need any
specific law enforcement devices at all. Instead, normal everyday
wireless devices are monitored and sometimes changed to facilitate law
enforcement goals.

Ultimately, perhaps, vast quantum computers would be used to compute
trajectories of all people and alter them in subtle ways to enforce law
and prevent crime. You want to rob a bank, but your car won't start. You
have murder in mind, and when you cross the street an 'error' is induced
in the computerized accelerator of a car waiting at the light, and runs
you over. You call up your drug contact, but always get a busy signal,
etc. If you think that's bad, just wait till you get Kurzweil's
brain-cruising nanobots installed.

The scary thing is, all this can happen without any public notice or
discussion. It'll all just gradually become part of our reality whether
we want it to or not. Such a system could be used to retard the frontier
of singularity-inducing or freedom-enhancing sciences. I personally
think this is more of a threat to singularity than nano-war.

Oh, what a peaceful, carefully controlled world it will be.

        -Mike

-- 
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Michael Wiik
Principal
Messagenet Communications Research
Washington DC Area Internet and WWW Consultants
http://messagenet.com
mwiik@messagenet.com
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