Re: Truth Machines and Open Networks

Warrl kyree Tale'sedrin (warrl@mail.blarg.net)
Thu, 19 Mar 1998 18:02:25 +0000


> From: John K Clark <johnkc@well.com>
> You look in one part of the network and find ironclad evidence that I
> committed a murder on Thursday, then you look in another part of the network
> and find ironclad evidence that I did not commit a murder on Thursday.
> Did I murder anybody on Thursday?

Oh, nothing so simple. The autopsy report says he died Thursday.
Another copy of the same autopsy report says he died Wednesday. His
body was found either Tuesday or Friday. There's a video clip of him
at the local convenience store Saturday. Another of you shooting him
on Monday -- when it can be proven (eyewitnesses, not just
surveillance) that you were in another state. And another of the
local head prosecutor shooting him on Wednesday (when it can be
proven via eyewitness testimony that *he* was in another state). And
ample evidence that both the prosecutor's secretary and his chief
political opponent's secretary were tampering with the surveillance
records, even though neither has the technical expertise to do so.

>
>
> >You could try and destroy the data but it's completely distributed,
>
> Far from trying to destroy the data I would make thousands or millions
> of copies of it, all suitably mutated of course, and leave you the job of
> determining the truth.
>
>
> >which makes things very hard to find.
>
> If it's hard for me to find stuff on the network it's hard for everybody,
> so what's the point of the network?
>
>
> >You could try to orgainise somekind of anti-openess conspiracy, but
> >the majority of people have more to gain from openess than from
> >privacy (i.e. losers.)
>
> That's probably untrue and certainly irrelevant. The perfect world would be
> one where everybody and everything was open, except for me.
>
>
> >There's are no network administrators, it's completely distributed
> >autonomous anarchy.
>
>
> If it can do that then it's no longer an autonomous network, it's an
> autonomous AI and all bets are off in predicting what it will decide to do
> with a fifth wheel like the human race.
>
>
> >But the data must be machine-readable.
>
>
> I don't see your point, cryptographic data is almost always machine-readable.
>
>
> >For the sake of argument, let's say you managed secret communication.
> >Who would you send communicate with?
>
> My banker.
>
> >What would you say?
>
>
> "Here's the money I made from selling 26 tones of cocaine to children, don't
> pay taxes on any of it, just put it in a standard anonymous encrypted account.
> Tell your Russian friend that 7 tones of heroin is too much to pay for his
> H bomb, it's only 3 megatons for goodness sake and it's not like he's the
> only one around selling nukes, I refuse to go higher than 6 tons of marijuana,
> take it or leave it."
>
>
> >Do you think you can organise people against the network?
>
>
> Don't know, don't care.
>
>
> >What are you going to stop?
>
>
> Stop the trust people have in the network by making it hopelessly unreliable.
>
>
> >What can you steal from an open society?
>
>
> Money and power, and because of that it won't be open for long.
>
>
> >How can you bribe an open society?
>
>
> With money and power.
>
>
> >What have you got that they haven't?
>
> Money and power.
>
> John K Clark johnkc@well.com
>
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