tsoon wrote:
>
> >Is this the same "ban cryptography, total surveillance, anarchists are
> evil"
> >David Brin who's posted here in the past, or is this another David Brin
> >I've never previously heard of? If it's the former I don't know how anyone
> >could call him a libertarian.
>
> I don't know about this. I probably wasn't a subscriber then. My ref to Brin
> is 2nd hand knowledge though I'm a 100% sure of the rest, so I may be
> wrong.
>
David Brin is a very smart and future-oriented type guy, but he does
not consider himself a libertarian, at least as of last May when he spoke
at the foresight fellows conference. At that point, he wasn't speaking of
banning cryptography, and I don't recall that he called for banning
cryptography (except perhaps for its use by the government) in his
book. Rather, he believes that cryptography and other attempts at
secrecy are futile in the face of future generally available
surveillance technologies.