[118528] in Cypherpunks
Re: Re: AUCRYPTO: On oldy encryptions
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Eric Gardner)
Thu Sep 30 23:46:51 1999
Message-ID: <000701bf0bbc$f2c95060$050fa8c0@pacbell.net>
From: "Eric Gardner" <ericg@invisioncorp.com>
To: <cypherpunks@einstein.ssz.com>
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 20:27:53 -0700
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Reply-To: "Eric Gardner" <ericg@invisioncorp.com>
> >On Thu, 30 Sep 1999 20:11:24 +0200, Mok-Kong Shen wrote:
> >
> >>As to the minority of crimials hiving high IQ, what
> >>hinders them from using quadruple or quintuple AES, despite
> >>Wassenaar and other regulations that for some plain or secret
> >>reasons are reportedly going to be relaxed?
> >
> >
> >You are just echoing my post of a few days on Cypherpunks. Thus, I
conclude
> >that the true goal of theses laws (including gun control, currency
control,
> >drug laws) are not at all aimed at protecting the people but at
controlling
> them.
> >
> >My conclusion does not come out of some pet big-conspiracy-theory but out
of
> >the simple observation of what *exact* effects of such laws.
> >
> >All over the world, the govt are lying through their teeth to their
> >populations, and all over the world, they cash in on the lies.
> >It is a hypnotism manoeuvre to keep the sheep under control.
>
> While part of me wants to agree with you, the other part thinks that it's
> just as likely that the government is just filled with control-oriented,
> shortsighted people who strike at the simplest and most obvious solution
to
> an immediate problem without considering either the side-effects or
whether
> or not the idea will actually work.
>
> The US gov't is a policy-oriented gov't. They make a policy against
crypto
> because they are afraid they won't be able to protect the citizens from
evil
> if they can't ferret it out before something bad happens. The reality
ends
> up being that the public is enslaved and the criminals go on using crypto,
> but that's not the point. The point is that the government has said that
> "crypto is bad for these reasons, thus we do not support the civilian use
of
> crypto." It's not THEIR fault the criminals didn't listen, they were
TRYING
> to protect us. Their reasoning was sound. They would be better equipped
to
> stop crimes before they happened if no one used crypto and they monitored
> everyone indiscriminately.
>
> We tend to like a short easy solution to all our problems and an easy
> explanation for everything. So much so that we make ignorant laws towards
> this end and make up false explanations for what went wrong so we can
sleep
> soundly at night, knowing the perceived threat (which is often also
fiction)
> is taken care of.
>
> Is the fear-mongering of the government and the media a conscious effort
to
> control the public or is it merely fickle stupid humanity struggling to
> grapple with the rigors of daily life? It's probably a combination of
both,
> but as much the latter as the former. As many people fight for the
downfall
> of this and the restriction of that our of well-meaning stupidity as out
of a
> desire to gain power over their peers.
>
> Consider the "war against drugs." The vocal civilian supporters tend to
be
> either mothers who had children that died from overdoses or addicts whose
> lives were destroyed by drugs. In both cases, they feel that they are
> somehow doing society a favor by ridding it of this scourge because
everyone
> else out there is at as much risk as they were (and look what happened to
> them).
>
> The US government feels, probably more than any other, that it has to save
> the people from themselves. This is probably because of the structure of
the
> legal system in this country. If I trip and fall from a crack in a
sidewalk,
> I can sue the town for not maintaining that sidewalk (and win the case).
> Suddenly, every stupid accident that should be brushed under the rug
becomes
> a multimillion dollar issue. The mentality after a while is that if the
> lawmakers can make doing all those stupid things illegal then they will
> reduce the number of lawsuits in the country and in a sense be keeping the
> people safer than they had been before. Many people are dumb enough to
> beleive that they actually ARE safer than they were before (or they just
> don't care one way or the other) and the circle continues.
>
> Crypto is a separate, but related issue. It seems that the mentality
> regarding crypto is the same one that has existed since things really got
> heated back in WW2. The only way to keep the country safe was to know
what
> the enemy was talking about. The war ended, crypto became a part of
> communication between civilians, and suddenly the civilians were the
enemy.
> If they're whispering then they must be up to no good. Old habits die
hard.
>
>
> To return to my original point, you said that "the true goal of theses
laws
> (including gun control, currency control, drug laws) [is] not at all aimed
at
> protecting the people but at controlling them." I am saying that the true
> goal of these laws (misguided though it may be) is aimed at protecting the
> people BY controlling them. Lock someone in a cell and you can be sure
that
> they're pretty safe. The question is, at one point is the tradeoff no
longer
> worth it.
>
>
> Sean
>
> "No one ever ASKED me if I wanted to be protected from that"
>
>
Dye and Ziegler wrote an excellent book on the subject, called The Irony of
Democracy. The heart of the matter is that neither the bureaucrats nor the
politicans are really the impetus behind such wrongheaded legislation. The
source is "the people." The real conspiracy is the tendency of people to
want to control other people. Politicians take their cues from pollsters,
and bureaucrats take their cues from job security. The culprit here is
ignorance in the general populace, i.e. 'There oughta be a law...'
E.
