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The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

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Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

#101

Post by mirimir »

webmaven wrote: post #100
mirimir wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Internet was never anonymous. Especially not at the start, when every computer had its own IP address.

First, IP address assignment for dial-up users was generally random from a pool, and ISPs usually only kept logs long enough to be useful for troubleshooting purposes. But ignoring the IP address assignment issues, do you remember what website log analysis tools (eg. http://www.webalizer.org/ ) were like back then? Most encouraged dumping the raw logs and just keeping the summarizing reports. As a result, for most in…

At the start, there were no ISPs. Assuming that logs are transient is dangerous. Remember how Kevin Mitnick got pwned?

Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

#102

Post by imrehg »

mirimir wrote: post #89
dragonwriter wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As the saying goes: information wants to be free. Don't anthropomorphize abstractions; they hate that.

Sure. He should have said "tends to be" or "gets driven toward being" or whatever. But the key point is the tension, not his languaging.

whoosh...

Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

#103

Post by igk »

Mc_Big_G wrote: post #49

Relevant: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6hbis7/us_congress... TLDR; There's currently a bill to make cryptocurrencies illegal. (and other stuff that the government can't control)

Honestly, this seems like a reasonably sane bill. IANAL but it does not seem to make cryptocurrencies illegal, more the opposite: it recognizes them as cash and places the same requirements that other financial instruments have on them...with a review period of 18 months. That seems good for crypto more than anything else.

If anyone knows more about this and wants to explain why I'm misunderstanding this I'd be thankful :-)

Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

#104

Post by mirimir »

imrehg wrote: post #102
mirimir wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. He should have said "tends to be" or "gets driven toward being" or whatever. But the key point is the tension, not his languaging.

whoosh...

Look, everyone knows that concepts have no intentionality. It was a figure of speech.

Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

#105

Post by rorykoehler »

mempko wrote: post #87
AYBABTME wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A currency and markets primary purpose is to provision the state. Not at all. "State" is a political constructions while currencies are a value transport mechanism and markets are a network of those, both of which, as "pure" concepts, arises pretty quickly when one starts to ponder how to model "actors in need to exchange and use scarce resources which have alternative uses". In that sense, saying that "currencies…

You are wrong, they are inventions used for a political purpose. Try making your own currency and markets if you want proof. Bitcoin is a perfect example. Required millions of dollars to get off the ground, provisioned early adopters like a ponzi scheme. Likely has state backing though I have no proof it's a honey pot. Just gut feeling.

Honeypot for what?

Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

#106

Post by eeZah7Ux »

optimuspaul wrote: post #48
Ajedi32 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the saying goes: information wants to be free. In a world where everyone can interact with each other completely anonymously that becomes even more true, since governments cannot effectively penalize people for distributing said information. For example, imagine a version of The Pirate Bay hosted as a Tor hidden service, combined with a completely anonymous torrent-like P2P file sharing system.

Ugh, I hate that "information wants to be free" nonsense. Information doesn't want anything, it isn't a thing that can want. People want information and very rarely do people actually want it to be free.

> Information doesn't want anything

It's obviously a metaphor.

Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

#107

Post by eeZah7Ux »

19eightyfour wrote: post #80
DonCarlitos wrote: post #75

And still, the rich get richer, the powerful even more so... cutting barbed wire hasn't changed anything. Casts some serious shade on the power of crypto-anarchy to change anything. Anarchy, like libertarianism, are lovely notions with no direct roots in reality. Here's hoping blockchain democratizes and makes more transparent at least part of the puzzle.

It's not that there's anything wrong with the technology. It's just that people can be exploited. And they get exploited. So the hierarchical power structures remain in place. Seriously, what better dream to plant in the slaves' minds but the idea that "a simple little computer program" can set you free? And what better way to control them and stifle their rising-up than by the constant deception that they have more…

> what better dream to plant in the slaves' minds but the idea that "a simple little computer program" can set you free?

Yet when people overthrow tyrannical governments to then establish democracy the planning is done secretly.

And when tyrannical governments come to power the first thing they do is monitor and restrict communication.

This has been true many times in history in the last hundreds years.

Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

#108

Post by eeZah7Ux »

mempko wrote: post #63

The comments here mention crypto currencies. However, currency is anathema to anarchist societies and isn't mentioned in the manifesto. Anarchists recognize that currencies and markets are products of the state and using this tool in a stateless society makes no sense. A currency and markets primary purpose is to provision the state. What would a crypto currency without a state provision? Who does it serve? Bitcoin m…

> FPGA and ASIC operators consuming vasts amount of energy

Not vast at all when you compare it with the amount of energy used in traditional banking to move around the same amount of money.

Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

#109

Post by sethrin »

webmaven wrote: post #100
mirimir wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Internet was never anonymous. Especially not at the start, when every computer had its own IP address.

First, IP address assignment for dial-up users was generally random from a pool, and ISPs usually only kept logs long enough to be useful for troubleshooting purposes. But ignoring the IP address assignment issues, do you remember what website log analysis tools (eg. http://www.webalizer.org/ ) were like back then? Most encouraged dumping the raw logs and just keeping the summarizing reports. As a result, for most in…

Ah, you're talking about the start of the web. The person you responded to was talking about the start of the Internet -- ARPANet or one of its later incarnations. When the traffic started exploding, yes, it became possible to be pseudonymous on the internet, but before then IP addresses were pretty much known and assigned in large blocks to particular universities/agencies/companies.

It sounds like there may be some history you missed out on. I recommend reading 'The Cuckoo's Egg' by Cliff Stoll if you've not already done so.

Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

#110

Post by cinquemb »

matt4077 wrote: post #85
tudorconstantin wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What exactly is that killer app of bitcoin that so frightens the establishment?" Right now in order to spend ones bitcoins (with a few exceptions) one has to change them into fiat currency and that's where the establishment can monitor and control the money flow. What will happen when a critical mass of service providers and product sellers will gladly accept crypto coins? That's when one can hide his cash reserves…

Yes, probably. It's just slightly insane to think you can opt-out of paying taxes via technology, or that taxes are somehow for the benefit of some nebulous "establishment". That's empirically true, for only a tiny sliver of very strange people still fantasise about some Randian utopia of every-man-for-himself. And it's logically inescapable, since there's no way to sustain today's societies without the cooperation e…

>since there's no way to sustain today's societies without the cooperation established by taxes.

To the degree one can differentiate societies sustained by taxes from sustained by lines of credit extended to societies in promise of future taxes of which are now under question…

New "establishments"[0] will form that better serve those who reap the benefits of engaging in crypto-economic behaviors, Old ones will die/become obsoleted/increasingly ineffective at enforcing their diktats, some overlap of functionalities may exist/remain between such. Same as it ever was.

10k software engineers effectively dodging/avoiding taxes on 100k/y of income, who can organize/allocate resources to some other ends seems like a plausible block of people to put up some effective asymmetrical resistance against taxes to governments of various sizes over the world. Yet still a drop in the bucket in terms of population size.

Do a few engineers who are unable to imagine such, really pose a threat agaisnt people are/trying to create something new?

[0] I use this very loosely, could be traditional meat spaces ones, or decentralized digital networks with active and passive mechanisms for ensuring survival.

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