Bruce Sterling on Geeks and Spooks

apsmith writes: "Bruce Sterling's latest Viridian piece is a written version of a talk on why we're in such a mess with crypto, why the computer industry is going nowhere for the next few years, and what Lawrence Lessig, the NSA, Echelon, Oliver North and Abdullah Catli have in common. Thought-provoking stuff, even if you might not agree with quite everything ("Why don't you geeks just sit down with your cheap, crappy plastic boxes, and shut up? Here in the TV biz, our boxes look nicer anyway!")." This is a lunch-time talk, and it's meant to be entertaining, and it is. :)

Comments

Re:Lynch mob?

[Lumpish Scholar]

How does Bruce distinguish this from a lynch mob or posse of surveillance?

The KKK wore hoods.

If they wore T-shirts with their driver's license numbers writ large and visible from all angles, they wouldn't have formed lynch mobs.

Read the text Mr. Sterling wrote between the last two sentences you quoted:

I'm not suggesting that. I am suggesting secure, accountable devices with digital signatures built in. They're cryptographically time-stamped, their voice signals and photographs are cryptographically overwritten, proving their source. They are tamperproofed, and very sternly verifiable, and usable as proven evidence in courts of law. They're not civilian toys, they are genuine weapons of information warfare, in much the same way that an unarmed Predator surveillance aircraft is a weapon. They are people's media weapons. Their proper use requires some training and discretion; it's like a citizen's audiovisual arrest.

About the conclusion

[chris_mahan]

True enterpreneurship is about failing and failing until at last one learns and does it right. Usually, getting the chance to "start all over" involves moving away with the clothes on your back, burnt bridges behind, and lofty ideals ahead. This is what America was founded on, this is why people left their countries (if they were wealthy and successful, they stayed in them european countries). Being able to shed one's identity and become truly anonymous is a requirement. This is why it's so important not to have lifelong tracking devices. They have them in Europe, and dang they were annoying. They served to remind everyone of their lowly position in life, of their expected behavior based on status...

Industry going nowhere??

[LazyDawg]

When people start saying that the computer industry will be going nowhere for the next few years, it means something totally new and world-altering is about to happen.

Before the microprocessor, the world was under the impression nothing would change until mainframes got a LOT bigger, made of fewer discrete components. Before handhelds, people thought laptops were going nowhere. Before the Internet people thought BBSes were going nowhere.

Before Linux started picking up, people thought the only thing that could run on PCs was Windows and DOS. Little did they know! :)

So, something big is gonna happen in the computer industry soon. Sweet :)

Re:Lynch mob?

[Winged Cat]

So, what happens when - not if - the identity information gets stripped out while it's being reported by others, because the others care about the dirt and not so much about who vouches for it? ("A bunch of people sent me video of you doing this thing we object to. No, I'm not gonna tell you who they are. No, I'm not gonna spend the bandwidth to forward you all that video so you can see it yourself and see if they're faked, or all actually the same person. I'm just gonna find you guilty.")

Re:Executive summary

[Proteus Child]

Cypherpunk types have colorful fantasies but are a joke if you're talking about real world implications.

I hate to say it, but that's about right.. the cypherpunks have got some great ideas for applying strong crypto, near-ironclad anonymity, secret cash transfers, et al, but if John/Jane Q. Net.user won't use them because they're too esoteric, it means precisely nothing.

Now if it was suddenly cool to be able to use such software, then it would be a lot more widespread.

Re:Lynch mob?

[sphealey]

The KKK wore hoods.

If they wore T-shirts with their driver's license numbers writ large and visible from all angles, they wouldn't have formed lynch mobs.

That conveniently ignores the fact that the county sheriff usually knew exactly who the members of the lynch mob were, and his deputies were often part of the mob. So if an imbalance of power exists, having that information would probably only make it worse for those at the wrong end of the see-saw.

sPh