Comment by sliverstorm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sliverstorm | Hacker News Reader

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On the bright side it leaves us in the same position as man has always been- rather charted territory.

I've been skeptical of Tor et-al from day one. I didn't have provable reasons why, but the court has always served as the gatekeeper to investigation, and the Tors of the world seemed like the sort of hubris we techies are so prone to- "Age-old social justice problems man has struggled with for thousands of years can be trivially fixed with my technology!"

It is my opinion that we (techies) overestimate ourselves. Tor is useful, but it would have to be perfect (which no technology can be) to protect you from the flawed judicial system. Which is why I think we are destined for heartbreak, and the longer we forestall that realization the worse off we will be, for we will ignore the judicial system and allow it to become ever more broken.

As a sidenote I find it bitter satire; people who cannot accept the will of others seeking tools to forcefully impose their own morality on the world instead

I'm rather partial to your comment. Though as a cipherpunk of my own generation, fully knowledgeable of rubberhose cryptanalysis and the rest, I do hold out hope that some of these technologies balance power and push them into the hands of the benign individual more than they magnify the power of a select or chosen few.

If all technology provides more power to everyone, but unevenly to where more is added at the top than the bottom, then the only thing that is left to defend against power inequality are court systems and forms of mass unrest. I distrust the completeness of the former (we've seen them go bad) and rather dislike the latter.

The pendulum could of course swing too far the other direction into anarchy. This, too, leaves my mouth bitter.

Ultimately I think technologies like Tor aren't so bad. Certainly it is nothing compared to nuclear weapons or personal firearms. Information and communication, while they can aid criminal behavior, are not criminal in themselves. Like has always been the case - long before it was possible to monitor and store information and communication for later introspection - criminal acts are acts in the physical world and they can be investigated there.

https://www.schneier.com/news/archives/2014/04/bruce_schneie...

> As a sidenote I find it bitter satire; people who cannot accept the will of others seeking tools to forcefully impose their own morality on the world instead

By this do you mean those that can't accept the will of others comprise the judicial system or those not prepared to submit to it and pursuing alternate avenues? Your comment works either way, but if you're talking about those attempting to place themselves outside the judicial system that's less them imposing their own morality on the world and simply not allowing the world to impose its morality on them.

Mostly the former. Some think they are the latter, but a lot of outright criminals will explain to you how they are actually justified using their own carefully-crafted moral code that always conveniently allows for their behavior. That's what I mean by forcing their own morality on the world.

Interesting point. Nobody thinks they're the bad guy, but some people are only considered the bad guy by the state, rather than almost everybody. That's the latter group to which I referred.

>It is my opinion that we (techies) overestimate ourselves.

What everyone is forgetting is this:

The FBI, NSA, CIA etc all have techies. And since they would be extremely well paid it is logical to assume that they are very good at what they do. So anything that we can do they can do only (a) arguably better and (b) with the constraint of having to comply with the law.

So? They could be arguably much worse. It doesn't matter. You only need to be good enough to notice asymmetries (such as your (b), or certain mathematical asymmetries as another example) and set them up in your favor. There are plenty in existence for both sides. When the asymmetries are powerful enough, it doesn't matter how well-equipped or intellectually superior your opponent is.

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