Cryptoanarchy is the shit
Never had the bug bit me before — always thinking crypto-anarchism WP a hangover from the cyberpunky 80s. It isn’t. It’s pure magic. And it may be anarchy’s best hope — ever.
Timothy C. May’s WP long, superb essay, True Nyms and Crypto Anarchy (which appears in an essay collection AM around Vernor Vinge’s True Names novel) has made a wild-eyed believer out of me. Fascinating stuff, this. (May, btw, is a former chief scientist at Intel, confirming my hypothesis that the people at the trenches of the Moore revolution had to be among humanity’s very best.)
Crypto anarchy is the cyber spatial realization of anarcho-capitalism, transcending national boundaries and freeing individuals to consensually make the economic arrangements they wish to make..
[It] ensures that men with guns cannot be brought in to interfere with mutually agreed-upon transactions, the only kind of economics interaction possible in crypto anarchy. Some people will of course scream “Unfair!” and demand government intervention, which is why strong cryptography will probably be opposed by the masses, unless of course, they are wise and take the long view. This may smack of elitism, but I have very little faith in democracy. De Tocqueville warned in 1840 that, roughly translated, “The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.” We reached that point several decades ago..
To put it bluntly, crypto anarchy basically undermines democracy: it removes behaviors and transactions from the purview of the mob. And once crypto is deeply entwined into the fabric of life and commerce, it will be too late to pull the plug.
Timothy C. May, True Nyms and Crypto Anarchy
Never had I been more than casually interested in cryptography. Now my copy of Schneier’s Applied Cryptograpy is on its way. Can’t wait.
4 Comments
The buss over secure and anonymous e-currency has died down since the 90s, but e-gold is still very much alive and kicking- and potentially very exciting.
Oh my! Interesting link. Thanks for sharing!
I wish the usability of encryption and digital signature tools was as easy as visiting a secure website. Perhaps then we’d be further along into the crypto-anarchy future. It needs to be seamlessly integrated into all e-mail software by default.
Just describing the process and reasons for it are tougher than I expected when I tried explaining the basics to my non-techy wife.BTW, e-gold happens to be in some hot water right now. Here is their answer to the charges. I don’t know much about them, and had only heard of them once someone offered me payment for a side project. I choose paypal instead.
Thanks for reminding me that I need to read Vinge’s “True Names” which has sat on my shelf for too many years now. I’m so far behind on reading.You’re right, of course, “safety is nothing without convenience.” E As a happy-go-lucky individual I’m terribly careless with security (most of the time is just not worth it) but when cryptography reaches the point where it’s as easy to use as not to, I will take the opportunity.
Thanks for the heads-up on e-gold’s gov’t trouble. Been reading a while on it now and it looks for all the world like gov’t bullshit (perhaps especially because I don’t even regard money laundering nor operating an unlicensed money transmitter business as crimes, but that’s another matter). Particularly interesting is this statement by e-gold’s founder,