Let me digress here for a second and comment on the shamelessly blatant way politicians use fear against the people they should serve so that they can instead oppress them.
2 Likes
Also that until declared guilty, everyoneâs innocent and even those who were guilty and have served a sentence are again innocent. Therefore there is zero justification for prior restraint. Again, the clueless average voter is oblivious to anything but carefully placed âkeywordsâ.
2 Likes
Not in the UK. At least, not in the way one would think. If you refuse to hand over your password to the authorities, thatâs in and of itself is a crime (i.e. âprivacy as crimeâ is a feature of the legal system there), which I think was the rationale behind TrueCryptâs âhidden vaultâ feature.
Totally pathetic, the UK is! No wonder the government supported Saudi Arabia on the UN Committee for Destruction of Human Rights.
But itâs still a good fallback if you get busted - itâs probably better to go to jail for PaaS than tax evasion (I would hope?).
1 Like
Yes, could be fear propaganda. Like the, what I believe, planted shoe bomber and that guy with firecrackers in his underwear. And now Americans have to stand in line without shoes at the airports like some concentration camp prisoners. Totally Orwellian. But still, what if there really is a serious danger with criminal activities spreading unhindered under the legal radar so to speak? Thatâs what Iâm confused about.
That is a legitimate feeling (who am I to discredit somebodyâs feelings?)
However, thereâs a big âhowever.â There is no logically, mathematically possible way to give what youâre asking for without stripping everybody of their clothes in the process. Now, there is a choice to make: are we willing to walk around naked just so that we can be sure nobody is hiding a gun under their coat? Itâs as simple as that.
Cryptography is not the kind of animal that reveals its secrets to the âgood guys,â but hides them from the baddies. Itâs simply math: if you hide inside your algorithm a way to solve it, somebody (good or bad) will find it and use it in ways you didnât intend it to be used.
Also, the whole âgood v.s. badâ thing is a joke. Your good guys are another nationâs terrorists, and their heroes are your nightmare. Or think about the banks, a major play field for information security. They are the good guys, right? Then go check how much they profit from organized crime, slavery, human rights violations, and think again. Your government must be good, then? They couldnât ensure a running economy without the banks doing all that crap, so they pretend nothing is happening (save the times when it blows up, then they give the bank a ridiculously low fine, the bank makes promises, and then everything goes on the way as before). Itâs an effed up world, and pretending the government is there to keep you safe is wishful thinking. People with power just want to keep things running smooth enough that they can keep on doing their power plays, and part of that is making sure youâre happy enough that you wonât get in the way. RANT OVER
3 Likes
We will see how serious the claim of a threat it is. If the SAFE network will allow a huge âsafe spaceâ for criminals then governments will become very worried. I look at it from a systemic and long-term perspective. One can imagine scenarios where criminal activities, although small in the beginning, start to spread and increase like a cancer. If those activities are completely shielded from governments then I see that as a potential real and growing danger.
Thatâs a very simple question, actually, almost rhetoric. The SAFE network will of course be a safe space for criminals, as much as to anybody else. Again: Mathematics doesnât differentiate based on morals.
What Iâm trying to hammer in however is that our dilemma isnât about that, but about whether we should accept the idea that we all have to walk around naked just because a supposedly righteous entity (you call it âthe governmentâ) tells us thatâs the only way we can be safe from the baddies.
2 Likes
Is it a good idea to give a loaded gun to a 4-year-old child? My point is that our civilization is perhaps not mature yet to be able to handle a huge anonymous information space. I donât know the answer to that myself, but I understand why governments need to at least evaluate the potential dangers.
I must say Iâm of the opinion that you are incorrect. Giving a 4 year old a gun is not a bad idea if that four year old is responsible, mature and intelligent enough to fear and understand what you are giving them. Very rare for 4 year olds, but there are those of the opinion that the earlier you teach gun safety the more safe an individual will be. However, my point is that that analogy doesnât hold here. Weâre not 4 year olds. As a matter of fact, we are only 4 year olds insofar as we are forced to be. Forced to rely on centralized institutions that have our worst interests at heart. Forced to wait for things to get better when then only get worse. If you read my post above, you would have the chance to see that THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS CRIMINALS. All criminals come from govt coercion because govts are based on the lie that some people have the right to tell other people what to do. It was not always so and it can NOT be so again. Do you think that criminals are restricting their activity because of âgovt dog catchersâ and the only thing keeping us safe from them is the long brutal arm of the law? I contend that you are mistaken.
Criminals run rampantly. NOW. Libor rigging scandal ring a bell? Enron? Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac? The federal reserve stealth tax/theft of inflation? If you havenât noticed the criminals run the show. They already have all the freedom, guns and resources they need to keep fleecing you for 1000 years and thatâs what they hope. They hope your fear of the unknown keeps you from rebuking them and going your own way. Governments are unnecessary and most of the world didnât have a âgovtâ until relatively recently, being content to manage their own affairs as they saw fit. The world was much better thenâŚ
2 Likes
Oh, well. A society likened to 4-year-old children. Can anything go wrong with that?
And no, civilizations will never be âmature enough.â Humans suck, they are selfish, and they always take the last slice of pizza.
The problem with governments (and why I donât trust them) is that they tend to accumulate the very segment of an already messed up society that is most willing to compromise their values in exchange for power. I have an acquaintance who was a member of the parliament in the country where I live. He went through a major life changing event, after which he quit his party and left his seat in the government. His explanation: âOne just canât keep being a whore while trying to stay a virgin.â
Edit: The reason Iâm talking about government suck is that I canât understand why you keep referring to governments as the major force behind good in society. They are not âdaddy,â who tells you whatâs right. The word âministerâ means "servant, not master, and it isnât hard to notice we are far from that ideal: this whole thing is upside down.
5 Likes
Iâm just gonna have to shamelessly and without remorse steal this quote for my collection! 
Contrary to my opinion about governments, I do believe they are important, even beneficial in a restricted sense. A âdemocratic government,â even though itâs founded on a lie, can function (i.e. stay in power) the best by keeping the majority of the population happy (and a minority unhappy, for comparison.) Such a government, regardless to its actual purposes, does benefit its country, on average.
They will not benefit humanity as a whole, however. The crap we can buy in the west costs a lot more than what we pay for, except not here, but where itâs being made, and not in money, but in health and environmental damages.
Certainly. A group of people getting together for a common good is tolerable. The chinese govt was pretty good to its citizens before the 20th century. I remember reading about a famine in the 1700s that wouldâve been much more severe had not the govt gone around and distributed grain. The problem is such a benevolent force does not exist in this world currently. We are born unwitting slaves unfortunately, which is why govts are bolder and bolder with removing our ârightsâ: we never had them to begin with. The govts, the vatican, and the top layers of the âshadow govtâ consider us all to be their property. The vatican declared all land and all humans their property sometime during the middle ages 14th century maybe.
Remember that there was a time were your church was your govt. Can you imagine the horror of being subjected to such arbitrary and capricious authority? The catholic church murdered some 100 million people during the middle ages, the church was the state back then and if you went against them it wasnât more than a trifle to have you burnt at the stake, beheaded or subject to whatever the torturer flavor of the week was at the time. The past is littered with the sordid history of govt overreach, corruption and malfeasance either against their people or another. While modern examples of the benevolence of govts are hard to come by indeed.
They already can break your encryption, but they want you to know that they can and are doing it. Tyranny doesnât work well if you donât know who the tyrant is. Fear doesnât work well if you donât know youâre being watched. Theyâve built backdoors into all manner of things you/I have no idea about. Hardware, firmware, software etc. Maidsafe is one small, grueling step towards freedom. The struggle is long and night dark, but if we persevere the sun will rise on us. I hope.
3 Likes
I donât want to sound like a government shill, ha ha and I really think there is a horrible trend towards more and more Orwellian control. And the SAFE network will be an excellent tool for reducing the Orwellian trend. At the same time there may be real dangers involved. And I mean enormous dangers. So the big picture situation is still unclear to me.
What dangers? What could possibly be worse than what we have now? What could the unleashing of true freedom actually do worse than the tyranny under which we live?
1 Like
Millions of people organizing criminal activities online. Without governments having any means of doing anything to stop it. Massive crowdsourced criminal gangs spreading like a cancer. Decentralized and compartmentalized terrorist cells together forming unstoppable armies able to destroy entire nations. Organized financial crime syndicates trading everything from illicit drugs and human trafficking to billion-dollar arms deals.
I would be careful with that word (âtyrannyâ) because it sounds a little funny from somebody who can say it without fear of being dragged out of his house tonight, never to be seen again. There are places with real tyranny, but I doubt any of us playing wise men here live there.
You just described the banking sector and the government blessing kissed upon its head.
People, save a few, are happy with living their comfortable little lives, and nothing will change that. What makes you think that a simple tool to communicate with others without fear of being wiretapped (which is no fear for 99% of the people, because they literally never think about it!) would suddenly turn millions of them into raging criminals, wanting to overthrow their governments? Nooooo. They will stay the same happy or sad people, worried about whatâs for dinner tonight, or whether itâs a good idea to refinance their mortgage, or should they put it off.
2 Likes
As opposed to what? The millions of organized criminals we have offline? Why do you suppose that an INCREASE in freedom will result in an increase in crime when historically increases in freedom result in DECREASES in crime? Look at the decriminalization of pot in Colorado. Look at prohibition. Nobody gets murdered over the alcohol trade these days, but it was common to read about such in the 20s and all during prohibition. You seem to be afflicted with a mental disease that I call governmentitis. I am not trying to be rude or offensive. It appears that you have an irrational belief that humans, when left to their own devices default to violent, destructive behavior. But there is absolutely no evidence for this. All the modern ecological destruction, crimes against persons, etc. ALL stem from govt and not the other way around. Donât you know that there were NO POLICE FORCES until the mid to late 1800s? How ever did we survive without the careful, loving watchful eye of govt??? The answer is a great deal better than now.
I have to say that I believe your supposition to be illogical, and your fears to be unfounded based on the historical record. When humans are given freedom, they do not murder, steal, or destroy by default. They attempt to make the best of their situation. Before you had to clock in to a 9-5 you had much more freedom. Also much less corporate and personal crime (hence no police). Your fears are dangerous because they are not only unfounded, but before the modern information age, difficult to disprove. However, now there is a plethora of evidence that such wild speculation is not only VASTLY OFF-BASE, but is actually used by govts to corral their populations into desired behaviors and mental states.
For example, the great atrocity of the Iraq and Afghan wars were perpetuated on those people, based merely on the completely BASELESS fear that Saddam Hussein had âweapons of mass destructionâ (Oooh scary right?). They never really did explain why we went to war in Afghanistan, the taliban offered to hand over Osama once provided proof of his culpability. The U.S. rejected. And thanks to this foolish fearfulness, 1,000,000 Iraqis are dead, 3-4 million injured and homeless/refugees. I tell you, baseless speculation and fear-mongering only hurt society and great attempts at freedom such as MaidSafe, and we would ALL do well to squelch such inane thought processes.
4 Likes
One percent of the population is still a large number of people. Worldwide itâs millions of people. Many would do it if there is enough profit to be made. And with a quickly expanding market, there will be a lot of profit available. And as for overthrowing governments, very few people will be interested in that, but look at what havoc only a dozen of terrorists can wreak.