Cyphernomicon Top
Cyphernomicon 16.22

Crypto Anarchy:
Data Havens


  16.22.1. "What are data havens?"
           + Places where data can be hidden or protected against legal
              action.
             - Sterling, "Islands in the Net," 1988
           + Medical experiments, legal advice, pornography, weapons
             - reputations, lists of doctors, lawyers, rent deadbeats,
                credit records, private eyes
           - What to do about the mounting pressure to ban certain kinds
              of research?
           - One of the powerful uses of strong crypto is the creation
              of journals, web sites, mailing lists, etc., that are
              "untraceable." These are sometimes called "data havens,"
              though that term, as used by Bruce Sterling in "Islands in
              the Net" (1988), tends to suggest specific places like the
              Cayman Islands that corporations might use to store data. I
              prefer the emphasis on "cypherspace."
           - "It is worth noting that private "data havens" of all sorts
              abound, especially for financial matters, and most are not
              subject to governmental regulation....Some banks have
              research departments that are older and morecomprehensive
              than credit reporting agencies.  Favored customers can use
              them for evaluation of private deals....Large law firms
              maintain data banks that approach those of banks, and they
              grow with each case, through additions of private
              investigators paid for by successive clients....Security
              professionals, like Wackenhut and Kroll, also market the
              fruits of substantial data collections....To these add
              those of insurance, bonding, investment, financial firms
              and the like which help make or break business deals."
              [John Young, 1994-09-07]
  16.22.2. "Can there be laws about what can be done with data?"
           - Normative laws ("they shouldn't keep such records and hence
              we'll outlaw them") won't work in an era of strong crypto
              and privacy. In fact, some of us support data havens
              precisely to have records of, say, terminal diseases so
              we'll not lend money to Joe-who-has-AIDS. It may not be
              "fair" to Joe, but it's my money. (Same idea as in using
              offshore or cryptospatial data havens to bypass the
              nonsense in the "Fair Credit Reporting Act" that outlaws
              the keeping of certain kinds of facts about credit
              applicants, such as that they declared bankruptcy 10 years
              ago or that they left a string of bad debts in Germany in
              the 1970s, etc.)
  16.22.3. Underground Networks, Bootleg Research, and Information
            Smuggling
           + The Sharing of Forbidden Knowledge
             - even if the knowledge is not actually forbidden, many
                people relish the idea of trafficking in the forbidden
             + Some modern examples
               + drugs and marijuana cultivation
                 - drugs for life extension, AIDS treatments
                 - illegal drugs for recreational use
               + bootleg medical research, AIDS and cancer treatments,
                  etc.
                 - for example, self-help user groups that advise on
                    treatments, alternatives, etc.
               + lockpicking and similar security circumvention
                  techniques
                 - recall that possession of lockpicks may be illegal
                 - what about manuals? (note that most catalogs have a
                    disclaimer: "These materials are for educational
                    purposes only, ...")
               - defense-related issues: limitations on debate on
                  national security matters may result in "anonymous
                  forums"
               + BTW, recent work on crab shells and other hard shells
                  has produced even stronger armor!
                 - this might be some of the genetic research that is
                    highly classified and is sold on the anonymous nets
             + Alchemists and the search for immortality
               + theory that the "Grandfather of all cults" (my term)
                  started around 4500 B.C.
                 - in both Egypt and Babylonia/Sumeria
                 + ancestor of Gnostics, Sufis, Illuminati, etc.
                   - The Sufi mystic Gurdjieff claimed he was a member
                      of a mystical cult formed in Babylon about 4500
                      B.C.
                   - spider venom?
                 + Speculation: a group or cult oriented toward life
                    extension, toward the search for immortality-perhaps
                    a link to The Epic of Gilgamesh.
                   + The Gilgamesh legend
                     - Gilgamesh, Akkadian language stone tablets in
                        Nineveh
                     - made a journey to find Utnapishtim, survivor of
                        Babylonian flood and possessor of secret of
                        immortality (a plant that would renew youth)
                     - but Gilgamesh lost the plant to a serpent
                   + Egyptians
                     - obviously the Egyptians had a major interest in
                        life extension and/or immortality
                     + Osiris, God of Resurrection and Eternal Life
                       - also the Dark Companion of Serius (believed to
                          be a neutron star?)
                     - they devoted huge fraction of wealth to pyramids,
                        embalming, etc. (myrhh or frankincense from
                        desert city in modern Oman, discovered with
                        shuttle imaging radar)
                     + "pyramid power": role on Great Seal, as sign of
                        Illuminati, and of theories about cosmic energy,
                        geometrical shapes, etc.
                       - and recall work on numerological significance
                          of Great Pyramid dimensions
                       -
                   + Early Christianity
                     - focus on resurrection of Jesus Christ
                   + Quest for immortality is a major character
                      motivation or theme
                     + arguably for all people: via children,
                        achievements, lasting actions, or even "a good
                        life"
                       - "Living a good life is no substitute for living
                          forever"
                     - but some seek it explicitly
                     - "Million alive today will never die." (echoes of
                        past religious cults....Jehovah's Witnesses?)
               - banned by the Church (the Inquisition)
               + research, such as it was, was kept alive by secret
                  orders that communicated secretly and in code and that
                  were very selective about membership
                 - classes of membership to protect against discovery
                    (the modern spy cell system)
                 - red herrings designed to divert attention away
               + all of this fits the structure of such groups as the
                  Masons, Freemason, Illuminati, Rosicrucians, and other
                  mystical groups
                 - with members like John Dee, court astrologer to Queen
                    Elizabeth
                 + a genius writer-scientist like Goethe was probably a
                    member of this group
                   - Faust was his message of the struggle
               - with the Age of Rationalism, the mystical, mumbo-jumbo
                  aspects of alchemical research were seen to be passé,
                  and groups like Crowleys O.T.O.  became purely mystical
                  showmanship
               + but the need for secrecy was now in the financial
                  arena, with vast resources, corporate R & D labs, and
                  banks needed
                 - hence the role of the Morgans, Rothschilds, etc. in
                    these conspiracies
               + and modern computer networks will provide the next
                  step, the next system of research
                 - funded anonymously
                 - anonymous systems mean that researchers can publish
                    results in controversial areas (recall that
                    cryobiologists dare not mention cryonics, lest they
                    be expelled from American Cryobiology xxx)
           + Bootleg Medical Research (and Cryonics)
             + Cryonics Research and Anti-aging Treatments
               + Use of Nazi Data
                 - hypothermia experiments at Dachau
               + Anti-aging drugs and treatments
                 - fountain of youth, etc.
                 - many FDA restrictions, of course
                 - Mexico
                 + Switzerland
                   - foetal calf cells?
                   - blood changing or recycling?
               + Illegal Experiments
                 - reports that hyperbaric oxygen may help revival of
                    patients from neat-death in freezing accidents
             + Black Markets in Drugs, Medical Treatments
               + RU-486, bans on it
                 - anti-abortion foes
                 - easy to synthesize
                 - NOW has indicated plans to distribute this drug
                    themselves, to create networks (thus creating de
                    facto allies of the libertarian-oriented users)
               + Organ Banks
                 + establishing a profit motive for organ donors
                   - may be the only way to generate enough donations,
                      even from the dead
                   - some plans are being made for such motives,
                      especially to motivate the families of dying
                      patients
                   - ethical issues
                 + what about harvesting from the still-living?
                   - libertarians would say: OK, if informed consent was
                      given
                 - the rich can go to overseas clinics
               + AIDS patients uniting via bulletin boards to share
                  treatment ideas, self-help, etc.
                 - with buying trips to Mexico and elsewhere
               - authorities will try to halt such BBSs (on what
                  grounds, if no money is changing hands?)
             + Doctors may participate in underground research networks
                to protect their own reputations and professional status
               - to evade AMA or other professional organizations and
                  their restrictive codes of ethics
               + or lawsuits and bad publicity
                 - some groups, the "Guardian Angels" of the future,
                    seek to expose those who they think are committing
                    crimes: abortionists (even though legal), etc.
               - "politically incorrect" research, such as vitamin
                  therapy, longevity research, cryonics
             -  breast implant surgery may be forced into black markets
                (and perhaps doctors who later discover evidence of such
                operations may be forced to report such operations)
           + Back Issues of Tests and Libraries of Term Papers
             - already extant, but imagine with an AMIX-like frontend?
           + Different kinds of networks will emerge, not all of them
              equally accessible
             + the equivalent of the arms and drug networks-one does not
                gain entree merely by asking around a bit
               - credibility, reputation, "making your bones"
               - these networks are not open to the casual person
           + Some Networks May Be For the Support of Overseas
              Researchers
             + who face restrictions on their research
               - e.g., countries that ban birth control may forbid
                  researchers from communication with other researchers
               + suppose U.S. researchers are threatened with
                  sanctions-loss of their licenses, censure, even
                  prosecution-if they participate in RU-486 experiments?
                 - recall the AIDS drug bootleg trials in SF, c. 1990
             - or to bypass export restrictions
             - scenario: several anonymous bulletin boards are set
                up-and then closed down by the authorities-to facillitate
                anonymous hookups (much like "anonymous FTP")
           + Groups faced with debilitating lawsuits will "go
              underground"
             - Act Up! and Earth First! have no identifiable central
                office that can be sued, shut down, etc.
             - and Operation Rescue has done the same thing
  16.22.4. Illegal Data
           - credit histories that violate some current law about
              records
           - bootleg medical research
           - stolen data (e.g., from competitors....a GDS system could
              allow remote queries of a database, almost "oracular,"
              without the stolen data being in a U.S. jurisdiction)
           - customers in the U.K or Sweden that are forbidden to
              compile data bases on individuals may choose to store the
              data offshore and then access it discreetly (another reason
              encryption and ZKIPS must be offered)
  16.22.5. "the Switzerland of data"
           - Brussells supposedly raises fewer eyebrows than
              Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, Switzerland, etc.
           - Cayman Islands, other small nations see possibilities
  16.22.6. Information markets may have to move offshore, due to
            licensing and other restrictions
           - just as stock brokers and insurance brokers are licensed,
              the government may insist that information resellers be
              licensed (pass exams, be subject to audits and regulations)


Next Page: 16.23 Undermining Governments--Collapse of the State
Previous Page: 16.21 Cyberspace, private spaces, enforcement of rules, and technology

By Tim May, see README

HTML by Jonathan Rochkind