Net Control is Thought Control

On CSPAN Friday morning a gentlemen who is, I take it, a lobbyist for TPC or
the Competitive Long Distance Coalition (TPCs) said that the Internet could
be regulated just like magazines, tv, or anything else.  I have long doubted
statements like this particularly since they come from people without
apparent experience on the Net.

I have long suggested that net control=thought control and will prove as
difficult in the modern world as the more conventional thought control
itself.  But why is net control just a form of thought control?

It is difficult for others to control our thoughts because they are
insubstantial, hidden, and under our control.  Small groups (family,
village, etc) have a better chance of influencing what we think but even
they are not totally successful.  Governments who wanted to engage in
thought control have usually set up government schools for this purpose with
mixed results.

Liberal societies (broadly defined) have loosened many of the traditional
controls on our thoughts exercised by our families and neighbors.  They have
tried to replace these controls with bureaucratic thought control systems
with limited success.  Only the totalitarian states have done much of a job
in this area but not enough (obviously) to save themselves from destruction.
There has been a general decline in the effectiveness of thought control
since the Industrial Revolution made (atomistic) individualism possible and
books cheap.

The Nets are the next step in this process.  Since they allow our thoughts
to easily, rapidly, and cheaply  leap from our minds to a world-wide
communications medium, our minds are in some sense extended worldwide.  It
becomes cheap and easy for anyone to publish their thoughts.  The dramatic
changes occasioned by the mechanical production of cheap pulp paper and
steam-driven printing presses in the 19th century will be as nothing
compared to effects of the speed and reach of Net "publishing."

In addition to expanding the scope of our thoughts, the Nets also give us
new powers of secret communication.  Modern encryption and anonymity
technology lets us both keep our thoughts secret and communicate them to
anyone else who is interested.  Quite an expansion of the capabilities of
"the thought in the brain."

Also, the Nets allow us to find others of our ilk (however small and deviate
that may be) who offer support to us in our thoughts.  This further reduces
the power of traditional thought controls exercised by our immediate
communities.  Since my immediate community has included Cypherpunks since
February 1993, I am less likely to be influenced "locally" on topics of
Cypherpunk interest.  The normal primate tendency to look to the "troop" for
guidance in what to think and do is sabotaged by our ability to find our own
reinforcing communities where ever we like.  So even less thought control is
possible.

As we users know and non-users will find out, the Nets are not "just another
medium" like books, magazines, and TV (just as those were not "just another
medium" in their day).  Control of the Nets will prove as difficult as the
control of thoughts themselves.

DCF

[a lot of good stuff deleted]

> Control of the Nets will prove as difficult as the control of thoughts
> themselves. 

I agree with everything you said.

It seems to me that the simplest way to describe crypto anarchy is to say
that it's the observation that technological change is going to make
certain kinds of rules -- like our current tax and censorship laws --
nearly impossible to enforce.  The analysis makes sense to me, and I'm
inclined to believe that the crypto anarchy predictions will be borne out. 

Censorship is rapidly becoming technically infeasible.

That doesn't mean that attempts to censor the net won't be mounted, that 
they won't be damaging, and that people won't go to jail.  It just means 
that all of that ugliness will go down for nothing.

That's why it's important to try to educate people about the dynamics of
the net, and to try to persuade them that our analysis is accurate.  If
our government would simply look at things as they are with respect to
crypto, they would see that along with the inevitable loss of control 
there are a lot of opportunities and benefits, both politically and 
economically, to the new dynamic.

We ought to be trying to open up speech in countries like North Korea and 
Iraq with crypto tools.  We ought to make sure that American companies 
reap the benefits of the new financial tools that are coming down the 
pike.  And we ought to make sure that the software industry doesn't move 
overseas because our people aren't allowed to give their customers the 
crypto the market demands.

Our government's inability to accept reality on these issues is alreacy
costing business tens of billions of dollars each year, shipping jobs
overseas, and having a chilling effect on computer security resarch at
home and abroad (thereby exposing computer users to risks and damages they
might otherwise avoid).  Our own rights as citizens are being compromised,
and the arrival of free speech in other countries is being postponed
needlessly. 

For what?  So Sen. Exon and the NSA can tilt at windmills?

I wish the NSA would participate in these discussions publicly.  It
wouldn't even be necessary for them to do it as an institution.  Let's 
get some individuals from the NSA who agree with the agency's position 
out here to defend it.  Engage us in debate on the net.

Here's a challenge for the NSA:

Let's find a neutral third party, an academic or a journalist perhaps
(someone from CSPAN?), to moderate a newsgroup or a mail list so that
things won't degenerate into a shouting match.  We'll make a rule that
even posts that don't pass moderation will be published in a different
list, so that charges of biased moderation can be evaluated.

Tell us what you're trying to accomplish, why your goals are in the
nation's interest, and how your policy will accomplish those goals.  Then
let us challenge your arguments.  Let us explain what we're trying to
accomplish, why our goals are beneficial, and how our proposed policies
will accomplish those goals.  Then you guys can take your best shots at
us. 

Of course it's unthinkable that the NSA would accept such a challenge. 
But if you think about it, it shouldn't be.  These are important issues --
they affect our civil liberties and our wallets.  This is a democracy. 
And if the NSA believes in the strength of its position, it ought to have
enough confidence to defend it in public.

DCF makes some excellent points about the difficulty of *overt*
thought control in a information society.

however I would like to suggest that in our own democratic culture, *overt*
thought control is not really that important and is not necessarily
the major means of thought control.

the most insidious, and effective, form of thought control is that
which manipulates subject's thinking without their being aware of it.

there are a variety of ways to accomplish this, many of them outlined
in a book called "Coercive Persuasion" loaned to me be an acquaintance.

one way is to try to infiltrate groups with particular individuals who
are loyal to the "thought control" agenda, who then attempt to gain
the trust of members, but then also try to subtly manipulate their thinking.

the problem that "covert thought control" becomes more possible with
an information age that does not handle identity in any "permanent" or
"enduring" way. agent provocateurs etc. may be more difficult to identify
and easier to create and maintain.   in fact a single "government
thought control agent" might be able to create and maintain dozens of
convincing identities, all of them working to subtly manipulate the
population's thinking without detection. in the real world, once a "person"
is discredited, all that they do is tainted, but when a "tentacle" is
"tainted" in cyberspace, the "operator" need only create a new "tentacle"--
an operation that is becoming increasingly cheap.

so in other words I would say that cyberspace raises some problems while
solving others, and that its full implications are not yet apparent. I suspect
we are simply going to run into new, more sophisticated forms of thought 
control, not the total dissolution of its capability, in cyberspace. old
forms of trying to kill thoughts based on the physical medium, such as bashing
printing presses, will dissolve, but other forms of "meme damage" such
as "flooding attacks" etc. may arise instead.