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Privacy Is The Enemy
Privacy Is The Enemy
Privacy Is The Enemy
It has recently been revealed that our lives and communications are being monitored on an unprecedented scale. Like it or not, Big Brother has arrived and Privacy is Dead. However! This document presents the unlikely proposition that the only way for us to combat the threat posed by a total surveillance society... is to build our own.
Backstory
Ten years ago, I came to the conclusion that a Free and Open internet was the key to humanity's ultimate liberation. Since that time, Ive been working tirelessly in service of this vision; convinced that a solution to all the worlds problems was within our grasp. After a decade of research and development, Ive nally managed to devise a comprehensive proposition for the implementation of a completely Free and Open society, underpinned by a Free and Open internet. It is hoped that its release will provide sufcient inspiration to get things rolling.
Although few realize it, modern facial recognition technology now allows for the creation of databases that contain every recognizable photo and video ever taken of you. These databases can be easily linked to your criminal record, bank account, condential medical information, and employment history, to create a complete dossier of your entire life and allow for the covert monitoring of your every move. Every day, this technology gets smaller, faster, cheaper and more pervasive. There is truly nowhere to hide.
Modern governments indoctrinate the majority of citizens in state-run schools, secretly make decisions behind closed doors, and classify millions of documents. Strategic Privacy is essential to the empowerment of private businesses, who secretly develop new products and techniques. In more abstract terms, intellectual property laws represent their attempts to enforce informational monopolies on digital goods. But in the information age, and an emergent paradigm of total surveillance where no information can be kept private, it is all coming down. Everywhere that science has penetrated, religious belief has been lessening. Government and corporate secrets are frequently leaked and released on the internet. Intellectual property (movies, music, books, images) can be easily digitized to strings of pure information, shared instantly across the internet, and perfectly reproduced. 3D scanning and printing technologies will soon allow us to scan almost any object and perfectly reproduce it in unlimited quantities. Right now, we are able to print guns, cars, circuit boards, houses, and DNA. We can print cheaply in metals, generate human organs that can live for weeks, and very soon we will be able to print our own synthetic drugs. Every individual could potentially soon own the means of production and reproduction. The end of all scarcity for many items is becoming a very real possibility. In the face of such rapid technological advances, privacy-empowered institutions must now go to extreme lengths in order to protect their crumbling monopolies on information. They spend billions on security, only to be compromised by leakers and hackers who disseminate their secret information with minimal resources. And they continually wage massive legal campaigns, to little avail, against those who transmit and receive their intellectual property. The argument that our online activities should be monitored and policed is predicated largely upon the belief that we should continue to assist these institutions in retaining their Private Informational Monopolies. Ultimately, it all boils down to to the fundamental question of our age:
In the online sphere, people could easily assume fake identities and harass people or write hateful messages without having to worry about being exposed. They could also covertly exploit security faults in order to commit fraud, extortion and theft on a massive scale.
There were many incentives to lead a life of vice, rather than virtue. But with the rise of public databases and total surveillance both online and off, things are changing fast, and anyone who lies or cheats or hurts another person now runs the risk of exposure and recrimination, no matter how powerful they are. Citizens lming the actions of police, wars being prevented by the public release of incriminating video footage, and the Weinergate affair are all prime examples. The Arab Spring (triggered in large part by Wikileaks' exposure of the Middle Eastern elite, who enjoyed lavish lifestyles while the majority subsisted in grinding poverty) is probably the most notable example of exposure-driven reprisal.
OFFLINE TRANSPARENCY
LEVEL 1 (PERSONAL): Everyone wishing to participate will utilize a personal "Black Box" that will constantly record the environment around them in all directions whenever they are in public. This is intended as a preventive measure that would deter anyone from physically harming you, stealing your property or even being rude to you. Evidence of these actions could be easily uploaded and facial recognition technology used to compile a public database of all transgressions. Once created, the same device could easily warn you whenever unsavory individuals entered your vicinity. LEVEL 2 (PROPERTY AND VEHICLES): This technology could also be employed as a modern surveillance system for your home and vehicle to deter burglars, vandals and peeping toms. As this would eliminate the threat of fraud and severely diminish the odds of theft and vandalism, insurance rates could be drastically lowered. The odds of recovering stolen property would also increase dramatically.
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LEVEL 3 (COMMUNITIES): Cameras mounted on buildings (and hovering drones) would be networked to create a modern surveillance system that monitored larger areas. The network would be open to all members of the community, allowing everyone to collectively monitor their entire neighborhood. This would eliminate the problems of vandalism, theft, violence, and those who don't clean up after their dogs. LEVEL 4 (CITIES): Drones could monitor trafc and watch for accidents, scan for res with thermal imaging technology, collect scientic data, generate electricity and support disaster relief efforts. LEVEL 5 (COUNTRIES AND BEYOND): Surveillance drones could deter illegal shing and poaching, watch for forest res, conduct scientic research, monitor war zones, etc. LEVEL ZERO (INSIDE YOUR HOME AND OTHER PRIVATE SPACES): You would of course use non-networked cameras inside your home, to ensure that your private actions remained private. Video recorded in and around your home could identify intruders, safely monitor your children, and protect you against any false accusations of wrongdoing.
ONLINE TRANSPARENCY
The essential complement to the proposed system of ofine transparency is a new social network that will be completely Open. It will be centered around a prole that details your life history and is illustrated with a facial-recognition database of all recognizable photos and videos of you that have ever been publicly uploaded. Via the Open surveillance camera network, your Open Prole will be continually updated by you and the people you interact with in the public realm. This Open Prole will form the basis of your Open Reputation, which will either grant or deny you status, respect and opportunity.
Your identity will need to be comprehensively and continuously veried, which will require a system of biometric authentication. While this may sound pretty crazy, the truth is that similar databases have already been created by advertisers and surveillance agencies. These Closed databases do not deliver us any advantages and could easily be used against anyone at any time.
This will create a new social paradigm of authenticity, respect and civility. Would you rather rent your property to a stranger with references that can be easily falsied, or someone who is reputable and compelled to maintain their reputation? Would you like to hire people who could easily lie about their qualications, or someone with proven credentials and incentive to maintain them? Would you rather interact with complete strangers who could potentially be violent criminals, or people with trusted reputations? Would you entrust your children to the care of another parent or daycare worker who might have a secret history of child abuse and neglect? Would you rather navigate an internet lled with anonymous trolls, spammers and criminals, or a known, trusted and supportive community? Remember! All of our medical, legal, educational, and nancial information exists on databases that will eventually be compromised and all of our private information made public. And "reverse search-engine" tools that use facial recognition software to scrape the entire internet and reveal every photo and video ever taken of us are the new reality. With these things in place, all friends, relatives, love interests, and prospective employers will be able to easily discover everything about us. Preemptive transparency is the only defense.
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Self-surveillance allows for the perfect alibi. You can never be falsely accused. Good deeds and leading a life of virtue and contribution will not go unrewarded. Even those with physical disabilities would be enabled to fully participate; helping to monitor the video feed and maintain the system. Everyone will also be able to list their religious and political beliefs, views on drugs, and other moral issues, along with what they are willing to tolerate / would rather avoid. This will make it easy for people to "nd the others" and rearrange themselves into cohesive, tight-knit communities founded on common morals, principles and interests. Modern life for many is characterized by dissociation and loneliness. People long to connect with others, but in order to connect on a deeper level, they must reveal something of themselves. Once set in motion, a feedback loop will likely emerge, creating an unstoppable wave of radical transparency and unprecedented connection throughout society :)
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And while these individuals comprise only a small percentage of the population, the hierarchical nature of Centralized institutions means that a small number of ruthless sociopaths can easily rise to corrupt and control them. Further, recent studies show that acquiring power can be as addictive as cocaine. This knowledge provides a simple explanation for the corruption, exploitation and ruthless power struggles that have rocked humanity from the dawn of civilization. But in order to understand why these cycles of tyranny and destruction have never been successfully challenged in this age of modern enlightenment, we must examine the most fundamental informational monopoly of all.
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THE FALLOUT.
Throughout the 20th century, collusion and competition between the worlds most powerful informational monopolies gave rise to unparalleled concentrations of power and unprecedented levels of tyranny and destruction. And while it appeared as though the ever-increasing Centralization of power was a trend which might never reverse, with the introduction of the modern internet, the balance began to shift
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CROWDFUNDING
Another major breakthrough came with the launch of Crowdfunding in 2008. This new fundraising model enabled anyone with a creative vision to solicit support from a Decentralized global community in order to fund and realize their dreams. No longer was it necessary for artists and entrepreneurs to seek financing from Centralized institutions (government grants, media industries, manufacturing industries). Artists and entrepreneurs were now empowered to retain full creative control and ownership of their projects. There were no more gatekeepers.
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Completely Open and Decentralized, these are the most dynamic institutions ever devised and as they are non-hierarchical, there is zero risk of corruption. Although they've been in direct competition with extremely powerful Centralized software companies, Open-Source projects have been steadily gaining ground; rallying millions to the ideology that all code should be freely available to all humanity. The incredible growth of this movement over the past 30 years is proof positive that communities driven only by reputation, community and cooperation can thrive and succeed.
AND THEN THIS PHILOSOPHY BEGAN TO SPREAD BEYOND THE REALM OF SOFTWARE
The launch of the Wikipedia in 2001 represented a revolutionary new social experiment. Could an Open and Decentralized encyclopedia that anyone could contribute to be successfully created? Not only did it succeed, it drove its Centralized competitors out of business (Microsoft Encarta and Encyclopedia Brittanica) and quickly rose to become one of the most popular resources on the internet. It also gave rise to the Wikimedia Commons, an Open and Decentralized repository of video, music and photos. This set the stage for Open-Source ideology to explode worldwide, and over the past decade it certainly has: Open-Source Ecology is an incredibly ambitious new project that intends to create 50 different Open-Source farming and construction machines that will self-replicate and enable anyone to build an entire civilization from scratch. Every machine is developed and rened Openly and Cooperatively by a dedicated community of passionate contributors. Nothing is patented and the plans are all Openly available for anyone in the world to utilize and rene. This represents a break from reliance on Centralized governments and corporations and a true revolution in individual empowerment. The only objective is to create the most sustainable, efcient, and reliable machinery possible. And they are succeeding, with many machines now in production worldwide! With the rise of 3D printing and the Maker Movement, Open blueprints for the creation of thousands of different items and machines are now Openly available.
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Once drug-printing technology comes online, the Open and Decentralized creation and distribution of all synthetic medicines will be a viable reality. Arduino is an Open and Decentralized initiative wherein circuitry is Openly developed and shared across a dedicated community. Open Cores is a groundbreaking new project wherein microchip hardware can be created and reprogrammed internally by teams of volunteers. Major advances in solar panels, wind turbines and battery storage will soon allow for completely Open and Decentralized energy acquisition. Nanotube saltwater ltration will soon allow for the Open and Decentralized removal of salt from Ocean water, reducing dependence on Centralized water providers. Centralized agricultural conglomerates are being actively displaced by Decentralized farming cooperatives, urban aquaponics, and permaculture initiatives. The release of an Open-Source boombox called The Social Stereo will allow the Decentralized Dance Party to become fully Open and Decentralized. In the realm of social services, the Decentralized Community, holds much promise. The rst example of its implementation was #Occupy Sandy, which facilitated a very admirable Open and Decentralized response to Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Initiatives are also underway to create Open-Source housing, as well as vehicles, drones and hyperloops, which will surely revolutionize transportation forever. None of these projects require the enforcement of informational monopolies or any sophisticated legal safeguards. There are no secrets to protect and there is nothing to be stolen. Every aspect of the process and product is completely transparent. These organizations are exponentially more efcient, dynamic and empowering than any of their Closed and Centralized counterparts. The writing is on the wall for the Information Monopolists. And now we must examine the most powerful Decentralizer of all!
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It was called Bitcoin, and it captured the imaginations of a small army of Open-Source developers, who immediately set to work creating it. Constructed of pure information, it is a math-based protocol that allows for the instant transmission of digital wealth across the globe. Unlike all currencies of the past, Bitcoin is not issued or controlled by a Central authority, cannot be counterfeited, and the underlying protocol is extremely resistant to corruption. In four short years, the Bitcoin ecosystem has grown to represent a multi-billion-dollar economy and has spread to all corners of the internet and all countries of the world. It manages to ingeniously implement articial scarcity in a world where anything digital can be innitely duplicated. Accordingly, it has seen a millionfold increase in value. This increase in value shifted a massive amount of wealth to the early adopters, the majority of whom were major Open-Source ideologues. The potential ramications of this shift in wealth / power are very obvious, and very exciting for all Decentralists :) Bitcoin allows anyone, anywhere to become their own bank and instantly transfer funds worldwide at near-zero cost. Wealth is no longer constantly funneled to credit card providers, banks, governments, currency exchanges, and other Centralized middlemen. It is "programmable money" that will allow autonomous individuals to directly make investments, lend money to each other, pay their workers, and create Open and Decentralized escrow services. The Bitcoin protocol even allows for the creation of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, including Decentralized stock exchanges, meaning that it can ultimately replace all the functions now performed by Wall Street. Exponentially more dynamic and efcient, once Bitcoin and Dogecoin become widely adopted, all traditional nancial institutions will be rendered completely obsolete. And as it is a Deationary currency, the wealth of Bitcoin holders is not lost to the stealthy inationary policies currently being implemented by all Central banks. Even if Bitcoin is somehow compromised, the Open-Source protocol can be easily modied to create next-generation Decentralized systems that will quickly take its place. The only way to challenge Bitcoin's robust, peer-to-peer network would be to shut down the entire internet. Speaking of which...
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POTENTIAL ADVANTAGES ONCE OPEN AND DECENTRALIZED INSTITUTIONS ARE ADOPTED ON A LARGE SCALE
The technology required to put an end to every single informational monopoly and create a fully Open and Decentralized society is now at our disposal or will be soon. Once fully implemented, there will be no more banks or governments or corporations or countries. No more fraud, corruption, or forceful coercion. No more middlemen; just autonomous individuals who organize themselves into autonomous communities, living as they wish to live and collectively building the futures they wish to inhabit. As outlined above, each individual will enter this new Open Society by creating an Open Prole and all that will be required to navigate it will be a good Open Reputation. There will be no need to build up a separate reputation on eBay to sell goods, or on Airnnb to lease or rent accommodations, and no need to make unique proles for all the different blogs, social networks, apps and etc.
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Craigslist and Kijiji will be replaced by new Open Marketplaces where Open Proles will ensure honest and polite transactions with reputable individuals. Right now, everything is scattered across diffuse social networks and websites and apps and organizations. There's no need for that. Everyone will be granted the freedom to develop and share their gifts, knowledge and skills and enabled to become autonomous masters of their physical and digital domains. The Open Prole system will also enable everyone to transparently gain educational accreditation and then interface directly with anyone requiring their assistance. Doctors can be linked directly with patients, teachers can connect directly with students in virtual classrooms, and independent re, security and maintenance personnel can directly serve their communities. All will have their performance appraised by the people they assist and always be rewarded accordingly. Everyone's contributions to the Wikipedia (and every other collectively-created entity) will be reected on their Open Proles. This will end the problems of page vandalism and conict-of-interest entries. Due credit and respect will always be received. Underpinning all trade and collaboration will be the Open Wallet, wherein everyones wealth will be public knowledge, but also completely immune to theft or extortion. This is because all Bitcoin transactions can be followed through the "block chain", a collectively-updated online ledger system that publicly records every single transaction. And Bitcoin micropayments (Bitcoin is divisible to an unlimited number of decimal places) will allow autonomous individuals to receive support from large numbers of supporters whenever they perform a virtual service or share their creative works. Rather than Centralized media institutions, Open and Decentralized information aggregators will collect and organize all news and creative output, allowing for unfettered journalism and total creative autonomy. And the rise of new Open and Decentralized crowdfunding platforms will enable the collective funding of all creative ideas deemed worthy of support, with 100% of the funds going directly to the person with the idea. This will also mean the death of traditional advertising- everything will be based on reputation and word-of-mouth. There will be nothing we ourselves cannot build or protect or provide and all Central governments will be rendered completely obsolete.
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In their place will rise vastly superior systems and new networked societies that are truly Of The People, By The People, For The People. This Open framework will ultimately connect and liberate every single person in the world as well as the entire collective knowledge and creative output of all humanity. But in order to bring about this vision, we must rst address one very unwieldy obstacle. It is easily the greatest conundrum of the digital age.
The widespread adoption of high-speed internet has also dramatically increased the speed of file-sharing and 3D printing technology means that even physical items can now be easily shared digitally. The means of production and reproduction are now available to us all and improving at an astonishing pace. Artificial scarcity can no longer be enforced and the informational monopolies of all Centralized Media institutions have been rapidly crumbling.
A TRANSITIONAL BREAKTHROUGH
In a remarkable legal development during this transitory phase, Youtube successfully negotiated advertising agreements with all of the largest Centralized media institutions (Sony, BMG, Universal, Viacom). Instead of simply removing all uploaded videos that contain unlicensed music or video footage, Youtube now places advertising beside them and gives a percentage of the ad revenue to the original copyright holder, as well as facilitating paid MP3 downloads. This has given rise to an exciting new media landscape wherein creative works that do not fulfill the necessary copyright requirements of the past can now be freely distributed. Although it is not widely recognized, this has been a major victory in the transition towards an Open and Decentralized media environment. But the copyright battle is far from resolved, and as described above, Youtube and the others are ultimately Closed, Centralized and Corruptible.
This means that it would be possible to create a database that contained the digital fingerprint of all photo, video, audio, and writing that has ever been created. Such a database (when combined with the Open Profile) would allow everyone to instantly register all of their creative works (and their specific roles in any collaborative creative works) in order to receive full attribution. As everyone's movements in the Open Network will be public, it will be easy to keep track of who has viewed what, and how many times. With this in place, and combined with the Open Wallet, it would be easy to set a monthly donation amount that would be divided up between all the creative works you enjoy. The amount you donate can scale to match your income, and if you donate nothing, everyone will know that you are a filthy freeloader! This same funding model could also be applied to the use of any collectively shared resource or utility (roads / cars / parks / garbage collection / social services / etc.).
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All of the above represent MAJOR INCENTIVES for both individuals and institutions to join the Open Network and upload as much of their work as possible. The only way to access these works will be by joining the Open network. And the only way to have your creations added to the network will be to Openly release them. Within such a framework, it is quite possible to envision a future wherein the collective knowledge and creative output of all humanity will be freely and instantly available for everyone to learn from and build upon. This system will completely eliminate the need for Centralized corporations, or even Decentralized aggregators. There will be no more middlemen, and no need for laws or lawyers to be involved in the creative process ever again. With a potential audience of billions, artists and entrepreneurs will be incentivized to create and share as much as possible and this new economy will be driven by creativity, innovation and exploration.
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CONCLUSION:
I believe that people are fundamentally good and fundamentally programmed to connect and share and collaborate in harmony with like-minded individuals. And I believe wholeheartedly that the liberation of all information is the fundamental key to the realization of this vision and the creation of a peaceful and prosperous new society that will be sustainable, equitable, and enjoyable for all. We can do this, we have the technology. - Gary Lachance
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The Non-Aggression Principle does not pertain to any of the crimes of morality which are currently forbidden in many authoritarian societies (le sharing, recreational drug use, banned sexual orientations, banned religious practices, banned speech, etc.) Accordingly, the abrupt implementation of an Open Society would incriminate many people for these victimless crimes and be a very big problem. The only solution, it would seem, is to either eliminate these laws, or establish brand new communities that do not observe them. Ultimately, it will probably be necessary to crowdfund the creation of brand new countries or autonomous regions that are governed exclusively by the Non-Aggression Principle in order to prove the model and inspire the rest of the world to follow suit.
DISPUTE RESOLUTION
People are imperfect and the Non-Aggression Principle will surely be disobeyed. This is the main reason that public surveillance is necessary. The Open network serves as an irrefutable digital witness who will never forget anything and cannot be inuenced or intimidated into providing false testimony. With a perfect record of all public events, the only missing component of the justice system is a Dispute Resolution Organization (DRO) to mediate between victims and aggressors. The DRO (or DROs) will help to facilitate appropriate restitution and ensure that the aggressor is no longer a threat to the community. Restitution could take the form of jail time, nancial reparation, community service, mental rehabilitation, etc. If the aggressor refuses to abide by the DROs decisions (and rebuild their reputation), their ability to navigate society will become increasingly restricted and they may ultimately nd themselves stuck in the no-man's-land of bad reputations. But realistically, communities wouldn't want gangs of no-man's-land barbarians attacking them, so there will be ample incentive to create effective DROs. Its impossible to foresee exactly how such a system will play out in practice, but much has been written about alternative dispute resolution HERE.
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TECHNICAL HURDLES
Relatively inexpensive videocameras that can continuously record our environments in 360 degrees and in any light or weather conditions already exist, as do small, portable hard drives that can store hundreds of hours of high denition video footage. And modern biometric technology provides many incredible options for individuals to register and continuously verify their identities, with no need for passwords. The main technical hurdle will be the creation of a bulletproof Open Network that cannot be hacked or compromised. Bitcoin provides the perfect model: a completely Decentralized network of independent nodes, wherein we ourselves become coins and the transaction ledger is now a constantly updated and veried Open Record of all human activity in the public realm. Such a system would be extremely robust and near-immune to hacking or falsifying. But it will require some very serious storage capacity, and very serious data bandwidth and the technology required to facilitate such a system does not yet exist. But as storage capacity, video compression, and wireless transmission speeds continue to increase exponentially, we are getting there: A recent experiment successfully transmitted data at 40 Gigabytes Per Second. 700 Terabytes of data can now be stored on A Single Gram Of DNA. Ethereum, a next-generation Decentralized application platform that will facilitate Decentralized Identity and Reputation Systems is about to launch!
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Afterword
I enjoyed creating this document and it is my sincere hope that the ideas presented within will soon take hold and lead to a better future for as many people as possible. My mission to Decentralize the world is ongoing and any support via Bitcoin and/or Dogecoin is greatly appreciated. Privacy Is The Enemy is 100% copyright-free and can be freely adapted and shared worldwide with zero restrictions :) Thanks! Gary
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BITCOIN ADDRESS:
1DEjqEewCWsCUj6mEFumKyUmdWw8F6TWiL
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