「 Qualifying Introduction 」

> This meeting is to determine whether or not there is a 
fundemental problem, not whether we ought to do something about 
it.  If we agree there is a fundemental problem, it 
apodictically follows that we must do something about it.  The 
American Revolution was fought over taxes on soft drinks, we are 
dealing with substantially more here so a proportionately larger 
response will be warranted and required.  All dissenters to this 
last clause will become 'loyalists/torries' and will receive tar 
and feather treatment.  After agreeing to the above, we will 
discuss what actions to take.  The thesis of this congress is 
that the following points are factually true, objectively 
ethically perverse, and the response merited is severe.  


「 Founding Premises 」

> Security is seated inside of privacy and not versa vice.  
> Impetus for privacy: privacy and security are intimately 
  related, often times the only reason people aren't stealing 
  your property is because they didn't know it existed, and 
  privacy keeps things hidden in this respect.  
    • Given the power of capital, it should be considered 
      miracle that pirates haven't cut all your limbs off and 
      sold them yet; the reason they haven't done this is 
      because your limbs are secure.  Privacy is integral for 
      this security.  
> "I have nothing to hide," or "Why does privacy matter?"  
    • Half of the planet unbanked, more live in countries 
      without freedom of speech/press, plenty of 'political 
      dissidents' in jail that had nothing to hide, stop being 
      deliteriously optimistic.  
> The Blackhat Fallacy; total access to info vs. total privacy.  


「 Is there a fundemental, meaning robust, systematized, and 
  pathological, problem in information systems and networking? 」

> If it is actually 'fundemental', the problem will not simply 
  be ab initio the instantiation of the system, but its 
  implimentations, usages, and outcomes.  
    • The Rousseau-ian notion, "Man is born free, yet everywhere
      we find he is in chains."  
> Dark Patterns and Cyber Phrenology.  
    • Why these are 'profit without consent'.  
    • How advertising algorithms can predict divorce/suicide 
      three years in advance with 70% accuracy and higher; this 
      leads to things like Kojima's fractionalizing of networked 
      communities, or gamification of their divisions.  
    • Washington's, "The alternate domination of one faction 
      over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural 
      to party dissension, which in different ages and countries 
      has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a 
      frightful despotism.  But this leads at length to a more 
      formal and permanent despotism.  The disorders and 
      miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men 
      to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an 
      individual; and sooner or later the chief of some 
      prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his 
      competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his 
      own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.  
          Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind 
      (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of 
      sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit 
      of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty 
      of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.  
          It serves always to distract the public councils and 
      enfeeble the public administration.  It agitates the 
      community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, 
      kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments 
      occasionally riot and insurrection.  It opens the door to 
      foreign influence and corruption, which finds a 
      facilitated access to the government itself through the 
      channels of party passions.  Thus the policy and the will 
      of one country are subjected to the policy and will of 
      another."  
    • Why there is conflagration of the distinction between 
      correlation and causation because of this.  
> FAMANG as the premier enforcers of these practices.  
    • Netflix's 'privacy distraction'; no ads so no ad tracking?  
    • Google as a possible retraction of offense; their 
      cryptographic developments (perfect forward secrecy).  
> Defense of Anonymity.  
    • Paraphrase: registration keeps out good posters/content, 
      it lets in bad posters equally as well as no registration, 
      and it attracts trolls; anonymity counters vanity, 
      creating a self-enforced social leveler.  
    • Why Anonymity/Privacy has been pushed away; given by prior
      points (obviously money).  
> Why financial tx's are the most tracked activity.  
    • Banks and Govs understand the value of privacy, they just 
      don't want anyone else to have it.  
    • "Who funds ISIS?  Our tax money does...  Dollars, Ruples, 
      Yuan.  Money laundering is a government activity supported 
      by banks.  Terrorism financing is a government activity 
      supported by banks."  
    • Despite merits of cryptocurrencies mentioned later, 
      describe the narrative inversion of Bitcoin from the 
      cipherpunk's & libertarian's notion of unregulated 
      financial freedom to the common request for more 
      regulation (FDIC ensured exchanges, ETF's, etcetera); 
      discussion of ideology as pathology in the Zizekian sense.  
> It doesn't matter if the government doesn't explicitly create 
  a registery of its citizens like China, ad companies already 
  have with psychological profiles, so it would be arbitrary for
  governments to seize these and pair them with financial data.  


「 If we agree this is a problem, surely there are 
  arbitrary-to-execute solutions to this problem, right? 」

> Why privacy-advertised networks are usually garbage.  
    • Why you should not use VPNs.  
    • "A VPN provider specifically seeks out those who are 
      looking for privacy, and who may thus have interesting 
      traffic.  Statistically speaking, it is more likely that a 
      VPN provider will be malicious or a honeypot".  
> Why encryption is not enough.  
• "weak to mid-tier encryption equating to no encryption because
   of things like Bullrun"
    • And systems usually come pre-compromised.  
> Why end-to-end encryption is useless on any centralized or 
  federated system (Signal/Wire/Threema/etc exploits).  
    • And the exploit tools themselves.  
> Why fully encrypted networks like TOR/I2P don't even meet 
  minimum requirements for privacy/security.  
    • Majority funded by CIA, majority exit-nodes owned by NSA, 
      majority services defunct, and so on.
    • "Good for the user, bad for the host." - When an onion/I2P
      server gets seized, so do all user keys, content, and 
      information.  
    • ZeroNet/IPFS as possible 'good' versions of private or 
      uncensurable networks; the merits of a cryptographic 
      network that is both distributed AND decentralized (as 
      opposed to just federated, i.e. GnuSocial/Mastodon) like 
      cryptocurrencies, Bitmessage, Jami, and so on.  
> The Right To Read.
    • Stallman's Kantian argument, "Amazon's e-book distribution
      is oppressive, too.  It identifies the user and records 
      what books the user obtains.  It also requires users to 
      agree to an antisocial contract that they won't share 
      copies with others.  My conscience tells me that, if I had 
      agreed to such a contract, the lesser evil would be to 
      defy it and share copies anyway; however, to be entirely 
      good, I should not agree to it in the first place."
    • Going absolutist like Stallman doesn't un-rape you; this 
      does not function the same as the vegetarian argument that 
      less people buying meat equates to less animals being 
      slaughtered - when it comes to information it's a one-time 
      transaction, they already bought and own you, the meat is 
      already dead, the only choice now is between grass and 
      steak for dinner.  
> Why people like Moxie Marlinspike & Yan Zhu don't take radical
  ideological positions.  
    • Why people with radical ideological positions get popped 
      (Aaron Swartz, Ross Ulbricht, Cody Wilson, and so on).  
    • So they will get you purely on ideology, the only recourse
      is then not having pure ideology but the weapons that 
      shoot ideology into other people's heads.  


「 Where does the problem physically exist, and if conceptually 
  driven, in whose heads does it occupy? 」

> The Botnet is Physical (near bottom).  
> Appeasement/diplomacy to persuade a Kingship/Tyrany and why 
  this is useless (EFF and FSF legal failures).  
    • Why "profit without consent" is analogous to "taxation 
      without representation".  
    • How expensive security from the physical botnet is.  
> Should we try to prove Cody Wilson's notion of illegitimate 
  revolutions?  
    • Why 'progress' is mythos, "the revolution without 
      revolution, sex without sex," and so on.  
    • The merits of planned versus unplanned rebellions.  
    • Do we form a Continental Congress / Continental Army for 
      digital relata?  


「 Post-Meeting Conclusions 」

> The founding premises are sound.  
> Sections 1 and 2 are agreed to.  
> Section 3 was contentious since economic forces were 
  considered as motivators for change, but none of us can 
  influence those in meaningful ways; section 3 was eventually 
  agreed to.  
> It is time to form a Continental Army for digital relata.