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.