[extropy-chat] Recipe for disinformation was Recipe for Destruction - Joy/Kurzweil NYTimes Op-Ed]

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

I think that any measures aimed at stopping information cold in its tracks
are counterproductive - neither effective, nor harmless to the innocent.
 There is a different approach, however - massive disinformation. Imagine
hundreds of internet sites offering thousands of recipes for wiping out
humanity. Smallpox, flu, botulinum, anthrax - all out there, all detailed
and scientific-sounding - and all of them fake. Since the effort needed to
verify the truth or falsity of such information is significant (you actually
need to make the virus and try to kill a few pople to tell), the situation
is much different from other forms of P2P information spread, where the
quality of information (e.g. music) can be easily verified, and thus
extended trust networks can form spontaneously.
 Only trusted persons would be told which sequences are true - and if a
trusted person lets the real sequence out, no random internet-connected
psycho would be able to use it. The only way for the information to become
dangerous would be if a trusted person turned rogue, and was directly
involved in terrorist misuse of information. And the only way to become a
trusted person would be to gain the trust of a trusted person, e.g. by
working in his lab for a few years - both decentralized and probably more
efficient than FBI background checks.
 Rafal
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