[ExI] lists going quiet, was: RE: list test

[Eugen Leitl]

On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 10:56:40AM +0200, Anders Sandberg wrote:

> In that case it looks like public policy will be influenced only by
> those mainstream, brave or stupid enough to do it publicly.

Yes, but there are cases where this doesn't matter. Many of
us see whitewater ahead, such things are disruptive.
The coming policy changes could well be largely reactive,
and progressively lacking traction as ability to enforce
them is unraveling.

Critical mass (~10% of the population) does not apply to
tool-making, which can amplify to planetary scale (while we
still working telecommunication networks, which are also
tools), and require no credit given.
 
> A critical mass "darknet elite" might of course try to spread memes
> and ideas they have discussed internally, but doing so makes them

Ideas are nice, but you need more than that if you want to get
things done.

> vulnerable to tracking through their overt posts (check the work at

It is still useful to project a public persona, and be it just
a tool of recruitment. Darknets are the dark matter of the Internet,
and not directly visible.

> HP information dynamics... who incidentally sold a lot of work to
> China for net monitoring, if I don't misremember). A below critical
> mass "darknet elite" will be intellectually ineffectual. Getting
> everybody onto darknets is about as easy as getting them to adopt a
> new Internet protocol.

Several darknets run on new protocols which can run on your own
infrascture or tunnel across legacy protocols. We already know
that IPv6 as is is not the answer, despite nice growth kinetics
like http://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html

At least IPv6 is a facilitator for alternative protocols, due
to enhanced end to end reachability and potential for larger payloads.