What began as a means of retaining individual freedom can now be used by smaller states to fend off the ambitions of larger ones
'Africa
is coming online, but with hardware supplied by China. Will the internet be the
means by which Africa continues to be subjugated into the 21st century?'
The
original cypherpunks were mostly Californian libertarians. I was from a
different tradition but we all sought to protect individual freedom from state
tyranny. Cryptography was our secret weapon. It has been forgotten how
subversive this was. Cryptography was then the exclusive property of states,
for use in their various wars. By writing our own software and disseminating it
far and wide we liberated cryptography, democratised it and spread it through
the frontiers of the new internet.
The
resulting crackdown, under various "arms trafficking" laws, failed.
Cryptography became standardised in web browsers and other software that people
now use on a daily basis. Strong cryptography is a vital tool in fighting state
oppression. That is the message in my book,Cypherpunks.
But the movement for the universal availability of strong cryptography must be
made to do more than this. Our future does not lie in the liberty of
individuals alone.
Our
work in WikiLeaks imparts a keen understanding of the dynamics of the
international order and the logic of empire. During WikiLeaks' rise we have
seen evidence of small countries bullied and dominated by larger ones or
infiltrated by foreign enterprise and made to act against themselves. We have
seen the popular will denied expression, elections bought and sold, and the
riches of countries such as Kenya stolen and auctioned off to plutocrats in
London and New York.
The
struggle for Latin American self-determination is important for many more
people than live in Latin America, because it shows the rest of the world that
it can be done. But Latin American independence is still in its infancy.
Attempts at subversion of Latin American democracy are still happening,
including most recently in Honduras, Haiti, Ecuador and Venezuela.
This
is why the message of the cypherpunks is of special importance to Latin
American audiences. Mass surveillance is not just an issue for democracy and
governance – it's a geopolitical issue. The surveillance of a whole population
by a foreign power naturally threatens sovereignty. Intervention after
intervention in the affairs of Latin American democracy have taught us to be
realistic. We know that the old powers will still exploit any advantage to
delay or suppress the outbreak of Latin American independence.
Consider
simple geography. Everyone knows oil resources drive global geopolitics. The
flow of oil determines who is dominant, who is invaded, and who is ostracised
from the global community. Physical control over even a segment of an oil
pipeline yields great geopolitical power. Governments in this position can
extract huge concessions. In a stroke, the Kremlin can sentence eastern Europe
and Germany to a winter without heat. And even the prospect of Tehran running a
pipeline eastwards to India and China is a pretext for bellicose logic from
Washington.
But
the new great game is not the war for oil pipelines. It is the war for
information pipelines: the control over fibre-optic cable paths that spread
undersea and overland. The new global treasure is control over the giant data
flows that connect whole continents and civlisations, linking the
communications of billions of people and organisations.
It
is no secret that, on the internet and on the phone, all roads to and from
Latin America lead through the United States. Internet infrastructure directs
99% of the traffic to and from South America over fibre-optic lines that
physically traverse US borders. The US government has shown no scruples about
breaking its own law to tap into these lines and spy on its own citizens. There
are no such laws against spying on foreign citizens. Every day, hundreds of
millions of messages from the entire Latin American continent are devoured by
US spy agencies, and stored forever in warehouses the size of small cities. The
geographical facts about the infrastructure of the internet therefore have
consequences for the independence and sovereignty of Latin America.
The
problem also transcends geography. Many Latin American governments and
militaries secure their secrets with cryptographic hardware. These are boxes
and software that scramble messages and then unscramble them on the other end.
Governments purchase them to keep their secrets secret – often at great expense
to the people – because they are correctly afraid of interception of their
communications.
But
the companies who sell these expensive devices enjoy close ties with the US
intelligence community. Their CEOs and senior employees are often
mathematicians and engineers from the NSA capitalising on the inventions they
created for the surveillance state. Their devices are often deliberately
broken: broken with a purpose. It doesn't matter who is using them or how they
are used – US agencies can still unscramble the signal and read the messages.
These
devices are sold to Latin American and other countries as a way to protect
their secrets but they are really a way of stealing secrets.
Meanwhile,
the United States is accelerating the next great arms race. The discoveries of
the Stuxnet virus – and then the Duqu and Flame viruses – herald a new era of
highly complex weaponised software made by powerful states to attack weaker
states. Their aggressive first-strike use on Iran is determined to undermine
Iranian efforts at national sovereignty, a prospect that is anathema to US and
Israeli interests in the region.
Once
upon a time the use of computer viruses as offensive weapons was a plot device
in science fiction novels. Now it is a global reality spurred on by the
reckless behaviour of the Barack Obama administration in violation of
international law. Other states will now follow suit, enhancing their offensive
capacity to catch up.
The
United States is not the only culprit. In recent years, the internet
infrastructure of countries such as Uganda has been enriched by direct Chinese
investment. Hefty loans are doled out in return for African contracts to
Chinese companies to build internet backbone infrastructure linking schools,
government ministries and communities into the global fibre-optic system.
Africa
is coming online, but with hardware supplied by an aspirant foreign superpower.
Will the African internet be the means by which Africa continues to be
subjugated into the 21st century? Is Africa once again becoming a theatre for
confrontation between the global powers?
These
are just some of the important ways in which the message of the cypherpunks
goes beyond the struggle for individual liberty. Cryptography can protect not
just the civil liberties and rights of individuals, but the sovereignty and
independence of whole countries, solidarity between groups with common cause,
and the project of global emancipation. It can be used to fight not just the
tyranny of the state over the individual but the tyranny of the empire over
smaller states.
The
cypherpunks have yet to do their greatest work. Join us.