UK Government Wants Private Encryption Keys 822
An anonymous reader writes "Businesses and individuals in Britain may soon have to give their encryption keys to the police or face imprisonment. The UK government has said it will bring in the new powers to address a rise in the use of encryption by criminals and terrorists." From the article: "Some security experts are concerned that the plan could criminalise innocent people and drive businesses out of the UK. But the Home Office, which has just launched a consultation process, says the powers contained in Part 3 are needed to combat an increased use of encryption by criminals, paedophiles, and terrorists. 'The use of encryption is... proliferating,' Liam Byrne, Home Office minister of state told Parliament last week. 'Encryption products are more widely available and are integrated as security features in standard operating systems, so the Government has concluded that it is now right to implement the provisions of Part 3 of RIPA... which is not presently in force.'"
My God (Score:5, Insightful)
key turning point in government relations (Score:5, Insightful)
Encryption keys don't kill people, people kill people.
If owning (not divulging) encryption keys is criminalized, only criminals will own encryption keys.
These "rules" will only push the envelope of how and what criminals (or terrorists, etc.) use to hide their activities. And at the same time, they will add one more burden to the general population to manage and ensure the government is informed of their encryption infrastructure. Nuts.
The most effective infiltration into terrorist infrastructure is still social engineering. I'd rather the money spent creating and managing something like this spent training and hiring translators, covert agents, etc.
A convincing point about the futility of this proposed rule comes from the article:
odd request (Score:3, Insightful)
Orwell, here we go again!! (Score:3, Insightful)
The UK needs to wake up and realize that these forms of crime control only waste money and create more crime, than stop crime from happening.
It won't be long (Score:1, Insightful)
http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/ns_frames.html [newspeakdictionary.com]
Warning (Score:5, Insightful)
perfectly reasonable (Score:2, Insightful)
Steganography (Score:5, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography [wikipedia.org]
Re:odd request (Score:3, Insightful)
In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
- cameras are used by criminals, paedophiles, and terrorists - we need access to your negatives/memory disks.
- houses are used by criminals, paedophiles, and terrorists - we need access to your house keys.
- cars are used by criminals, paedophiles, and terrorists - we need copies of your car keys.
- ATM machines are used by criminals, paedophiles, and terrorists - we need to know your PINs.
- Online email services are used by criminals, paedophiles, and terrorists - we need to know your username/passwords.
- Computers are used by criminals, paedophiles, and terrorists - we need to install a backdoor on your computer.
Answer to UK rants about NSA/ATT (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:My God (Score:1, Insightful)
I just tagged it "nazis", hope others do the same. Godwin be damned!
And how about wifi? (Score:3, Insightful)
And my car remote lock fob, that too?
Is it April the 1st?
Just following suit. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:My God (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:perfectly reasonable (Score:3, Insightful)
In Soviet Russia... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, no "In Soviet Russia" Joke here.
This is frightening. It's like we're becoming the very thing we fought in the cold war. A totalitarian government.
But at least we have 37 types of cereal.
Private keys for criminals (Score:2, Insightful)
That way Joe Sixpack can keep sending encrypted communications and not have to worry about the government reading them - as long as he doesn't start blowing stuff up, too.
Re:key turning point in government relations (Score:5, Insightful)
Actions are criminal, not tools (Score:5, Insightful)
A criminal that shoots someone in the head used a gun -- it is the shooting that is evil. He could have used a baseball bat.
A criminal that blows up a building might use a cell phone -- it is the building exploding that is evil. He could have used e-mail or writing a big X on a tree.
We have to stop government from criminalizing actions that are part of our right to speech. This right is not something Constitutional or created out of any government document -- it is a natural right that all humans share, no matter what the laws say.
I'll continue to encrypt, and I'll dare the government to try to restrict me. If I have to, I'll encrypt by using an encryption program that hides my real text to make it look like readable language. Let them try to stop that. Or I'll use my own spoken code. Will they find a way to criminalize it?
Don't criminalize tools, criminalize criminal actions.
Re:Simple solution. (Score:3, Insightful)
All I ever see is a little icon that tells me the connection is encrypted when I go to my banks web page...so, am I responsible for reporting the keys or is the bank? Or both? And does it matter that they are useless as soon as I log out?
Re:My God (Score:5, Insightful)
Or how about a new
This is nasty. You can always tell when there are no reasons that would fly with the public when they have to invoke the paedophiles. US government has War on Terror, the UK has paedophiles.
E-mail was a god-send for the intelligence services. Automated scanning and copies of everything to look back on if they ever chose. Encryption means the free party is coming to an end. GPG is turning off the stereo and saying "GO HOME!"
They managed without it before. They can manage without it again. And if that means the Government can't achieve omniscience over the population... good!
Re:Who needs encryption? (Score:2, Insightful)
It is MY PRIVATE DATA.
If the government has reason to believe that I am doing something illegal, then convince a judge to SIGN A WARRENT.
Implementation (Score:5, Insightful)
This is referred to as a "catch-all" type of law. Beware the wonders of selective enforcement.
The idea here is that if you find a suspected terrorist, and they use encryption, you don't even need to bust them for terrorism OR for not providing their encryption keys when demanded. You can just go to step A, look up their name in the government encryption key database, find out that no, they did not provide their encryption key to , and take them directly to jail.
Regardless of whether or not the are a terrorist, regardless of whether or not they are willing to turn over their encryption keys when asked, you can find them guilty.
This is not about collecting everyone's encryption keys (at least not at first). Initially, this will be used as a blunt stick to smack anyone the government doesn't like. Think of the way seat belt laws are enforced; cops won't stop you for not wearing your seat belt, but they'll sure as hell issue a ticket for it even if you aren't speed, have all your paperwork in order, and have done nothing else wrong. It's a sort of standby crime they can get you on.
Sleepwalking into a Police State (Score:2, Insightful)
Add this to the National Identity Register, ID cards, the Civil Contingencies Act and the Parliament Act and the UK is well on the way to becoming a police state.
And the worst of it is, most people seem to think this is a good thing.
Porn, not informative! (Score:3, Insightful)
Check the destination of that link before you click it... It goes to Bottle Guy - Just another site similar to Goatse or TubGirl.
More like "Horribly Bad Joke." (Score:5, Insightful)
What absolute morons.
Re:Just following suit. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:perfectly reasonable (Score:2, Insightful)
And if this law were "You have to give up your encryption keys if a court issues a warrant to search your computer", your post would make sense. This is more similar to giving the government a copy of your house key just incase they ever get a warrant. But I suppose if I have nothing to hide...
Re:Who needs encryption? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:key stupid point in government relations (Score:3, Insightful)
A database that would be effectively useless. The only people who are going to provide keys are law-abiding citizens who provide them all and non-abiding citizens who provide all but the keys they don't want the gov't knowing about. Meaning none of the keys in the database will be useful for finding anything the law might need to know. Meanwhile, it's going to provide another distraction if they actually try to enforce it, because they'll have to start hunting down all the folks who are no threat, but don't provide keys because they don't know, don't care, or value their privacy. I'm completely lost as to what they think they can gain by maintaining this. It's not like this database would be particularly useful for, say, mounting a dictionary attack on data that was encrypted with an unknown key by a real shady figure.
I'm sure implementation details can vary how much this is going to pull resources away from real counterterrorism and law enforcement, but I can't see how this can possibly do anything but make counterterrorism and law enforcement more difficult. And I'm sure anybody worth their salt probably realizes this; I can't see why the true motive could be anything but irrational paranoia or a Big Brother attitude. (Of course, those are probably really the same thing.)
I'd like to see some stats... (Score:5, Insightful)
Like so many others, I see this as nothing more than an attack on privacy and not as an aid to criminal investigations. Criminals are not going to turn over their keys. People who turn over their keys aren't likely engaged in criminal acts. "honest" people who believe in the right to privacy will become criminals, however.
I'm not sure "police state" is the right word, but we're certainly talking about criminalizing the general population to the point that only people "in office" can have the right to privacy under the guise of "national security." And a funny thing happens to your rights when you become "a criminal." You lose them along with your ability to run for public office and all manner of other things.
Re:More like "Horribly Bad Joke." (Score:5, Insightful)
Most people don't even realize how many keys they use. They could default on a law like this without even knowing it.
On the other hand (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, its quite likely that if the UK is like every other country, the law would be selectively enforced. They wouldn't go after everyone using technology that made the mandatory reporting impractical, but if law enforcement got in in their mind that you were guilty of something else (whether another crime or just doing something not-illegal that law enforcement authorities don't like), they'd use your use of such technology, and the fact that it made you guilty of a chargeable offense, as a lever or as a fallback charge.
Re:key turning point in government relations (Score:2, Insightful)
But don't let the facts get in the way of lazy stereotyping...
Cat. Mouse. Cat. Mouse. Cat. Mouse. (Score:5, Insightful)
The use of illegal government spying on innocent citizens is proliferating.
Your move now.
...(and no, you may not have my encryption keys [gnu-designs.com]).
Re:More like "Horribly Bad Joke." (Score:3, Insightful)
Excellent! Everyone's a criminal. Now just make sure you toe the party line, otherwise we could, you know, check up on you.
Re:Stop giving the US gov't ideas (Score:2, Insightful)
NSA Phone Home anyone?
CIA wants internet-usage-information
FBI wants ability to barge in for a cup-a-coffee without a warrant
I'm out of here... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:key turning point in government relations (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh really? What happens if some blob of data on the computer is deemed "encrypted" by the Glorious Defenders from Assorted Boogeymen? How do you tell well encrypted data from random pile of binary junk?! Better the encryption, more mathematically similar to random noise the data is, no?
To me it is simple: this is a method for the State Security Apparatus to have yet another excuse to try someone as "uncooperative terrorist" for failing to decrypt the data on the empty sectors of the hard drive or some such. Police State, pure and simple.
And another thing, what is a difference between demanding "decryption keys" to some pile of encrypted data on your computer and demanding that you undergo a brain scan "decrypting" your innermost thoughts to prove yourself "innocent", should such technology become available? Do you even realize implications of a world in which you are not entitled to keep anything secret from the government, even if it deters terrorist/pedophile boogeymen?
Re:key turning point in government relations (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides, there are already horribly injust mechanisms for detaining people in Britain without the need for a trial. Thats what we should be getting worked up about (although the Human Rights Act is doing for them, fortunately).
But this far more measured Act (which involves warrants, Section 49 orders, actual trials, and the need for evidence and all that) is what slashdotters choose to get worked up about. And why? Because it involves computers.
Frankly, thats pretty pathetic.
Re:My God (Score:3, Insightful)
Or "Big Brother is Watching You, and If You Try To Stop Him, You Will Go To Jail."
Re:perfectly reasonable (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:My God (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:More like "Horribly Bad Joke." (Score:5, Insightful)
You are probably an expert on computers/encryption, being a part of the Slashdot crowd, that you can understand how messed up these rules are. But if you were a doctor, you would probably think these rules are reasonable, and instead would think that the laws on health care are messed up. You are critical of these laws, because you have the knowledge to understand what is wrong with them... and you are probably don't really question the laws on subjects which you might not understand.
So you must understand, the vast majority of the population who doesn't understand encryption, will think these laws are reasonable and nessicary, the same way you probably think the laws on education, or enviornment, or whatever are reasonable and nessicary. The average person is not going to take you any more seriously complaining about this, than you take the complaints from factory owners about enviornmental laws.
At some point you are going to have to realize it isn't "idiotic" leaders who are making "idiotic" policies that are the problem... that our leaders are very very smart and competent... but that it is the idiotic concept that a handful of experts and technocrats can manage virtually every aspect of a huge diverse society. It is the concept that society can be centrally planned / regulated / and managed by lawmakers that is the problem, not with the specific "central planning".
Why would a bad guy worry about breaking more laws (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:key turning point in government relations (Score:2, Insightful)
As far as safety with children, more die every year in car accidents and drownings. Do we ban bathtubs, pools and cars? Once anything is invoked "for the children" or "to protect the children" its bad. It will be used as artillery in the next election because he didn't vote "for the children"
Re:On the other hand (Score:5, Insightful)
patently wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Obligatory Ayn Rand (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:My God (Score:3, Insightful)
Parent is speaking BS (Score:2, Insightful)
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/20000023.htm [opsi.gov.uk]
It requires you to provide a key - if it is reasonable to assume you have it - to decrypt encrypted data. It is only illegal to refuse to give a key IF ASKED, and NOT "look up their name in the government encryption key database, find out that no, they did not provide their encryption key to , and take them directly to jail."
It IS an offense (from the legal text liked above) "if he knowingly fails, in accordance with the notice, to make the disclosure required by virtue of the giving of the notice."
Re:Plausible Deniability (Score:3, Insightful)
a) Deny that there is anything encrypted for which you have not proffered a key. "Oh yeah, show me what I have encrypted and I'll show you the key."
b) If that's not enough, proffer the false key that gives them the alternative access. "Ok, here you go. Let me know if you find anything incriminating. (tee hee)"
The problem I can see with "rubberhose" systems like this is that governments won't buy your line that you went through all the trouble of setting an encrypted volume or whatnot to protect lame things. I'm sure they would have no problem jailing or coercing the user until they gave up the key to something juicy.
Since you can't prove a negative, you'd better hope you last longer than they do.
Re:Unenforcable Law (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:My God (Score:3, Insightful)
Except not: plausible deniability only works if you're innocent until proven guilty. In the U.S., and even more so in Britain, if you're using crypto, it isn't true anymore. Just having a crypto program on your hard drive shows criminal intent, and if it does layered encryption, that shows intent to commit perjury also.
Re:More like "Horribly Bad Joke." (Score:5, Insightful)
RTFA
Despite the poorly worded title, the UK govt. isn't about to ask you to submit every single key you ever generate.
It just wants the ability to 'force' you to hand over the keys if and when it asks for them.
Granted, this causes problems of it's own. I mean, I don't keep a list of every key i've used...
Re:My God (Score:5, Insightful)
v'z fher v'yy trg zbqqrq qbja sbe guvf fvapr v'z rkcerffvat n ceb-crefbany-svernezf ivrjcbvag, ohg naljnl...
Indeed, there is a very strong parallel between this and gun control schemes. The honest people give up their guns/keys to the government, the people who are already criminals have no reason to do so. The bad guys simply get smarter at hiding what they do. Who gets screwed in the end? It's always the honest, law-abiding citizens.
Oh yeah, dear UK government, you can pry the encryption key for this post from my cold, dead hands, along with my firearm... (Although in this particular case I think it will be more difficult to get the gun than the key.)
Doesn't seem like Orwell and friends really accomplished much, does it? They showed us the future but we're just walking right smack into it anyway, eyes wide shut.
Re:More like "Horribly Bad Joke." (Score:5, Insightful)
They're talking about private keys (as in the private half of the public/private key pair in public key cryptography), not private keys (as in the only key in private key cryptography).
This is a huge difference. Private key cryptography is used as the underlying scheme for protocols like SSH, SSL, etc, but public key cryptography is used to ensure the secure exchange of that key. of the private half of the key pair is known, that initial exchange is not secure, and thus there is no need to be TOLD the private key cryptosystem's key: it is handed to any listener who knows the private key that goes with the public key used to initiate the session.
Oh, and the cell phone companies almost certainly already hand over the key pairs for the phones (or are issued them).
Re:My God (Score:3, Insightful)
This is already enacted, it just needs a ministerial order to bring it into effect. The debate was over five years ago. It came to prominance again in November last year, when the UK was debating how long it was reasonable to keep people in jail without trial [slashdot.org], with a key point of the Government's argument being that they needed three months to decrypt data - the opposition pointed out that with holding encryption keys was already an offence in its self so that argument was nonsense.
This law scares me, because it, like many of the 700-1000 new criminal offences created by Blair's Government since 1997 [telegraph.co.uk] it has the potential to criminalise people who've not activly done anything wrong. Read Section 3 of the RIP act [opsi.gov.uk] the State only has to have reasonable grounds for believing someone has an encryption key to force you to reveal it (then throwing you in jail if they won't / can't / or havn't a clue what an encryption key is, when they might have used one or how to supply it to big brother.)
The law also states that it may, depending on the circumstances, be an offence to tell anyone that you've been asked to disclose your encryption keys - there is no exemption for instructing a lawyer to defend the demand for the key.
This law is not only bad for Business as indicated in the article, but yet another frightening step knocking the relationship between the state and its people out of balance
Re:My God (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nothing compared to Tuesday's Dictatorship Bill (Score:1, Insightful)
He believes he knows better than us. He believes that we should just sit down and shut up because he has some great destiny to fulfil for himself and the nation.
In short, he is a bit of a Stalinist.
Re:patently wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
But not disclosing your passphrase, password or keys IS the crime in this case. So its a Catch-22 now. This is exactly how the current administration (at least in the US) is working things out. They'll make it all doublespeak, so no matter what, you're screwed.
Now where did I put my Civil War handbook again?
Re:Actually... (Score:3, Insightful)
In mainstream politics, if you support equal and universal health care, YOU MUST SUPPORT STATE RUN HEALTHCARE.
Well, my serious question is: how else are you going to do it? What entity other than the state can provide universal health care?
Or, are you positing that either:
Legitimate questions, not a flame. I'm just not sure what you'd call any entity that provided universal health care other than "the state".
Re:My God (Score:5, Insightful)
Wishful thinking, they extended it to 28 days without trial/evidence instead. Blair was still spouting on that the country's security had been compromised. Because police and security services had some power removed, right?
One of Blair's favourite lines went something like this,
"I don't understand why people seem to think that the rights of terrorist suspects should be more important than those of innocent people."
Re:More like "Horribly Bad Joke." (Score:3, Insightful)
It goes both ways. While I disagree that our leaders are very smart and competent (I have personal experience that indicates otherwise, that they are just as ignorant and uninformed as the average Joe), I also think that we are responsible for the leaders we create.
At the end of the day, we will ALWAYS only have ourselves to blame; our leaders are just the convenient target of that blame. But we created them. We educated (or didn't educate) them. We elected them.
The world is what WE make of it - or if we prefer to do nothing, we will be subjected to the world that others would make for us.
Re:More like "Horribly Bad Joke." (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not a food scientist, but I think labeling laws and food safety inspection regulations are very necessary. Who doesn't think that? The food industry that doesn't want me to know that their product contains transfats and which would be happy to sell me contaminated meat.
I'm not a chemical engineer, but I support regulation of gasoline additives. Who doesn't support that? The oil companies who understand that lead is a very cheap way to increase octane levels.
The real question is why you think the laws on education, civil planning, economy, enviornment, health care, or anything else are more reasonable that these laws on encryption.
Because most regulations are designed to establish the bounderies of various property rights. Who owns the air -- you or the oil companies? In this case, the regs define the limits of what an individual or company can do with a common resource. Should a food company have the property right to sell unlabled food? Here, the regs are designed to put buyer and seller on more even terms -- they reduce the transaction costs of buying and selling food.
But mandatory government access to private keys does nothing except make it easier for governments to invade personal privacy. In no way do such regs reduce the costs of transacting commerce or establish property rights boundries on common resources. These regs are fundamentally different from food, health, and environmental regulations.
What if you legitimately forget your passphrase? (Score:3, Insightful)
What if someone is totally innocent, has a bunch of different encryption programs and passphrases, and is raided by law enforcement.
What if they cannot recall every single passphrase? If they forget just one, are they going to jail until they can remember?
Think about that, I've got PCs sitting around from years back. I've used different password systems over time, and often I cannot remember very old passwords. If I were living in the UK and were to get raided (I have no reason to, I don't even download TV shows or have MP3, just OGGs of stuff I own, so move along), I'd be sitting in jail, I suppose.
What if, because you cannot recall a password, you reformat a hard drive? Then they find the drive and want the password because they can recover the data?
What if someone send you an email with an encrypted content (whatever the method), and you don't legitimately have the means to decrypt it? Sounds like a great way to set up a suspected criminal. "Yes, we see you have several emails in your trash with encrypted contents. Tell us how to decrypt it or you're going to rot in jail."
How about amnesia? It goes on and on...
It's not hard to blow massive holes in this playing devil's advocate. Then all a real criminal has to do is play ignorant.
Re:Actually... (Score:5, Insightful)
Under pure anarchy, people COULD take care of each other and no-one would go without care. How successful they are is up in the air - Most anarchists or minarchists are not utopians, so just because we have anarchy doesn't mean our problems are all solved. In the same way that we support science, but we don't expect science to solve all our problems.
Here are some examples of ways everyone could have universal and equal health care without being provided by the state:
1. We could have such a wealthy society that healthcare would be so cheap and plentiful as to be essentially free and universal. Take, for example, television. Go to the poorest neighborhoods in the U.S., and all homes will have a television set. The vast majority will even have cable or satalite. In fact, people living in poverty are more likely to see a television as an "essential" item than rich people (who can afford other types of entertainment). There is no government run television program that provides it to everyone... it is just that our society is so wealthy that TV has become so cheap that it is universal. It is possible that we could have such a thriving economy that paying for health care is just not an issue.
2. We could have private, self-organized, voluntary organizations that provide health care to everyone. Churches aren't funded by the government, they rely totally on voluntary participation and funding, and yet churches exist everywhere. There is no reason why any service couldn't be provided equally to all people, based on voluntary contribution.
3. There could be some sort of technological advancement that renders conventional medicine irrelevant.
4. Labor could form unions, and demand health care as a standard part of all employment. Employeers would be forced to pay for medical care, or face a highly organized nationwide strike.
4. There could be any combination of the above. Or any number of other possible situations that I cannot even begin to list. Use your imagination.
Universal health care is impossible and there's no point in striving for it?
Universal Health care seems to be a failure as it has currently been implemented by governments. One could argue that by relying on the state to give universal health care, that we have given up on health care.
I'm just not sure what you'd call any entity that provided universal health care other than "the state".
The state is enforced on all who exist in a geographic location based on the threat of violence through the police and military. Any entity that does not use violence, and does not force participation in the system, would not be a state system. You may thing "the present system is not violent", but it is. The violence may be hidden under layers of beurocracy, but try refusing to pay your tax, or try opening a health clinic without government permission, and the government is going to send some armed individuals to deal with you pretty quickly.
But on a deeper level, the fact that you have to ask me how we could provide universal health care without a state, is a symptom of the bias and indoctrination. You should be able to think up a few methods for solving the problem without the use of the state yourself. Even if you think the state is still the best way to solve the problem, the fact that the average person cannot even comprehend there could be other solutions besides the government... the fact that virtually no-one gives the other solutions any thought should be warning signs that there is a serious problem. The fact that to be anti-government in our society means to be anti-equality, or anti-prosperity, means that any non-government solutions are going to be supressed. After all, who wants to be anti-equality or anti-prosperity.
Re:...what if... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a silverlining (Score:3, Insightful)
Which means that those in Britain willing to break their retarded laws, and us here in the US where encryption isn't illegal, are, by using encryption, successfully sending TRULY private emails.
The criminals dont follow laws anyhow.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:patently wrong (Score:1, Insightful)
right.... (Score:3, Insightful)
This achieves nothing, other than piss innocent people off.
Oh, I'm *sure* a terrorist who is plotting a terrorism event will stop and think, "Oh, fuck - I'd better submit my private encryption key to the US/UK government, or they'll send me an angry letter!".
This law smacks of being formulated by someone who has no fucking clue as to how easily configured and commonplace encryption is...
smash.
Re:My God (Score:3, Insightful)
But not to worry - those of us who see what is happening before it happens can prepare. Everyone else will only find out when it is too late.
Re:Stop giving the US gov't ideas (Score:2, Insightful)
So let me get this straight. You drive to a bar, with the intent to drink alcohol, and intend to drive home after? And this is the bars fault?
You are not an "it" getter (Score:3, Insightful)
I consider myself an Anarcho-Syndicalist, but man! the twists of logic that some Anarchists go through... Talk about indoctrination. Anarchism is a form of Government, and if you can't see that, you really need to read a little more.
"Oh, but spun, Anarchists don't Initiate Force (you can hear the capitals when they talk, can't you?)" you say, "We don't force people to do anything!"
Oh really? You don't force them to respect your property rights and conflict resolution system?
"Oh, but that's not Initiation of Force! That's Retaliatory Force! They started it!"
Yeah, sure. "They started it" is the favorite excuse of tyrants everywhere. What about my right to go anywhere I want and use any natural resource I want? Why should I respect your supposed "right" to take that away from me? If you weren't here, I could use the land you claim as your own.
Basically, the parent post is correct, anytime you have more than one person, that is political science. Discussion of things such as property rights, conflict resolution, decision making systems, etc. THAT IS GOVERNMENT!
I'm sure some Libertarian is going to come along now and demonstrate the meaning of the word Sophistry [wikipedia.org] for us.
Re:...what if... (Score:3, Insightful)
I am a fellow anarchist at heart myself (albeit of a socialist persuasion), but in present situation, I see state as a necessary evil to protect its citizens from some of the worse states out there. I'd rather live in a social representative democracy than under a plutocratic totalitarian regime, that's for sure.
Re:More like "Horribly Bad Joke." (Score:3, Insightful)
They don't want the keys - they want the power to bang you up without having to do the work of proving you guilty of something real.