Mike Caprio mikecap@world.std.com	Introduction	Professional Info	Personal Info	Writing

Epimetheus Speaks: Wielding Ultimate Power for Fun and Profit (originally published 11/19/93)

Control is something quite precious to the human psyche. Being in control can be one of the greatest rushes that one can get; it's an addictive experience. Perhaps it's the need for some semblance of order in this disordered universe that drives people to this state of control, or perhaps it is simply the greed of human nature that needs must be satisfied. Either way, the old adage remains as omnipresent as ever, cliche though it may sound - "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

And yet... it seems as though there are things missing in this equation. That there are far too many details left out of this brief description of the nature of power. What then, is power? It may not be as simply defined as you might think. The most important part of the definition is the fact that power itself is a neutral thing; it has no moral or ethical dimension to it, inherently. Power simply is. It's the use of the power that determines whether or not it is "good" or "bad" - therefore the source of the moral quality of power is totally within the wielder.

Suppose you're walking down the corner of West Street and Highland Street, and a man with a gun walks up to you and points it at your chest. He proceeds to ask you for all your valuables. You give them to him in order to preserve your life. He thanks you and walks away.

What just happened here? Don't say a mugging; that part's obvious. But why did you give him your money and wallet and stuff? Simply because he was pointing a potentially dangerous and deadly weapon at you. Now suppose you know a thing or two about guns and notice there's no bullet in the chamber when he points it at you - it's not even loaded. Knowing this, you'll probably grab your bookbag and smack the jerk in the head. He no longer has any power over you because of a small amount of knowledge you have about his weapon.

So what does this tell us about the nature of power? Only that it's extremely transitory. One slip on the part of the wielder of power can bring his whole power structure crashing down upon his head. Power is fleeting, yes indeed. In fact, one can probably say that any power structure is only the one that's temporarily in control at the moment, with the next one on its way as we speak.

There's this term in political science known as legitimacy. It refers to the "rightness" a government has to exercise power over its people. Knowing the ephemeral nature of power, this term has a tendency to get used often. As soon as the people no longer recognize the legitimacy of the wielder of power, his power no longer exists. I believe it was Hobbes in _Levithan_ who said that the nature of power is only as much as the people give you; power is entirely a matter of perception.

So once again, I extoll the virtues of the new information elite... as we speak, power struggles are going on within the world of computer networks. It all sounds terribly romantic, but it's entirely true. Anyone who knows a thing or two about computers knows that there are plenty of things the government doesn't want anyone to know about. Every day we rely more and more heavily upon these tools - and there is no way any of them can ever be secure. The most powerful person in the world right now is the computer hacker. If you have any ability at cracking the codes (what is known at large as "encryption") that parties (meaning governments, business, individuals) use to protect their systems, you have an immense amount of power.

Were you aware that a United States citizen is required to have a class three (I believe) arms dealing permit to sell a certain kind of encryption to another country? Our own government admits to the nature of these "weapons". Even so, with all the encryption in the world right now, all of can eventually be broken. There is no fail-safe code, there is no true security anywhere.

Which brings us finally to the moral dimension of this discussion. Who has the right to power? Obviously, anyone who is given it. It sounds like a dangerous thing to say, but it's entirely true. A legitimate government can easily be a dictatorship - even if the people are being forced to give over power (say through the use of guns), they are still relinquishing it. Unfortunately, there is no hard and fast way to say "this is the wrong way to exercise power." Morality is left entirely up to the wielder; I guess whether or not that worries you depends on your perception of human nature. But, that's another discussion. Until next time...

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