HIPS: A Cryptographic Protocol that Can Change the Course of History
- Gideon Samid
- 12 hours ago
- 3 min read
We have lost the freedom to talk to our cyber neighbors privately. Yes, we can send an encrypted message, but by this we raise a flag: Hey adversaries! -- Look who I am talking to, and how much, and how frequently. And yes I have the key to decrypt it, but I would not share it with you unless you threaten me or coerce me -- that is not privacy.
HIPS is!
Imagine that you can talk to any resident of cyberspace, without leaving a trace, without even raising suspicion that this conversation took place.
Forget the how for a moment (the boring details are well documented for any geek to follow), think of the historic impact of this modest protocol: HIPS: Hiding in Plain Sight. Historic?
Indeed. How is evil spreading today (as it always did)? Certain influential leaders address a captive audience with a theory of hate, and a rational for violence. These evil brokers exercise means to discourage their followers from checking opposing views. They do it by (i) tainting any opposing thought as stupid, or fake, or.. evil and satanic, and by (ii) keeping surveillance on the communication log of their followers, thereby spotting anyone who is going astray. Plenty of cyber tools today will help power brokers to identify those diverting from the herd as a whole, and the dogs on them: return to the line, or else.
Now imagine that those evil brokers become blind. Members of their flock freely open communication lanes with purveyors of opposing view points. The flock becomes exposed to solid arguments against hatred and evil, and then these mavericks talk to neighbors and friends, spreading the doubt in the holy word of hate. And all this spreading happens under the currents, remaining invisible to the power brokers.
The evil doers of course know that HIPS exists; they realize that few or perhaps many who appears to be loyal followers are in fact taking part in a conversation that promotes mediation, mutual respect, conflict resolution; not hatred execution. It can't be stopped, as long as HIPS reigns.
Evil depends on shutting down the evolution of a hate-free solution. HIPS keeps this evolution going.
All that we need to get darkness, evil, and hatred to become sterile, is to build HIPS in cyberspace.
Case in point: antisemitism. Hundreds of millions mostly in dictatorships are fed lies about Jews being termites destroying humanity. The fact that the majority of religios people today trace their religious origins to Judaism is not in the books; the fact that per capita Jews earned most noble prices for advancement of humanity is not ringing in most places around the world. The fact that Jews reclaimed their ancestral homeland Israel and in less than 80 years made its dessert bloom and blessed the world with countless technologies to make life healthier, safer and more comfortable -- is not a story in all the places where hatred of Jews is groomed. HIPS can rectify this imbalance, and present Jews as imperfect people who need to change some of their ways, but people to negotiate with, to come to terms with, not to slaughter with blinding hatred.
Yes, HIPS can do it. A simple cryptographic protocol cries out to be implemented around the world. The beneficiaries will be assorted communities who have become target of hatred and turned into victims of darkness of mind. HIPS will help tribes, collectives, bands who face brokers of evil and purveyors of hatred, who shut the opposing view of patience, negotiation, accommodation. HIPS will de-marginalize the marginals because they will use HIPS to spread their point of view.
