Who watches over those who watch? Privacy and transparency in crypto

Who watches over the watchers?

The Latin phrase ‘Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?‘originally had a comic and moralistic meaning in the Juvenal’s Satire VI Regarding adulterous wives:

Friends, I hear you
Say: “Put locks on, entry is closed.” —
But who keeps the guardian? The wife is right-handed,
And bribing him will make him give in.

As time went by, the phrase took on a more political meaning. In the old monarchical order, rulers were above the law and enforced it on their subjects, but they were not subject to it. With the advent of democracy, this should no longer be the case, but for practical reasons certain organizations are charged with policing the rest for the common good, but who watches over them?

The French philosopher Michel Foucault is known among other things for his studies on the panopticona circular prison invented by the philosopher Jeremy Bentham in the 18th century. The design allowed a guard to observe all prisoners from a central tower. The prisoners would not know exactly when the guard was watching them and when not, but knowing that they could be watched forced them to be disciplined at all times. In fiction, we find this same idea in George Orwell’s novel 1984.

In this model, especially widespread during the 20th century, it is explicit that no one watches the one who watches. Not even the one being watched can know when he is being watched. The guard enjoys total privacy and the guarded enjoys none.

Sousveillance

In contrast to surveillance (surveillance), inventor Steve Mann coined the term sousveillancechanging the south (“above” or “from above”, in French) by sous (“below” or “from below”). The term refers to the surveillance that the common citizen makes of his authoritiesfacilitated in recent years by the greater availability of devices that allow recording and transmission.

This represents the inversion of the panopticon model, as mentioned by pioneering bitcoiner Andreas Antonopoulos in one of his conferences:

«One of my favorite words is a French word: sousveillance. It is the opposite of surveillance. Surveillance means looking from above; sousveillance means looking from below. In their dream of nation-states controlling all our financial futures, they made a serious miscalculation. It is much more difficult for a few hundred thousand people to monitor 7.5 billion. But what do you think will happen when 7.5 billion of us look back? When the panopticon turns around? When our financial systems, our communication systems, are private and secrecy is an unsustainable illusion? When crimes committed in the name of states and powerful corporations are vulnerable to hackers, whistleblowers and leakers? When does everything finally come to light? “We have a great advantage because the natural balance of the system is one in which individuals can have privacy but the powerful can no longer have secrets.”

Andreas Antonopoulos

Reciprocal responsibility (reciprocal accountability)

There is a reason why byzantine generals They are general: the problem cannot be solved by putting someone above them to control them. The problem was how to reach an agreement between non-hierarchical actors without trust between them. Bitcoin effectively solved this with a shared ledger and proof of work. From there it is no longer necessary to appoint a referee or a guard who is in charge of verifying that we are following the rules, but rather we can resort to that record that we know is inviolable, and that is managed by everyone, without hierarchy.

Following Antonopoulos: while sousveillance weakens the opacity and secrecy of the authorities, the blockchain provides a fair and private system through transparency (although it may seem contradictory). That brings us to the abolition of authority on two sides: one, because by losing its asymmetric condition of surveillance (observing without being observed), it loses much of its power; the other, because the system of reciprocal responsibility makes it redundant, unnecessary.

To the question: “Who watches over the watchers?” (Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?) Crypto responds: “The surveillance of all against all” (vigilantia omnium ad omnia)

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