Slashdot Mirror
Clinton Frowns on Anonymity
Andy Social writes,
"Just saw a
Wired article
that tells more of the current administration's approach to online privacy. A DOJ commission that President Clinton requested a few months ago seems ready to publish their report and recommends that the U.S. find ways to trace all Internet access..."
Another interesting article from Declan McCullagh. Personally, I became a believer in online anonymity while talking to a friend who used to maintain the
alt.sexual.abuse.recovery FAQ. Some things are important. Update: 03/06 12:55 by J : Here's
the report itself.
is now, finally, completely and utterly ashamed that they ever voted for Clinton?
Trolls also need such anonymous coward protection. After all, once someone they knows find outs they are obsessed with petrified persons and gits down their pants.. nothing but brutal carnage would ensue....
So here we go again, with the US Government chipping away at the rights of not only their citizens but all non-US citizens as well. You can bet that once this information is obtainable the US Government will be more than willing to exchange it with foreign governments they support (and lets face it guys, the US has never been all that particular about the type of foreign government they support as long as its not a Communist state). So the folks who most need the anonymity and free-speach of the web, the oppressed citizens of dictatorships all over the world, will be the first ones lined up against the wall when this new US law comes to pass.
Okay, so I am being very extreme and conspiratorial - at least think about it. I value my ability to have anonymity, even if I do not exercise it with great regularity.
Posted anonymously to make my point...
Really? Free Speach is just that,... free. Freedom of Speach doesn't give you the right to hide behind a cloak and say anything you want. What makes you think you have any more rights on-line than you do if you were speaking in public in front of 50k persons?
I wouldn't take to much stock in President Clinton's opinions on privacy. The man has not sent an email to his daughter since she has been at Stanford.
AC, running on int'l linux kernel with encrypted filesystems, when feds kick down the door, I cut power and all important FSs are unmountable without the password, which are now protected by 5th amentment.
Does anyone else remember the days of BBS's? Yeah, the Sysop had your account info, but I can remember going to more than enough parties with people that i knew from online, even seeing them in school, and still calling them by their handle. The Net is one of the few places where those of us who aren't the cool, hip crowd that makes up the rest of society can be social. I don't see how removing anonymity will make things better on the net...those who want it will still have it, and those who would benefit from it won't.
So, now we have the pedophiles, porn-addicts, crackers, and various criminals all coming out in support of the sexually abused. Why doesn't this add up to much in my mind?
I hear a chorus of "But think of the sexual abuse victims," and I start to wonder about this whole "online community's" credibility.
Unfortunately, this is actually one of the few things Clinton has pulled out of his ass that actually makes any sense. There are numerous news stories all over the place talking about how China and some other hostile nations have been gearing up for attacks on the US internet.
Don't be fooled. This is the gov'ment's way of preparing for said attacks without pissing off the Chinese. Pretend we are oppressing our own people, thus lulling China into a false sense of security ("hey, the US must not be SO bad... they're keeping their people under their thumb too!").
All the while, we build the infrastructure for tracing Chinese attacks on US internet interests. As much as I despise Bill Clinton, I have to hand it to him on this one... quite a brilliant strategy. Of course, somebody else is probably masterminding it.
The big question is that the U.S. and the U.K. both deem fit to be able to monitor EVERY person anywhere in the world, even if THEY ARE NOT VOTED TO REPRESENT THESE PEOPLE.
So, if IRAQ said it was going to monitor EVERY United States Citizen, DO you think the U.S. Goverment would support there decision?
NO Of course not.
So WHAT GIVES THESE COUNTIRES THE RIGHT?
Does anybody know What the U.N. have to say on international monitoring of citizens who have commited no crimes?
Let's put a couple of servers into a satellite and shoot it into orbit, serving MP3s and all flavours of h/p/a/v/c/d stuff.
Or how about a VPN for the masses?!
So you're worried about the credibility of accredited counsellors, and you're willing to criticize them and their professional training.... and yet you're happy to promote anonymous "self-help" quacks in chat rooms and newsgroups??
Something doesn't add up here.
Don't be so sure. I don't know anyone who likes George "cokesnort" Bush... besides Rush LImbaugh of course.
The sad thing is, the sheep probably will buy into it. If this is something fuckhead Clinton wants, the White House only needs to spin it the right way and everybody will be having orgasms in their pants over it. remember the v-chip.
You know not whereof you speak.
Georgie-boy has Texas sewn up, remember, he kicked the Democratic Party out of the state. Bro Jeb is immensely popular in Florida, sure win there. When Jeb and his Mexican Catholic wife roll in CA, the Hispanic vote will be 50% Repub. That's for starters.
Construct for me a scenario where Gore can win the electoral college giving up those 3 states.
And besides, the coke use was a made up allegation, the press was only trolling for somebody to come forward. Contrast to AlGore, whose best friend wrote a book about their pot head days.
Wait till AlGore says he's in favor of Inet privacy, then you'll know we are all doomed.
In America you are free to do as you are told.
I didn't realise that this AC post (read anonymous) of mine here on slashdot was porn related.
Thank you for lifting my veil of ignorance.
Using the term "Old Days" and "Web" in the same phrase is fairly inacurate. The old days to me were rockin 300 Baud and 5 1/4 floppies, not hard drives, 8K memory and calculators cost 250 bucks.
"Does anybody know What the U.N. have to say on international monitoring of citizens who have commited no crimes? " Last I heard, they were for it.
at heart, the government isn't contradictory, it's just designed to give the government more power, which makes sense, since self-perpetuation is the prime object of any organization.
That's simple, just make a bunch of simple to break laws, and make everyone a criminal, then you can get whoever you want when they step out of line.
Hmm, maybe you are doing some illegal????
Don't you know that by now? The default accusation-against-AC's on Slashdot is that they work for Microsoft. Then you're supposed to say "FUD". It doesn't matter what you say about it, because 99% of Slashbots don't know what the fuck it means anyway. All they know is that it's bad, so if you accuse somebody of it you've won the argument.
Please, try a little harder to stay within the accepted limits of discourse on Slashdot.
My girlfriend has epilepsy. She has a neurologist, of course; however, one of the greatest sources of relief came to her when she discovered mailing lists for People With Epilepsy.
This list didn't exist for "wannabe (neurologists, in this case) to give bad advice." It was a way for PWE to reach out to each other, so that each person could realize that they were not alone. It was a way for them to share experiences, comfort each other.
I suspect these sexual abuse groups fulfill much the same function as my friend's PWE list. And while I certainly agree that professional counseling is a must, that's a pretty big step, and perhaps the strength provided by support from an abuse group, online or otherwise, can encourage them to seek this help.
Try to think clearly about all sides of an argument before you ridicule anyone who disagrees with you.
Anyway i agree that being anoymous is inportant for some aspects on the net. Of course if you are going to spank it to some child porn I would think you should be logged and convected. Logging the enter internet is going to be pretty tricky to do. When i'm online i visit a couple hundred places a night.. think of the size the log will get after a month. Anyway, put it in place, we will find a work around :)
I guess he's just trying to get in his last few attacks on us before we finally get rid of him for good....
(Ass*2)+in
Sure, they'll see what I do, VPN into a secure network, then dissapear. :) 'course of WORK monitors me, then i'm in trouble. :) www.lopht.com/gurrilanet (or somthing like that) How much does fiber cost? I say we just start over.
Aldritch Ames demonstrated the price for the secrets of the United States of America several years ago. Do you think that government employees with access to your private data would hold out for that much money?
Hello Joe Smith. I have kidnapped your daughter and will kill her unless you wire US$1,000,000 to my anonymous bank account.
Thank goodness for anonymous services that let me do this sort of thing without worrying that you'll track me down. I'm even using my regular AOL account! Hah hah hah!
---
I'm actually in favor of more of "reasonable" or "practical" anonymity. You're basically anonymous in that your neighbor or employer can't track you down, but given a subpoena or a search warrant, law enforcement can, given circumstances that require it.
Unfortunately (and especially those in these YRO articles), people don't seem to be able to trust their local law enforcement and judicial systems, and would almost rather do without them entirely. Perhaps we need to beef up our law enforcement's accountability in things like this?
Anonimity is GOOD (with a capital G, O, O, and D). People can't trace your phone conversations without legal permission (that is, search warrant-type) so why should a chatroom conversation be different? With all due respect, I think the residual crack cocaine from the 60s hasn't worn off yet. Please refrain from taking any executive action until you are replaced by whatever idiot gets elected next. Oh, and just to make a point: if I weren't anonymous, you could send nasty `ol FBI guys over to my house to beat me for bad-mouthing the president. (notice the period there)
Identity undermines rational discussion. If you're a witness giving unverifiable evidence, then people might want some basis to see whether you have a motive for making it up. But in a debate, every argument either makes sense or doesn't, and slapping an identity on it is just an attempt to deter people from evaluating it on its own merits.
If you think only non-"innocent" people are spied on, wake up and smell the ECHELON. Telling the huddled masses only the black hats need to worry about eavesdroppers is the surest way of letting every hostile government (including our own) get away with doing it in the first place.
A lot of witnesses were also murdered, before or after testifying, and we'll never know how many weren't stupid enough to come forward and be identified/targeted. Accusation of a crime is about the only instance where anonymity shouldn't be allowed, simply because preventing the government from making up fictional victims is more important than protecting the real victims who are sacrificed or muted.
Who is Thomas Jeffoson?
Is that an Ebonics professor out on the West Coast or something?
...or risk your career, or your home, or civil relations with your family or neighbors....
I voted for Kodos
Do any of you remember when Clinton wanted to ban the SKS, an "assault" rifle? Well, funny thing happened. Some "crazy" guy with an SKS opened fire at the White House, but before he could do any damage, an unarmed man "tackled" the guy with the SKS and the police arrested the guy. I don't think any of us are that gullible.
You may be right. They may have been behind this all along. There's a form of communication the people use that the gov't can't control called the Internet, so they have to find a way to control it.
Let's face it, remember Time magazine printing that stupid kid on the cover finding porn on the internet, then all of a sudden soccer moms all over the country call for censorship to protect the children?
You get the government you deserve. Don't you think it's time we throw a monkeywrench in this one?
In any case, I wouldn't worry about it.
I would. Clinton has a nasty habit of abusing his powers - he declares a state of emergency and signs something into law without going through congress. The provisions were intended for times of war, national emergency, etc., when Congress might not be able to act fast enough, and Clinton has used on quite a few occasions. One example I've heard about (disclaimer: have not verified) is signing a bill that puts US soldiers under UN control.
Most ISPs will NOT give you the name, will request proof from your own logs, and even then, will take it up with that user's ISP. Where I work, the policy is, we need to see a court order before revealing that kind of information.
This is Exactly about Gov monitoring and tracking people. If you are not anonymous, then by definition you are trackable. Mr. Bill, Freigh and the DOJ would love to be able to track everythine everyone does always.
And I agree with the above post "US GOVT == SCRIPT KIDDY" The coincidence between the DDOS attacks and Freigh's budget begging to Congress 1 week later were much too simple to overlook.
Conspiracy Theory? You bet. The FBI needs all the help and $ it can get to snoop on you (as they think is their right). That means they are desperate come budget time and the DOS attacks were right up their alley to garner some much needed press for their cause.
I know I'm not supposed to feed the trolls, but I couldn't resist this one.
Firstly, the notion of bearing your soul and your abuse to a group of strangers is ridiculous in itself. These folks need to deal with professional counsellors who can really help them, not a bunch of wannabe psychologists hanging out in newsgroups giving out bad advice.
For one thing, not everyone can afford a counselor. And I myself as a former psychologist turned computer geek (sell-out), found that those who communicated most usually favored better in treatment, no matter who they communicated to. Of course, as a psychologist, I wouldn't want that published because it would have put me out of a job.
But looking at your other posts, you seem to be a troll, taking the government could do no wrong approach to everything. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if you were one of them.
The war amps? You don't have to be very old to remember those in Canada...
Clinton's driving the steamroller ... Hillary's got the asphalt truck in front...
Please, as a member of the fascistic liberal dictatorship, "Klinton"'s name is properly spelled KKKLinton, that's three (count 'em) Ks.
You dream. They have guns, and make sure the citizenry does not. Been to an airport lately? A civil rights-free zone. When the government becomes scofflaw, you cannot trust it to be law-abiding.
Corporations are able to exercise much greater control over people than any government, and they are solely and openly dedicated to one pursuit: share value. This idea that is so shortsighted to be comparable to being insane of wealth creation over all else, including health, environment, education and sustainability of resources. Why, why don't I sell my house for scrap today, so I can have alot of money I don't need, and spend it on cutting down trees to amuse me for no particular reason. I'll freeze to death, you say, tomorrow? Your a special interest group, and I don't want to pander to you.
Perhaps. But what about cases that don't make it to the courts for some reason or another. Maybe the DA is still building a case, and one informant isn't enough, what happens to the informant then without anonymity. Anyone remember Watergate and Deep Throat? Combined with some other recent trends in law, the erosion of anonymity is a very bad thing and we don't need the government to help to erode it further. I can't help thinking about the reporter who was investigating the Chiquita Banana company who got hold of internal company voicemail in which company bigwigs were talking about various incredibly unethical things they were doing in third world countries. They basically crushed him for intellectual property theft (the voice mails), I afraid I don't know the exact details, but I'm sure nothing nice happened to whoever his source inside the company was.
"Anonymity on the web is almost entirely focused on the ability to perform porn-related transactions without shame. Anyone who thinks it has anything to do with anything else needs a clue." Anonymity on the web is not entirely focused on the ability to perform porn-related transactions. Observe: I post as Anonymous Coward. Why? I don't think that there are any porn-related transactions involved, why ever could it be? Perhaps I do not care to start some kind of futile flame war with you. Do you see? Anonymity provides a barrier through which people can express their opinions without the fear of personal criticism. You are incorrect. Is this practice immoral or gutless? Maybe, but one should always beware of sweeping generalizations such as yours. Perhaps "porn-related transactions" are what _you_ use the web for; unless your birth name is truly "rambone," in which case I apologize.
Sounds like the Bill of Rights sanctioning anonymity to me.
I know it's a troll. "It is only those with something to hide who lurk in anonymity on the Internet"
Well, you can see what I think about that.
thank you
I'm an adult and do not require any supervision, thank you. If this law gets passed( I get the uneasy feeling it will), the politicians may get bitten badly by their own laws. Funny thing though, is that they will probably be immune from such laws, just as they are immune from others. They will bask in encrypted channels, leaving the serfs open to monitoring for "their own good". Well, what are we going to do? Both parties are against privacy. Encryption is your friend.
Actually, phone companies sell your phone number and address to advertisers, and States sell your driver's license information. Neither of them is quite the same magnitude or category as the civil government wanting to know who says what at all times.
Oddly enough, one of our clients is going to start offering prepaid toll-free dialup in the next few months. Given ANI and "recharging" the account through their Web site, I'm not sure how close it'll stay to anonymous, and that's not a major design goal anyway, but I guess we'll see.
>The Clinton Administration has been extremely schizophrenic...
Just an fyi, (and Clinton made this mistake in a speach) thats not what schizophrenia means. Schizophrenia is a dissociative disorder that causes you to lack your sense of reality. Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) is more likely the disease behind being of 'two-minds' about something.
Why else would they want this law? Apparently PGP and anonymizers really work, or at least make things a little more difficult for that agency which has been spying on everyone, including those self-same politicians who are asking for this new authority.
Why does the government want to ban guns? It's because they work. Mao was right when he said that true power comes from the barrel of the gun. Of course, they'll tell you they are banning guns for your own good, or to protect the children. So get them while you can, get as many as you can, and get a few extra for your freedom-loving friends who can't afford them.
Get all the Green, Reform, Libertarian, Natural Law, and whatever else is out there to join together for a few years as the Malcontents....
Why is this a 0 while Rambone's obvious flamebait and trolling 2s and 3s? You guys all on crack? Wake up!
We have public phones, don't we? And tone blocking against caller id. Regarding driver's licenses, this is because a driver poses a physical hazard to other citizens. We don't have a license to talk. We've working on the 'license to talk' bit. We'll be able to fully implement that one right after we finish off that pesky 2nd Amendment which has too much potential to interfere with our agenda.
Anyone else think that the ACLU needs a political party? They'd be on our side on this one.
No, the ACLU is much more effective as a legal defence orginisation. Political parties just don't do very much. You are will win more support by convincing current elected officials that you are the good guys and that you will make their life hard if they vote against you. This is why lobists and lawyers with a sound logical argument about why something is bad (i.e. the ACLU) can get so much more accomplished.
The most effective way for most people to fight this stuff is to call your congress person and contribute to the ACLU and EFF.
Also, you can help projects which change the technology to make it impossible to implement this sort of crap. Like setting up your own anonymous remailer, working on an irc or email client which seamlessly integrates encryption, working on making encryption easy to install under Linux, or installing StegFS.
Actually, I would liketo see something like StegFS built into GPG standard. It would be nice to allow people to send you encrypted email which was encrypted at multiple levels, but where the higher levels could not be proved to exist.
Example: I create a special pgp key with is really 8 diffrent keys. Execpt many of the keys do not exists and you can not prove that they exists without factoring all 8 of the public keys. When someone sends me a message they really send me 8 messages, but you can not prove the higher level messages exist without the private key. This is a plausable deniabliity system which means that they can not prove that you are not revealing information which the court orders you to reveal.
Anyway, I feal there really are significant oppertunities to the government's ideas impossible, but we have not really implemented these protocolls now.
He also has no respect for the law and the Constitution of this country in general. So what else is new? :-(
The costs of the phone system upgrades were passed on to the consumer.
The costs of those changes you mention will be passed on to the consumer if anything like this gets passed.
How much will the ISP's spend to educate the politicos about the internet, since since they're too busy accepting bribes to learn about it themselves?
It's called a Political Action Committee, or special interest. It's the way of politics.
"As things stand, it is frighteningly easy to locate anyone, at any time. As technology for surveillence and anti-privacy increases, it will become easier and easier for abusers to reconnect with prior victims"
Point noted, but what should be added here is the fact that most people don't even make the effort to "hide" anything about themselves. They use browsers at their default settings (usually insecure). They give more information than they should (forms). They post with identities that are easy to backtrack. Being found is dependent on the effort to prevent it.
Completely off-topic, but just two weeks ago a Bill went before the state senate to change the law to state that you must have a valid picture ID when you vote. Makes sense to me, but the senate voted it down because they said it would create too much administrative overhead. DoH!
too much administrative overhead was not the reason this measure was voted down, but was rather three-fold:
1. it's "offical" purpose was to fight voter fraud, which turned out to be negligible.
2. they (the VA legislators) decided that they did not need another thing to discourage people to come out and vote, which is at a ridiculously low percentage anyway.
3. opponents of the bill maintained it was a racially targeted measure and was reminiscent of past Jim Crow laws. keep in mind this is Virginia, which has a horrendous history when it comes to blacks being able to vote. while showing an i.d. is miniscule compared to taking a ridiculous "voting intelligence test" in front of a white officer, there are many elderly blacks who still remember these days and were quite frankly...offended.
i don't particularly care what your stance on the measure is, but it seems somewhat irresponsible to write it off as a "bunch of politicians who don't want any more paper work". it's not like that's stopped them before.
just my anonymous, off-topic, 2 cents from Dixie.
Hello Joe Smith. We know you put up a web page anonymously exposing the dangers of our product. Take it down or lose all your money in legal fees.
---
Hello Joe Smith. Please come with us.
(Joe Smith is never heard from again.)
---
Perhaps we need to beef up our law enforcement's accountability in things like this?
Oh, wonderful. So now the local law enforcement can't get me, but those with real power can, regardless of whether I've done anything wrong or not (I've just done something they don't like).
Like in China: one of the most extensive crackdowns on corruption in the past few years is starting, but all the investigations get stopped when they get too close to Jiang Zemin & friends.
This is one of the things that has to be absolutely maintained at some level, because if it's not, those that can do the most harm if they abuse it will always be able to.
This is essentially the crux of the issue here. At this point in time, people are not gauranteed the same degree of privacy protection online that they have in real life.
So far, there have been far too many instances of Intenet based companies that have sold information about peoples browsing habits to tele-marketing companies. This is only one example of the way in which people are denied privacy protections online that they take for granted in real life.
Anonymity on the web is almost entirely focused on the ability to perform porn-related transactions without shame.
How amusing. For your information, I religiously use an annonymizer service when I use a public forum like slashdot, since I got tired of hot headed individuals who want to make pests of themselves because they disagree with my opinions ( on this point, does the term "script-kiddy" ring a bell? ).
In comparison, I don't use an annonymizer when I'm downloading porn.
The reason why is fairly simple - in a public forum such as this, there is a real possibility of having to deal with vigillante idiots.
In comparison, downloading porn is relatively safe ( as long as I excercise a modicom of caution by staying clear of any site that even claims that it hosts illegal content ).
Anyone who thinks it has anything to do with anything else needs a clue.
The available documentation does not support this claim. As a point in case, one only needs to consider some of the well documented cases of people who have been harrassed by members of the church of scientology who took offense to their online comments.
Likewise, one only needs to consider some of the abuses of peoples online browsing/buying habits by tele-marketers in recent years.
Claiming that it's all about peoples ability to download porn is a gross oversimplification, and many of us are well and trully sick of this whole line of reasoning [ or lack thereof ]. It has been used to justify everything from content-blocking software to wholesale gagging of debates.
It is a simple minded attitude for simple minded people, and it says far more about the mentality [ and obsessions ] of those who use such arguments than it does about the general online community.
>I say we just start over.
Well, you may have a point there. It wouldn't
be so hard. We just decide on a port and
move our net there in a completely encrypted
fashion.
Jeez. I'm really disturbed by this. If we were
to tunnel into another port, away from their
Orwellian scheme, would they make this illegal?
Would we be CRIMINALS for choosing not to participate in their little game?
This is bad! BAD! BAD!
It appears the cranks were right about the govt after all. What a fucking drag this country is
becoming. What worse, is that both prominant
political parties are going for this. On one
hand we have the religious right wackos who "have nothing to hide" since they are oh so pure and clean.(*cough* Can we say Pedophile Priests? *cough*) And then we have the left who don't
seem to be in favor of this crap for...for
why?? This is NUTS! This law cannot pass!
Statan has gained 300 lbs, grown tits and
changed his name to Reno.
s/who don't seem/who seem bleah, I even previewed Enjoying his last days of AC's before the commies completely take over.
It wouldn't be so bad if US laws remained US laws but they then try to enforce them the world over - unless you are a vicious pro US dictatorship.
I neother desire or intend working or living in the US but the lame efforts the US make to take over the world irritate me and worry me
I think Clinton can do what he wants in the States but he sure can't tell other countries what to do. I think every country has it's own rights how it handles it's Internet, look at China! Would Clinton be telling them: "Hey, we would like to trace your users? We would like to have access to every Cisco router you use?"
Yep. If this commission's report is Clinton's official policy, then Nixon supported legalization!
...isn't it, to see a site which classes anonymous posters as 'cowards' complaining about government attempts to restrict anonymity? Perhaps if Slashdot were less anti-anonymity itself we could take their concern more seriously.
It's an in-joke. Back before /. even attempted to weakly authenticate user accounts, you could simply fill in any name and mail address you wanted to, and "Anonymous Coward" caught on as a cute non-answer.
"The Administration is full of double-talk on Internet Privacy," said Armey. "While the president lectures the IT industry about the importance of privacy to consumers, his Administration wants to let Big Brother track our every move on the web."
Read the full statement: Armey's Statement
what we are seeing it the aftereffects of the commericialization of the internet. while security was a concern before the big internet boom and the rise of online commerce, it was never so much of an issue as it is now that big and politically powerful companies stand to loose money from DDoS and other security attacks.
Why on Earth should anyone object to having the details of their Internet identity known to the federal government which protects your safety against foreign terrorists, child pornographers who want your children and hackers which want to steal your livelihood? If you don't do anything illegal then you should be supporting this measure as the moral thing to do, otherwise you are just letting the criminals walk all over you, and are just as bad yourself.
It is only those with something to hide who lurk in anonymity on the Internet. These are the people engaged in the rape of the values of our once great nation, and as God-fearing citizens of America we need to stand up to them lest we turn into a hotbed of sin such as we see in other countries.
As a matter of fact I remember nothing of that sort...
I'm not sure maybe you mean something different
with the word "web", but the WWW is relatively
young, and there was a lot of sex stuff (pics,
stories, newsgroups) on the internet, well before HTML appeared.
Like they say: "The revolution will not be televised."
(cheesy symphony orchestra starts playing) However, on the contrary, it will be "televised". You see, the digital revolution will be transformed into a bland television-like dumb terminal, happily singing the songs of those who wish to keep the status quo predominant.
Control will mark the death of this revolution. The Net is not about e- or i-commerce or whatever the trend of the day is. It's about communication. Communication of both human and the machine and all combinations of those. And more accurately, it's about communication in ways which are more efficient, practical and convenient than other ways.
In my opininon, a kind of "self-controlling anarchy" is the best way to nurture the Net and keep it healthy for everyone. Not just for commerce or tight-hat moralists who want to feed their opinions to everyone else. So to hell with the laws the majority considers stupid. They can't put us all into jail.
If there's a backdoor for the government, there's a backdoor for everyone with a little technical knowledge. And if you know how the backdoor works, you can devise ways to protect yourself. The government isn't taking away your rights online, it's increasing your power. :) It does suck for victims of internet crime, because they'll have their privacy rights taken away without the benefit of any additional "protection", but what else is new?
There is a similar case here: Greenburg vs. Rochester PD. You'll find the outcome extremely interesting.
It seems that there should be some way to deal with this sort of thing while still allowing those who need anonymity to have it. It's folks like this harrasser who make it hard for people who need anonymity for less nefarious purposes.
Isn't it obvious ???
Think..
The net does have an issue with DDos
Everbody knows it, but hey, its life.
Then there is a purported MASSIVE co-ordinated attack on lots of COMMERCIAL web sites.
Ohh, but now the GOVT has to PROTECT online business.
This is just like saying we need GOVT to PROTECT our children from online PORN.
The Goverments who want more control over there people are working together, and there not even hiding it well (ECHELON Members UK and US announce they want more traceablity over there citizens AND the world, you saw it just today on slashdot )
This is just another Political Game.
Don't Buy the Hype..
We don't need the Govt to HAND HOLD US.
[ reread the 2 slash dot articles.. It becomes clear when you think they ARE the 2 founding players of echelon, echelon? go vist the EFF ]
Answer: It wasn't. This was a Department of Justice Report authored by someone in the DOJ.
It doesn't even mean that Clinton agrees with it. This was a report that someone wrote that was presented to him.
In any case, I wouldn't worry about it. I'm sure the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) would sue to stop any big brother activities.
They forgot, or didn't mention, about what would happen if the Government mandated it for real-time tracking. Oops. Thanks guys.
Given that some from Cisco have publically stated that they will implement backdoors in their routers to help out the Feds, and that some key security people at Sun have called Phil Zimmerman and other key crypto people "jerks", anonymity will disappear unless those who want privacy fight for it.
And with IPv6 coming down the pike, now we will have to continually fight for it; or more likely, beg for it.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
I may not appreciate your views on grits and Natalie Portman but I will defend to the death your right to say them anonymously.
New XFMail home page
I wonder how law enforcement would like it (especially the various drug taskforces) if their valued anonymous tips were made illegal. Prosecution of organized crime would be a lot tougher as well.
Of course, once those sources of information dry up, they'll just point to that as a reason that they need to have cameras every 6 feet to see what's going on. And of copurse, manditory name tags for anyone out in public.
The very founding fathers of this country were prolific anonymous writers or wrote their political comments under pen names so as to protect their very lives. And there are still countries where speaking out in any form that upsets the local government can get you killed.
The bears repeating: Anonymity is the ONLY shield against the tyranny of the majority. Without it, you kill freedom of speech. Some things are simply TOO dangerous to put your name on.
--
Python
Python
Insulting the victims of sexual abuse who seek anonymous online forums, and saying that their anonymity only exists so they can "perform porn-related transactions", as you did in this comment, is one of the basest things you could do here. That's truly vile. It's not "banal group-thought" to moderate that down as a troll -- it's beneficial. Virtuous, even.
This is not a forum where that kind of tripe gets equal standing alongside useful and insightful contributions. If you want alt.flame, you know where to find it.
Consider the accusation of "karma whore". This accusation arises when someone who can't moderate at the moment (either disqualified, or just doesn't have any points, or already posted in this discussion) sees a post s/he feels is overrated. These people feel powerless to fix a problem, and so they vent instead, making pointless accusations. If they were made to realize instead that by posting well, they can get moderation points to p.d. the posts they think are overrated, they'll do that instead of flaming.
How about the ridiculously small range of potential ratings for a post, and the excess of early +5s? Lots of early posts get pegged all the way +5 for little reason but that a bunch of people push them up at once. By increasing the range of ratings and making it more "expensive" in karma to increase an already-high rating than to bring a post from (say) +1 to +2, moderations would not cluster around a few good posts, but spread out more reasonably.
Consider also the numerous wasted comments asking moderators to moderate a given post up or down. As with the "karma whore" accusations, these come from people not having adequate chance to moderate.
(The current moderation system seems to be based on denying moderation points entirely to people who are suspected of not being "good enough" for them -- i.e. people with low accumulated karma. This causes bitterness due to a lack of representation. My system would dramatically increase the number of moderation points in the system, spread them out a bit so that everyone has at least a few, make each point count less by increasing the "cost" of pushing a score further away from neutral, yet keep the majority of points in the hands of people who are consistently posting well. Wouldn't these be worthwhile changes?)
And perhaps most importantly (and why this discussion is on topic here) Slashdot under a moderation-system like the one I propose would serve as a working, living example of a reputation-enabled, self-policing anonymous/pseudonymous market system. (Sure, those sound like buzzwords -- I'd like them to become buzzwords!) This is a sort of system it would be very useful to develop. It would directly help support pseudonymous freedom of speech, and thus oppose Clintonesque surveillance, by unmasking the "anonymous == irresponsible" red herring. It might also serve as an example for other pseudonymous market systems, such as might be associated with e-cash or the like.
Most likely the best solution would be to also give points for reading articles, as the current system apparently does. (See the moderation rules.)
I do think that people who post well should get more chance to judge other posts than people whose posts are mediocre or nonexistent -- all else being equal. This is partly because I think they're more likely to know what's good; and partly as a reward for having posted well.
No, not exactly. In my system, if you spend your karma by doing moderations, you don't have that karma any more -- you don't keep on getting benefits from karma you've spent, which is what it sounds like you're suggesting. In other words, it gives priority (i.e. a steadier, higher income of points) to consistently well-rated posters, not to people with a strong past posting history (i.e. people who have "high karma" in today's system). Suppose that the total number of points given out for reading or "by default" exceeds the number of points given out as a result of moderation? Do you still think there's more "popularity contest" than there is now? (Keep in mind how prevalent the accusation of "karma whore!" is right now -- an accusation which is basically equivalent to "popularity-contest-monger!"A lot of the reason I'm proposing this system is to work out the "karma whore!" and "Moderate this up, please!" problems of the current system. But most of it is because it would be interesting to see how a pseudonymous market economy of information works out.
We've all heard before that anonymity is essential to free speech, because anything less exposes writers and speakers to fear of retribution -- from government, from criminals (Witness Protection Plan, anyone?), from monied interests, and the like.
The totalitarians' response to this claim almost always has to do with "responsibility" -- generally "making people take responsibility for their speech". This is a really funny use of the word "responsibility", since it seems to actually mean "vulnerability": ensuring that people are vulnerable to assault whenever they speak.
It's true that people sometimes act like assholes when they're anonymous -- see the behavior of a notable subset (but by no means all) of the Anonymous Cowards here. Anonymous forums need a way to protect themselves from abuse without compromising the identities of their participants.
I think that the answer lies in the unhindered creation of pseudonymous identities, coupled with powerful reputation systems for all identities. The Slashdot karma system is a primitive form of a reputation system for pseudonymous identities. There are a few improvements I would make to the current karma system to bring it more in line with how a pseudonymous reputation system should work:
Rather than having the bonus for high karma and the moderation system be separate, make them one system, as such: Any act of moderation costs karma, and gives karma to the one moderated. The exception is when moderating your own posts; boosting them costs you karma, but does not give you any back; reducing them does not cost you karma. This simplifies the system; permits people to more accurately rate the value of their own posts; and makes one's accumulated karma figure more worthwhile.
(Presently, what good is having a lot of karma? It means that you have the freedom to troll a lot before getting harmed by being moderated down. That's not something we want to encourage. Instead, having a lot of karma should give you a positive power, like being able to moderate.)
When you spend karma to change a post's score, you have to spend more points than the amount by which you want to change it. (In other words, karma expenditure is not 100% efficient.) The more you want to raise (or lower) the score, the more it costs (increasing geometrically); also, the further the post is from neutral, the more it costs to push it further away from neutral. These rules help avoid the current surfeit of +5 posts, as well as discouraging bulk transfers of karma among identities.
What these rules would do is create an "economy" of karma/moderation points, similar in many ways to a money economy. In a money economy, if I like your products, I buy them -- which costs me money and enriches you, letting you make more products and advertise them more widely, as well as letting you go buy someone else's products. The end result of the free market is that people produce better and better (or at least more and more marketable) products, driving the increase in technology and productivity; with luck, the end result of this karma economy would be to encourage better and better posts, driving an increase in valuable discussion.
In this way, we can derive a significant benefit from a system of pseudonymous identity, thus demonstrating to the world that responsibility has nothing to do with the vulnerabilities associated with being identifiable.
It's this attitude that I don't quite understand. Everyone bitches and moans about how the evil government is spying on innocents and suspected criminals alike, yet when smart people step up and say, "Well why don't we design a better system so that the privacy of innocents is better protected," you fight against that all the harder.
What exactly do you want to see happen here? The end to wiretapping entirely? That's never going to happen, sorry.
I'm unsure as to how this relates to the thread, so I'm going to assume by this you mean you wish to abolish wiretapping in favor of prosecution and imprisonment. If this isn't what you mean, by all means clarify.
How do you propose to convict and imprison people if you limit (or remove altogether) law enforcement's per-case court approved intelligence gathering abilities?
And what makes you think you can effect this change? Wiretapping abilities are going to be extended to computer networks, like it or not. You are in the minority here by wishing it not to be the case. The question is: HOW do you want it to come about? Do you want the government to mandate something not-very-well-thought-out, or do you want to have a team of people (historically always putting the good of the Internet first) to design something with your best interests in mind?
You've already voted OVERWHELMINGLY in favor of the former. I'm just trying to point that out.
If you seriously consider your government to be on the same level as petty thieves, I would advise you to IMMEDIATELY relocate yourself to another country. If for some reason your country is forcing you to remain a resident, or you have other reasons for wanting to stay, I'd see about organizing some sort of armed revolt and overthrow your evil, fascist government.
I'm quite thankful for my government here, in the United States, and the fact that we *can* effect change through established standards bodies, instead of relying on the government to force us to adopt what they think we need. Too bad most YRO folks seem to disagree. I'm also quite pleased that it's difficult for law enforcement to improperly "spy" on me, since there's such a large danger of them being discovered, and since we have so many privacy groups that would make such a stink about it so as to get the people responsible in some serious trouble. Thank goodness for our SEPARTE judicial system, the only authority out there that can approve search warrants and wiretaps like this to begin with, which makes evil "big brother" corruption a bit harder.
If your government has these bodies and you STILL consider them to be evil, abusive "thieves", you desperately need to GET OUT and find somewhere better to live. You should probably take your family with you. All of them. Please.
Remember when the IETF said, "What do we think about building some wiretapping abilities into Internet protocols and hardware?" Remember the unified YRO response to that?
Now when the law is passed forcing ad-hoc Internet wiretapping techniques upon us, everyone's going to start bitching and moaning about how the government won't be able to do this securely and while maintaining the privacy of innocent 3rd parties who happen to be utilizing the same links.
NOW do you folks understand the reason the IETF wanted to consider *designing* such a system in the first place? The government is going to monitor our Internet connections whether we want to or not. They can do so under existing wiretapping laws. But instead of having *us* design the system for them to do so, we just shouted a big "fuck you!", crossed our arms, and pretended like the problem was going to go away, all the while patting ourselves on the backs for our unified anti-Big Brother stance.
And now when we're on the brink of legislation that will most certainly pass, aren't you oh so glad you hopped on the privacy bandwagon and talked the IETF out of constructing a secure, safe and privacy-honoring method for doing what everyone knew the government was going to impose on us anyway?
Hooray for the YRO crowd!
There seems to be a fundamental difference between what posters are talking about here and what this commission seems to be advocating.
No matter how we tweak or upgrade the Internet infrastructure, there will always be ways of posting messages online anonymously. There will NEVER be laws in the US requiring all online content to be attributed to its author. Freedom of speech is not an issue here.
What the commission thinks the Internet needs is a way to track online crime back to the perpetrator. This has little to do with posting messages online (unless it's something like a ransom note, in which case there's not much you can do). The ability to do things like spoof IP addresses and bounce from compromised network to compromised network undetected needs to be addressed. Presently, the only way to track a packet kiddie like this down to his originating dialup is through ad-hoc, unstandardized cooperation between every network link in the chain, and that's assuming somebody is on call 24/7 at every step of the way. Presently this is very tedious, and assuming you can find your way to the user's dialup link, there's no guarantee that the ISP will have accurate information about the user at all.
It would be easy as heck. Just as I can override the MAC addess my computer currently has embedded inside of the MAC card itself, I could just as easily override a hardcoded IP.
;-P
It would also take a good deal of doing to simply *GET* the IP hardcoded into a hardware solution. Modems don't have MAC addresses you see..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
I have to think about your drivers licence point, but phone access is mute. It is *indeed* anonymous. As long as I have an entity that can *pay* for my service, that is all that is required. A bank account. Go ahead and make up a company name, and get a phone line for it. You can, easily.. All they want is someone that's going to pay for it. Sure, they can track down the number, but the number is just that, a number.
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
Anonymity on the web is almost entirely focused on the ability to perform porn-related transactions without shame. Anyone who thinks it has anything to do with anything else needs a clue.
Quite apart from the fact that your observation is patently untrue (and other replies have dealt with that) -- why do you question the right of an individual to "perform porn-related transactions without shame"? It seems to me that looking at porn anonymously is as much a "right" as anything else.
--
So you're worried about the credibility of accredited counsellors, and you're willing to criticize them and their professional training.... and yet you're happy to promote anonymous "self-help" quacks in chat rooms and newsgroups??
Something doesn't add up here.
Nonsense. Professional councellors speak from a position of "authority". They're expected to come up with "solutions". The people in chat rooms and newsgroups have no such labels. They're not expected to advise: just listen and possibly compare experiences.
I suspect anyone trying to offer advice in anything but the most gentle-suggestion like terms would get kicked pretty quickly.
--
That's no joke, either. There are a LOT of very, very sick "professionals" out there. Just because they have a certificate hanging off the wall does not mean they are safe, or to be trusted.
Then, there are those who want to talk about their own recovery, and want to encourage others to reach beyond their shame, self-loathing, and self-destruction. You can't do that by talking about anecdotal stories. You encourage others by talking about yourself.
"So what?" you might say. So, there are a lot of very, very sick people out there, who would be more than happy to feed off victims. Emotional "vampires" are prevalent across the Internet, and form the bulk of trolls.
Then, there are vengence-freaks. People locked up for sex crimes (or any other crimes) who would dearly love a bit of sadistic revenge. A quick visit to Deja.com'll get all the past postings. A few phone calls later, and (without privacy) they could have the phone number and street address of whoever they hold responsible.
As things stand, it is frighteningly easy to locate anyone, at any time. As technology for surveillence and anti-privacy increases, it will become easier and easier for abusers to reconnect with prior victims.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Just look at the board Clinton put together. Every last one of them has a lot to gain from Big Brother, from the FBI Director ("weeding out" of "undesirables") to the Secretary of Commerce ("consumer tracking.")
The rights of the law-abiding to live without undue interference from governmental organizations outweigh the rights of law enforcement to snoop around. And yes, there will be a few crimes that could have been prevented by a police state. To that, I can only say tough luck. I know it sounds heartless, and I know it's unfair, but it's the way the universe has worked for untold billions of years, and one organization in one country on one planet isn't going to change that.
It's a sad fact that you cannot eliminate all suffering. You can certainly try, and you can certainly get it to a minimum. Those are admirable goals. But the only things which could absolutely end the suffering of the few will cause billions more to suffer even worse. The best a person can do is to live life, try to help others in need, and try not to cause any more unnecessary suffering.
Yes, it means there will always be crime. Yes, some innocents will suffer and even die, when that could have been stopped by a police state. And no, that isn't fair in the least. But if there's one thing I've learned about the universe, it's this: it's not fair. I give you the choice: a random group of people (possibly -but not definitely- including yourself; you don't get to pick) will suffer and die every year at the hands of criminals, or those people will all live but the whole world will live in virtual slavery to a comparatively tiny group of people who can and do abuse their power for personal gain. It pains me that it has to be this way, but the plain truth is, it does. Give the government an inch, it'll take two miles.
Why do I say all this? Because as much as I disagree with Clinton, Freeh, and the rest of them, I do think they have good intentions. But they're trying to do what can't be done (and, for that matter, they're trying to do things that it's not their job to do). They aren't evil people, just deluded. The real problem is that they're too far gone to see the reality of the situation. They think that they actually will eliminate suffering by eliminating privacy. It's like the idea of the "transparent society"; it makes its points while conveniently forgetting that by its own admission (particularly the but about "using light as a weapon"), the Transparent Society is nothing more than a society ruled by blackmail.
You'd be surprised. I know several people who have had real problems with professional counsellors, but have found what help they need from online support groups (including a.s.a.r.). Sure, it's not for everyone, but don't deprive those who need it just because it doesn't fit your preconceived ideas.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
Your inclination to be shallow does not mean that everyone else is shallow. It is not fair for you to claim that everyone judges people on thier apperance, and you have yet to provide any proof that this is true.
But your statements that it is the norm, in a public place, prompted me to object.
Consider the idea of immergent behavior, and the possibility that people's perception of norms has an impact on their behavior, and that behavior has an impact on the immergent behavior.
Then it is possible that complaining about a behavior in a public space in such a way that it purpetuates the perception that it is normal behavior has the end result of purpetuating the behavior you are complaining about.
Let ISP customers take responsibility.
And let's make it harder for web tracking and government sponsored invasions of privacy. Let's eliminate illegal acts of government spying and espionage by preventing them from doing it in the first place.
Most people have heard of the anonymizer to promote privacy. Well, you can do the same thing yourself with junkbuster by allowing others to use your proxy and eliminate doubleclick invasions at the same time.
A lot of the whistle blowers in 3rd world countries have started using anonymous internet accounts to report human rights abuses to the world. As a result the global community hears of attrocities almost as soon as they happen.
Obviously the American and British government have learnt by these countries mistakes and both governments are bringing in legislation to stop the whistle blowers getting away with it here. How can we maintain our reputation if the whole world gets to know we are as bad as they are?
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
An AC post about you not having the right to hide behind a cloak :-)
I've noticed maroon topics before(the color bar and links are in maroon instead of green), but cannot find anything in the FAQ to tell me what it signifies. Anybody know?
I'm also no expert, but I suspect that this could be bad when a machine claimed to disable the services that permit it to backtrack packets but actually didn't. Maybe we should see what the cocaine auction protocol guys have to say ;)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
considering the media's treatment of pretty much all politicians i think it's safe to say "share the warmth" is their attitude. perticularly in the us very few people seem to believe politicians should be allowed to have private lives and if i was in their shoes for a few steps i think my attitude would be "well if it's good enough for me, let's let them in on the fun."
if people love privacy so much, perhaps they should be trying to help *all* the people, and not just themselves. after all, the reasoning most people give for "full disclosure" for politicians is "we don't trust them" - it seems logical that the same reasoning should apply to citizens...
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
I firmly believe that if we required Mr Clinton to actually _use_ and _understand_ how computers/the internet/life worked, he wouldn't shoot off with stupid stuff like this. While the government might be comfortable with tons of records, can you _imagine_ how much space logs like this would take up?
There is an interesting article on The Register about how the GAO strongly disagrees with the DOJ about all of this.
They (the General Accounting Office) "recently looked into computer and information security procedures in numerous government bureaus" and had a lot to say about not concentrating on intrusion detection to the exclusion of other pre-emptive techniques, and The Register offered a plausible theory about the reason for the DOJ's approach--turf!
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
In such cases, the accusor is the government, not the whistle blower. The whistle blower is more like an informant. If people fear for their lives, they won't come forward.
More important to the issue of internet privacy, I think, is the invasion of privacy merely because someone might be doing something illegal.
A driver's license is not a form of communication; as for phones, you can use a payphone and be anonymous.
although their records are kepot private
If you believe that, I have some property in Florida you might be interested in...
An important principle to keep in mind is that any power will be abused, especially by government and law enforcement.
The issue of sexual abuse groups is the ultimate red herring in this debate. Anyone who thinks that abuse groups are the crux of this issue is deluding themselves.
I agree with this. Political concerns are far more important
These folks need to deal with professional counsellors who can really help them, not a bunch of wannabe psychologists hanging out in newsgroups giving out bad advice.
You say this as if you believe psychologists actually help people. Psychologists are more screwed up than the people they try to help.
Anonymity on the web is almost entirely focused on the ability to perform porn-related transactions without shame. Anyone who thinks it has anything to do with anything else needs a clue.
It has to do with government and judicial corruption. It has to do with cops breaking your door down in connection with some act of terrorism simply because you expressed negative political views online. Remember, we need government invasion of privacy to "protect" us from all those evil political or philosophical viewpoints that might not jibe with what our resident batch of political and social guardians thinks is right.
Umm, this isn't about governments monitoring people, this is about whether or not people should be allowed to be anonymous on the internet or not.
Anonymity is crucial for the Net. Many times have I seen people admit things on IRC which they could simply not bring themselves to saying in any other environment. I recall a story of sexual abuse at childhood, which a girl once told me soon after she discovered the chat environment, which she never admitted to anyone before. Because of the feeling of anonymity.
We should not be afraid to speak out. The argument in favour of big brother watching you, and if you don't want that to happen, you must be hiding something, simply misses two crucial points:
Altho you have to register and scribble your name down and provide ID to vote, the actual voting is done behind curtains so one can vote their conscience w/o caving to peer pressure, fear of retribution etc.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
"Call up the ISP and say that person was hacking your computer or something.. they'll give you the name (and maybe even phone # and home address)."
Whoever gives this information out should be KILLED! I know that if someone at the ISP where I am an admin gave any of this information out, I would personally break my leg off in their ass. *THIS* is a weak link and people who call an ISP have no rights to that information, even if they say they ARE that person. It's very easy to have a secret word and callback system in place to make sure private information is not handed out blindly over the phone.
Once again, if I find out someone at an ISP is handing out this information to some social engineer, I will find them, rip their head off, and pee pee down their windpipe.
Bad Mojo
Bad Mojo
"If you can't win by reason, go for volume." -- Calvin
Unfortunately, this feeling is largely an illusion. Anyone on the channel can log your conversation and post it on the web. Look at the date, time, and hostname. Call up the ISP and say that person was hacking your computer or something.. they'll give you the name (and maybe even phone # and home address). Go to one of the online phone directories, look up the name. Give the person a call.. "Is it true your father molests you?"
Speaking of malicious logging, this new service -- http://www.enow.com -- entire product is based on snooping people's conversations in IRC and webchat. Disgusting.
The moral of the story is that nothing you say on IRC is private or anonymous.
The recent attacks have been very effective ammunition for the people who want to have control on people using the internet.
Maybe, I'm a little paranoid, but when something like this happens, I ask myself "Who benefits?".
Who gets a bigger budget out of the whole thing? Who gets more power to investigate because of it?
Is that enough of an incentive in your mind?
I don't believe that these DoS attacks were committed by some highly organized cracker group.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Well since the government wants to keep tabs on its citizens I say the tabs ought to start at the top. Every website visited by every government employee ought to be logged and made public record, this information should be turned into a database that could be searched to find ought who was going where and when. IRS auditors should have their name and home address on the paperwork they give out. Lastly, Bill should install a PresCam webcam in the oval office. If we can't have anonimity or privacy then the government shouldn't either. This bullshit goes to show how ignorant the current administration is regarding technology of any form. During the industrial revolution the government sat by while entire forests were cut down in order to build a spoon factory with tons of industrial waste being poured into locals water supplies. It isn't like no one understood environmental impact back then, they just ignored it. Our current rulers have also decided to let big companies tell them what to do by supporting these stupid measures. Someone pointed out sexual abuse FAQs and other such things, without online anonimity it would make the situation worse for anyone trying to access such material. It would be a boon to companies like DoubleClick that want to build a gigantic database of your surfing habits. It's just a step closer to having a bar code in the back of your neck.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
only criminals, and those with power will have it.
On the other hand, if we make spying and monitoring easy, no one will have it. (a very good thing)
So, choose.
I think the democratic party should be named the AntiFreedom party. we must get back to the roots of this nation, not hand-holding and 'we know better' isms.
I agree -- and the sooner the Republican party stops trying to enforce the christian Bible on us as a legal document the sooner all the hand-holding 'we know better' isms will end...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Mob informants testify as to things they saw and heard and participated in. If they did so anonymously, the jury would give their testimony less weight, and since it's generally the only evidence available the prosecutor generally requires the lack of anonymity in order to cut a deal.
In a whistleblowing case, it's acting as an informant, where you simply point the prosecutors to the REAL evidence (toxic waste, money laundering, dead bodies, etc). Who you are isn't as important as what you can tell.
The prosecutors are happy to let mob informants be anonymous so long as they can provide enough smoking-gun evidence that their testimony (and thus cross-examination) isn't required...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Your driver's license analogy doesn't really fit. A more apt comparison would be public pay phones. We allow anyone with some coins to go up to a public payphone and make a call. Its about as anonymous as you can get. You can make long distance calls too, by buying a prepaid phone card with cash. Now there are people who want to make all of that illegal too, by requiring people to use some sort of 'smart card' system for phones which you have to register for in order to purchase time. There are even people who want to do away with cash entirely because they want to be able to monitor and keep records of every transaction all the time. They will use any excuse to justify that sort of invasiveness "sales tax evasion", "drug buys", "prostitution", etc. Your assertation that internet anonymity is only related to pr0n viewing is entirely transparent. If we choose not to allow anonymity on the Internet we are going a lot further than we do with physical phone access.
Bill Clinton got away with pulling over 900 of them.
Even worse than that, weren't some of the files in question found in Hillary's (someone who is neither an elected nor officially appointed official) possession?
Let us not forget that even in New York, they have recently elected such republicans as George Petaki (sp?) and Rudy Juliani (sp?) -- and it looks like Hillary the carpet bagger faces an uphill battle for the Senate. Gore can't just take the Empire State for granted these days. If your predictions of George W. Bush taking Texas (third largest), Florida (fourth largest) and California (largest), are accurate, and if George W. takes New York as well (second largest), Gore would basically be sunk. I think it'd be highly unlikely (if not virtually a mathematical impossibility -- I don't remember how many electoral college votes those states get for sure and I don't have an almanac handy) for Gore to win in the electoral college even if those were the only states George W. got.
It doesn't look like Gore will get the benefit of a 3rd party spoiler like Ross Perot allowing him to win with less than a majority by splitting the conservative and moderate vote. Clinton most likely would have lost in 1992 and 1996 if it weren't for Perot stealing away significant numbers of votes from Bush Sr. and Bob Dole.
I need both good anonymity (to stay anonymous) and strong authentication with encription (for e-commerce and every situation I want to be sure that nobody else use my identity).
we don't allow phone users or dirver's license holders to remain anonymous
1. Phone users? That's funny; last time I checked, pay phones or phones in motel rooms don't check IDs...I think you're all wrong about this one. I'll grant that you can't get a phone installed without giving billing info to the phone company, but that's a far cry from being required by the government to confirm your identity before using a ohone.
2. Driver's license? Sure, you've got to have a license in this country to drive on the Government's roads. No arguing there. But I can build a system of roads on my country estate and tear around them at over 200 mph if I want to. If my neighbor builds a road system, we could tie them together If we got enough adjoining property owners to do this, we could all drive for miles and drove all over each other's roads without any licensing by the government. Analogizing this to the internet is left as an exercise for the reader.
Anonymity on the web is almost entirely focused on the ability to perform porn-related transactions without shame. Anyone who thinks it has anything to do with anything else needs a clue.
Funny, the internet porn industry seems to be doing just fine, even though they collect credit card numbers, which is as far from anonymous as you can get.
These folks need to deal with professional counsellors who can really help them, not a bunch of wannabe psychologists hanging out in newsgroups giving out bad advice.
Professional counsellors typically encourage people to get involved in support group environments. The professionals tend to believe that it's good for people to network with other people who are in similar situations.
Anonymity is really a matter of concealing your activities from those who are in an position of power over you. Probably the entity with the greatest amount of power over citizens at large is the government. Furthermore, it is the government who is calling for these measures. If anonymity is erased, it is the government that has the most to gain. All of the pieces of the puzzle fit together if you consider them as a whole.
Now take a step back and don't think of the Internet as a network. Think of it as a library, conference room and shopping center. Now imagine being assigned a FBI agent who monitors everything that you read, say, and buy. How do you feel then? If this were the "real world" there would be a rabid pack of ACLU lawyers cutting a swath of destruction on the way to the capitol.
There is something deeper here. The amount of impact that the monitoring has is directly related to its degree of centralization and the authority it wields. Right now, people are monitored every day by websites that log connections. Rob can probably use my IP or email addy and figure out who I am pretty quickly. Do I care? No, because he has no authority over me and probably isnt trying to combine all of my data into one profile. Lets look at the other end of the spectrum, and give the government complete power to collate and log all Internet activities. Now everything is centralized, complete, and in the hands of the only authority that can legally take my life. This is a much more dire situation.
When you think of anonymity, also think about who you want to be anonymous from.
-BW
-BW
Dang, my ISPs newsserver doesn't carry that..
Maybe he's of the mindset that, since he doesn't have any privacy, none of us should either.
No, no, that's not Clinton, that's Scott McNealy. We are supposed to "get over it", remember?
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
From what I understand, IPv6 includes in its VAST address space the ID number hardwired into your NIC or modem. You could trace any packet back to its originating computer. It would be like bullet ballistics. You could prove that this computer was used in the crime and then you have to prove this person was using said computer at the time. I don't have strong views one way or the other on this scheme. I have been around long enough to say that someone with enough time on thier hands will succesfully spoof thier identity even under IPv6.
-B
I'm afraid that from my vantage point in South Africa, considering this latest nonsense from Clinton, and considering the DMCA, and UCITA (etc etc etc), one can't help but get the impression that the American people currently have no control over their goverment.
Most of the movies and TV shows that arrive here from the US completely reek of pro-USA brainwashing propaganda, so I wouldn't be surprised if the majority "mainstream" culture is to "be a couch potato while the government does whatever they want". However, it is clear that a small (more intelligent) minority is more wary of what the government is doing. Somehow the public should have more power over policy making
Anyway, I'm rambling now.
Well, as if we needed another reason to throw the Clinton-Gore administration out. Here Clinton is trying to shore up support in the law enforcement community at the expense of individual rights.
I support the librarian view of this. That is: what you read, if you can read, whom you leave letters for is your private business and cannot be used against you. Note that the phone lines do not give such privacy. For over 40 years both the Chicago Police Department and the Fire Department have had instant traces in place for every incoming call. Instead of choosing one way or the other we should have both. Truly anonymous accounts for everyone and personal, fully traceable accounts in parallel. Personal accounts having more privledges. Note: this is not my idea, I borrow it from Ender's Game.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
yes, and the RMV will gladly sell your driver's license records to the highest bidder.
Anyone old enough remember those little license-plate shaped key tags you used to get in the mail from some veterans' group ?
After all, if he'd wanted to remove anonymity, he'd have built it in when he invented the damn thing..
--
Firstly, the notion of bearing your soul and your abuse to a group of strangers is ridiculous in itself. These folks need to deal with professional counsellors who can really help them, not a bunch of wannabe psychologists hanging out in newsgroups giving out bad advice.
You two points here: one, that they should be looking for support from anyone other than a professional, and two, because of one, they don't need anonymity.
From your post I belive that you have never had to stand up in front of someone, and admit you need emotional help. Whilst I think that everyone would agree that it _shouldn't_ be difficult, that doesn't mean it isn't.
Whilst not suffering from abuse (thankfully), I have experience of this, due to disfigurment by a medical condition. You cannot understand the relief that goes with talking to others in a similar position (purely a "you are not alone anymore" feeling) until you've been in such a situation.
'Victim support' is not profesional councelling, and does not try to be. It is often a nessecary first step before professional counciling can be saught.
Anonymity makes the whole process easier, when you know you can talk frankly and openly, without fear of ridicule or embarasment.
Like physical scars, emotional scars never heal, they just hurt less with time. Most people preffer to keep thier scars hidden.
--
It's a distinction without a difference -- like anyone in authority, Clinton is ultimately responsible for the acts of his subordinates.
Okay, then he's responsible for having requested that some people render their opinion. It doesn't logically follow that he necesarily agrees with their conclusions.
"Internet service providers should be encouraged, though not required, to maintain detailed records of what their users are doing online."
This already happens without any government encouragement.
When my machines are cracked, I check the logs and contact the relevant ISPs. I expect that the ISP will cooperate by checking their own logs and identifying the account, and terminating it. I haven't been involved in a case yet that's gone to law enforcement (I hate it when people overreact), but I have been put in contact with script kiddy's parents to suggest some additional parental supervision.
The Internet Death Penalty already encourages ISPs to use their knowledge of their customers to enforce community norms against cracking and SPAM. Every responsible ISP has the ability to track down an account. This is nothing new.
As far as the feds getting more technically clue-ful -- I can see how this could be problematic, but in itself it is not a problem. We should require law enforcement to become tech savvy, to protect our Internet ventures, yet to use its powers reasonably and proportionately. And law enforcement needs to know that technically sophisticated people are watching and judging. It is in ignorance, fear and apathy that overreaction happens. Nobody in their right mind wants another Mitnik case, which can only happen because there isn't enough technical common sense around to effectively stand up against grandstanding prosecutors and bloodthirsty corporate lawyers.
We already have a solution to the problem of the law enforcement's power to intrude on our lives. Law enforcement should have to get a search warrant. The process of getting search warrants should be open to scrutiny and oversight, and evidence obtained through improper warrants should be inadmissable. This solution works as well as we are able as a people to remain vigilant and use the tools that we have to constrain our government.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Internet service providers should be encouraged, though not required, to maintain detailed records of what their users are doing online
That statement makes me wonder if they actually researched real world issues. The amount of traffic passing through an ISP is huge. Monitoring it down to that level would be monumental and eat up resources in a major way. (Imagine trying to count the number of grains of sand and exactly where they fall in an hourglass).
this space for rent
Internet service providers should be encouraged, though not required, to maintain detailed records of what their users are doing online
this kind of crap makes me WANT to fake my name and other personal info when signing up for an ISP.
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
www.pgp.org Huh? Pecan Grove Plantation ?? No, I'm not kidding! Maybe www.pgpi.org or www.pgp.com
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
There were some earlier posts about how phone service, drivers licenses and other thing aren't anonymous but private. This is NOT at all near what we are talking about here. Having an anonymous options allows for more free use of our rights to free speech.
The web is a lot closer to literature and small news magazines than to a phone service. It's just way more interactive. There are so many good things that have happened because authors were allowed to remain anonymous. Countless pamphlets and articles during the american revolutions. Many unpopular opinions on politics and social life in America. Even as recent as the book Primary Colors.
This is something that we do not want to let slip by like we do so many of our liberties.
I completely agree with you. The problem with most laws come from "good intentions". I just watched 20/20 or was it Dateline, about how a good intentions law for the disabled is being abused by some to sue the pants off of small businesses. If you don't have a handicapped parking spot, you can be sued before you are even asked to make one.
Anyway, the point that I'm trying to make is that this law will have all the support because of "good intentions" but at the end really screw most of us. Yes, I have no doubt that this law will cater to propriety systems. I'm no history buff, but I wonder if this is how oppressive governments started out. Did Hitler convince people to do terrible things by using good intentions? The world of the Internet may be repeating the history of the real world. Laws will come out and suppress the masses using good intentions and then be used/abused by the government or their alliances (big business). I can see the trend where the laws start to favor propriety protocols and close the door on free speech.
Could the U.S. enforce a propriety protocol or subset that needs to be used to interact with companies in the States? I don't want to sound paranoid, but I've been told three times here on
I already see the trend here. You will have the government and big business trying to control the Internet and moderate it for their own agendas. And then you will have rebels that will fight against it (like Cult of the Dead Cow and such). I don't belong to either side at the moment but I don't like the way it is heading. Lets follow the founding fathers of the U.S. and keep the Internet controlled by the people. We need a system that can let people police their own networks, and keep the government out.
Steven Rostedt
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind
Simple. Emprison EVERYONE in solitary confinement. If everyone's in prison, then the innocent are proteced from the guilty.
If you seriously consider your government to be on the same level as petty thieves, I would advise you to IMMEDIATELY relocate yourself to another country. If for some reason your country is forcing you to remain a resident, or you have other reasons for wanting to stay, I'd see about organizing some sort of armed revolt and overthrow your evil, fascist government.
Well, frankly, the federal government is in a totally different league from petty thieves. Incidentially, I'd be interested in your plans to overthrow the US gov.
Agreed. As long as governments hold many exclusive powers over the people, there will be new ways invented to erode rights through that power. Without available anonymity freedom of speech will remain uncertain.
With the vast number of vague laws in place, almost anyone could be charged with something. The only refuge from that massive arbitrary power is anonymity -- and the only right that Internet anonymity ensures is speech.
That is what Clinton and friends would restrict.
Geeky modern art T-shirts
It's a distinction without a difference -- like anyone in authority, Clinton is ultimately responsible for the acts of his subordinates.
Maybe somebody ought to dust off the sign Harry Truman had on his desk.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
The situation has degenerated severely over the past generation: Charles Colson went to prison for illegal possession of one FBI file; Bill Clinton got away with pulling over 900 of them.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Now when the burglar breaks in anyway, everybody's going to start bitching and moaning about how the door is off its hinges and there's broken glass all over the floor.
Now do you folks understand the reason the Thieves' Guild wanted to consider *designing* such a system in the first place? They are going to steal whether we want them to or not. But instead of having *us* design the system for them to do so, we just shouted a big "fuck you!"
Hooray for the YRO crowd!
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
I've got a great system for better protecting the privacy of innocents against illegal violation. It's called "prison". (Not "Club Fed"; the culture of contempt for the Constitution in some of our agencies probably requires the full don't-bend-over-for-the-soap level of deterrence.)
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Someone has already noted that when you count crimes committed by the state, the crime rate in a police state is actually much higher. An entire population of gang-bangers would be hard put to compete with the body count racked up by the Ukranian famine, the Holocaust, etc ad nauseam.
Additionally, I point out that if you believe in the accuracy of police-state public statistics about something as embarrassing as petty crime, I have a bug-free copy of Win2K to sell you.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Just because someone posts on usenet does not mean they don't know what they are talking about. Sure as more and more people get online the signal-to-noise ratio is decreasing, and that is unfortunate. Real professionals with a geek side are often found posting to appropriate newsgroups.
Usually when someone turns to a support type newsgroup it is because they have just discovered something traumatic or been through a difficult to deal with problem. More often than not they just want to know there are other people like them out there. If you ever read any of the "advice" given there you will see that often times "see a doctor/professional" is part of it.
The truth of the matter is the quality of service/advice received has nothing to do with a persons right to seek it out. In addition for many things it is not in a person's best interest to have their identity associated with certain inquiries.
Hmmmm...sounds like DoubleClick to me...
----- Leghorn "Not responsible for program content"
This sounds like a good use of the service that they were building offshore in Cryptonomicon. The characters were starting a company that anonymized packets in another country other than the US and then spit them back on the net. Is anyone really doing this in real life?
:)
(Good title. I automatically read any posts that have to do with Cryptonomion.
Even though what you are saying isn't accurate to the story (they anonymizer already existed in the book, they were trying to start a bank and ultimately a data haven) here is something to check out:
Freenet http://freenet.sourceforge.net/
I was pretty excited when I saw this because I(prompted by the ideas in cryptonomicon) was thinking about what it would take to set up a kind of "distributed" data haven.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Internet vending machines do exist. Have you ever been to an airport?
As long as this eliminates AC's, I'll be happy ;)
Chris Hagar
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
Yes, using anonymity _may_ reduce the impact of what is said. Particularly if there is no apparent need for anonymity. Paranoia doesn't look good.
But where the reader agrees with the need for anonymity [controversial/retributive material] then I don't think the impact is reduced much. Sometimes, publishing nominatively may appear foolhardy or risk/publicity seeking behaviour.
Hasn't the US Supreme Court defended anonymity as an important element of free speech? Without anonymity, there is always fear of retribution.
Not that Presidents or administrations have ever had much interest in supporting freedom. Even if they are sworn to defend the US Constitution, their main interest is in governing the populace. Freedoms make that job harder.
We have the right to privacy, not to being ananyomous. We should be held acountable for our words spoken in a public forum. Do i mean that things like anonymous posting on slashdot should be done away with? of course not, but i do think that slashdot should be logging it. this log should be encrypted and stored somewhere that only the right people can get to it. and i don't mean the feds. BUT if someone is passing them selves off as an expert and saying blatent lies that actualy hurt a person or a company. a court order should be allowed to view the logs to discover the IP of the poster so that other leagal charges could be filed. This is the only thing, this data should be used for, and thats a bad example, think more along the lines of a serial killer confessing in an anon slahsdot post. it sure would be nice if that could be trace, and if it can't, i'd hate to be the guys running the site, knowing that you could have helped stop a killer wouldn't be an easy thing to live with. But i say again that this data needs to be protected with great effort. Its not there for the NSA to spy on us, it should be there to help protect the public from a specific, publicly disclosed threat. Another thing that i think is already widely done but really should be enforced is ISP's logging what account has which IP addreses at what times. This shouldn't imply that the owner of an account is responsibly if the account is used for something illegal, but it is at least a good place to start looking. Once again this log should be well protected by the ISP and not just turned over to the gov't at the drop of a hat. Yes there is the posibility of abuse, but there is with everything, but the gains far out weigh the risks in my opinion.
I work for a major Tier 1 ISP and I can tell you that this is not at all technically feasible to be implemented by ISPs at this time. We do not currently have the resources to monitor whether or not our customer's lines are up or not, let alone monitor their activity. The only way to do this sort of thing would be a sort of WAN packet sniffer, and the data that that sort of device would produce would be unreasonably huge. There would be no way for a large organization to handle that sort of monitoring. The basic topology of the internet would have to change, both physically and logically, for this goal to become a reality, and that sort of change must come slowly. So this is a concern, but it isn't going to happen any time soon.
//Phizzy
"Most European technology just isn't worth our stealing," -- Former CIA chief James Woolsey, referring to Echelon
I thought after his problems with Monica that he would be a staunch advocate of anonymity.
Hates people who have stupid little sigs
This reflects two pressure groups on the administration: the various law enforcement agencies and the IT industry. Whoever eventually wins, it's certain that the best interests of the world's citizens are not the top priority.
Obviously, for this to work, backbones and ISPs would need to allow anonymous traffic, but the bulk of users would disallow it. Sites that catered to it would allow it. (Whistleblower agencies, Abuse groups and yes, pr0n sites).
The cake is a pie
The difference is that today I have no idea of knowing whether a packet is really coming from where it says it is coming from. What I am suggesting is that there ought to be an optional way to deny packets that have a spoofable source address, and to only allow source addresses to be changed to certain obvious values if you do wish to receive packets without a gauranteed source address.
The cake is a pie
The number of whistle-blowers who have had their good deeds punished is legion. We need a way for them to be able to blow those whistles safely, so that those in power, whether governmental or corperate, have to fear that their actions may come to light. Certainly there will be abuses of this anonymity, but it is worth these abuses to get the benefits.
The cake is a pie
What we need on the internet scale is something more explicit. We need to move to a protocol where address spoofing is not possible. We then should layer on top of that some sort of explicit "anonymous" packet support. We should then build on top of that explicit anonymity support in applications like e-mail packages and browsers. In other words, as a user, I should be able to simply check "mail anonymously" or "browse anonymously". On the other hand, as a mail recipient or site author, I should be able to check "refuse anonymous mail" or "refuse anonymous browsers". Make sure this support goes all the way down to the protocol level.
This would both allow anonymity and remove the biggest problems with anonymity.
The cake is a pie
If Clinton can get 900 FBI files of his political enemies and get away with it, what makes any of you think you can have privacy? Nixon was hounded from office for this same type of thing.
Geez, folks. The time to defend your privacy has come and gone. If the police are allowing looters to smash your windows and take your stuff, yelling "STOP" isn't going to help.
If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
I think anyone will agree that its hard to make a correct decision without a good understanding of the options? The folks in Washington are starting to get scared about the internet. They want to try to fix it, but the only way they think they can do it is to control it as tightly as possible.
They need to be presented with other, more proactive options. Maybe they should fund more research in computer security, instead. Places like Iowa State's ISSL (www.issl.org) come to mind.
But the main issue to me is the attempt to deal with people abusing the net to stalk and harass other people. Right now they can do it anonymously, and do anything they want without being traced. This springs to mind because of a news report I saw on this, where one man was even trying to get pedophiles to call this lady's very young daughter. It seems to me that THAT is the issue the government is trying to address; and it does need addressing. When your replies don't acknowledge the need to handle the abuse of anonymity, they won't be listened to, so consider what you would do if that happened to you.
Evan Reynolds evan@evan.org
Evan Reynolds evanthx@hotmail.com
Two peanuts crossed the street. One was assaulted.
CONGRESS PASSES AMERICANS WITH NO ABILITIES ACT
* **************
WASHINGTON, DC--
On Tuesday, Congress approved the Americans With No Abilities Act,
sweeping new legislation that provides benefits and protection for
more than 135 million talentless Americans.
The act, signed into law by President Clinton shortly after its
passage, is being hailed as a major victory for the millions upon
millions of U.S. citizens who lack any real skills or uses.
"Roughly 50 percent of Americans--through no fault of their own--do
not possess the talent necessary to carve out a meaningful role for
themselves in society," said Clinton, a longtime ANA supporter. "Their
lives are futile hamster-wheel existences of unrewarding, dead-end
busywork: xeroxing documents written by others, fulfilling mail-in
rebates for Black & Decker toaster ovens, and processing bureaucratic
forms that nobody will ever see. Sadly, for these millions of nonabled
Americans, the American dream of working hard and moving up through
the ranks is simply not a reality."
Under the Americans With No Abilities Act, more than 25 million
important-sounding "middle man" positions will be created in the
white-collar sector for nonabled persons, providing them with an
illusory sense of purpose and ability. Mandatory, non-performance-
based raises and promotions will also be offered to create a sense of
upward mobility for even the most unremarkable, utterly replaceable
employees.
The legislation also provides corporations with incentives to hire
nonabled workers, including tax breaks for those who hire one
non-germane worker for every two talented hirees.
Finally, the Americans With No Abilities Act also contains tough new
measures to prevent discrimination against the nonabled by banning
prospective employers from asking such job-interview questions as,
"What can you bring to this organization?" and "Do you have any
special skills that would make you an asset to this company?"
"As a nonabled person, I frequently find myself unable to keep up with
co-workers who have something going for them," said Mary Lou Gertz,
who lost her position as an unessential filing clerk at a Minneapolis
tile wholesaler last month because of her lack of notable skills."This
new law should really help people like me."
With the passage of the Americans With No Abilities Act, Gertz and
millions of other untalented, unessential citizens can finally see a
light at the end of the tunnel.
Said Clinton: "It is our duty, both as lawmakers and as human beings,
to provide each and every American citizen, regardless of his or her
lack of value to society, some sort of space to take up in this great
nation."
***********************************************
www.mp3.com/Undocumented
Unfortunately, between Bill and a lot of the extremely law enforcem... -errr- invasion of privacy proponents we have in Congress, a lot of his proposals may make it into some laws.
:)
How hypocritical is it to supposedly be in favor of a ban on Internet taxes and yet support taking away peoples rights on said Internet?
He's probably just tired of of all those p*rn postings from "bill.clinton@whitehouse.gov", especially the ones that aren't from him.
oops, thanks. the sad thing is that i've typed the wrong url in about 20 times now, and will probably still continue to. :]
It's something the government deems worthy of protecting us from "a threat to national security," at which point all all individual and civil rights become null and void.
/. users have gone through the script-kiddie phase (hey, if we were never there we understand it quite as well), have gotten past the warezing and the filezing and whatnot, and have gotten to a point where we just don't think it's right for government eyes to follow us and read our communications -- that''s what's at stake here.
Really, this does take us one giant leap closer to Big Brother -- the majority of our traffic is either from a) the office or b) our homes, which means that traceability is extremely effective. Our activities already are being watched from our job and our home, and this will allow them to watch us even closer.
It's time to enable ourselves to encrypt every bit of data that leaves our machines, and get everyone you know to do the same. I don't even get involved in any "unseemly" activities on the net, I think that a large number of us
If you don't want all of your communications to be a) traceable or b) even intercepted and processed *legally* by your government agencies (can you imagine if they could read all of our mail? It'd be a public outrage, an invastion of privacy, against our personal ri... oh, wait, "matter of national security," we have no rights...) the time to act is NOW. Fight to keep crazy legislation like this gets enacted, and learn your encryption. Get thyself to www.pgp.org, or if you know of something better, let us all know.
Anyone else think that the ACLU needs a political party? They'd be on our side on this one...
Those that are in power always seem to take those steps which will keep them in power. The anonymity of the internet is useful to the little guy because it alows him to speak his mind without fear of being squashed. But this usefulness to the little guy comes at the cost of power to the big guy. After all, what good is power if you can't excercise it over someone. Of course Clinton wants to implement some sort of method of identifying users of the internet, he has nothing to lose by it, and something to gain.
People should always keep in mind that while you may think your being clever by taking jabs at the system, you may actually be playing into the hands of those who would like to say, "See, look what has happened, we need new laws regulating this thing".
Check out AbiWord.
Agreed, however the whistle blower is not always the accusor of a legal case. Unless the person is required as a witness, then they don't need to be involved with legal proceedings at all once they have dug up the skeletons for everybody to see.
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
Once again the American government fails to notice the most glaring flaw in all of its Internet policy; the fact that it is an international phenomena, and that instituting (non)anonymity laws in the States will do little to stop the flow of Internet based attacks that are hard or impossible to trace from international sources.
At least he won't be President for much longer.. and I somehow doubt that the "father of th Internet" Al Gore is going to end up in that chair.
The higher, the fewer.
I read it to mean that people who illegally violate the privacy of innocents should be put into prison. Of course, this doesn't help if violating the privacy of innocents is not illegal...
Why do we have to leave it up to "law enforcement" to gather intelligence? This just separates the individuals involved in "law enforcement" from the society they are supposed to be protecting, making it more likely that they will put their own interests above that of the general population.
Ideally, the general population should be able to perform its own "intelligence" operations on things that affect itself, and only request help from its "law enforcement" specialists when all else has failed.
I don't see this situation in most of today's cities - the law enforcement has become quite isolated from the population they are supposed to be protecting. (I think that programs like community policing are supposed to help with this isolation, but it's really hard to reverse a societal trend.)
Internet service providers should be encouraged, though not required, to maintain detailed records of what their users are doing online. "Some industry members may not retain certain system data long enough to permit law enforcement to identify online offenders," the report says.
I work for an ISP/Abuse Dept. Do these people have any concept of the amount of data this entails for even a small ISP? Weekly SYSLOGs and proxy logs for 25K users is literally GBs of information. Where do they propose this data be archived? Will they subsidize aspirin and eyeglasses for the poor bastards who have to vgrep all that crap?
One more reason why, once again, my tax return will have "Fuck you, Big Brother" smeared across it. Bah.
Rafe
V^^^^V
Rafe
Opinions expressed by the author may not actually exist in the wild.
Ugh! If the sheep (meaning the general populous) follow in this as with other really stupid and debatable topics, I will go ahead and damn myself and offer up a way to repeal all anonymity. It is simple really. When you next buy a new computer, you will only buy a share in a government-owned computer. You will not have access to change any preferences, and any and all of your actions at home or on the net will be recorded and sent in. Any activity deemed "illegal" will be found and you will rot in a deep, dark prison cell for the remaining days of your life.
What really scares me is that someone out there is now reading this and saying to himself, "Hey, that's a terrific idea!"
Ciao
nahtanoj
Like a lot of other posters, I'd have to say Yes and No too. I think a good compromise would be to allow everyone 1 online identity. This identity would not be traceable to any real person's address, phone, name or other information. It would be possible to trace what IP this identity gets used from, and perhaps the other information could be deduced by calling the ISP, etc, but (and I thought this was the case) only law enforcement could request that information.
Where I stand on the technical aspects is sketchy at best, but basically, I think total anonimity too often weakens the credibility of the internet and eliminates the need or desire to create, maintain and protect a reputation. I belive part of the reason we are civilized in the real world is because we have to look each other in the eye every so often and have to deal with the very real possibility that someone may beat the hell out of you.
I'm not saying there aren't other solutions, and there are solutions to the worst cases, such as yahoo chat where people come on, yell and curse rampantly. If they did that in the street, nobody would talk to them, and if they directed it at someone, they would probably have a tough time in that neighborhood later on. And there are more important cases, take this Slashdot forum for example, i see anonymous flamers post every so often, and sometimes they have valid points, but they choose to put someone else down in a very mean way. I think that person deserves to have a reputation. I'd like to hear the other side of this view.
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More information is at http://www.well.com/~declan/politech/
The extent to which a police state reduces crime has been demonstrated in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Removal of the constant surveillance, wiretaps, copier controls, computer controls, etc. has been tried. The crime rate skyrocketed. It was more than a small increase. Crime went from extremely rare up to Western European levels and (in Russia) above. We also have the genuine public reaction to all this. In Eastern Europe the return to Communism forces are real, but a minority. Given the choice of police state or widespread crime, the public prefers widespread crime. Only in Russia, where the government has joined up with the criminals, is a return to the police state viewed favorably by the general public.
No name; no one to blame. This is how the Bill of Rights intended.
There will be no mandatory Internet user tracking. The reason is each thing you do with an Internet client is a REQUEST for information. Working this proposal would require practical violation of the First Amendment on two grounds, and possibly the Third Amendment on a third ground.
<rant>Bill Clinton should be ashamed that his middle name is Jefferson, and he will be recorded in history of attempting to sell out the rights American Citizen for short term political gain.</rant>
Requiring people to use a specific protocol which identifies them, abridges their right to make requests for information with impunity. It would also abridge (have a chilling effect) on an individual's likelihood of using such a request to establish an unpopular idea on a public bulletin board. It would also require agents of those services to enforce the protocol on the individual users, which constitutes abridging the freedom of the press.
IMnsHO, while the world considers the term cyber-warfare we should be prepared to establish the constitutional interperetation of quartering of cyber-soldiers in our homes. President Clinton's statement is preparatory for yet another key-escrow proposal. We need to get the idea out that escrowed keys are agents of the government, and are essentially cyber-soldiers which the President, and (thus far) potential Presidential Candidates Gore and McCain would like to install in our cyber-homes.
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
work with me here people...there is a distinct difference between "Clinton frowns on anonymity" and "A commission requested by Clinton frowns on anonymity"
Is it just me or is the sensationalism on slashdot recently getting to be a bit much?
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity -RAH
Techies will want to keep in mind what it will mean if the government intends to establish mechanisms for tracing internet traffic.
First off, it will probably mean that they'll shift support toward proprietary solutions - those which they can have changed to suit their needs, and which can be deployed in a way which prevents tampering. In other words, compatibility barrier, binary distribution, security (of the protocol) through obscurity.
Second, they're gonna need cooperation. This means either a substantial chunk of the internet within the US becomes government sanctioned and controlled (with those servers being good and proper and volunteering whatever information the NSA, CIA, or whatever else wants this week) or (US) internet backbone sites will have to run the US-sanctioned software.
As governments get more involved in controlling localities of the internet, I think it'll become more fragmented and less free (speech/beer). Personally, I think that if terrorism and such can't be prevented without sweeping searches, indiscriminate monitoring of communications, and export restrictions on crypto, maybe it's not worth it.
Bow-ties are cool.
This will no more stop undesired activities than phone traces or postal violations. Why? There are plenty of open terminals at the library that any creep could use or corrupt. People with knowhow will always be able to wiretap, listen, immitate and abuse. This ability will only grow as computer size shrinks.
Nope, this looks like another power grab for the Federal govenment. For an interesting view of motives visit CATO.
I am going to try very hard not to flame you, but what you've said on this matter:
Anyone who thinks that abuse groups are the crux of this issue is deluding themselves. Firstly, the notion of bearing your soul and your abuse to a group of strangers is ridiculous in itself. These folks need to deal with professional counsellors who can really help them, not a bunch of wannabe psychologists hanging out in newsgroups giving out bad advice.
really offends me.
First, my offtopic rant: how many psychology majors did you know at your school, if you have attended college? I can tell you that at my school, some exceptions aside, the psych majors were the craziest bunch there. Not wild-crazy, insane-crazy. I'm sure that most of them were not insane to the point of trying to get medication for it or whatever, but you know those people whose eyes just don't have a calm, sane look in them? Those people who do way more than a usual amount of "normal insane"-type things like becoming totally obsessive about *blank*, say totally strange things in the course of normal conversation, do drugs and then have "tripping fits" where they claim their mind is breaking or something (and then take lots of shrooms the next weekend anyway), or set up strange schemes to manipulate others or get attention? I found that our psych department, aside from being the easiest major to graduate from (which almost everyone thought, not just me) was FULL of these people. I think it's because if you are a little wacked, the concept of being wacked is extremely interesting to you. One of my best friends was also a psych major, and she was very common-sensical and kind and SANE, but the vast majority of these people I WOULD NEVER WANT TO TRY TO TELL ME HOW TO BE MENTALLY HEALTHY!!!
Now back on topic: I think that your personal views on who "needs" to be anonymous are clouding the issue for you. Forget about sexual abuse victims and porn-access and whether you think that YOU would ever need to be anonymous on the internet. Don't you just think that, just as it should be within your rights to walk down a public street anonymously (where there is a chance that you could commit a crime at any moment but most likely would not), that it SHOULD be within your rights to enter the forum of the internet anonymously, regardless of the reason why?
I don't have an anonymous web account, nor do I really want one. But I do want the RIGHT to have one. There's a difference...
So... let me get this right. The government is so up in arms about not knowing what the majority of the population is doing, that it feels the need to watch us on the net. Personally, I think that they would be bored stiff. Hmm let me see GIHM went to the following sites today: slashdot.org, gamestorm.com yahoo.com, egroups.com, zdnet.com oh wait here's something, yes, yes, oh never mind, it was just his horoscope.
This really makes me wonder how much a small little island costs and what it would take for me to just up and move there. I think I through this idea out a few months ago, but I'm to lazy to go looking for the link. I wonder what's next on the "Stupid Government Ideas" list.
GIHM -The light at the end of the tunnel is only the oncoming train.
we don't allow phone users or dirver's license holders to remain anonymous, although their records are kepot private...not sure why online identities must be different.
We have public phones, don't we? And tone blocking against caller id. Regarding driver's licenses, this is because a driver poses a physical hazard to other citizens. We don't have a license to talk.
I looked at your user info and note that, like me, you include no contact or identifying information. This isn't a bad thing! It encourages free exchange, and there are some legitimate things that are better said anonymously. Of course, it could be said that the government is a 'trusted third party' that would never ever look, without proper search warrants. Of course, 400 FBI files of the administration's political opponents were supposed to be confidential, too. There is no difference, in the end between 'trusted party access' and 'uncontrolled access' when it comes to personal information. Trusted by who? When you hold the information already, the agency need only trust itself-- this smacks of key escrow.
Government shouldn't be dictating to individuals how our technology should work. If the technology that works best for people happens to also identify them, well, what can you do? Private privacy services (such as anonymous remailers) will emerge, and privacy will have a cost.
To argue for a government-mandated internet identity tracking system because people shouldn't have anything to hide is wrong. The burden is on the government to establish a need to know, not on us to foot the bill (in lower performance, higher taxes or ISP fees, etc) to satisfy the government's idle curiosity.
Technical considerations aside, all you need it the ability for a service operator to specify whether their service allows anonymous access or not. If I mark my service as not allowing anonymous access, then the upstream network will only route non-anonymous data to me. All you need to do is have two versions of the IP protocol, one that contains authenticated tracking information, and one that does not.
The browser can then give the user a choice as to whether to use a particular service or not. This will give service-providers (web sites) the ability to avoid all the bad things that anonymity offers and at the same time, allow sites such as abuse-sites to let their users remain anonymous.
On a side note, anonimity in abuse sites is a non-issue. I can go onto an abuse site right now without using an anonymizer and for all practical purposes be anonymous. Granted that the site operator could track me potentially, but other users of the system couldn't. I will simply pick a chat-group that is administered by somebody I trust not to give a damn.
If you think about it, there is really only one person right now that can practically breech your anonimity, and that is the site you are connecting to. The government can only breech your anonimity by forcing the site to reveal your information.
So, we don't even need a technical solution, a simple legal solution will do just fine. We simply make it illegal for the government to force a site to reveal user information. If a site wishes to cooperate with the government to aid in finding somebody who has hacked them, they are free to do so. Some sites will declare that they have a strictly anonymous policy, others will declare that they will cooperate with the government to track illegal activities.
(Spare me the lectures on wire-tapping, if the government puts a sting operation of that nature on you, they are going to find out who you are eventually anyhow)
Did anyone catch the paragraph on the second page about taking away protections of journalists & publishers? The last line of the paragraph states that the report will recommend "reduced privacy rights for cable modem users."
Just what might these be? This sounds draconian.
Temkin
You aren't sure, you say, about whether having a driver's license is a threat to your privacy. You don't say, but must note, that license plate numbers on your car may also be problematic, now that satellite tracking is available....
- Here are a couple facts to throw into your thinking this through:
- Here in NYC (prime "police city" within the police state of the USA), when the new "metro card" was made available presumably to benefit consumers (with ease of use) and the transportation system (reduced cost), the facility to track each user's movement was built into the system. Way back when some of us learned that, a phone hackers' group immediately instituted a "recycling" basket for the used cards. (Make your trip, then exchange your metro-card for another's spent card.) Recently, the first case involving the "criminal justice" system's use of the tracking potential was reported in the mainstream media. (It was used to crack an alibi.) The tone of the report clearly questioned whether New Yorkers want their movements tracked in this way. I think our distaste for this is near-instinctive.
- Some states have automated tracking the speed of cars issued passes on throughway/freeway-type highways. Speeding traffic tickets are sent to cars where the passes indicate the time was insufficient for the milage, given the legal speed limit. How do you feel about that?
Cheers!preventing the government from making up fictional victims is more important than protecting the real victims who are sacrificed or muted.
Maybe this is true, but it may be possible to still stop many of the "sacrifices" you refer to. How do you get around this? Choose the right tool for the job. Look at the above comment. If you have major smoking-gun evidence, what need do you have for the name of the person who pointed it out? On the other hand, if a witness is all you have, then the name should be required...
---- Sig? What sig? Who needs one, anyway?
I post to sexually-explicit newsgroups using my real name all the time. I made a specific decision to do so a few years back - and my writings have ended up on web pages and print publications with my real name attached.
However, I made a *decision* to be out about my interests. And it is not without risk, people have lost jobs and children and such for daring to talk or have interest in something non-mainstream.
I do not think that entrance to any community ought to cost this much. Anonymity, or deciding to be out, are personal decisions - no one else can count the cost for you.
In spite of being "out" about sexual stuff, I have posted anonymously on other topics, for other reasons at other times. Hell, when I responded to articles about IT jobs - salaries and companies and such - I did it anonymously.
Furthermore, people like the folks at ASAR do *need* anonymity to feel safe to discuss their issues. Anyone saying otherwise has no idea what theya re talking about. You can't determine what other people need for their healing and recovery, regardless of what you think they need.
Sure anonymity gets abused sometimes. It always has and always will. But that doesn't mean it's not useful and important for many folks.
Whatever happened to the idea of prepaid internet cards, where you could purchase blocks of internet at a vending machine, etc.
This is in my opinion one of the best ways to have a completely anonymous internet connection.
I'll be blowed if im gonna be watched whatever I do!
How would we all like it if we each had an Mi5 (or CIA) followed us everywhere we went in the world, if we took this into comparative terms, it'd be like you private secret service guy following us in the loo, taking a bath with us and sleeping in our bed; every online operation we did would be covered
They could tell you exactly what you did, where you had been; who you had spoken to etc.
And what if there was a breach of all this stored information, especially corporate information which is often relayed over IP; as we have found out in recent weeks, the authorities have some of the worst security in the business.
Now, seriously, I don't mean to stirr it up, but who here will not stand up and fight for their basic rights?
Many moons ago we all learned that freedom is not something which you can count on, its something you must passionately fight to keep!
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
Uh oh. This is a call to weaken the Privacy Protection Act of 1980. That's the law that made it possible for Steve Jackson Games to win against the Secret Service.
The Privacy Protection Act of 1980 provides extra protections agains searches and seizures for "publishers". A "publisher" is defined as "a person reasonably believed to have a purpose to disseminate to the public a newspaper, book, broadcast, or other similar form of public communication". When Congress wrote this (under pressure, incidentally, from the commercial press), they didn't forsee that the number of publishers was about to increase substantially. Anyone with a web site is a publisher under this law, and gets extra protections against arbitrary search and seizure. Some law enforcement units hate this.
Right now, telephone calls can be traced. Everyone knows that and few people have a major problem with the fact. The reason, of course, is that phone calls have never been anonymous, and so people got used to the idea. At the same time, however, the government cannot legally listen to those conversations, or even peruse the list of people you called without a court order. I think the same thing can be applied to the internet. A protocol in which people are not able to spoof ip's would be a good thing, as long as a persons privacy is legally respected. The FBI should not be able to legally watch all packets that cross the internet for something they find suspicious. They should also not be able to keep an archive of all of the information that gets transfered on the internet. With proper warrants, though, the technology should be there to allow the tracing of a packet back to its source.
"If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for everyone else."
No! No!No! No!No! No!No! No!
This is the last thing we need. If your interested in helping curb this late term legacy building crap aimed at removing more of our already damaged privacy, write your representatives!
Grass roots efforts that come from constituents have enormous impact on capitol hill. This isn't cast in stone yet, it is merely a proposal that will go before the house and be turned in to a bill. If you write your senators, congressmen, local and regional delegates you could have some impact on stopping this.
Bitchin' and moanin' on Slashdot doesn't really change the fact that a bill will be introduced to the house as a result of this. Try to get in front of your representatives, face to face. It's not really tough to do, just give 'em a call or write a letter. E-Mails ok, but not very effective.
Couple of things to remember,
Be NICE. Elected officials really don't respond well to flames, spam, mail floods or harsh language. For a loose reference, re-read the Linux Advocacy Guide, it will give you the right sort of flavor for your communications. The bottom line is don't JUST bitch about big brother taking more of your privacy away, do something about it.
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
to NOT vote for Gore, along with gun control, bad healthcare, affirmatie action, and special interest ass-kissing. You know he will continue the socialist regime of Clinton. I think the democratic party should be named the AntiFreedom party. we must get back to the roots of this nation, not hand-holding and 'we know better' isms.
Maybe he's of the mindset that, since he doesn't have any privacy, none of us should either. Afterall, if the press has the right to butt its collective nose into, er, "affairs of state", then why shouldn't everyone else be subject to the same level of scrutiny?
It's not like holding one of the most influential offices in the world obligates a body to submit to a higher level of public scrutiny than the average Joe....no, of course not!
-- WhiskeyJack, not being sarcastic at all. Really.
No!!! Now everyone will know that I'm not a 17-year-old lesbian gymnast named Trish who likes to cyber and enjoys pornography. What ever will I do.
These issues are frequently at the heart of legislative and investigative efforts. Although there have been proposals to build identification mechanisms into Internet protocols, such an approach would have to be supported by internationally-recognized, market-based, standards-making bodies whose agenda did not directly include public safety. Even if the market supported such an approach, however, such proposals are controversial, because there are strong reasons to allow anonymity in communications networks. For example, whistleblowers may wish to remain anonymous, as may a group of rape victims who wish to convene an electronic meeting to discuss their experiences without revealing their identities.
In an attempt to create a framework for evaluating identification mechanisms on the Internet, some have compared the Internet with other forms of communications, such as pay telephones and regular mail, which may offer users some degree of anonymity. Of course, the difference between these traditional means of communication and the Internet is significant, and attempting to solve Internet problems only by drawing analogies to existing technologies will often fail. The problem is that the analogies may capture some aspects of the new technology, but fail to capture others. For example, the telephone and mail systems cited above allow predominantly one-to-one communications. Although someone wishing to defame a public figure or harass others can, in theory, call thousands of people anonymously, the time and cost make this impractical. By contrast, the cost-free, simple, one-to-many nature of the Internet dramatically alters the scope and impact of communications. It is this difference which explains why children who would never spend their weekly allowance buying The Anarchist Cookbook at a college bookstore may download the same information from the Internet and possibly injure themselves or others testing a recipe for the making of a bomb. Given the complexity of this issue, balancing the need for accountability with the need for anonymity may be one of the greatest policy challenges in the years ahead.
If they continue to take steps realizing the importance of the issues we may not have to worry about losing anomynity. Andrew
The ability of an individual to use one computer to conduct both lawful and unlawful activities or to store both contraband and legally possessed material presents another significant issue. Such commingling defies simple solutions. The fact is, one computer can be used simultaneously as a storage device, a communications device (e.g., to send, store, or retrieve e-mail), and a publishing device. Moreover, that same computer can be used simultaneously for both lawful and unlawful ventures, and the problem becomes more complex when a single machine is shared by many users.
For example, individuals who distribute child pornography or copyrighted software using their home computers may also publish a legitimate newsletter on stamp collecting or use an e-mail service with that same computer. By seizing the computer, law enforcement agencies can stop the illegal distribution of contraband, but may, at the same time, interfere with the legitimate publication of the newsletter and the delivery of e-mail, some of which may be between users who have no connection with the illegal activity. Similarly, a doctor who is illegally prescribing drugs over the Internet may not only have on her computer evidence relating to the illegal prescriptions, but files related to her lawfully treated patients. Likewise, an attorney accused of operating an Internet sportsbook may keep in the same folder on his computer materials relating to his gambling business and documents subject to the attorney-client privilege. Seizure of the doctor?s or the lawyer?s files in such circumstances could result in the seizure of legally privileged material.
Quite relevant to /.er's...
I've been thinking of this for some time, ever since it seems that every ISP out there broadcasts the region and state I'm in in the dialup IP address they give me. Seems to me that this creates a great opportunity to plant a few linux boxes in the West Indies (Anguila apparently, any place else) and sell IP tunneling and cleansing services to people with dialup and cable modem accounts.
If you cannot be anonymous on the Internet, the government has a much easier time monitoring you. Anonymity is necessary for privacy. Anonymity is necessary to avoid government monitoring.
I see what you are saying, but the issue of Internet anonymity leads directly to the issue of government monitoring, particularly when the government is the one advocating an end to anonymity.
--
He lives in a world where those who do not run the client software of the omnipresent meme are unacceptable.
The issue of sexual abuse groups is the ultimate red herring in this debate. Anyone who thinks that abuse groups are the crux of this issue is deluding themselves. Firstly, the notion of bearing your soul and your abuse to a group of strangers is ridiculous in itself. These folks need to deal with professional counsellors who can really help them, not a bunch of wannabe psychologists hanging out in newsgroups giving out bad advice.
Anonymity on the web is almost entirely focused on the ability to perform porn-related transactions without shame. Anyone who thinks it has anything to do with anything else needs a clue.
As it stands, even whistle blowers must be recognized as who they are - under our law, you are allowed to stand before your accusor.
I would also counter that anonymity in court is not the norm. Numerous mob informants have testified in court even though their lives certainly were in peril (see "Sammy the Bull").
Anonymity on the web is almost entirely focused on the ability to perform porn-related transactions without shame. Anyone who thinks it has anything to do with anything else needs a clue. Slim mentioned the questioning of the "right" to perform porn-related transactions without shame, but I will say something a little different. Speaking of rights, whose right is it to question other people's motives or actions? Morality depends entirely upon the upringing, religion, etc. of the person who takes it upon himself to judge others. Granted, the moral majority has and needs rules and laws to keep themselves "safe" from people who have a slightly ... different ... perspective on what is right or wrong (i.e. members of Muslim sects who look upon dying for Allah, meaning in some cases driving their TNT - loaded trucks headlong into buildings, as honorable and, indeed, right); but, outside of the personal well-being of yourself, what interest is it of yours if some guy takes his schlong to a Playboy or orders one via the Internet? What right do you have to tell him that he has to, in effect, walk out into the middle of the street and scream "I LOVE SPANKING PICTURES!!" Combine this with other statements about how anonymity has helped people deal with their problems. Whether or not YOU think that their desire for facelessness while speaking of their problems is acceptable or necessary does not matter one whit. If what THEY are talking of does not slander you (in which case it is not protected by the 1st amendment anyway, IANAL), then its their right to speak their mind with their fears of retribution at rest. Yes, anonymity does provide a shield for people engaging in genuinely illegal activity online, but it is nonetheless a marginal one. ISPs keep activity logs, some of them of the sites visited by certain IP addresses, all timestamped. Even removed entries is a clue as to who committed what crime and when. Basically, we are slowly losing rights, not only anonymity, that the majority thinks is unnecessary, as was pointed out earlier, but removed offer openings for things worse than the problems caused by their existence. Yeah, I KNOW I'm long-winded. BITE ME!
Look! Its an obvious distraction!
While reading the report (I had an extra hour), I got the impression that different people wrote the different sections.
The proposals in the second area seemed rather extreme. The most obvious one was the loss of anonymity. The approach for cable modems seemed to be that if different laws give different levels of protection, go with the one that gives citizens the least protection.
By comparison, the discussion in the third area seemed like a breath of fresh air. Notice that they found that blocking and filtering software is not effective. They also suggested that parents get involved with their kids *gasp*.
We've just posted an archive of related articles (and we welcome any contributions you have) on our Law Enforcement Online page.
A. Keiper
The Center for the Study of Technology and Society
I would sacrifice my right to anonymity and even my right to privacy as long as every single person in the country was forced to do the same. That means every CEO, every lawyer, every politician, and every police officer. I would gladly allow anyone to look at every transaction in my bank account if I could do the same for every US Congressman.
However, I will not put up with a half-assed job of it where maybe you can pay a "fee" and keep your anonymity so that only the rich can afford it.
Throughout history, anonymity has been a tool of corruption and theft, not one of bravery.
Do you know who John Hancock is? There's a reason for that, and it isn't anonymity.
Jesus may love you, but I think you're garbage wrapped in skin.
A choice of masters is not freedom
This sounds like a good use of the service that they were building offshore in Cryptonomicon. The characters were starting a company that anonymized packets in another country other than the US and then spit them back on the net. Is anyone really doing this in real life?
From http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov/uri-res/I2R?urn:pdi
I'm *so* glad I don't live in the USA. Does Mr. C really intend the FBI to posess the ability to trace pornographers and never use it against innocents? You may post something anonymously, infringing none of the above, but if the FBI are interested, and have the "technology" then they can trace you.
So if I post this "Anti-USA" message, they can trace me if they want...
This isn't naivete, this is quoting the above "Bad Things" as an excuse for funding the policing of the entire internet (incl. Monica posting on a.s.a.r!!!)
Just kill spammers before asking questions!
Steve.
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
This is a little off-topic, but it has to do with privacy and the recent DoS attacks.
If a group of folks decided to boycott a company, and got a handful of computers with high bandwidth on which they had legitimate accounts and permission from the owners and launched DoS attacks, could this be seen as valid protest?
In the sense that such an attack damages the company by blocking business (and doesn't cause any other, direct damage), it seems that this would be as resonable a form of protest as marching on public streets surrounding the buildings, blocking access, etc... the cyber equivalent of the recent WTO protests.
If such an event took place, what laws would be broken? Is it ethical? And should the individual blockaders be able to remain anoymous (assuming that the group as a whole identifies its aims).
Like hands in a sour glass, so are the lays of our dives.
I think anyone who frequents alt.sex*.* probably prefers online anonymity. (especially in that hamsters.duct-tape group...)
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
As everyone goes about their Clinton-Gore bashing, keep something in mind. Clinton did not write this report and, to my knowledge, has neither endorsed or condemned it. This is the result of a Clinton commissioned group, not the words of the president himself. Let's give him a chance to make a decision before we smack him upside the head. babbage
> Does anybody know What the U.N. have to say > on international monitoring of citizens who have >commited no crimes? ...especially when the monitoring is the crime being comitted... privacy laws? what privacy laws?
Anyone remember the early days of the Web when everyone had to be recognizable and traceable to exactly who they were? Remember when the first anonymizer services came online, where one could enter as your given identity and leave and post as someone else? Remember how there was virtually zero sex on the Web until those first anonymizer servies freed up users? Does anyone want to go back to those bad old days, especially considering that it was sex stuff that helped drive early Net usage through different roofs? It's one thing for webfolk to have the OPTION of using digital authenticating certificates or Fortezza cards or whatever, it's another thing to try to turn the clock back and remove all privacy shields from normal usage...just ask the stupid Intel marketing and eng. dept.s about the "harmless" tracking features built in to the '3 chip if they now accept the fact that most people want to keep what little privacy is actually left in RL let alone on the Web...