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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
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); }
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.
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.
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.
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.
--
"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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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
The point is finding a fine line between what is and what isn't. At the moment, law enforcement needs actual warrants approved by actual judges to go to an ISP. I think that's pretty darn reasonable.
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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").
Yawn. Now people who violate the group-thought mentality of /. are posting flamebait. Come on, you can do better.
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 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.
Why?
Because governments do harrass (or worse) people who are doing legal things that said government objects to.
Because whistle-blowers are targets of powerful people.
Because witnesses of major crimes fear that they may be killed if they speak, yet wish to do the right thing.
Because people want to discuss painful & sensitive issues without being labeled or ridiculed.
Because I don't have to submit my legal, moral acts to approval by a distrustful government.
Because a government that won't trust me is in turn not worthy of my trust.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
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...