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.
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.
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
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
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.
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