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Crypto Advocates Favoring ... Regulation?
mpk writes: [snip!] I've eliminated the submitter's entire write-up. So far submissions have been gushing with praise or harshly critical of this article in Salon -- nothing in between. Rather than choosing one side or the other, I'll just point you to the article, say it's well worth reading, and see how the comments fall.
After reading Lawrence Lessig's book, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, it was painfully clear to me that technology alone would make the Net into what we want it to be. In fact, relying on technology alone would doom efforts to keep the Net open and free.
Like it or not, the government and corporations are the ones that will be deciding the future of the Net unless enough people take an interest in keeping it a free zone. Technology can't do it alone because technology is subject to regulation. Crypto is the perfect example. The police may not be able to determine whether you're guilty of a crime or not if you encrypt your communications, but if the government decided that you should be assumed guilty if you try to hide your communications, or if you refuse to decrypt your communications, then you're screwed either way. This is not that farfetched. Check out Britain, leading the free world in bad Net regulation.
The point is that Neil, Tim, and the rest are correct. Without the social structures to support our privacy, there is no way to guarantee it. Btw, I highly recommend Lessig's book. It's not that big, go read it. He makes a lot of sense. I plan to read it again this summer, just so I'll have more time to really think about some of the things he's saying.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Maybe I'm just an anarchist at heart, but something about this call for external regulation be it by the government or any other exclusive group, scares me. It smacks of the early days of radio and the formation of the FCC.
Radio and the Internet trace their origins back to their original "invention" and use as media for the military. Radio and the Internet both grew into playgrounds for the savvy individuals as hardware and know-how became more accessible. Radio and the Internet both began to attract a larger audience as hardware became cheaper and know-how became less integral to the end user experience. Radio and Internet became the focal point for social concerns over decency. In radio's case this took the form of the "7 words". The Internet had its Communications Decency Act.
Soon after widespread use of radio began, the FCC was formed to regulate who had the power to transmit. Soon, only the privileged few who could afford government license had the right to transmit to the general public. (True HAM radio and CB are the exception, but neither reach the majority of radio listeners.)
The Internet has yet to evolve to the point where government license is necessary to provide content over it, but it is the next step in its development. Allowing the government any stake in the Internet is too much as it gets their foot in the door. Once they can enforce social contracts on the Internet, who's to say what we will need them to enforce next?
The origins and paths of both the Internet and radio are strikingly similar. If we (the Internet community in general) aren't careful, the destination could be the same as well.
Be seeing you.
JG
For a second, just reading the blurb on Slashdot, I thought that some crypto-advocates were talking about letting the government regulate Internet and place restrictions on cryptography. Fortunately I was quite wrong :).
It looks like the author of this Salon article is disappointed because a number of major Cryptography/Cypherpunk figures ... Neal Stephenson, Phil Zimmerman, Whitfield Diffie ... have started to advocate some very traditionally leftist activities (such as organizing unions!) and are walking away, slowly, from Libertarian ideals.
Good for them.
In case anyone's not been paying attention, right now our rights as coders and geeks are under attack...by corporations. It's not the FBI that's collecting information about misfits in high school, it's Pinkertons. It's not the Congress that's censoring web sites, it's Cybersitter. It's not the NSA that's stepping on software development, it's corporations like the MPAA, Microsoft, ad infinitum.
In the past, protecting ourselves with encryption and security was enough, because the government could only go so far. But now, corporations have powers the government never had. We need to adapt to the change in circumstances in order to protect our rights. If this means abandoning the sacred cow of Libertarianism, so be it. Stephenson, Zimmerman and Diffie are right on with this one.
Finding God in a Dog
Berners-Lee starts thinking about what has happened to the Web since he dreamed it up: e-commerce, big corporations, money. "Libertarians are used to fighting the government," he says, "and not corporations ..."
What Berners-Lee is forgetting, is that today, corporations ARE the government. Sure we may wave our hands around about "democracy" and elect "representatives", but who are we kidding? We all know that our politicians are for sale to the highest bidder, and the highest bidders are the huge, multinational corporations.
So things haven't changed. Libertarians are still fighting big government, today in the form of big corporations.
________________________________
I've read the comments so far and I haven't read one which echoes what I felt toward this article.
Maybe I just don't "get it" but it seems to me like the author had an agenda, and portrayed the whole conference in a framework that is ill-fitting and contrived. I think she reads a bit too far into the meaning of events with regard to privacy-rights activists shifting from "libertarian ideals" to "socialist" ideals.
It looks like what's going on is simply that the "enemy" has changed forms. I'm defining enemy as an entity that wants to limit the public practice of knowledge and/or burden the public with suspect invasions of privacy.
When this entity is the government (Echelon, Clipper Chip, DCMA) you're going to see the technological-aware speak out against the government. When this entity is corporations (specific patent abuses, abuse of monopolist power, draconian employee conduct policies, etc) you're going to see the tech-aware come down against corporations.
Of course, the two are linked. In the USA corporations derive their powers from the government, and this power with respect to intellectual property has steadily increased in recent years.
As the battleground changes, it's not surprising to me that tactics change. The goal remains the same, I think: personal freedom to share information, and personal privacy. People will disagree with the specifics of how far this should go of course, but it seems that for most of us the answer is closer to "quite far" than "not very far".
It's not surprising that this article has drawn criticism. It seems to me to be almost flamebait, confusing the issues with ready preconceptions.
-Outland Traveller
"It's a dirty song but someone's got to sing it" - Faith no More
--
"But, Mulder, the new millennium doesn't begin until January 2001."
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
So to the extent that corporations are a threat to our liberty, the answer is *still* to reduce the government to its constitutional limits. Once we do that, the power of Big Business will go away with it.
This is pure, uncontaminated BULLSHIT . The power of the govenment is 100% of the tiny, small shield that does exist between us and Big Business. If you take the power away from the government, you are NOT going to give it to the people. Reduce the power of the govenment, and you will see a direct increase in the power of Big Business. The reason the corps work through the govenment is not because it's easier, but because they have to. The power of govenment ensures that the businesses cannot directly take away your rights. The government forces the companies to work through legal, constitutional means, which they otherwise would not be constrained to. If you reduce the power of the government, you let loose the only leash on the businesses. The corporate soldiers will arrive to enforce their policies on you, and you won't have ANY say in it, not even the amount of say a vote gives you in government. I dread the day... and it's coming, if we don't do something about it. The government is the only power I have any part of. I don't own stock, I can't afford stock, and therefore the corporations don't have to listen to me. And I can't afford not to eat or live, either, so I can't afford to vote with my dollars. The corporations are NOT looking out for your best interest, and there's NOTHING you can do about it. If my representative in congress doesn't at least give a microsecond of thought to my best interest, I won't vote for him/her. Small difference sure, but a difference nonetheless. I guess that's enough out of me. I'm probably gonna lose Karma over this, because it isn't the same old "libertarian" (read "Anti-government paranoid," as opposed to my anti-corp paranoia) nonesense.
Supreme Lord High Commander of the Interstellar Task Force for the Eradication of Stupidity
What sort of political correctness? If you neither praised nor bashed the story, how could I ... oh, never mind. People will whine regardless.
FYI, that story was posted at about 6AM EDT this morning, when I got up and read the submissions bin. Yes, the slashdot engine has the ability to post-date stuff so it can be scheduled for some time in the future. No, slashdot doesn't post everything for Now() because then you'd have ten stories on the front page at 9AM when the Commander and Hemos read the previous night's submissions, and nothing for the rest of the day.
In other words, your submission was way late and was presumably deleted because it was a duplicate of a story already set to run in the early afternoon.
But hey, I'm probably making this up. It was probably political correctness ("Too neutral! Let's spike it!") that did your submission in.
--
Michael Sims-michael at slashdot.org
Libertarianism does not reject social structures; quite the contrary. Individuals are left free to participate in various social institutions to a greater and lesser degree, and experience the benefits and drawbacks of these choices. It permits lone-wolfism as one of a range of personal lifestyle choices, but does not insist upon it. Most people inclined to lone-wolfism are libertarians (because other political doctrines regard them as bad citizens, or worse), but this does not mean that most libertarians are inclined to lone-wolfism.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
He sees the librarians as "good government." The librarians sure did deserve that award, but that's because as a class they were helpful in resisting bad, intrusive government! If this were a "big government is better award" then the award should go to the AFA! They were the ones who wanted to use the government to "protect the children," the librarians wanted to stop them! (Oh... and since my Mom is a library clerk, I don't particularly care for the patronizing attitude toward librarians as "All those invisible, dedicated civil servants." Ah! The little people, what would the elite do with out them, he seems to say.)
The article was patronizing because it says, "ah! at last the Libertarian geeks are growing up and becoming democrats." I don't blindly follow my Salon appointed leaders, thank you very much. While I think some of the things these people have been saying lately are unfortunate, I haven't read of a big endorsement for CDA, the V-chip, the Clipper chip, or all the bad, government imposed technology that make geeks tend toward libertarianism. Also, collective barganing, is not part of big government! I believe strongly in unions, and I know that unions do not become popular with government-types until after they get power on their own.
On the whole, I thought it was a lousy article. I do how ever agree that computer technology workers should start unionizing, now. Because right now we're scarce and we have the power of a scarce, skilled trade. Eventually, though, this may change, and we'll find ourselves working the same long hours... but for considerably decreased pay and benefits.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
I'd like to make an offtopic note- This is _exactly_ how news should be displayed on Slashdot, without the coloring of editorialism by the submitter. Show the article, let the readers make up their own minds without a set biased viewpoint shoved in their faces prior to it.
"Libertarians are used to fighting the government," he [Tim Berners-Lee] says, "and not corporations ..."
That's because for a long time governments had the majority of power. Now that big corps can buy any law they want, they are the ones with the power. I don't see any big contradition in the change in focus. Personally, I'm not against govt or business, but I don't like that a small group of people (who are running the show) being able to threaten and bully others to get what they want.
The problem with the Salon article is that it opposes libertarianism with social structures, but the whole point of libertarianism is to allow social structures to evolve without excessive government interference.
I don't even think that the privacy laws that are being written are necessarily anti-libertarian (since I certainly have a property interest in my privacy).
The issue is do you want the government dictating those social structures -- and that means weak crypto and the SEC, FBI and NSA spying on the Internet -- or do we want to allow those social structures to evolve organically.
I'll take the latter any day of the week.
Most of them seemed to like it, however. Even the "geeks" realize that they no longer control the Internet--self-regulation is great when _you_ are doing the regulating, but once you have to rely on a corporation to do it, self-regulation takes on a whole new aura.
Not to say that the "traditional" opinion wasn't espoused. It wasn't nearly as prevalent as I had expected, though.
~=Keelor
In fact, the main flaw in the piece, as I see it, is that the author somehow assumed that "libertarianism" is the same as "anarchism." Libertarians know that there is an appropriate role for government, but that its role should be minimized to prevent an unhealthy accumulation of power in one corruptible institution. For the same reason, libertarians often oppose organized religion. And for the same reason, libertarians are now increasingly wary of aggregating corporate power.
It is a brilliantly American notion - best expressed in Federalist No. 10 - that factions and institutions ought to conflict with one another, for by their conflict is our freedom best preserved. Asking government to act against business institutions shows, therefore, not a sudden change of heart, but a deeper understanding of libertarian philosophy.
Occasionally, the author just went overboard, as when she blathered on about how librarians are civil servants paid by the public - and therefore, "true" libertarians should despise librarians? What nonsense.
Look, the political alignments of the tech communities (for there is not just one tech "community" of course) are likely to shift frequently in the coming years. As long as we don't get duped by "quick fixes," or slip into bed with an established political party, we will be able to keep sight of our ideas and ideals, and we shall watch our political power increase as society generally comes to accept the striking importance of technological issues.
A. Keiper
The Center for the Study of Technology and Society
Washington, D.C.