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Privacy vs. Anonymity
Snibor Eoj writes "There's an article at CNet about the desire of some to reduce or eliminate anonymity on the Internet. There is a fine line, so it seems, between respecting privacy, and providing anonymity behind which crimes may be committed without fear of reprisal.
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A free person should be able to walk the streets in anonymity. I would like to see the same principle applied to the internet.
Interestingly, the United States, the preachiest of the "free" countries, doesn't seem to respect this principle. After moving there for a few years I was shocked to discover that one is expected to carry ID at all times. I was told that I risked being being treated as a vagrant, etc, by the police if I couldn't produce ID on demand. Hmmm, sounds like an authoritarian police state to me.
I don't know how any one government could force anonymity on the web: it's an international system. I certainly hope that they don't try. The internet isn't fully understood by enough of the population for such decisions to be made: this will effect everybodies lives in the future. Only in the future will the implications of such actions be more fully understood by the populace, by which time it might be too late
Perhaps one ought to stop worrying about the terms "anonymity" and "privacy" and wonder about the role of "identity" instead.
;) and you might find that either it's an organization where more than one 'real live human' knows the secret-key password or it's been compromised...
.|` Clouds cross the black moonlight,
The thing is, the use of a GPG or PGP key does not say "everything signed by this key is written by PigleT"; it says "there is a creature called PigleT who's applied a signature to a document". The nature of this creature is debatable - you have to find some way of pinning it down to the same chap who pays his taxes at a given address (or in criminal cases, doesn't pay...
The thing I'm driving at is that people have multiple identities: there's one of me that types this here, potentially "another me" who you get to know by verifying one signed document, potentially another for another signing key... you have to piece them together like a daisy-chain to prove "identity".
Anonymity is defined as using one identity with no chains off to other identities.
Privacy is limitation of knowlege of a particular set of data to a restricted set of identites. (E.g. PigleT on his own; MyOrganization.co.uk; or "my private key and your private key, babe" or whatever.)
Anonymity is a good thing to be able to use at will. If an idea needs expressed but doesn't want to be traceable for some reason, it should be possible.
Privacy is also essential. I just don't *want* the US or any other government poking its snout in my life - and I don't have anything particular to hide, either.
~Tim
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~Tim
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Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
There seems to be this assumption that the laws we have today are the right laws to have from now until hell freezes over. If this is what you believe, then of course you want to see all law breakers prosecuted. If not, you will realize that civil disobedience and protest are an essental part of a democratic society and much easier if one can be anonymous.
As more people realize the oppresive nature of intellectual property laws, they are going to want to change them. This scares the hell out of corporations and hence they want to see all such individuals silenced and jailed. This is much easier to do if anominity is non-existant.
When there is inequality in any system, being able to strike bat at the opressors without being caught is important. If I were to describe a place where everything you say or do is monitored- where you have no shield against your oppressors- what comes to mind? Nazi Germany where neighbors were encourages to report their neighbors? Communist Russia where saying the wrong thing could have sent you to a Siberian Gulag? Communist China where reporting the truth could have you put in jail? Anonymity is sometimes our only sheild from tyranny.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
There are prices we pay for freedom.
A price for freedom of speech is having to listen to opinions we do not like.
A price for the ability to protect ourselves from an oppressive government is having to protect ourselves from each other.
A price for a person to be secure in their person and things is the loss of control of what people do with their persons and things. This applies to the current situation. With the right to be secure in my person and things, I can get away with doing almost anything. This creates a fundamental problem in a free society in which corporations want to control what happens with their product AFTER possession is taken of it. (There is another analogy in a certain war the US government has been losing for 30 years, but leave that for now).
Personally, I value the right to privacy more than I value the right of the copyright owners to be secure in the "free" sharing of their copyrights. Invasion of privacy is no solution to the problem.
Let's all live in fear my friends! Because a crime can happen by the few, let's make certain that the many have no methods of privacy, protection, or overall peace. Because we think we can do better, let's force everyone else to do the same.
Rubbish, this flawed logic irritates the hell out of me.
This is how it really is:
First, take away the guns from all law abiding people - now they can't hurt each other, or better yet let's use the media to teach the common person how evil guns are. Second, let's make certain that we again use the media to educate the common man and tell them how infinately small and insignificant they are, and tell them they don't have the right to privacy. You DO know that individual freedoms are always compromised at the expense of the greater good. Third make sure -- well sure that you please them just enough to get re-elected (such as in Washingon State's i695
This is mostly the corrupt government's fault - but I would charge the reason that it exists on the American voter. We don't vote, don't care, or vote for who everyone else votes for. Very few people take the time to think critically that actually *do* vote - most of these people go off of gut feeling, or "moral" beliefs. Disgusting isn't it? As I was listening to C. Heston on Dateline the other day, he referred to Benjamin Franklin when someone asked "what kind of government have you given us?" - and when he replied "a democracy - if you keep it".
If you aren't willing to take responsibility for what you do or say, you shouldn't do or say it.
:-) )
It's not a question of responsibility. It's a question of pressure from the majority and/or a vocal minority. It has long been recognized that anonymous speech is very, very important to a democracy. There are multiple Supreme Court cases where this is said explicitly.
And "stand up to be counted" is sometimes the right thing to do, but often is not. For example, I believe that drugs should be legalized. I am prepared to argue the point in forums like Slashdot, but I will not attempt to convert my co-workers to the idea (they consider me enough weirdo as is
Besides, you cannot really separate privacy and anonymity. Both of them break the link between the actor and the action, it's just that in privacy the actor is known, but the action is not, while in anonymity the action is known, but the actor is not. They are just two sides of the same coin.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
To the chagrin of those who would control us [the government], time and time again the US Supreme Court has upheld the right to publish anonymously. This also includes the right to read anonymously. Much of the "Federalist Papers" were published anonymously for fear of reprisal.
Anonymity [in spite of it's pejorative connotation] is nothing more than a stronger form of privacy. Privacy is the right not to be snooped "at home". Anonymity is basically the right to make snooping impossible "in public". If everybody followed certain confidentiality rules, you might be able have privacy without anonymity. If people don't follow the rules, then the only privacy _is_ in anonymity.
Since rules are always broken, skirted, loopholed or otherwise compromised by interested parties, the only safe privacy is through anonymity.
Hogwash, ladies and gentlemen.
The goal of any organization is, first and foremost, continued survival. Beyond a certain point, organizations take on characteristics of living things: they consume, they repair damage, they grow. They also defend themselves against perceived threats.
Governments (and large corporations, but it's really the same story) everywhere in the industrialized world realize that the Internet is a powerful weapon against them if they choose to deprive their citizens of freedom. The Internet is an excellent medium for dissemination of information and collection of same. As it is difficult to defeat a knowledgable citizenry without the use of arms, every government bent on maintaining itself as a parasite on its people will try to regulate (and perhaps eventually, eliminate) access to the Internet.
The era of thoughtcrime and the Ministry of Love is not far away, if we do not do something about this now. Remember this: your government may not have your best interests at heart. Realize this and act accordingly.
www.alarmist.org