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GIA to use P2P to Avoid Litigaton
DrMorpheus writes "With the recent demise of the Bush administration's controversial Terrorist Information Awareness (TIA) programme to monitor everyone in the US, citizens now have a chance to get their own back. A website to be launched later in 2003 will allow people to post information about the activities of government organisations, officials and the judiciary.
The two MIT researchers behind the project face one serious problem: how to protect themselves against legal action should any of the postings prove false. The answer, they say, is to borrow a technique from the underground music-swapping community.
Instead of storing the data in one place, they plan to distribute it around the internet in a similar way to the notorious Napster software that got music file-sharing under way."
Using a distributed P2P network? Isn't that what Freenet is all about? It also has the added bonus of offering strong encryption...
I fail to see what's new here, except the fact that it takes place in the USA.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Oh, thank goodness! The magic of P2P will allow researchers to libel mercilessly without any fear of repercussions! Tell us again about the FREEMASONS!
When did "information wants to be free" become "information wants to be indemnified"?
The opinions stated herein do not necessarily represent those of anybody at all. Deal with it.
Maybe it's just me, but without a system in place for fact-checking and followup, it seems to me this would quickly turn into a breeding ground for conspiracy theories of the worst sort, be they from the Right or the Left or anywhere in between.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
I will love this plan more than you can imagine if they can find a way to make it easy to upload information in such a fashion that it's organized and easy to find. One of the main reasons I gave up on FreeNet was the nigh impossibility of finding new and interesting content. If they could fix this, I think it would be a great thing for increasing government accountability.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Does it seem to anyone else like the GIA program is going to drown in its own chaff? I mean, if it's really supposed to be giving people "insider" information about the government, how are they going to confirm that any submission is true? Think of all the just-shy-of-slanderous commercials that air around election day... and that costs money. If people can anonymously, cheaply spread whatever "information" they want about their least favorite candidate, we'll never know whether anything we read is accurate.
how do you think the government (or the loosely attached to the government) would react to such information being distributed? In the beginning it would be easy to target the small amount of computers/people possessing the information. any p2p network is only as good as how wide the file ditribution runs. Who would be willing to take the risks?
Good Luck in getting any FOI information about Federal Judges. Even though they are subject to the same public information disclosure laws that everybody eles in the federal governemt there is one aspect that is different. To insure their safety all FOI requests about them are highly documented about the requester and then vetted by the Judge before any information is released. In other words 'they' know about all requests for information and the specific Judge controls whether the information is released or not.
zenray
I'd like to see more technical details. How does the posting work? This model would be different from a normal data-driven website where PHP and a DBMS could reside on a central server and retrieve information. Will the server at MIT be a P2P client that gathers posts from clients together on the fly for each http request?
Anybody have more info? Maybe I'm just blind, but I don't see any links to technical info on the site itself.
MakePassword.com Mp3 Blog
What makes them think that they would somehow be responsible if they were to do something simple and straightforward like a discussion forum? The high court has already ruled on several of these kind of cases and free speech won. For example, they struck down the CDA and they also said that Yahoo didn't have to rat out an anonymous Yahoo Groups poster.
Why use an obscure technology? That will have more of a chilling effect on active participation than any other factor.
If you are willing to wait long enough, history repeats itself.
Now, the citizens of the USA (academics at that) are having to resort to using the tactics of the underground to disseminate information about the conduct, actions and transgressions of their government for fear of persecution.
There was a time when people respected the US for its stance on individual rights, freedoms and the ideals of America.
While not a direct, damning criticism, one of the HUGE indicators of a state entering into an oppressive regime is when academics are not valued, and when academics are not free to openly discuss, read and disseminate ideas.
This has already happened in the US... is this an indicator of what is to come, or just an anomaly?
No Total Government Awareness program would be complete without chronicling information on every single police officer, district attorney, etc.
Imagine how hard it would be for police to get anything done when it's public knowledge that they beat their wives, run every single red light they've ever come across (see video), and go to "massage parlors" for hours at a time (maybe to meet up with their congressmen).
Jonah Hex
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
Why don't they just write up the allegations in the form of a song (popular music, i.e. "folk" music, *used* to be used to transmit stories after all) and stick it out on kazaa etc.
... hmm, that *would* be an improvement on the usual dull droning on and on about sex like 90% of the crap the listening public has to endure.
Angry music and properly satirical lyrics
Like I say, kill two birds with one stone.
Why not just move the site offshore & hire foreigners to maintain it from anonymous submissions? It seems to be the answer for everything else and CEO's love it.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
Uhm.
*) Install Freenet
*) Browse to localhost:8888
Done. What's unuseable?
it's in my head
how to protect themselves against legal action should any of the postings prove false.
And why, exactly, should they (whomever they may be) be immune from legal action should they post falsified data?
Check your sources before distributing some random bit of gossip.
One, use anonymous, public keys. Create a reputation system where anybody gives a personal rating to anyone else. (Sorta like Slashdot "friend or foe"). Reputations build over time, and some sources will be more reliable than others. You can decide who you will trust to tell you what's going on. You can rate sources, and you can see how others rate sources.
Two, use what's called 'triangulation' in interview journalism. If three or more 'independant' sources agree on a datum, is more likely to be true than if just one says it's true. (if there is some kind of sinister collaboration to hack the triangulation system, fall back on the reputation system).
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso