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Senior Homeland Security Official Says Internet Anonymity Should Be Outlawed (dailydot.com)
Patrick O'Neill writes: A senior Homeland Security official recently argued that Internet anonymity should outlawed in the same way that driving a car without a license plate is against the law. "When a person drives a car on a highway, he or she agrees to display a license plate," Erik Barnett, an assistant deputy director at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and attache to the European Union at the Department of Homeland Security, wrote. "The license plate's identifiers are ignored most of the time by law enforcement. Law enforcement will use the identifiers, though, to determine the driver's identity if the car is involved in a legal infraction or otherwise becomes a matter of public interest. Similarly, should not every individual be required to display a 'license plate' on the digital super-highway?"
Because of the First Amendment, including the right to say things anonymously which has been upheld by the courts numerous times,
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Is against making it any more difficult to spy on people. You shouldn't be surprised by this. Also, he should get fucked. We have freedoms, and it's not our patriotic duty to help anyone take them.
It's really no different than the way you are required to wear visible identification when walking on the sidewalk, or how you are legally obligated to put a return address label on all correspondence that passes through the postal system. Oh, wait...
You see? I can select my analogies to support my viewpoint too.
Sincerely,
Anonymous Coward
that senior Homeland Security officials should be outlawed (actually scratch that: all of Homeland Security should be outlawed).
Now let's see who wins!
Nobody is anonymous on the internet. Ok, maybe I should say most are not anonymous. The reason? Everyone has a MAC address. While it can be changed, and probably is when someone is acting nefariously, most people have no idea what it is. So, like outlawing firearms, making a law to ban "anonymous Internet access" would only hurt law abiding citizens. I will certainly add more complexity to ISPs and that will trickle down to users in some way that probably won't be pleasant.
With the rise of social networks and federated authentication, I don't think we are that far off from this.
I think it is only a matter of time before we all have a private key bound to an identification card or something similar.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
People need to let off steam about things. There are only a few places left to do this left. A society that doesn't ever critisize the officials is the agenda. Why do I get the sinking feeling that AC is about to become illegal.
dominates the earthscape,, except in davos?
Bad car analogy guy works for the DHS
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
They've finally decided to fall in line with China's views on internet policy. Pretty soon all the major world governments will look pretty much the same.
The only way to have truly free speech is to speak anonymously. Otherwise, you have "free speech" but there will be "consequences". Like how in Soviet Russia you were "free" to say anything you liked, but there might be "consequences" like getting sent to Siberia.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
License plates don't even identify the driver of the vehicle. Think about it for 5 minutes.
Lol. I haven't heard that term since 1996. When are we going to be rid of these fossils?
Lets just lock everyone up in cells, its much easier that way.
Super-highway? Wasn't this Bill Gates' vision of a Microsoft-controlled alternative to the Internet? I haven't heard of it since playing Space Quest 6.
So go ahead. But get away from the Internet.
I can't believe that we, the smart people, allow complete idiots to be in government. Worse, we allow the big government people to create these un-elected bureaucracies that serve no one but themselves in an effort to oppress us. These homeland types would fit in perfectly with the brown shirts, gestapo, KGB, or .
We need to urgently end the DHS. Let's stop being on the defensive... let's make these fools go away by demanding our civil servants defund the DHS altogether. This is not a Democrat / Republican thing.. both are the same thing anyways. Both are anti-freedom, pro-big government, pro-global control grid, and anti-Constitution.
No threat of terrorism or crime is great enough to ever make us abandon our Constitution. These fools only offer us false arguments to erode our rights and our country. If we, the smart people, don't make noise, we will wake up and our country will be completely gone. It's already out the front door.
or a license, or a registered vehicle, unless I am driving on public roads. I used to work on a farm, and the 12 year old son would drive the rusted out jeep around the property all the time.
Did anybody see this DHS guy? Was he by any chance a 63 y.o. short, bold, Russian speaking guy, likes to take topless pictures riding horses? Because that guy just said something very similar the other day? Or does DHS always take cues from foreign dictators?
You can't handle the truth.
As far as I am concerned with US matters, I am inclined to think of US state as being a terrorist organization, enabling, performing and supporting terrorism.
One of the most eye openings slogan's I've seen is: "War is terror".
This person is wrong.
Because the car has a plate (the same as the Internet has the MAC address for their users), but nobody has a microphone "inside" every car to check if the driver has good or bad intentions. Even it is unknown who actually is driving the car only checking the plate.
The cars are, in fact, anonymous. What the governments are trying to obtain is a method to check every possible car driver and to record for their sake any possible conversation inside these cars. What is the next step? To put plates on the pedestrian and to read their minds?
Given how law enforcement can't tell the fucking difference between a clock and a bomb, I wouldn't trust them to know the difference between opinion and a terrorist act. Maybe if they demonstrate they're not incompetent. But we know that will be never.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
Worst analogy...ever. Just because I have a license plate it doesn't mean I can be tracked everywhere I go.
The Department of Homeland Security should be outlawed
"The license plate's identifiers are ignored most of the time by law enforcement."
Are automated plate scanners implemented/common yet? When they are, ALL visible plates will be queried.
"When a person drives a car on a highway, he or she agrees to display a license plate,"
That's because cars maim and kill thousands upon thousands a year.
> 100 years of anonymous phone calls and blackmail and ransom notes via snail mail didn't ruin the planet either.
The Homeland Security position, as a car analogy:
If digital privacy was an electric car, Homeland Security would disallow privately charging it. Instead, they'd make it mandatory to charge all electric cars from licensed diesel generators in the designated 'charge-up' stations. These generators would suffer from frequent fuel shortages.
Horses did not require a licence plate to use public roadways.
No sir I dont like it.
The Fourth Amendment should already be telling the "track everyone" guys to fuck off unless they have a warrant.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/co...
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
This is a great idea! Let's all put a GIF of our driver's license or passport in every post and then all of our problems will be solved! We should also include an outline of our house keys to prove we are home owners and specify the breed of dog we have to serve as a warning!
I propose we outlaw stupidity on the Internet. It's going to be about as effective.
How about as an official at ICE you do something more productive like bust some people employing illegal immigrants. You know, what your day job ordinarily entails, not pontificating about the Internet.
>> Erik Barnett, an assistant deputy director at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: "...should not every individual be required to display a 'license plate' on the digital super-highway?"
While you're at it, why not just add a little yellow badge icon to every Jew on the Internet. No harm there, right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Its perfectly legal to drive around without a license plate. Just not on the public roadways. You can drive all over your farm in that old unlicensed pickup, or a brand new one for that matter!
Virtually none of the internet infrastructure in the US is public road way. The telco's own all of it. The government can make whatever rules they want for accessing .gov systems but they haven't any right to tell AT&T if they must or must not allow anonymous traffic to flow over their network. Well no right unless you except the stupidly radical interpretations of the Commerce Clause the SCOTUS, which constitutional hasn't itself any right to say what is and isn't constitutional does.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
"The license plate's identifiers are ignored most of the time by law enforcement."
It mean like when cities started using "tickets" using cameras to record violations? Follow the money folks. If this were to happen, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Try getting IP packets without one.
When they outlaw freedom, only criminals will have freedom.
That America is beginning to forget the historical reasons why anonymous speech is a protected class of speech is scary. That America has pretty much decided all other freedoms are options is utterly terrifying.
All of these new school fascists who think the only way to protect liberty is to take away liberty, and the only way to defend your rights is to curtail them ... these asses need to be hung for treason.
That oath you took to defend and uphold the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic? That means defending the rights enumerated in it.
The problem is the people who claim to be defending it are wiping their asses with it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I may not agree with the frostiness of your piss, but I will defend to the death your right to stream it!
Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
"Force shits upon Reason's back." - Poor Richard's Almanac
First: Your creepy uncle, Uncle Sam at it again trying to spy on everything you do in your private life.
Second: The analogy is broken as license plates don't identify individuals they identify machines.
Third: By the very analogy used we already have two forms of "License Plates" they are called IP Addresses and MAC Addresses.
Forth: HUMAN CIVIL RIGHTS
Having such tough law enforcement on identification while driving a car:
1) does not endanger your freedoms
2) is justified because car accidents or speeding are common
The Internet is all about the exchanging information, and therefore is all about the freedom of speach.
I guess this guy forgot the First Amendment, which directly prohibits abridging the freedom of speech.
And probably the Second one too, which makes it legal to kill him if he moves further with his idiocy.
And they keep saying the same thing about firearms......
(((dB)))
Except it isn't. All those LPRs (license plate readers) is logged, by both public and private firms and stored for god knows how long. Then the data is used to create temporal databases to know where your car goes and when, extrapolates your patterns.
Currently, the only uses of the private LPR database that I know of are for either reposessions or serving court documents, but I could clearly see private detectives finding the data useful for a multitude of other uses.
Similarly, the state (as in government) can use the traffic camera video feeds networks to identify vehicles in real-time, and find out when the last encounter was and where. The difference here is no warrant is needed, they already have the data, and they can retroactively search their database (which potentially is every second of every traffic camera feed anywhere).
The fact that data may be discarded is a fleeting one, as storage prices come down, and processing power and resolution increases, it will be considered an intelligence "failure" not to have every moment captured, recorded, stored forever, and searchable.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
So, if someone walked up to him on the street asking for directions, would he require them to show their ID before he would have a conversation with them, and refuse to talk to them if they said they wanted to remain anonymous? Or would he just attach a muzzle to every person he met who wasn't prominently displaying a name tag, and only remove the muzzle upon confirmation of who they are?
Your wannabe feudal overlords are tightening the noose. If you can't speak anonymously, pretty soon you won't be able to vote anonymously either.
I always like reading car analogies. I find them so entertaining - even if the point made is irrelevant. What this guy is saying is that eliminating anonymity on the internet will make us all safer. Why? Because the government has required that anonymity be eliminated on cars and this has made us safer.
Really? Not mentioned is how the first amendment guaranteeing freedom of speech is helped by having the potential to be anonymous. Benjamin Franklin as well as other founding fathers used pen names in newspapers of the day to debate issues of freedom. Why? They knew they would be hassled (or even attacked) by those who would oppose their ideas. Even back then, ideas of freedom were opposed by the heavy hand of those who profited more from a lack thereof. In many cases, it was under the guise of the "law".
Generally speaking, governments always like licenses and registrations. But not because it makes their people safer. It is because it gives them greater control, power and revenue. They always try to sell them as a means of making life safer and better for the people. How about the money they get from all those required car license plates and registrations? Do you really think they spend all that money on the roads and making us safer? How much money are they to charge on a license necessary to get on the internet? At first, it will be low . . . . . like a drug dealer giving his product at a low price. But then it gets high and people who need the internet will Have to pay it. And think of the control. . . . . why if you say anything bad about someone in power, they could just ruin you by revoking your license. Perhaps "by accident" at first. But after a while, they find new reasons or simply take a long time to fix their "mistakes". Didn't Obama's IRS regularly delay or revoke applications for non-profit status from conservative organizations he didn't like? Expect it to eventually be much worse with the internet.
Suppose I seem overly suspicious to some. But plenty of examples of this behavior by governments can be found in history.
Do these people not have think tanks or something similar that can pull them aside and whisper into their ear that an idea is not possible? Honestly, how would you even go about giving everyone "licence plates" for the internet? Does every country give their citizens their own "licence plates"? If so, how do you get countries who think it is a bad idea to give their citizens one? What do you do about corruption? How do you stop Mohammad Al'Terroristo from using Jim Bob's "licence plate" while conducting his illegal activities? How do you make a "licence plate" which cannot be forged - remember, this is the digital world where nothing is set in stone. Do you get a "licence plate" per device or per person or per internet connection? Do kids get a "licence plate"? How do you enforce the use? How do you protect people from being identified by the wrong people - child predators would probably die of excitement if they could use this system to easily identify children along with at least their town. Is it cost effective? Will the administration of several hundred million "licence plates" outweigh the costs of how things are done now or is it a spend a dollar to save a penny?
Finally, does this person actually have a system in mind or is it a case of "we want this but we have no idea how we could do it so we are going to say that we need it and hope someone comes up with a workable idea" kind of deals...
Why do we continue to put up with this from our Governments? There are a great many of us that see the harm that these types of laws cause our freedoms, but the unwashed masses don't. How do you wake these people up that their security does not have to come at the cost of freedom. They still think they are free and I'm sure the Germans thought they where free during WW2 just as long as you didn't disagree or say anything against the Government. They also call people who can and do voice their concerns on this slow decent to fascism, alarmists or anarchists. Most of those that I work with just don't care about these types of laws. All they care about is whats on TV tonight and make sure they can download their music and TV. After that they just don't care. It's just to much work to have to think. Maybe this is why my blood pressure is to high. I should stop caring also.
... who will pass before inflicting his brand of stupidity on all of us.
I can't wait to steal your car and take a joy ride around the internet.
I am going to do doughnuts on the RIAA's lawn!
You neither need a license nor license plate to drive a car. You literally only need one when you drive it on government owned roads. Everywhere else couldn't give a shit. An 8 year old could drive a tank on a race track, assuming she could find an owner willing to allow it.
The one and only rule I know of that applies outside of public roads is that you can't drive a vehicle while drunk. Even on a private closed racetrack. Which is probably more of a conflict of spirit and intent of the law (the intent of it applying to private roads is to arrest someone in a parking lot getting ready to drive on a public street, not to arrest a scientist testing drunkenness levels in a 100% controlled environment).
So who owns your internet? Do you? Does your ISP? Their ISP? Or does your government own it?
Because whoever controls your medium controls your thoughts.
"Senior Homeland Security Official Says Internet Anonymity Should Be Outlawed"
Well, of course, did you really expect him to say anything different?
It's about as shocking a headline as, "Convicted Pedophile Says All Children Should Be Prohibited From Wearing Clothes", or "Wal-Mart Exec Says People Should Buy More Stuff From Wal-Mart."
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Police officers and others in most jurisdictions openly identify themselves when working. They have uniforms, badge numbers, easy-to-recognize motor vehicles, etc.
When they work covertly, they have warrants for the precise task and duration.
So if this idea has wings at all, let's start with all legal monitoring - the equivalent of road blocks and license checks. All should be completely open and visible to the users of the highway.
Slightly off your topic..
Privelege... a freedom given by the government. This is the model of countries like Socialist Soviet Russia, Communist China, and other third world netherregions.
Rights... according to natural law, you have certain natural rights that cannot be taken away by anyone, ever. Freedom of speech is one of them. In the USA, all rights are yours. The government can never take these away. We allow our servant government to work for us in certain capacities but never does our servant government grant us rights.
I am writing this because the fundamental lexicon used by all the brainwashed individuals who are a product of liberal education systems is wrong.
Let's outlaw stupidity in public office too.
Anonymity on the internet is the only thing that lets me make comments at all. If my ID, who I am, what I do, who I work for, preceded any comment I make, then that attribution would reflect on my employer and the government. My opinions expressed on the internet about technology and tech policy would have to comply with relevant company and government policy, and generally conform to the opinions of those for whom I work. To quote Brent Spiner from Independence Day movie "As you might imagine, they don't let us out much". I get to really wring out a lot of really cool tech, in a lot of unique ways, and if I had to show my badge every time I posted a comment, I doubt I'd be able to post anything at all...
It's really no different than the way you are required to wear visible identification when walking on the sidewalk, or how you are legally obligated to put a return address label on all correspondence that passes through the postal system.
You can make fun of the situation, but I was arrested last year for not having ID while hiking in the woods. The cop clearly stated why I was being arrested, he said in so many words that it was illegal not to carry an ID.
The police have always crossed "just a little bit" over the line, but with the situation as it is now, "just a little bit" means our rights are completely and totally gone.
"When a person drives a car on a highway, he or she agrees to display a license plate,"
I don't know if "agrees" is the right word, license plates started out as a simple proof you were paying your vehicle tax. Nowadays they are used as a tracking tool. But lets say he's right, then by being a government official you "agree" to follow the constitution. You know that pesky document that is the entire basis for you authority, and says that there are spelled out limits to that authority like requiring warrants and transparency. Until government can follow their obligations I don't think the public has any reason to give them more power.
Why don't they just inject subcutaneous GPS trackers in all of us at birth and be done with it?
You only have to display a license plate on public roads. If I'm on private property (like the vast majority of websites out there), I'm under no obligation to do so. You could argue that any time you're on a .gov website, you shouldn't be anonymous, but on private ones? No, if they're okay with me being anonymous, you don't get to tell them otherwise.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
does not exist?
There is only an illusion of anonymity.
NSA knows very well the home address, social security number, shopping habits, network connections of every "anonymous" internet user.
License plates indicate you've paid your car tax.
I think Homeland Security should be disbanded. and the rights of the american people restored.
But then I'm not hell bent on controlling people.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
This piece of shit is about as Un-American as you can get for saying something like that. It tramples all over the First Amendment. Anyone want to sign a petition to get this bastard fired?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
I doubt any of it will be reflected in the vote though. Eh, whatever...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
...look forward to the day when it is impossible to post on Slashdot anonymously.
-==- Buy a Mac and leave me alone!
Go fuck yourself.
Of course, most of us know just how hard it already is to be anonymous on the internet, but that's hardly the point. Erik Barnett can go suck a dick if he thinks he, or any government entity, has a right to know everything.
I say we ship this fuckers to places like NK where they can live in their "Government Knows Best" utopia.
"When a person drives a car on a highway, he or she agrees to display a license plate"
This must be a new meaning of "agree" that I'm not familiar with.
As a Mexican, I take pride in being a North American.
It's a bit difficult for me, a former math major in college, to grasp the depth of stupidity among the entire law enforcement group think that law enforcemence constantly cycles through like an infinity loop.
The law enforcement group think eccential can't conceive of analogies that aren't' tied directly to their real world tool set. "There is no such thing as an anonymous person in the real world, so there can not be any such think as anonymity in cyberspace.
Cyberspace is just math. Math is it's own world with it's own rules and realities. It's a bit of a utopian world in fact. Law enforcement, Judges and Politicians can create all the real world rules they want, but math is not something that will not conform to the real world rules. Also, math, unlike the real world, is a perfect environment in which to carry on one's life, of work, of culture, of learning, of entertainment. Everything in our real world lives can have an Internet partial representation or simulation. Distance and time of the real world are not present in the perfect world of the online math environment.
There is a much better analogy that I wish law enforcement would start using when trying to control the Internet world of math things. The Internet of math things is much more analogous to the workings of a human brain. And the law has pretty much encoded that human brains are a protected space where law enforcer can't enforce rules. Thought crime, does not exist. So the Internet of math things is much more an extension of our brains into anther space, rather than the real world is extended into cyberspace.
I do believe that the only thing outlawing anonymity will do if it were EVER successful is force 1/3 or more of the US population to break the law regardless of the repercussions. To quote Judas Priest: "Breakin' The Law! Breakin' The Law!"
License plates identify a person in relation to one and only one activity - driving a car. It does not, for example, identify the person when they are making political speeches.
A global, mandatory unique ID would identify a person across all of their on-line activity.
This is a far greater and dramatic loss of privacy and anonymity.
Government agencies naturally enough care almost wholly about getting their job done, and nothing else. Law enforcement would like all to be uniquely identified at all times and probably much more, if they could have it and the tech existed. They are not sensible parties to be setting the agency in this matter.
cops even run automated systems that scan every plate around them as they drive now.
>> Law enforcement will use the identifiers, though, to determine the driver's identity if the car is involved in a legal infraction or otherwise becomes a matter of public interest
or
- if it is quota day (http://www.nj.com/middlesex/index.ssf/2013/10/speed_trap_out-of-town_drivers_targeted_by_small_nj_towns_cops.html)
- if they are wanting to be bribed (https://www.policeone.com/officer-misconduct-internal-affairs/articles/2855063-Calif-cop-in-prison-for-taking-sex-for-ticket-dismissal-bribe/)
- if they are looking for a prostitute to service them (http://economics.uchicago.edu/pdf/Prostitution%205.pdf)
- if they think it is a girlfriend (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/nsa-analysts-spied-spouses-girlfriends-documents-article-1.2058282)
Does it surprise anyone that an a*hole like this works for what is the US answer to the Brown Shirts.
Erik Barnett should be reprimanded and preferably fired.
I watched my local police slowly drive up & down the lanes of the Home Depot/Walmart parking lot - using his license plate reader to scan the cars. Given that this data is stored for "6-12 months" - what is he doing with it?
So this idea that gov't is going to ignore our plates unless we've been found to be acting unlawfully is total BS. We already know they will collect and store this data for a rainy day --- or apply "big data" and look for patterns of wrongdoing.
State Police have already used historical plate data to track and trend car traffic after a crime was committed to find "who was there." Using "medium data" to build a list of potential suspects. It is hard to argue with the method when they successfully find who raped & killed a single mother of a small child. (created a union between Plates and Possible Suspects).
But - all of us are in the net - and who knows what else is being computed?! There would need to be tight controls on this - real warrants, and not this easily obtained warrantless crap.
What a b*TCH
So, what about your VPN?
What about the TOR network that various people have see you use..
What about your clandestine agenda's/activities.
What about your office and its purpose for privacy?
Doesn't anonymity associate with privacy, and or Secret(undisclosed) actions??
If thats the case, then why do we file FOIA's
the list goes on..
but in the end, this is stoopid!!
The problem isn't Homeland Security. There job is to find threats, and see if they can have solutions to solve them.
When you work security the tyrannical solution is often the easiest one.
You want your PC secure from hackers. Unplug it from the network, cant do that make sure your firewall has 0 outside ports and the inside ports are setup for talking to only the servers each system needs to talk to. Such IT security is hard, because the End users are rapidly changing what they want and the cost to build such a secure system isn't worth the expense.
Law enforcement and security would have an easier job without civil liberties, not because they have nefarious purposes, but because it will make their job easier.
Our jobs as citizens is to let our officials know that we value our freedoms and what we are willing to give up for security, and what security we are willing to risk not having to keep our freedoms. It isn't cut and dry but these department report to a higher political offices, who will need to take their recommendations and decide to accept or reject them. These political office need to be elected by the citizenry. If we refuse to be involved citizens then the easiest path will soon follow.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
No, because while we need traffic police, we do not need thought police.
Erik Barnett, an assistant deputy director at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and attache to the European Union at the Department of Homeland Security, wrote. "The license plate's identifiers are ignored most of the time by law enforcement."
Bullshit. There's a good chance that your city's police department is using automatic number place recognition already and recording every time they see your car. That isn't "ignoring". That is "tracking".
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The courts have not ruled anything of the sort. Disclosure laws have in fact been upheld by the courts numerous times (including the Citizens United decision).
The only reason that "Super PACs" do not have to disclose their donors is because there is no law requiring 501(c)(4) organizations to disclose their donors. Of course, currently neither party really wants that little hole closed, so no bills requiring that have made it anywhere in congress.
-Nick
My name is Obi-Wan Kenobi. You killed my master. Prepare to die.
I have a right to have my identity obscured so as to protect from retribution for being a whistle blower
Free speech becomes non-free when what you say is used against you in completely unrelated ways (such as used to fire you from your job when your speech is completely unrelated to your job).
One way to protect against this is to speak behind anonymity. They can't punish you if they don't know who you are.
So, short answer no.
Longer, funnier answer. You'll pry my anonymity from my cold dead hands.
Let's see, in the eighties, Prodigy (which I was never on) decided to Stop Rude Talk, so they blocked a number of words... one of them was "breast", and variants. Which, of course, knocked offline breast cancer survivors, and the European port of Brest, and....
And then... so, is this idiot willing to be personally liable as an accessory to murder when, say, a child abuse survivor posts to a list on that subject, or a battered woman posts to a support group, and her scumbag abuser finds her and kills her?
mark
We have special schools & teachers for someone with this much brain damage how the heck did this guy get to be a 'senior homeland security official'...I guess these schools and teachers are otherwise doing an incredible job with Down Syndrome children absolutely Amazing...though in this case clearly this student has vastly exceeded his abilities..
Yeah, that's an attempt at some deft sarcasm...this guy is an absolutely brain dead IDIOT...anyone taking the 'superhighway' analogy to this level needs to be locked up. He should not be in charge of anything or given anything harder than pencil sharpening as a job.
It's called an IP address.
It doesn't uniquely identify a person using it, but then neither does a license plate.... a license plate only at best will identify the owner of the car.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
You can gather a license plate but in order to capture more information you need to follow the car or have law inforcement access to the personal information.
Online this is not the case, the computer can expose much more information than just the tracking code. that can be collected and re-used for any purposes.
Even tracking license plate is becoming an isssue, traffic cams are used to collect plate number and that information is sold ! Why are people buying it? Because they found a method of tracking and monetizing that information... Somehow, anonymity is lost and not for the sake of lawfullness.
NO!
...it won't ever happen. The USA is no longer the master arbiter of Teh Internets.
It's not like SOMEONE doesn't already know who we are, where we've been, and what we've done.
Yeah, Amazon and Google know you fap to dwarf pr0n.
Just because you have a license plate on my car, doesn't mean that you can't use it to transport weed. It just means that the likelihood of being pulled over and searched is less, because the outside looks good.
In any case, I'm more concerned about the moves to gut encryption.
... that senior homeland security officials should be outlawed.
Has no life experience how it is in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Russia, Sudan, China etc... where anonymity protects one from getting prosecuted or killed.
How about researching the reasons for violence and despotism and taking active steps to eliminate those?
People in power often show traits of psychopath character behavior and cannot think in above terms to be a viable alternative.
Binary thinking seems to be the general situation where only two possibilities exist: repress/reduce or controlled allow.
Fuck this guy.
A/C for a reason.
I can kill someone, in fact, a lot of someones, with a car. I cannot kill anyone over the Internet. Same reason every gun has a unique serial number, but no pens, nor books require one.
It was circa 1979 when I ran head-long into the demand to remove anonymity as a system programmer for Control Data Corporation's PLATO network:
I was directed to remove the anonymous posting option of the precursor to Usenet: PLATO Notes.
The reason? Legal liability suffered by CDC for libel due CDC's lack of "common carrier" status under the FCC law of the time. A common carrier could not be held accountable for the contents of the information it carried.
When CDC refused to go mass market with PLATO, I accepted a position with a newspaper chain that had conducted a market test of something like PLATO notes for a metro area and found a huge demand. Although they figured out that their business as a newspaper would be endangered by opening up their network to permit everyone to provide content, the rationalization of "no common carrier status" was trotted forth with great facility.
Nowadays, with Facebook routinely censoring politically incorrect content by its users, and Facebook becoming a kind of de facto recentralization of control of the network effect for the masses, Facebook is actively pursuing a course of action that basically _asks_ to be sued for libelous posts by its users. It isn't hard to project this to ISPs when people use their internet connections for damaging ends -- particularly when you now have ISPs routinely "cooperating" with government and its propaganda arm via copyright enforcement on behalf of mass media.
I did anticipate some of this in the aforelinked 1982 essay as follows:
Seastead this.
A call of "Think of the Children!" and "Terrorists!!!". No surprise here. One or both of these almost always get trotted out as the reasons why we need to give up our freedoms. And if we don't support said freedom removals, they begin asking if we're pro-child abuser or pro-terrorist.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
The license plate doesn't tell you who's driving the car. A computer's IPv4/v6 address is that computer's "License Plate", and similar to a car's license plate, it doesn't tell you who's behind the keyboard. Therefor, if what he wants is a license plate scenario, the computer's IP address is it.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... time... to... die...
If everyone who posts must identify themselves, then everyone who reads the post must make the same disclosure.
He's saying LPs are ignored most of the time. They're not. ALPR systems record every plate scanned by the camera; that is, in fact, the whole point of running ALPR. The data is used to correlate movements of vehicles over a period of time. In some cases, the data is used for tax enforcement or charging of tolls. There is no requirement of an infraction for that to occur, and the storage required to track the movements of tagged vehicles is trivial. What he's asking for is a government mandated supercookie.
So they anonymously remove or hide some comments but not others.
You people are equally sick.
"Similarly, should not every individual be required to display a 'license plate' on the digital super-highway?"
No.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Yes.
And similarly, shouldn't people be required to clearly display an identity plate on their person. The plate would be ignored by law enforcement most of the time, but if the person were involved in an infraction of some sort the identity plate would be used to identify them. I live in California where vehicles are required to have both front and rear license plates. I propose that, similarly, the personal identity plates should be affixed to the forehead and buttocks for maximum visibility in the event identification becomes necessary.
http://balder.org/judea/Hate-Speech-Laws-Immigration-Jewish-Influence-Britain.php
Oh look - there's the problem! The JEW...
Except you know, that driving a car doesn't give everyone who can see your licenseplate the ability to snoop what's inside your car without you knowing while driving down the highway. What he's proposing would put a stop to internet commerce.
I support this, but there should be a database of websites visited by SCOTUS, POTUS, FLOTUS, and every 2 bit politician.
The database need only contain the site name, and time spent.
Every computer owned should be logged.
I'm sure the public will use this information responsibly.
Why did Bush create Homeland Security? Was it to spy on us, to to stop terrorists? The first does not stop terrorists, it just takes away freedom of privacy. Go do your jobs, you lazy people at Homeland.
If no one were doing anything wrong, they wouldn't mind people knowing who they were. I mean, what kind of asshole would post messages anonymously?
Why do people so often use driving -- a privilege -- as an analogy to something like speech or guns, which is a right? Why would I take seriously an argument about rights from someone who confuses them with privileges? The speaker is incompetent on the face of it, there is no way I would take seriously any opinion offered. Just "Go to hell, I hear it's warm there."
What we should really outlaw is this money wasting farce known as "Homeland Security."
of thinking... For example, while there might be a license plate on vehicles, there is also a requirement for the driver to be licensed which creates the artificial structure that requires civilians to display a license plate on their vehicle as part of the complicated web of requirements the license contract includes.
But then, when you look at even something like the Australian constitution, Australians are guaranteed a right of travel, which may in itself override the requirements spelled out in the licensing documents
And all of this ignores the IP address that travel around with each computer that allows identification of the computer just like a license plate identifies a vehicle (but not necessarily the driver).
Maybe Homeland officials should be ordered never to converse with the press regarding any matter of technology on the grounds they lack the necessary technical background. Its like asking a nutritionist or a homeless person about running a reactor.
"Senior Homeland Security Officials" say a lot of things.
This guy is with Immigration and Customs, not exactly the federal vanguard of Cyber Policy.
Long story short, He's entitled to whatever opinion he wants, but that and $4 gets you a cup of Coffee.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I have spent a bit of time in the US and always enjoyed my visits. I cannot understand how the American people tolerate the sort of insanity demonstrate by heads of agencies, senior officials and politicians over Internet privacy and security. The US is becoming a bigger threat to the Internet than China or Russia which is hard to believe.
Yes--both parties are blatantly opposed to civil liberties and in favor of online tracking. Just look at the anti-encryption stuff they've been spewing at the last few debates.
But even beyond that, the basic analogy being used here is flawed. He's describing the 1980s and earlier. Today license plates are no longer a thing that just gets checked by a cop if there's a problem--they are automatically scanned, not just by red light cameras, but by toll booths and mass license plate scanners. The data gets logged in case it is later useful for law enforcement.
Corrected: Obama Administration Says Internet Anonymity Should Be Outlawed
Some common sense.
Only the vehicle. 'Nuff said!
Almost a decade ago it occurred to me it would only be a matter of time before we would be registering computers for "safe" surfing on the Internet. All it will take is a nasty enough cyberattack (black flag or no).
:T:R:A:N:S:
A license plate doesn't identify a person, it identifies a vehicle.
The GOP is right starve the beast out of existence.
Good luck senior faggot
What direction does any government head, if not in the direction of more government? Since the dawn of organized coercion, the obvious goal of every government is to expand their business.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
That's not how the internet works. The ignorance is strong with this DHS.
I don't think firing them is a bad thing. The fact that we would have to fire them (i.e. because they suck) is a bad thing. My point is that the problem is not just the current administration. Republicans are just as guilty of this.
"The license plate's identifiers are ignored most of the time by law enforcement."
Well, except when you automatically photograph them and store in a big ol' database till you need it.
If the US wants to force it's citizens to take an Internet Driving Test, fill their boots. But I wonder how they think they have jurisdiction to force the rest of the world.
It's time to rein-in the out of control government, and start holding the scumbags that hide behind it accountable.
Treason should be punished.
This thread falls in with most posts about government. We should be very afraid about government surveillance. The government is incompetent and need to be abolished.
I am far more worried about corporate surveillance which very much has the power to screw with my life. Either through disclosing information about me which can facilitate identity theft or using bad information to cost me money when I need to borrow money or prevent me from living my life as I choose.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellamy_salute
The Bellamy salute is the salute described by Francis Bellamy, Christian socialist minister and author, to accompany the American Pledge of Allegiance, which he had authored. During the period when it was used with the Pledge of Allegiance, it was sometimes known as the "flag salute". Later, during the 1920s and 1930s, Italian fascists and Nazis adopted a salute which had the same form, and which was derived from the Roman salute. This resulted in controversy over the use of the Bellamy salute in the United States. It was officially replaced by the hand-over-heart salute when Congress amended the Flag Code on December 22, 1942.
This issue isn't about what he says it's about.
It's about the following equation:
Status Quo == Illegal and Unethical => Must be Protected
Government and businesses in the USA do a lot of illegal stuff, violating fundamental rights. They get away with this in large part because the legal profession has ethical conflicts of interest with respect to creating business for themselves. As a result, we have major problems with excessive complexity in the law, lots of contradictions, all kinds of things that waste people's time (creating a demand for the services of lawyers: the desire not to have one's time wasted is a strong driving force towards hiring a lawyer) and so forth. This complexity provides a shield for government and businesses to hide behind, while still providing lots of room to maneuver for lawyers representing clients with money.
But the wrongdoing always violates one or more of the items in the Bill of Rights. After all, we have an open-ended Bill of Rights, which allows the people to assert unspecified rights "retained by" them on an as-needed basis (9th Amendment, also supported by the 10th Amendment "reserved to"), and have these become part of the highest law in the land. The folks involved in wrong-doing don't like it when people point out that specific actions are illegal, and that means they don't want anonymity for the public. These folks want to be able to harass and threaten people who point out the illegal and unethical stuff that is going on (just read through the threats that lawyer sent the Onion to see an example of this). In some cases, were truly enormous amounts of money are involved, even stronger techniques will be used, such as planting evidence (drugs, child pornography, other sexual misconduct), disappearing people, or disguising murder as suicide. Did that happen to Aaron Swartz? We'll never know.
Anonymity is protection when treason and other lawbreaking doth flourish.
he or she agrees to display a license plate
When we can distinguish that my PC on a public Wi-Fi network is different from the creep next to me, I'll agree. I say we table this discussion until 2040 when IPv6 is everywhere.....
A lot of law enforcement are now using plate readers to capture plates of cars that go to bars as targets for traffic stops and people who drive to sketchy neighborhoods have had their plates collected. Marketing companies are even considering collecting plate numbers as advertiser id's to keep track of where people frequently shop. All this and more happen if remaining anomyous on the internet becomes illegal.
Idiot! What else is there to say?
In the opening years of the twentieth century, the fight over effectual personal locomotion (automobiles) confronted the same threat. It did not go so well for it.
Throughout the twentieth century, the same fight over effectual personal protection (right to keep and bear arms) confronted the same threat. The fight may not go so well for it.
In our day, the same fight over effectual personal communication (anonymous speech) confronts the same threat. The fight is not going so well for it.
Read The Orphaned Right: The Right to Travel By Automobile 1890-1950 by Roger Roots.
This message is sponsored by Karl Martell. EDUCATE YOURSELF.
Hillary had and has numerous email identities as does POTIS.
Some are security compartments.
Some allow social interactions with friends (yoga class).
The point is we have numerous identities the most common
are "home email" and "work email".
To collapse this and reduce all purpose and office driven identities to
a single ID greatly increases risks and solves rare crimes.
Erik Barnett needs to disclose all of his electronic identities ASAP.
I fear this fix is worse than the problem it is intended to solve.
BTW: Does he understand the /. effect.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
If the department had any desire to make the Internet safer, they would be working hard to make every Internet request anonymous.
Surfing should be as anonymous as reading a book. Sites which require identification can ask for it.
Safe Intercourse == Anonymous Intercourse