UK was actually a place where the industrialization caused an unusually painful social shock. The decline in the standard of living was much lower in the continental Europe and the US. In fact, had Karl Marx chosen to live in, say, Italy or Switzerland instead of London, "Das Kapital" might never have been written and the history of the XX century would probably have looked quite different.
In any case, the original question was whether the people of the XIX century considered capitalism a bad idea. Here I'd like to point out the difference between capitalism and the industrial revolution. Capitalism, after all, is nothing more than social and economic freedom. It is defined in opposition to both feudalism (where the social structure is stratified and rigid, and economic rights are subject to political power) and communism (where individuals are not supposed to own the means of production). Clearly, it is not an accident that capitalism flowered at the time of the industrial revolution, but these are still two different phenomena. Most of the social problems that you mention are a direct consequences of industrialization and while one can argue that capitalism did nothing to alleviate these social consequences (as both feudalism and communism would have tried to do), it did not directly cause them. It is major upheavals, be they techno-economical (industrialization) or politico-social (post-communist Russia) that cause mass suffering -- capitalism just happened to have appeared at the same time.
If that's your definition of communism (that the government runs all and owns all), then China hasn't been communist since the late seventies.
Agreed. China isn't really communist any more. It is basically a JATS (Just Another Totalitarian State) with significant vestiges of communism in ideology and state's economic holdings.
If you look at history, you'll see that communism turned out to be a particularly bad idea. But if you looked at the 19th century, you'd come to the same conclusion about capitalism.
No, I don't think so. You would say that XIX century capitalism was a bad idea compared to what? Unless you think that feudalism was a rosy time when chivalry reigned and the people's lives were quiet, dignified and prosperous, even the XIX century capitalism was an advance over what what was before.
The ruling class is supposed to govern for the benefit of the working class
Err... there wasn't supposed to be any ruling class at all. Everybody (that is, the undifferentiated mass of workers) was supposed to govern themselves.
It's perfectly possible to indulge in volunteerism in a communist society
As long as the communist state does not perceive what you are volunteering for as a threat to itself. That is a quite important rider, IMHO. And I know for a fact that the state can and does get unreasonably paranoid about this.
Oh, I think Marx hit the nail on the head with his "alienation of labor" idea -- that is, industrial labor is qualitatively different from agrarian/craft labor, because (1) the laboror is no longer in control of the "means of production", so he is working for somebody else, not himself, and (2) industrial labor treats the worker as an automaton, not as a real human.
Well, alienation of labor was not a bad idea (I'm not sure if Marx came up first with it, though), but I'd like to point out that in a lot of situations the pre-industrial peasants were "working for somebody else" because they didn't own the land. Besides, treating the worker as an automaton is a consequence of the Industrial Revolution, and not necessarily capitalism.
both stand for the concentration of working capital and the means of production in the hands of a few
Not true. Laissez-faire capitalism assumes a large mass of competing capitalists. If the means of production become concentrated in the hands of the few, monopolies and cartels appear and the invisible hand breaks down.
Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of The Communist Manifesto at hand, but if memory serves, their agenda included such radical and dangerous (for the 1880s) ideas as the abolition of child labor and the legalization of trade unions.
Sorry, I meant
Care to show us some correct one, specific to communism?
There is nothing inherently clashing between the Chinese interpretation of the communist doctorine and the Open Source concept, simply because the two don't relate.
Well, yes, there is. The issue is the power of an individual.
In China, which is both a communist (yes, yes, I know, so call it socialist or post-maoist if you want) and an Asian country the power balance between an individual and the group is heavily biased towards the group. It is generally accepted that the group is more important, knows better, and can force individuals to do what it thinks needs to be done.
Linux, on the other hand, is to a large degree, a celebration of the power of an individual. Not of a group, not of a corporation or a government, but rather, of a single person. Anybody can take Linux and bend it to his individual purposes.
Because of this, I think that there *is* a basic incompatibility between China and Linux. That, of course, does not mean that Linux is not going to be used in China. All it means is that a closed-source centrally-controlled software would be more to the Chinese liking, but the Chinese are a pragmatic people and a free (as in beer) operating system that works well is bound to make inroads there.
It's worth noting that there *are* *no* communist states in the world today, whatever they choose to call themselves.
Ah, the same old debate over the "communist" and "socialist" labels.
Technically, you are correct. There are no communist states today and there never was a communist state in the history of mankind. Communism, as understood by Marx is the almost-Platonic ideal, the goal towards which the humanity moves. That's why the marxist countries (USSR, China, Eastern Europe) did not call themselves "communist", but rather "socialist".
However, the common usage in the West is that "socialist" stands for left-liberal political parties in Europe, especially Northern Europe, and "communist" refers to the marxist-ideology states like the USSR used to be.
My only problem is the bit about the "repressive ideals of Communism"
If you think about the issue in terms of the balance of power between an individual and the group (government, church, community, etc.), communism (even "true", Marx's one) is very heavily biased against the individual and in favor of the group. That is why from the libertarian point of view even the "original" communism is basically repressive.
Also, why does everyone think that just because _most_ communist ideals are mistaken, that they all are?
Care to show us some correct ones?
Communists just don't understand the free market, and generally don't understand democracy, but that doesn't make everything they do eeeevil.
Think about it for a bit. Not understanding the free market basically means that all companies belong to the government and everybody is an employee of the government, plus the government tells each company what to produce, how, and when. This has been shown to be a very bad idea. Not understanding democracy means that there are some guys in power who don't really care what the population thinks and are quite willing to use force (from tanks to jail terms) to suppress those who disagree with them.
Yes, communists are not intrinsically evil in that joining the Communist Party does not make horns grow out of your head. But if you look at history, you'll see that communism turned out to be a particularly bad idea.
Why is it that everytime the word Java is dropped on this site, the anti MS FUD people start spreading fud and other ill informed arguments about it Java.
I'll hazard a guess. Maybe it is because Java has been pushed down our throats as the be-all and end-all, an ultimate computer language that makes all others unnecessary, as a solution to all the problems in the world, hunger and pollution included, and as what you have to learn if you want to be employable in the near future?
Well, if there are reasonable searches, there must be an ability to execute that search.
First, the Constitution does not specify what *must* be -- only what must *not* be. It permits reasonable searches, but does not make them obligatory.
Since it's impossible to predetermine which communications can be reasonably searched, all must be made searchable...
And here is the flaw. You are saying that everything under the sun must be made searchable and seizurable by the government, in case at some point in time the court system will let it. This implies that if I write some document, encrypt it and destroy the key, I have committed a crime since at some later point the government may present me with a subpoena for this document and I cannot produce it. I don't think that this is how the law works.
To reiterate, the Constitution does not *prohibit* the government from establishing wiretapping facilities, but it also does not *demand* them.
I can just go into the kernel source and rip out anything that I don't like.
Sure. But you would also like to talk to the rest of the net, wouldn't you? And that means that you must make yourself understood by the routers, no? And if the backbone routers switch to some protocol that you just ripped out of the kernel, you are going to find some problems in your life, isn't that so?
No. It is not intrinsically evil and there are plenty of situations when it can be justified.
By that, I mean do people have an intrinsic right to privacy that doesn't end when they begin violating the rights of others?
Yes. However that right is generally not recognized by governments.
...there's a slant towards arguing that wiretapping should be difficult--essentially, so it's only used for cases where national security is at risk.
Yes. The point is the balance of power between an individual and the government. Part of that balance is that it is infeasible for the government to keep tabs on everyone all the time. If (rather, when) that situation changes, the balance of power will shift. It is my considered opinion that we should try to prevent this balance from shifting towards the government side. Part of it is making wiretapping difficult.
Screaming about how child molestors are being used to justify widespread Big Brother monitoring is all too appropriate...but begs the question, what about the child molestors?
There is a trade-off. You trade off personal freedom against safety (that is, against making it easier for the police to catch law-breakers). In the US the founders had a lot to say about this trade-off, the two most noticeable ideas being that (1) Freedom is more important than safety; and (2) It is better to let a guilty man go free than to convict an innocent.
Is it possible to shield everyone but expose those who society does need exposed?
No, because that presupposes a conviction (you need to be exposed) before the information was gathered (otherwise, why do you need to expose the guy?).
At least a government intrinsically possesses citizen oversight.
Er... You probably mean "a democratic government in a Western country". Look at Pol Pot Cambodia and North Korea for extreme examples.
So, is wiretapping evil?
No, but it has to be hard to do. The issue is not an absolute right of an individual to be safe from search and seizure, or an absolute right of a government to find out what it wants to know -- neither exist. The issue is balance of power between an individual and the government. It can be shown that any government (any bureacracy, to be more exact) tries to accumulate as much power as it can get away with. Moreover, the interests of the government (as a collection of people with political power) are not necessarily the same, or even close to the interests of the entire society. Add to this that governments tend to be inept, clumsy, stupid, suffer from delusions of grandeur, and make mistakes on colossal scale.
Governments are useful, no question about it. A reasonably decent government is much better than no government at all. But a government that accumulated too much power is dangerous and, as history shows, usually ends up inflicting considerable damage on the society.
The argument above is a pragmatic one. There is also a philosophical one -- you can treat history as the struggle for power between individuals and organizations (chiefs, governments, churches, corporations, etc.) and I, personally, take the individuals' side in this struggle. But to somebody who believes that the man's unbridled nature is chaotic (at best) or evil (at worst) and that he needs to be "civilized" by the society -- to such people the philosophical argument will not make much sense.
I find this to be the scariest part of the whole issue. I don't WANT people who have no understanding of the internet to pass laws. Chances are they will screw things up and make it worse.
Completely agree. However, consider another scenario, at least as frightening, and probably more: passing of laws by people who DO understand the internet, but want it to look very different from what it is. The three-letter agencies are a prime example.
Remember, the signal (from the monitor) is transmitted dozens of times a second. So unless you scroll real fast, the attacker will be able to get hundreds or thousands of readings.
A valid point. So a white-noise generator is not such a hot idea. How about, then, a generator that simulates a hundred computer monitors at the same time, transmitting some (relatively stable) junk dozens of times a second?
Basically, if you have two emission sources that look like monitors, how do you know which one is real? Or if there are two hundred emission sources (logical, not physical) -- how do you know which is real?
Just because something is emitting some radio frequencies does not mean it is influenced by it. I am no electrical engineer, but it doesn't seem likely that one can make a simple radio transmitter and go around zapping people's hard disks with it.
Shielding one's computer is very cumbersome. Is it not easier, knowing the exact frequencies where your electronic components leak data, to just add a small white-noise transmitter that will jam the needed frequencies? If you want to get sophisticated, it can analyze your emissions in real-time and generate the correct noise to cover/distort them...
But in any case, local jamming should be much simpler/cheaper than shielding. Anybody knows if this is a viable option and if not, why?
How do you see corporations being reined in though?
To repeat one of my fav ideas, giving individuals copyright over their personal data would go a looong way towards solving the problem.
I'm in favor of having a government sponsored industry of competing watchdogs. They would get to feed off corporate crime settlement money and compete for government subsidies
I am not sure. They would probably have too much power and would end up blackmailing the industry. "Well, guys, you can plea bargain for some minor infractions and pay only $5m, or we can come in with a full-blown audit which (just the audit) will cost you around $10m. So how about making a reasonable choice?"
I think IRS had a kind of a similar system (people got bonuses for catching tax offenders) and it certainly didn't work very well.
There is EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) which is pretty much what you want. It's an open question as to how effective it is, though. Plus some people think that it got in bed with the Washington Congress/lobbying types and thus not so trustworthy any more.
Let's begin by playing devil's advocate, and then we'll see what erupts.
I trust your asbestos underwear is in good order...
The idea that people should be allowed to be completely anonymous in everything that they do is completely unparalleled in the real world.
Not everything they do, but some things they do, and that is completely reasonable in the real world. When I walk on a street in a big city, buy myself a cup of coffee, ogle the girls walking by -- I am completely anonymous. And think back to the XIX century -- that's when the basis for all the current laws on privacy and anonymity was being formulated. It was quite easy to be anonymous in those time.
People may have a right to certain information privacy, but they don't have a right to anonymity, and the only rights they have to what information a product sends back about itself are market rights.
Well, we have a serious philosophical disagreement here and it looks to be quite basic (as in, not solvable on Slashdot). I strongly believe in the rights to both privacy and anonymity. I would also argue that in better world, people would have copyright over their own personal info.
Somehow, I don't think Real Networks is going under because they sent back UIDs from their product. In fact, I'm happy they can track their software.
I am glad you are happy. You will probably be even happier to know that RealNetworks tracked not only their own software, but also all the tracks that you've listened to on the RealPlayer, all the music CDs that you've inserted into the CD-ROM drive, and a bunch of other stuff that I don't rememeber right now.
people have been able to go through your trash for even longer.
I don't think you understand the issue. Sure, for a long time anybody who had a lot of time and money was able to collect much info about you. But it was not cost-effective. Now the cost to collect, organize and process massive amounts of personal data is minimal -- it became cost-effective to go through you trash, and much more besides. This is the crucial difference, not whether information gathering was possible in the past.
So far, I see very little accountability...[snip!]... with individuals who try to both use and separate their lives from the system.
And, pray tell, why should I not separate my life from the system? I, actually, have stong objections to my life being tightly entwined with the system -- see, I don't trust the system at all (and I have my reasons). You have an implicit assumption that the 'system' is beneficial and, for all its warts, is trying to do the right thing. I am unwilling to make this assumption. My goals and values are likely to be different from the system's goal and values. I am perfectly willing to take responsibility for my own actions, but this is not the same thing as being under pressure from the 'system' for being different.
I enjoy reading about the future envisioned by people like Gibson and Stephenson, where the net is totally unregulated and a "right to privacy" is a dim memory, or a joke. That doesn't mean I want to live in that future. Europe has consumer protection laws that are, from an American perspective, astonishingly strong. Maybe we should take a look at other countries' solutions, to see if there's something we could learn.
Well, to start with my reading of Gibson and Stephenson is a bit different than yours. The right to privacy as in "He looked at my email! Call the cops and let's file a complaint at the friendly Cybercrimes Court" doesn't exist for sure. However, the privacy in the cyberpunk world is completely in the hands of the individual. Basically, if you care enough about anonymity and have sufficient skills, you will make yourself anonymous. If you don't care or not smart enough, other people, if they care, can look at your data. That's not so bad a future to live in (it's not that hard to learn to use encryption). I certainly don't want the cops to jump in any time somebody does a port scan.
Yes, Europe has strong consumer protection laws, but all they do is reassert the power of the political structure (government) over private entities. I am much more worried, Gibson's future nonwithstanding about the government power, than about the power of corporations. For example, I am quite confident of my abilities to thwart, mislead and generally disrupt the attempts of corporations to collect personal data about myself, unless I implicitly or explicitly agree (credit history is an intrusion of privacy but is a useful thing to have). However if a goverment, in the name of protecting the consumers, makes it a crime to, say, spoof personal data on the net, or much worse, establishes a registry of net users (mandatory ICQ, anyone?), it will make my life much harder and more unpleasant.
So I do have huge misgivings about the heavy and not particularly bright hand of government messing with the workings of the net.
Really. TRUSTe has no credibility left. I really don't care what they decide about RealNetworks, and I doubt that many other people do.
It may have been a good idea at the start, but right now their situation would make a good case study titled "The loss of virtue and the disadvantages of being a corporate whore".
It is worth noting that there are very different markets for software. For example, I expect server-based applications to be quite successful within the intranets of large and medium-sized corporations. There is plenty of bandwidth and control, no problems with trust and security (at least, no more than they already have), tech support becomes noticeably easier, and collaborative work could become easier. Not to forget about the eagerness with which the IT departments will jump on the opportunity to wrest control back from those pesky and unruly users.
However for outsourcing applications the case is completely different. I doubt we'll see many individuals or companies relying on their applications for external entities. There might be exceptions (e.g. for stuff like payroll and accounting), but basic stuff like word processing and spreadsheets will remain local for a loooong time.
To summarize, if you work for a big corporation, prepare to see your PC morph into a semi-dumb terminal. If not, don't worry, be happy.
I was using netscape on a linux box for browsing, but you just can't do that unless you want to be shut out of a LOT of sites.
YMMV, of course, but I am using netscape on a Solaris box and don't have any problems surfing the web. Very, very rarely I get some Java I can't handle, but then again, in 99% of the cases it's a site that I don't really need, anyway.
It seems that the point of the article is the spread of proprietary to Microsoft extensions on the web -- Java code that will run only in IE, plug-ins that exist only for Window machines, etc. That's all true and is a danger. However, I completely fail to see how Mozilla is going to help us here. Unless the author believes that Mozilla will win the browser war on Windows machines (dream on), it will do nothing to stop people from producing Windows-only plug-ins or writing Microsoft-specific code.
Slashdot Mirror
At least in the UK...
UK was actually a place where the industrialization caused an unusually painful social shock. The decline in the standard of living was much lower in the continental Europe and the US. In fact, had Karl Marx chosen to live in, say, Italy or Switzerland instead of London, "Das Kapital" might never have been written and the history of the XX century would probably have looked quite different.
In any case, the original question was whether the people of the XIX century considered capitalism a bad idea. Here I'd like to point out the difference between capitalism and the industrial revolution. Capitalism, after all, is nothing more than social and economic freedom. It is defined in opposition to both feudalism (where the social structure is stratified and rigid, and economic rights are subject to political power) and communism (where individuals are not supposed to own the means of production). Clearly, it is not an accident that capitalism flowered at the time of the industrial revolution, but these are still two different phenomena. Most of the social problems that you mention are a direct consequences of industrialization and while one can argue that capitalism did nothing to alleviate these social consequences (as both feudalism and communism would have tried to do), it did not directly cause them. It is major upheavals, be they techno-economical (industrialization) or politico-social (post-communist Russia) that cause mass suffering -- capitalism just happened to have appeared at the same time.
Kaa
If that's your definition of communism (that the government runs all and owns all), then China hasn't been communist since the late seventies.
Agreed. China isn't really communist any more. It is basically a JATS (Just Another Totalitarian State) with significant vestiges of communism in ideology and state's economic holdings.
If you look at history, you'll see that communism turned out to be a particularly bad idea. But if you looked at the 19th century, you'd come to the same conclusion about capitalism.
No, I don't think so. You would say that XIX century capitalism was a bad idea compared to what? Unless you think that feudalism was a rosy time when chivalry reigned and the people's lives were quiet, dignified and prosperous, even the XIX century capitalism was an advance over what what was before.
The ruling class is supposed to govern for the benefit of the working class
Err... there wasn't supposed to be any ruling class at all. Everybody (that is, the undifferentiated mass of workers) was supposed to govern themselves.
It's perfectly possible to indulge in volunteerism in a communist society
As long as the communist state does not perceive what you are volunteering for as a threat to itself. That is a quite important rider, IMHO. And I know for a fact that the state can and does get unreasonably paranoid about this.
Kaa
Oh, I think Marx hit the nail on the head with his "alienation of labor" idea -- that is, industrial labor is qualitatively different from agrarian/craft labor, because (1) the laboror is no longer in control of the "means of production", so he is working for somebody else, not himself, and (2) industrial labor treats the worker as an automaton, not as a real human.
Well, alienation of labor was not a bad idea (I'm not sure if Marx came up first with it, though), but I'd like to point out that in a lot of situations the pre-industrial peasants were "working for somebody else" because they didn't own the land. Besides, treating the worker as an automaton is a consequence of the Industrial Revolution, and not necessarily capitalism.
both stand for the concentration of working capital and the means of production in the hands of a few
Not true. Laissez-faire capitalism assumes a large mass of competing capitalists. If the means of production become concentrated in the hands of the few, monopolies and cartels appear and the invisible hand breaks down.
Kaa
Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of The Communist Manifesto at hand, but if memory serves, their agenda included such radical and dangerous (for the 1880s) ideas as the abolition of child labor and the legalization of trade unions.
Sorry, I meant
Care to show us some correct one, specific to communism?
Kaa
There is nothing inherently clashing between the Chinese interpretation of the communist doctorine and the Open Source concept, simply because the two don't relate.
Well, yes, there is. The issue is the power of an individual.
In China, which is both a communist (yes, yes, I know, so call it socialist or post-maoist if you want) and an Asian country the power balance between an individual and the group is heavily biased towards the group. It is generally accepted that the group is more important, knows better, and can force individuals to do what it thinks needs to be done.
Linux, on the other hand, is to a large degree, a celebration of the power of an individual. Not of a group, not of a corporation or a government, but rather, of a single person. Anybody can take Linux and bend it to his individual purposes.
Because of this, I think that there *is* a basic incompatibility between China and Linux. That, of course, does not mean that Linux is not going to be used in China. All it means is that a closed-source centrally-controlled software would be more to the Chinese liking, but the Chinese are a pragmatic people and a free (as in beer) operating system that works well is bound to make inroads there.
Kaa
It's worth noting that there *are* *no* communist states in the world today, whatever they choose to call themselves.
Ah, the same old debate over the "communist" and "socialist" labels.
Technically, you are correct. There are no communist states today and there never was a communist state in the history of mankind. Communism, as understood by Marx is the almost-Platonic ideal, the goal towards which the humanity moves. That's why the marxist countries (USSR, China, Eastern Europe) did not call themselves "communist", but rather "socialist".
However, the common usage in the West is that "socialist" stands for left-liberal political parties in Europe, especially Northern Europe, and "communist" refers to the marxist-ideology states like the USSR used to be.
My only problem is the bit about the "repressive ideals of Communism"
If you think about the issue in terms of the balance of power between an individual and the group (government, church, community, etc.), communism (even "true", Marx's one) is very heavily biased against the individual and in favor of the group. That is why from the libertarian point of view even the "original" communism is basically repressive.
Kaa
Also, why does everyone think that just because _most_ communist ideals are mistaken, that they all are?
Care to show us some correct ones?
Communists just don't understand the free market, and generally don't understand democracy, but that doesn't make everything they do eeeevil.
Think about it for a bit. Not understanding the free market basically means that all companies belong to the government and everybody is an employee of the government, plus the government tells each company what to produce, how, and when. This has been shown to be a very bad idea. Not understanding democracy means that there are some guys in power who don't really care what the population thinks and are quite willing to use force (from tanks to jail terms) to suppress those who disagree with them.
Yes, communists are not intrinsically evil in that joining the Communist Party does not make horns grow out of your head. But if you look at history, you'll see that communism turned out to be a particularly bad idea.
Kaa
Why is it that everytime the word Java is dropped on this site, the anti MS FUD people start spreading fud and other ill informed arguments about it Java.
I'll hazard a guess. Maybe it is because Java has been pushed down our throats as the be-all and end-all, an ultimate computer language that makes all others unnecessary, as a solution to all the problems in the world, hunger and pollution included, and as what you have to learn if you want to be employable in the near future?
Kaa
Well, if there are reasonable searches, there must be an ability to execute that search.
First, the Constitution does not specify what *must* be -- only what must *not* be. It permits reasonable searches, but does not make them obligatory.
Since it's impossible to predetermine which communications can be reasonably searched, all must be made searchable...
And here is the flaw. You are saying that everything under the sun must be made searchable and seizurable by the government, in case at some point in time the court system will let it. This implies that if I write some document, encrypt it and destroy the key, I have committed a crime since at some later point the government may present me with a subpoena for this document and I cannot produce it. I don't think that this is how the law works.
To reiterate, the Constitution does not *prohibit* the government from establishing wiretapping facilities, but it also does not *demand* them.
Kaa
I can just go into the kernel source and rip out anything that I don't like.
Sure. But you would also like to talk to the rest of the net, wouldn't you? And that means that you must make yourself understood by the routers, no? And if the backbone routers switch to some protocol that you just ripped out of the kernel, you are going to find some problems in your life, isn't that so?
Kaa
I'm a theorist, who wants to know:
...there's a slant towards arguing that wiretapping should be difficult--essentially, so it's only used for cases where national security is at risk.
Inquiring minds, and all that, eh?
Is wiretapping evil?
No. It is not intrinsically evil and there are plenty of situations when it can be justified.
By that, I mean do people have an intrinsic right to privacy that doesn't end when they begin violating the rights of others?
Yes. However that right is generally not recognized by governments.
Yes. The point is the balance of power between an individual and the government. Part of that balance is that it is infeasible for the government to keep tabs on everyone all the time. If (rather, when) that situation changes, the balance of power will shift. It is my considered opinion that we should try to prevent this balance from shifting towards the government side. Part of it is making wiretapping difficult.
Screaming about how child molestors are being used to justify widespread Big Brother monitoring is all too appropriate...but begs the question, what about the child molestors?
There is a trade-off. You trade off personal freedom against safety (that is, against making it easier for the police to catch law-breakers). In the US the founders had a lot to say about this trade-off, the two most noticeable ideas being that (1) Freedom is more important than safety; and (2) It is better to let a guilty man go free than to convict an innocent.
Is it possible to shield everyone but expose those who society does need exposed?
No, because that presupposes a conviction (you need to be exposed) before the information was gathered (otherwise, why do you need to expose the guy?).
At least a government intrinsically possesses citizen oversight.
Er... You probably mean "a democratic government in a Western country". Look at Pol Pot Cambodia and North Korea for extreme examples.
So, is wiretapping evil?
No, but it has to be hard to do. The issue is not an absolute right of an individual to be safe from search and seizure, or an absolute right of a government to find out what it wants to know -- neither exist. The issue is balance of power between an individual and the government. It can be shown that any government (any bureacracy, to be more exact) tries to accumulate as much power as it can get away with. Moreover, the interests of the government (as a collection of people with political power) are not necessarily the same, or even close to the interests of the entire society. Add to this that governments tend to be inept, clumsy, stupid, suffer from delusions of grandeur, and make mistakes on colossal scale.
Governments are useful, no question about it. A reasonably decent government is much better than no government at all. But a government that accumulated too much power is dangerous and, as history shows, usually ends up inflicting considerable damage on the society.
The argument above is a pragmatic one. There is also a philosophical one -- you can treat history as the struggle for power between individuals and organizations (chiefs, governments, churches, corporations, etc.) and I, personally, take the individuals' side in this struggle. But to somebody who believes that the man's unbridled nature is chaotic (at best) or evil (at worst) and that he needs to be "civilized" by the society -- to such people the philosophical argument will not make much sense.
Kaa
www.zeroknowledge.com
Kaa
I find this to be the scariest part of the whole issue. I don't WANT people who have no understanding of the internet to pass laws. Chances are they will screw things up and make it worse.
Completely agree. However, consider another scenario, at least as frightening, and probably more: passing of laws by people who DO understand the internet, but want it to look very different from what it is. The three-letter agencies are a prime example.
Kaa
Remember, the signal (from the monitor) is transmitted dozens of times a second. So unless you scroll real fast, the attacker will be able to get hundreds or thousands of readings.
A valid point. So a white-noise generator is not such a hot idea. How about, then, a generator that simulates a hundred computer monitors at the same time, transmitting some (relatively stable) junk dozens of times a second?
Basically, if you have two emission sources that look like monitors, how do you know which one is real? Or if there are two hundred emission sources (logical, not physical) -- how do you know which is real?
Kaa
Just because something is emitting some radio frequencies does not mean it is influenced by it. I am no electrical engineer, but it doesn't seem likely that one can make a simple radio transmitter and go around zapping people's hard disks with it.
Kaa
Again, involving the government.
Not the government. The legal system. There is a fairly big difference in Western countries.
Kaa
Shielding one's computer is very cumbersome. Is it not easier, knowing the exact frequencies where your electronic components leak data, to just add a small white-noise transmitter that will jam the needed frequencies? If you want to get sophisticated, it can analyze your emissions in real-time and generate the correct noise to cover/distort them...
But in any case, local jamming should be much simpler/cheaper than shielding. Anybody knows if this is a viable option and if not, why?
Kaa
How do you see corporations being reined in though?
To repeat one of my fav ideas, giving individuals copyright over their personal data would go a looong way towards solving the problem.
I'm in favor of having a government sponsored industry of competing watchdogs. They would get to feed off corporate crime settlement money and compete for government subsidies
I am not sure. They would probably have too much power and would end up blackmailing the industry. "Well, guys, you can plea bargain for some minor infractions and pay only $5m, or we can come in with a full-blown audit which (just the audit) will cost you around $10m. So how about making a reasonable choice?"
I think IRS had a kind of a similar system (people got bonuses for catching tax offenders) and it certainly didn't work very well.
Kaa
There is EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) which is pretty much what you want. It's an open question as to how effective it is, though. Plus some people think that it got in bed with the Washington Congress/lobbying types and thus not so trustworthy any more.
Kaa
Let's begin by playing devil's advocate, and then we'll see what erupts.
...[snip!] ... with individuals who try to both use and separate their lives from the system.
I trust your asbestos underwear is in good order...
The idea that people should be allowed to be completely anonymous in everything that they do is completely unparalleled in the real world.
Not everything they do, but some things they do, and that is completely reasonable in the real world. When I walk on a street in a big city, buy myself a cup of coffee, ogle the girls walking by -- I am completely anonymous. And think back to the XIX century -- that's when the basis for all the current laws on privacy and anonymity was being formulated. It was quite easy to be anonymous in those time.
People may have a right to certain information privacy, but they don't have a right to anonymity, and the only rights they have to what information a product sends back about itself are market rights.
Well, we have a serious philosophical disagreement here and it looks to be quite basic (as in, not solvable on Slashdot). I strongly believe in the rights to both privacy and anonymity. I would also argue that in better world, people would have copyright over their own personal info.
Somehow, I don't think Real Networks is going under because they sent back UIDs from their product. In fact, I'm happy they can track their software.
I am glad you are happy. You will probably be even happier to know that RealNetworks tracked not only their own software, but also all the tracks that you've listened to on the RealPlayer, all the music CDs that you've inserted into the CD-ROM drive, and a bunch of other stuff that I don't rememeber right now.
people have been able to go through your trash for even longer.
I don't think you understand the issue. Sure, for a long time anybody who had a lot of time and money was able to collect much info about you. But it was not cost-effective. Now the cost to collect, organize and process massive amounts of personal data is minimal -- it became cost-effective to go through you trash, and much more besides. This is the crucial difference, not whether information gathering was possible in the past.
So far, I see very little accountability
And, pray tell, why should I not separate my life from the system? I, actually, have stong objections to my life being tightly entwined with the system -- see, I don't trust the system at all (and I have my reasons). You have an implicit assumption that the 'system' is beneficial and, for all its warts, is trying to do the right thing. I am unwilling to make this assumption. My goals and values are likely to be different from the system's goal and values. I am perfectly willing to take responsibility for my own actions, but this is not the same thing as being under pressure from the 'system' for being different.
Kaa
I enjoy reading about the future envisioned by people like Gibson and Stephenson, where the net is totally unregulated and a "right to privacy" is a dim memory, or a joke. That doesn't mean I want to live in that future. Europe has consumer protection laws that are, from an American perspective, astonishingly strong. Maybe we should take a look at other countries' solutions, to see if there's something we could learn.
Well, to start with my reading of Gibson and Stephenson is a bit different than yours. The right to privacy as in "He looked at my email! Call the cops and let's file a complaint at the friendly Cybercrimes Court" doesn't exist for sure. However, the privacy in the cyberpunk world is completely in the hands of the individual. Basically, if you care enough about anonymity and have sufficient skills, you will make yourself anonymous. If you don't care or not smart enough, other people, if they care, can look at your data.
That's not so bad a future to live in (it's not that hard to learn to use encryption). I certainly don't want the cops to jump in any time somebody does a port scan.
Yes, Europe has strong consumer protection laws, but all they do is reassert the power of the political structure (government) over private entities. I am much more worried, Gibson's future nonwithstanding about the government power, than about the power of corporations. For example, I am quite confident of my abilities to thwart, mislead and generally disrupt the attempts of corporations to collect personal data about myself, unless I implicitly or explicitly agree (credit history is an intrusion of privacy but is a useful thing to have). However if a goverment, in the name of protecting the consumers, makes it a crime to, say, spoof personal data on the net, or much worse, establishes a registry of net users (mandatory ICQ, anyone?), it will make my life much harder and more unpleasant.
So I do have huge misgivings about the heavy and not particularly bright hand of government messing with the workings of the net.
Kaa
Really. TRUSTe has no credibility left. I really don't care what they decide about RealNetworks, and I doubt that many other people do.
It may have been a good idea at the start, but right now their situation would make a good case study titled "The loss of virtue and the disadvantages of being a corporate whore".
Kaa
It is worth noting that there are very different markets for software. For example, I expect server-based applications to be quite successful within the intranets of large and medium-sized corporations. There is plenty of bandwidth and control, no problems with trust and security (at least, no more than they already have), tech support becomes noticeably easier, and collaborative work could become easier. Not to forget about the eagerness with which the IT departments will jump on the opportunity to wrest control back from those pesky and unruly users.
However for outsourcing applications the case is completely different. I doubt we'll see many individuals or companies relying on their applications for external entities. There might be exceptions (e.g. for stuff like payroll and accounting), but basic stuff like word processing and spreadsheets will remain local for a loooong time.
To summarize, if you work for a big corporation, prepare to see your PC morph into a semi-dumb terminal. If not, don't worry, be happy.
Kaa
I was using netscape on a linux box for browsing, but you just can't do that unless you want to be shut out of a LOT of sites.
YMMV, of course, but I am using netscape on a Solaris box and don't have any problems surfing the web. Very, very rarely I get some Java I can't handle, but then again, in 99% of the cases it's a site that I don't really need, anyway.
Kaa
It seems that the point of the article is the spread of proprietary to Microsoft extensions on the web -- Java code that will run only in IE, plug-ins that exist only for Window machines, etc.
That's all true and is a danger. However, I completely fail to see how Mozilla is going to help us here. Unless the author believes that Mozilla will win the browser war on Windows machines (dream on), it will do nothing to stop people from producing Windows-only plug-ins or writing Microsoft-specific code.
Kaa