Anonymity, accountability, and control

With respect to recent discussion about anonymous posts/mail, and the
wishes of some to avoid passing anonymous traffic .. I guess I've really
got to wonder just how difficult people think it is to get onto the net,
anyway.

I've got my net access becuase I pay UUNET roughly $50/month for
it - and I get my own domain name, with as many hosts (and as many users
on those hosts) as I care to set up. I set up 'fake' accounts on a
regular basis - not becuase I'm trying to trick anyone, per se, but
becuase it's the easiest way I know of to tweak the flow & storage of
mail on disparate subjects & topics. I can post a message and say
"Please E-mail to me, and I'll summarize with a post", and do so easily
- I just set up a special account that I'd like replies to go to, and
then I post from that account.  (Usually, just to be polite, I'll use
the same 'real name', but multiple account names - 'gb@goldenbear.com'
vs 'greg@goldenbear.com' vs 'gbroiles@goldenbear.com', and so forth.)
Then, a few days/weeks later, it's no big deal to concatenate the
replies in those different mailboxes into different summary messages for
posting. This seems like the sort of thing everyone ought to be able to
do - such that you could request (or command) that replies to a message
be directed into a particular E-mail folder owned by your account.

What all of this brings home to me is how easily I could just create an
entirely fictitious 'person', and use it for posting & mailing - it'd be
totally anonymous, provide me with easy way to receive replies & carry
on conversations .. *and* nobody would even know they were talking to
a real person via a fake name. I don't do this because it seems impolite
to converse with people under false pretenses; if I wanted or needed to
post/mail anonymously, I'd probably use a redirector (if I could find
one) because it seems more polite to be clear about my desire for
discretion & privacy.

Apparently, however, some of the powers that be would rather see folks
like me using fake but real-sounding names when we want privacy, instead
of being clear about what's going on. I think that's a shame, because it
seems like lying.

The Internet has already had to deal with the fact that it's not
possible to trust a user simply because they're root on their local
machine - it may well be that 'root' (as in my case) is just some guy
with a '386 who likes to play on the net. There is, I think, still some
expectation that user names are what they appear - if you see a post
from "cjones@leviathan.com (Chris Jones)" there's some expectation that
there really is a human being out there named "Chris Jones", who's
probably got a job and a desk and a boss, or at least some form of
accountability.

It's this slippery notion of 'accountability' that is perhaps at the
root of this 'anonymity' problem - the idea that there's gonna be some
hell to pay if somebody writes to 'postmaster@leviathan.com', and
complains about Chris Jones. The fact is, you can mail to
'postmaster@goldenbear.com' and whine all you like, it's just another
alias for the same damn person (me). I think there are going to be
more & more people like me in the future - I *am* my boss,
the postmaster, and the sysadmin - and if people don't like what I do or
say on the net, that's just too damn bad.

This illusion of accountability and control can't last much longer ..
can it? As I see it, these "net gods" who don't like anonymity have
two choices - anonymity they can detect, or anonymity they can't.
I'd much prefer to be polite and straightforward about things, and post
clearly marked anonymous posts/mail when that's what I want to do -
but if that traffic is going to be suppressed, I'll resort to more
clandestine anonymous transmissions. The days when it was possible
to make any assumptions at all about human to "real name" to net
address correspondences and mappings have passed, if they ever
existed at all. I think about my E-mail address(es) as ways to
direct the flow of mail such that it's convenient for me; I know
other people do this too.  My E-mail address isn't a license plate,
it's a file folder.

--
Mail to pgpserv@goldenbear.com, subject="Greg Broiles" for PGP public key.
Greg Broiles                            greg@goldenbear.com
Golden Bear Consulting                  +1 503 465 0325
Box 12005 Eugene OR 97440               BBS: +1 503 687 7764

From: greg@ideath.goldenbear.com (Greg Broiles)
   Date: Fri, 26 Mar 93 01:14:00 PST

   I've got my net access becuase I pay UUNET roughly $50/month for
   it - and I get my own domain name, with as many hosts (and as many users
   on those hosts) as I care to set up......

   It's this slippery notion of 'accountability' that is perhaps at the
   root of this 'anonymity' problem - the idea that there's gonna be some
   hell to pay if somebody writes to 'postmaster@leviathan.com', and
   complains about Chris Jones. The fact is, you can mail to
   'postmaster@goldenbear.com' and whine all you like, it's just another
   alias for the same damn person (me). I think there are going to be
   more & more people like me in the future - I *am* my boss,
   the postmaster, and the sysadmin - and if people don't like what I do or
   say on the net, that's just too damn bad.

Well, there is still *some* accountability --- if you do something
really wretched, and someone complains to UUNET, won't UUNET at least
tell that person who is paying for that link, and if you do something
really egregious, and UUNET gets enough complaints, will UUNET shut you
down?

I suspect that it would take something really serious to cause UUNET to
shut you down --- for example, if you started sending child porn, which
might enable the Feds to seize *UUNET*'s computers --- but there is
still some limited amount of accountability, and potential retribution
if you do something which enough people considers is wrong.


If we lived in a world where it was easy to filter out anonymous {mail,
news}, and the anonymous poster had to *pay* for each octet of {mail,
news} that he/she posted, then I suspect that a lot of objections to
Anonymous mail and news would die down.  Many people have said this
repeatedly, and I agree with them.

Unfortunately, we do not live in such a world now, and pretending that
we are in such a world (by answering people's complaints with promises
of vaporware) is just going to make enemies.  But by working towards
such a world, so that people can get all of the benefits of anonymity
without forcing *other* people to pay the costs of anonymity --- that is
certainly something which should be applauded.

						- Ted

> From: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@Athena.MIT.EDU>
> 
>    From: greg@ideath.goldenbear.com (Greg Broiles)
>    Date: Fri, 26 Mar 93 01:14:00 PST
> 
>    I've got my net access becuase I pay UUNET roughly $50/month for
>    it - and I get my own domain name, with as many hosts (and as many users
>    on those hosts) as I care to set up......
>    [...] and if people don't like what I do or
>    say on the net, that's just too damn bad.
> 
> Well, there is still *some* accountability --- if you do something
> really wretched, and someone complains to UUNET, won't UUNET at least
> tell that person who is paying for that link, and if you do something
> really egregious, and UUNET gets enough complaints, will UUNET shut you
> down?

I believe that UUNET has applied for and received common carrier status, in
which case they are not responsible for thier traffic and cannot make any
judgement calls regarding the traffic coming from a particular site.  It is
kind of like the phone company; they may not approve of the 976-BABE
numbers, but as long as those operations do not break the law there is
nothing the phone company can do about them no matter how many complaints
they may receive.

jim

From: mccoy@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Jim McCoy)
   Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1993 11:54:39 -0600 (CST)

   I believe that UUNET has applied for and received common carrier status, in
   which case they are not responsible for thier traffic and cannot make any
   judgement calls regarding the traffic coming from a particular site.  It is
   kind of like the phone company; they may not approve of the 976-BABE
   numbers, but as long as those operations do not break the law there is
   nothing the phone company can do about them no matter how many complaints
   they may receive.

	I'd love to hear more about this --- my understanding was that
"common carrier" status only had a specific meaning for telephone
companies, and also meant as a side effect that they had to regulated by
the FCC.  I was not aware that "common carrier" status had any meaning
in the computer networking arena, since no regulatory agency would have
the right to receive applications and grant common carrier status,
unless a law were specifically passed by Congress or perhaps some action
resulting from a Federal court decision.

	Or is it that UUNET merely considers themselves a "common
carrier" but that this has yet to be tested in court?

	Would Mike Goodwin be willing to comment on this?  It would
certainly have a lot of implications towards providing free speech on
computer nets, and I'd love to have a real lawyer's perspective on this
--- as opposed to the perspective of millions of people who merely play
one on USENET.  :-)

						- Ted

I spoke with Mike O'Dell about this; he says uunet is an enhanced service
provider.  It is not a common carrier.  (Let's not discuss this in cypherpunks
anyway -- I just wanted to set the record straight.)

	John

>    I believe that UUNET has applied for and received common carrier
>    status [...]
> 
> 	I'd love to hear more about this --- my understanding was that
> "common carrier" status only had a specific meaning for telephone
> companies, and also meant as a side effect that they had to regulated by
> the FCC.  I was not aware that "common carrier" status had any meaning
> in the computer networking arena, since no regulatory agency would have
> the right to receive applications and grant common carrier status,
> unless a law were specifically passed by Congress or perhaps some action
> resulting from a Federal court decision.

I am fairly certain that the people doing Skynet (Usenet news over
satelite) are common carriers (or at least that is what Len Rose told me, I
could be wrong...)  For an example that predates computer communication by
some time but might be a worthwhile example anyway, take a look at Western
Union's telegraph business.  What is/was thier status regarding the
messages they sent?

jim