Re: Why Net Censorship Doesn't Work

I think that there is still a substantial possibility that many kinds
of expression will be marginalized and hard to access for a great many
users.

One of my co-workers has pointed out that the need for something as
simple as a helper application for Netscape loses about 90% of his
audience. By simply making it rather more difficult for people to
chat about some things, governments can effectively push such things
out of the way of all but the most determined readers.

This is actually one of those odd Laffer-curve-like phenomena, where
as long as the expression isn't too inherently desirable, government
restrictions can be somewhat effective, but the more tightly they try to
control things, the more likely the are to lose, as there will be more
and more desirable content outside the sanctioned sphere of activity.
Consequently, I was much happier to see the "indecency" standard get
passed instead of the "harmful" standard, as the former will push far
more content into the "gray" area of the net, which will encourage
development and adoption of appropriate tools.

A quote from Star Wars (which I'm just now incorporating into my .sig)
was just echoed back to me in a letter from a chap I spoke with from
the Australian Office of Strategic Crime Assessment, as encapsulating
what he got out of a rather long chat we had when he was passing through
the Bay Area last month. Here it is:

------                                                           , ------
Douglas Barnes         "The tighter you close your fist, Governor Tarkin,
cman@communities.com    the more systems will slip through your fingers."
cman@best.com                                             --Princess Leia

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

Hello Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>
  and cman@communities.com (Douglas Barnes)
  and cypherpunks@toad.com
 
...
> A quote from Star Wars (which I'm just now incorporating into my .sig)
...
> ------                                                           , ------
> Douglas Barnes         "The tighter you close your fist, Governor Tarkin,
> cman@communities.com    the more systems will slip through your fingers."
> cman@best.com                                             --Princess Leia

Perhaps not the most comforting quote you could have used...

If I remember my Star Wars correctly, Tarkin's reply consisted
largely of blasting Alderaan out of existence.


Jiri
- --
If you want an answer, please mail to <jirib@cs.monash.edu.au>.
On sweeney, I may delete without reading!
PGP 463A14D5 (but it's at home so it'll take a day or two)
PGP EF0607F9 (but it's at uni so don't rely on it too much)

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> One of my co-workers has pointed out that the need for something as
> simple as a helper application for Netscape loses about 90% of his
> audience. By simply making it rather more difficult for people to
> chat about some things, governments can effectively push such things
> out of the way of all but the most determined readers.

	Ah, but consider what happens when Java (or Java-esque platform
independant executable content) really takes off.  

	Gee, your browser doesn't know how to view image/stego?
Just pull down https://foobaz.com/isView.class and off you go.  (Or your
browser will pull it down automagically for you and pay the author for 
it from your ewallet.  Or it could rent a copy from Blockbuster(tm)
Applets.  You get the idea :) Software will become less and less what your 
machine has and more what it has access to.

---
Fletch                                                     __`'/|
fletch@ain.bls.com  "Lisa, in this house we obey the       \ o.O'    ______
404 713-0414(w)      Laws of Thermodynamics!" H. Simpson   =(___)= -| Ack. |
404 315-7264(h) PGP Print: 8D8736A8FC59B2E6 8E675B341E378E43  U      ------