Re: Freedom and security

>You will pardon my asking this, but, security from what? Who are the
>evil Network Terrorists throwing Bit Bombs or whatever? The only
>security you need on the internet is keeping your site from being
>broken in to, which is mostly a matter of setting it up
>properly. What, exactly, is the "Security" that you are offering us?
>
>Perry

I am not offering "you" anything unless you have a problem and are looking
for some assistance.  Just because you feel safe / immune from becoming a
victim of internet crime does not mean that there are no victims at all.

Site security is not at all the only problem.  Are you not aware of spams
and scams going on all the time?  Are you not aware that sexual predators
operate in IRC? Or that child pornography is a world wide trading game?
Have you never heard of email forgeries or impersonation?  What about tthe
victims of harassment and hatred who don't know how to deal with it?  What
about all the people who have never heard of killfiles?  Who don't know how
to report a problem nor who to report it to?   Haven't you ever been mail
bombed and wished you could find out who did it?

Maybe you feel like a veterano and can afford to look condesendingly at all
the thousands of fresh-faced netizens just arriving online and say "well if
they can't take the heat they should stay out of the fire" - but if we are
to call ourselves an emerging "community" then we must take responsibility
for our city, and that means caring about other people's problems.

The internet is not just a collection of bits and bytes - it's real people
doing real things to each other.

When your address is forged and you get flamed and bombed, or if you start
receiving anonymous death threats, your freedom is under threat.  It's not
enough to say "Well I just turn off my monitor"

The Internet is a city - it needs 911 services and it needs Neighborhood
Watches.  And neither professional law enforcement nor neighborhood watch
are by definition a threat to anyone's freedom.  Freedom within the context
of Community does not and never has meant the freedom to kill your
neighbor, or rob someone, or rape someone, or harm someone.  In the context
of the internet Community too, freedom is not the individual's right to do
whatever he or she likes - because then the Community is no longer free.

Freedom is under threat from two directions - from selfish individuals who
care little for the Community, and from the over zealousness of governments
who seek greater and greater control over individual thought and action.

The first step is to acknowledge that we have a problem within the Internet
Community - because if we don't address it responsibly then we have only
ourselves to blame when the governments try to take it over.  We can face
our problems or we can deny that they exist.

By asking me the question: "What crime?" you are indicating to me that you
prefer denial.


*********************************************************
Colin Gabriel Hatcher - CyberAngels Director
angels@wavenet.com

"Two people may disagree, but
that does not mean that one of them is evil"

*********************************************************

Hello, everyone! I'm new list, and I like it already (after 1 day).  I
apologize in advance for the large amount of quoting I am about to
perform.

<FLAME ON!>

>  >You will pardon my asking this, but, security from what? Who are the
>  >evil Network Terrorists throwing Bit Bombs or whatever? The only
>  >security you need on the internet is keeping your site from being
>  >broken in to, which is mostly a matter of setting it up
>  >properly. What, exactly, is the "Security" that you are offering us?
>  >
>  >Perry
>
>  Maybe you feel like a veterano and can afford to look condesendingly at all
                         ^^^^^^^^
			What accent is that that you have?
>  the thousands of fresh-faced netizens just arriving online and say "well if
>  they can't take the heat they should stay out of the fire" - but if we are
>  to call ourselves an emerging "community" then we must take responsibility
>  for our city, and that means caring about other people's problems.

Oh!! So YOU'RE one of those people that actually wants computer
know-nothings on the net, huh?  I can think of few things that bother
me more.  When a "fresh-faced netizen" asks me where I think they
could get an internet account, I reply "What are you going to use it
for?".  They usually say "I don't know.".  I then try to explain ftp
and telnet to them and if they don't get it I tell them not to get an
account because they wouldn't get any use out of it.  If they really
want, I give them a place that has e-mail and is fairly cheap.  

The fact of the matter is that I don't want to share my bandwidth with
that type of person.  You can call me elitist if you want, and you'd
be right.  I liked the net more when no-one had heard of it except the
type of person who would understand what ftp was in a few seconds of
explanation. Or telnet, for that matter.

So, to respond to what you actually said, I never claim that the net
is an emerging community, because I'm afraid that people whom I don't
want on the net will hear me.  Besides, community is much too
non-anarchist for my taste anyways: the net is just a bunch of
information being tweaked by varios people and machines in ways that I
happen to (sometimes) find interesting.

>  The internet is not just a collection of bits and bytes - it's real people
>  doing real things to each other.

I'm sorry, but no.  If I come up to you in real life and hit you,
that's a real person doing a real thing to another real person.
Internet events are movement of information, and that is it.
Something that causes harm on the 'net only does so because that same
information would do so in real life, i.e. blackmail with the threats
issued by e-mail.  Mailing them IRL or slipping the note under the
door have the same effect, with the same response options: you ignore
it, you cave, or you call the police.  Same with death threats: you
can't kill someone over the net, you can only give them information
about you intentions.  When someone is actually IRL trying to kill you
that, as someone else mentioned, is the domain of the IRL police.

>  Freedom is under threat from two directions - from selfish individuals who
>  care little for the Community, and from the over zealousness of governments
>  who seek greater and greater control over individual thought and action.

Only the second one.  I have the freedom to read or not read any stuff
on the net.  If I'm being sent something I don't want to read, I can
usually figure this out within a line or two and delete it.  No one
individual can effect my net freedom (except my sysadmin, who can
revoke my account) using means that do not extend into RL.  Come to
think of it, even governments must extend their activities into RL to
enforce their internet restrictions, so they are not restricting the
'net per se, they are threatening real people with real things that
they will do to them if they do certain things on the internet.  This
is the equivalent of threatening to do something under law for any
other form of information dissemination (publishing slander, for
example). The real world is the real world, the net is the net, and
only in people's minds (and in the effects of computers themselves,
ie. turning on a sprinkler system) shall the twain meet.

>  *********************************************************
>  Colin Gabriel Hatcher - CyberAngels Director
>  angels@wavenet.com
>  
>  "Two people may disagree, but
>  that does not mean that one of them is evil"
>  
>  *********************************************************

<FLAME OFF>

Good argument style, BTW.  I just disagree with some of your founding
assumptions. 

-Robin

CyberAngels Director : Colin Gabriel Hatcher writes:
> >You will pardon my asking this, but, security from what? Who are the
> >evil Network Terrorists throwing Bit Bombs or whatever? The only
> >security you need on the internet is keeping your site from being
> >broken in to, which is mostly a matter of setting it up
> >properly. What, exactly, is the "Security" that you are offering us?
> 
> I am not offering "you" anything unless you have a problem and are looking
> for some assistance.  Just because you feel safe / immune from becoming a
> victim of internet crime does not mean that there are no victims at all.
> 
> Site security is not at all the only problem.  Are you not aware of spams
> and scams going on all the time?  Are you not aware that sexual predators
> operate in IRC?

I was under the impression that sex involved physical presense. Are
you telling me that there are people out there somehow getting the
inanimate computers of people on the other side of the net to reach
out and rape the people sitting in front of them?

> Or that child pornography is a world wide trading game?

I must admit to having an odd viewpoint. I don't particularly care
about child pornography. Our nation seems to have an obsession with
the notion that somewhere out there someone is looking at a picture of
a naked boy or something. Myself, well, I am far from convinced that
the existance of child pornography is nearly as much of a threat to me
as the people who want to dismantle all our freedoms in order to stop
it. Most of the child pornography in the U.S. is distributed by the
FBI during stings, you know.

> Have you never heard of email forgeries or impersonation?

Yes. I also happen to have heard that people can impersonate you in
real life, too.

> What about tthe victims of harassment and hatred who don't know how
> to deal with it?  What about all the people who have never heard of
> killfiles?

I suppose they will have to learn, won't they?

You realize that you are being extremely unconvincing?

> Maybe you feel like a veterano and can afford to look condesendingly at all
> the thousands of fresh-faced netizens just arriving online and say "well if
> they can't take the heat they should stay out of the fire" - but if we are
> to call ourselves an emerging "community" then we must take responsibility
> for our city, and that means caring about other people's problems.

And thats where CyberAngels, founded by Curtis Sliwa, the man who had
himself attacked to get publicity, comes in?

Feh.

> When your address is forged and you get flamed and bombed, or if you start
> receiving anonymous death threats, your freedom is under threat.  It's not
> enough to say "Well I just turn off my monitor"

I've had my address forged. I've been flamed. I've been
mailbombed. I've been sent anonymous death threats. I must admit that
I largely ignored all these things, and that at no time did I feel my
freedom was being threatened nearly as much by these events as it was
by Senator Exon.

> The Internet is a city - it needs 911 services and it needs Neighborhood
> Watches.

The internet isn't a city. I live in a city -- a real city. I believe
that if I feel that I'm the subject of a serious death threat, there
is an actual 911 on my real life telephone to dial and talk to the
real life police in my real life city. Thanks, but no thanks.

> And neither professional law enforcement nor neighborhood watch
> are by definition a threat to anyone's freedom.

No, but supporting censorship is.

> By asking me the question: "What crime?" you are indicating to me that you
> prefer denial.

Or, perhaps, that I'm not impressed by opportunistic newcomers with
strongly anti-libertarian viewpoints.

Perry

On Tue, 30 Apr 1996, Perry E. Metzger wrote:

> Mr. Hatcher wrote:

> > Or that child pornography is a world wide trading game?
> 
> I must admit to having an odd viewpoint. I don't particularly care
> about child pornography. Our nation seems to have an obsession with
> the notion that somewhere out there someone is looking at a picture of
> a naked boy or something. Myself, well, I am far from convinced that
> the existance of child pornography is nearly as much of a threat to me
> as the people who want to dismantle all our freedoms in order to stop
> it. Most of the child pornography in the U.S. is distributed by the
> FBI during stings, you know.

>From what I can tell, your viewpoint is hardly odd.  I find child
pornography distasteful in a vague and general way, but I am otherwise
farily indifferent.

This pattern that Mr. Hatcher is showing, demonize an act then show shock
when no one else responds to the propaganda; followup by demonizing those
not shocked by the demonized act, is a fairly classic tactic.  See
e.g., Atwood, Orwell, Cambodia.

> > Have you never heard of email forgeries or impersonation?
> 
> Yes. I also happen to have heard that people can impersonate you in
> real life, too.
> 
> > What about tthe victims of harassment and hatred who don't know how
> > to deal with it?  What about all the people who have never heard of
> > killfiles?
> 
> I suppose they will have to learn, won't they?

But Mr. Metzger, that requires _effort_ and decision making.  We must save
the people from _effort_ and decision making because only _we_ the elite, 
know what is good for them.

> > Maybe you feel like a veterano and can afford to look condesendingly at all
> > the thousands of fresh-faced netizens just arriving online and say "well if
> > they can't take the heat they should stay out of the fire" - but if we are
> > to call ourselves an emerging "community" then we must take responsibility
> > for our city, and that means caring about other people's problems.

You mean telling other people the only way to solve their problems as if
they are unable to do so themselves, or as if other solutions having
nothing to do with yours do not exist.

By the way, who said we want to call ourselves an emerging 'community' ?

> > When your address is forged and you get flamed and bombed, or if you start
> > receiving anonymous death threats, your freedom is under threat.  It's not
> > enough to say "Well I just turn off my monitor"

Readers will note a familiar tactic.  "Parade of horrors."  The advocate
will pass a series of examples intended to shock and frighten the reader
into accepting the next convenient solution to these problems, which is
coincidently provided by the advocate.

Readers who have any kind of tie to the real world will note that all
these horrors aren't even particularly disturbing and that this betrays
poor advocacy skills.

---
My preferred and soon to be permanent e-mail address:unicorn@schloss.li
"In fact, had Bancroft not existed,       potestas scientiae in usu est
Franklin might have had to invent him."    in nihilum nil posse reverti
00B9289C28DC0E55  E16D5378B81E1C96 - Finger for Current Key Information
Opp. Counsel: For all your expert testimony needs: jimbell@pacifier.com

Excerpts from internet.cypherpunks: 1-May-96 Re: Freedom and security 
by Black Unicorn@schloss.li 
>  
> Readers will note a familiar tactic.  "Parade of horrors."  The advocate
> will pass a series of examples intended to shock and frighten the reader
> into accepting the next convenient solution to these problems, which is
> coincidently provided by the advocate.

The parade of horrors, aka the four (or more) horsemen of the
infocalypse, is a common fear tactic used by those who would to restrict
our liberties. The family values groups employed this to great effect
during the CDA debate.

And as Jim Ray noted, talk is cheap. While the CyberAngels may claim to
be against the CDA, the cynic in me says they have to be against it --
even fewer people would take them seriously if they were for it.

But I don't recall them doing any _campaiging_ against it.

In fact, riding in on those horsemen is a central part of their
strategy. After all, if pedophiles/terrorists/child pornographers didn't
exist, no need for the CyberAngels, hmm?

-Declan

PS: Eric Freedman of Hofstra Law School has a wonderful article in an
upcoming Iowa Law Review about the death of the "obscenity" standard. I
think a similar argument can be applied to child porn.