Re: Los Angeles Times article on Helsingius and anon.penet.fi

John Gilmore wrote:

> PS: I would counsel against the kind of false anonymity provided by
> the Finnish server, though.  Providing information under the promise
> that it will "never be revealed or misused" is a lot more dangerous
> than never providing it at all.  E.g. "Anonymous cash" that is really
> based on dossiers or account-numbers isn't anonymous at all.  Even
> physical cash is getting easier to trace; the British government has
> been tracking money by serial numbers for years, with custom machines
> in the banks, to de-anonymize Irish freedom-fighters (oops, I mean
> terrorists).  Anonymity is another area, like privacy, where changes
> from technology can make big social differences.


There is a massive difference between anonymous speech and anonymous
transactions. Anonymous speech can create problems (defamation etc.)
but in the main these are not problems the courts are particularly
good at dealing with. In the UK the libel laws are not so much a redress
for legitimate grievance than a way for a senior Tory to obtain a nice
lump sum towards his pension if he should happen to be filmed handing
over 5000 quid in a breifcase to a prostitute he'd never met.

The "problems" encountered by the Church of Scientology demonstrate that
the court process itself can be imeasurably more harmfull than any
imagined grievance. Should society have laws to protect trades secrets?
Probably , but not to protect the likes of the CoS. If the Internet
makes such laws difficult to enforce then we should return to the
original concerns that prompted society to create the laws in the first
place and see if the Internet provides better was of achieving the same
result.

Anonymous transactions are a rather different matter. It is more
difficult to argue for anonymity. The extreeme examples of Chaumian cash
create considerable difficulties such as making a perfect conduit for
ransom proceeds and the profits of drug trafficing. Simply ignoring
these problems will result in the proponents of anonymity simply being
ignored.

The principle fear of the authorities appears to be terrorist rather
than normal criminal activities. Terrorism is no longer limited to far
off irredentist struggles that ex-patriates can harbour romantic
thoughts about. The reality the the IRA is an organisation that murders
children by placing a bomb in a rubbish bin outside a MacDonalds has
been brought home to the suporters of Noraid through the bombings of the
World Trade Center, Oaklahoma and Atlanta. If one lives in a country
where there is little terrorism it is easy to imagine that people driven
to extreeme actions are driven by a extreeme situation. If one is faced
with the reality of terrorism one soon reaches the conclusion that its
perpetrators are simply ordinary psychopaths.

Having stated that terrorism is an important concern for the state it is
necessary to ask whether it is necessary to restrict freedom to combat
terrorism. In answering one must bear in mind that a central part of
most terrorist strategies is to force the state to respond with
disproportionate measures (here recent events in Chetchnya indicate that
Trotsky was not widely read in the USSR). 

Absolutely anonymous cash may create problems, but what if it were
possible to generate small quantities of "marked bills" within an
otherwise anonymous system. If the circumstances under which the marked
bills could be distributed were limited to a small set of tightly
controlled circumstances the legitimate need of the government to oppose
terrorism and organised crime could be met without imposing a Singapore
style system with total monitoring.

In effect what is taking place is a negotiation between two groups, the
government and civil rights activists. If one side refuses to consider
the needs of the other they will be marginalised. Absolutism in politics
is usually a bad thing. Politics usually works through compromises. The
art being to ensure that one compromises the inessential terms in order
to defend the key items.

In the present Presidential race the one policy area in which Clinton is
potentially vulnerable is privacy. Its the one area which the
Republicans could raise and claim it as their own (whether justifiable
or not). The Clinton camp could not move from their current position
without dropping Freeh overboard, since Freeh has run the FBI without
any Ruby ridge or Waco style cockups on his watch I don't think that is
likely to happen. If privacy is raised as a policy concern in this
election it will reoccur in the next and both parties will have to
justify their policies in terms of personal privacy as well as
everything else.

Just because the election is practically settled does not mean that the
campaign will not affect what happens during the administration. Clinton
clearly wants Gore to be his successor and is going to want to make it
as easy as possible for him to win. Clinton is the kind of politician I
can trust - give him an issue and I trust him to look at the opinion
polls. If Dole makes any kind of headway in '96 with a privacy plank
then Gore will have to have one in 2000.


		Phill

On Sat, 7 Sep 1996, Hallam-Baker wrote:

> There is a massive difference between anonymous speech and anonymous
> transactions. Anonymous speech can create problems (defamation etc.)
> but in the main these are not problems the courts are particularly
> good at dealing with.

Perhaps, but defamation is an issue that can't be ignored either,
especially if one tries to build systems based on reputation.

Enzo

Enzo Michelangeli wrote:
> 
> On Sat, 7 Sep 1996, Hallam-Baker wrote:
> 
> > There is a massive difference between anonymous speech and anonymous
> > transactions. Anonymous speech can create problems (defamation etc.)
> > but in the main these are not problems the courts are particularly
> > good at dealing with.
> 
> Perhaps, but defamation is an issue that can't be ignored either,
> especially if one tries to build systems based on reputation.

It _is_ an issue that can be ignored - if the "defamer" backs up his
claims, then fine, the claims can be shown to be valid, otherwise ignore
those claims.  Simple.

Gary
--
"Of course the US Constitution isn't perfect; but it's a lot better
than what we have now."  -- Unknown.

pub  1024/C001D00D 1996/01/22  Gary Howland <gary@systemics.com>
Key fingerprint =  0C FB 60 61 4D 3B 24 7D  1C 89 1D BE 1F EE 09 06

On Mon, 9 Sep 1996, Gary Howland wrote:

> Enzo Michelangeli wrote:
>
> > Perhaps, but defamation is an issue that can't be ignored either,
> > especially if one tries to build systems based on reputation.
> 
> It _is_ an issue that can be ignored - if the "defamer" backs up his
> claims, then fine, the claims can be shown to be valid, otherwise ignore
> those claims.  Simple.

I and you may well choose to do so, but the vast majority of the human
beings believe just anything that is repeated loud and long enough.
Otherwise, nobody would hire PR and pay for advertisement, politicians
wouln't be fedwith taxpayer's money, Bosnians would trade goods instead
of gunshots, etc. I'm personally not interested in conjuring up the latest
utopia for a minoritarian sect of illuminati: I need to live in the real
world, and push for viable solutions that change it for better, now.

Enzo

>I and you may well choose to do so, but the vast majority of the human
>beings believe just anything that is repeated loud and long enough.
>Otherwise, nobody would hire PR and pay for advertisement, politicians
>wouln't be fedwith taxpayer's money, Bosnians would trade goods instead
>of gunshots, etc. I'm personally not interested in conjuring up the latest
>utopia for a minoritarian sect of illuminati: I need to live in the real
>world, and push for viable solutions that change it for better, now.

The question is not whether defamation is a problem but whether the
courts make the problem better or worse. I think that any analysis
of the behaviour of the scientologists would indicate that the courts
make the problem worse. Similarly the English libel laws have been used
by a long line of crooks and swindlers to extort money. Robert Maxwell
being an extreeme example.

The thing about the Internet is that it is possible to make a reply.

This does not help of course in the example cited, but I don't think
that the Mutlu/Serdar flamebot could have been dealt with through
the court system. (For those of you who don;t know, a poster calling
himself first Hasan B Mutlu, then Serdar Argic used to make insulting
responses to anyone who made a USEnet post about the middle east. Mutlu
was in fact a perl script run by an agent of the Turkish intelligence
services, the objective being to discredit all mention of the Turkish
massacre of the Armenians through use of counter propaganda. Mutlu
dissapeared from the net at the same time that the sysop of the system 
he was posting from was deported for overstaying his visa.


		Phill

In <Pine.WNT.3.94.960908100847.-490199B-100000@enzohome.ima.com>, on 09/08/96 at 10:14 AM,
   Enzo Michelangeli <enzo@ima.com> said:

>On Sat, 7 Sep 1996, Hallam-Baker wrote:

>> There is a massive difference between anonymous speech and anonymous
>> transactions. Anonymous speech can create problems (defamation etc.)
>> but in the main these are not problems the courts are particularly
>> good at dealing with.

>Perhaps, but defamation is an issue that can't be ignored either,
>especially if one tries to build systems based on reputation.

Actually it can. :)

There are already checks and balances in dealing with defamation. Take the following example:

I post a message stating that Phil Zimmerman is a @#$! and that PGP is full of holes.

The immediate responce I would receive from the group would be some rather nasty flames, a couple of questions, most would ignore. Because Phil has a much greater reputation than I do such a blatant defamation would do my reputation much harm while doing his little or no harm. It may actually improve his reputation by the many follow up posting re-affirming his good reputation and his quality product. The only way I could get away with such a message would be to back it up with some strong proof
and the support of others with equal or greater reputation as Phil.

Now if I anonymously post the same message.

The results would be the same as above only no one but the truly "net clueless" would pay any attention to the message. It would be seen as a "troll" and be dealt with accordingly. Once again no damage has been done to Phil's reputation.

Now where things get intrusting is when the rolls are reversed.

Say Phil posts a message that I am a @#$@%!!! and my product is full of holes and that I am realy a NSA stooge.

Many at first would take Phil's word at face value because his reputation is much better than mine. It is only my fault that my reputation is not equal or greater than his. Because of this I now have two choices, I can stay and fight for the harts and minds of the group or I can pack up my toys and go home.

Say I decide to fight. After much work, & many messages I prove that Phil's statements are untrue & manage to convert the group to my side. My reputation has now been greatly inhanced and Phil's reputation has suffered.

In the current system if one repetitively post slander to a group his reputation will be distroyed beyond all repair. There is a genuine disincentive against slander in a system built on reputation. No additional "forces" are needed. The addition of libel laws would actually hurt such a system. The threat of a libel suite could be used to inhibit debate on a topic or questioning of ones reputation. 
 

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