I got that previous e-mail that said: "there is a strong understanding
that in this field in particular and in life in general privacy is
essential." I think the daily experience of the choices users make on
the Internet contradicts this strong understanding. Privacy is one form
of currency that people freely trade for products, services,
information, and attention.
But as to your other point that unlawful activities may result from the
specification of network protocols, indeed they will and that's never
stopped me from creating new network protocols. In fact, criminal uptake
is often proof that the original design was sound as criminals tend to
be discriminating customers. (The criminal botnets currently in
operation are wonderful technical systems, BTW, which may lead to some
powerful systems for more beneficial purposes in the future.)
The problem I'm having with the emphasis on privacy in this context is
that it creates a false dichotomy. The goal of ALTO is simply to create
a system to improve the efficiency of P2P overlays and CDNs with respect
to ISP networks; it seeks to do so in a manner that's consistent with
preserving some reasonable degree of privacy, but in the tension between
function and privacy it's clear to me that function wins. As Nick and
others have pointed out, privacy in direct P2P swarms is an illusion in
any case as there are so many easy ways to map P2P swarms on the basis
of information no more obscure than the IP header.
So I don't see the value in reducing ALTO functionality in order to
preserve the illusion of privacy, and I'm even open to reducing real
privacy in order to increase capability should the question arise. But
that question hasn't really arisen, so it doesn't matter.
RB
Enrico Marocco wrote:
Richard, as already said (did you miss part of my email?), nobody is
suggesting to go break the law in foreign countries. The IETF charters
working groups to address very technical problems, conscious that
sometimes, somewhere, such technologies could have legal implications. I
suppose nobody disagrees that what the IETF has done in the security and
VoIP fields has been beneficial to a broad community, even if in some
parts of the world some of those technologies may be even considered
illegal.
Enrico
Richard Bennett wrote:
Not to be too flip about it, but It's not clear to me that helping
people break the law falls in the scope of the requirements for this
working group or of the IETF in general.
RB
Enrico Marocco wrote:
DePriest, Greg (NBC Universal) wrote:
"That's unacceptable for certain applications."
I'm confused: Can you provide a few examples of such applications?
Skype, in countries where VoIP (or some encryption algorithms, or
anything else skype does) is illegal. Of course nobody is suggesting to
go break laws in foreign countries, but there is a strong understanding
that in this field in particular and in life in general privacy is
essential.
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