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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2003 12:42:30 EST
Subject: Re: [Politech] Economist, Lessig want to preserve freedom by ending anonymity [fs][priv]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
In a message dated 12/3/03 9:14:48 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] quotes:
<< The issue boils down to the question of how much anonymity society can tolerate on the internet. Drivers' licences and registration plates dramatically reduce the incidence of hit-and-run accidents. Crack cocaine is never bought by credit card. If everybody on the internet were easily traceable, people would think twice about hacking. "I'm kind of a fan of eliminating anonymity," says Alan Nugent, the chief technologist at Novell, a software company, "if that is the price for security." >>
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." � Benjamin Franklin, 1755 Mark Kernes, AVN
"I have a solution for Mrs. [Jocelyn] Elders. I mean, if she wants to
legalize drugs, send the people who want to do drugs to London and Zurich and let's
be rid of them." � Rush Limbaugh, 12/9/93
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Subject: Re: [Politech] Economist, Lessig want to preserve freedom by
ending anonymity [fs][priv]
From: Alan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Declan McCullagh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2003 16:36:12 -0800
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bitThe only reason to remove anonymous communication is so that you can punish people.
If there is no anonymity then people will also think twice about complaining about government waste, corrupt governments or officials, or even things that have nothing to do with politics.
Think of the blackmail potential!
Every dirty little secret can be exposed and used against you.
Every naughty web site. Every off the side tryst. Every interest that could cause strife in your life.
This would have been J. Edgar Hoover's wet dream. I am sure it is Ashcroft's wet dream. (If he has not had his genitals laminated shut already.)
It will make the net more like the giant Disney controlled shopping network that some people seem to want.
I thought Lesig had better sense than this. I guess not.
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Cc: Declan McCullagh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From: Aaron Swartz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [Politech] Economist, Lessig want to preserve freedom by ending anonymity [fs][priv]
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2003 18:26:51 -0600
To: Lawrence Lessig <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To preserve freedom further, suggests Mr Lessig, anonymity could be replaced by [warrant-traceable] pseudonymity.
Can you explain this? The Economist article seemed to be total nonsense, but I'm surprised they paraphrase you as saying something like this. In general, for eliminating anonymity to make sense you need to answer three questions:
1. Is anonymity the problem? Between DMCA subpoenas and national security letters, it seems that very few people on the Internet have even limited anonymity.
2. Will the people who are anonymous evade things? The people who _are_ anonymous, of course, are people like crackers. If you outlaw anonymity, crackers will likely find security holes that let them hide their identity and pass their actions off as those of others (e.g. using the WiFi network of some squeaky-clean grandma to launch the attacks).
3. Is it worth the cost? Even if you can answer the above questions, it'll be difficult to do without knocking large groups of people off the Internet. (If the digital divide is bad now, imagine what it'll be like when you need a credit card to get on the Net.)
Were you misquoted? If not, can you answer these questions? Or is this more blind optimism?
--
Aaron Swartz: http://www.aaronsw.com/
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