Re: Crime and punishment in cyberspace - 3 of 3

[Blanc Weber <blancw@microsoft.com>]

From: Timothy C. May

" . . .I don't think in terms of "rights," but in terms of avoidance.
	. . . . .
* If I suspect someone is plotting against me--perhaps I suspect my
neighbor across the street is preparing to torch my house--I'd have
no problem placing microphones so as to hear him. Or bugging a
girlfriend I suspected of planning to kill me for my money."

	If your neighbor or girl"friend" were plotting against you using 
email, they could avoid your spying using PGP and anonymous remailers.	

"So, do we argue for "rights" of privacy? Or do we monkeywrench such
technologies? Or do we develop tools and systems to protect our own
privacy as best we can?"

You could argue and and still not be understood or agreed with.   The 
concept of "rights" is really only meaningful in the context of a group 
of people, a society which has agreed to band together for some 
purpose.  But since it can't be guaranteed that anyone would be 
educated on the matter of observing the delineated rights, or that 
having been educated they would respect them and observe limits upon 
themselves in regard of these rights, it would be unwise to desist from 
the development of the tools and systems for self-protection.   I can't 
see where any anarcho-type, or any rational person, would give up the 
liberty to be creative in developing the ideas which one could get for 
the design of tools & systems per se, some of which could be applied to 
privacy or personal safety  (although there could be objections to 
making them commercially available).

Blanc