Re: NYET and international data services

[Pierre Uszynski <pierre@shell.portal.com>]

Eric Hughes remarks:

> Even in the NYET proposal were implemented, it wouldn't accomplish
> it's own objectives.  [...] international data services,
> [...] would provide an end run around any attempt at censorship.

Right, clearly, and I would add national underground links that would
appear if such regulation was implemented. I'm always amazed when
people think for even one second that effectually
regulating an internet based on the existing protocols is possible.
In particular, the existing internet has enough redundancy and activists
to keep it going, legal hassles or not.

Unfortunately, what is just as clearly (to me :-) possible, is an ATTEMPT
at regulation, with its accompanying enforcement effort, no matter how
ludicrous. With this would come the same waste in good will, money,
lives, trust in the goverenment, and trust in fellow citizens that came
from the previous attempts at regulating alcohol, drugs, taxes and
intellectual property to cite only the most blatant examples.

If legal and corporate bullies make it difficult to run key servers in
the US, use the ones that run outside. Same for anonymous remailers. Same
for erotic or pornographic picture servers. Same for erotic texts,
the other way around from Canada or, say, Islamic countries: You can
run these with little hassle in the US (although it's certainly not
the best place to do so). The same thing for intellectual property laws:
not all countries have the same copyright, patent or trademark laws.
And if you are in France and want to run English language services,
do it from the US, or England, or Finland, or Germany, or ... :-(
And why would a networked bank stay in the US once the bugs are ironed
out, or even before that for that matter?  In fact, even US law
enforcement people are reported to be doing that currently from the
US, using foreign companies to collate data on US residents that they
are forbidden from collating in the US (sorry, reference not handy).

Recently, TV crews were shocked, simply shocked to discover that you
could access from the US "disgusting pictures" stored on a Danish
computer <shrug>.

Unfortunately for the US subscribers to this list, as things stand,
there are very few reasons to run any kind of internet businesses
from the US, apart from current physical location of the principals.
I predict many of the less employee-intensive ones will simply
emigrate.

I fully understand that it's easier to run the software from a local
site, with physical oversight, but you should balance the legal
hacking necessary with the programing hacking. Really, in many cases
a foreign site in a country where the activity is legal would mean
much fewer hassles, and added peace of mind (notwithstanding the
ironically similar tendencies of Israel, certain Islamic states, and
the US to want to prosecute foreigners for activities performed in
foreign countries...)

Give up on your reluctance with dealing with foreign countries, and
don't give yourselves more headaches than necessary.

> I have, in fact, considered putting up just such a service in
> Tiajuana, right across the border from San Diego.  I might even be
> able to use radio or laser links to cross the border, and not even
> deal with international telecom arrangements.  Someone wants a non-US
> web page?  I could sell them one.  They don't tell me their name, and
> I can't tell anyone else.  If someone is offended, they get to sue in
> Mexican court.

I'd encourage people who are aware of foreigner-friendly and privacy-
aware internet access systems, suitable for such legal or financial
arbitraging to post pointers to this list. They are relevant because
of the privacy aspects, the use for setting up key-servers, banks,
reputation systems, and whatnots, and the cryptographic aspects of
maintaining businesses through mostly remote access.

(French, US permanent resident... aaAAAaarrRRRrrggGGgghhHHhhhh ;-)
Pierre.
pierre@shell.portal.com