DejaNews and Alta Vista Search Tools, and Privacy Implications

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

(Side note: I seem to have returned from my holiday away from this area and
away from computers to a war zone, with multiple flames and threats of
legal action. Being a part of the Cypherpunks group, and potentially part
of the "criminal conspiracy" to defame, am I included in the lawsuits? I
wonder.)

Anyway, a point of clarification of a point, lest there be the belief that
_all_ Cypherpunks are opposed to comprehensive Web search tools:


At 8:46 PM 12/23/95, Steven L. Baur wrote:

>Furthermore, no one has mentioned the positive changes made to
                                       ^^^^^^^^?
>Dejanews since it got bashed thoroughly on this list a few weeks ago.
>They've significantly turned down the amount of old information
>indexed, and have restricted the groups (and mailing lists) they
>archive.

I for one don't consider this to be a positive development. Reducing the
time horizon for searches has no real effect on the compilation of dossiers
(for example), but certainly makes DejaNews less useful. (And I'd be
willing to bet that the time horizon was scrunched down for space and time
reasons, not for reasons of privacy; the horizon will likely _increase_ as
users ask for, and perhaps are willing to pay a bit for, longer time
horizons.)

And I don't believe the dominant thinking of folks who commented was that
DejaNews was worthy of "bashing." In fact, I found it all very interesting,
and a confirmation of what many of us expected would soon happen, i.e.,
fast access to past comments.

I think I and several others commented on the major implications for
privacy, especially vis-a-vis the way corporations will be able to see
compilations of postings to "outrageous" groups. Indeed, I know of some
people hiring programmers who are already using such tools to get a better
understanding of whom they may be hiring, or not. But my comments were not
in the vein of "something has to be done," but of recognition that a Brave
New World is fast unfolding.

Thinking that one is "safe" because a particular search service is not
including all the groups or mailing lists it _could_ include is illusory
(one is reminded of ostriches....). The same thinking happened several
years ago when a great hue and cry in the media caused Lotus to abandon
plans to sell a CD-ROM to individuals with publically available census and
other data on it about neighborhoods, phone numbers, etc. Inasmuch as the
non-individual entities (corporations, mass mailers, courts, law
enforcement, etc.) already have full access to such databases, all the hue
and cry really accomplished was to give individuals a false sense of
security and privacy. A triumph of feelgood style over substance.

Real privacy and security comes from steps taken to make the information
private in the first place, not to ex post facto limit access.

(I am not claiming that Steven Bauer or anyone else on our list is calling
for laws to limit Web search engines, just giving my views about this. As a
matter of fact, however, I am hearing rumblings in other places that "there
ought to be a law" about these archives, indexes/indices, etc. Same old
story. Kind of hard to enforce such laws when the indexes are in Holland,
or Byelorussia, or "somewhere in cyberspace." )

Face it, every single word written by any of us to any Usenet newsgroup,
going back to the beginning of Usenet, and expanding out to many
ostensibly-private mailing lists, will fairly soon be searchable. (Add some
digital cash and proxy/remailer features, and someone will be incentivized
to put some really big arrays of optical disks up for searching. And if the
U.S. tries to "regulate" such searches....well, I'm preaching to the choir
here....)

--Tim May

Views here are not the views of my Internet Service Provider or Government.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
Corralitos, CA              | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^756839      | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."