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Re: Freedom and security
On Tue, 30 Apr 1996, CyberAngels Director : Colin Gabriel Hatcher wrote:
> Nor does freedom increase through less laws or no laws. Freedom increases
> as respect and care for one another increases.
Respect maybe, but care? Please.
> Meanwhile, since we do not
> live in utopia, all societies at a certain level of economic development
> and of a certain size of population require law and law enforcement to
> protect citizens from predators.
I disagree. Law enforcement is only required to the extent the individual
is unable to protect him or herself from "predators."
Assuming that a certain level of economic development makes this
impossible or difficult is, in my view, a long jump.
> The Internet is beyond the stage of small communities exercising informal
> social controls (peer pressure). It's now a major industrial city and will
> develop law, law enforcement and government, whether anyone likes it or
> not, not least because the Community will always respond to crime by trying
> to protect itself.
What you fail to recognize is that the individual is much more empowered
on the internet than in other communities. Looking at the internet as a
community is a misnomer. It is a community only to the extent people
engage themselves in it.
You have to live somewhere on the planet. You can't simply unplug from
the real world. Participation in a community is mandatory in the real
world. Not so with 'cyberspace.'
> And the crime is already here. The idea that the
> Internet is not controlled is IMHO one of the biggest myths around. It's
> like a large group of people are still living in some far-off utopian rural
> paradise. Does anyone really doubt the extent of State control and power
> across the Net?
Yes.
Louis Freeh for one. Bill Clinton as another. Senator Exon as a third.
Shall I go on?
> My point is that this is inevitable.
My point is that I believe you are incorrect.
> The Internet is a
> mirror of the rest of the world, not a new form of society, and I fail to
> understand why anyone should be surprised that that is the case.
Mostly because many of us don't believe it's true. While I will agree
that one sees similarities between socializations on the internet and the
real world, making the leap to a "mirror image" is pushing it.
> >.... laws only breed more laws, which always lead to
> >less freedom.
>
> I disagree with this statement. I do not believe that laws breed more laws
> nor that laws lead to less freedom. I believe bad laws compromise freedom
> (eg CDA) while good laws protect freedom.
Show me a good law that doesn't reduce freedom. Give me one example
please.
> >>I don't believe that security is the enemy of
> >>freedom. I believe that freedom needs security in order to exist at all.
> >
> >Good. Join us in spreading cryptography around, and security will
> >bloom (along with freedom).
>
> Cryptography enhances and protects privacy, which does not inevitably lead
> to greater security.
Your failure to connect privacy with individual security does not commend
your argument to the reader.
> Security for the sender, yes, in that no one else can
> read the message, but security for the Community? Doesnt that depend what
> the message said?
Since when has community security required censorship? What you are
proposing are content based restrictions justified by the 'need' for
'community security' where the definition of 'community' is so vague as to
be meaningless and the meaning for 'security' is entirely undefined.
One might as well say: We have to protect the hummahrmm from the hurmmms
in your message. We're going to pass some laws to do it.
> The technology itself is neutral. Child pornographers
> encrypt their hard drives so that law enforcement cannot gather crime
> evidence - that is certainly a state of greater security for the
> pornographer, but it does not improve our Community,
Well, that depends, again, on what your community is defined as, what you
mean by improve, the assumption that child pornography is detremental to
the community, the assumption that child pornography is a crime and the
assumption that law enforcement is really interested in reducing crime.
> and as child
> pornography increases, the law is by definition broken more and more,
Uh... so?
If I pass a law forbidding nudity at all, including in private, as
showering increases the law is by definition broken more and more and so
the community becomes less free than before. Now, this is the fault of
the showerers, isn't it?
This is basically what you say here:
> and
> so the Community becomes less free than before. And that's not the tyranny
> of government but the tryanny of criminals.
This is classic left-speak. It's not the government that has taken away
rights by passing laws that take away rights, but it's the fault of the
criminals (who are ill,mal, or undefined). Blame _them_ for your loss of
liberty.
Uh huh.
This is poor rationalization and after the fact justification.
> I do in fact support cryptography for personal security, not least because
> I can ensure that my messages are authenticated. CyberAngels PGP public
> key will be up on our new website opening very soon. I've had enough of
> people forging my email.
You disprove your own point. You just struck a blow to 'criminal' mail
forgers without the help of law enforcement at all. In fact it is despite
attempts to prevent you from using strong cryptography by legislators and
the executive that you can accomplish this. Can you also see that your
'community' is improved by the presence of this technology which deters
criminal mail forgers? And, imagine that, it was done without the
expenditure of tax dollars.
Or do I have to spell this out for you?
> *********************************************************
> Colin Gabriel Hatcher - CyberAngels Director
> [email protected]
>
> "Two people may disagree, but
> that does not mean that one of them is evil"
It does, however, typically mean that at least one of them is wrong.
> *********************************************************
---
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