Re: Libel/slander & crypto relevancy (fwd)

[Jim Choate <ravage@einstein.ssz.com>]

Forwarded message:

> Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 01:28:19 -0800
> From: Greg Broiles <gbroiles@netbox.com>
> Subject: Re: Libel/slander & crypto relevancy
> 
> Civil actions against people doing "graffiti" are only interesting where
> the defendant has assets worth suing for. This economic dimension
> substantially limits the number of suits which will be brought.

Thank you for agreeing with my thesis that the legal industry is one
driven by monetary gain and not justice. It is the one major problem
with law today, it ignores those who are not 'worth it'. Justice is
supposed to be blind and until that happens there can be no true
liberty. Law should be involved in rights and wrongs and not 'how much
money do I need to buy that villa in Spain'.

There is also the aspect of 'reputation' of the organization which was
defamed. This will become even more critical to good business over the
Internet in the future than it is now. Now the only really important
'reputation' that one has to worry about is their credit report. Since
it is very unlikely that such records will be made public in the future
they won't be available so some other 'reputation' verification process
will be required for parties interested in doing business with other
parties they have no information on other than an email address or a
webpage. This problem became very clear during the Austin Cypherpunks
remailer project last year. The goal was to create a economicaly viable
keyserver. The problem rapidly became one of trust and reputation and
there was and still is no clear cut methodology for dealing with these
concepts, let alone actualy trying to quantify them. Another aspect of this
that keeps coming up is one of 'big' corporations with 'lots' of money,
this monotonicity in legal thought is the reason I refer to the 'legal
industry' and not 'legal profession'. Currently the main force driving
law is how much money is available. Expansions of liberty simply can't
happen in this environment because there is no mechanism to protect
'little' organizations or persons without 'lots' of cash. This problem is
one that is not being addressed by anyone, most especialy lawyers who
will loose income which they aren't apt to do voluntarily.

> Criminal prosecutions for defamation (in the case of "graffiti") are still
> unlikely - a much more straightforward charge would be unauthorized access
> to a computer or some flavor of fraud, depending on the facts.

This would be hard to do in the situation such as a mailing list because
the parties would have 'authorized access' and it does not include the issue
of inside parties nor 'web bbs's' where parties can enter comments and
other statements in a 'authorized' manner. There are mechanisms to use 
computers for abuse of other parties besides hacking.

> Confusion
> aids defendants, so I predict prosecutors will avoid defamation law (and
> its tar pits of actual malice and the defense of truth) when they are able
> to do so and still have a reasonable chance of conviction.
> 
> >If they don't
> >understand the technology (eg forwarding private email to publicly
> >accessible lists by accident) how in the world are they going to understand
> >what is best, let along convince anyone else?
> 
> There's a world of difference between understanding technology and screwing
> up once in awhile.

Absolutely. However, if there is not a fundamental understanding of the
technology and its ramifications I certainly wouldn't want somebody making
a case on my behalf because they would make assumptions which were not
based in fact. In Toto's case the point I was refering to was not his
sending private practice related material to a publicly accessible list
(pretty reprehensible for my attorney accident or not) but rather his
unsolicited admission that he didn't have any idea how it works. THAT
would worry me if my liberty, possessions, or life were on the line.

> I was that "party", and I guess that in trying to be civil I was actually
> unclear. If you were a politically important person or organization, and if
> Toto's message had caused you real damage, and if Toto were reasonably
> available to prosecute, a prosecutor might get interested. But you're not
> important, Toto would be difficult to extradite, and you weren't harmed. So
> you picked a crappy example to make your point(s) with. Change the facts,
> and you'll get a different answer. Duh.

Actualy it is the PERFECT example of what is wrong with the law, it is the
reason that I went to such extremes to force the situation. If the law
can't protect Ma. and Pa. Kettle (their poor, being share croppers) under
our 'democracy' it shure can't proctect them under a more 'liberalized'
democracy which so many want and the technology will force. If the
coming technocracy can't (or for monetary reasons won't) then it won't
be any different that what we have now. A tyrant is a tyrant, my goal
is to get rid of the cage and not to put a new layer of gilt on it.

> You picked a hypothetical which did a poor job of illustrating the points
> you're making in this later message. Do you want to talk about whether or
> not Toto is criminally liable for making fun of you while making a point
> about ownership of networks and its relationship to freedom of speech, or
> do you want to talk about the more general case of liability for
> misattribution? If it's the latter, yes, there are some issues there, but I
> still think that defamation law is a poor way to address them. You seem to
> be having an "I've got a hammer, everything looks like a nail" problem. 

The point is not whether Toto did or did not make fun of me, you seem to
have a prediliction for personal attacks. It ain't.

The point is that if joe-six-pack isn't secure in knowing that his views
and expression are not protected from abuse he won't use it. We all loose
in that case.

> And all of this seems a bit contrived if the real crypto-relevant point is
> "use digital signatures to avoid misattribution". 

You missed the point, keep pondering. I am shure it will come to you.

> Despite your closing, I haven't seen you write anything about "how it
> should be", 

Because I don't know how it should be, and it isn't my place or yours to
make that decision. It is our responsibility to discuss this issue and
to review the various solutions and what they will mean in the long run
(as near as we can make the future out that is).

In this example, if party A makes a statement and then B changes it and
then re-distributes it as original comments by A then there is a problem
irrespective of the monetary worth of A or B. Digital signatures in and of
themselves won't help this from happening unless it is required to include
the full text and signature of any quote in any subsequent use of that
material otherwise the quote and the digital signature are out of sync and
therefore worthless.


                                                 Jim Choate
                                                 CyberTects
                                                 ravage@ssz.com