Re: Feasibility of censoring and jamming pronography and racism in informatics

[Jim Ray <jmr@shopmiami.com>]

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At 09:54 PM 8/29/97 +0200, Ulf M�ller wrote about:
>A European parliament study evaluating `Feasibility of censoring and
>jamming pronography and racism in informatics':
...

>7.1.2 It is concluded that available technology does no and is
>      not likely to provide any satisfactory means for
>      automatically classifying such material. Such judgements
>      will therefore have to be made by humans.

The perfect kind? (One wonders what sort of humans would be drawn
to such a job, and which humans will choose or be forced to pay
them?)

...
>      - it can not be absolutely guaranteed that Internet
>        anonymity services can not be used to frustrate
>	detection of offenders in certain circumstances.

Ahh, the double-negatives of understatement.

...
>7.2.9 It is concluded that only implementation of the most
>      intrusive surveillance technology could be exspected to
>      impact heavily upon abuse of the Internet on committed
>      offenders (because of their ready access to strong
>      encryption and covert communication technologies). To
>      enable this policy scenario, it would be necessary for
>      access providers to constrain the equipment used by
>      subscribers to access the Internet to be such that:
>
>      - no content could be removed;
>
>      - all content and processing could be subject to
>        automatic and manual surveillance.

Achtung, information-Juden!

>7.2.10 The technical and economic feasibility of the necessary
>      technology is evidenced by the emergence, with purely
>      commercial motivations, of technical systems which privde
>      the basic facilities required to implement the necessary
>      measures. It is notes that this coincidental emergence of
>      such systems may raise siginificant privacy issues
>      outside of the scope of this study. The economics of
>      manual surveillance, however, can not be assessed.

How 'bout "tax-and-spend"? That's an assessment.

...
>      Detecting offenders
>      
>7.2.13 If access providers and service providers maintain
>      proper subscriber authentication systems and system
>      management environments, offending actions at the site to
>      which the subscriber authenticates can be traced to the
>      offender. Detection of offenders committing offences 'at
>      a distance' (ie a subscriber in a country committing an
>      offence in another), however, would require:
>
>      - access and service providers to take steps to ensure
>        subscriber identity information is carried in their
>	transmissions;
>
>      - monitoring of services provided on the Internet to
>        prevent subscribers misusing anonymity services to
>	remove such information.

This kind of monitoring, were it actually possible to implement,
would mean the effective end of anonymity services. Thankfully,
it is presently merely a statist pipe dream.

>7.2.14 Whilst a variety of means exist to attach identity
>      information, detection of anonymity services is not
>      straightforward. However, monitoring such services would
>      be exspected to limit the number available for overt, eg
>      to transmit offensive material to innocent parties,
>      offensive use.

Translation: "Shut as many of 'em down as possible."

>7.2.15 Legally, handling offences detected through voluntary
>      authentication would be relatively straightforward as the
>      offending subscriber would be resident in the country
>      where the offence was committed. However, offences can
>      only be detected through forced identification, ie those
>      committed 'at a distance', would currently be subject to
>      extradition arrangements and it is not clear that new
>      opportunities for prosecution would arise in practice.

Oh boy - "opportunities for prosecution," WHEEE!

>      Meanwhile, it may be that the social implications of
>      forced and general identification of Internet subscribers
>      would leave subscribers open to a variety of forms of
>      intrusion on privacy and discrimination.

Oh, but "we" can trust Craig Livingstone, Louis Freeh, Aldrich
Ames, and the rest of the spies, can't "we."

Why am I feeling so worried these days, anyway?
JMR

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