Re: Anonymity and cowardice

["Mark M." <markm@voicenet.com>]

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On Wed, 14 May 1997, The Spectre wrote:

> The difference in all these cases (save mine) is that the people you listed
> would have been persecuted, if not prosecuted, for their actions.  Now
> people are hiding out of fear and paranoia of something that in most cases
> doesn't exist.  The people you mentioned never had to deal with this level
> of abuse, either.

Not everybody in the world has the luxury of not worrying about being
persecuted for what they write.  In other countries, free speech is
not a recognized right.  Also, many people express unpopular opinions
that might not cause persecution, but might mean losing a job or
worse.  It is also useful for "liberating" certain information.  In
another message, you said that ftp sites could be used for this same
purpose.  Most ftp sites keep logs, and any corporation or government
agency that has had secret information divulged is going to get the
logs from the server.

As for your comment about "fear and paranoia of something that in most
cases doesn't exist", how do you know it doesn't?  Only a few decades
ago, the U.S. government was conducting illegal, domestic surveillance
on communists, war protestors, civil rights activists, and other groups
the government didn't like.  What's preventing something like this
happening today?  Mailing list messages and news posts don't disappear.
Something you write today could be used against you years later.



Mark
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