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July 2018
- 1371 participants
- 9656 discussions
============================================================
EDRI-gram
biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe
Number 5.11, 6 June 2007
============================================================
Contents
============================================================
1. CSS protection used in DVDs is "ineffective"
2. RFID Expert Group - Kick Off
3. The European Parliament voted for stronger data protection
4. IPRED2 on the DROIPEN table
5. The French Ministry of Interior has a new interception platform
6. Legislation banning "hacking tools" in Germany
7. French State Council allows tracing P2P users
8. Slovenian intelligence agency scandal
9. Italian Government criticized by Free Software Association
10. Launch of Creative Commons Switzerland
11. Germany is preparing the G8 meeting by searching NGOs servers
12. Agenda
13. About
============================================================
1. CSS protection used in DVDs is "ineffective"
============================================================
In an unanimous decision on 25 May 2007, the Helsinki District Court ruled
that Content Scrambling System (CSS) used in DVD movies is "ineffective".
The decision is the first in Europe to interpret new copyright law
amendments, based on EU Copyright Directive of 2001, that bans the
circumvention of "effective technological measures". According to both
Finnish copyright law and the above-mentioned directive, only such
protection measure is effective, "which achieves the protection objective."
The background of the case was that after the copyright law amendment was
accepted in 2005, a group of Finnish computer hobbyists and activists
opened a website where they posted information on how to circumvent CSS.
They appeared in a police station and claimed to have potentially infringed
copyright law. Most of the activists thought that either the police did not
investigate the case in the first place or the prosecutor dropped it if it
went any further. To the surprise of many, the case ended in the Helsinki
District Court. Defendants were Mikko Rauhala who opened the website and a
poster who published his own implementation of a source code circumventing
CSS.
According to the court, CSS no longer achieves its protection objective. The
court relied on two expert witnesses and said that "since a Norwegian
hacker succeeded in circumventing CSS protection used in DVDs in 1999,
end-users have been able to get with ease tens of similar circumventing
software from the Internet even free of charge. Some operating systems come
with this kind of software pre-installed." Thus, the court concluded that
"CSS protection can no longer be held 'effective' as defined in law." All
charges were dismissed.
The defendant's counsel Mikko Vdlimdki explains for EDRI-gram that he
"first
proposed to the court an interpretation where a protection measure is
ineffective when technical experts can circumvent it. The court did not buy
that one. Instead, it adopted my secondary proposal where the efficiency
test is based on the ability of random end-users to circumvent."
He explains that "this should not affect DVD Copy Control Association CCA
(DVD CCA - the California group that licenses CSS to DVD player
manufacturers in Europe and Asia), or the movies studios. My understanding
is that DVD CCA is interested in their player manufacturing monopoly and
license income from Asia, not random Linux users who buy DVDs."
A DVD CCA spokesman has confirmed that they are aware of the decision, but
they "do know that in the US, courts have ruled CSS to be effective, viable
protection."
Vdlimdki also explained why this decision is important in the European
context : "Relevant sections of the Finnish copyright law are copied
verbatim from the directive. I think any European court with common sense
would end up in the same interpretation."
The defendant Mikko Rauhala is also happy about the judgement: "It seems
that one can apply bad law with common sense, which was unfortunately absent
during the preparation of the law".
However, the prosecutor announced she would appeal the decision and might
ask the Finnish Copyright Council for an opinion on the interpretation of
"effective". The Helsinki Court of Appeal is not expected to rule until
2008.
Finnish court rules CSS protection used in DVDs "ineffective" (25.05.2007)
http://www.turre.com/blog/?p=102
English translation of the judgment
http://www.turre.com/css_helsinki_district_court.pdf
Keep on hacking: a Finnish court says technological measures are no longer
"effective" when circumventing applications are widely available on the
Internet (25.05.2007)
http://www.valimaki.com/docs/finnish_css.pdf
Case Could Signal Weakening Of Digital Rights Management In Europe
(4.06.2007)
http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=639&res=1024_ff&print=0
============================================================
2. RFID Expert Group - Kick Off
============================================================
Following the public consultations on RFID last year, the European
Commission announced the creation of an RFID Expert Group to assist in
drafting the future RFID strategy. The group's kick-off meeting was held in
Brussles last week. EDRi was invited to participate in the group.
The Group has been established for two years and includes representatives
from the industry, standardisation bodies and the civil society. The EU data
protection authorities participate as observers.
In the past years digital rights organisations have continuously expressed
their strong concerns regarding the implications the usage of RFID may have
on privacy. The public consultation on RFID confirmed that these concerns
were shared by a majority of the respondents and that safeguards were needed
to ensure the protection of personal data and privacy.
RFID technology may be used to collect information on directly or indirectly
identified persons or to track and trace people's movements in the workspace
and in public areas. Therefore privacy and security will be the first topics
the group will work on. Input from the group will be taken into account by
the European Commission when preparing a Recommendation on RFID usage, which
is planned to be issued by the end of 2007.
The work of the group will then broaden its scope and deal with the move
towards the "Internet of Things". Giving every day objects a representation
on the Internet and building "smart" environments that react to the presence
or movements of people and things have been subjects of research in the last
years. Ambient Intelligence, Ubiquitous Computing, Pervasive Computing
and Smart Objects are keywords for the research specialists that often name
Mark Weiser's article "The Computer for the 21st Century" as the starting
point for these ideas.
Privacy, environmental issues and the dangers stemming from the accumulation
of electromagnetic fields will certainly be among the issues that have to be
discussed with regards to this topic.
As a member of the RFID Expert Group, EDRi will promote the implementation
of privacy-friendly technologies and stress that the reliable protection of
privacy and personal data is a key issue for the acceptance of this
technology.
Mark Weiser already wrote back in 1991 with regards to Ubiquitous
Computing: "If designed into systems from the outset, these techniques can
ensure that private data does not become public. A well-implemented version
of ubiquitous computing could even afford better privacy protection than
exists today." Sixteen years later this statement must still remain the
guideline for RFID applications. Key technologies that are said to have the
potential to become a new motor of growth and jobs need to be concordant
with and to protect the societal standards of the society.
In times of mandatory data retention, as communication traffic data has to
be stored for up to two years, it is important to ensure that only an
absolute minimum of data which can be linked to a certain personis stored.
Otherwise any movement in an RFID-enabled "smart" environment could feed
into a behaviour-profile of a potential future surveillance society.
The RFID Expert Group will make it their mission to discuss these and
related issues and to work out possible solutions and necessary regulatory
measures over the next two years; EDRi will contribute to this mission.
EDRI-gram: EU study on RFID tags shows major privacy concerns (25.10.2006)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.20/rfid
EDRI-gram: Stakeholder group to advise on EU RFID strategy (28.03.2007)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.6/eu-rfid-strategy
Results of the Public Online Consultation on Future RFID policy - "The RFID
Revolution: Your voice on the Challenges, Opportunities and Threats"
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/rfid/doc/rfidswp_en.pdf
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in Europe: steps towards a policy
framework
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/rfid/doc/rfid_en.pdf
Mark Weiser, The Computer for the 21st Century, Scientific American
Feb.,1991
http://www.ubiq.com/hypertext/weiser/SciAmDraft3.html
(contribution by EDRI-member Andreas Krisch)
============================================================
3. The European Parliament voted for stronger data protection
============================================================
On 21 May 2007, the European Parliament (EP) voted for the reinstallation of
the data protection principles in the legislation that allows the police
forces in Europe to share data.
The European Council, which is the one deciding in police and judicial
matters, had formally asked the EP for its opinion on this issue as, lately,
concern has been expressed on the lack of proper protection of personal data
processed in the framework of police and judicial co-operation in criminal
matters. Such a concern has been expressed also by the European Data
Protection Supervisor (EDPS), Peter Hustinx who, at the end of May, advised
the Council against adopting the Commission's new Council Framework Decision
proposal as he considered the proposal did not provide appropriate data
protection.
The MEPs, consulted by the German Presidency, voted in favour of amendments
that would provide stronger data protection.
The German Presidency proposed that the legislation should only apply to
data shared between European police forces and not to data held by national
police forces and the decision of whether it should be applied nationally
will be discussed in three years time by EC.
The proposal is that the police should not send data to other forces that do
not have a proper level of data protection in place. The EP has reinstated
an amendment that would prevent the police from sending data to third
countries that don't have adequate data protection. If the amendment is
voted by the Council, a national harmonisation of police data protection
rules might be forced especially to strengthen the Europe's co-operation to
face US data snooping programmes like PNR and Swift.
Germany's action might also allow new EP amendments that deal with the other
concerns expressed by EDPS last month, to be accepted by the Council at its
meeting this month.
Hopefully the European Council will take into consideration the MEPs' vote
and will take decisions to allow data sharing between police forces in
Europe only with the respect of civil liberties.
Europe votes to restrict police data sharing (23.05.2007)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/23/europarl_on_3rdpillar/
EDRI-gram: EDPS advises against new data protection framework decision
(9.05.2007)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.9/edps-framework-decision
============================================================
4. IPRED2 on the DROIPEN table
============================================================
The Second Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED2)
is now going through the Justice and Home Affairs route. On 4 June, it
passed it's first port of call at the Council's Working Group on Substantive
Criminal Law (DROIPEN) - the first step on the road to the decision of EU's
Council of Ministers.
DROIPEN's job is to prepare the Council's first reading on the
directive. The national government representatives might come up with a
proposal that all Member States agree on, or else they will identify
issues that the Ministers of Justice will have to vote on.
According to information kindly shared by some Member States
representatives following DROIPEN's work, the state of play in general
is as follows.
Many delegations feel they need more information in order to prepare
this legislation properly. There is a general reluctance towards this
directive because of the competence issue, so the Council wants to wait for
the ECJ ship pollution verdict before moving on.
Some delegations have expressed views the directive is the wrong tool to
solve the problem and they don't see criminal sanctions as a way
forward. Further, since criminal sanctions are already in place in many
countries there is no need to rush.
Still time should be used to prepare negotiations, but for now, the only
thing that could be said to have been decided is not to take any action
in any direction.
It is now up to the Portuguese Presidency to negotiate what to do next.
One question on the table is if DROIPEN should approach the Article 36
Committee (CATS) to have an expert opinion on some issues before
involving COREPER 2 (Committee of the Permanent Representatives).
The general forecast is that there will be no Council decision before
late fall, and it is likely that issues not resolved in COREPER2 will
end up in JHA Council votes with a North-South dividing outcome.
Meanwhile, outside of Brussels, Member States are working to prepare
their positions on IPRED2. The United Kingdom's Intellectual Property
Office (IPO) is currently collecting comments from British citizens and
companies on the directive.
A comprehensive policy paper was submitted by a coalition from
FFII/EFF/EBLIDA/BEUC to the UK IPO. The policy is available to be passed on
to the Justice Ministry in your own country.
For general interest AIPPI has already in 2002 compiled information on
criminal law sanctions with regard to the infringement of intellectual
property rights. This might give you a starting point in addressing the
issue at the national level or comparing the situation with other relevant
countries from Europe.
Movement on IPRED2 in Brussels and Beyond (4.06.2007)
http://www.copycrime.eu/blog/movement-ipred2-brussels-and-beyond
Backroom Changes May Be Coming for IPRED2 (16.05.2007)
http://www.copycrime.eu/blog/backroom-changes-may-be-coming-ipred2
FFII/EFF/EBLIDA/BEUC coalition report on the proposal as amended in
Strasbourg by the European Parliament at its first reading on Wednesday, 25
April, 2007 (25.04.2007)
http://action.ffii.org/ipred2/Report_on_EP_vote
EDRI-gram: IPRED2 voted in first reading by the European Parliament
(25.04.2007)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.8/ipred2
AIPPI report: "Question Q169 - Criminal law sanctions with regard to the
infringement of intellectual property rights"
http://www.aippi.org/reports/q169/gr_q169_index.htm
(Thanks to Erik Josefsson - Electronic Frontier Foundation)
============================================================
5. The French Ministry of Interior has a new interception platform
============================================================
On 2 May 2007 a new technical platform for the interception of traffic data
in all types of communication systems was discretly put into operation by
the French Ministry of Interior, covering communication data related to text
messages, mobile or Internet.
The security services are now in the position of knowing who has contacted
whom, when and where and, by a simple click, they can obtain from the
telephone operators the list of all calls from and to a subscriber. They can
obtain the subscription documents of the respective person with address and
bank information and can also require all the Internet sites or forum
addresses the respective person has accessed.
The authorised services may require such kind of information from Uclat
(Coordination unit of the anti-terror fight) that manages the technical
centre located in the new headquarters of the security services of the
national police of Levallois-Perret (Hauts-de-Seine), under the supervision
of IGPN (The General Inspection of the National Police).
This comes as a direct result of the Sarkozy law adopted on 23 January 2006
in an emergency procedure, to prevent terrorist acts, after being found
constitutional by the French Constitutional Council. The text of the law
states that Internet Service Providers, Internet cafes, hosting providers
and operators must communicate the traffic data, called numbers, IP
addresses to specialised services in case of investigations related to
suspect terrorist activities.
The law has created serious concerns to the public freedom advocates as well
as to the magistrates as the procedure doesn't need the involvement of
judges and ignores guarantees related to public freedoms.
Since the entering into operation of the new technical platform on 2 May,
the centre has already dealt with 300 requests per week made mostly by DST
(Direction de la surveillance du territoire) and RG (Renseignement
Generaux). According to an estimation, the platform should be able to
address about 20 000 requests per year.
The French justice system is, in its turn, creating its own national
platform that will be finalised by the end of 2008 - beginning of 2009 to
intercept SMSs and record phonecalls, not only for terrorism cases. Although
France is not in the worst position in Europe as concerning data
interceptions being surpassed by Italy, the Netherlands or Germany, the
tendency is obviously towards an increase of the control by the authorities.
The anti-terrorism spies mails and text messages as well (only in French,
28.05.2007)
http://www.lefigaro.fr/france/20070528.WWW000000165_lantiterrorisme_espionn…
EDRI-gram: IRIS protest against delay French government (20.10.2004)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number2.20/IRIS
EDRI-gram: France adopts anti-terrorism law (18.01.2006)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.1/frenchlaw
EDRI-gram: French anti-terrorism law not anti-constitutional (2.02.2006)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.2/frenchlaw
============================================================
6. Legislation banning "hacking tools" in Germany
============================================================
The laws on computer crimes have become stricter in Germany where the
creation, use or distribution of so-called "hacking tools" have been banned.
On 23 May 2007, the Committee on Legal Affairs of the Bundestag (the lower
chamber of Germany's Federal Parliament) approved a controversial government
bill meant to improve criminal prosecution of computer crimes.
The Criminal Code has been modified so as to make illegal for the
unauthorized users to access secure data by bypassing the computer security
protection system. The "deliberate acquisition of data by tapping into a
non-public transmission of data or by way of reading radiation leaked by a
data processing system" is now considered a crime.
The German law defines hacking as penetrating a computer security system and
gaining access to secure data, without necessarily stealing data and any
individual or group that intentionally creates, spreads or purchases hacker
tools designed for illegal purposes is considered an offender. Under the
present Criminal Code, the offenders could face fines and up to 10 years
imprisonment for major offences.
These measures have been criticised being considered as counterproductive by
several groups, including EDRI-member Chaos Computer Club, which drew
the attention to the so-called "white hat" hackers who work for security
companies. By this present legislation, these experts could be in the
position of not being allowed to work with software developers in creating
secure products. "It's a win-lose law in favour for the bad guys," wrote a
hacker, known by the pseudonym van Hauser.
Chaos Computer Club also expressed the concern that this legislation will
allow the German Government to install spyware on suspected criminals'
computers without their knowledge.
The critics argue that the legislation does not make any difference between
a password cracker and a password recovery tool for instance. "Forbidding
this software is about as helpful as forbidding the sale and production of
hammers because sometimes they also cause damage," said Chaos Computer Club
spokesman Andy M|ller-Maguhn to Ars Technica who also stated that under the
new law, the police will be able to more easily access information on
suspects.
Germany declares hacking tools 'verboten' (31.05.2007)
http://www.out-law.com//default.aspx?page=8103
Green light for tightening of anti-hacker legislation (24.05.2007)
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/90163
Germany leads the way with tough anti-hacking law (25.05.2007)
http://www.computerworlduk.com/management/security/cybercrime/news/index.cf…
============================================================
7. French State Council allows tracing P2P users
============================================================
The State Council of France validated on 23 May 2007 the automatic tracing
of illegal downloading in P2P networks. This decision cancelled the 18th
October 2005 CNIL (Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertis)
decision that rejected the introduction of surveillance devices proposed by
Sacem and other 3 author and producer associations asking for the automatic
tracing of infringements of the intellectual property code.
The State Council believes that such devices are acceptable considering the
extent of the piracy phenomenon in France. The number of downloaded files
decreased by half in 2006 as compared to 2005 but according to GfK institute
this is probably due to the evolution from a quantitative type of
downloading to a qualitative one.
GfK institute has also reached the conclusion that the illegal downloading
in P2P networks have not caused the decrease in the sales of cultural
products but actually "quite the contrary, downloading is really perceived
by half of the Internet users as a promotion vector for artistes."
The State Council's decision was to the liking of the associations the
request of which was rejected by CNIL in 2005. SCPP (Sociiti civile des
producteurs phonographiques), one of these associations, stated that CNIL's
rejection of their request had "not allowed them to take measures to prevent
and repress music piracy that were however taken by most states of the
European Union". In their opinion "France is one of the countries where
Internet piracy is the most developed and where, therefore, the legal music
market develops more slowly".
CNIL reaction to the State Council decision came after two days by stating
that its intention is that of +ensuring a fair balance between the copyright
protection and the protection of the right to private life of Internet
users".
CNIL also stated having already authorized Sell (Syndicat des iditeurs de
logiciels de loisirs) to develop an automatic surveillance system for the
downloading of video games in P2P networks.
In comparison with the systems proposed by the music associations, this
system was approved because it puts less burden on the ISPs and it involves
"only the users that are responsible with the first sharing in a network of
a work or having shared a not yet commercialized work". The surveillance
devices are ready and a request of tenders has been launched.
CNIL will meet the author associations among which Sacem and SCPP as well as
ISPs and the discussions will last for several weeks.All parties have
expressed their willingness to collaborate.
Peer-to-peer: The State Council says yes to the pirate chase (only in
French, 23.05.2007)
http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/internet/0,39020774,39369675,00.htm
Surveillance of P2P networks: CNIL acknowledges the decision of the State
Council (only in French, 25.05.2007)
http://www.cnil.fr/index.php?id=2221&news[uid]=464&cHash=57a0f43bbe
Peer-to-peer: half downloaded files less in 2006 (only in French,
18.01.2007)
http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/internet/0,39020774,39366341,00.htm
Peer to peer : CNIL does not authorise the devices presented bu the author
and music producer associations (only in French, 25.10.2005)
http://www.cnil.fr/index.php?id=1881
============================================================
8. Slovenian intelligence agency scandal
============================================================
The Slovenian intelligence agency (SOVA) is monitoring telecommunications
in the Balkans in cooperation with German BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst) and
UK's MI5. Some believe that the recently disclosed secret location in the
Slovenian capital could be a part of Echelon.
The Slovenian intelligence agency is currently a part of a political scandal
which has revealed some secret locations and methods that SOVA was using for
intelligence purposes. Moreover, international credibility in SOVA and
its agents is compromised, as the Slovenian press managed to obtain
classified information regarding SOVA's secret financing, its company of
straw and its international cooperation with other intelligence agencies.
Most likely, the information leaked from the parliamentary committee for
monitoring the secret services activtiy.
The latest disclosure reveals SOVA's secret location for monitoring
international telecommunications in Ljubljana near Telekom Slovenije
(Slovenian Telco) and Siol (the major Slovenian ISP) headquarters, as well
as near the Slovenian Internet Exchange (SIX) and Ljubljana Stock Exchange
(LJSE) buildings.
The Slovenian media is reporting that the above mentioned location was also
used by German BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst) and UK's MI5, especially to
monitor telecommunications in the Balkans. Miso Alkalaj, an IT expert from
Jozef Stefan Institute said he would not be surprised if the location was a
part of Echelon.
An interesting fact is that residents of the block of flats where SOVA has
its secret location, knew that conspiratorial activities were taking
place there. Apart from that, elder residents are able to tell that
the former communist intelligence agency used the same flat to wiretap
telephone conversations.
The other disclosure reveals that Slovenian intelligence agency SOVA
established a webhosting company WEBS, which is presumably a company
of straw that SOVA needed for its intelligence activities.
Having in view the recent events regarding the Slovenian intelligence
agency, it becomes interesting that SOVA's headquarters are located in
Stegne, an industrial area of Ljubljana, where among others, Telekom
Slovenije (Slovenian Telco) has its operational services. Intention or
coincidence?
Telekom Slovenije indirectly admits SOVA's wiretapping (only in Slovenian,
1.06.2007)
http://dnevnik.si/novice/slovenija/249095/
Director of SOVA takes action after disclosure of wrath of foreign
intelligence agencies (only in Slovenian, 30.05.2007)
http://dnevnik.si/novice/slovenija/248654/
(Contribution by Aljaz Marn, EDRI-observer, Slovenia)
============================================================
9. Italian Government criticized by the Free Software Association
============================================================
After filing a case to the Regional Administrative Tribunal of Lazio
against the Italian Ministry of Work for launching a call for tenders
where only Microsoft software was considered as eligible, Italian NGO Assoli
(Associazione Software Libero) is criticizing again its Government.
The problem arose when the Government - specifically the Ministry for
University and Research, headed by Mr.Fabio Mussi (Left democrats) and the
Ministry for Innovation in the Public Administration,
headed by Mr. Luigi Nicolais (Left democrats) - announced
an official agreement with Microsoft Italia whose main goals are
"education/training, technology transfer and facilitation of research
projects".
AsSoLi publicly objected to the agreement by which Microsoft
commits to invest only 737,000 euros - 0.0007% of the total turnover of
the company for 2006, according to AsSoLi's calculations - in three
years, to be subdivided among three research centres. Moreover,
AsSoLi notices that, according to the agreement, the investment will
not take the form of cash, but will rather be performed "through (the
work of) third parties, on the basis of specific needs for hardware
products, software, technical support services and training
activities". On the other hand, continues AsSoLi, the agreement does
not specify what would be the financial burden for the Italian Public
Administration.
In reaction to what it considered a waste of public money, AsSoLi
officially committed to make available to the Italian Government, for
a period of five years, training activities, training material,
technological solutions and software, either directly or delegating
Italian companies specialised in Free Software, for a value of
about 10.000.000 euros per year - a total value of 50.000.000 euros. AsSoLi
stresses the fact that their offer is absolutely serious.
Moreover, AsSoLi conducted a study on the Microsoft Research Center
located in Trento (Northern Italy). According to the study, Microsoft
invested only 250.000 euros in research activities on their own
products, with the Italian Public Administration paying more than
1.800.000 euros. The study was sent to hundreds of representatives of
national and local institutions. AsSoLi also announced the forthcoming
release of a second study, providing a more thorough assessment of the
financial elements in the first analysis.
The Italian Government, through its spokesman Mr. Alfonso Lelio, has
recently answered AsSoLi's criticisms, stressing that the agreement
with Microsoft does not mean that the Government is not interested in
investing in Free Software, or is not already doing so, as the
Government claims is the case with the latest budget law, where 10.000.000
euros for 2007-2009 are allocated to "Information Society" projects, with an
explicit priority to those that "develop or use" Free Software.
AsSoLi - Associazione Software Libero
http://www.softwarelibero.it/
EDRI-Gram 5.72, "Free software needs to be considered in Italian
public acquisitions" (12.04.2007)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.7/free-software-italy
AsSoLi offers EUR 10,000,000 to the Italian Government (Italian only,
8.05.2007)
http://www.softwarelibero.org/lassociazione-il-software-libero-offre-50-000…
Text of the proposed agreement with the Italian Government (Italian only,
8.05.2007)
http://www.softwarelibero.org/progetti/proposta_governo
Study by AsSoLi on the Microsoft Research Center in Trento (Italian only,
18.05.2007)
http://softwarelibero.it/riflessione-politiche-innovazione-ict
Answer of the Italian Government to AsSoLi's criticisms (Italian only,
29.05.2007)
http://www.lastampa.it/_web/CMSTP/tmplrubriche/giornalisti/grubrica.asp?ID_…
(contribution by Andrea Glorioso - Italian consultant on digital policies)
============================================================
10. Launch of Creative Commons Switzerland
============================================================
On 26 May 2007 the Swiss version of Creative Commons licenses were launched
in Zurich at a ceremony held as the finishing highlight of this year's
Tweakfest, Switzerland's Festival for Media, Culture, and Digital Lifestyle.
The launch was hosted by Digitale Allmend, a Swiss NGO focused on access to
digital information and creativity. Openlaw and Digitale Allmend are
co-leading the Swiss Creative Commons project in a joint effort. With
Switzerland, the Creative Commons licenses are now offered in localized
versions in a total of 37 countries around the world.
John Buckman, Creative Commons board member and founder of magnatune.com,
gave the keynote address, explaining how he developed his website as a
successful example of a Creative Commons based business.
There was live audio and visual performances by DJ Soult and VJ Set from
Pixelpunx.ch who released a number of works under the new Swiss
Creative Commons licenses that evening.
Urs Gehrig from Openlaw explained the system: "The Creative Commons
licensing system simplifies the exchange of cultural goods such as music,
video, text and other creative media."
"We see the porting of Creative Commons licences to Switzerland as an
important step - firstly because the swiss cultural movement will be able to
contribute a variety of interesting works to a global creative community and
secondly in achieving a more balanced choice for creators when deciding how
their works is distributed and accessible." was the declaration of Martin
Feuz from Digitale Allmend.
During the launch, Creative Commons Switzerland announced several upcoming
projects that plan to use the Swiss Creative Commons licenses, including
netlabels (starfrosch.ch, sonicsquirrel.net) two online cultural TV
channels (kulturtv.ch and rebell.tv) or a video art website (lenarmy.ch).
Creative Commons Switzerland
http://www.creativecommons.ch/
Digitale Allmend - News and videos from CC Switzerland launch (only in
German)
http://blog.allmend.ch/
Openlaw
http://www.openlaw.ch
Tweakfest
http://www.tweakfest.ch
============================================================
11. Germany is preparing the G8 meeting by searching NGOs servers
============================================================
The German government decided to prepare the G8 meeting that will take place
during 6-8 June in Heiligendamm, a Baltic seaside resort, by increasing the
number of searches and seizures to NGOs and anti-globalization movements
offices and servers.
During the entire month of May the Federal Prosecutor gave order to the
Police in Hamburg, Berlin and other states to search private homes, offices,
libraries, social centres or other locations were there were located servers
of the anti-globalisation opponents, without making any arrests. The
searches and seizures were explained by the German authorities by the
possibility to create a terrorist organization by the altermondialist German
chapter of the association Attac, a group founded in France to campaign for
a global tax on speculative capital movements to finance development aid.
The association between terrorism and altermondialism was considered as
"scandalous" by the co-president of the Attac France, Aurilie Trouvi,
taking into consideration the objectives of the association: democratisation
of the international institutions, fight against poverty or the preservation
of the natural resources. She rhetorical asked: "Do freedom of expression
and democracy stop were the interests of the richest eight countries begin?"
Peter Wahl from Attac Germany has underlined the obvious political purpose
of this operation: "to discredit the democratic actions that contest the G8
summit. It is an excessive measure that is incompatible with the rule of
law."
Another measure that the German Government took was the temporary suspension
of the Schengen Agreement until 10 June. Every persons travelling to Germany
until that date will have to pass the identity and security controls. The
German authorities have also banned any demonstration near the resort where
the G8 summit will take place.
Searches against the alter movements on Germany (only in France, 17.05.2007)
http://www.france.attac.org/spip.php?article7093
The police authority Rostock - not the demonstrators - are severely damaging
the reputation of the Federal Republic of Germany (17.05.2007)
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2007/may/germany-g8-protests.pdf
Germany: Police raid G8 activists (5.2007)
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2007/may/02germany-g8-raids.htm
Despite Germany's Tight Controls, Violence (3.06.2007)
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38015
============================================================
12. Agenda
============================================================
8 May - 22 July 2007, Austria
Annual decentralized community event around free software lectures,
panel discussions, workshops, fairs and socialising
http://www.linuxwochen.at
11-15 June 2007, Geneva, Switzerland
Provisional Committee on Proposals Related to a WIPO Development Agenda:
Fourth Session
http://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/details.jsp?meeting_id=11927
11-12 June 2007, Strasbourg, France
Council of Europe - Octopus Interface 2007 - Cooperation against Cybercrime
http://www.coe.int/t/e/legal_affairs/legal_co-operation/combating_economic_…
12 June 2007, Berlin, Germany
German Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information -
Symposium "Data Protection in Europe"
http://www.bfdi.bund.de/cln_029/nn_533554/DE/Oeffentlichkeitsarbeit/Termine…
14 June 2007, Paris, France
ENISA/EEMA European eIdentity conference - Next Generation Electronic
Identity - eID beyond PKI
http://enisa.europa.eu/pages/eID/eID_ws2007.htm
15-17 June 2007, Dubrovnik, Croatia
Creative Commons iSummit 2007
http://wiki.icommons.org/index.php/ISummit_2007
17-22 June 2007 Seville, Spain
19th Annual FIRST Conference, "Private Lives and Corporate Risk"
http://www.first.org/conference/2007/
18-22 June 2007, Geneva, Switzerland
Second Special Session of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related
Rights (SCCR)
http://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/details.jsp?meeting_id=12744
28 June 2007, London, UK
First London CC-Salon organized by Free Culture London and the Open Rights
Group
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/London_Salon
8-12 August 2007, near Berlin, Germany
Chaos Communication Camp 2007
"In Fairy Dust We Trust!"
http://events.ccc.de/camp/2007/
5-11 September 2007
Ars Electronica Festival - Festival for Art, Technology and Society
http://www.aec.at/en/festival2007/index.asp
============================================================
13. About
============================================================
EDRI-gram is a biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe.
Currently EDRI has 25 members from 16 European countries.
European Digital Rights takes an active interest in developments in the EU
accession countries and wants to share knowledge and awareness through the
EDRI-grams. All contributions, suggestions for content, corrections or
agenda-tips are most welcome. Errors are corrected as soon as possible and
visibly on the EDRI website.
Except where otherwise noted, this newsletter is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License. See the full text at
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
Newsletter editor: Bogdan Manolea <edrigram(a)edri.org>
Information about EDRI and its members:
http://www.edri.org/
- EDRI-gram subscription information
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EDRI-gram is also available in German, with delay. Translations are provided
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----- End forwarded message -----
--
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
1
0
Tor 0.2.2.16-alpha fixes a variety of old stream fairness bugs (most
evident at exit relays), and also continues to resolve all the little
bugs that have been filling up trac lately.
https://www.torproject.org/download.html.en
Packages will be appearing over the next few days or weeks (except
on Windows, which apparently doesn't build -- stay tuned for an
0.2.2.17-alpha in that case).
Changes in version 0.2.2.16-alpha - 2010-09-17
o Major bugfixes (stream-level fairness):
- When receiving a circuit-level SENDME for a blocked circuit, try
to package cells fairly from all the streams that had previously
been blocked on that circuit. Previously, we had started with the
oldest stream, and allowed each stream to potentially exhaust
the circuit's package window. This gave older streams on any
given circuit priority over newer ones. Fixes bug 1937. Detected
originally by Camilo Viecco. This bug was introduced before the
first Tor release, in svn commit r152: it is the new winner of
the longest-lived bug prize.
- When the exit relay got a circuit-level sendme cell, it started
reading on the exit streams, even if had 500 cells queued in the
circuit queue already, so the circuit queue just grew and grew in
some cases. We fix this by not re-enabling reading on receipt of a
sendme cell when the cell queue is blocked. Fixes bug 1653. Bugfix
on 0.2.0.1-alpha. Detected by Mashael AlSabah. Original patch by
"yetonetime".
- Newly created streams were allowed to read cells onto circuits,
even if the circuit's cell queue was blocked and waiting to drain.
This created potential unfairness, as older streams would be
blocked, but newer streams would gladly fill the queue completely.
We add code to detect this situation and prevent any stream from
getting more than one free cell. Bugfix on 0.2.0.1-alpha. Partially
fixes bug 1298.
o Minor features:
- Update to the September 1 2010 Maxmind GeoLite Country database.
- Warn when CookieAuthFileGroupReadable is set but CookieAuthFile is
not. This would lead to a cookie that is still not group readable.
Closes bug 1843. Suggested by katmagic.
- When logging a rate-limited warning, we now mention how many messages
got suppressed since the last warning.
- Add new "perconnbwrate" and "perconnbwburst" consensus params to
do individual connection-level rate limiting of clients. The torrc
config options with the same names trump the consensus params, if
both are present. Replaces the old "bwconnrate" and "bwconnburst"
consensus params which were broken from 0.2.2.7-alpha through
0.2.2.14-alpha. Closes bug 1947.
- When a router changes IP address or port, authorities now launch
a new reachability test for it. Implements ticket 1899.
- Make the formerly ugly "2 unknown, 7 missing key, 0 good, 0 bad,
2 no signature, 4 required" messages about consensus signatures
easier to read, and make sure they get logged at the same severity
as the messages explaining which keys are which. Fixes bug 1290.
- Don't warn when we have a consensus that we can't verify because
of missing certificates, unless those certificates are ones
that we have been trying and failing to download. Fixes bug 1145.
- If you configure your bridge with a known identity fingerprint,
and the bridge authority is unreachable (as it is in at least
one country now), fall back to directly requesting the descriptor
from the bridge. Finishes the feature started in 0.2.0.10-alpha;
closes bug 1138.
- When building with --enable-gcc-warnings on OpenBSD, disable
warnings in system headers. This makes --enable-gcc-warnings
pass on OpenBSD 4.8.
o Minor bugfixes (on 0.2.1.x and earlier):
- Authorities will now attempt to download consensuses if their
own efforts to make a live consensus have failed. This change
means authorities that restart will fetch a valid consensus, and
it means authorities that didn't agree with the current consensus
will still fetch and serve it if it has enough signatures. Bugfix
on 0.2.0.9-alpha; fixes bug 1300.
- Ensure DNS requests launched by "RESOLVE" commands from the
controller respect the __LeaveStreamsUnattached setconf options. The
same goes for requests launched via DNSPort or transparent
proxying. Bugfix on 0.2.0.1-alpha; fixes bug 1525.
- Allow handshaking OR connections to take a full KeepalivePeriod
seconds to handshake. Previously, we would close them after
IDLE_OR_CONN_TIMEOUT (180) seconds, the same timeout as if they
were open. Bugfix on 0.2.1.26; fixes bug 1840. Thanks to mingw-san
for analysis help.
- Rate-limit "Failed to hand off onionskin" warnings.
- Never relay a cell for a circuit we have already destroyed.
Between marking a circuit as closeable and finally closing it,
it may have been possible for a few queued cells to get relayed,
even though they would have been immediately dropped by the next
OR in the circuit. Fixes bug 1184; bugfix on 0.2.0.1-alpha.
- Never queue a cell for a circuit that's already been marked
for close.
- Never vote for a server as "Running" if we have a descriptor for
it claiming to be hibernating, and that descriptor was published
more recently than our last contact with the server. Bugfix on
0.2.0.3-alpha; fixes bug 911.
- Squash a compile warning on OpenBSD. Reported by Tas; fixes
bug 1848.
o Minor bugfixes (on 0.2.2.x):
- Fix a regression introduced in 0.2.2.7-alpha that marked relays
down if a directory fetch fails and you've configured either
bridges or EntryNodes. The intent was to mark the relay as down
_unless_ you're using bridges or EntryNodes, since if you are
then you could quickly run out of entry points.
- Fix the Windows directory-listing code. A bug introduced in
0.2.2.14-alpha could make Windows directory servers forget to load
some of their cached v2 networkstatus files.
- Really allow clients to use relays as bridges. Fixes bug 1776;
bugfix on 0.2.2.15-alpha.
- Demote a warn to info that happens when the CellStatistics option
was just enabled. Bugfix on 0.2.2.15-alpha; fixes bug 1921.
Reported by Moritz Bartl.
- On Windows, build correctly either with or without Unicode support.
This is necessary so that Tor can support fringe platforms like
Windows 98 (which has no Unicode), or Windows CE (which has no
non-Unicode). Bugfix on 0.2.2.14-alpha; fixes bug 1797.
o Testing
- Add a unit test for cross-platform directory-listing code.
----- End forwarded message -----
--
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
1
0
I was thinking solely of taps capable of observing user1, user2...
usern.
If user1 injects 1.21 MB of data on one side, and 1.21 MB of data
pops out the other side at injection time + network delay, the users
are made. Regardless of whether the observer can see inside the
network/crypto or operate in the network. And especially if the net
or users are quiet at that time.
But if there's chaff present, chaff that is only known to be chaff
by the network, or minimally by the recipient and generator, then
the game becomes harder. User1 and user2's pipes are always
independantly full of cap = ( chaff + wheat). Chaff is requested
from the network by the user's node to fill the cap during idle
times. The cap could be optional random dynamic, perhaps shrink
after some time of no wheat nearing the cap so as to not be needless
waste.
Users's nodes make [close?] peers just for traffic generation.
Tagged and controlled out of band. Involve the client's knowledge
that its socks or hidden service ports are generating n kbit/sec
of wheat.
Middle node link traffic could be similarly managed, albeit without
socks/hs knowledge, just bandwidth.
Any intelligent cell based clocking or committed rate management
within seem very hard when riding on the public internet. So it
would just be shoving bits into a hungry mouth until a gag message
comes back.
Maybe the problem with this idea is that the chaff generation system
might not be able to react fast enough when the real wheat travels
the pipes. So a 1.21 MB injection might still create some sort of
observable ripple at start and end times. The only way it might not
is if the pipes are oversubscribed _and_ packet lossy by design,
not just having the usual TCP congestion managed slowness. But that
would be terrible bad for most user facing applications and stacks.
Maybe it is the ripples that need hidden or randomized instead of
just filling pipes.
> If it turns out that correlation attacks are far more difficult
> than the research community thinks
It seems safe to presume that near global passive adversaries exist.
And certainly ones cabaple of covering various regions. And that
offline processing of the mesh of flow information from them is
probably within current capabilities. I'm actually amazed we're not
seeing canaries kicking off all over the place. Particularly ones
involving exits.
The advice to run a relay while using the client seems sound due
to whatever free chaff it brings. Who knows.
Thanks for the links to the anonbib and wiki. I want to read more
in the some free time.
***********************************************************************
To unsubscribe, send an e-mail to majordomo(a)torproject.org with
unsubscribe or-talk in the body. http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/
----- End forwarded message -----
--
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
1
0
Tor 0.2.2.16-alpha fixes a variety of old stream fairness bugs (most
evident at exit relays), and also continues to resolve all the little
bugs that have been filling up trac lately.
https://www.torproject.org/download.html.en
Packages will be appearing over the next few days or weeks (except
on Windows, which apparently doesn't build -- stay tuned for an
0.2.2.17-alpha in that case).
Changes in version 0.2.2.16-alpha - 2010-09-17
o Major bugfixes (stream-level fairness):
- When receiving a circuit-level SENDME for a blocked circuit, try
to package cells fairly from all the streams that had previously
been blocked on that circuit. Previously, we had started with the
oldest stream, and allowed each stream to potentially exhaust
the circuit's package window. This gave older streams on any
given circuit priority over newer ones. Fixes bug 1937. Detected
originally by Camilo Viecco. This bug was introduced before the
first Tor release, in svn commit r152: it is the new winner of
the longest-lived bug prize.
- When the exit relay got a circuit-level sendme cell, it started
reading on the exit streams, even if had 500 cells queued in the
circuit queue already, so the circuit queue just grew and grew in
some cases. We fix this by not re-enabling reading on receipt of a
sendme cell when the cell queue is blocked. Fixes bug 1653. Bugfix
on 0.2.0.1-alpha. Detected by Mashael AlSabah. Original patch by
"yetonetime".
- Newly created streams were allowed to read cells onto circuits,
even if the circuit's cell queue was blocked and waiting to drain.
This created potential unfairness, as older streams would be
blocked, but newer streams would gladly fill the queue completely.
We add code to detect this situation and prevent any stream from
getting more than one free cell. Bugfix on 0.2.0.1-alpha. Partially
fixes bug 1298.
o Minor features:
- Update to the September 1 2010 Maxmind GeoLite Country database.
- Warn when CookieAuthFileGroupReadable is set but CookieAuthFile is
not. This would lead to a cookie that is still not group readable.
Closes bug 1843. Suggested by katmagic.
- When logging a rate-limited warning, we now mention how many messages
got suppressed since the last warning.
- Add new "perconnbwrate" and "perconnbwburst" consensus params to
do individual connection-level rate limiting of clients. The torrc
config options with the same names trump the consensus params, if
both are present. Replaces the old "bwconnrate" and "bwconnburst"
consensus params which were broken from 0.2.2.7-alpha through
0.2.2.14-alpha. Closes bug 1947.
- When a router changes IP address or port, authorities now launch
a new reachability test for it. Implements ticket 1899.
- Make the formerly ugly "2 unknown, 7 missing key, 0 good, 0 bad,
2 no signature, 4 required" messages about consensus signatures
easier to read, and make sure they get logged at the same severity
as the messages explaining which keys are which. Fixes bug 1290.
- Don't warn when we have a consensus that we can't verify because
of missing certificates, unless those certificates are ones
that we have been trying and failing to download. Fixes bug 1145.
- If you configure your bridge with a known identity fingerprint,
and the bridge authority is unreachable (as it is in at least
one country now), fall back to directly requesting the descriptor
from the bridge. Finishes the feature started in 0.2.0.10-alpha;
closes bug 1138.
- When building with --enable-gcc-warnings on OpenBSD, disable
warnings in system headers. This makes --enable-gcc-warnings
pass on OpenBSD 4.8.
o Minor bugfixes (on 0.2.1.x and earlier):
- Authorities will now attempt to download consensuses if their
own efforts to make a live consensus have failed. This change
means authorities that restart will fetch a valid consensus, and
it means authorities that didn't agree with the current consensus
will still fetch and serve it if it has enough signatures. Bugfix
on 0.2.0.9-alpha; fixes bug 1300.
- Ensure DNS requests launched by "RESOLVE" commands from the
controller respect the __LeaveStreamsUnattached setconf options. The
same goes for requests launched via DNSPort or transparent
proxying. Bugfix on 0.2.0.1-alpha; fixes bug 1525.
- Allow handshaking OR connections to take a full KeepalivePeriod
seconds to handshake. Previously, we would close them after
IDLE_OR_CONN_TIMEOUT (180) seconds, the same timeout as if they
were open. Bugfix on 0.2.1.26; fixes bug 1840. Thanks to mingw-san
for analysis help.
- Rate-limit "Failed to hand off onionskin" warnings.
- Never relay a cell for a circuit we have already destroyed.
Between marking a circuit as closeable and finally closing it,
it may have been possible for a few queued cells to get relayed,
even though they would have been immediately dropped by the next
OR in the circuit. Fixes bug 1184; bugfix on 0.2.0.1-alpha.
- Never queue a cell for a circuit that's already been marked
for close.
- Never vote for a server as "Running" if we have a descriptor for
it claiming to be hibernating, and that descriptor was published
more recently than our last contact with the server. Bugfix on
0.2.0.3-alpha; fixes bug 911.
- Squash a compile warning on OpenBSD. Reported by Tas; fixes
bug 1848.
o Minor bugfixes (on 0.2.2.x):
- Fix a regression introduced in 0.2.2.7-alpha that marked relays
down if a directory fetch fails and you've configured either
bridges or EntryNodes. The intent was to mark the relay as down
_unless_ you're using bridges or EntryNodes, since if you are
then you could quickly run out of entry points.
- Fix the Windows directory-listing code. A bug introduced in
0.2.2.14-alpha could make Windows directory servers forget to load
some of their cached v2 networkstatus files.
- Really allow clients to use relays as bridges. Fixes bug 1776;
bugfix on 0.2.2.15-alpha.
- Demote a warn to info that happens when the CellStatistics option
was just enabled. Bugfix on 0.2.2.15-alpha; fixes bug 1921.
Reported by Moritz Bartl.
- On Windows, build correctly either with or without Unicode support.
This is necessary so that Tor can support fringe platforms like
Windows 98 (which has no Unicode), or Windows CE (which has no
non-Unicode). Bugfix on 0.2.2.14-alpha; fixes bug 1797.
o Testing
- Add a unit test for cross-platform directory-listing code.
----- End forwarded message -----
--
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
1
0
06 Jul '18
I see nothing "inevitable" about this (see John Walker's take [2] for an
opposing viewpoint), but I respect David's viewpoint, and obviously he's
devoted a few decades to thinking about this.
Udhay
[1] http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/
__________________________________________________________
http://www.metroactive.com/features/transparent-society.html
World Cyberwar And the Inevitability of Radical Transparency
How WikiLeaks ignited the first international cyber war and how
pro-business laws enacted to promote the growth of Silicon Valley's
digital media and technology
companies inadvertently nurtured transformation activists shaking up and
toppling governments around the world.
July 6, 2011 - by David Brin
ARE WE heading into an era when light will shine upon everyone, even the
mighty? Will the benefits of such an age outweigh the inevitable costs?
Recent events that powerfully illustrate these trade-offs range from the
WikiLeaks Affairbpublishing a quarter million documents purloined from
the United States governmentbto the tech-empowered Arab Spring that
followed to the battle being waged on our own streets between law
enforcement agencies and citizens who record their activities.
Perhaps I come to this topic pre-jaded. In The Transparent Society
(1997), I forecast that traditional notions of secrecy would crumble in
the early 21st century. For many reasonsbtechnical, social and
politicalb"leaks" would grow into tsunamis that carve a radically
different world. My 1989 novel Earth portrayed near-future events like
massive dumps of military and diplomatic secrets that rattle governments
powerless to keep up with amateur cunning and changing values.
Prescience aside, this sea change will drive outcomes far more complex
than outdated nostrums of left or right. Multiple trends seem to pull in
opposing directions. For example, ever since 9/11 and the Patriot Act,
many Americans have perceived us entering a nearly Orwellian era, in
which the state probes, pokes and scrutinizes us from every angle, and
allows corporationsbfrom banks to Google and Facebookbto do the same.
Dana Priest and William Arkin, in the Washington Post, fret that we've
become a "monitored nation" and world.
"(T)he United States is assembling a vast domestic intelligence
apparatus to collect information about Americans, using the FBI, local
police, state homeland security offices and military criminal
investigators. The system ... collects, stores and analyzes information
about thousands of U.S. citizens and residents, many of whom have not
been accused of any wrongdoing."
Is China the future? American companies like Cisco are right now bidding
to take part in a project to span the city of Chongqing with 500,000
cameras in an integrated surveillance system. Find that both impressive
and chilling? Well, democratic Britain has an even larger camera
network. In the future, what separates free and unfree nations won't be
the presence of surveillance, but whether citizens are fully empowered
to look back.
Never before have so many people been empowered with practical tools of
transparency. Beyond access to instantly searchable information from
around the world, nearly all of us now carry in our pockets a device
that can take still photographs and video, then transmit the images
anywhere. Will the growing power of elites to peer down at
usbsurveillancebultimately be trumped by a rapidly augmenting ability of
citizens to look back at those in powerbor "sousveillance"?
This issue is being wrangled right now, on our streets. Far more ominous
than the WikiLeaks affair is a trend of police officers waging
unofficial war against camera-toting citizens, arresting bystanders for
digitally recording cops in action. Obsolete wire-tapping and privacy
laws are contorted to justify seizure and destruction of recordings made
even in public places.
We can sympathize with officers doing a harsh, underappreciated job,
resenting the addition of one more source of stressbrelentless scrutiny.
I appreciate not only the skill and professionalism that helped reduce
crime in the United States but also the daily fight for self-control
that each officer must wage, under conditions that might send any of us
into uncontrollable rage. We all carry hormonal and psychological
baggage from the Stone Age ... and from 5,000 years of urban life, when
the king's thugs never thought twice before pounding the heads of punks.
But times and rules change. We're more demanding now. In fact, most
officers are adapting well to our new standards, clenching their teeth
and calling "sir" even the most outrageously abusive drunks. I'm proud
to know some of these folks and I grasp their worry that some
street-corner putz might record a momentary, but career threatening lapse.
Yet, how can the assertion that cops deserve "privacy" stand up against
our far greater need for accountability? Shall we surrender the only
protection that citizens ever had against abusive powerbthe truth? We
won't allow it. More to the point, technology won't allow it. For, like
Moore's Law, the cameras get smaller, cheaper, more numerous and more
mobile every year.
When all of this equilibrates, juries, review boards and citizens will
make allowances for good people, caught making rare mistakes. We'll have
to, if we want our cities patrolled. Ironically, that broad perspective
will only evolve once we're convinced we really are seeing it all. That
our enhanced vision protects us.
If the odds seem to favor citizen-power at street level, others want to
apply principles of transparent accountabilitybor sousveillancebto
higher echelons of power
Clearly a panoply of transparency activists out there, including the
folks behind WikiLeaks, think it possible to restore balance in favor of
people, by applying copious amounts of light.
And, just as clearly, those in high places wince at being scrutinized.
(Human nature yet again.) For example, months ago, the U.S. Department
of Justice launched a criminal probe of WikiLeaks. Did Julian Assange
commit crimes by revealing those secret cables? Are the world's powers
shaken to their core, withholding vengeance only because Assange holds
"poison pill" revelations in reserve?
We've seen a maelstrom of indignant fury with all sides claiming the
moral high ground. Banks and credit companies that reject doing business
with WikiLeaks have been punished by leaderless networks of online
activistsbwho are in turn attacked by "patriotic hackers."
Meanwhile, similar cycles of sabotage or theft, followed by retaliation,
are seen when hackers from China or the former Soviet bloc invade
Western computer systems, compromising either intellectual property or
stores of personal identities, or destabilize systems like Facebook and
Google that empower citizen movements in other countries. Accusations
fly amid a growing cast of intermeshed characters.
Is this the full-tilt outbreak of cyber war, with nations and
corporations waging battle through deniable proxies? (Frederik Pohl
forecast such a dismal cycle in his prophetic novel The Cool War.) We
may yet miss the old days, when uniformed soldiers were accountable to
national flags.
Refocusing back on the WikiLeaks Affair, with every news organization
re-publishing his info-spills, is Assange right to call himself a
frontline journalist? Because someone else actually snooped the
documents in question, and WikiLeaks merely passed them along, is
Assange protected by Western constitutional traditions and free speech?
David Brin THE MAN WITH THE POISON PILL: Are the world's powers shaken
to their core because WikiLeaks' Julian Assange is holding some bigger
revelations in reserve?
Transparency Pays
"Do not revile the king even in your thoughts, or curse the rich in your
bedroom, because a bird in the sky may carry your words, and a bird on
the wing may report what you say."bEcclesiastes 10:20
An overall trend toward greater openness will be essential to our
survival as individuals, nations, and even as a species.
We have bet our lives, and our children's, on the continued success of a
civilization that provides our material needs better than any other. One
that has inarguably fostered greater levels of lawful peacebboth per
capita and for billions worldwidebthan any predecessor. It also
engendered both social mobility and repudiation of prejudice to a degree
thatbif woefully unfinishedbno prior society ever matched. Nor could any
combination of others equal our rate of discovery and new learning.
Even the way we are self-critical and unsatisfiedbangrily rejecting
braggart paragraphs like the one above and focusing instead on further
improvementsbeven that reflex is consistent with a civilization that has
real potential. One that would have stunned our ancestors.
Underlying all of this is the positive-sum notion that a competitive
society doesn't have to be strewn with ruined losers. In some kinds of
games, one player might win more than othersbe.g., getting richbbut the
outcome leaves everybody way ahead, even the "defeated." That may sound
absurdly sunny. Cheating abounds and capitalism always teeters toward
the old pit of feudalism. Still, enlightenment civilization's major
decision-making componentsb markets, democracy, science and
justicebreally have delivered positive-sum outcomes a lot of the time.
We are living proof.
Here's the key point: All four of those human problem-solving
arenasbmarkets, democracy, science and justicebflourish only in light,
when all parties get to see. When darkness prevails, they wither and die.
Specifically: Open markets depend on maximizing the number of knowing
buyers, sellers and competitors. (Adam Smith despised the secret
conniving of oligarchs and blamed thembnot socialistsbfor market
failures.) Democracy only functions well when vigorously engaged in by
knowing and curious citizens.
Our third and fourth pillarsbscience and justicebcannot function in
darkness at all. These four backbone components count on the same, core
innovationbreciprocal accountabilitybto foster creative competition and
to check our natural human penchant for cheating.
If 4,000 years of history demonstrate one thing, it is that you will
cheat, if there isn't plenty of light to stop you. Yes, I'm talking
about you. And me. The obvious conclusion? Anyone who demands extended
secrecy should face a burden of proof. (See Note 1 below)
Now, let's be clear. The Enlightenment is about pragmatism, and no
purist dogma is ever 100 percent right, even transparency. For example,
one topic calling for negotiated compromise is personal privacy. And few
claim that a military can function entirely in the open. Not yet, at
least. (See Note 2)
The WikiLeaks Case exposes several more areas where limits to
transparency are open to intense debate.
So here's the question: To what extent do governments have a need or
right to keep secrets from citizens? And who should decide when
government leaders have crossed the line?
My answer is default openness, with a steadily rising burden of proof
for institutional secrecyba pragmatic but unswerving movement toward a
world of accountability and light. Nevertheless, it is a burden of proof
that can be met! Not all secrecybeven government secrecybis
automatically evil.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange prescribes a different answer: zero
tolerance. Immediate and radical transparency. Moreover, the decision to
reveal government secrets can be made ad hoc and peremptorily by an
individual. One who never voted for or againstbor paid taxes tobthe
government in question. (See Note 3)
David Brin THE WORLD IS WATCHING: The successful revolt in Tunisia was
fueled by a protest movement that knew about the power of hand-held
media, like cell phone cameras.
The Trend Forward
Of course, our Enlightenment experiment is about much more than
markets, science, democracy and justice. These institutions fail without
spirited citizen involvement. Laws against racism would be futile
without the inner changes of heart that millions have performed, in two
short generations.
Deep underneath their bickering, republicans and democrats share a
mental reflexbSuspicion of Authority (SOA)bthat goes back generations,
differing mostly over which elite they see looming as a potential Big
Brother, even while making excuses for the elites they prefer. In a
sense we all want more transparency and light ... to shine on groups
that we dislike.
Do average citizens really matter? They may seem feeble compared to
influential elites: power brokers of government, wealth, celebrity,
criminality, corporations and academia. But this changes when
individuals band together in new-style nongovernmental organizations on
the front lines of the transparency fight.
Take Peter Gabriel's Project Witness. PW buys up last year's video
equipment, in cheap lots, then hands crateloads of cameras to activists,
in places where fighting for democracy can take prodigious courage,
spreading accountability at the local level where it affects lives, a
few hundred at a time. Drawing attention to ten thousand small
struggles, they show how a little added light can save or empower the
next Nelson Mandela. (See www.Witness.org for details.)
Some efforts that are rebelliously pro-freedom can't exactly be called
"pro-transparency." A decade ago, the fad among hackers was
encryptionbpromoting a quaint notion that the scales of justice can be
balanced in all directions, if everyone were somehow kept blind to each
others' identities.
Some Assange allies, like Jacob Appelbaum, distribute a system called
Tor that empowers dissidents living in oppressive states to communicate
with messages that are cleverly enciphered and rerouted. While the
cypherpunks' dream of crypto-empowered world paradise is impractical on
many levels, it has proved useful to whistle blowers.
See
http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-site-news-section/368-wikileaks/4402…
What these and other endeavors share is a pragmatic approach to
spreading liberty and accountability. If all the world's people become
habitual defenders of freedom and accountability in the local realms
that affect them most, where individual action can be effective, then,
as Alexis de Toqueville showed two centuries ago, those habits will
propel us along the spectrum of progress, whatever happens on the
Olympian heights of pompous presidents and tycoons.
Indeed, steps toward new-era transparency are even taking place at the
highest levels. The Obama administration claims to have cut away at the
Everest-high pile of classified documents left by its predecessors and
to have tightened rules for who can declare something secret, and when.
Meanwhile, even in Switzerland, Alpine haven for elite confidentiality,
changes may be afoot. A Swiss-based banking consortium has proposed new
codes under which financiers' compensation packages should be more
transparent to investors. Are these steps toward transparency sincere?
Will they be enough, when people in developing nations demand a return
of lucre stolen by their ex-dictators?
See:
http://www.smh.com.au/business/bank-body-urges-pay-shakeup-20101228-1999r.h…
Leak to History
We aren't the first generation in this struggle. Today's inventors of
freedom-friendly toolsbfrom anonymizers and re-routers that evade
censorship to sniffer-correlators that help average folk peer past elite
veilsbseem blithely ignorant of just how old and difficult the problem
has been.
These self-styled paladins of a new era should recall that our principal
weapon in defending freedom and hope predates the Internet by more than
200 years. It has roots in 18th-century pamphleteers, in the
constitutional deliberations of Philadelphia and (yes) even in the
old-fashioned nations that still make up the foundation of our
Enlightenment. A foundation that some of the folks at WikiLeaksbin their
righteous self-congratulationbtend to ignore, even though they count on
it for their very lives.
Indeed, what is the worldwide blog community, other than a vast
expansion of the sensor web that we all had, in our tribes and villages
of old, when gossip revealed even the peccadilloes of the chiefs?
Notable among the tattles spilled by WikiLeaks were Sarah Palin's hacked
email messages, a banned report on assassinations and torture enacted by
Kenyan police, the confidential membership list of a British neo-fascist
party and tens of thousands of classified documents related to the war
in Afghanistan. A year ago, the website stirred up an international
furor by publishing emails purportedly showing scientific collusion
among global-warming experts.
An aside. Was the last revelation an attempt to "spread the love" and
prove non-leftist evenhandedness? Or a manifestation of Assange's
eagerness to spill whatever would get him headlines? We may never know.
But carelessness in that casebfailing to investigate his source or
understand the contextbput in question Assange's long-standing claim to
be a "journalist." Indeed, one major drawback of splurge-type leak sites
is their susceptibility to be used as unwitting proxies in battles among
hidden giants.
WikiLeaks' first major media breakthrough came in April 2010. At a press
conference in Washington, Assange unveiled a 2007 combat video from the
view of an American Apache helicopter in Iraq, repeatedly opening fire
on a group of people on the ground, including some in a van that
approached and began helping the wounded. The soldiers' giggling,
game-boy background commentary was deeply disturbing.
But the event that catapulted WikiLeaks into the forefront of
international attention, making Assange a 2010 finalist for Time
magazine's "Person of the Year," was the page-by-page release of more
than 250,000 State Department "cables" and other documents, allegedly
swiped by a U.S. Army private, giving the world an unprecedented view of
the chatter and candid views of American diplomats.
When WikiLeaks tweeted that "The coming months will see a new world,
where global history is redefined," we saw the extent of its preening
confidence and pro-transparency ambition. Nor were U.S. government
secrets to be anything more than an appetizer. Promised soon? Tens of
thousands of documents from a major U.S. banking firm, then material
from pharmaceutical corporations, finance and energy companies.
Again, the deep justification is undeniable. We'll soon face a rising
flood of technological breakthroughs that could either benefit us all or
else do jagged harm to humanity and the world. With hard decisions and
tipping points coming ever-faster, we'll do betterband possibly even
survivebif each crisis-choice is debated openly. (See Note 4)
Essential precursors for WikiLeaks go way back. But for legal guidance,
most observers have been zeroing in on the Pentagon Papers affair, when
Daniel Ellsberg released documents showing how the U.S. government lied
or manipulated perceptions during the Vietnam War. Assange is relying on
precedents from that era to stay free and in business.
Unlike Britain, whose Official Secrets Act gives the state power to
pre-censor journalists or penalize them for publishing forbidden
information, the United States Government (USG) has less legal standing
to go after leakers. Even the 1917 Espionage Act, passed in a xenophobic
rush during World War I, only decrees punishment for unauthorized
possession of national defense information if it is thereupon given to
"any person not entitled to receive it," and if the provider has reason
to believe it "could be used to the injury of the United States or to
the advantage of any foreign nation."
As interpreted by courts during the Pentagon Papers era, this law
leaves a pretty generous out for journalists who passively receive such
secrets and then publish them. The government bears an appropriately
steep burden of proof to show not only that there was substantial
"injury" or foreign "advantage," but that the journalist also had strong
reason to expect this.
Note that this is a separate matter from prosecuting the individual who
gathered and leaked the information, in the first place. Any person who
either invaded a USG database to access files or who violated a position
of trust in order to remove them, has broken a number of other laws, for
which penalties can be severe. In the current case, U.S. Army Private
Bradley Manning awaits court martial for swiping the State Department
and Pentagon files that made Assange an international figure. Although
somebe.g., Berkeley city councilmembersbhave called Manning a hero and a
martyr, few expect Manning to evade punishment.
Assange is another matter. The gaps that currently make it hard to
prosecute him include provisions under Section 230 of the 1996
Communications Decency Act that offer a safe harbor for online "middle
parties," protecting them from liability for passing along most kinds of
material they receive from an initial content provider.
In fact, current law cuts both ways. The same regulations also protect
those companies who have acted to cut off, or hem-in, WikiLeaks. As
Nancy Scola put it, on the Personal Democracy Forum:
"Section 230 is one of the fundamental reason why the United States is a
friendlier nation to the Internet and to building Internet businesses
than so many others are. But the flip side of 230 is that companies are
also given protections for taking down from their services content that
they find objectionable. And when it comes to Wikileaks, we're arguably
seeing companies that have been given so much freedom by Section 230
running and hiding behind its protections when the heat is on."
Initially, the Pentagon acknowledged that no person or vital national
interest appeared to have been harmed by WikiLeaks. This reassurance
came into question in December with a W-leaked list of overseas sites
potentially both vulnerable to terrorist attack and of critical
importance to the United States. This seems to undermine any claim that
the documents were vetted to reduce potential for harm.
Yet, this affair is rich in irony. For example, is it totally
coincidence that the recent Arab Spring movement spread across North
Africa and the Middle East just after WikiLeaks spilled all those State
Department cables? Confidential memos that revealed how deeply our
foreign service officers and diplomats despised the dictators they had
to deal with? One net effect was to mute any anti-American theme among
the young democracy activists. Geopolitically, this unintended result
may outweigh all the harm that Assange thought he was doing to the U.S.
government!
We need to remember the big picture: that if doses of transparency are
sometimes discomfiting or inconvenient to the leaders and agencies of a
clumsy-but-well-meaning democracy, those same doses are often downright
lethal to our enemiesbelites of criminality or fanaticism or obstinate
despotism.
Ultimately, if we are led by smart people, they should see that the
historical role of the United Statesband its best interestsbwill be
served by adapting quickly to a worldwide secular trend toward more
light. In fact, abetting this trend should be a central strategic goal
for America and its allies, since this trend leads to victory for our
type of civilization.
Geeks Strike Back
What about all that talk of "cyber-war"? The cyber-activist community
lined up en masse to defend Julian Assange. For example, Anonymous, a
leaderless group of activist hackers, has avowed credit for denial of
service attacks on Mastercard, in revenge for that company cutting off
payment flows to WikiLeaks. Attacks have also targeted PayPal, Amazon,
VISA and other companies. When Post-Finance, the Swiss national postal
bank, froze Assange's account because he falsely claimed local residency
on his deposit forms, this drew vigorous assaults by hacker activists,
or hacktivists. (Hypocrisy alert: When has such a lapse ever before
bothered Swiss bankers?)
"Corrutpt governments of the world," began a recent message on the
Anonymous group's YouTube site. "To move to censor content on the
Internet based on your own prejudice is, at best, laughably impossible,
at worst, morally reprehensible."
In a few short weeks, simply by appealing for volunteers, the Anonymous
group recruited more than 9,000 computer owners in the United States and
3,000 in Britain to download the software to incorporate their machines
into the network that attacks WikiLeaks' enemies.
See
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/11/wikileaks-backlash-cyber-war
Via a supportive online "tweet," Electronic Frontier Foundation
co-founder John Perry Barlow told the Anonymous hackers, "The first
serious info war is now engaged. The field of battle is WikiLeaks. You
are the troops." See
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/10/business/la-fi-cyber-disobedience-2…
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/10/business/la-fi-cyber-disobedience-2…
Resistance Is Feudal
In The Transparent Society, I profiled members of this loose
international community, whose mixture of brilliant skill, individualism
and light-weight transcendentalism seems to hark back at least to the
Freemasons, or perhaps the Jesuits, if there is any useful precedent at
all.
Evidently, they are the purest products of a Western Enlightenment that
they alternately revere and spurn with dripping contempt. A force to be
collectively reckoned with, they also tend toward utter confidence in
their superior spycraft, as well as blithe assurance that history is on
their side.
However, there are drawbacks to the notion of cyberpunks as combatants.
Their proposed "army" combines all the worst traits of a militant
underground and a chaotic schoolyard. The Anonymous network, for
example, operates as a collective in which control devolves to whichever
members just happen to be signed in, at any particular moment.
At present, that model works, because the tasks are simplebto shuttle
some encrypted files around, to share and coordinate some hack-attack
programs among a few thousand volunteers ... or perhaps a few tens of
thousands of bystanders who have inadvertently let themselves be
hijacked in a botnet.
Fine, so far. But this model will break down when it is discovered that
the National Security Agencybthrough several hundred feigned
identitiesbcan sign in and simply vote itself control, whenever it so
chooses.
Or take the pathetic case of Bradley Manning, the bored, low-level
nerd-in-uniform who let his daydreaming ennui get the best of him in
dusty Iraq. When Manning impulsively decided to copy those documents off
SIPRNet, he took all sorts of precautions to keep the theft from being
noticed and to encrypt the documents' transmission to WikiLeaks. Then he
bragged about it to a supposedly trustworthy hacker confidante, who
promptly sold him out.
There is an endearing air of naivete in all the bellicose "war" talk,
coming from hacker-nerds whose principal experience with combat is World
of Warcraft. Few have studied the history of revolutionary movements and
methods in detail, the ancient techniques used by rebels and secret
police in deadly cat-and-mouse games stretching back from the KGB and
Gestapo, through czarist Russia, Ching and Tang China, Babylon and
across 4,000 years of recorded history. Like bribery, blackmail,
co-opting, threats to loved-ones ... and quiet disappearance. Few of
these age-old methods will be inconvenienced by geeky methods like
cryptography.
If things truly were as dire as some hackers romantically claim, if our
civilization is already like those other despotisms and if these
would-be freedom fighters really are our last-best hopebthen one can
wish they would preen less and study-up history more. For all our sakes.
Sensible Steps
Ultimately though, even the WikiLeaks model is untenable. For all of the
hacker chic, such quasi-institutions are lead by a few identifiable
people. If the cyber-mythos is correct, it represents at-best an
intermediate phase on our path to a universally empowered, all-knowing
citizenry. A path better served by pragmatic, incrementalist reformers.
Take an endeavor loosely led by Peter Sunde, one of the founders of the
anti-copyright Pirate Bay website. Techie activists hope to construct an
alternative, decentralized, peer-to-peer (P2P) system that would
continue to use today's Internet infrastructure but bypass the internet
"phone book" maintained by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names
and Numbers.
As the only semblance of an Internet governing body, ICANN has one slim
authoritybover the 286 "dot" domains (.com, .net etc.), but even that
narrow power offends the anti-authority spirit of young netizen
anarchists like Sunde. (See Note 5)
If their plan works, according to Paul Marks of The New Scientist, "a
sort of shadow Internet could form, one in which legal action against
counterfeiters and copyright scofflaws would be nearly impossible."
Some other options are already simmering, and these seem even harder to
prevent, at least in a minimally free society. For example, if the
forces of net neutrality lose every coming regulatory and legislative
fight, leaving both the old web and "Internet 2" firmly in the grasp of
major corporate and state interests, this will only propel alternative,
peer-to-peer systems to abandon standard pipes and fiber, taking flight
to rooftop transceivers and nodes that are completely citizen-owned or
which use cell phone networks. And if every advanced nation bans such
P2P systems? Then they will flourish in the developing world, giving
those rising countries a competitive advantage.
These are a few samples of the innovations that loom on the horizon. In
them we see, distilled, a core difference between two kinds of
transparency activists: pragmatic techno-incrementalists and the
hacker-idealists.
One hacktivist told me: "Governments and corporatists can plug every
hole, but new leaks will pop open. Information wants to be free, and
nothing will avail the federal mastodons and company sloths, or prevent
new hemorrhages till they bleed to death."
To net-mystics, that is more than just an assertion, to be tested by
unfolding events, but a catechism of faith, like in old-timey religions,
or the communist teleology that few of them have read.
We transparency pragmatists know better. History shows that light can
fail. It has failed, far more often than not. Ask Pericles. Ask the
Gracchi, the Florentines and the Weimar liberals. For light and openness
to cleanse this civilization and make it succeed, we'll need practical
innovations and negotiated compromises, sometimes taking one step
sideways, or even backward, for every three steps forward. It may be
polemically unsatisfying to purists, but the general, overall, forward
trend is worth fighting for. Even compromising for.
How were racism and sexism reduced and driven largely into ill-repute,
during our lifetimes? Partly through the self-reforming of millions of
individual hearts ... but also through new laws, passed by growing
citizen consensus, utilizing those enlightenment processes of science,
justice and democratic government. And to whatever extent humanity is
now finally heeding our duty as planetary managers, don't we owe a lot
to government-funded research and wave after wave of environmental laws?
More practically speaking, what chance will Project Witness, or
Transparency International, or citizen camera-wielders, or the Chinese
local democracy activists have, if the general background tone of
international morality and law ceases to be led by Western Enlightenment
nations?
In part, the libretto sung by Assange and his supporters seems more
libertarian than socialist ... or else perhaps its anti-government
rhetoric harkens back to quaint traditions of anarcho-socialism. Either
way, in their gleeful adoption of the wild and open Internet as a model
for a low governance utopia, aren't they forgetting where the Internet
came from? Or the full context of their struggle?
Consider: These fellows are heroes only if you assume that freedom for
individuals, accountability for the mighty, fair competition, steady
progress, social mobility, flattened power hierarchies and honest-open
discourse are all ultimately desirable things. I happen to agree.
Only remember, these traits were never highly rated in most human
societies, where obedience, ritual, type-purity and conformity were far
more highly valuedband where "innovation" was often a dirty word. In
other words, Assange, and the hacktivists and their supporters are only
heroes under the light cast by a narrow, individualist culture that
still has all the historicalbeven biologicalbodds stacked against it.
Any other society would have, by now, simply taken their heads and been
done with it.
Raised by that same culture, I want Assange and his supporters to keep
their heads! I want WikiLeaks ...or something better...or many better
things ...to stay in business. Because the over-reaction that some of
the hacktivists seem bent on provoking will do no good for the overall
cause.
The hope, expressed somewhat more aggressively by "Valkyrie Ice" in h+
Magazine, is that "It really doesn't matter whether Wikileaks is stopped
or not. It's just the opening salvo in the final war between
unaccountable elitism, and accountable equality, and there is only one
real possible outcome, though there may be many partial victories for
those who seek to remain unaccountable. It may take decades, but the
future will belong to Transparency."
See
http://www.hplusmagazine.com/editors-blog/wikileaks-war-between-secrecy-and…
I hope the optimists prove right. Nevertheless, look around the world
today. The Enlightenment is still hard beset by forces that would
undermine or ruin it, either from the outside or within. Forces bent on
restoring those olderband possibly more inherently humanbways of
operating.
Need for Nations
Here is where we pragmatist pushers-of-transparency differ from the
romantics. Across the last 300 years, flags and nations and governments
mattered. They have been clumsy, blunt instruments, but the nations that
livedbeven crudelybby Enlightenment codes propelled a great experiment
in human living that departed from the old ways. Furthermore, the
nations that express general fealty to rights and accountability and
justice and science are still "rebels" in a world where human nature
keeps conspiring to drag us down again, into feudalism.
We have to watch these public organs carefully. Our hired watchdogs can
all-too easily become wolves. If you tell me that you want to spread
transparency and accountability throughout all Western governments, I am
with you! You say you want to change the Constitution? Well, we'd all
love to see your plan.
More generally, at this critical juncture in history, with existential
threats looming on every horizonbalong with a glimmering promise that we
may instead become a wise and decent star-traveling speciesbthe matter
is more critical than ever. We cannot afford anymore the all-too-human
tendency for leaders to decide our fate in secret. Not even "for our own
good."
Reciprocal Accountability remains our only real hope. And to whatever
extent that WikiLeaks has helped push health-inducing transparency
forward, I am guardedly grateful. While I find the whole event
over-rated and a bit yawn-worthy, more a stunt than a model for truly
sustainable openness, the effects ought to be salutary.
But I have a larger goal that I hope you'll share: To achieve lasting
victory for this new way of life. A way of life that may stymie, finally
and forever, the old feudal temptations that have always erupted to
quash freedom. A way of life that may take my sane, rich and happy
grandchildrenband the sane/rich/happy grandchildren of today's poorest
AIDS victim in Zimbabwebto the stars.
Clearly, in order to get there, we will need a wide range of new
toolsband some of the old ones, too. And that means Western governments
will remain key instruments for quite some time. If watched, if
fine-tuned and kept honest, they will continue to play a role as we
cross the danger gap, ultimately reaching a place that is good and just
and filled with light.
Portions of this article were excerpted from a book in-progress. David
Brin's bestselling novels, such as Earth and Kiln People, have been
translated into more than 20 languages. The Postman was loosely Kevin
Costnerized in 1998. The Transparent Society won the nonfiction Freedom
of Speech Award of the American Library Association. His next novel,
Existence, portrays the minefield of dangers ahead, and our potential to
survive.
NOTES
#1 May I pause to lay down a couple of background fundamentals that
should be obvious to anyone? Basics that ought to inform all of our
arguments about transparency?
* The greatest human talent is self-delusion. (Often propped-up by
another, our penchant for self-righteousness.) Across recorded history,
delusional leaders were responsible for countless horrific errors of
statecraft, though it was common folk who suffered. Yet, ruling castes
always made it their top priority to limit criticism, the only thing
that might have corrected their mistakes. This dire contradiction
propelled much of the tragedy of the last 4,000 years.
(http://www.davidbrin.com/addiction.htm)
* The one palliative that has ever been found to correct this human
fault has been Reciprocal Accountability (RA). This entirely new
invention of the Western Enlightenment is the key ingredient of
Democracy, Markets, Science and egalitarian Justice. We may not, as
individuals, be able to penetrate our own favorite delusions, but others
will gladly point them out for us! And we happily return the favor, by
pointing out our adversaries' mistakes. That is the simple basis of
RA... and it can only happen in a general atmosphere of freedom. (See
Note 4)
It can only happen where most of the people know most of what is going
on, most of the time.
It's easy to see why Reciprocal Accountability took so long to emerge.
(Though Pericles tried it, in Athens.) RA may help a society to thrive
economically, to gain social mobility, liberty, fairness and the rapid
advancement of knowledge. But it is also highly inconvenient to elites!
In fact, it acts to separate the good of society from the good of the
ruling caste. This will prove a critical distinction, as we dissect the
WikiLeaks imbroglio.
Reciprocal Accountability is the pragmatic reason for the First
Amendment, entirely independent of morality and sacred "rights." Another
way to put this is with an aphorism and acronym CITOKATE:
Criticism Is the Only Known Antidote to Error.
#2 This matter takes up several chapters of The Transparent Societyband
soon I'll comment on something closely related: the Great Big TSA Mess.
#3 This distinction is an important, if quirky one, in the light of
basic justiceba topic about which Assange lectures us, incessantly. A
democratically elected government can be viewed as the property of its
voting, taxpaying citizens. It is the right and responsibility of those
citizens to ensure that their government is suitably accountable and
just. But, given that they own the government, what right does an
outsider have to steal the property of that government and to diminish
the government's value as a useful tool of that owner-citizenry?
I do not have a pat answer to this quandary. Indeed, since Daniel
Ellsberg was a citizen-owner, having voted and paid taxes, was he
inherently more vested and rightful in diminishing the government's
current stature, in an investment in its future improvement? I point it
out because it reduces the issue to one of tort/harm. Assange argues
that the only "other" that he has harmed is the separate entity of the
U.S. government.
But there is some level where the link between that institution and its
owners cannot be ignored. It is relevant. In abstract, those United
States citizens are the putative injured parties and Assange is
answerable to them. He bears some burden of proving that he has not done
them actionable harm.
#4 Indeed, perhaps unintentionally, the late author of thriller novels,
Michael Crichton, implicitly supported the argument for general
transparency in an ironic way. Examining all of his plots, one finds a
single common element that underlay every disastrous misapplication of
technology that he railed against. A prevailing fetish for secrecy that
insulated his villains from inspection, criticism, accountability or
reproach. The often ridiculous errors made by those villains would not
and could not have happened, if general transparency and light had
prevailed. An interesting illustration from the world of fiction.
#5 I wonder where Assange would stand, on this issue, if he had been
born an aristocrat.
----- End forwarded message -----
--
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
1
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[Freedombox-discuss] Moxie Marlinspike talk: Changing Threats To Privacy: From TIA To Google
by Rob van der Hoeven 06 Jul '18
by Rob van der Hoeven 06 Jul '18
06 Jul '18
Came across a great talk by Moxie Marlinspike at Defcon 18.
Changing Threats To Privacy: From TIA To Google
download: https://media.defcon.org/dc-18/video/DEF%20CON%2018%20Hacking%
20Conference%20Presentation%20By%20-%20Moxie%20Marlinspike%20-%
20Changing%20Threats%20To%20Privacy%20From%20TIA%20to%20Google%20-%
20Video.m4v
Enjoy,
Rob.
http://freedomboxblog.nl
_______________________________________________
Freedombox-discuss mailing list
Freedombox-discuss(a)lists.alioth.debian.org
http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss
----- End forwarded message -----
--
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
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The Feds Want To Write Your Software
Issue #15
August 6, 2001
by D. T. Armentano
In Ayn Rand's famous 1957 novel, Atlas Shrugged, unconstrained
politicians end up destroying the U.S. economy by regulating (among
other things) invention and product innovation. In that vision, new
products that would revolutionize an industry-and put less efficient
competitors out of business-have to be controlled and even suppressed
by government so that no company has an "unfair" advantage and
everyone has an equal chance to compete. Critics savaged Rand's
thesis arguing that she had portrayed regulators as political
lunatics. The critics opined smugly that this sort of innovation
regulation could never happen here.
Well, tell that to Microsoft. For almost a decade, Microsoft has
battled federal and state antitrust authorities over its right to
freely innovate in the marketplace by integrating its Web browser,
Internet Explorer, with its proprietary Windows operating system.
Microsoft claimed that consumers wanted integrated functionality
because it was easier and cheaper to use, while the feds maintained
that competitors (such as Netscape) were put at a competitive
disadvantage by integration and could be injured by it. After a
contentious trial and a recent appellate court decision, the basic
antitrust issues are still unresolved.
The current innovation controversy is over Microsoft's soon-to-be
introduced operating system, Windows XP, which has features that will
steer consumers to Microsoft's own proprietary products and allegedly
injure rivals such as America Online and Eastman Kodak, among others.
The Senate Judiciary Committee has already scheduled hearings in
September to consider, as committee member Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.)
recently put it, whether the design of Windows XP could cause "great
harm to consumers, as well as competing companies."
Never mind that no one (including the government's expert witnesses
at the antitrust trial) produced a shred of evidence that any of
Microsoft's previous innovations injured consumers. And never mind
that the antitrust laws are not intended to protect competitors from
consumer-friendly innovation, and that to do so would betray any
alleged consumer-protection mission. Never even mind that no law in
the U.S. mandates that a firm must structure its innovation to make
competitive life easier for its rivals. Put aside all of that and
consider the following: Do you really want the likes of Sen. Schumer
and Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) writing
your future computer software?
There are several reasons why the answer to that question must be an
emphatic "no." The first is that the new Microsoft XP operating
system is Microsoft's property; Microsoft invented it, owns it, and
has a moral as well as legal right to it. That right allows Microsoft
to determine what the software will do and who will use (license) it
and on what terms. Any government regulation of a company's right to
use its own property in a peaceful manner-and trade with consumers is
entirely peaceful-is an illegitimate taking and a violation of the
company's property rights.
Second, political control over product innovation is monstrously
inefficient, as Ayn Rand illustrated in her novel. Sen. Schumer is
concerned about AOL and Kodak only because those firms (and jobs and
votes) are in his political district demanding "protection" from
Microsoft's newest innovation. The implication is that any time
competitors feel threatened by a rival's innovation, the politicians
will hold hearings and threaten to regulate the offending innovator.
Under those terms, future productivity and growth in the U.S. economy
will be held hostage to pandering politicians and politically
connected corporations seeking shelter from the process of creative
destruction-to advance an absurd politically correct notion of
competition.
Microsoft's representatives have already been invited to appear
before the Judiciary Committee hearings in the fall. As Ayn Rand
would say, the government needs Microsoft's expertise and cooperation
to help lend credibility to the regulation of Windows XP, a "sanction
of the victim" so to speak. To assert its rights, Microsoft should
boycott the hearings and deny the feds any legitimate sanction. Let's
get the true nature of the "hearings" out in the open. Innovation
regulation is a counterproductive and immoral high-tech intrusion.
Those about to be targeted need not cooperate.
D. T. Armentano (ArmentaD(a)irene.net) is professor emeritus in
economics at the University of Hartford (Connecticut) and an adjunct
scholar at the Cato Institute. He is the author of Antitrust and
Monopoly (Independent Institute, 1998) and Antitrust: The Case for
Repeal (Mises Institute, 1999). To subscribe, or to see a list of all
previous TechKnowledge articles, visit
http://www.cato.org/tech/tk-index.html
(Additional Cato analyses of the Microsoft case include Robert Levy,
"Microsoft Redux: Anatomy of a Baseless Lawsuit," September 30, 1999,
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa352.pdf ;
and Robert Levy and Alan Reynolds, "Microsoft's Appealing Case,"
November 9, 2000,
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa385.pdf.
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============================================================
EDRI-gram
biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe
Number 5.11, 6 June 2007
============================================================
Contents
============================================================
1. CSS protection used in DVDs is "ineffective"
2. RFID Expert Group - Kick Off
3. The European Parliament voted for stronger data protection
4. IPRED2 on the DROIPEN table
5. The French Ministry of Interior has a new interception platform
6. Legislation banning "hacking tools" in Germany
7. French State Council allows tracing P2P users
8. Slovenian intelligence agency scandal
9. Italian Government criticized by Free Software Association
10. Launch of Creative Commons Switzerland
11. Germany is preparing the G8 meeting by searching NGOs servers
12. Agenda
13. About
============================================================
1. CSS protection used in DVDs is "ineffective"
============================================================
In an unanimous decision on 25 May 2007, the Helsinki District Court ruled
that Content Scrambling System (CSS) used in DVD movies is "ineffective".
The decision is the first in Europe to interpret new copyright law
amendments, based on EU Copyright Directive of 2001, that bans the
circumvention of "effective technological measures". According to both
Finnish copyright law and the above-mentioned directive, only such
protection measure is effective, "which achieves the protection objective."
The background of the case was that after the copyright law amendment was
accepted in 2005, a group of Finnish computer hobbyists and activists
opened a website where they posted information on how to circumvent CSS.
They appeared in a police station and claimed to have potentially infringed
copyright law. Most of the activists thought that either the police did not
investigate the case in the first place or the prosecutor dropped it if it
went any further. To the surprise of many, the case ended in the Helsinki
District Court. Defendants were Mikko Rauhala who opened the website and a
poster who published his own implementation of a source code circumventing
CSS.
According to the court, CSS no longer achieves its protection objective. The
court relied on two expert witnesses and said that "since a Norwegian
hacker succeeded in circumventing CSS protection used in DVDs in 1999,
end-users have been able to get with ease tens of similar circumventing
software from the Internet even free of charge. Some operating systems come
with this kind of software pre-installed." Thus, the court concluded that
"CSS protection can no longer be held 'effective' as defined in law." All
charges were dismissed.
The defendant's counsel Mikko Vdlimdki explains for EDRI-gram that he
"first
proposed to the court an interpretation where a protection measure is
ineffective when technical experts can circumvent it. The court did not buy
that one. Instead, it adopted my secondary proposal where the efficiency
test is based on the ability of random end-users to circumvent."
He explains that "this should not affect DVD Copy Control Association CCA
(DVD CCA - the California group that licenses CSS to DVD player
manufacturers in Europe and Asia), or the movies studios. My understanding
is that DVD CCA is interested in their player manufacturing monopoly and
license income from Asia, not random Linux users who buy DVDs."
A DVD CCA spokesman has confirmed that they are aware of the decision, but
they "do know that in the US, courts have ruled CSS to be effective, viable
protection."
Vdlimdki also explained why this decision is important in the European
context : "Relevant sections of the Finnish copyright law are copied
verbatim from the directive. I think any European court with common sense
would end up in the same interpretation."
The defendant Mikko Rauhala is also happy about the judgement: "It seems
that one can apply bad law with common sense, which was unfortunately absent
during the preparation of the law".
However, the prosecutor announced she would appeal the decision and might
ask the Finnish Copyright Council for an opinion on the interpretation of
"effective". The Helsinki Court of Appeal is not expected to rule until
2008.
Finnish court rules CSS protection used in DVDs "ineffective" (25.05.2007)
http://www.turre.com/blog/?p=102
English translation of the judgment
http://www.turre.com/css_helsinki_district_court.pdf
Keep on hacking: a Finnish court says technological measures are no longer
"effective" when circumventing applications are widely available on the
Internet (25.05.2007)
http://www.valimaki.com/docs/finnish_css.pdf
Case Could Signal Weakening Of Digital Rights Management In Europe
(4.06.2007)
http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=639&res=1024_ff&print=0
============================================================
2. RFID Expert Group - Kick Off
============================================================
Following the public consultations on RFID last year, the European
Commission announced the creation of an RFID Expert Group to assist in
drafting the future RFID strategy. The group's kick-off meeting was held in
Brussles last week. EDRi was invited to participate in the group.
The Group has been established for two years and includes representatives
from the industry, standardisation bodies and the civil society. The EU data
protection authorities participate as observers.
In the past years digital rights organisations have continuously expressed
their strong concerns regarding the implications the usage of RFID may have
on privacy. The public consultation on RFID confirmed that these concerns
were shared by a majority of the respondents and that safeguards were needed
to ensure the protection of personal data and privacy.
RFID technology may be used to collect information on directly or indirectly
identified persons or to track and trace people's movements in the workspace
and in public areas. Therefore privacy and security will be the first topics
the group will work on. Input from the group will be taken into account by
the European Commission when preparing a Recommendation on RFID usage, which
is planned to be issued by the end of 2007.
The work of the group will then broaden its scope and deal with the move
towards the "Internet of Things". Giving every day objects a representation
on the Internet and building "smart" environments that react to the presence
or movements of people and things have been subjects of research in the last
years. Ambient Intelligence, Ubiquitous Computing, Pervasive Computing
and Smart Objects are keywords for the research specialists that often name
Mark Weiser's article "The Computer for the 21st Century" as the starting
point for these ideas.
Privacy, environmental issues and the dangers stemming from the accumulation
of electromagnetic fields will certainly be among the issues that have to be
discussed with regards to this topic.
As a member of the RFID Expert Group, EDRi will promote the implementation
of privacy-friendly technologies and stress that the reliable protection of
privacy and personal data is a key issue for the acceptance of this
technology.
Mark Weiser already wrote back in 1991 with regards to Ubiquitous
Computing: "If designed into systems from the outset, these techniques can
ensure that private data does not become public. A well-implemented version
of ubiquitous computing could even afford better privacy protection than
exists today." Sixteen years later this statement must still remain the
guideline for RFID applications. Key technologies that are said to have the
potential to become a new motor of growth and jobs need to be concordant
with and to protect the societal standards of the society.
In times of mandatory data retention, as communication traffic data has to
be stored for up to two years, it is important to ensure that only an
absolute minimum of data which can be linked to a certain personis stored.
Otherwise any movement in an RFID-enabled "smart" environment could feed
into a behaviour-profile of a potential future surveillance society.
The RFID Expert Group will make it their mission to discuss these and
related issues and to work out possible solutions and necessary regulatory
measures over the next two years; EDRi will contribute to this mission.
EDRI-gram: EU study on RFID tags shows major privacy concerns (25.10.2006)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.20/rfid
EDRI-gram: Stakeholder group to advise on EU RFID strategy (28.03.2007)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.6/eu-rfid-strategy
Results of the Public Online Consultation on Future RFID policy - "The RFID
Revolution: Your voice on the Challenges, Opportunities and Threats"
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/rfid/doc/rfidswp_en.pdf
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in Europe: steps towards a policy
framework
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/rfid/doc/rfid_en.pdf
Mark Weiser, The Computer for the 21st Century, Scientific American
Feb.,1991
http://www.ubiq.com/hypertext/weiser/SciAmDraft3.html
(contribution by EDRI-member Andreas Krisch)
============================================================
3. The European Parliament voted for stronger data protection
============================================================
On 21 May 2007, the European Parliament (EP) voted for the reinstallation of
the data protection principles in the legislation that allows the police
forces in Europe to share data.
The European Council, which is the one deciding in police and judicial
matters, had formally asked the EP for its opinion on this issue as, lately,
concern has been expressed on the lack of proper protection of personal data
processed in the framework of police and judicial co-operation in criminal
matters. Such a concern has been expressed also by the European Data
Protection Supervisor (EDPS), Peter Hustinx who, at the end of May, advised
the Council against adopting the Commission's new Council Framework Decision
proposal as he considered the proposal did not provide appropriate data
protection.
The MEPs, consulted by the German Presidency, voted in favour of amendments
that would provide stronger data protection.
The German Presidency proposed that the legislation should only apply to
data shared between European police forces and not to data held by national
police forces and the decision of whether it should be applied nationally
will be discussed in three years time by EC.
The proposal is that the police should not send data to other forces that do
not have a proper level of data protection in place. The EP has reinstated
an amendment that would prevent the police from sending data to third
countries that don't have adequate data protection. If the amendment is
voted by the Council, a national harmonisation of police data protection
rules might be forced especially to strengthen the Europe's co-operation to
face US data snooping programmes like PNR and Swift.
Germany's action might also allow new EP amendments that deal with the other
concerns expressed by EDPS last month, to be accepted by the Council at its
meeting this month.
Hopefully the European Council will take into consideration the MEPs' vote
and will take decisions to allow data sharing between police forces in
Europe only with the respect of civil liberties.
Europe votes to restrict police data sharing (23.05.2007)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/23/europarl_on_3rdpillar/
EDRI-gram: EDPS advises against new data protection framework decision
(9.05.2007)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.9/edps-framework-decision
============================================================
4. IPRED2 on the DROIPEN table
============================================================
The Second Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED2)
is now going through the Justice and Home Affairs route. On 4 June, it
passed it's first port of call at the Council's Working Group on Substantive
Criminal Law (DROIPEN) - the first step on the road to the decision of EU's
Council of Ministers.
DROIPEN's job is to prepare the Council's first reading on the
directive. The national government representatives might come up with a
proposal that all Member States agree on, or else they will identify
issues that the Ministers of Justice will have to vote on.
According to information kindly shared by some Member States
representatives following DROIPEN's work, the state of play in general
is as follows.
Many delegations feel they need more information in order to prepare
this legislation properly. There is a general reluctance towards this
directive because of the competence issue, so the Council wants to wait for
the ECJ ship pollution verdict before moving on.
Some delegations have expressed views the directive is the wrong tool to
solve the problem and they don't see criminal sanctions as a way
forward. Further, since criminal sanctions are already in place in many
countries there is no need to rush.
Still time should be used to prepare negotiations, but for now, the only
thing that could be said to have been decided is not to take any action
in any direction.
It is now up to the Portuguese Presidency to negotiate what to do next.
One question on the table is if DROIPEN should approach the Article 36
Committee (CATS) to have an expert opinion on some issues before
involving COREPER 2 (Committee of the Permanent Representatives).
The general forecast is that there will be no Council decision before
late fall, and it is likely that issues not resolved in COREPER2 will
end up in JHA Council votes with a North-South dividing outcome.
Meanwhile, outside of Brussels, Member States are working to prepare
their positions on IPRED2. The United Kingdom's Intellectual Property
Office (IPO) is currently collecting comments from British citizens and
companies on the directive.
A comprehensive policy paper was submitted by a coalition from
FFII/EFF/EBLIDA/BEUC to the UK IPO. The policy is available to be passed on
to the Justice Ministry in your own country.
For general interest AIPPI has already in 2002 compiled information on
criminal law sanctions with regard to the infringement of intellectual
property rights. This might give you a starting point in addressing the
issue at the national level or comparing the situation with other relevant
countries from Europe.
Movement on IPRED2 in Brussels and Beyond (4.06.2007)
http://www.copycrime.eu/blog/movement-ipred2-brussels-and-beyond
Backroom Changes May Be Coming for IPRED2 (16.05.2007)
http://www.copycrime.eu/blog/backroom-changes-may-be-coming-ipred2
FFII/EFF/EBLIDA/BEUC coalition report on the proposal as amended in
Strasbourg by the European Parliament at its first reading on Wednesday, 25
April, 2007 (25.04.2007)
http://action.ffii.org/ipred2/Report_on_EP_vote
EDRI-gram: IPRED2 voted in first reading by the European Parliament
(25.04.2007)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.8/ipred2
AIPPI report: "Question Q169 - Criminal law sanctions with regard to the
infringement of intellectual property rights"
http://www.aippi.org/reports/q169/gr_q169_index.htm
(Thanks to Erik Josefsson - Electronic Frontier Foundation)
============================================================
5. The French Ministry of Interior has a new interception platform
============================================================
On 2 May 2007 a new technical platform for the interception of traffic data
in all types of communication systems was discretly put into operation by
the French Ministry of Interior, covering communication data related to text
messages, mobile or Internet.
The security services are now in the position of knowing who has contacted
whom, when and where and, by a simple click, they can obtain from the
telephone operators the list of all calls from and to a subscriber. They can
obtain the subscription documents of the respective person with address and
bank information and can also require all the Internet sites or forum
addresses the respective person has accessed.
The authorised services may require such kind of information from Uclat
(Coordination unit of the anti-terror fight) that manages the technical
centre located in the new headquarters of the security services of the
national police of Levallois-Perret (Hauts-de-Seine), under the supervision
of IGPN (The General Inspection of the National Police).
This comes as a direct result of the Sarkozy law adopted on 23 January 2006
in an emergency procedure, to prevent terrorist acts, after being found
constitutional by the French Constitutional Council. The text of the law
states that Internet Service Providers, Internet cafes, hosting providers
and operators must communicate the traffic data, called numbers, IP
addresses to specialised services in case of investigations related to
suspect terrorist activities.
The law has created serious concerns to the public freedom advocates as well
as to the magistrates as the procedure doesn't need the involvement of
judges and ignores guarantees related to public freedoms.
Since the entering into operation of the new technical platform on 2 May,
the centre has already dealt with 300 requests per week made mostly by DST
(Direction de la surveillance du territoire) and RG (Renseignement
Generaux). According to an estimation, the platform should be able to
address about 20 000 requests per year.
The French justice system is, in its turn, creating its own national
platform that will be finalised by the end of 2008 - beginning of 2009 to
intercept SMSs and record phonecalls, not only for terrorism cases. Although
France is not in the worst position in Europe as concerning data
interceptions being surpassed by Italy, the Netherlands or Germany, the
tendency is obviously towards an increase of the control by the authorities.
The anti-terrorism spies mails and text messages as well (only in French,
28.05.2007)
http://www.lefigaro.fr/france/20070528.WWW000000165_lantiterrorisme_espionn…
EDRI-gram: IRIS protest against delay French government (20.10.2004)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number2.20/IRIS
EDRI-gram: France adopts anti-terrorism law (18.01.2006)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.1/frenchlaw
EDRI-gram: French anti-terrorism law not anti-constitutional (2.02.2006)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.2/frenchlaw
============================================================
6. Legislation banning "hacking tools" in Germany
============================================================
The laws on computer crimes have become stricter in Germany where the
creation, use or distribution of so-called "hacking tools" have been banned.
On 23 May 2007, the Committee on Legal Affairs of the Bundestag (the lower
chamber of Germany's Federal Parliament) approved a controversial government
bill meant to improve criminal prosecution of computer crimes.
The Criminal Code has been modified so as to make illegal for the
unauthorized users to access secure data by bypassing the computer security
protection system. The "deliberate acquisition of data by tapping into a
non-public transmission of data or by way of reading radiation leaked by a
data processing system" is now considered a crime.
The German law defines hacking as penetrating a computer security system and
gaining access to secure data, without necessarily stealing data and any
individual or group that intentionally creates, spreads or purchases hacker
tools designed for illegal purposes is considered an offender. Under the
present Criminal Code, the offenders could face fines and up to 10 years
imprisonment for major offences.
These measures have been criticised being considered as counterproductive by
several groups, including EDRI-member Chaos Computer Club, which drew
the attention to the so-called "white hat" hackers who work for security
companies. By this present legislation, these experts could be in the
position of not being allowed to work with software developers in creating
secure products. "It's a win-lose law in favour for the bad guys," wrote a
hacker, known by the pseudonym van Hauser.
Chaos Computer Club also expressed the concern that this legislation will
allow the German Government to install spyware on suspected criminals'
computers without their knowledge.
The critics argue that the legislation does not make any difference between
a password cracker and a password recovery tool for instance. "Forbidding
this software is about as helpful as forbidding the sale and production of
hammers because sometimes they also cause damage," said Chaos Computer Club
spokesman Andy M|ller-Maguhn to Ars Technica who also stated that under the
new law, the police will be able to more easily access information on
suspects.
Germany declares hacking tools 'verboten' (31.05.2007)
http://www.out-law.com//default.aspx?page=8103
Green light for tightening of anti-hacker legislation (24.05.2007)
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/90163
Germany leads the way with tough anti-hacking law (25.05.2007)
http://www.computerworlduk.com/management/security/cybercrime/news/index.cf…
============================================================
7. French State Council allows tracing P2P users
============================================================
The State Council of France validated on 23 May 2007 the automatic tracing
of illegal downloading in P2P networks. This decision cancelled the 18th
October 2005 CNIL (Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertis)
decision that rejected the introduction of surveillance devices proposed by
Sacem and other 3 author and producer associations asking for the automatic
tracing of infringements of the intellectual property code.
The State Council believes that such devices are acceptable considering the
extent of the piracy phenomenon in France. The number of downloaded files
decreased by half in 2006 as compared to 2005 but according to GfK institute
this is probably due to the evolution from a quantitative type of
downloading to a qualitative one.
GfK institute has also reached the conclusion that the illegal downloading
in P2P networks have not caused the decrease in the sales of cultural
products but actually "quite the contrary, downloading is really perceived
by half of the Internet users as a promotion vector for artistes."
The State Council's decision was to the liking of the associations the
request of which was rejected by CNIL in 2005. SCPP (Sociiti civile des
producteurs phonographiques), one of these associations, stated that CNIL's
rejection of their request had "not allowed them to take measures to prevent
and repress music piracy that were however taken by most states of the
European Union". In their opinion "France is one of the countries where
Internet piracy is the most developed and where, therefore, the legal music
market develops more slowly".
CNIL reaction to the State Council decision came after two days by stating
that its intention is that of +ensuring a fair balance between the copyright
protection and the protection of the right to private life of Internet
users".
CNIL also stated having already authorized Sell (Syndicat des iditeurs de
logiciels de loisirs) to develop an automatic surveillance system for the
downloading of video games in P2P networks.
In comparison with the systems proposed by the music associations, this
system was approved because it puts less burden on the ISPs and it involves
"only the users that are responsible with the first sharing in a network of
a work or having shared a not yet commercialized work". The surveillance
devices are ready and a request of tenders has been launched.
CNIL will meet the author associations among which Sacem and SCPP as well as
ISPs and the discussions will last for several weeks.All parties have
expressed their willingness to collaborate.
Peer-to-peer: The State Council says yes to the pirate chase (only in
French, 23.05.2007)
http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/internet/0,39020774,39369675,00.htm
Surveillance of P2P networks: CNIL acknowledges the decision of the State
Council (only in French, 25.05.2007)
http://www.cnil.fr/index.php?id=2221&news[uid]=464&cHash=57a0f43bbe
Peer-to-peer: half downloaded files less in 2006 (only in French,
18.01.2007)
http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/internet/0,39020774,39366341,00.htm
Peer to peer : CNIL does not authorise the devices presented bu the author
and music producer associations (only in French, 25.10.2005)
http://www.cnil.fr/index.php?id=1881
============================================================
8. Slovenian intelligence agency scandal
============================================================
The Slovenian intelligence agency (SOVA) is monitoring telecommunications
in the Balkans in cooperation with German BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst) and
UK's MI5. Some believe that the recently disclosed secret location in the
Slovenian capital could be a part of Echelon.
The Slovenian intelligence agency is currently a part of a political scandal
which has revealed some secret locations and methods that SOVA was using for
intelligence purposes. Moreover, international credibility in SOVA and
its agents is compromised, as the Slovenian press managed to obtain
classified information regarding SOVA's secret financing, its company of
straw and its international cooperation with other intelligence agencies.
Most likely, the information leaked from the parliamentary committee for
monitoring the secret services activtiy.
The latest disclosure reveals SOVA's secret location for monitoring
international telecommunications in Ljubljana near Telekom Slovenije
(Slovenian Telco) and Siol (the major Slovenian ISP) headquarters, as well
as near the Slovenian Internet Exchange (SIX) and Ljubljana Stock Exchange
(LJSE) buildings.
The Slovenian media is reporting that the above mentioned location was also
used by German BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst) and UK's MI5, especially to
monitor telecommunications in the Balkans. Miso Alkalaj, an IT expert from
Jozef Stefan Institute said he would not be surprised if the location was a
part of Echelon.
An interesting fact is that residents of the block of flats where SOVA has
its secret location, knew that conspiratorial activities were taking
place there. Apart from that, elder residents are able to tell that
the former communist intelligence agency used the same flat to wiretap
telephone conversations.
The other disclosure reveals that Slovenian intelligence agency SOVA
established a webhosting company WEBS, which is presumably a company
of straw that SOVA needed for its intelligence activities.
Having in view the recent events regarding the Slovenian intelligence
agency, it becomes interesting that SOVA's headquarters are located in
Stegne, an industrial area of Ljubljana, where among others, Telekom
Slovenije (Slovenian Telco) has its operational services. Intention or
coincidence?
Telekom Slovenije indirectly admits SOVA's wiretapping (only in Slovenian,
1.06.2007)
http://dnevnik.si/novice/slovenija/249095/
Director of SOVA takes action after disclosure of wrath of foreign
intelligence agencies (only in Slovenian, 30.05.2007)
http://dnevnik.si/novice/slovenija/248654/
(Contribution by Aljaz Marn, EDRI-observer, Slovenia)
============================================================
9. Italian Government criticized by the Free Software Association
============================================================
After filing a case to the Regional Administrative Tribunal of Lazio
against the Italian Ministry of Work for launching a call for tenders
where only Microsoft software was considered as eligible, Italian NGO Assoli
(Associazione Software Libero) is criticizing again its Government.
The problem arose when the Government - specifically the Ministry for
University and Research, headed by Mr.Fabio Mussi (Left democrats) and the
Ministry for Innovation in the Public Administration,
headed by Mr. Luigi Nicolais (Left democrats) - announced
an official agreement with Microsoft Italia whose main goals are
"education/training, technology transfer and facilitation of research
projects".
AsSoLi publicly objected to the agreement by which Microsoft
commits to invest only 737,000 euros - 0.0007% of the total turnover of
the company for 2006, according to AsSoLi's calculations - in three
years, to be subdivided among three research centres. Moreover,
AsSoLi notices that, according to the agreement, the investment will
not take the form of cash, but will rather be performed "through (the
work of) third parties, on the basis of specific needs for hardware
products, software, technical support services and training
activities". On the other hand, continues AsSoLi, the agreement does
not specify what would be the financial burden for the Italian Public
Administration.
In reaction to what it considered a waste of public money, AsSoLi
officially committed to make available to the Italian Government, for
a period of five years, training activities, training material,
technological solutions and software, either directly or delegating
Italian companies specialised in Free Software, for a value of
about 10.000.000 euros per year - a total value of 50.000.000 euros. AsSoLi
stresses the fact that their offer is absolutely serious.
Moreover, AsSoLi conducted a study on the Microsoft Research Center
located in Trento (Northern Italy). According to the study, Microsoft
invested only 250.000 euros in research activities on their own
products, with the Italian Public Administration paying more than
1.800.000 euros. The study was sent to hundreds of representatives of
national and local institutions. AsSoLi also announced the forthcoming
release of a second study, providing a more thorough assessment of the
financial elements in the first analysis.
The Italian Government, through its spokesman Mr. Alfonso Lelio, has
recently answered AsSoLi's criticisms, stressing that the agreement
with Microsoft does not mean that the Government is not interested in
investing in Free Software, or is not already doing so, as the
Government claims is the case with the latest budget law, where 10.000.000
euros for 2007-2009 are allocated to "Information Society" projects, with an
explicit priority to those that "develop or use" Free Software.
AsSoLi - Associazione Software Libero
http://www.softwarelibero.it/
EDRI-Gram 5.72, "Free software needs to be considered in Italian
public acquisitions" (12.04.2007)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.7/free-software-italy
AsSoLi offers EUR 10,000,000 to the Italian Government (Italian only,
8.05.2007)
http://www.softwarelibero.org/lassociazione-il-software-libero-offre-50-000…
Text of the proposed agreement with the Italian Government (Italian only,
8.05.2007)
http://www.softwarelibero.org/progetti/proposta_governo
Study by AsSoLi on the Microsoft Research Center in Trento (Italian only,
18.05.2007)
http://softwarelibero.it/riflessione-politiche-innovazione-ict
Answer of the Italian Government to AsSoLi's criticisms (Italian only,
29.05.2007)
http://www.lastampa.it/_web/CMSTP/tmplrubriche/giornalisti/grubrica.asp?ID_…
(contribution by Andrea Glorioso - Italian consultant on digital policies)
============================================================
10. Launch of Creative Commons Switzerland
============================================================
On 26 May 2007 the Swiss version of Creative Commons licenses were launched
in Zurich at a ceremony held as the finishing highlight of this year's
Tweakfest, Switzerland's Festival for Media, Culture, and Digital Lifestyle.
The launch was hosted by Digitale Allmend, a Swiss NGO focused on access to
digital information and creativity. Openlaw and Digitale Allmend are
co-leading the Swiss Creative Commons project in a joint effort. With
Switzerland, the Creative Commons licenses are now offered in localized
versions in a total of 37 countries around the world.
John Buckman, Creative Commons board member and founder of magnatune.com,
gave the keynote address, explaining how he developed his website as a
successful example of a Creative Commons based business.
There was live audio and visual performances by DJ Soult and VJ Set from
Pixelpunx.ch who released a number of works under the new Swiss
Creative Commons licenses that evening.
Urs Gehrig from Openlaw explained the system: "The Creative Commons
licensing system simplifies the exchange of cultural goods such as music,
video, text and other creative media."
"We see the porting of Creative Commons licences to Switzerland as an
important step - firstly because the swiss cultural movement will be able to
contribute a variety of interesting works to a global creative community and
secondly in achieving a more balanced choice for creators when deciding how
their works is distributed and accessible." was the declaration of Martin
Feuz from Digitale Allmend.
During the launch, Creative Commons Switzerland announced several upcoming
projects that plan to use the Swiss Creative Commons licenses, including
netlabels (starfrosch.ch, sonicsquirrel.net) two online cultural TV
channels (kulturtv.ch and rebell.tv) or a video art website (lenarmy.ch).
Creative Commons Switzerland
http://www.creativecommons.ch/
Digitale Allmend - News and videos from CC Switzerland launch (only in
German)
http://blog.allmend.ch/
Openlaw
http://www.openlaw.ch
Tweakfest
http://www.tweakfest.ch
============================================================
11. Germany is preparing the G8 meeting by searching NGOs servers
============================================================
The German government decided to prepare the G8 meeting that will take place
during 6-8 June in Heiligendamm, a Baltic seaside resort, by increasing the
number of searches and seizures to NGOs and anti-globalization movements
offices and servers.
During the entire month of May the Federal Prosecutor gave order to the
Police in Hamburg, Berlin and other states to search private homes, offices,
libraries, social centres or other locations were there were located servers
of the anti-globalisation opponents, without making any arrests. The
searches and seizures were explained by the German authorities by the
possibility to create a terrorist organization by the altermondialist German
chapter of the association Attac, a group founded in France to campaign for
a global tax on speculative capital movements to finance development aid.
The association between terrorism and altermondialism was considered as
"scandalous" by the co-president of the Attac France, Aurilie Trouvi,
taking into consideration the objectives of the association: democratisation
of the international institutions, fight against poverty or the preservation
of the natural resources. She rhetorical asked: "Do freedom of expression
and democracy stop were the interests of the richest eight countries begin?"
Peter Wahl from Attac Germany has underlined the obvious political purpose
of this operation: "to discredit the democratic actions that contest the G8
summit. It is an excessive measure that is incompatible with the rule of
law."
Another measure that the German Government took was the temporary suspension
of the Schengen Agreement until 10 June. Every persons travelling to Germany
until that date will have to pass the identity and security controls. The
German authorities have also banned any demonstration near the resort where
the G8 summit will take place.
Searches against the alter movements on Germany (only in France, 17.05.2007)
http://www.france.attac.org/spip.php?article7093
The police authority Rostock - not the demonstrators - are severely damaging
the reputation of the Federal Republic of Germany (17.05.2007)
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2007/may/germany-g8-protests.pdf
Germany: Police raid G8 activists (5.2007)
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2007/may/02germany-g8-raids.htm
Despite Germany's Tight Controls, Violence (3.06.2007)
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38015
============================================================
12. Agenda
============================================================
8 May - 22 July 2007, Austria
Annual decentralized community event around free software lectures,
panel discussions, workshops, fairs and socialising
http://www.linuxwochen.at
11-15 June 2007, Geneva, Switzerland
Provisional Committee on Proposals Related to a WIPO Development Agenda:
Fourth Session
http://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/details.jsp?meeting_id=11927
11-12 June 2007, Strasbourg, France
Council of Europe - Octopus Interface 2007 - Cooperation against Cybercrime
http://www.coe.int/t/e/legal_affairs/legal_co-operation/combating_economic_…
12 June 2007, Berlin, Germany
German Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information -
Symposium "Data Protection in Europe"
http://www.bfdi.bund.de/cln_029/nn_533554/DE/Oeffentlichkeitsarbeit/Termine…
14 June 2007, Paris, France
ENISA/EEMA European eIdentity conference - Next Generation Electronic
Identity - eID beyond PKI
http://enisa.europa.eu/pages/eID/eID_ws2007.htm
15-17 June 2007, Dubrovnik, Croatia
Creative Commons iSummit 2007
http://wiki.icommons.org/index.php/ISummit_2007
17-22 June 2007 Seville, Spain
19th Annual FIRST Conference, "Private Lives and Corporate Risk"
http://www.first.org/conference/2007/
18-22 June 2007, Geneva, Switzerland
Second Special Session of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related
Rights (SCCR)
http://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/details.jsp?meeting_id=12744
28 June 2007, London, UK
First London CC-Salon organized by Free Culture London and the Open Rights
Group
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/London_Salon
8-12 August 2007, near Berlin, Germany
Chaos Communication Camp 2007
"In Fairy Dust We Trust!"
http://events.ccc.de/camp/2007/
5-11 September 2007
Ars Electronica Festival - Festival for Art, Technology and Society
http://www.aec.at/en/festival2007/index.asp
============================================================
13. About
============================================================
EDRI-gram is a biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe.
Currently EDRI has 25 members from 16 European countries.
European Digital Rights takes an active interest in developments in the EU
accession countries and wants to share knowledge and awareness through the
EDRI-grams. All contributions, suggestions for content, corrections or
agenda-tips are most welcome. Errors are corrected as soon as possible and
visibly on the EDRI website.
Except where otherwise noted, this newsletter is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License. See the full text at
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Newsletter editor: Bogdan Manolea <edrigram(a)edri.org>
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----- End forwarded message -----
--
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
1
0
06 Jul '18
I see nothing "inevitable" about this (see John Walker's take [2] for an
opposing viewpoint), but I respect David's viewpoint, and obviously he's
devoted a few decades to thinking about this.
Udhay
[1] http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/
__________________________________________________________
http://www.metroactive.com/features/transparent-society.html
World Cyberwar And the Inevitability of Radical Transparency
How WikiLeaks ignited the first international cyber war and how
pro-business laws enacted to promote the growth of Silicon Valley's
digital media and technology
companies inadvertently nurtured transformation activists shaking up and
toppling governments around the world.
July 6, 2011 - by David Brin
ARE WE heading into an era when light will shine upon everyone, even the
mighty? Will the benefits of such an age outweigh the inevitable costs?
Recent events that powerfully illustrate these trade-offs range from the
WikiLeaks Affairbpublishing a quarter million documents purloined from
the United States governmentbto the tech-empowered Arab Spring that
followed to the battle being waged on our own streets between law
enforcement agencies and citizens who record their activities.
Perhaps I come to this topic pre-jaded. In The Transparent Society
(1997), I forecast that traditional notions of secrecy would crumble in
the early 21st century. For many reasonsbtechnical, social and
politicalb"leaks" would grow into tsunamis that carve a radically
different world. My 1989 novel Earth portrayed near-future events like
massive dumps of military and diplomatic secrets that rattle governments
powerless to keep up with amateur cunning and changing values.
Prescience aside, this sea change will drive outcomes far more complex
than outdated nostrums of left or right. Multiple trends seem to pull in
opposing directions. For example, ever since 9/11 and the Patriot Act,
many Americans have perceived us entering a nearly Orwellian era, in
which the state probes, pokes and scrutinizes us from every angle, and
allows corporationsbfrom banks to Google and Facebookbto do the same.
Dana Priest and William Arkin, in the Washington Post, fret that we've
become a "monitored nation" and world.
"(T)he United States is assembling a vast domestic intelligence
apparatus to collect information about Americans, using the FBI, local
police, state homeland security offices and military criminal
investigators. The system ... collects, stores and analyzes information
about thousands of U.S. citizens and residents, many of whom have not
been accused of any wrongdoing."
Is China the future? American companies like Cisco are right now bidding
to take part in a project to span the city of Chongqing with 500,000
cameras in an integrated surveillance system. Find that both impressive
and chilling? Well, democratic Britain has an even larger camera
network. In the future, what separates free and unfree nations won't be
the presence of surveillance, but whether citizens are fully empowered
to look back.
Never before have so many people been empowered with practical tools of
transparency. Beyond access to instantly searchable information from
around the world, nearly all of us now carry in our pockets a device
that can take still photographs and video, then transmit the images
anywhere. Will the growing power of elites to peer down at
usbsurveillancebultimately be trumped by a rapidly augmenting ability of
citizens to look back at those in powerbor "sousveillance"?
This issue is being wrangled right now, on our streets. Far more ominous
than the WikiLeaks affair is a trend of police officers waging
unofficial war against camera-toting citizens, arresting bystanders for
digitally recording cops in action. Obsolete wire-tapping and privacy
laws are contorted to justify seizure and destruction of recordings made
even in public places.
We can sympathize with officers doing a harsh, underappreciated job,
resenting the addition of one more source of stressbrelentless scrutiny.
I appreciate not only the skill and professionalism that helped reduce
crime in the United States but also the daily fight for self-control
that each officer must wage, under conditions that might send any of us
into uncontrollable rage. We all carry hormonal and psychological
baggage from the Stone Age ... and from 5,000 years of urban life, when
the king's thugs never thought twice before pounding the heads of punks.
But times and rules change. We're more demanding now. In fact, most
officers are adapting well to our new standards, clenching their teeth
and calling "sir" even the most outrageously abusive drunks. I'm proud
to know some of these folks and I grasp their worry that some
street-corner putz might record a momentary, but career threatening lapse.
Yet, how can the assertion that cops deserve "privacy" stand up against
our far greater need for accountability? Shall we surrender the only
protection that citizens ever had against abusive powerbthe truth? We
won't allow it. More to the point, technology won't allow it. For, like
Moore's Law, the cameras get smaller, cheaper, more numerous and more
mobile every year.
When all of this equilibrates, juries, review boards and citizens will
make allowances for good people, caught making rare mistakes. We'll have
to, if we want our cities patrolled. Ironically, that broad perspective
will only evolve once we're convinced we really are seeing it all. That
our enhanced vision protects us.
If the odds seem to favor citizen-power at street level, others want to
apply principles of transparent accountabilitybor sousveillancebto
higher echelons of power
Clearly a panoply of transparency activists out there, including the
folks behind WikiLeaks, think it possible to restore balance in favor of
people, by applying copious amounts of light.
And, just as clearly, those in high places wince at being scrutinized.
(Human nature yet again.) For example, months ago, the U.S. Department
of Justice launched a criminal probe of WikiLeaks. Did Julian Assange
commit crimes by revealing those secret cables? Are the world's powers
shaken to their core, withholding vengeance only because Assange holds
"poison pill" revelations in reserve?
We've seen a maelstrom of indignant fury with all sides claiming the
moral high ground. Banks and credit companies that reject doing business
with WikiLeaks have been punished by leaderless networks of online
activistsbwho are in turn attacked by "patriotic hackers."
Meanwhile, similar cycles of sabotage or theft, followed by retaliation,
are seen when hackers from China or the former Soviet bloc invade
Western computer systems, compromising either intellectual property or
stores of personal identities, or destabilize systems like Facebook and
Google that empower citizen movements in other countries. Accusations
fly amid a growing cast of intermeshed characters.
Is this the full-tilt outbreak of cyber war, with nations and
corporations waging battle through deniable proxies? (Frederik Pohl
forecast such a dismal cycle in his prophetic novel The Cool War.) We
may yet miss the old days, when uniformed soldiers were accountable to
national flags.
Refocusing back on the WikiLeaks Affair, with every news organization
re-publishing his info-spills, is Assange right to call himself a
frontline journalist? Because someone else actually snooped the
documents in question, and WikiLeaks merely passed them along, is
Assange protected by Western constitutional traditions and free speech?
David Brin THE MAN WITH THE POISON PILL: Are the world's powers shaken
to their core because WikiLeaks' Julian Assange is holding some bigger
revelations in reserve?
Transparency Pays
"Do not revile the king even in your thoughts, or curse the rich in your
bedroom, because a bird in the sky may carry your words, and a bird on
the wing may report what you say."bEcclesiastes 10:20
An overall trend toward greater openness will be essential to our
survival as individuals, nations, and even as a species.
We have bet our lives, and our children's, on the continued success of a
civilization that provides our material needs better than any other. One
that has inarguably fostered greater levels of lawful peacebboth per
capita and for billions worldwidebthan any predecessor. It also
engendered both social mobility and repudiation of prejudice to a degree
thatbif woefully unfinishedbno prior society ever matched. Nor could any
combination of others equal our rate of discovery and new learning.
Even the way we are self-critical and unsatisfiedbangrily rejecting
braggart paragraphs like the one above and focusing instead on further
improvementsbeven that reflex is consistent with a civilization that has
real potential. One that would have stunned our ancestors.
Underlying all of this is the positive-sum notion that a competitive
society doesn't have to be strewn with ruined losers. In some kinds of
games, one player might win more than othersbe.g., getting richbbut the
outcome leaves everybody way ahead, even the "defeated." That may sound
absurdly sunny. Cheating abounds and capitalism always teeters toward
the old pit of feudalism. Still, enlightenment civilization's major
decision-making componentsb markets, democracy, science and
justicebreally have delivered positive-sum outcomes a lot of the time.
We are living proof.
Here's the key point: All four of those human problem-solving
arenasbmarkets, democracy, science and justicebflourish only in light,
when all parties get to see. When darkness prevails, they wither and die.
Specifically: Open markets depend on maximizing the number of knowing
buyers, sellers and competitors. (Adam Smith despised the secret
conniving of oligarchs and blamed thembnot socialistsbfor market
failures.) Democracy only functions well when vigorously engaged in by
knowing and curious citizens.
Our third and fourth pillarsbscience and justicebcannot function in
darkness at all. These four backbone components count on the same, core
innovationbreciprocal accountabilitybto foster creative competition and
to check our natural human penchant for cheating.
If 4,000 years of history demonstrate one thing, it is that you will
cheat, if there isn't plenty of light to stop you. Yes, I'm talking
about you. And me. The obvious conclusion? Anyone who demands extended
secrecy should face a burden of proof. (See Note 1 below)
Now, let's be clear. The Enlightenment is about pragmatism, and no
purist dogma is ever 100 percent right, even transparency. For example,
one topic calling for negotiated compromise is personal privacy. And few
claim that a military can function entirely in the open. Not yet, at
least. (See Note 2)
The WikiLeaks Case exposes several more areas where limits to
transparency are open to intense debate.
So here's the question: To what extent do governments have a need or
right to keep secrets from citizens? And who should decide when
government leaders have crossed the line?
My answer is default openness, with a steadily rising burden of proof
for institutional secrecyba pragmatic but unswerving movement toward a
world of accountability and light. Nevertheless, it is a burden of proof
that can be met! Not all secrecybeven government secrecybis
automatically evil.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange prescribes a different answer: zero
tolerance. Immediate and radical transparency. Moreover, the decision to
reveal government secrets can be made ad hoc and peremptorily by an
individual. One who never voted for or againstbor paid taxes tobthe
government in question. (See Note 3)
David Brin THE WORLD IS WATCHING: The successful revolt in Tunisia was
fueled by a protest movement that knew about the power of hand-held
media, like cell phone cameras.
The Trend Forward
Of course, our Enlightenment experiment is about much more than
markets, science, democracy and justice. These institutions fail without
spirited citizen involvement. Laws against racism would be futile
without the inner changes of heart that millions have performed, in two
short generations.
Deep underneath their bickering, republicans and democrats share a
mental reflexbSuspicion of Authority (SOA)bthat goes back generations,
differing mostly over which elite they see looming as a potential Big
Brother, even while making excuses for the elites they prefer. In a
sense we all want more transparency and light ... to shine on groups
that we dislike.
Do average citizens really matter? They may seem feeble compared to
influential elites: power brokers of government, wealth, celebrity,
criminality, corporations and academia. But this changes when
individuals band together in new-style nongovernmental organizations on
the front lines of the transparency fight.
Take Peter Gabriel's Project Witness. PW buys up last year's video
equipment, in cheap lots, then hands crateloads of cameras to activists,
in places where fighting for democracy can take prodigious courage,
spreading accountability at the local level where it affects lives, a
few hundred at a time. Drawing attention to ten thousand small
struggles, they show how a little added light can save or empower the
next Nelson Mandela. (See www.Witness.org for details.)
Some efforts that are rebelliously pro-freedom can't exactly be called
"pro-transparency." A decade ago, the fad among hackers was
encryptionbpromoting a quaint notion that the scales of justice can be
balanced in all directions, if everyone were somehow kept blind to each
others' identities.
Some Assange allies, like Jacob Appelbaum, distribute a system called
Tor that empowers dissidents living in oppressive states to communicate
with messages that are cleverly enciphered and rerouted. While the
cypherpunks' dream of crypto-empowered world paradise is impractical on
many levels, it has proved useful to whistle blowers.
See
http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-site-news-section/368-wikileaks/4402…
What these and other endeavors share is a pragmatic approach to
spreading liberty and accountability. If all the world's people become
habitual defenders of freedom and accountability in the local realms
that affect them most, where individual action can be effective, then,
as Alexis de Toqueville showed two centuries ago, those habits will
propel us along the spectrum of progress, whatever happens on the
Olympian heights of pompous presidents and tycoons.
Indeed, steps toward new-era transparency are even taking place at the
highest levels. The Obama administration claims to have cut away at the
Everest-high pile of classified documents left by its predecessors and
to have tightened rules for who can declare something secret, and when.
Meanwhile, even in Switzerland, Alpine haven for elite confidentiality,
changes may be afoot. A Swiss-based banking consortium has proposed new
codes under which financiers' compensation packages should be more
transparent to investors. Are these steps toward transparency sincere?
Will they be enough, when people in developing nations demand a return
of lucre stolen by their ex-dictators?
See:
http://www.smh.com.au/business/bank-body-urges-pay-shakeup-20101228-1999r.h…
Leak to History
We aren't the first generation in this struggle. Today's inventors of
freedom-friendly toolsbfrom anonymizers and re-routers that evade
censorship to sniffer-correlators that help average folk peer past elite
veilsbseem blithely ignorant of just how old and difficult the problem
has been.
These self-styled paladins of a new era should recall that our principal
weapon in defending freedom and hope predates the Internet by more than
200 years. It has roots in 18th-century pamphleteers, in the
constitutional deliberations of Philadelphia and (yes) even in the
old-fashioned nations that still make up the foundation of our
Enlightenment. A foundation that some of the folks at WikiLeaksbin their
righteous self-congratulationbtend to ignore, even though they count on
it for their very lives.
Indeed, what is the worldwide blog community, other than a vast
expansion of the sensor web that we all had, in our tribes and villages
of old, when gossip revealed even the peccadilloes of the chiefs?
Notable among the tattles spilled by WikiLeaks were Sarah Palin's hacked
email messages, a banned report on assassinations and torture enacted by
Kenyan police, the confidential membership list of a British neo-fascist
party and tens of thousands of classified documents related to the war
in Afghanistan. A year ago, the website stirred up an international
furor by publishing emails purportedly showing scientific collusion
among global-warming experts.
An aside. Was the last revelation an attempt to "spread the love" and
prove non-leftist evenhandedness? Or a manifestation of Assange's
eagerness to spill whatever would get him headlines? We may never know.
But carelessness in that casebfailing to investigate his source or
understand the contextbput in question Assange's long-standing claim to
be a "journalist." Indeed, one major drawback of splurge-type leak sites
is their susceptibility to be used as unwitting proxies in battles among
hidden giants.
WikiLeaks' first major media breakthrough came in April 2010. At a press
conference in Washington, Assange unveiled a 2007 combat video from the
view of an American Apache helicopter in Iraq, repeatedly opening fire
on a group of people on the ground, including some in a van that
approached and began helping the wounded. The soldiers' giggling,
game-boy background commentary was deeply disturbing.
But the event that catapulted WikiLeaks into the forefront of
international attention, making Assange a 2010 finalist for Time
magazine's "Person of the Year," was the page-by-page release of more
than 250,000 State Department "cables" and other documents, allegedly
swiped by a U.S. Army private, giving the world an unprecedented view of
the chatter and candid views of American diplomats.
When WikiLeaks tweeted that "The coming months will see a new world,
where global history is redefined," we saw the extent of its preening
confidence and pro-transparency ambition. Nor were U.S. government
secrets to be anything more than an appetizer. Promised soon? Tens of
thousands of documents from a major U.S. banking firm, then material
from pharmaceutical corporations, finance and energy companies.
Again, the deep justification is undeniable. We'll soon face a rising
flood of technological breakthroughs that could either benefit us all or
else do jagged harm to humanity and the world. With hard decisions and
tipping points coming ever-faster, we'll do betterband possibly even
survivebif each crisis-choice is debated openly. (See Note 4)
Essential precursors for WikiLeaks go way back. But for legal guidance,
most observers have been zeroing in on the Pentagon Papers affair, when
Daniel Ellsberg released documents showing how the U.S. government lied
or manipulated perceptions during the Vietnam War. Assange is relying on
precedents from that era to stay free and in business.
Unlike Britain, whose Official Secrets Act gives the state power to
pre-censor journalists or penalize them for publishing forbidden
information, the United States Government (USG) has less legal standing
to go after leakers. Even the 1917 Espionage Act, passed in a xenophobic
rush during World War I, only decrees punishment for unauthorized
possession of national defense information if it is thereupon given to
"any person not entitled to receive it," and if the provider has reason
to believe it "could be used to the injury of the United States or to
the advantage of any foreign nation."
As interpreted by courts during the Pentagon Papers era, this law
leaves a pretty generous out for journalists who passively receive such
secrets and then publish them. The government bears an appropriately
steep burden of proof to show not only that there was substantial
"injury" or foreign "advantage," but that the journalist also had strong
reason to expect this.
Note that this is a separate matter from prosecuting the individual who
gathered and leaked the information, in the first place. Any person who
either invaded a USG database to access files or who violated a position
of trust in order to remove them, has broken a number of other laws, for
which penalties can be severe. In the current case, U.S. Army Private
Bradley Manning awaits court martial for swiping the State Department
and Pentagon files that made Assange an international figure. Although
somebe.g., Berkeley city councilmembersbhave called Manning a hero and a
martyr, few expect Manning to evade punishment.
Assange is another matter. The gaps that currently make it hard to
prosecute him include provisions under Section 230 of the 1996
Communications Decency Act that offer a safe harbor for online "middle
parties," protecting them from liability for passing along most kinds of
material they receive from an initial content provider.
In fact, current law cuts both ways. The same regulations also protect
those companies who have acted to cut off, or hem-in, WikiLeaks. As
Nancy Scola put it, on the Personal Democracy Forum:
"Section 230 is one of the fundamental reason why the United States is a
friendlier nation to the Internet and to building Internet businesses
than so many others are. But the flip side of 230 is that companies are
also given protections for taking down from their services content that
they find objectionable. And when it comes to Wikileaks, we're arguably
seeing companies that have been given so much freedom by Section 230
running and hiding behind its protections when the heat is on."
Initially, the Pentagon acknowledged that no person or vital national
interest appeared to have been harmed by WikiLeaks. This reassurance
came into question in December with a W-leaked list of overseas sites
potentially both vulnerable to terrorist attack and of critical
importance to the United States. This seems to undermine any claim that
the documents were vetted to reduce potential for harm.
Yet, this affair is rich in irony. For example, is it totally
coincidence that the recent Arab Spring movement spread across North
Africa and the Middle East just after WikiLeaks spilled all those State
Department cables? Confidential memos that revealed how deeply our
foreign service officers and diplomats despised the dictators they had
to deal with? One net effect was to mute any anti-American theme among
the young democracy activists. Geopolitically, this unintended result
may outweigh all the harm that Assange thought he was doing to the U.S.
government!
We need to remember the big picture: that if doses of transparency are
sometimes discomfiting or inconvenient to the leaders and agencies of a
clumsy-but-well-meaning democracy, those same doses are often downright
lethal to our enemiesbelites of criminality or fanaticism or obstinate
despotism.
Ultimately, if we are led by smart people, they should see that the
historical role of the United Statesband its best interestsbwill be
served by adapting quickly to a worldwide secular trend toward more
light. In fact, abetting this trend should be a central strategic goal
for America and its allies, since this trend leads to victory for our
type of civilization.
Geeks Strike Back
What about all that talk of "cyber-war"? The cyber-activist community
lined up en masse to defend Julian Assange. For example, Anonymous, a
leaderless group of activist hackers, has avowed credit for denial of
service attacks on Mastercard, in revenge for that company cutting off
payment flows to WikiLeaks. Attacks have also targeted PayPal, Amazon,
VISA and other companies. When Post-Finance, the Swiss national postal
bank, froze Assange's account because he falsely claimed local residency
on his deposit forms, this drew vigorous assaults by hacker activists,
or hacktivists. (Hypocrisy alert: When has such a lapse ever before
bothered Swiss bankers?)
"Corrutpt governments of the world," began a recent message on the
Anonymous group's YouTube site. "To move to censor content on the
Internet based on your own prejudice is, at best, laughably impossible,
at worst, morally reprehensible."
In a few short weeks, simply by appealing for volunteers, the Anonymous
group recruited more than 9,000 computer owners in the United States and
3,000 in Britain to download the software to incorporate their machines
into the network that attacks WikiLeaks' enemies.
See
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/11/wikileaks-backlash-cyber-war
Via a supportive online "tweet," Electronic Frontier Foundation
co-founder John Perry Barlow told the Anonymous hackers, "The first
serious info war is now engaged. The field of battle is WikiLeaks. You
are the troops." See
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/10/business/la-fi-cyber-disobedience-2…
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/10/business/la-fi-cyber-disobedience-2…
Resistance Is Feudal
In The Transparent Society, I profiled members of this loose
international community, whose mixture of brilliant skill, individualism
and light-weight transcendentalism seems to hark back at least to the
Freemasons, or perhaps the Jesuits, if there is any useful precedent at
all.
Evidently, they are the purest products of a Western Enlightenment that
they alternately revere and spurn with dripping contempt. A force to be
collectively reckoned with, they also tend toward utter confidence in
their superior spycraft, as well as blithe assurance that history is on
their side.
However, there are drawbacks to the notion of cyberpunks as combatants.
Their proposed "army" combines all the worst traits of a militant
underground and a chaotic schoolyard. The Anonymous network, for
example, operates as a collective in which control devolves to whichever
members just happen to be signed in, at any particular moment.
At present, that model works, because the tasks are simplebto shuttle
some encrypted files around, to share and coordinate some hack-attack
programs among a few thousand volunteers ... or perhaps a few tens of
thousands of bystanders who have inadvertently let themselves be
hijacked in a botnet.
Fine, so far. But this model will break down when it is discovered that
the National Security Agencybthrough several hundred feigned
identitiesbcan sign in and simply vote itself control, whenever it so
chooses.
Or take the pathetic case of Bradley Manning, the bored, low-level
nerd-in-uniform who let his daydreaming ennui get the best of him in
dusty Iraq. When Manning impulsively decided to copy those documents off
SIPRNet, he took all sorts of precautions to keep the theft from being
noticed and to encrypt the documents' transmission to WikiLeaks. Then he
bragged about it to a supposedly trustworthy hacker confidante, who
promptly sold him out.
There is an endearing air of naivete in all the bellicose "war" talk,
coming from hacker-nerds whose principal experience with combat is World
of Warcraft. Few have studied the history of revolutionary movements and
methods in detail, the ancient techniques used by rebels and secret
police in deadly cat-and-mouse games stretching back from the KGB and
Gestapo, through czarist Russia, Ching and Tang China, Babylon and
across 4,000 years of recorded history. Like bribery, blackmail,
co-opting, threats to loved-ones ... and quiet disappearance. Few of
these age-old methods will be inconvenienced by geeky methods like
cryptography.
If things truly were as dire as some hackers romantically claim, if our
civilization is already like those other despotisms and if these
would-be freedom fighters really are our last-best hopebthen one can
wish they would preen less and study-up history more. For all our sakes.
Sensible Steps
Ultimately though, even the WikiLeaks model is untenable. For all of the
hacker chic, such quasi-institutions are lead by a few identifiable
people. If the cyber-mythos is correct, it represents at-best an
intermediate phase on our path to a universally empowered, all-knowing
citizenry. A path better served by pragmatic, incrementalist reformers.
Take an endeavor loosely led by Peter Sunde, one of the founders of the
anti-copyright Pirate Bay website. Techie activists hope to construct an
alternative, decentralized, peer-to-peer (P2P) system that would
continue to use today's Internet infrastructure but bypass the internet
"phone book" maintained by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names
and Numbers.
As the only semblance of an Internet governing body, ICANN has one slim
authoritybover the 286 "dot" domains (.com, .net etc.), but even that
narrow power offends the anti-authority spirit of young netizen
anarchists like Sunde. (See Note 5)
If their plan works, according to Paul Marks of The New Scientist, "a
sort of shadow Internet could form, one in which legal action against
counterfeiters and copyright scofflaws would be nearly impossible."
Some other options are already simmering, and these seem even harder to
prevent, at least in a minimally free society. For example, if the
forces of net neutrality lose every coming regulatory and legislative
fight, leaving both the old web and "Internet 2" firmly in the grasp of
major corporate and state interests, this will only propel alternative,
peer-to-peer systems to abandon standard pipes and fiber, taking flight
to rooftop transceivers and nodes that are completely citizen-owned or
which use cell phone networks. And if every advanced nation bans such
P2P systems? Then they will flourish in the developing world, giving
those rising countries a competitive advantage.
These are a few samples of the innovations that loom on the horizon. In
them we see, distilled, a core difference between two kinds of
transparency activists: pragmatic techno-incrementalists and the
hacker-idealists.
One hacktivist told me: "Governments and corporatists can plug every
hole, but new leaks will pop open. Information wants to be free, and
nothing will avail the federal mastodons and company sloths, or prevent
new hemorrhages till they bleed to death."
To net-mystics, that is more than just an assertion, to be tested by
unfolding events, but a catechism of faith, like in old-timey religions,
or the communist teleology that few of them have read.
We transparency pragmatists know better. History shows that light can
fail. It has failed, far more often than not. Ask Pericles. Ask the
Gracchi, the Florentines and the Weimar liberals. For light and openness
to cleanse this civilization and make it succeed, we'll need practical
innovations and negotiated compromises, sometimes taking one step
sideways, or even backward, for every three steps forward. It may be
polemically unsatisfying to purists, but the general, overall, forward
trend is worth fighting for. Even compromising for.
How were racism and sexism reduced and driven largely into ill-repute,
during our lifetimes? Partly through the self-reforming of millions of
individual hearts ... but also through new laws, passed by growing
citizen consensus, utilizing those enlightenment processes of science,
justice and democratic government. And to whatever extent humanity is
now finally heeding our duty as planetary managers, don't we owe a lot
to government-funded research and wave after wave of environmental laws?
More practically speaking, what chance will Project Witness, or
Transparency International, or citizen camera-wielders, or the Chinese
local democracy activists have, if the general background tone of
international morality and law ceases to be led by Western Enlightenment
nations?
In part, the libretto sung by Assange and his supporters seems more
libertarian than socialist ... or else perhaps its anti-government
rhetoric harkens back to quaint traditions of anarcho-socialism. Either
way, in their gleeful adoption of the wild and open Internet as a model
for a low governance utopia, aren't they forgetting where the Internet
came from? Or the full context of their struggle?
Consider: These fellows are heroes only if you assume that freedom for
individuals, accountability for the mighty, fair competition, steady
progress, social mobility, flattened power hierarchies and honest-open
discourse are all ultimately desirable things. I happen to agree.
Only remember, these traits were never highly rated in most human
societies, where obedience, ritual, type-purity and conformity were far
more highly valuedband where "innovation" was often a dirty word. In
other words, Assange, and the hacktivists and their supporters are only
heroes under the light cast by a narrow, individualist culture that
still has all the historicalbeven biologicalbodds stacked against it.
Any other society would have, by now, simply taken their heads and been
done with it.
Raised by that same culture, I want Assange and his supporters to keep
their heads! I want WikiLeaks ...or something better...or many better
things ...to stay in business. Because the over-reaction that some of
the hacktivists seem bent on provoking will do no good for the overall
cause.
The hope, expressed somewhat more aggressively by "Valkyrie Ice" in h+
Magazine, is that "It really doesn't matter whether Wikileaks is stopped
or not. It's just the opening salvo in the final war between
unaccountable elitism, and accountable equality, and there is only one
real possible outcome, though there may be many partial victories for
those who seek to remain unaccountable. It may take decades, but the
future will belong to Transparency."
See
http://www.hplusmagazine.com/editors-blog/wikileaks-war-between-secrecy-and…
I hope the optimists prove right. Nevertheless, look around the world
today. The Enlightenment is still hard beset by forces that would
undermine or ruin it, either from the outside or within. Forces bent on
restoring those olderband possibly more inherently humanbways of
operating.
Need for Nations
Here is where we pragmatist pushers-of-transparency differ from the
romantics. Across the last 300 years, flags and nations and governments
mattered. They have been clumsy, blunt instruments, but the nations that
livedbeven crudelybby Enlightenment codes propelled a great experiment
in human living that departed from the old ways. Furthermore, the
nations that express general fealty to rights and accountability and
justice and science are still "rebels" in a world where human nature
keeps conspiring to drag us down again, into feudalism.
We have to watch these public organs carefully. Our hired watchdogs can
all-too easily become wolves. If you tell me that you want to spread
transparency and accountability throughout all Western governments, I am
with you! You say you want to change the Constitution? Well, we'd all
love to see your plan.
More generally, at this critical juncture in history, with existential
threats looming on every horizonbalong with a glimmering promise that we
may instead become a wise and decent star-traveling speciesbthe matter
is more critical than ever. We cannot afford anymore the all-too-human
tendency for leaders to decide our fate in secret. Not even "for our own
good."
Reciprocal Accountability remains our only real hope. And to whatever
extent that WikiLeaks has helped push health-inducing transparency
forward, I am guardedly grateful. While I find the whole event
over-rated and a bit yawn-worthy, more a stunt than a model for truly
sustainable openness, the effects ought to be salutary.
But I have a larger goal that I hope you'll share: To achieve lasting
victory for this new way of life. A way of life that may stymie, finally
and forever, the old feudal temptations that have always erupted to
quash freedom. A way of life that may take my sane, rich and happy
grandchildrenband the sane/rich/happy grandchildren of today's poorest
AIDS victim in Zimbabwebto the stars.
Clearly, in order to get there, we will need a wide range of new
toolsband some of the old ones, too. And that means Western governments
will remain key instruments for quite some time. If watched, if
fine-tuned and kept honest, they will continue to play a role as we
cross the danger gap, ultimately reaching a place that is good and just
and filled with light.
Portions of this article were excerpted from a book in-progress. David
Brin's bestselling novels, such as Earth and Kiln People, have been
translated into more than 20 languages. The Postman was loosely Kevin
Costnerized in 1998. The Transparent Society won the nonfiction Freedom
of Speech Award of the American Library Association. His next novel,
Existence, portrays the minefield of dangers ahead, and our potential to
survive.
NOTES
#1 May I pause to lay down a couple of background fundamentals that
should be obvious to anyone? Basics that ought to inform all of our
arguments about transparency?
* The greatest human talent is self-delusion. (Often propped-up by
another, our penchant for self-righteousness.) Across recorded history,
delusional leaders were responsible for countless horrific errors of
statecraft, though it was common folk who suffered. Yet, ruling castes
always made it their top priority to limit criticism, the only thing
that might have corrected their mistakes. This dire contradiction
propelled much of the tragedy of the last 4,000 years.
(http://www.davidbrin.com/addiction.htm)
* The one palliative that has ever been found to correct this human
fault has been Reciprocal Accountability (RA). This entirely new
invention of the Western Enlightenment is the key ingredient of
Democracy, Markets, Science and egalitarian Justice. We may not, as
individuals, be able to penetrate our own favorite delusions, but others
will gladly point them out for us! And we happily return the favor, by
pointing out our adversaries' mistakes. That is the simple basis of
RA... and it can only happen in a general atmosphere of freedom. (See
Note 4)
It can only happen where most of the people know most of what is going
on, most of the time.
It's easy to see why Reciprocal Accountability took so long to emerge.
(Though Pericles tried it, in Athens.) RA may help a society to thrive
economically, to gain social mobility, liberty, fairness and the rapid
advancement of knowledge. But it is also highly inconvenient to elites!
In fact, it acts to separate the good of society from the good of the
ruling caste. This will prove a critical distinction, as we dissect the
WikiLeaks imbroglio.
Reciprocal Accountability is the pragmatic reason for the First
Amendment, entirely independent of morality and sacred "rights." Another
way to put this is with an aphorism and acronym CITOKATE:
Criticism Is the Only Known Antidote to Error.
#2 This matter takes up several chapters of The Transparent Societyband
soon I'll comment on something closely related: the Great Big TSA Mess.
#3 This distinction is an important, if quirky one, in the light of
basic justiceba topic about which Assange lectures us, incessantly. A
democratically elected government can be viewed as the property of its
voting, taxpaying citizens. It is the right and responsibility of those
citizens to ensure that their government is suitably accountable and
just. But, given that they own the government, what right does an
outsider have to steal the property of that government and to diminish
the government's value as a useful tool of that owner-citizenry?
I do not have a pat answer to this quandary. Indeed, since Daniel
Ellsberg was a citizen-owner, having voted and paid taxes, was he
inherently more vested and rightful in diminishing the government's
current stature, in an investment in its future improvement? I point it
out because it reduces the issue to one of tort/harm. Assange argues
that the only "other" that he has harmed is the separate entity of the
U.S. government.
But there is some level where the link between that institution and its
owners cannot be ignored. It is relevant. In abstract, those United
States citizens are the putative injured parties and Assange is
answerable to them. He bears some burden of proving that he has not done
them actionable harm.
#4 Indeed, perhaps unintentionally, the late author of thriller novels,
Michael Crichton, implicitly supported the argument for general
transparency in an ironic way. Examining all of his plots, one finds a
single common element that underlay every disastrous misapplication of
technology that he railed against. A prevailing fetish for secrecy that
insulated his villains from inspection, criticism, accountability or
reproach. The often ridiculous errors made by those villains would not
and could not have happened, if general transparency and light had
prevailed. An interesting illustration from the world of fiction.
#5 I wonder where Assange would stand, on this issue, if he had been
born an aristocrat.
----- End forwarded message -----
--
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
1
0
[Freedombox-discuss] Moxie Marlinspike talk: Changing Threats To Privacy: From TIA To Google
by Rob van der Hoeven 06 Jul '18
by Rob van der Hoeven 06 Jul '18
06 Jul '18
Came across a great talk by Moxie Marlinspike at Defcon 18.
Changing Threats To Privacy: From TIA To Google
download: https://media.defcon.org/dc-18/video/DEF%20CON%2018%20Hacking%
20Conference%20Presentation%20By%20-%20Moxie%20Marlinspike%20-%
20Changing%20Threats%20To%20Privacy%20From%20TIA%20to%20Google%20-%
20Video.m4v
Enjoy,
Rob.
http://freedomboxblog.nl
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Freedombox-discuss(a)lists.alioth.debian.org
http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss
----- End forwarded message -----
--
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
1
0