Laurent Demailly <dl@hplyot.obspm.fr> writes:
I feel really dumb, but what is that "Four Horseman" thing ? [i saw that several times quoted on the list but I never understood, nor found in faq,...]
You sure about the faq, grepping reveals: 8.3.4. "How will privacy and anonymity be attacked?" [...] - like so many other "computer hacker" items, as a tool for the "Four Horsemen": drug-dealers, money-launderers, terrorists, and pedophiles. 17.5.7. "What limits on the Net are being proposed?" [...] + Newspapers are complaining about the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse: - terrorists, pedophiles, drug dealers, and money launderers ie the idea that hysterical media demonization is used as a tool to justify the net, a witch hunt. A tatic in general: if you can make something look bad in the eyes of the world, if you can sway public opinion, you can do what you wish, and be applauded for it. So, the spread of untrue, or greatly exaggerated stories, as a conscious ploy to obtain this effect. Popular tatic of Freeh at the moment. "Oh gosh people can get *bomb* making information on the internet, we must put a stop to this". How to get what you want in 4 easy stages: 1. Have a target "thing" you wish to stop, yet lack any moral, or practical reasons for doing so? 2. Pick a fear common to lots of people, something that will evoke a gut reaction: terrorists, pedophiles, serial killers. 3. Scream loudly to the media that "thing" is being used by perpetrators. (Don't worry if this is true, or common to all other things, or less common with "thing" than with other long established systems - payphones, paper mail, private hotel rooms, lack of bugs in all houses etc) 4. Say that the only way to stop perpetrators is to close down "thing", or to regulate it to death, or to have laws forcing en-mass tapability of all private communications on "thing". Don't worry if communicating on "thing" is a constitutionally protected right, if you have done a good job in choosing and publicising the horsemen in 2, no one will notice, they will be too busy clamouring for you to save them from the supposed evils. Adam