RE: Challenge to David Wagner on TCPA
Jon Callas[SMTP:jon@callas.org]
On 8/1/02 1:14 PM, "Trei, Peter" <ptrei@rsasecurity.com> wrote:
So my question is: What is your reason for shielding your identity? You do so at the cost of people assuming the worst about your motives.
Is this a tacit way to suggest that the only people who need anonymity or pseudonymity are those with something to hide?
Jon
Not really. However, in todays actual environment, this is frequently true that those with something to hide use anonymity. While some people have maintained nyms for many years (I can't think of anyone maintaining explicit stong anonymity right now, actually - remember Sue D. Nym? ), and used them to talk about a variety of issues, it's pretty rare. It's rare enough that when a new anononym appears, we know that the poster made a considered decision to be anonymous. The current poster seems to have parachuted in from nowhere, to argue a specific position on a single topic. It's therefore reasonable to infer that the nature of that position and topic has some bearing on the decision to be anonymous. Since the position argued involves nothing which would invoke the malign interest of government powers or corporate legal departments, it's not that. I can only think of two reasons why our corrospondent may have decided to go undercover... 1. If we know who he/she/them were, it would weaken the argument (for example, by making it clear that the poster has a vested interest in the position maintained, or that 'AARGH! is the group effort of an astroturf campaign). 2. If the true identity of the poster became known, he/she/them fears some kind of retribution: * The ostracism and detestation of his peers. * The boycotting of his employer. * His employer objecting to his wasting company time on Internet mailing lists. Our corrospondent has not given us any reason not to infer the worst motives. This is, after all, a discipline where paranoia and suspicion are job requirements. Peter Trei Disclaimer: The above represents my private , personal opinions only; do not misconstrue them to represent the opinions of others. --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo@wasabisystems.com
-- On 2 Aug 2002 at 10:43, Trei, Peter wrote:
Since the position argued involves nothing which would invoke the malign interest of government powers or corporate legal departments, it's not that. I can only think of two reasons why our corrospondent may have decided to go undercover...
I can think of two innocuous reasons, though the real reason is probably something else altogether: 1. Defending copyright enforcement is extremely unpopular because it seemingly puts you on the side of the hollywood cabal, but in fact TCPA/Paladium, if it works as described, and if it is not integrated with legal enforcement, does not over reach in the fashion that most recent intellectual property legislation, and most recent policy decisions by the patent office over reach. 2.. Legal departments are full of people who are, among their many other grievious faults, technologically illiterate. Therefore when an insider is talking about something, they cannot tell when he is leaking inside information or not, and tend to have kittens, because they have to trust him (being unable to tell if he is leaking information covered by NDA), and are constitutionally incapable of trusting anyone. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG Alf9R2ZVGqWkLhwWX2H6TBqHOunrj2Fbxy+U0ORV 2uPGI4gMDt1fTQkV1820PO3xWmAWPiaS0DqrbmobN --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo@wasabisystems.com
On Fri, 2 Aug 2002, James A. Donald wrote:
-- On 2 Aug 2002 at 10:43, Trei, Peter wrote:
Since the position argued involves nothing which would invoke the malign interest of government powers or corporate legal departments, it's not that. I can only think of two reasons why our corrospondent may have decided to go undercover...
I can think of two innocuous reasons, though the real reason is probably something else altogether:
1. Defending copyright enforcement is extremely unpopular because it seemingly puts you on the side of the hollywood cabal, but in fact TCPA/Paladium, if it works as described, and if it is not integrated with legal enforcement, does not over reach in the fashion that most recent intellectual property legislation, and most recent policy decisions by the patent office over reach.
a. TCPA/Palladium must be integrated with laws which give to the Englobulators absolute legal cudgel powers, such as the DMCA. So far I have not seen any proposal by the Englobulators to repeal the DMCA and cognate laws, so if TCPA/Palladium is imposed, the DMCA will be used, just as HP threatened to use it a couple of days ago. And, of course, today there is no imposed TCPA/Palladium, so the situation will be much worse when there is. b. Why must TCPA/Palladium be a dongle on the whole computer? Why not a separate dongle? Because, of course, the Englobulators proceed here on principle. The principle being that only the Englobulators have a right to own printing presses/music studios/movie and animation studios.
2.. Legal departments are full of people who are, among their many other grievious faults, technologically illiterate. Therefore when an insider is talking about something, they cannot tell when he is leaking inside information or not, and tend to have kittens, because they have to trust him (being unable to tell if he is leaking information covered by NDA), and are constitutionally incapable of trusting anyone.
--digsig
There is a business, not yet come into existence, of providing standard crypto services to law offices. oo--JS. --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo@wasabisystems.com
participants (4)
-
cubic-dog -
James A. Donald -
Jay Sulzberger -
Trei, Peter