-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Thursday 15 August 2002 19:53, Trei, Peter wrote:

Take off your economic hat, and try on a law-enforcement one.

With DMCA, etal, the tools to get around TCPA's taking of your right to use your property as you please have been criminalized. (Don't argue that TCPA will always be voluntary. I don't beleive that).

I have little patience with arguments which say 'Yeah, they can make X against the law, but clever people like me can always get around it, and won't get caught, so I don't care.'

Thankx, Peter. I thought a lot of this in the last weeks and this is exactly what worries me. Most people who are able to encryp mails for example say "I do not care about people spying, I know how to encrypt" People who know how to circumvent copy-protection-devices say: "Ah, I am clever enough...I know what to do so why worry?" But I think - are we not forgetting something? Or better: someone? And is that someone not "all the people who do "suffer" under the laws the people "who know what to do" simply accept? Three examples: a) Data Retention: people see the problem but say "I know how to use an anonymous proxy so why worry?" b) Copyright-Protection: people who know how to act with Linux etc say "So what --- I am a coder or programmer, I know what to do to get around it" c) Freedom of Information: for example IP-blocking, censorship.... People say "yeah, bad, but I know how use an alternative DNS etc..." So all in all the technically clever people see what is happening but rather answer with an "I know how to hide" than with an "I will use my technical skills to help other people" or with an "Even though I know how to hide this is not right --- I will have to do something"

Maybe you can, some of the time, but that's not the point. Most people won't, either because it's too hard, they don't know what they've lost, or because of a misplaced respect for the whims of The Men with Guns. This is not a Good Thing. A freedom to skulk in the shadows, hoping not to be noticed, is not the legacy I wish to leave behind.

Again thanks. In the last mailinglist someone said that most people do not see the point if it comes to privacy (which has to do with copyright devices etc, with registrating, with open source and with the right to chose...) Why not got from the abstract path of "copyright-protection devices" to a less abstract path? Let us take an unfair law --- for example one which is restricting our privacy in a non-technical way. If someone would introduce a law that says "giving birth to a child withour our admission is forbidden and you have to use a condom or anything else to make sure that your girlfriend...is not getting pregnant" Would you rather say "I know how to use a pin to make a hole in a condom" or say "this is absolute ridiculous etc --- we have to fight against this"? In a technical life, more and more people seem to be the opinion that if they are able to hide (use encryption, have technical knowledge...) this is enough and they do not care about the rest of the people being in the spotlight of the all-seeing-eye. I think if we want to change anything and not only improve our technical skills we have to a) help other people to understand the meaning of something like copyright-protection devices and laws like the DMCA (not in 30 pages, not with technical explainations but with explainations "for the masses " :-) b) go against these laws even though we might be able to "be an outlaw" Just in a simple term: We help people being physically tortured, we do take part in initiatives against torture etc ---> we act None of us would say "well, I know how to avoid tortute so why worry?" Sorry if this was philosophical but if there is something which worries me than it is people seeing the problems in data retention, copyright-protection devices etc. but answering "Well, people should use Linux, use an anonymous proxy...harharhar" To take the example above "I see the problem in torturing but people should use a gun harharhar..." Unfairness can not be defeated by saying "I know your unfairness but I can escape so why should I worry"... Kindest regards (I know I am a hopeless human-rights-talker....) Twister -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQE9XGP2bWUifFmZwyIRAgGTAJ9cMsCF5LATcYC7sN01AuozuOs71ACbBdd5 wuJn4F3wWwYN4lHiQwonnPc= =bkyg -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----