E. Allen Smith[SMTP:EALLENSMITH@ocelot.Rutgers.EDU] wrote:

From: IN%"everheul@NGI.NL" "Eric Verheul" 10-OCT-1996 07:31:16.85

I would be curious as to whether you believe that China should be permitted to do censorship as part of "national law." If your answer is yes, I would ask if you would believe that Germany's Holocaust was something that should be permitted as a part of "national law." In other words, national sovereignty is not something that should be permitted to override individual liberties.

Censorship is something else than demanding (and checking) that people comply with the policy of a voluntary system. Would you consider Microsoft sueing users of illegal Microsoft software also a "censorship".

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Wait a minute. It is a *voluntary* system, but it has some rules that apply. The whole idea here is: if you don't like it, use your own system. "Fraude" refers to

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Maybe I'm biased: I'm a libertarian who believes that sending the wrong bits shouldn't be considered a crime. The problem we have is with the Depends, it might be childrens pornography. The information society is *not* about bits, but about information.

If the bits carry information, then restricting the bits is restricting the information. I would point out that no harm whatsoever is being done to children in the _distribution_ of such pornography; such harm is only done in the _manufacture_ of such pornography There is no harm in firing at somebody, harm is only done when hit somebody. Distribution is part of the manufactury process. Don't go to Belgium for a vacation, and start stating these kind of things.

It is only theoretically a voluntary system; governments such as China's, Germany's, etcetera could require that it be used with these goverments as the TRA (or, essentially equivalently, someone licensed by such a government). Quite simply, you've invented a system that makes censorship more possible. As a scientist, I try to avoid areas that have such negative effects; I won't work on biological warfare, for instance. I would like to suggest that you follow such ethics also; you have not. -Allen

I agree to some extend that our system could be used in a totalitarian country, to make certain censorship possible. On the other hand, it doesn't make their job especially easy: they can forbid and control any type of "strange" data, i.e. encrypted data. One could argue that our system at least gives security between citizens. The whole problem is that you don't trust your government, well I do (till some extend). I get the impression that this is a typical USA problem. Eric