Re: Freedom and security
You will pardon my asking this, but, security from what? Who are the evil Network Terrorists throwing Bit Bombs or whatever? The only security you need on the internet is keeping your site from being broken in to, which is mostly a matter of setting it up properly. What, exactly, is the "Security" that you are offering us?
Perry
I am not offering "you" anything unless you have a problem and are looking for some assistance. Just because you feel safe / immune from becoming a victim of internet crime does not mean that there are no victims at all. Site security is not at all the only problem. Are you not aware of spams and scams going on all the time? Are you not aware that sexual predators operate in IRC? Or that child pornography is a world wide trading game? Have you never heard of email forgeries or impersonation? What about tthe victims of harassment and hatred who don't know how to deal with it? What about all the people who have never heard of killfiles? Who don't know how to report a problem nor who to report it to? Haven't you ever been mail bombed and wished you could find out who did it? Maybe you feel like a veterano and can afford to look condesendingly at all the thousands of fresh-faced netizens just arriving online and say "well if they can't take the heat they should stay out of the fire" - but if we are to call ourselves an emerging "community" then we must take responsibility for our city, and that means caring about other people's problems. The internet is not just a collection of bits and bytes - it's real people doing real things to each other. When your address is forged and you get flamed and bombed, or if you start receiving anonymous death threats, your freedom is under threat. It's not enough to say "Well I just turn off my monitor" The Internet is a city - it needs 911 services and it needs Neighborhood Watches. And neither professional law enforcement nor neighborhood watch are by definition a threat to anyone's freedom. Freedom within the context of Community does not and never has meant the freedom to kill your neighbor, or rob someone, or rape someone, or harm someone. In the context of the internet Community too, freedom is not the individual's right to do whatever he or she likes - because then the Community is no longer free. Freedom is under threat from two directions - from selfish individuals who care little for the Community, and from the over zealousness of governments who seek greater and greater control over individual thought and action. The first step is to acknowledge that we have a problem within the Internet Community - because if we don't address it responsibly then we have only ourselves to blame when the governments try to take it over. We can face our problems or we can deny that they exist. By asking me the question: "What crime?" you are indicating to me that you prefer denial. ********************************************************* Colin Gabriel Hatcher - CyberAngels Director angels@wavenet.com "Two people may disagree, but that does not mean that one of them is evil" *********************************************************
CyberAngels Director : Colin Gabriel Hatcher writes:
You will pardon my asking this, but, security from what? Who are the evil Network Terrorists throwing Bit Bombs or whatever? The only security you need on the internet is keeping your site from being broken in to, which is mostly a matter of setting it up properly. What, exactly, is the "Security" that you are offering us?
I am not offering "you" anything unless you have a problem and are looking for some assistance. Just because you feel safe / immune from becoming a victim of internet crime does not mean that there are no victims at all.
Site security is not at all the only problem. Are you not aware of spams and scams going on all the time? Are you not aware that sexual predators operate in IRC?
I was under the impression that sex involved physical presense. Are you telling me that there are people out there somehow getting the inanimate computers of people on the other side of the net to reach out and rape the people sitting in front of them?
Or that child pornography is a world wide trading game?
I must admit to having an odd viewpoint. I don't particularly care about child pornography. Our nation seems to have an obsession with the notion that somewhere out there someone is looking at a picture of a naked boy or something. Myself, well, I am far from convinced that the existance of child pornography is nearly as much of a threat to me as the people who want to dismantle all our freedoms in order to stop it. Most of the child pornography in the U.S. is distributed by the FBI during stings, you know.
Have you never heard of email forgeries or impersonation?
Yes. I also happen to have heard that people can impersonate you in real life, too.
What about tthe victims of harassment and hatred who don't know how to deal with it? What about all the people who have never heard of killfiles?
I suppose they will have to learn, won't they? You realize that you are being extremely unconvincing?
Maybe you feel like a veterano and can afford to look condesendingly at all the thousands of fresh-faced netizens just arriving online and say "well if they can't take the heat they should stay out of the fire" - but if we are to call ourselves an emerging "community" then we must take responsibility for our city, and that means caring about other people's problems.
And thats where CyberAngels, founded by Curtis Sliwa, the man who had himself attacked to get publicity, comes in? Feh.
When your address is forged and you get flamed and bombed, or if you start receiving anonymous death threats, your freedom is under threat. It's not enough to say "Well I just turn off my monitor"
I've had my address forged. I've been flamed. I've been mailbombed. I've been sent anonymous death threats. I must admit that I largely ignored all these things, and that at no time did I feel my freedom was being threatened nearly as much by these events as it was by Senator Exon.
The Internet is a city - it needs 911 services and it needs Neighborhood Watches.
The internet isn't a city. I live in a city -- a real city. I believe that if I feel that I'm the subject of a serious death threat, there is an actual 911 on my real life telephone to dial and talk to the real life police in my real life city. Thanks, but no thanks.
And neither professional law enforcement nor neighborhood watch are by definition a threat to anyone's freedom.
No, but supporting censorship is.
By asking me the question: "What crime?" you are indicating to me that you prefer denial.
Or, perhaps, that I'm not impressed by opportunistic newcomers with strongly anti-libertarian viewpoints. Perry
On Tue, 30 Apr 1996, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
Mr. Hatcher wrote:
Or that child pornography is a world wide trading game?
I must admit to having an odd viewpoint. I don't particularly care about child pornography. Our nation seems to have an obsession with the notion that somewhere out there someone is looking at a picture of a naked boy or something. Myself, well, I am far from convinced that the existance of child pornography is nearly as much of a threat to me as the people who want to dismantle all our freedoms in order to stop it. Most of the child pornography in the U.S. is distributed by the FBI during stings, you know.
From what I can tell, your viewpoint is hardly odd. I find child pornography distasteful in a vague and general way, but I am otherwise farily indifferent.
This pattern that Mr. Hatcher is showing, demonize an act then show shock when no one else responds to the propaganda; followup by demonizing those not shocked by the demonized act, is a fairly classic tactic. See e.g., Atwood, Orwell, Cambodia.
Have you never heard of email forgeries or impersonation?
Yes. I also happen to have heard that people can impersonate you in real life, too.
What about tthe victims of harassment and hatred who don't know how to deal with it? What about all the people who have never heard of killfiles?
I suppose they will have to learn, won't they?
But Mr. Metzger, that requires _effort_ and decision making. We must save the people from _effort_ and decision making because only _we_ the elite, know what is good for them.
Maybe you feel like a veterano and can afford to look condesendingly at all the thousands of fresh-faced netizens just arriving online and say "well if they can't take the heat they should stay out of the fire" - but if we are to call ourselves an emerging "community" then we must take responsibility for our city, and that means caring about other people's problems.
You mean telling other people the only way to solve their problems as if they are unable to do so themselves, or as if other solutions having nothing to do with yours do not exist. By the way, who said we want to call ourselves an emerging 'community' ?
When your address is forged and you get flamed and bombed, or if you start receiving anonymous death threats, your freedom is under threat. It's not enough to say "Well I just turn off my monitor"
Readers will note a familiar tactic. "Parade of horrors." The advocate will pass a series of examples intended to shock and frighten the reader into accepting the next convenient solution to these problems, which is coincidently provided by the advocate. Readers who have any kind of tie to the real world will note that all these horrors aren't even particularly disturbing and that this betrays poor advocacy skills. --- My preferred and soon to be permanent e-mail address:unicorn@schloss.li "In fact, had Bancroft not existed, potestas scientiae in usu est Franklin might have had to invent him." in nihilum nil posse reverti 00B9289C28DC0E55 E16D5378B81E1C96 - Finger for Current Key Information Opp. Counsel: For all your expert testimony needs: jimbell@pacifier.com
Excerpts from internet.cypherpunks: 1-May-96 Re: Freedom and security by Black Unicorn@schloss.li
Readers will note a familiar tactic. "Parade of horrors." The advocate will pass a series of examples intended to shock and frighten the reader into accepting the next convenient solution to these problems, which is coincidently provided by the advocate.
The parade of horrors, aka the four (or more) horsemen of the infocalypse, is a common fear tactic used by those who would to restrict our liberties. The family values groups employed this to great effect during the CDA debate. And as Jim Ray noted, talk is cheap. While the CyberAngels may claim to be against the CDA, the cynic in me says they have to be against it -- even fewer people would take them seriously if they were for it. But I don't recall them doing any _campaiging_ against it. In fact, riding in on those horsemen is a central part of their strategy. After all, if pedophiles/terrorists/child pornographers didn't exist, no need for the CyberAngels, hmm? -Declan PS: Eric Freedman of Hofstra Law School has a wonderful article in an upcoming Iowa Law Review about the death of the "obscenity" standard. I think a similar argument can be applied to child porn.
Hello, everyone! I'm new list, and I like it already (after 1 day). I apologize in advance for the large amount of quoting I am about to perform. <FLAME ON!>
You will pardon my asking this, but, security from what? Who are the evil Network Terrorists throwing Bit Bombs or whatever? The only security you need on the internet is keeping your site from being broken in to, which is mostly a matter of setting it up properly. What, exactly, is the "Security" that you are offering us?
Perry
Maybe you feel like a veterano and can afford to look condesendingly at all ^^^^^^^^ What accent is that that you have? the thousands of fresh-faced netizens just arriving online and say "well if they can't take the heat they should stay out of the fire" - but if we are to call ourselves an emerging "community" then we must take responsibility for our city, and that means caring about other people's problems.
Oh!! So YOU'RE one of those people that actually wants computer know-nothings on the net, huh? I can think of few things that bother me more. When a "fresh-faced netizen" asks me where I think they could get an internet account, I reply "What are you going to use it for?". They usually say "I don't know.". I then try to explain ftp and telnet to them and if they don't get it I tell them not to get an account because they wouldn't get any use out of it. If they really want, I give them a place that has e-mail and is fairly cheap. The fact of the matter is that I don't want to share my bandwidth with that type of person. You can call me elitist if you want, and you'd be right. I liked the net more when no-one had heard of it except the type of person who would understand what ftp was in a few seconds of explanation. Or telnet, for that matter. So, to respond to what you actually said, I never claim that the net is an emerging community, because I'm afraid that people whom I don't want on the net will hear me. Besides, community is much too non-anarchist for my taste anyways: the net is just a bunch of information being tweaked by varios people and machines in ways that I happen to (sometimes) find interesting.
The internet is not just a collection of bits and bytes - it's real people doing real things to each other.
I'm sorry, but no. If I come up to you in real life and hit you, that's a real person doing a real thing to another real person. Internet events are movement of information, and that is it. Something that causes harm on the 'net only does so because that same information would do so in real life, i.e. blackmail with the threats issued by e-mail. Mailing them IRL or slipping the note under the door have the same effect, with the same response options: you ignore it, you cave, or you call the police. Same with death threats: you can't kill someone over the net, you can only give them information about you intentions. When someone is actually IRL trying to kill you that, as someone else mentioned, is the domain of the IRL police.
Freedom is under threat from two directions - from selfish individuals who care little for the Community, and from the over zealousness of governments who seek greater and greater control over individual thought and action.
Only the second one. I have the freedom to read or not read any stuff on the net. If I'm being sent something I don't want to read, I can usually figure this out within a line or two and delete it. No one individual can effect my net freedom (except my sysadmin, who can revoke my account) using means that do not extend into RL. Come to think of it, even governments must extend their activities into RL to enforce their internet restrictions, so they are not restricting the 'net per se, they are threatening real people with real things that they will do to them if they do certain things on the internet. This is the equivalent of threatening to do something under law for any other form of information dissemination (publishing slander, for example). The real world is the real world, the net is the net, and only in people's minds (and in the effects of computers themselves, ie. turning on a sprinkler system) shall the twain meet.
********************************************************* Colin Gabriel Hatcher - CyberAngels Director angels@wavenet.com
"Two people may disagree, but that does not mean that one of them is evil"
*********************************************************
<FLAME OFF> Good argument style, BTW. I just disagree with some of your founding assumptions. -Robin
participants (5)
-
angels＠wavenet.com -
Black Unicorn -
Declan B. McCullagh -
Perry E. Metzger -
Robin Powell