Official Anonymizing

[Declan McCullagh]

At 01:42 PM 9/4/01 -0700, John Young wrote:
>On ZKS selling anonymizing products that are publicly available
>to governmental officials does raise an issue of whether officials
>should, or should be able to, conceal their official identities when
>working cyberspace in an official capacity. I think not, though
>it might be as impossible to get officials to comply as with
>terrorists so long as the technology is there.

It seems to me that John is taking the first steps toward a general 
argument: That police should not be allowed to do undercover work. His 
argument, taken to its logical conclusion, would prevent police from 
infiltrating criminal organizations in meatspace (let's assume, for the 
moment, that we're talking about serious criminal acts against property and 
person, not victimless crimes).

I propose that all anonymizers adopt a code of practice that
>any sale to officials of anonymizers or their use be disclosed
>to the public (I suggested this to ZKS early on when first
>meetings with the feds to explain the technology were being
>sometimes disclosed). That seems to be a reasonable response
>to officially-secret prowling and investigating cyberspace.

What happens when Anonymous Software Inc. sells its prepaid 300-minutes of 
anonymous browing kit through CompUSA and PC Warehouse? And, as others have 
pointed out, the people you most want to catch with this rule would have 
the strongest incentive to evade it.

Anonymous remailers and browsing technology is user- and value-neutral. As 
a practical matter, it makes sense to assume that the Feds are using it.

-Declan