Official Anonymizing

[Adam Shostack]

On Tue, Sep 04, 2001 at 07:53:12PM -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote:
| Let me try to restate John's proposal, which has some very attractive 
| qualities. There are a few questions, it seems to me:
| 
| 1. Should we require by law that government employees never act under cover 
| of anonymity? (In practice, what does that mean? Does that mean they can't 
| lie about their truename, or does it mean that they have to affirmatively 
| volunteer their employment status?)

The mice voted to bell the cat.

| I think John has a valid point when he says that we should look askance at 
| anonymity firms that help government spy on us. Companies would be 
| well-advised to make their practices (we sell to Feds, we refuse to sell to 
| Feds) public. But the market being what it is, the tools so well-discussed 
| in so many circles, and the switch from .mil or .gov to .org or .com so 
| easy, that I suspect such promises might give us only a false sense of 
| security.

I think much more interesting is the question of government funded
anonymity tools.  The paranoid might think they're trying to drive
others out of business.

Is it even legal (in the US) to refuse to sell to the feds?  I know
that many companies have seperate entities (ie, Sun Federal Systems)
to avoid some of the more onerous restrictions, like needing to give
your best deal to the feds.

Adam

| -Declan
| 
| At 04:33 PM 9/4/01 -0700, John Young wrote:
| >I try to abide the principle that if one gets anonymized
| >all should. However, there is a disparity in who gets
| >to leverage that anonymity -- from the citizen to the
| >empowered official.
| >
| >We have now more privilege of conealment on the official
| >side, and that needs redress, constant redress a rebel
| >might yell.
| >
| >Not much of my proposal is radical: there is a long tradition
| >for officials to own up to what they do in their official
| >roles. The uniformed police, the uniformed military
| >services. That is far less done in the case of the spooks
| >and, increasingly lately, law enforcement and the military
| >as the latter adopt the practices and more importantly
| >the technology of spooks -- and the spooks' lack of
| >public accountability (those oversight committees are
| >a fraud).
| >
| >The culture of secrecy is vastly overweighted in favor of
| >government, and much of that derives from hoary claims
| >of national security. Undercover and covert operations
| >have become far more pervasive in the US government
| >and military than ever, and constitute a privileged elite in
| >mil/gov, and often law enforcement, moving from the
| >federal agencies into state and locals -- and contractors
| >and suppliers for all these. And all are bound by a
| >complicitous and luxurious veil of secrecy.
| >
| >It is fairly common for goodhearts to question government
| >but not when national security, and more recently, domestic
| >security, is bruited. But that is due to a well-crafted educational
| >campaign to raise national security to a theological level, and
| >its rational is itself cloaked in secrecy. A similar theologizing
| >is underway, methinks despite Declan's unreflective demurral,
| >in the campaign for combatting domestic terrorism, the
| >Homeland Defense demonolgy.
| >
| >Having learned much here about the futility of trying to determine
| >who gets privacy technology and who does not, it remains true
| >that for most of us access to this technology is very recent and we
| >know not what lies outside our knowledge.
| >
| >I am not as sanguine about government as I was before being
| >semi-educated by this list about what technology is in covert use.
| >
| >And I am not as sanguine about the wisdom of providing technology
| >to government on the same footing as the citizen. There is more
| >than a bit of marketing opportunism is this view -- and government
| >knows very well what power the purse has to seduce young firms
| >into the world of secrecy.
| >
| >So I say again, that despite it being economic foolhardiness, indeed
| >because it is that, there needs to be a code of practice for anonimyzer
| >developers to state their policy of helping governments snoop on
| >us without us knowing. Agnosticism in this matter is complicity
| >when such a stance cloaks government intrusiveness.
| >
| >Look, I'll accept that we will all succumb to the power of the market,
| >so limit my proposal for full disclosure to those over 30. After that
| >age one should know there is no way to be truly open-minded.

-- 
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
					               -Hume