trade-offs of secure programming with Palladium (Re: Palladiu m: technical limits and implications)

[Bettina Jodda (Twister)]

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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
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