Previous Politech message: "LA Times columnist wants it to 'be harder to be anonymous' online" http://www.politechbot.com/p-03477.html --- From: "Vincent Penquerc'h" <Vincent.Penquerchat_private> To: "'declanat_private'" <declanat_private> Subject: RE: LA Times columnist wants it to "be harder to be anonymous" on line Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 14:43:35 +0100 > So instead of worrying ourselves silly about ways to protect these few > who are afraid to stand up for their words and actions, we should be *sigh* It's so easy to stand up for your words and actions, when these are nothing that could annoy the government or other bodies of power. Thank you, John Balzar, for these rare insights into how political dissidents in many countries could use the internet. -- Vincent Penquerc'h ---- Date: Thu, 02 May 2002 10:10:27 -0400 Subject: Re: FC: LA Times columnist wants it to "be harder to be anonymous"online From: Richard Forno <rfornoat_private> To: <declanat_private> Declan, this is ridiculous. This guy is either afraid of technology or doesn't know how things work in an information-based society. A few responses are provided below - I do hope these make it to your list. Article source: http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/3170530.htm He says: > Last I looked, some Internet service providers offered subscribers the chance > at five different identities, perfect for all but the most advanced cases of > split personalities. Gee, AOL calls them 'child accounts' - sure, they could be used for anonymous purposes....many folks use one for 'spam purposes' when they register software. Just because the capability exists for someone to use something for malicious purposes doesn't mean they actually will. Besides, if such accounts were used for malicious purposes - stalking and such - nearly every ISPs, especially the mainline ones like AOL, can provide dial-in and customer information to law enforcement when subpoenaed. If anyone thinks they're anonymous going through such ISPs, they're sorely mistaken. Besides, a truly bad person would stand up his own email server to cause mischief, and bypass the AOLs of the world. > Your ability to sound your way across the Web anonymously means that you can > harass someone else and intrude on their time without being answerable. By > what sensible measure can this be defined by a word so noble as ``privacy''? This guy's a public figure. If he was victimized by such actions, it's no different than a Hollywood star being forced to deal with the paparazzi masses. He's just angry because his name got mixed into something embarassing....it happens to the best of us....he needs to get over it. If you don't want to risk it, don't stick your neck out. > The creative geniuses who have given us the Web still insist that anonymity is > one of its cornerstones. If so, the foundation is wormy. His sarcasm aside, the folks that built the Web never envisioned it to be the mainstream environment that it is currently, or that it evolve into a corporate-controlled quagmire (eg, MS, WIPO, ICANN) that it is today. This guy needs to do some homework before making such broad jabs at visionaries like Lee, Cerf, Postel, and others, who indeed brought the world into a new age. I agree that the web's "foundation is wormy" - but not because of how it's designed or because of anonymous ways of using it, but because many of the systems providing content on the net are insecure - either through operator ignorance/oversight, or because such systems are running easily-exploited buggy operating systems. Addressing security concerns at this level will help prevent most of the concerns he's bringing up in this article. >Already, one of the first lessons taught in middle-school computer labs is to >regard everything on the Web as you might a puff adder -- apt to bite you at >any moment. Is this the best we can expect from the information revolution? How is that any different from when our parents told us not to talk to strangers when walking home from school?? A few closing comments: Think about it. If someone writes for months and years for a reputable publication - like Balzar does - and then all of a sudden, a byline with his name appears on a kiddie-porn advocacy article on some website somewhere, it doesn't take a genius to think something fishy happened there. I don't think many folks would think he's a kiddie-porn guy even if the situation would break the mainstream news. A simple search of the web and his journalistic credentials would be proof enough that such an article wasn't written by him. Instead he blames anonymity in cyberspace. I know that if it was any journalist I know, I'd be questioning the authenticity of the document, and not rush off to judge them as evil or deviant. Eg, someone posts a fake press release on Yahoo Finance. Sounds fishy to some. Might the person think "hmm, this is peculiar and out of the norm for Company X or Person Y?" and They try to confirm it with Marketwatch, CNBC, WSJ, and any number of other sites, who neither have it posted on their site nor even know about this release. Maybe you call the company itself for verification, that's what they have PR and investor relations offices for. Only the idiot would assume such an item to be valid, just like only an idiot would impusively act on news from a single, uncorroborated source - it's common sense always, and more so with the scandals on Wall Street coming to public scrutiny. The web's transparency means that if you've got a historical 'good name' out there, when there's something that sounds goofy associated with yours, it's relatively easy to correlate and disprove, if you have half a clue and a good head on your shoulders. Sure, there's a lot of extraneous white noise on the net, but it's generally easy to correlate and clarify things, too. There will always be bad people out there - who will always abuse the system and find ways around the established norms of behavior. This article has nothing to do with anonymity on the net - it's one guy's response to a situation that ruffled his feathers, in a new medium (the net) that he's probably uncomfortable operating in. Richard Forno www.infowarrior.org (c) 2002 by author. Permission granted to reproduce in full. --- From: guessat_private To: declanat_private, wkat_private Subject: Re: LA Times columnist wants it to "be harder to be anonymous" online This Story has been sent to you by : guessat_private Hi Declan, Ironically SiliconValley.com runs a very nice anonymous email system that I found from reading Mr. Balzar's article. The "email this article" feature is a great way to send email to anyone. The sender has complete control of the return address, subject line, and message text. The best part is that the sender's IP address is not recorded in the email headers as far as I can tell. bye bye --- Date: Thu, 02 May 2002 09:40:29 -0500 From: Chet Uber <eideticat_private> Reply-To: eideticat_private Organization: SecurityPosture Mr. Balzar: What middle schools teach this? Is it all, most, some, few, or just the imaginary one you created for your article? Please give States and districts to support this claim. Being directly involved in K-12 ethics and cyberspace curriculum development I would really like to know. This is a huge problem, as if the Web is truly as dangerous as the adder (responsible for thousands of IRL deaths a year) then no one should be allowed to use it. It is better to talk about the subtle dangers they might face, like stalking and scams -- in the real world context. Not some made up "this is your brain, this is your brain on drugs" bullshit scare story. I think the only reason that this person wants to get rid of anonymity is that they think this would help them qwell parody speech. Which further shows there complete lack of understanding of free speech and the Internet community.Why do people who really don't get it continue to want to make therules.There is nothing wrong with anonymity in and of itself. It is one of the cornerstones of privacy. Without it, you must rely on security to ensure privacy, and to date this has been as effective as -- well posting your private affairs on a bulletin board. When you use it to lie to commit a crime there is an issue, but IRL people use ski masks and stockings. Should we ban ski masks and stockings as well? eidetic -- Chet Uber, eideticat_private, PGP B8DE8D3F Senior Advisor, SecurityPosture 7660 Dodge Street, Suite D - Omaha, NE 68114 vox +1 402.498.2673 fax +1 402.391.3906 cell +1 402.671.9720 --- Date: Thu, 02 May 2002 10:50:11 -0400 To: declanat_private From: Eric Tully <ericat_private> Subject: Re: FC: LA Times columnist wants it to "be harder to be anonymous" online I wonder what he thinks about the anonymity of The Federalist Papers. - Eric --- Date: Thu, 02 May 2002 10:52:03 -0400 From: "Paul Levy" <PLEVYat_private> To: <declanat_private> Subject: Re: FC: LA Times columnist wants it to "be harder to be anonymous"online Is the LA Times going to stop relying on anonymous sources? Or, are they going to "out" anyone who tries to give them information and asks not to be identified? Paul Alan Levy Public Citizen Litigation Group 1600 - 20th Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20009 (202) 588-1000 http://www.citizen.org/litigation/litigation.html --- From: Cynthia Grossen <cgrossenat_private> To: "'declanat_private'" <declanat_private> Subject: RE: LA Times columnist wants it to "be harder to be anonymous" on line Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 12:02:18 -0400 Sorry Declan -- I'd rather email the author directly but his email address wasn't readily available from his article. Maybe he's protecting his ^privacy^. Basically my response is . . . so what. I want my anonymity. And I dispute the claim that anonymity is only used by people for illegitimate or illegal purposes. When I go to the library and browse through the stacks I can see all sorts of information that I wouldn't necessarily what other people to know that I'm looking up. Maybe I'm looking for information on a species of plant or an exotic animal. Maybe I'm researching an embarrassing medical condition. Maybe I'm a professional person who wants to look up the answer to a question that I should know the answer to already. (i.e. what if I'm a computer programmer and I have a basic question about computer programming?) My point is that by browsing the stacks I can find the information that I need/want without anyone knowing who I am and having no records kept of my visit or what I did while there. (as long as I don't check anything out.) It would be nice if the web worked this way too. Instead however we can not browse the web with out myriads of records being kept about when we logged in and where we logged in from and how long we were logged in and what topics we researched on google. And what pages we accessed as a result of that search and how long we accessed a particular page and where we went after reading a given page. In short everything that we did is known (or at least it could be known, so it is prudent to assume that it is known.) and records are kept. Of course I don't know who has the records and/or what they plan to do with them. (if we do something very bad then we will probably get caught and get into trouble. If we do annoying things and make pests of ourselves then it probably won't be worth the amount of effort required to track us down and 'punish' us. This is analogous to the real-world, where more effort is expended to track down a rapist than a vandal. Even though both are wrong, one is much less likely to get caught--unfortunately it's probably the rapist.) I guess my vision of the ideal internet would be a library. Where you can come and go as you like and the only time they need to know who you are is when you wish to physically borrow one of their books (resources). Furthermore the library records are reasonably well-protected from spurious perusal. In the real world though, the internet is not anonymous and anyone who believes (and/or acts) like it is runs some very serious risks. Check the USENET archives for examples of people who believed they were having anonymous conversations. As a side note it sounds like the author has a problem with "anonymity" on the road too. Should we pass a law requiring everyone to put their name on their cars in 18 inch high lettering? Why is it that people recommend the stupidest things for the internet? We would never contemplate passing the kind of laws that get passed for the internet in other areas. (IMO) (just an interesting thing, notice that in both examples that the writer uses to illustrate anonymity. Anonymity doesn't actually exist--I think that is telling.) --- Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 10:14:22 -0700 From: Brandon Long <blongat_private> To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private> Subject: Re: FC: LA Times columnist wants it to "be harder to be anonymous" online On 05/02/02 Declan McCullagh uttered the following other thing: > > Legitimate announcements and news stories are hijacked from Web sites > and rewritten by anonymous mischief makers. Once in the vapors of the > Web, a stink arose when my byline was circulated over a fabricated > story about the president of the United States being a child molester. That sounds more like an authentication problem than a anonymity problem. Its actually a lot harder to be truly anonymous on the web then most people think... a point which can bite them in the ass when they least expect it. As for authentication, there is a technological solution... the digital signature. Obviously there are still some hurdles to over come in making them easier to use, easier to verify, and easier to maintain as information is based from medium to medium (how do you sign a web page, how is that signature maintained by people who then mail the web page to their friends?) > The creative geniuses who have given us the Web still insist that > anonymity is one of its cornerstones. If so, the foundation is wormy. > The longer that Web-heads insist on anonymity, the more the > credibility and usefulness of their creation will be undermined. > Already, one of the first lessons taught in middle-school computer > labs is to regard everything on the Web as you might a puff adder -- > apt to bite you at any moment. Is this the best we can expect from the > information revolution? Question your sources is always a good idea. Very few places have a complete record of truthfulness and lack of bias. This is as true online as elsewhere, the information available is only as trustworthy as the source... and trust is earned and lost. Besides, there are almost as many sites available to debunk the myths as to exploit them. Perhaps the current level of gullibility of those online is actually a pointer to a lack in their education and critical thinking... a lack which politicians and advertisers have been exploiting for decades. Brandon -- program, n.: A magic spell cast over a computer allowing it to turn one's input into error messages. tr.v. To engage in a pastime similar to banging one's head against a wall, but with fewer opportunities for reward. http://www.fiction.net/blong/ --- From: drumzat_private Subject: Re: FC: LA Times columnist wants it to "be harder to be anonymous" To: declanat_private Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 17:59:21 +0000 (GMT) Nasty non-anonymous attacks on idiots...just because I can! > Legitimate announcements and news stories are hijacked from Web sites > and rewritten by anonymous mischief makers. Once in the vapors of the > Web, a stink arose Yes, stinks tend to rise once in vapors. Jeez, this guy can't even write. > when my byline was circulated over a fabricated > story about the president of the United States being a child molester. I simply can't imagine, based on this piece, why any evildoer would be tempted to put Mr. Balzar's name on such a fabrication. > The creative geniuses who have given us the Web still insist that > anonymity is one of its cornerstones. If so, the foundation is wormy. > The longer that Web-heads insist on anonymity, the more the > credibility and usefulness of their creation will be undermined. > Already, one of the first lessons taught in middle-school computer > labs is to regard everything on the Web as you might a puff adder -- > apt to bite you at any moment. Excellent! Now if only we could get people to regard the mass media with similar skepticism, we'd *really* be getting somewhere. > Is this the best we can expect from the information revolution? > So instead of worrying ourselves silly about ways to protect these few > who are afraid to stand up for their words and actions, we should be > going in the other direction: making it harder to be anonymous, > marginalizing those who try. I rather suspect he means "incarcerating" and simply isn't honest enough to admit it. > We may never humanize the automobile, Thank heaven. If there's one thing "Knight Rider" should have taught us, it's that talking cars are seriously annoying. > but we can the future -- by tearing down those barriers that shield us > from each other and tempt us to be our worst. Even as those same barriers help to shield political dissidents from retaliation by repressive regimes. I challenge him to live in China for a few years and see how long he regards online anonymity as the enemy. If the name weren't already taken by an ingenious privacy tool, I'd be tempted to call Mr. Balzar "Triangle Boy" based on the dunce cap he wears so prominently. Ethan --- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. 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