[Politech] Roger Clarke replies to Lessig on existing anonymous systems [priv]

From: Declan McCullagh (declan@private)
Date: Mon Dec 08 2003 - 06:45:10 PST

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    Date: Sat, 6 Dec 2003 10:59:39 +1100
    To: Declan McCullagh <declan@private>, Lawrence Lessig <lessig@private>
    From: Roger Clarke <Roger.Clarke@private>
    Subject: Re: [Politech] Larry Lessig replies to Politech over limiting 
    anonymity [fs][priv]
    Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"
    
    G'day Declan, hi Larry
    
    The conversation's quickly generating more heat than light, because it's 
    started on the wrong basis.
    
    As a combination consultant-researcher-advocate, I'm well aware how vital 
    it is to find ways to make uncomfortable-but-important lines of argument 
    palatable to a variety of different interests.  Without that, the necessary 
    dialogue simply won't happen.
    
    The calming pitch I've been using in this area for years is as follows:
    
    1.  Anonymity *is*, and will be.
    
         Whether it's good and/or bad is a great argument to have at the bar.
         But it's discussions at an ethical / moral level are inevitably
         divisive and consequently seldom ever achieve anything.  So let's not
         go there *at all*.
    
    2.  Pseudonymity 'is' too, but it isn't good enough yet.
    
         To be effective, pseudonymity needs to combine technological,
         organisational and legal elements.
    
         And to attract people to use it, it must be credible, in the sense
         of not being able to be broken simply by the uttering of some magic
         incantation like 'Al Qaeda'.
    
    I had conversations with Phil Zimmerman at CFP many years ago about how we 
    harness secret-sharing technologies more effectively.  But I've never been 
    able to get the doctoral candidates I wanted to work on it.
    
    So what we need is a task force that blends the technical expertise (Phil 
    Zimmerman, Bruce Schneier, Steve Bellovin, Eric Young, Ian Goldberg and 
    similar), with the legal perspective (Larry Lessig, Marc Rotenberg, Michael 
    Froomkin and similar) and the policy perspective (Declan McCullagh, Deirdre 
    Mulligan, Simon Davies, Stephanie Perrin and various other dissimilar), 
    with the aim of producing a series of white papers on effective 
    pseudonymity services that will complement the anonymity services that are 
    bound to exist in any case.
    
    What we *don't* need is for Politech readers to work themselves up into a 
    lather on the ethics and political economy of anonymity, and to thereby 
    divert people's energies and effort away from the real work.
    
    Regards  ...  Roger
    
    References:
       http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/DV/HumanID.html#AnPs (1994)
       http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/DV/AnonPsPol.html (1996)
       http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/DV/UIPP99.html#Ps (1999)
    
    -- 
    Roger Clarke              http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/
    
    Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd, 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
                     Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
    mailto:Roger.Clarke@private            http://www.xamax.com.au/
    
    Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program, University of Hong Kong
    Visiting Professor in the Baker Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre, U.N.S.W
    Visiting Fellow in Computer Science, Australian National University
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