Posted by Peter 'Rattacresh' Backes on October 20, 192001 at 22:00:53: In Reply to: Re: Sharing Files like Video and Music Files posted by Savant on October 20, 192001 at 14:56:41:
: [...] an attacking force will cut off
: COMMUNICATION first? [...]
: Information is the #1 threat in any action. Without
: information you can't do ANYTHING, which is why it is
: so important.
You are talking about military action. Big wars have been
fought long before the existence of electronic wires; wars
much bigger than the ones today.
The more information is being exchanged, and the faster,
the more people learn, and the less violence we see.
: If Osama Bin Laden had no means of communication,
: the disasters would not have occurred.
In the first place the disaster would not have occured if
there was noone to actually commit the incident. Communication
and information is an immaterial utility. The problem is
how people USE it. The bad thing are the people using it
for bad things, information itself cannot be a bad thing.
Because digital information is only a concatenation of zero
and one. Those cute zeros and ones, do you really think they
can cause a physical disaster? Not really.
You are talking about information as a symptom. Getting rid
of it doesn't cure the disease, it might remove some of
the side effects. Source of the disease are the evil thoughts
of some individuals. Teaching them what they do wrong,
discussing with them, might actually cure the disease.
Projected onto information as an immaterial utility: Cutting
off hands doesn't help if the head is sick.
: I disagree. Privacy is not a right, it is a privilege. It is
: only guaranteed in certain conditions, and is NEVER
: absolute. There is always some circumstance somewhere that
: will over-ride a privacy concern.
Such discussion is futile again. I think in a free country
like Germany, where I am free to use encryption, it does
not matter whether it is a right or a privilege, because I,
as an individual, can enforce my privacy by encryption. I
can use that in a way that makes privacy a right for me,
a right guaranteed by nothing else than mathematics. If you
want to over-ride mathematics, try it. But I don't think
you will succeed. ;)
: When a person's right to privacy comes up against
: another person's right to LIVE, then the person's
: right to LIVE takes priority EVERY TIME.
If it would take priority (which I am tired of discussing
about, you know my opinion), then this priority would
not be able to over-ride mathematics, as said above.
So taking away privacy is impossible, except if you
prohibit cryptography. Would you want that? If yes:
Forget it, that is not enforceable. Just think of
steganography. If you want to prohibit that: Usage
of steganography cannot be proved, not even to
a notable degree.
We do not need to discuss about whether information and
privacy is right or wrong: IT IS THERE. The right
for both is there, a priori, guaranteed by mathematics
and the usage in cryptography and steganography.
: The terrorists
: want people like you advocating for more privacy so
: they can carry out their evil acts in private.
No. Then terrorists would kill just for the fun of it,
which is obviously not true.
: I never suggested that Freenet could be 'destroyed', although
: I think it would behoove society to insert code so that law
: enforcement could trace transmissions that are linked to
: terrorists and other criminals.
I think you have misunderstood freenet. By princible what you
suggest is not possible, because freenet was especially designed
to not make that possible. Freenet is pure freedom of information.
Anything else is not freenet.
Inserting 'offending' code in the open source freenet node
program to achieve what you said would make (a) the client
incompatible with 'sane' clients, because they have build in
measures against such 'cancer nodes' and (b) only cause
end-users to remove that code before usage, because they
can view and modify the source code.
And that is only the technical point of view. It would
be a scandal if someone actually would only TRY to do what
you said. As if someone would sell a book claiming to
contain the american declaration of independence, with some
paragraphs replaced by text of the Unabomber Manifesto.
: In reality Freenet is nothing more than a glorified
: pirate network anyway. The vast majority of people
: who would use it are trading pirated programs and
: such. If they are not committing a crime, then why
: do they need to use it?
OK, you know my opinion about information and the right
to 'own' certain kinds of it and the right of someone to
stop anyone else from modifying and/or destributing it,
and I know your opinion. That about pirated programs
and their legitimacy.
So why do they need to use it? Some practical aspects:
It is freedom -- noone can forcibly remove something, just
because he doesn't like it. It is stable -- if many people
access the same information at the same time, access gets faster,
not slower. It is cheap -- no need to buy web space if
you don't want to. It keeps away unfair commerce --
No way to track user data. If you want to share your
different thoughts with others without to fear your
family find out about that -- you can do it.
Digital pictures of child pornography, pirated programs,
information about using weapons, making bombs -- noone
can hurt those cute little zeroes and ones
anymore. Information must again be seen as what it
really is: harmess numbers. At most a symptom, not
a disease. So it finally forces people to actually care
about the disease, not the symptoms. I consider that
as something good.
: (Before you mention oppressed countries and free speech
: issues, know that those users are minuscule compared to
: the bulk of users who trade illegal goods.)
Freenet is good spirit, the spirit of freedom. That is why
I use it. I don't download pirated programs -- eh, well, most
of the time ;), I don't look at the child pornography -- I just
enjoy there is one place on earth left where you are just free,
without compromise.
: What was that you said? "then terrorism finally has reached it's goal."
: Freenet is the goal of EVERY terrorist. A system and a means of
: communication that cannot be traced or monitored, and giving them the
: ability to carry out large scale acts of terrorism without being found
: out ahead of time.
Same was said about PGP and cryptography. Would you consider France,
where it is forbidden, safer that the rest of the world? If yes,
then why aren't you living there, but in a country where
privacy and cryptography has not been forbidden?
: It's a dream come true for people like Osama Bin Laden. Why
: do you think they caught everyone off guard? ...because
: technology is now reaching the point where law enforcement
: is unable to trace certain communications. Like Freenet.
Now that it exists it's impossible to do anything against
it, except to make everyone to stop using freenet. But
to do that I guess you have to kill some people.
So I suggest, if you don't like it, just don't use it.
: : If the whole world dies, it is not enough IMO. If privacy
: : is put behinds the need of society, we loose the right to
: : call ourselfes 'The Free World.'
: Freedom and privacy are two different things though. Walking
: down the street you are seen by cameras everywhere. While
: you do not have 'privacy' you do have freedom.
Hey, if you're walking down the street, you are in public. Public
is the opposite of privacy. Freenet offers us to have both
at once, because it's mathematic, not real life, so I think it
is hard to compare.
: Not at all. I'm not 'anti-privacy' at all. In fact I think
: far too many companies collect far too much information. I
: think that companies should have to get permission to keep
: this data.
Freenet is the way to guarantee that, and nothing else but the
apprach of a mathematically proven privacy can do that. You
can't force a company or someone else to do some information twisting
only when being permitted to, except, right, by making that information
twisting mathematically impossible.
: However, we're talking about privacy of TERRORISTS
: and people breaking the law. Personally, I believe if
: a person is using something to break the law, they
: should have no guarantee of privacy.
If a low percentage of people is breaking the law, that
should not impact the privacy of millions of others IMO.
Criminals are a minority.
BTW, I think everyone, even terrorist or criminals
should have some kind of privacy.
: If Freenet goes mainstream, you'll see a marked
: increase in crime, and more deaths as a result.
So the same would apply to PGP, too. I don't see an
increase of crime and I don't see more deaths. Do you?
: I still think the price is too high.
I think we both know we have always had different points
of view about those and related topics. Concerning
immaterial things like information, you are more the
'law and order conservative', while I am the type of
the 'anarchistic hacker,' at least concerning the immaterial
part. This thread seems to become just another in a series
of our little beloved private religious wars.
Damn, I love it.