IP: Privacy issues raised -- DO READ San Jose Mercury News Good article on

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

>
>Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2000 18:07:59 -0500
>To: farber@cis.upenn.edu
>From: Dave Wilson <dave@wilson.net>
>Subject: Re: IP: Re: Bakers note
>
>
>Sometimes I really do get in front...<g>
>Distribute as much (or as little) as you want.
>
>-dave
>
>http://www.mercurycenter.com/premium/business/docs/hack11.htm
>
>Published Friday, February 11, 2000, in the San
>                       Jose Mercury News
>
>                       Privacy issues raised
>
>                       Hacker attacks: Experts worry that technological fixes
>                       being worked on may compromise rights of individuals
>                       online.
>
>                       BY DAVID L. WILSON
>                       Mercury News Washington Bureau
>
>WASHINGTON -- Internet experts and civil liberty advocates are raising
>concerns that the recent rash of Web-site attacks may provoke the kind of
>technological fixes that could make the online world more secure at the
>expense of damaging individual privacy.
>
>The anonymous vandals who launched assaults on some of the Web's busiest
>sites this week used a technique known as a ``distributed denial of
>service'' attack. Finding the source of such attacks and repelling them is
>extremely difficult, partly because the Internet is by design a free and
>open system in which anonymity is the rule. Experts say, however, that
>could easily change.
>
>They fear that some people may call for building tight controls into the
>Internet's infrastructure, which would allow the tracking of the movements
>of individuals as they navigate through cyberspace.
>
>This would make it easier to protect commercial Web sites and police
>against online crime. But in such an environment, law-abiding users might
>also decide it's not safe to look at information on controversial topics,
>political issues or health matters for fear that someone could monitor
>their movements and use that information to harm them, professionally or
>socially.
>
>``There's no question that when this kind of event occurs it garners
>support for efforts to be more restrictive on access and more intrusive on
>privacy,'' said Gene Spafford, director of Purdue University's Center for
>Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security and one of the
>world's leading experts on computer security.
>
>Civil rights advocates agree, and insist that the Internet must continue to
>maintain a balance between security and privacy. ``Without privacy on the
>Internet, you lose the freedom to explore and discover. It chills free
>speech,'' said Tara L. Lemmey, president of the Electronic Frontier
>Foundation.
>
>The concern is not so much new laws -- at least in the United States -- but
>new technology that would boost security at an unacceptable price to
>personal liberty.
>
>  Changes could be simple
>
>  Instituting such a change could be a mere matter of distributing and
>installing new hardware and software. As Harvard law Professor Lawrence
>Lessig argues in his new book, ``Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace,'' it is
>not legal codes that define how we use systems like the Internet, but
>software code. Programmers and hardware engineers who will define the
>limits on human behavior and society in cyberspace.
>
>For instance, after Intel Corp. introduced its Pentium III microprocessor,
>privacy advocates were shocked to discover that each new chip broadcast a
>unique identification code when it was connected to a network. Intel
>developed the feature to make networking more secure, and company
>representatives initially seemed baffled by cries that such a system would
>undermine privacy. Intel eventually agreed to ship each chip with the
>feature turned off.
>
>  Ongoing fight
>
>Part of the reason for the increasing fears for privacy are related to
>ongoing political battles that center on the issue of anonymity. For
>instance, laws aimed at restricting sexually oriented material distributed
>via the Internet to adults have been struck down by the courts, largely
>because there is no way to ensure that only adults get such material, since
>proving identity is cumbersome in cyberspace.
>
>Since it's nearly impossible to determine whether a visitor to a Web site
>is an adult, Web site operators have argued convincingly that the only way
>to protect themselves from possible legal action would be to stop
>displaying any material that could be found inappropriate for minors --
>resulting in the chilling censorship of such content as works of art that
>feature nudity, AIDS information and guidance about birth control.
>
>Limiting all speech in cyberspace to speech appropriate for a child
>violates the First Amendment right to free speech, the Supreme Court has
>ruled. But legislators on both the federal and state levels are still
>trying to enact restrictions that could withstand judicial scrutiny.
>
>Privacy advocates acknowledge the seductive power behind the logic of
>giving up a basic liberty in return for a safer environment. But they warn
>that such a bargain is the hallmark of an authoritarian society.
>
>Asked if it wouldn't be worth giving up some privacy on the Internet in
>return for more security, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Lemmey
>laughed bitterly and said, ``I think China is currently trying to deploy a
>system like that.''
>
>                       Intended effect?
>
>Ironically, the push for tighter controls on the Internet may be precisely
>what the perpetrators of these recent attacks do not want to see happen.
>
>Many computer ``crackers,'' as malevolent hackers are known, subscribe to a
>rudimentary political manifesto that encourages random strikes at
>commercial enterprises on the Internet, arguing that corporations have
>polluted the pure, unfettered environment of cyberspace in which people
>should freely share resources.
>
>``The people who do this kind of thing often claim they want a more open
>network, more anonymous access,'' said Spafford, of Purdue University.
>``Yet this behavior leads to pressure to restrict those very behaviors.''
>
>
>Contact David Wilson at dwilson@sjmercury.com or (202) 383-6020.
>
>"He who laughs last thinks slowest."
>Dave Wilson