From: jf_avon@citenet.net
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 1997 08:26:29 +0800
To: e$@thumper.vmeng.com, Black Unicorn <cypherpunks@Algebra.COM
Subject: Re: Unicorn an NSA agent?  WAS: New PGP "Everything the FBI  eve
In-Reply-To: <v03110747b05eb4328885@[139.167.130.248]>
Message-ID: <199710070026.UAA00270@cti06.citenet.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Via e$@thumper.vmeng.com

> To: jf_avon@citenet.net, e$@thumper.vmeng.com, cypherpunks@algebra.com
> From: Black Unicorn <unicorn@schloss.li>
> Subject: Re: Unicorn an NSA agent?  WAS: New PGP "Everything the FBI  ever
 dre

 

>  Remember when the phone company used to lease you your phone?  Surely that
>  doesn't make the data that goes over the phone their property?

Duhhh!  Typical Unicornish answer: completely out of context.


The agreement with the phone company is to provide you with a 
service, while the agreement with the employer is for you to devote 
your time to his cause.  Buy doing personnal activities outside of 
certain accepted ones, you defraud him.  Did you indulge into calling 
your girlfriend in Tokyo while in your office? Did you get a pat in 
the back from your boss?



>  Actually, most large modern firms I'm familiar with approve of and expect
>  some degree of personal business to be transacted in the work place.  Some
>  even state this explicitly in their corporate policies and define the level
>  of personal business that is appropriate.  Never have I seen one which
>  insists that no personal business of any kind is to be tolerated.  I doubt
>  such a firm would have a reasonable retention rate either.

Duhhh ^2
But does that precludes the requirement by the company that all 
e-mail pertaining to  company activities be decryptable by them?

>  I think I might take that as a compliment coming from someone who advocates
>  the  kind of data ownership views that you seem to.  I hope to be thought
>  of as dangerous by those kind of entities.

Duhhh ^3  I did not said it, you did.  If you want to have a vague 
idea of my idea of property, just refer to Ayn Rand philosophy for a 
close enough explanation.
  
>  >I've been watching you for almost
>  >three years over Cypherpunks and e$-etc and other forums.
>  >Virtually *all* of your posts have this
>  >blow-up-their-basic-premises-and-let-them-with-nothing-but-confusion
>  >style.
>  
>  Blame law school.

You are almost absolved.  :-)  This anti-knowledge way of interacting 
is unfortunately widely thaught.  But from the moment you realize it, 
it becomes a sin again...  :-)

>  If my position on this issue makes me some kind of troublemaker, you better
>  point the same finger at Schneier, who (if quoted accurately) shares my view.
>  
>  >Your style shows intelligence and skill in the way you do
>  >it, which rules out idiocy on your part.  So, clearly, you have
>  >an agenda
>  
>  I do.  Unimparied privacy for individuals in all contexts.  Now tell me how
>  PGP5.5 contributes to that cause, particularly in the current political
>  climate.

I have no idea because I did not look at it.  Only, from a business 
standpoint, it doesn't only makes sense to be able to decrypt 
employees data, it is a sine qua none condition for the 
implementation of encryption at corporate level.  IMNSHO.

> The timing looks extremely suspect to me.  Challenging the
>  premise that corporates own the flesh and mind of every employee within the
>  walls of their facilities doesn't really strike me as something
>  pro-estlablishment

Double talk.  I never said it *owns* the employees, I said it owns 
the *means* of communication and, as per mutual agreement between 
employee and employer, the employee's time.  The employee AND the 
employer are, most of the time, free to walk out anytime.


> My view is, however, that
>  this is the wrong way for the world to progress.  If beliving that
>  employees don't sell their souls to large corporations because they accept
>  their paychecks is evil, call me evil.

Accepting a paycheck has nothing to do with selling your soul, it is 
a contractual agreement.  You have to fullfill it.  It is based on 
good faith.  

>  At the same time I beleve that
>  companies don't tell their soul to a given government just because they do
>  business on a given "soil."

There is a large part of happenstance in this.  Doing business with 
the Nazis is an extreme and many condemned it.  Doing business within 
the USA is another thing.

>  If correcting legal errors, 

I admit you do often.

> highlighting the flaws in basic premises and  pointing out general gaps in logic, 
>  which is what I think I've been doing
>  for the many years I've been poking around on c'punks an elsewhere, is

Oh, but I do not question that you act.  Only, your pretended basic 
premises and the end result and general philosophy conveyed by most 
of your comments simply do not match you pretended agenda. 

>The
>  consistancy you see is probably because I don't waiver in my principles
>  when it comes to privacy.

At least, we have something in common!  :-)

jfa 
Jean-Francois Avon, Montreal QC Canada
"One of theses centuries, the brutes, private or public, who believe
that they can rule their betters by force, will learn the lesson of
what happens when brute force encounters mind and force."
                                              - Ragnar Danneskjold
PGP key at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon
            http://bs.mit.edu:8001/pks-toplev.html
ID# C58ADD0D : 529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891