From: Charlie Comsec <comsec@nym.alias.net>
Date: Thu, 25 Dec 1997 02:27:52 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Completely anonymous communications ARE only for "Criminals"
In-Reply-To: <349d63d2.166534653@nntp.best.ix.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <19971224182004.5699.qmail@nym.alias.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain




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gburnore@netcom.com (Gary L. Burnore) wrote:

> :> Nope. If a lawyer believes he can win and there big money involved, he'll take
> :> it on the premise that he gets paid if he wins.   If the defendant has nothing
> :> to offer, the lawyer won't do it.  Thus, the falsly accused may not be able to
> :> afford to go to court.  The decision to sue is mostly based on how deep the
> :> pockets of the defendant would be.
> :
> :Then what's the point of going to all the trouble of tracking someone down if
> :you're unwilling or unable to take appropriate legal action against him
> :after he's found?
> 
> That's not what I said.  

If your decision to sue or not sue is based on the deepness of the
defendant's pockets, and if you didn't know this until after he was
identified, then you very might well end up tracking down and
identifying someone that a lawyer wouldn't be willing so sue (on a
contingency fee basis), right?

My question was, if Politas' suggestions were implemented and an
unknown individual was tracked down using the procedure he outlined,
and it turns out the individual was "judgement proof", who's going
to pay for the costs of the investigation?

Otherwise, you end up with an "in terrorem" remedy.  That's one that
you probably wouldn't or couldn't aqctually use, but the potential
to do so might serve as a deterrent.  Unfortunately, when free
speech is involved, that's exactly what many of us don't want.  It
cuts both ways.  Look at what the scientologists did to Julf and the
anon.penet.fi remailer.  Alleging some violation of Swedish law,
they almost succeeded in retrieving Julf's entire "traceability"
database linking account names to their "real" owners.  The end
result was that the remailer was destroyed.  Having privacy invading
data like that available put all of Julf's clients at risk.  In the
end, Julf felt that it was better to close down rather than risk
future raids.

That has pretty much driven a nail in the coffin of the sort of
"traceable" remailers Politas is now proposing.  It's a case of
"been there -- done that".  Few people relish ending up on the
Scientologists' (or the next organization like it that comes along)
hit list, and most now realize how vulnerable a remailer operator is
to coercion -- even the "legal" variety.  One doesn't even have to
be an anti-scieno to be a victim of such a raid.  Since they're so
paranoid about anonymity and the ability of people to publish their
"secret scriptures" anonymously, they might just steal such a
database and anonymously publish it themselves.  Outing thousands of
innocent remailer clients would irreparably harm the reputation of
remailers, which would work to their advantage.

I'll even go so far as to say that you'll never be able to eliminate
truly anonymous remailers.  First of all, you'll never get every
single country to adopt Politas' suggestions.  All it takes is one
untraceable remailer in an encrypted chain to make back-tracing a
message impossible (or at least prohibitively costly, in terms of
money, time, and computing resources).
 
> :> :So you're suggesting that the victim should suffer.  You are really saying
> :> :that it is perfectly acceptable for someone to be run out of a newsgroup by
> :> :a single person who refuses to be killfilable.
> :>  
> :>  
> :> Yup, that's what he's saying.
> :
> :I don't recall ever saying that.  How do you run a person out of
> :an unmoderated NG? 
> 
> Charlie, if he doesn't like your posts and you continue to post and he just
> can't bring himself to killfile you the next best thing is for him to leave,
> right?

That's one option, but I wouldn't make it a blanket suggestion.
Some ideas are worth defending and some are better off dropped.
I've seen fanatics on some NGs who have attracted exactly ZERO
supporters to their position, and dozens of people rebutting,
flaming, ridiculing them, etc. yet these folks persist.  Ultimately
it's their choice.

Let me cite an example.  I believe the earth is round and presumably
you do too.  But if you visited a NG that was the hangout of dozens
of flat-earthers, you probably wouldn't stick around too long to
argue the point.  At least I know I wouldn't.  Being right doesn't
require you to convince everyone.  You just accept the fact that
some arguments are unwinable and move on to more productive things.
The same could be said for religious or political flame wars.

If I expressed my opinion, and some religious kook accused me of
being the devil incarnate for espousing such heresy, I wouldn't
waste my time trying to netcop the person.  Maybe calling me "the
devil incarnate" is libellous, but IMO it's not worth the time and
effort to pursue.  And that's even with a net.kook who's posting
with a genuine e-mail address and his "real name".  An anonymous
kook is even less worthy of bothering with.

If he crosses the line and commits behavior that is flagrantly
illegal, then he's exposing himself to risk by doing so.  Let's face
it, people may walk down the street with ski masks on, and even if
it annoys you, you're probably not going to be able to unmask them.
If one robs a bank, though, he stands a far greater chance of being
identified and apprehended.  Politas' solution is like requiring
name tags on ski masks.  Let's worry about the bank robbers rather
than the people who wear ski masks.

> : And if it's moderated, and the moderator is allowing what
> :you consider libel against you, then you probably have a case against him.
> 
> True.
> 
> :That's what the courts decided in a landmark case against an ISP.  When you
> :manage the content then you become responsible for it as well.
> 
> Exactly.

The bottom line being, if you have a POV you wish to express, and
you encounter opposition in one forum, choose another one.  If you
can't find one, start one.

> :Nor do I understand the "who refuses to be killfilable" part, either. 
> 
> I believe he meanse by continously altering his name or by posting
> anonymously. 

If he's posting anonymously, then he's easily killfilable.  Just put
the return address of the remailer(s) he's using in your killfile.

If he's not posting anonymously, then that scenario is not related
to remailers.  If you're talking about multiple GENUINE IDs, then
the ISPs involved might be able to help -- assuming he's really
committing abuse OF the net, and not merely being annoying.  If
they're bogus IDs, then his ISP might have a policy about that as
well.

> : How can
> :someone you don't even know control your killfile?  I can killfile anyone I
> :want to, including "nobody@some_remailer".  I haven't killfiled anyone, but
> :I could do so if I wanted to.
> 
> You could but it's not worth it.  Killfile anyone posting anonymously because
> of one idiot?  I don't do that either.

Again, that's a choice you have to weigh.  Take each remailer ID and
decide whether the valuable posts from that ID outweigh the junk.
But, again, annoying posts aren't really what Politas' proposal
dealt with.  He was talking about actual laws being broken.

> :Why would that prevent you from contacting the police?  But consider that 
> :libel is a civil tort not a criminal offense, so the police aren't likely to 
> :get involved, even if you could identify the culprit.
> 
> True that a traceless remailer makes it impossible, not that getting the
> police involved would work. Sorry I wasn't clearer.

If you had a matter that truly concerned the police, the lack of a
suspect's name shouldn't hinder you.  After all, if someone had
stolen your car, you'd report it even if you didn't know who did it,
wouldn't you?  As I said previously, many bank robbers are caught
even if they wore masks or drove a car without license plates.

> :I'm really trying to understand what Politas' wants, but it's difficult.
> 
> I think he wants one particluar person to leave him alone.

I must have missed that point in following the thread.  If I recall
correctly, I asked him what particular problem he was trying to
solve, since it's easier to solve real, existing problems that
hypothetical ones.  He said that he didn't have any problems like
that himself, and doubted he would because he didn't normally engage
in behavior that would attract enemies, but he was concerned that it
might happen to others.

[Politas:  please feel free to jump in and clarify this point.]

- ---
Finger <comsec@nym.alias.net> for PGP public key (Key ID=19BE8B0D)


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