more on Google search and seizure, etc. vs. technologists

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Phil Karn <karn () ka9q net>
Date: December 3, 2005 11:31:26 PM EST
To: "William S. Duncanson" <caesar () starkreality com>
Cc: lauren () vortex org, dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] Google search and seizure, etc. vs. technologists

William S. Duncanson wrote:
> I have to agree with Lauren here.  The "average user's" lack of
> understanding has been the reason why far more important and useful
> technologies have never been widely adopted.  Look at PGP or any other
> digital e-mail signature technology.  The average user doesn't  
> understand
> why they're useful, isn't willing to pay for them or go through the  
> trouble
> to use a free implementation, and the whole idea just withered on  
> the vine.
> Even businesses, for whom e-mail has become a mission critical  
> aspect find
> the expense and trouble of implementing a simple, company-wide  
> public key
> encryption/signing system to be too much of an effort or financial  
> burden
> without a useful ROI.  And what could be more important to a large
> corporation than secure, guaranteed communications?  The same is  
> true of
> anonymizing proxies; anonymizing proxies have been in existence for  
> years,
> and they're only used by a trivial number of people.  Wide scale  
> adoption of
> such a technology appears to be as likely as wide adoption of  
> digitally
> signed e-mail...

PGP and digital signature technology is not a valid comparison.  
Digital signatures require one party to do something so another can  
benefit. I can't force anyone to sign the emails they send me. (I  
know -- I've tried with E*Trade and other financial institutions.)

A Google query spoofer, on the other hand, need only be implemented  
by the person who benefits from it. That makes all the difference.

A network of anonymizing proxies already exists, so again only the  
person who is to benefit from their use need do something (set up and  
use an anonymizer client.) That's considerably easier than a public  
key infrastructure.

I may not be able to protect everyone -- some won't want or care to  
be protected -- but I can still write the software and make the  
offer. More importantly, I can protect myself without anyone else's  
help. That's important because it means that anyone else can also do  
the same if they're sufficiently concerned about their privacy.

I'm not really *opposed* to laws restricting what Google can do with  
private data. I just don't think they'll do any good. They might even  
be counterproductive by giving people a false sense of security,  
particularly against government abuses.




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