FC: More on spam fighting as censorship, blocking legit email

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

[I sense this debate could go on for a while, but my trip (leaving in a few
hours) may cut it short. BTW the FedEx Santa just brought me a new Canon
EOS5 and a bunch of lenses. I was considering a digital camera but for 8x10
or greater enlargments I haven't seen any that can beat any decent 35mm
loaded with Velvia, not to mention the idiot lenses that they have glued
onto them. I will post a report. Also at the end is an interesting post
from the IETF wiretap list. Step aside, Louis Freeh! --DBM]


> Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1999 23:23:46 -0700
> To: declan () well com, politech () vorlon mit edu
> From: Lizard <lizard () mrlizard com>
> Subject: Re: FC: Spam fighting as censorship, blocking legit email
>  messages
>
> Two quick replies:
>
> John Gilmore claims that spammers don't block ordinary mail. This is false.
> Spam is often filled with bad data, in order to ward off the inevitable
> firestorms of returned mail and core dumps. This can snarl remailers, or
> just dump gigabytes of hatemail on whatever innocent the spammer chose to
> list as a 'reply-to' address. Or just overflow a mail queue and cause a
> system crash. (This happens at my job more often than I'd care to
> recall...) The simple fact that spammers go to such lengths to hide who
> they are indicates they know full well that what they are doing is immoral
> and unethical;people who consciously commit such acts deserve nothing but
> contempt.
>
> David Smith claims that if this were censorware, there'd be a massive hue
> and cry. The difference is that censorware keeps me from getting somewhere
> I want to go. Anti-spammers block out mail that consumes my resources for
> the benefit of the sender. There's no way to get around it -- spam is
> parasitic.
>
> I have yet to see an anti-spam law that will not ensnare the innocent in
> its traps. In any event, the internet has always been built on common law
> forged by consensus. The non-flaming of anti-spammers ought to be good
> indication that the common law of the net approves of their actions.

********

From: "chefren" <chefren () pi net>
To: raven () ietf org, "William H. Geiger III" <whgiii () openpgp net>
Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1999 00:55:30 +0200
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT
Subject: Re: [Raven] Anonymous taps

On 28 Oct 99, at 17:23, William H. Geiger III wrote:

> No I want strong, unbreakable, end-to-end encryption for all my
> communications. Let them tcp dump to their hearts content. <EG>


Every criminal organisation would like to have that too. If 
our society allows us to use such means our society would 
have created places where criminal organisations could 
effectively hide for law enforcement.

On the long term definitely stupid.

Fire arms are regulated and encryption should be 
accordingly. No assault weapons and no free fully 
equiped flying F16's guided by idiots in our societies.  

Let your communication provider use the strongest 
encryption he can get for your data. I have absolutely no 
problems with that but the communication provider should 
lift it if law enforcement needs it to be lifted.

+++chefren


p.s. A guy like Saddam Hussein spends often $100.000.000 a 
month(!) to get things with which he intends to overthrow 
our societies. Free encryption is more or less self-murder 
for a free society...



=Large signature follows=

I think we need a simple architecture for a point
to point tap interface that has strong provisions
against misuse.

On one side the communication provider who only
starts tapping a specific customer or IP number
with proper warrants.

On the other side the approved tapping room.
Everything should be organized by the central
"tapping office". This office should provide
keys for strong encryption to both communication
provider and tapping room.

Law and technology should both provide as
much checks and balances as we can come up
with. Law can provide good procedures,
technology can provide technical means to
check them or force them.    

=Large signature ended, please comment me
off-line to make it better=

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