Roger Clarke replies to Lessig on existing anonymous systems [priv]

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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Date: Sat, 6 Dec 2003 10:59:39 +1100
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>, Lawrence Lessig <lessig () pobox com>
From: Roger Clarke <Roger.Clarke () xamax com au>
Subject: Re: [Politech] Larry Lessig replies to Politech over limiting 
anonymity [fs][priv]
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"

G'day Declan, hi Larry

The conversation's quickly generating more heat than light, because it's 
started on the wrong basis.

As a combination consultant-researcher-advocate, I'm well aware how vital 
it is to find ways to make uncomfortable-but-important lines of argument 
palatable to a variety of different interests.  Without that, the necessary 
dialogue simply won't happen.

The calming pitch I've been using in this area for years is as follows:

1.  Anonymity *is*, and will be.

    Whether it's good and/or bad is a great argument to have at the bar.
    But it's discussions at an ethical / moral level are inevitably
    divisive and consequently seldom ever achieve anything.  So let's not
    go there *at all*.

2.  Pseudonymity 'is' too, but it isn't good enough yet.

    To be effective, pseudonymity needs to combine technological,
    organisational and legal elements.

    And to attract people to use it, it must be credible, in the sense
    of not being able to be broken simply by the uttering of some magic
    incantation like 'Al Qaeda'.

I had conversations with Phil Zimmerman at CFP many years ago about how we 
harness secret-sharing technologies more effectively.  But I've never been 
able to get the doctoral candidates I wanted to work on it.

So what we need is a task force that blends the technical expertise (Phil 
Zimmerman, Bruce Schneier, Steve Bellovin, Eric Young, Ian Goldberg and 
similar), with the legal perspective (Larry Lessig, Marc Rotenberg, Michael 
Froomkin and similar) and the policy perspective (Declan McCullagh, Deirdre 
Mulligan, Simon Davies, Stephanie Perrin and various other dissimilar), 
with the aim of producing a series of white papers on effective 
pseudonymity services that will complement the anonymity services that are 
bound to exist in any case.

What we *don't* need is for Politech readers to work themselves up into a 
lather on the ethics and political economy of anonymity, and to thereby 
divert people's energies and effort away from the real work.

Regards  ...  Roger

References:
  http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/DV/HumanID.html#AnPs (1994)
  http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/DV/AnonPsPol.html (1996)
  http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/DV/UIPP99.html#Ps (1999)

--
Roger Clarke              http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/

Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd, 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
                Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
mailto:Roger.Clarke () xamax com au            http://www.xamax.com.au/

Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program, University of Hong Kong
Visiting Professor in the Baker Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre, U.N.S.W
Visiting Fellow in Computer Science, Australian National University
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