The Right to Privacy

in our increasingly networked world

I'm hopefully beating a dead horse here. I'd like to think that anyone on the Net realizes you are on the Net. Tracking back to your PC for the e-posts leaving and arriving it would be no big deal. Servers copy your posts from machine to machine as the file wends its way to the recipient.

Your browser leaves "cookies" at the sites you visit. They know where you are, how you are logged on and even which browser/operating system combination you are utilizing.

Privacy on the Net does happen unless you take the initiative. If your posts are so uttterly benign that you don't mind that they're read by any system administrator (sys admin) or other computer geeks along the way, then at least you considered the consequences.

There are servers call "anonymous remailers". They literally strip the tell-tail headers off the file's packets and substitutes its own. That way it's not traced back to you.

Why should someone receive that kind of anonymity? you ask. Why should someone be unaccountable for their words?

The world is full of touchy subjects. Maybe someone is confused over their sexual orietation and wants to participate in usenet discussions without being identified. Maybe someone is blowing the whistle on corrupt officials or faulty manufacturing processes. Maybe they want to avoid flame mail and spam from pathetic cowards and greedy entrepreneurs.

At the same time, cyberspace is being transformed and perverted at the national level. The United States' federal government has got it into its fascistic skull that since the Net exists, it should therefore be open-book trackable by them

  • That's why telephone switching equipment is required to be "wiretap ready".
  • That's why Klinton keeps pushing for "key escrow"-type encryption. This is when the Feds also get a copy of the encryption keys to use only with a court order. Uh-huh. Sure.
  • That's why encrypted cellular phones have a faulty, easy-to-crack* encryption method.
  • That's why encryption code keys are kept small for exported software-- to make it easier for the Feds to crack. The world (thankfully) is not playing by these rules. They want strong encryption software and are writing it and selling it from overseas. Short-sighted result: software jobs and moneys are being abdicated to overseas.

    It's too bad but it's true: anything that the Feds feel like barging into, they just do. The idea of taking the high road as the world's greatest democracy and put trust in its citizens by giving them strong encryption is something beyond the comprehension of the Nazis in Washington. In essence, they're saying:

  • All of you are guilty of something.
  • We'll give you weak, easy-to-crack cryptography to lull you.
  • We're gonna track any and all aspects of your life.

    It boils down to trust. The Congress and the President don't have it in us. After all, a vocal (and suckered) minority raised enough ruckus to get the Communications Decency Act turned into Hitlerian law. "The Net is filled with porno!" "We're too stupid and lazy to raise our children!", they cried out. "Save us from ourselves!" And lo', thanks to their complete misunderstanding of the Net, the Feds were able to become just that much more oppressive thanks to the abdication of citizens' rights thanks to pinhead politicians riding the coattails of popular, albeit flatout wrong causes.

    You'd think people would learn that Big Brother is not your brother. He's your jailer.

    * As of March 1997.

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