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Microsoft's chief research officer wants web licenses to end bloggers' anonymity
- DannoHung 17y agoOn the one hand, that's bullshit... then on the other hand, I'm thinking of all of the YouTube commenters that I'd like to see disappear, even in the repressive Soviet usage of the word. I don't suppose it would be used to weed out simpering idiots though...
- jonallanharper 17y agoCold chance in hell this will pass in the U.S. I'd actually like to see it formally proposed in some fashion, just to see which congressmen would advocate it... and then observe them promptly voted home the following election season.
- rbanffy 17y agoPlease read the comment above http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1121024 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1121024 edit: or somewhere else on this page.
- lucifer 17y agoWould you have believed in 1999 that Patriot Act, etc. would come to pass in the U.S.? I'm sure they'll roll out the analog to the underwear bomber in time (long before hell freezes over).
- tbrownaw 17y agoIt feels like I'm seeing more calls for this crap lately, from in power / high status type people. That worries me somewhat. What's driving this? Are they afraid of loss of control, or does it just seem like an "easier" fix than things that might actually work (like user education and proper type safety)?
- patrickgzill 17y agoThis deserves an Internet Death Penalty I think.
- epochwolf 17y agoWhat is the internet death penalty? Hacking by anonymous? Heckling on 4chan?
- Zak 17y agoDropping of all packets by major routers. http://catb.org/esr/jargon/html/I/Internet-Death-Penalty.html http://catb.org/esr/jargon/html/I/Internet-Death-Penalty.htm...
- tomjen2 17y agoIt used to be that ISPs who wouldn't do anything against spammers would find that all the usenet posts by their subscribers would be deleted - in effect removing them from the internet.
- rbanffy 17y agoIt's so Microsoft to be always on the wrong side...
- mbreese 17y agoAnd who says Microsoft doesn't innovate anymore?
- rbanffy 17y agoSince when being on the wrong side is something new for them?
- michael_nielsen 17y agoGood luck with the first amendment in the US. Not to mention getting 200 or so other countries to enforce it. The WTO or WIPO might like to help out, but it's not going to happen with the US a non-starter.
- rbanffy 17y agoA piece of advice: never take your freedoms for granted. I have lived most of my childhood under a right-wing military dictatorship. The "it will never happen here" concept is a very dangerous one.
- michael_nielsen 17y agoAgreed. I wasn't taking anything for granted, though - it was an analytical observation. I don't live in the US.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- jonallanharper 17y agoWhere did you spend your childhood? (just curious)
- rbanffy 17y agoBrazil.
- CodeMage 17y agoI'm just curious: was I the only one annoyed by the author's tone and style? I agree with the sentiment behind the article, but the tone makes it come across as extremely partisan. I like reading news without someone shoving their opinion down my throat, even if I agree with said opinion.
- rbanffy 17y agoThe ability to filter out bias in an opinionated piece is very valuable. With practice your brain does it by itself and you hardly notice.
- CodeMage 17y agoWhich, apparently, cannot be said for the ability to refrain from lashing out with a snarky comment. I specifically said that I agree with the author's opinion and that I was asking out of curiosity whether there were other people who shared my dislike of his tone. Just because you're capable of reaching your destination through a traffic jam, doesn't mean you have to like it.
- rbanffy 17y agoPartly answering your question, I neither like nor dislike the style. I have learned to ignore it. I perceive no slowdown in parsing an opinionated piece when compared to purely factual reporting. I notice a lower interesting information density, as part of the content is being used by the opinions of the author and are thus discarded and I would prefer a more concise report. And I never intended to be snarky.
- barrkel 17y agoThe Telegraph is sometimes colloquially known as the Torygraph. It is indeed decidedly opinionated, in both the opinion it publishes, and the news stories it chooses to cover and the space it gives over to them. It's particularly anti-EU, for example. But then, news publications have to use some algorithm for story placement, so there's always some kind of bias. A po-faced "objective" newspaper that pretends to no bias at all can be the most insidious.
- socratees 17y agoWhy do they even propose this? Do they have any arguments in their favor? We should never let this kind of thing happen to the internet.
- jamesbritt 17y ago"Why do they even propose this? " Propose what, exactly? The article does not give any direct quotes, so all we have is the paraphrasing of a writer with an agenda.
- RyanMcGreal 17y agoHere's an interesting case of an HN headline being less editorial and linkbaity than the original. Well done, sir!
- motters 17y agoWell, all this really shows is just how out of touch Microsoft is. They never really grokked the web anyway.
- nfnaaron 17y agoMicrosoft will make a fine DMV.
- sriramk 17y agoA better report of what Craig Mundie proposed is at http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2010/01/30/drivers-licenses-for-the-internet/ http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2010/01/30/drivers-l... . Disclaimer- I work for MSFT but I really no nothing more than what is in these articles
- tbrownaw 17y ago"That's what enables a massive amount of cyber crime: if you're attacked from a computer, you might be able to figure out where that particular machine is located, but there's really no way to go back one step further and track the identity of the computer that hacked into the one that hacked into you." "What Mundie is proposing is to impose authentication." Who is authenticating to whom, and how long is this recorded for (and by who)? If someone posts a virus on a random discussion forum somewhere, and I download it a month later and start sending spam and posting new copies after another week, will this be sufficient to track whoever posted the very first copy? If it is, what will prevent it from having an incredible chilling effect on free speech?
- Gormo 17y agoThe "internet license" proposal is likely hyperbolic rhetoric being used to underscore a more moderate point that MS wants to make. Still, it's becoming commonplace to hear these kind of draconian, totalitarian proposals, from all ends of the political spectrum, and it's not inconceivable that at some point, one of these proposals will end up enacted in law. Perhaps we will eventually need to construe this kind of rhetoric as an overt statement of intent to undermine the constitution, and reinstate prosecutions for seditious libel.
- JohnnyBrown 17y ago> " . . .reinstate prosecutions for seditious libel." A censor's wet dream, that.
- fh 17y agoThe conspiracy theorist part of me suggests that the reason for this proposal has something to do with the MiniMSFT blog.
- holdenc 17y agoAhh, yes. A case of Microsoft misunderstanding human behavior and technical possibility. There will be no drivers licenses, as there will be no web police, as there will be no hegemonic Microsoft. It's a good day when you can file an article like this under comedy.
- dan_the_welder 17y agoYet another point in support of my new adage, " Live in the Cloud, die by the cloud." Got Buzzed? Got Blogger DMCA'd? Tired of having targeted ads in your email, tired of worrying about data retention policies? Then I encourage you to spend a low, low 100 bucks a year on your own hosting and domain, with email and all the website a humble blogger can eat.
- lmkg 17y agoIs anonymity required for free speech? I ask this in order to start an honest discussion. Reading the comments, there seems to be an immediate, and in my opinion unwarranted, jump from authentication of identity directly to censorship. Cutting through the article's FUD bullshit, censorship is not what Mundie is proposing. He's proposing a connection between internet presence and identity, as a means of combating cybercrime. While his proposal conceivably enables censorship activities, I am wary of slippery-slope arguments in general, and in this case the proposal has nothing to do with the legality of censorship in whatever jurisdiction it's present it. In areas where censorship is more common than the US it might make it easier. But, in the US at least, I personally don't see lack of anonymity as necessarily being the first step on an irresistible march towards a soviet dictatorship. I'm rather on the fence about the specific issue of anonymity being a principle aspect of freedom of speech.
- ezy 17y agoNo, but you're asking the wrong question. The right question WRT to free speech is whether there is any free speech which requires anonymity -- and the answer to that is obviously yes. Martyrdom should not be required to speak against those in power. But, even that is beside the point. An internet id implies authentication to use the internet. Identification is a _secondary_ purpose of a driver's license -- the primary purpose is to control who can and cannot operate a motor vehicle. That's the problem. Not anonymity, If you can't be authenticated, you can't speak on the internet -- that is precisely what he's proposing (you can consume but not contribute). It's very small step from that to controlling speech. And it's not even about anonymity -- If you can't get on, no one is going to hear you complain. And guess who holds the keys? And furthermore, cert authorities for the things that need them already exist. So, he is obviously pushing censorship, whether he's too stupid to realize it (it's a microsoft talking head, after all) or not.
- lmkg 17y agoYou have a valid point that there are instances of free speech that do effectively require anonymity. The point of an actual driver's license is first to certify, and second to identify. However, if you give Mundie the benefit of the doubt, he was just using the wrong metaphor and didn't mean that some people wouldn't get the keys to the castle. Would an "internet license" that demonstrates your identity but has no entrance requirements and no way of being denied or revoked be as directly correlated with censorship?
- robinwarren 17y agopretty standard telegraph fare, the only reason to read this is to find out how they manage to link the story to paedophiles
- jrockway 17y agoOK, that's great. I want a pony. I'm not going to get it, though, so it's not really even worth talking about. You can't censor the Internet. You can make posting to the Internet anonymously illegal, but you can't enforce that. You could make crypto illegal, but you can't enforce that either (steganography). Saying that you want to end blog anonymity is like saying you want to end water flowing downhill. You can say it all you want, but it ain't gonna happen.
- bediger 17y agoI think that Mundie's trial balloon has more to do with this part of his statement: the car has to pass a test to say it is fit to drive and you have to have insurance. I will go out on a limb here and propose that the "Internet Driver's License" has more to do with gently guiding governments into requiring Windows, or at least non-free-software operating systems than it has to do with establishing identity, abolishing anonymity or any of the "Four Horsement of the Internet Apocalypse".
- rbanffy 17y agoI will go further down the limb by saying that the minimum safety requirement would be not to run Windows, but then I would be voted down into non-existence... Oops... I just said it. Burn, karma, burn!
- pmccool 17y agoThe analogy with a driver's license is completely inane. What's the worst that can happen if you go about blogging the wrong way? Some people get upset, maybe sue for defamation or something? Big deal! Go about driving the wrong way and people can get hurt or killed; that's the motivation behind requiring a driving license. There is no comparable public-safety issue behind requiring a license for operating a computer, nor is there any need to regulate access to a scare shared resource (e.g. radio frequencies). There is just no compelling reason to bother, apart from the creepy, coercive ones.