4 ms·

My example was obviously extreme. But I think my point still stands. Being able to trace an action back to a person or a group of people is important if we want

My example was obviously extreme. But I think my point still stands. Being able to trace an action back to a person or a group of people is important if we want to be able to police and prosecute people based on their actions online. Just because the majority of people will have little to no harmful illegal activity doesn't mean we shouldn't put measures in place to be able to identify people who do. I am all for a free and open web and actually have had several arguments with people why I think that access to the internet is starting to become a human right and should be socialized. But there needs to be accountability for your actions online, and for there to be accountability you need to be able to map an action made over a network to the person or people who did it.

crististm 14y ago
See my other comments. You don't want to prosecute someone on the premise of being the originator. And the reason is that you can't tell the difference between a cracked network and an open one. From outside they look exactly the same. This opens the door to all sorts of abuse. And while we're at it, we should put FBI warning messages on all legally purchased DVDs, because, yes, they do a lot to catch the bad guys who rip them off.
- stevenameyer 14y ago
  I totally agree that we should not prosecute based on being the originator. But I'm saying it is a reasonable place to start an investigation. Being able to pick a starting point for an investigation even if it just narrows the search to a neighborhood or city or even country(even if it may not totally be correct in cases of people of high technical skill) is at least a better starting point then searching for John Doe who is somewhere, presumably on the planet earth. I'm not suggesting that we have a system where someone can look up what anyone is doing on the Internet at any point in time. I'm simply saying that if there is no way to connect an action made online to the real world such that it cannot be used as evidence against someone then anything a person does on the internet has no possible repercussions. Which I think would have some horrific consequences. Yes there is room for some abuse, and an actual implementation of any system would have to work out how to minimize this abuse, but at a certain point you need to trust your government. They have the ability to do a lot worse to a person then find out what they are browsing online.
  - crististm 14y ago
    Why should I ever trust the government? Especially since they have capabilities to do anything they like. Trust is something that is earned.
    - stevenameyer 14y ago
      I'm not saying blindly trust the government on everything. Questioning your government is very important. But there is a baseline level of trust that must exist, you trust them to protect you in times of war, that the money you have will be honoured and so on. It's part of being a citizen of a country and people couldn't function within the country if everyone didn't trust the government on these things.
marssaxman 14y ago
Freedom to voice politically unpopular beliefs is far more important than making law enforcement easy, and so I believe we must ensure that it is always possible to circumvent the kind of tracing measures you describe.
- stevenameyer 14y ago
  Freedom to voice politically unpopular beliefs is far more important than making law enforcement easy I am a firm believer in this as well. My post way probably a little too aggressive on the side of overwatch, but I tend to go a little to extremes in these kinds of conversations to push the discussion. You're obviously correct, my point was just that there needs to be some kind of accountability for someones action online. Total anonymity and lack of accountability can be just as dangerous in my opinion. Obviously any real life implementation like this would need to find a balance between perserving the rights of the individual and aiding in identifying and prosecuting criminals.
taproot 14y ago
The reason you get into argunents is because your point of view is flawed. It would be far to easy to hide yourself or fake your id. Implementing anything like this would simply hinder the legal user experience and do nothing to stop the bad guys.
- stevenameyer 14y ago
  I understand that hiding or faking an id is a concern for highly technical people but I would hope that it would not be easy to the point where someone of medium to low technical skill could do it. I'm curious as to why you believe it would hinder the legal user experience? I feel like having some sort of accountability to actions made online in the case of illegal activity would have little to no effect on the legal users. Also I think saying that it would do nothing to stop the bad guys is blatantly false. Yes any computer system is able to be compromised by people of high skill but making it require high skill to get around would weed out a lot of people.

crististm 14y ago

See my other comments. You don't want to prosecute someone on the premise of being the originator. And the reason is that you can't tell the difference between a cracked network and an open one. From outside they look exactly the same. This opens the door to all sorts of abuse. And while we're at it, we should put FBI warning messages on all legally purchased DVDs, because, yes, they do a lot to catch the bad guys who rip them off.

stevenameyer 14y ago
I totally agree that we should not prosecute based on being the originator. But I'm saying it is a reasonable place to start an investigation. Being able to pick a starting point for an investigation even if it just narrows the search to a neighborhood or city or even country(even if it may not totally be correct in cases of people of high technical skill) is at least a better starting point then searching for John Doe who is somewhere, presumably on the planet earth. I'm not suggesting that we have a system where someone can look up what anyone is doing on the Internet at any point in time. I'm simply saying that if there is no way to connect an action made online to the real world such that it cannot be used as evidence against someone then anything a person does on the internet has no possible repercussions. Which I think would have some horrific consequences. Yes there is room for some abuse, and an actual implementation of any system would have to work out how to minimize this abuse, but at a certain point you need to trust your government. They have the ability to do a lot worse to a person then find out what they are browsing online.
- crististm 14y ago
  Why should I ever trust the government? Especially since they have capabilities to do anything they like. Trust is something that is earned.
  - stevenameyer 14y ago
    I'm not saying blindly trust the government on everything. Questioning your government is very important. But there is a baseline level of trust that must exist, you trust them to protect you in times of war, that the money you have will be honoured and so on. It's part of being a citizen of a country and people couldn't function within the country if everyone didn't trust the government on these things.

marssaxman 14y ago

Freedom to voice politically unpopular beliefs is far more important than making law enforcement easy, and so I believe we must ensure that it is always possible to circumvent the kind of tracing measures you describe.

stevenameyer 14y ago
Freedom to voice politically unpopular beliefs is far more important than making law enforcement easy I am a firm believer in this as well. My post way probably a little too aggressive on the side of overwatch, but I tend to go a little to extremes in these kinds of conversations to push the discussion. You're obviously correct, my point was just that there needs to be some kind of accountability for someones action online. Total anonymity and lack of accountability can be just as dangerous in my opinion. Obviously any real life implementation like this would need to find a balance between perserving the rights of the individual and aiding in identifying and prosecuting criminals.

taproot 14y ago

The reason you get into argunents is because your point of view is flawed. It would be far to easy to hide yourself or fake your id. Implementing anything like this would simply hinder the legal user experience and do nothing to stop the bad guys.

stevenameyer 14y ago
I understand that hiding or faking an id is a concern for highly technical people but I would hope that it would not be easy to the point where someone of medium to low technical skill could do it. I'm curious as to why you believe it would hinder the legal user experience? I feel like having some sort of accountability to actions made online in the case of illegal activity would have little to no effect on the legal users. Also I think saying that it would do nothing to stop the bad guys is blatantly false. Yes any computer system is able to be compromised by people of high skill but making it require high skill to get around would weed out a lot of people.