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I believe that the situation of the Internet and what I mentioned are simpler than your remarks. First, for my remarks, I concentrated on asking lawyers -- leg

by graycat 13y ago

I believe that the situation of the Internet and what I mentioned are simpler than your remarks. First, for my remarks, I concentrated on asking lawyers -- legislators, prosecutors, judges, and litigators -- to quit hurting harmless people. Simple. Nothing about legal "complexity" can argue against this. Second, for the Internet, lawyers should mostly just f'get about it. Just ignore it. Don't make or prosecute laws about it. Don't have civil suits about it. F'get about computer industry patents. Just go do something else. In particular, again, no problems with legal "complexity". For "private property" and what's on Web sites, just f'get about it. It's simple, dirt simple: (A) The Internet is new and different and nothing like much of anything before. It's not like a house, storefront, bookstore, front yard, newspaper, etc., and trying to force the Internet onto some such Procrustean bed is just destructive nonsense. (B) If an owner of a Web site has some data they don't want spread around, then they should not put it on their Web site. Just don't do it. If they do, then their ability to 'protect' their data is zip, zilch, and zero. Both technically, for reasons simple to deep and profound, and legally, in practice, they can't protect such data and likely never will be able to. So, don't put the data out there. If they do, then f'get about the lawyers and protecting that data. Sorry 'bout that, but copyright laws were not designed for the Internet and digital data. A Web site owner can try to be like the MPAA and RIAA and try to hold on to the past, but, for many reasons lawyers can't effectively stop, it won't work. That's just the way it is, no matter what laws get passed, no matter how many wacko, paranoid, OCD, Boston federal prosecutors grit their teeth and think that they see monsters in closets, how many confused, ill-informed SCOTUS decisions there are, etc. It's tilting against windmills. In the meantime, lots of lawyers will be causing lots of damage and doing nearly no good, all for no good reason. The Internet was just fine before the CFAA. And we don't need SOPA or PIPA. Sure, a citizen should make his views known to Congress. Alas, Congress is full of lawyers, and it's tough to break through to them; could use 1000 board-feed of 2 x 4's to break over their heads to see if they are just resting or deep into some profound legal thinking. Gotta wake them up and have them get their hands off the Internet, and keep the NSA off the Internet. I can't turn Congress, but I can guarantee Congress that via technical means the Internet can circumvent nearly any laws they pass. So, f'get about the Internet.

mindslight 13y ago
> I concentrated on asking lawyers -- legislators, prosecutors, judges, and litigators -- to quit hurting harmless people. Every person generally thinks they're doing good in the world. They certainly don't think they're hurting harmless people for fun, they honestly think they're protecting other people. You need to understand this if you want to have any hope of getting to root causes. > If an owner of a Web site has some data they don't want spread around, then they should not put it on their Web site. Just don't do it. See, this is the exact opposite of the truth - it's quite possible to publish data online and employ access methods to control who can access it. By arguing your case this way, you are undermining yourself - the reason we have a legal system with laws etc because things like murder/robbery/etc are impossible to prevent, so the only thing we can do is punish transgressors. Computers give us the ability to implement absolute restrictions formally. The push to implement ambient-authority retributive laws comes from management types who don't devote want to spend the effort to implement formalized restrictions, and want to cry foul after the fact.
- graycat 13y ago
  > Every person generally thinks they're doing good in the world. I think we mostly know who's harmless. We know for kitty cats and puppy dogs: In my neighborhood, cats are free to wander but dogs are not. > See, this is the exact opposite of the truth - it's quite possible to publish data online and employ access methods to control who can access it. Wrong, fundamentally technically and practically. I told you it can't be done, and you just didn't believe me. Once that toothpaste is out of the tube, it can't be put back in. Once a secret is out, can't pull it back. Once some data is sent over the Internet, the person who receives it has it, all of it, and can technically can do essentially anything with it. E.g., when a Web site sends a Web page, it's gone, the whole thing, HTTP header lines, HTML mark-up 'elements', CSS 'properties' and values, software in JavaScript, text, files in JPG, PNG, GIF, MP3, WAV, etc. The computer receiving this data is free to store it on hard disk, manipulate it many ways, back it up, send it, etc. Net, that data's gone, out'a there, out in the public, beyond control, with no self destruct mechanism, no time out clock, no string to pull it back. Can't track it; mostly can't trace it; in practical terms can't say where it came from, can't claim ownership of it, in no practical terms can enforce copyright for it. Etc. Sure, can embed a secret 'watermark' in a PNG file, but that doesn't do much good, e.g., as the file passes from person to person. Besides, such a watermark might get lost if the image is resized. Yes, can put some carefully constructed errors in text and numerical data, but maybe only parts of the data get used or copied, and, again, after the data passed through many hands tough to say who originally 'stole' it, and for the rest they had no knowledge that the data was stolen. Yes, can set up strong authentication for users and use strong encryption when sending the data, but eventually some user gets the data as 'plain text', that is, not encrypted, and now can redistribute it to friends, family, etc. It's just bits and can be stored, copied, transmitted, modified, etc. So, one 'authorized' user leaks the data and it's gone and essentially out to the public. For a Web site trying to block a user, it is essentially impossible to know if the user returned -- with a different IP address, MAC address, ISP, Web browser string HTTP_USER_AGENT, etc. Searching the user's house or office also is unpromising since the data could be on DVD below the insulation on the floor of the attic, stored in the cloud, etc. Again, yet again, as a practical matter, now and over the horizon, if a Web site doesn't want their data out in the public and usable by every Tom, Dick, and Harry for whatever, then they should just never have their Web site send that data. And, really, there's nothing laws or lawyers can do about this except cause a lot of trouble. Again, more generally, lawyers should just f'get about the Internet.

by graycat 13y ago

mindslight 13y ago

> I concentrated on asking lawyers -- legislators, prosecutors, judges, and litigators -- to quit hurting harmless people. Every person generally thinks they're doing good in the world. They certainly don't think they're hurting harmless people for fun, they honestly think they're protecting other people. You need to understand this if you want to have any hope of getting to root causes. > If an owner of a Web site has some data they don't want spread around, then they should not put it on their Web site. Just don't do it. See, this is the exact opposite of the truth - it's quite possible to publish data online and employ access methods to control who can access it. By arguing your case this way, you are undermining yourself - the reason we have a legal system with laws etc because things like murder/robbery/etc are impossible to prevent, so the only thing we can do is punish transgressors. Computers give us the ability to implement absolute restrictions formally. The push to implement ambient-authority retributive laws comes from management types who don't devote want to spend the effort to implement formalized restrictions, and want to cry foul after the fact.

graycat 13y ago
> Every person generally thinks they're doing good in the world. I think we mostly know who's harmless. We know for kitty cats and puppy dogs: In my neighborhood, cats are free to wander but dogs are not. > See, this is the exact opposite of the truth - it's quite possible to publish data online and employ access methods to control who can access it. Wrong, fundamentally technically and practically. I told you it can't be done, and you just didn't believe me. Once that toothpaste is out of the tube, it can't be put back in. Once a secret is out, can't pull it back. Once some data is sent over the Internet, the person who receives it has it, all of it, and can technically can do essentially anything with it. E.g., when a Web site sends a Web page, it's gone, the whole thing, HTTP header lines, HTML mark-up 'elements', CSS 'properties' and values, software in JavaScript, text, files in JPG, PNG, GIF, MP3, WAV, etc. The computer receiving this data is free to store it on hard disk, manipulate it many ways, back it up, send it, etc. Net, that data's gone, out'a there, out in the public, beyond control, with no self destruct mechanism, no time out clock, no string to pull it back. Can't track it; mostly can't trace it; in practical terms can't say where it came from, can't claim ownership of it, in no practical terms can enforce copyright for it. Etc. Sure, can embed a secret 'watermark' in a PNG file, but that doesn't do much good, e.g., as the file passes from person to person. Besides, such a watermark might get lost if the image is resized. Yes, can put some carefully constructed errors in text and numerical data, but maybe only parts of the data get used or copied, and, again, after the data passed through many hands tough to say who originally 'stole' it, and for the rest they had no knowledge that the data was stolen. Yes, can set up strong authentication for users and use strong encryption when sending the data, but eventually some user gets the data as 'plain text', that is, not encrypted, and now can redistribute it to friends, family, etc. It's just bits and can be stored, copied, transmitted, modified, etc. So, one 'authorized' user leaks the data and it's gone and essentially out to the public. For a Web site trying to block a user, it is essentially impossible to know if the user returned -- with a different IP address, MAC address, ISP, Web browser string HTTP_USER_AGENT, etc. Searching the user's house or office also is unpromising since the data could be on DVD below the insulation on the floor of the attic, stored in the cloud, etc. Again, yet again, as a practical matter, now and over the horizon, if a Web site doesn't want their data out in the public and usable by every Tom, Dick, and Harry for whatever, then they should just never have their Web site send that data. And, really, there's nothing laws or lawyers can do about this except cause a lot of trouble. Again, more generally, lawyers should just f'get about the Internet.