[9172] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Outreach Volunteers Needed - Content Control is a Dead End
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Paul Crowley)
Fri Aug 31 14:50:45 2001
To: Dan Geer <geer@world.std.com>
Cc: "R. A. Hettinga" <rah@shipwright.com>, dcsb@ai.mit.edu,
cryptography@wasabisystems.com,
Digital Bearer Settlement List <dbs@philodox.com>
From: Paul Crowley <paul@cluefactory.org.uk>
Date: 30 Aug 2001 17:59:42 +0100
In-Reply-To: Dan Geer's message of "Wed, 29 Aug 2001 23:19:31 -0400"
Message-ID: <87ofoxzdoh.fsf@saltationism.subnet.hedonism.cluefactory.org.uk>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Dan Geer <geer@world.std.com> writes:
> You only get an even number of {privacy, copyright} -- either the
> owner of information controls how it is used or he does not. Either
> you embrace copyright-and-privacy, or you embrace neither.
A tempting but false proposition, on two grounds.
First, privacy is the protection of information where all those who
have it are cooperating in its protection. Copy control enforcement
is a much harder challenge because it is intended to prevent some who
have the information from dispersing it further. I can send you a
message encrypted with PGP; this delivers privacy, but does not stop
you broadcasting the message to the world if you so choose.
And secondly, it matters not a whit what you personally embrace or do
not embrace. Whether effective copy control enforcement is possible
is not a matter of preference but of fact. I can't resist quoting
Bruce Schneier's excellent paragraph in the recent Crypto Gram making
this point:
Every time I write about the impossibility of effectively
protecting digital files on a general-purpose computer, I get
responses from people decrying the death of copyright. "How will
authors and artists get paid for their work?" they ask me. Truth
be told, I don't know. I feel rather like the physicist who just
explained relativity to a group of would-be interstellar
travelers, only to be asked: "How do you expect us to get to the
stars, then?" I'm sorry, but I don't know that, either.
http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram-0108.html
--
__ Paul Crowley
\/ o\ sig@paul.cluefactory.org.uk
/\__/ http://www.cluefactory.org.uk/paul/
"Conservation of angular momentum makes the world go around" - John Clark
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