[12090] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: NTIA privacy notice (fwd) (long!)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mark Stahlman (via RadioMail))
Wed May 4 21:22:22 1994
Date: Wed, 04 May 1994 16:34:57 PDT
From: Mark Stahlman (via RadioMail) <stahlman@radiomail.net>
To: Com-priv@psi.com
Dan, thanks for posting this well written and well reasoned exposition on
privacy and new technologies. My only question is, what would happen if we
didn't make any of the underlying assumptions about industrial convergence
mentioned in the report and that seem to drive the urgency and the
specifics of this inquiry? What if a "seamless" NII never happens in the
way it is being discussed? And, what is the best venue to discuss the
plausiblity (or lack of same) of these underlying assumptions?
I'm thoroughly convinced that the Infobahn is a fabrication (or a "Big Fat
Joke" as my WIRED story called it). I'm a very frustrated technology
analyst who doesn't believe that the current discussion is grounded in
either technical or business reality. I may be a contrarian by nature but
I also have a pretty good track record as a forecaster. My work has been
widely published for 15 years so, in that sense, my insight (or lack of
same) is quite public.
What if this "debate" is starting from the wrong "givens"? What if this
urgency leads to "privacy" regulations that damage the fragile attempts to
invent new industries based on emergent technologies? What if concerns
over big business accumulating more power lead to legislation that
hamstrings entreprenuers? What if concerns over individual rights lead
to government intervention that sharply limits the horizons of the
inventors of the new industries which could deploy these breakthrough
technologies? What if we have misunderstood cause and effect in these
matters and unwittingly contribute to our own impoverisement?
Mark Stahlman
