[12110] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Internet vs Minitel : 2nd version less contreversial
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (James (Eric) Tilton)
Fri May 6 00:28:35 1994
Date: Thu, 5 May 1994 16:41:04 -0700 (PDT)
From: "James (Eric) Tilton" <jtilton@willamette.edu>
To: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: <9405041100.AA19177@psi.com>
I didn't find this article very compelling -- if anything, it makes the
point (which I agree with) that user interfaces on Internet services
aren't very good yet, and the additional point (which I disagree with)
that Minitel will therefore "win out" because it's interface is better.
I think what's happening is that apples are being compares to oranges --
you're comparing an information retrieval service with a physical
network. What is very possible is that information retrieval services
like Minitel will be implemented on TOP of the Internet, but saying that
one can replace the other is like saying Gopher will replace TCP/IP. It
doesn't make sense.
Services like FTP, Gopher, Telnet, and the WWW are all just protocols
implemented on top of the Internet. Similarly, Minitel is just a service
implemented on top of the French phone system (if I read your article
correctly). Therefore, you're really arguing that the French phone
system -- or the international phone system -- is going to supplant the
Internet. This makes no sense, seeing as how the Internet rides largely
on top of the international phone system already :). I have this vision
of a recursive Ourobouros, eating its own tail.
Anyway, what I really had a problem with was the privacy section --
comments are interspersed below:
On Wed, 4 May 1994 LEHOUX@vax.lse.ac.uk wrote:
> Legal issues and Privacy on Internet
>
[deletia...]
>
> Some veterans still believe that such sentence like "Redistribution to other
> sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting
> Corporation" can protect their ideas. The reality is different. Downloading
> files is becoming so widespread that nothing can protect it. In the past, when
> academic values were stronger, each Internauts had regard for copyright.
> Newcomers are using texts for their own purposes. Commercializing the Internet
> means that control of access would be possible, so royalties could be paid to
> authors, whose texts have been read or printed.
What about the Xerox machine? When I make an interlibrary loan request
for a periodical article, I typically get a photocopy which I can keep
until perpetuity. Intellectual property is construct that can be ignored
by amoral individuals regardless of the anarchy of the medium in question.
Commercialization of the Internet won't make billing possible.
Deployment of things like RIPEM will make billing possible, because it
will make digital signatures possible. If you modify WWW servers, for
example, in accordance with the Xanadu vision, you could have a Web
server debit your account each time you accessed a "for-fee" material.
And I understand that WAIS was developed with the intention of eventually
supporting for-fee services.
> The second legal problem with Internet is the possible lack of privacy. The
> Clipper program set up by the Clinton administration allows US government to
> use a back door chip to control encryption algorithms. In other terms, Clipper
> could be used to read E-mail.
This makes little or no sense to me. First off, as it stands, the
Internet is completely without privacy, and not for the reasons
described. The Internet has no privacy because it's almost trivial to
intercept packets running across it, and most of those packets aren't
encrypted. Plus, Clipper's offensive quality is not that it provides a
back door, but that the government gets to hold a copy of people's
private keys. However, other public-key encryption techonlogies exist
(didn't RSA just make their package freely available for non-commercial
use? :) which DON'T entail giving the US government a copy of your
private key, and which can ensure privacy--and valid identification--on the
Internet.
> However, the main tool to reduce the privacy is the E-mail address, because
> this address is moving the message, so it is easy to know from who, when and
> where an E-mail was sent. By nature, privacy is in danger in Internet. On the
> contrary, Minitel allows users to connect to networks without having a
> telephone number, because a growing number of public paying Minitel devices are
> available. Thus, it is possible to stay anonymous, because the only link with
> the service providers is the connection to a phone number.
Again, almost the opposite is true. It is again almost trivially easy to
forge e-mail, so you cannot ever know for sure whether or not the
person reported as having sent the e-mail actually sent that e-mail.
And, unlike with the phone companies, my Internet access provider, isn't
keeping a log of every system I telnet to, or every person I e-mail to.
So anonymity is easier to maintain online, for what it is worth.
Cheers,
-et
