[9115] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
A chance to bend the VP's ear on technical public policy issues
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Kurt Cockrum)
Fri Dec 17 19:56:04 1993
Date: 17 Dec 93 14:52:59 PST (Fri)
From: kurt@grogatch.seaslug.org (Kurt Cockrum)
To: kurt@grogatch.seaslug.org, community-networks@ce.washington.edu,
In-Reply-To: <9312171528.AA15966@grace.rt.cs.boeing.com>,
<9312171616.AA16271@grace.rt.cs.boeing.com>,
<199312171704.JAA09061@cdp.igc.org>
NB in the following, I use "telecomms" to mean the gamut of technical
communication, including the internet.
Lenny Siegel said:
>There may be time to do more that submit a private collection of questions to
>Gore. I suggest (although I'm probably not the right person to do it) that we
>adapt a tactic that I've used quite effectively at non-electronic public
>forums.
>
>I propose that we (perhaps the CPSR NII group) compile and edit a list of up
>to ten key questions for the Vice-President, and release it publicly before
>the event. Such a list can become a standard against which reporters measure
>the talk - that is, did he answer the questions. He might even acknowledge
>the list himself.
**SOAPBOX STARTS**
Well, here's a couple of thots on technical issues and policy in general
that I think Gore needs to know about:
1 Data encryption and privacy -- we want the right to encrypt.
Don't make us all privacy outlaws! As VP Gore may or may not know
[ gosh, he may be *part* of it :) :) ], an unholy
coalition/cabal/conspiracy of the
military/FBI/NSA/CIA/law'norder/ultra-right-wing-xian/authoritarian/-
control-freak [ let's be candid, eh? :) ] community
is trying to hamper technical developments in the field of free secure
communication on the grounds that it is a menace to national
security (i. e., a threat to the primacy of the state) and a thorn in
the side of law enforcement (both of which may well be true -- fine with
me). For one thing, it might lead to social change *they* think
undesirable.
The attempt of the FBI to mandate telecomms monitoring in telephone
and other switching centers is one recent instance, as is the current
and ongoing trial balloons of the NSA/NIST to foist unorthodox
corruption-prone "key escrow" encryption schemes based on "secret"
algorithms [ "trust me", the NSA seems to be saying :) ] on telecomms
users. We should urge Gore to resist attempts to take away our right
to telecommunicate (and more generally, communicate and plot revolution
and needed social change) in privacy.
2 Please call the dogs off of Phil Zimmerman, the author of PGP, a
major publicly available strong data encryption package, who is being
hassled by a federal grand jury investigating him for possible ITAR
violations (a bogus issue if there ever was one!).
3 Let's not have software patents! Please rein in the Patent & Trade
Office, a runaway government process/institution [ "kill -9
$USPTO" doesn't work, unfortunately. :) ]. They are messing with
things they don't know about when they attempt to apply rules meant
for the mechanical world, where things are hard, durable and
comparatively difficult to fabricate, to the software domain,
where the objects have a more "platonic" character, as do the
objects of mathematics, music, and other domains. To our
potentially great grief, this has also been codified into the NAFTA
and GATT agreements.
One reason for this nasty state of affairs is
that the issue of "software patents" is intrinsically arcane, of
little perceived relevance to the uninformed lay person. Unfortunately,
these same "lay persons" are also treaty negotiators, judges,
senators, and yea, even Vice Presidents.
All that nifty software you folks use every day, not only to get on
the net, but spreadsheets, editors and all other kinds of applications
was developed without the aid of software patents. It, or the
internet, would never have happened with them.
If software patents happen and take hold, you
can expect the end of innovation, at least by individuals, who if
they want to continue programming, will either have to go underground
as they continue to write bootleg programs that infringe some possibly
not-yet-granted patent with every line of code, or enter into a
relationship of economic bondage-and-discipline with some giant
corporation that can afford to legally protect them.
Historically, the source of innovation has always been the "little
guy", the individual, who is least able to avail him/herself of the
presumed "protections" of the patent system (mostly because of the great
legal costs involved, and the fact that patents are really only
_time-limited licenses to litigate_, something that corporations
have the resources to exploit, but scarcely what I'd call "inventor's
protection"). Because of innate defects in the bureaucratic
*construction/administration* of the patent system (and perhaps of
the concept of patent itself, construed as a type of property), not to
mention it's unprecedented application to the domain of software,
software patents open the way to domination of software activity by
giant corporations, who can and do collect and trade software patents
like baseball cards, which they use as legal clubs to clear the playing
field of the "little guys". I don't think that's fair.
4 Let's bring back low-power local grassroots community FM
broadcasting! Stop the FCC from persecuting Zoom Black Magic Radio
the folks in Berkeley, and other non-commercial "radio pirates" who use
inexpensive low-power transmitters to get their message out. Let's open
up the air waves!
Also muzzle the FCC with regards to restriction of contents of
communications (7 dirty words, etc.). The only things that should be
prohibited are false distress/emergency communications. (sorry about
that non-technical issue that slipped in there, folks! :)
**SOAPBOX ENDS**
There ought to be some way to see that VP Gore sees (and reads!) the
relevant CPSR, EFF, LPF and other position papers on these issues.
Incorporating them as an appendix to a list of questions seems like
a nice way of doing it. I'd like to see him pinned down on these
issues, with no waffling accepted.
-- kurt@grogatch.seaslug.org (Kurt Cockrum)
