On Thu, Mar 06, 2003 at 12:15:39AM +0100, Hadmut Danisch wrote:
How do you want to choose who you listen to, if there is
no authenticity, free forgery, and "who" doesn't have any meaning?
I think figuring out who you want to listen to is the receivers
problem, so in short practically you can't. This is not a technical
problem with email, it is a problem with an ill-thought out
governmental law which is not compatible with existing defacto email
functionality.
If you say I won't receive any email unless it has a true name
attached to it signed by the German governments CA, well find go
ahead, but don't expect anyone else to do it, and don't expect to
receive any communications from anyone else outside Germany.
I as a sender have no obligation, and indeed in the US a legally
protected right to not have to give you any indication of my identity
(anonymity).
So your German right to not receive anonymous mail (if you've
interpreted German law correctly), is limited by the international
nature of email, such that you can't tell which mails are anonymous,
pseudonymous, nom-de-plumes etc.
I'm not sure what else could be done, different laws conflict.
As I mentioned previously laws aside (German, US or other) I think
forcing senders to identify themselves is a bad thing; and an
undesirable fall-out from your proposed solution which shows nothing
other than indicate that your proposed solution is _bad_ because it
breaks existing expecations.
btw I am not a US citizen (British / Swiss dual national), though that
is largely irrelevant; I am however a privacy advocate of cypherpunk
type leanings, and this is where the clash comes from.
You're defining privacy by some government law, I'm defining privacy
by defacto current user control and freedoms and the notion that
government laws are bad things. Any time you propose things that make
sense to you, or help you enforce German law I will oppose them if
they detract from my defacto rights to privacy, and reliability and
functionality of privacy relating to email.
In an international arena it pretty much comes to the same thing as
ignoring laws anyway because what government law there is is all
conflicting and variously technically dumb and against user interests,
so it would be a very bad idea for this technical discussion to
revolve around anything which is biased to any given countries laws.
Probably no solution could be found that had to meet all countries
legal requirements because I think there are even aspects which are
outright opposing (legally required, legally forbidden).
So the "we have to do dumb thing X because it's required by German/US
law" has no value to me. If it breaks my defacto existing freedoms I
say fuck that.
I think it makes more sense to look at Brad's principles document
which expresses the defacto rights, freedoms and functionalities which
email provides; as well as pointing out a few of the above issues with
different legal systems, and with laws applying to email in general.
Really, go read it!
http://www.templetons.com/brad/spume/prin.html
Adam
On Wed, Mar 05, 2003 at 06:06:47PM -0500, Keith Moore wrote:
Ooops, doesn't it break freedom of speech if a "fresh account"
is considered to be a second class citizen and not listened to?
no. people have a right to choose who they listen to.
nobody forces me to watch cnn either.
Lovely. Wasn't that my statement which I was heavily critized
for?
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