[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>Calling a system whose central premise is "there shall
>be no private
>data bases" a "noble goal" is precisely like calling
>communism a
>noble goal.
>
>(Mind you, many analyses of communism start with this
>approach, e.g.,
>"While communism is a noble goal, it cannot work, blah
>blah blah.")
Tim May lives in (or near) Santa Cruz, California. Based on this fact, +
his response, I'm going to make the inference that he's some kind of sorry
hippie throwback who has no firsthand knowledge of anything happening on
planet Earth outside the sanctity of his closed, looked doors --
I will, therefore, forgive his sorry ass communism comparison since he clearly
has no understanding of communism (nor apparently, capitalism; but then
again, hippies rarely do...)..
Communism is NOT a noble goal, and you're right about one thing, it won't
ever work-- 20,000,000 people were slaughtered under Stalin alone. That's
20,000,0000... My own parents were political refugees who fled to the US
in the late 60s from eastern Europe for the sake of their lives.. many of
my closest relatives were killed by communists for speaking out in support
of democracy and capitalism.. I don't take comparisons to communism lightly
and I'm frankly offended by the comparison, as would be a very significant
fraction of this planet's population..
Nobody ever said "there will be no private databases". What are you, some
kind of illiterate bimbo?? What the CFIP says is "there should be no SECRET
databases of PERSONAL information".. for somebody who claims to be versed
in the arcane art of cryptography, you seem to have problems handling short
English sentences ...
To help you understand this further, what it means is that if there's a
database out there, somewhere, collecting personally identifying information
about me, I should know about its EXISTENCE. The mere fact that this database
exists should not be a secret to society at large (COMMUNISM CHECK: nope,
nothing communist about this so far...)
So let's use the DoubleClick database as an example.. if there's information
in there that be tied to me directly (that is, to the bundle of carbon
atoms that are sitting at this keyboard, typing..), then I should (a) know
about it and (b) I should have ACCESS to that information - I should see
all the info about me that has been collected, I should be able to edit
it for accuracy, and I should be able to set constraints on how that information
is used (COMMUNISM CHECK: nope, still nothing communist).
This doesn't mean that I get to see the personal info about Tim May, you
twit.. hello, this is where the "cryptography" comes in -- you know "PKI",
"authentication" ... all that great stuff.. Tim May gets to see the information
about Tim May, and about nobody else -- BUT, he does get to see, and set
preferences about the informatoin about him specifically (although, of course,
about no one else)
Now you're ready for a lesson in communism/capitalism -
the big difference between these two systems is how they regard property
rights - simply put, capitalism recognizes individual right to hold property,
and communism doesn't ..
what I'm advocating is the "privatization" of personal information. I'm
advocating that personally identifying information be regarded as the "property"
of the bundle of carbon atoms to whom it belongs.. (this is not the current
status quo, online or offline) the greatest prosperity in human history
has been created when private people and organizations can order their affairs
using private property and contract law -- last time I checked, anybody
who advocates the "privatization" of anything is a capitalist, not a communist
--
if we were to launch into a discussion on intellectual property, I might
be more "communist" in my leanings -- Ultimately, American law does not
recognize individual ownership of ideas.. copyrights and patents exist to
economically incentize the creation of new ideas and science.. these rights
grant the producers of intellectual property a (time) limited monopoly to
the recreation of the idea in exchange for having produced the idea. After
a limited time, the idea flows into the public domain. This IS communism
(in so far as IP rights are not protected like ordinary property rights
are), and it is at the heart of the Constitution...
that, however, is another discussion - what we're currently talking about
is personal information, and how to privative it (the purchase and sale
of personal information is a $600 billion economy in the US alone -- I'm
confident that no privacy business model that does not monetize the transfer
of personal info will ever succeed - note that personal information must
first be "privatized" before it can be "monetized")
IMPORTANT NOTICE: If you are not using HushMail, this message could have been read
easily by the many people who have access to your open personal email messages.
Get your FREE, totally secure email address at http://www.hushmail.com.
