Re: [freehaven-dev] Discussed Today

[Roger Dingledine <arma@mit.edu>]

On Mon, Apr 24, 2000 at 02:57:39AM -0400, Michael J. Freedman wrote:
> As I stated earlier in meeting, my political beliefs seem to be a little
> different than others (more libertarian and free-market).  I think its a
> rather large assumption to make #1, and a larger leap of faith to conclude
> that #2 follows this statement.

Don't attack what David said, cause it's wrong.

Attack the following rhetoric, because it's less wrong. ;)



\subsection{Motivation}

The internet is moving in the direction of increasing freedom
of information, and increasingly blurred national boundary lines.
At the same time as a strong sense of global community is growing,
technical advances have provided greatly increased bandwidth and
an enormous amount of computing power and well-connected storage.
However, the increases in speed and efficiency have not brought
comparable increases in privacy and anonymity on the internet -- indeed,
governments and especially corporations are beginning to realize that
they can leverage the internet to provide detailed information about the
interests and behaviors of existing or potential customers.  Court cases,
such as the Church of Scientology's lawsuit against Johan
Helsingius{\footnote {\tt http://www.penet.fi/press-english.html}}
or the more recent OpenDVD debate{\footnote
{\tt http://www2.linuxjournal.com/articles/culture/007.html}}
(and subsequent arrest of DeCSS author Jon Lech Johansen),
demonstrate that the internet needs an
adequate infrastructure for truly anonymous publication or distribution
of documents or other data.

Indeed, there are a number of other deeper motivations for the deployment
of a service like Free Haven. Not only do we hope to assist those like
Helsingius and Johansen, but we have the wider goals of pushing the
world a few more steps in the direction of free and open information
and communication.  In Germany, Internet Service Providers such as AOL
are liable for the content that passes across their systems{\footnote
{\tt http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/review/crh053.htm}}.
Recent British legislation{\footnote {\tt
http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm199900/cmbills/064/2000064.htm}}
threatens to make citizens responsible for the content
of encrypted documents that they're holding, even if they
don't possess the ability to read these documents.  Although
revolutionary actions like BroncBuster's defacing{\footnote {\tt
http://singapore.cnet.com/Briefs/Dispatches/China/990118/ss01.html}}
of the website of the China Society for Human Rights Studies (an
organization backed by the Chinese government) are centered around the
Internet, there are a wide range of activist projects which employ the
Internet for publicity but focus on helping real people in the real world.
Such projects include Pirate Radio{\footnote
% {\tt http://www.infoshop.org/pirate\_links.html},
% {\tt http://www.beatworld.com/fcc.html},
{\tt http://www.infoshop.org/news5/kantako.html}}, a loose confederation
of radio operators joined in the belief that ordinary citizens can
regulate the airwaves more efficiently and more responsibly than
a government organization, as well as mutual aid societies such as
Food Not Bombs!, an organization which ``serves free food in public
places to dramatise the plight of the homeless, the callousness
of the system and our capacity to solve social problems through
our own actions without government or capitalism.''{\footnote {\tt
http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secJ4.html\#secj41}}

By providing tools to enable safer and more reliable communication for
organizations fighting for increased rights of individuals rather than
nations or corporations, as well as strengthening the capabilities of
political dissidents and other individuals to speak out anonymously about
their situations, the Free Haven Project hopes to help pave the way to
a modern society where freedom of speech and freedom of information are
integral parts of everyday life.