The 79th Carnival of the Vanities is up at Pete Holiday’s excellent humor blog. My post about the FBI/FCC and restructuring of the Internet got an “EEK.”
Considering recent controversy over Richard Clarke, I think I should amplify upon the EEK factor, because I see a conflict between those like Clarke who want to make the Internet safer from cyber attack — and those like the FBI and the FCC, who want the Internet more vulnerable.
Yes, I did say vulnerable. And here I am almost sympathetic to Mr. Clarke, whose recognition that sometimes the hated hackers can make us safer by exposing holes and other vulnerabilities was praised by no less than Glenn Reynolds (otherwise a Clarke critic).
It’s time to pose the question: might sweeping changes in packet-mode architecture, by installing a massive “trap door” for law enforcement, be simultaneously creating another lowest common denominator of weakness? A weakness that hackers and cyber-terrorists might be delighted to exploit to their own advantage?
Sweeping changes often have unintended consequences. Another reason we ought to be very careful about leaving something like this to government bureaucrats instead of the democratic, constitutional process.
I am not a cyber geek, but how about anyone out there?
Thank you Pete, for saying “EEK.”
Might Leon Kass’s observations about instinctive repugnance be implicated here? Repugnance might not be a logical argument, but I think that sometimes it can germinate logical thinking about things ordinary logic would otherwise cause us to overlook.
After all, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
BY THE WAY: Please read the entire Carnival. They’re all great, as usual, and made all the more delectable by the host’s excellent taste and wit.
The EEK factor is sometimes right!
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2 responses to “The EEK factor is sometimes right!”
As a computer nerd, allow me to say this: the FCC can “wiretap” the internet all they want. The only result is that they’ll be able to eavesdrop on the careless and tech unsavvy.
It’s possible, though, that this sort of thing would spurn a rise in the use of encryption… as people get paranoid about their own personal communications being listened in on, more software will hit the market that will allow for encryption and it will become more popular, even among those who don’t know how it works. The best encryption algorithms out there today are not easily crackable by even (we think) the NSA, let alone some FBI investigator… what’s more, I feel that if the encryption is implemented at the packet-level, it would be even more trying for the would-be privacy invaders.
So, essentially, this would be an EXPENSIVE and relatively useless invasion of privacy, as far as I’m concerned. This is not like wiretapping telephone lines, a system not vulnerable to end-user encryption.
Just my 2 (more like 20) cents. (Sorry for the blog-length comment!)
Don’t apologize! Some of my comments here are practically dissertations (and really need to go on _my_ blog when I finally get a Round Too-it!).
Phone conversations not vulnerable to end-user encryption? Somebody needs to notify Mr. Ashcroft that those sweet old ladies exchanging cookie recipies were actually exchanging formulae for the hydrogen bomb! Anyway…
“Revulsions are absurdities.”
-the Marquis de Sade, “Justine” (his heroine was talking about cannibalism)
Disgust is an extremely fascinating (if disgusting) emotion to think about.
Back in Central High School, our friend Kim Eric Drexler used to say that certain kids, mainly the “jocks” who picked on him, were “disgusting”.
(Yes, _that_ K. Eric Drexler, the genius behind nanotechnology. Look up the Foresight Institute, which he founded, and/or do a Google search. I’m not saying any of his intelligence rubbed off on me, just that I’m glad to have known him and I like to boast of having known him whenever the occasion arises.)
I’m disgusted by the texture of certain foods — potatoes (especially mashed), lima beans, and the very EXISTENCE of garbanzo beans (though that _name_ is interesting).
Call me anti-family but: The thought of incest disgusts me. I have some good-looking cousins, but I never fantasize about them because — well, they’re my cousins! (In many states here in the U.S., it’s actually legal to marry your cousin — including most of the states where homosexual relations were illegal up to 26/6/2003. I’m gynosexual, but I think I’d as soon be buggered by a man than marry even a pretty cousin. Yes, the taboo is that strong in me.) I won’t use the names of certain members of my immediate family in my stories because of the incest taboo. I also feel that way toward certain authority figures, e.g., Ayn Rand, a sort of projected parental feeling.
Silvan Tomkins, and extremely interesting psychologist and spectrumologist, observed that disgust is a characteristic emotion exhibited by those of the Right. A most interesting thought. Certain of my characters…. I note that the aforementioned Ayn Rand often said things were “disgusting”. But was she on the Right?
Silvan Tomkins framed his spectrum in the form of the following philosophical question:
“Is Man the measure, an end in himself, an active, creative, thinking, desiring, loving force in nature [Left]?
Or must Man realize himself, attain his full stature, only through struggle toward, participation in, conformity to, a norm, a measure, an ideal essence, basically independent of Man [Right]?”