Subject: RE: [Raven] Re: Raven, What's Needed...

From: Ed Stone <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Dec 1999 11:07:14 -0500

>chfren wrote:
>
> >Seems an American tradition to be no-cooperative with the
> >law?

Most Americans obey most laws most of the time. Particularly the reasonable 
laws. But some don't. Some of those who don't are some of the police.

  Police in most places are more or less regular humans, who are given 
serious armaments, great power (including the legal assumption that 
assaults and batteries by police are protected and legal, and the right to 
impose the government's monopoly of violence in the form of force on behalf 
of government), little accountability by external review, protection of 
operating and organizational secrecy, and are well organized, with a 
culture that generally supports and reinforces their self-image that they 
are different and distinct from those they police ("we all bleed blue"; 
wall of silence, "the world is made up of police, perps, and victims", 
etc.). Historians document the problems for society that have been born out 
of such an environment.

Such an environment challenges human weaknesses and often brings them into 
prominence. While some police perform quite honorably, some don't. The 
ratio may not be much different from the criminal ratio in the rest of 
society. Who watches the watchers?

"As a result of Perez's information, more than a dozen LAPD officers have 
been relieved of duty as detectives investigate allegations that officers 
were involved in improper shootings, planting evidence, false arrests, 
witness intimidation, beatings, theft, drug dealing and perjury."
12/22/99 Los Angeles Times (3,300 convictions are being reviewed for police 
criminality)

"BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- A former Boston FBI agent was arrested and 
indicted Wednesday along with the mobsters he once handled as informants 
and then befriended.
The indictment alleges that Connolly helped Bulger and Flemmi in a 
racketeering enterprise that included gambling, loan-sharking, extortion 
and bribery. Flemmi has asked Judge Mark Wolf to throw out the case against 
him because he was given immunity to commit crimes in exchange for ratting 
out other mobsters, and because the information obtained about him resulted 
from wiretaps he helped the government plant."
12/23/99 http://www.cnn.com/1999/US/12/22/new.england.mob.ap/index.html

"In its July 1998 report, Shielded from Justice: Police Brutality and 
Accountability in the United States, Human Rights Watch documents police 
misconduct in fourteen cities: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, 
Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York, 
Philadelphia, Portland, Providence, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. 
Human Rights Watch found that all the cities share a lack of effective 
public accountability and transparency, a persistent failure to investigate 
and punish officers who commit human rights violations, and a variety of 
obstacles to achieving justice."

"Police abuse remains one of the most serious and divisive human rights 
violations in the United States. The excessive use of force by police 
officers, including unjustified shootings, severe beatings, fatal chokings, 
and rough treatment, persists because overwhelming barriers to 
accountability make it possible for officers who commit human rights 
violations to escape due punishment and often to repeat their offenses.1 
Police or public officials greet each new report of brutality with denials 
or explain that the act was an aberration, while the administrative and 
criminal systems that should deter these abuses by holding officers 
accountable instead virtually guarantee them impunity."
Human Rights Watch, http://www.hrw.org/hrw/reports98/police/index.htm

Police are just people. That is what makes concentrating so much power in 
them dangerous. Granting great new powers and capabilities to the police 
does not put those powers and capabilities only into the hands of the 
honorable.
--
--------------------------
Ed Stone
[email-masked]
--------------------------

_______________________________________________
raven mailing list
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http://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/raven

---

From: "chefren" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Dec 1999 18:58:09 +0100

On 23 Dec 99, at 11:07, Ed Stone wrote:

> laws. But some don't.

Ah, so if an American is too stupid to understand a law and 
thinks it's an unreasonable one he hasn't to obey that law?

Funny Americans seem "proud" of it.

>  Some of those who don't are some of the police.

Unfortunately stupid people are everywhere, also with the 
police.

>   Police in most places are more or less regular humans,

Why all that questioning? Police are regular humans.

> who are given 
> etc.).

Outragous and primitive. I cannot speak for the US-police 
but here in The Netherlands police people are seriously 
selected and carefully prepared to do their jobs.

Now I think of it, I know they reject people who are not 
intelligent or balanced enough here, "too stupid", so maybe 
I was wrong above. Police people are not regular humans, 
they are slightly more intelligent than average humans.

> prominence.

You are talking about a very primitive kind of police, 
without enough control. (Auditability!)

> While some police perform quite honorably, some don't. The 

Democracy.

..

[lot of unrealistic-negative information about police 
skipped]

> does not put those powers and capabilities only into the hands of the 

Police organizations have all kind of controls inside and 
outside the organization. The controls fail sometimes and 
that serious and bad news in the papers but as a whole the 
police functions well. The police organizations can 
definitely function better, and should function better 
because demands are stronger and stronger,  and that's why 
politicians and lawmakers are busy with imposing better 
controls and giving more means.

+++chefren

(Busy with new "signature"...)

---

From: Ed Stone <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Dec 1999 13:33:44 -0500

>thinks it's an unreasonable one he hasn't to obey that law?

Well it really isn't that simple. The tax code is 44,000 pages. The US 
Congress makes about 5,000 new laws each year. It's pretty much a full time 
job just to read the names of the laws and section titles of laws. Most 
Americans (as well as most nuclear physicists) are too stupid to understand 
the US tax code. But what has this to do with the consensus that IETF 
should not modify protocols to facilitate wiretapping?

>Why all that questioning? Police are regular humans.

The policeman in NYC who just plead guilty to sticking a mop handle into 
Mr. Louima's intestinal tract while another policeman held him down is not 
a regular human. He is an irregular human.

>[lot of unrealistic-negative information about police

Those were actual news accounts. Sad.

---

From: Matthew Saroff <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Dec 1999 13:16:02 -0600

On Dec 23,  1:33pm, Ed Stone wrote:
> Chefren Wrote:
Hi,
	Generalizing somewhat, there are some significant differences between
the US and European views of law and governance.  Reading the Federalist Papers
might provide some insite.  It could be argued that this is STILL one of the
finest analyses of governance ever written.
	In any case, here are some basic ideas from the founding of the US that
you may find strange.
*	Natural law (From Hobbes, Locke, Voltaire, etc):  That the universe in
its creation created truths which are supreme to any form of government of
human endeavor.  Freedom comes from these natural laws, and people are OBLIGED
not to obey laws that violate this.
*	In a democracy, it is necessary to protect freedom from democracy,
otherwise, you have the short will of the majority doing damage to the state
and society, as was the case of ancient Athenian democracy.

-- 
Matthew Saroff
Do not reply directly to this message.  Reply to
[email-masked]

---

From: "chefren" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Dec 1999 20:58:48 +0100

> a regular human. He is an irregular human.

I don't know if he is irregular, I think it is at least 
pretty sure this policeman as had to little education.

Fact is humans do "irregular" things and our community 
needs methods and measurements ot prevent them.

Laws and wiretapping for example.

+++chefren

- - 
What law enforcement basically needs is a way to tap only 
communication for which they have a warrant.

IETF thinks that's an unavoidable need, one that has to be 
met in standards, and is interested in how this need can be 
fulfilled in a way that preserves as much citizen rights as 
possible.

BASIC IDEAS:

As much personal IPv6 numbers as the citizen wants.

 Every citizen can get as many IPv6 numbers as she/he
 wants for a small fee each (everything that costs zero
 will be spoiled). The numbers are given out by a special
 IPv6-agency under strict control of very different
 organizations. For example Local Justice department,
 Local police department and IETF. (Digital form of the
 power splitting ideas of Montesqieu.) Without proper
 warrants the IPv6-agency will never relieve which numbers
 are given out to whom. The three or more parties of which
 the agency consists each have only a part of the data and
 need each other to fulfil a request to give law
 enforcement the IPv6 numbers of a specified citizen. 

 This system, which enables the citizens to have "as much
 identities as they want", is a means to give citizens as
 much privacy as possible, to look at porn sites she/he
 can use IPv6 numbers A,B and C, for work number D, for
 friends numbers E,F,G and H, for family number K et
 cetera. 

 Laws should be in place to prevent =any= IPv6 number
 logging/registration without both knowledge of the number
 owner and his/her agreement to store it. 

 The IPv6 numbers will be the car license plates the
 citizen needs to use while communicating via the
 Internet. 

New protocol for Routers

 Routers, under control of communication providers, should
 be equipped with a new IETF tapping protocol. Basically
 this protocol makes it possible to program IPv6 numbers
 and destination addresses. All data to and from the IPv6
 numbers that pass the router will be copied to the
 according destination addresses.  

 The destination address should be a sealed open-source
 tapbox that's fully under control of the communication
 provider. The box timestamps the data, makes checksums /
 hashes of the data and will crypt the data before it's
 sent to the tapping room of the law enforcement unit that
 handed the warrant for the tap.

---

From: "chefren" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Dec 1999 21:11:12 +0100

> not to obey laws that violate this.

"Truths"?

This is plain belief and it's impossible to -know- 
precisely what's ment by a "natural truth" without furter 
defininig them in for example laws.

(We are back at the problem behind "Ah, so if an American 
is too stupid to understand a law and thinks it's an 
unreasonable one he hasn't to obey that law?")

> and society, as was the case of ancient Athenian democracy.

Believing in equal thoughts among humans about "truths 
which are suprem to any form of government" is simply 
"silly".

Why are we for example debating about the necessity of 
tapping?

Not because we have "naturally the same thoughts" about it.

We will not come out of the basics behind the tapping 
problem here. Fortunately it's not necessary because enough 
important and fully democratic jurisdictions have decided 
tappable communication networdks are needed by law.

Unfortunately there are still people that want to 
"conspire" against the democratic will of respectable 
countries.

I'm not in for that, I'm in for solutions, for IETF 
standards that help solve or ease problems, that help 
preserve privacy, that help detecting fraud and misuse.

+++chefren

- - 

BASIC IDEAS:

New protocol for Routers

---

From: "P.J. Ponder" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Dec 1999 16:57:12 -0500 (EST)

> Not because we have "naturally the same thoughts" about it.

Not really much of a debate, but the reason we're trying to discuss it is
because some of us recognize a natural right to privacy, and we feel that
right exists in every natural person.

> fulfilled in a way that preserves as much citizen rights as 

Bullshit.  The reason the list was set up was to determine if the IETF
should do something.  At some point, even in a democracy, refusing to
accept the answer is abusing the process.  Hmm? 

The rest of the crap about cops issuing IPv6 addresses omitted to save
bandwidth, not in silent assent.

---

From: "chefren" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Dec 1999 23:13:52 +0100

> bandwidth, not in silent assent.

That's a very essential misinterpretation of the idea.

The idea is that a new and independent organization should 
give out IPv6 numbers, multiple so individuals can choose 
as many identities as they wish.

So essentially the "cops" don't know the "numberplates" and 
=cannot follow/tap= individuals without the help of the 
independent organization.

Without this number-plate system, nothing less than an 
Internet version of the citizen registers introduced around 
1811 in Europe by Napoleon, it's unavoidable to tap wrong 
data and break privacy of people who probably aren't even 
suspected.

+++chefren

---

From: "chefren" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Dec 1999 23:37:43 +0100

> right exists in every natural person.

Very, simplistic.

If you =believe= in "right" you should admit there is also 
something "not right" and if something is "not right" what 
do you propose to do to "get it right"?

Sometimes wiretapping is a means to get things "right" that 
(unfortunately) aren't.

> Bullshit.

I have no problem with admitting I was a little simplistic 
here.

> The reason the list was set up was to determine if the
> IETF should do something.

Why? I think because it seemed there are unavoidable 
problems that might need to be solved by IETF.

> At some point, even in a democracy, refusing to accept
> the answer is abusing the process.  Hmm? 

I think so. So if relevant democracies have decided all 
provided telecom should be tappable, why should we discuss 
about it? Let's discuss what can be done and why.

+++chefren