Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!decwrl!ucbvax!mindcrf.UUCP!karish From: karish@mindcrf.UUCP (Chuck Karish) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Electronic ethics (was: Re: Musing on Constitutionality) Message-ID: <9009091647.AA23752@mindcrf.mindcraft.com> Date: 9 Sep 90 16:47:25 GMT References: <11503@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> <82778@aerospace.AERO.ORG> <11521@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> <1990Sep3.182712.2260@world.std.com> <11548@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> <11560@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> jim@baroque.Stanford.EDU (James Helman) writes: >Given the previous message, which should get the higher priority: >better security or better ethics? Either could have prevented it. > >Maybe spaf is right that "helping to establish a sense of >responsibility in users of networks and computers" is as important as >protecting our rights. Both in their initial press releases and in John Barlow's article in the current issue of `Whole Earth Review', the EFF have put much emphasis on the need to establish a shared set of values to inform future judgements on proper and improper use of electronic communications media. The motivation is the well-founded fear that, if we don't articulate such values soon enough and forcefully enough, Congress will create a new rationale for censorship, as they did for the broadcast media. Gene Spafford's contribution has been a near-hysterical attack on the EFF principals for failing to pre-judge what those values should be. His comments probably would not have incited an exchange of flames if he'd entered into a reasonable discussion, and not immediately presented an apparently-closed-minded judgement. I have two problems with his pronouncements: - It's not practical to solve security problems by locking up all the hackers, any more that we can solve drug problems by locking up all the users. In both cases, there are just too many of us. - It's silly to put so much emphasis on `encouraging responsibility' before we discuss what that responsibility entails. How can we even think of putting all of `them' away before we decide who `they' are? As I wrote in an earlier posting which may or may not have actually been propagated, the one-sided (pro-rights) nature of the EFF press releases and the ACLU's history match pretty well the one-sided emphasis of the Bill of Rights. As in the society at large, the responsibilities of members of the electronic global village must be defined in terms of respect for the rights of others, after we understand what those rights are and what they should be. -- Chuck Karish karish@mindcraft.com Mindcraft, Inc. (415) 323-9000