Path: utzoo!attcan!telly!problem!compus!lethe!yunexus!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!airs!ian
From: ian@airs.UUCP (Ian Lance Taylor)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Citizens of the City of Mind
Message-ID: <1204@airs.UUCP>
Date: 5 Feb 91 22:30:04 GMT
References: <7259@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
Organization: AIRS, Waltham, MA
Lines: 81

Randolph Fritz raises some interesting ideas in the referenced post
(interesting to me, anyhow!).

In article <7259@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> randolph@cognito.Eng.Sun.COM (Randolph Fritz) writes:

>1. Start thinking about organizations as entities capable of criminal
>   as well as civil offenses.

What does it mean to convict an organization of a criminal offense,
and what is the point of such an action?  Presumably a criminal
conviction would have to carry a harsher penalty than a mere fine;
otherwise, why not just use a civil suit?

I can think of three main purposes to a criminal conviction:

    1) to reform the organization to prevent future criminal actions
       (for example, the breakup of AT&T)

    2) to destroy the organization to prevent future criminal actions
       (presumably if reform appears impossible)

    3) to deter other organizations from similar criminal actions

I am deliberately not including punishment for its own sake, since
there seems to be even less point to applying that to an organization
than there is to an individual.

The most interesting purpose is the third.  What sorts of actions can
be taken to deter future criminal actions by other organizations?  I
would argue that organizations are less susceptible to ``crimes of
passion'' than individuals are (I know that the Gulf War can be viewed
as a counterexample, but I'll still stand by *less* susceptible), so I
would assume that deterrence can be maintained by increasing the
cost/benefit ratio to an unacceptable level.

There is still the hardest part of deterring crime, which applies to
individuals and organizations alike: detection.

To completely shift gears, it is worth remembering that while
organizations are entities in their own right, they are still run by
people.  Dramatic penalties for those individuals responsible for the
crime might be a far more effective deterrent than any penalty applied
to the organization.  Determining who those individuals are, on the
other hand, would probably often be very difficult, and in some cases
there might be no responsible individuals at all.

I'll let other people take it from here.

>2. Begin to understand what makes an informed electronic community
>   "good" or "bad".  Let's try to say why Usenet, certainly a service
>   which distributes a vast amount of personal information, is less of
>   a privacy concern than Equifax.  Or should be be more concerned
>   with privacy here?

One obvious concern with Equifax is that they can distribute personal
information without the individual's knowledge.  Usenet provides a
means of distributing potentially damaging personal information to a
vast number of people, but the person affected would almost certainly
become aware of it (although the culprit would not necessarily be
known).  We should be aware that Usenet has a vast potential for harm,
though, because it can be used as a cheap, easy, anonymous broadcast
system (and as far as I know, it is the *only* such system in
existence; newspapers edit their contents, and stapling notices on
telephone poles is not easy).

>4. Begin to explore the positive potential of this technology.
>   Granted that a large-scale database and network can give an
>   organization or community a kind of personality -- what are the
>   creative, constructive possibilities of this new capability?  Can
>   we use it to make for more pleasant workplaces, saner cities?

Saner cities?  Sure.  By allowing white-collar workers to work and
communicate from wherever they choose, we can accelerate the flight of
capital from urban centers and speed up their collapse into barbarism.
A hundred years from now, they should provide convenient and
fascinating guided tours of primitive society.  (I don't think this is
desirable, but I don't mean it as a joke).
-- 
Ian Taylor
uunet!airs!ian         |  If I were employed, my opinions would not be
airs!ian@uunet.uu.net  |  my employer's.  As it is, they are not anyone's.