> Or child pornography?
We don't. We have the technology to easily create and anonymously distribute child porn, but we're also developing the solution to the problem: face recognition. Use our soon-to-be ubiquitous security cameras to get images of children in public, match against the child porn, and arrest the parents or other legal guardians of the children. (If the daycare was responsible, it's the parents' fault for failing to vet the daycare before trusting it.) If you don't want your face on record, then don't walk in front of my camera, or in front of the cameras of millions of other people who configure their systems to cooperate to sound alarms whenever they see faces that match published faces of child porn victims, missing people, and fugitives.

> Is it acceptable to be judged by invisible computer algorithms when being served search results?
If it isn't acceptable to you, then don't use that search engine, and tell your friends and customers not to use it.

> When being served news articles?
Same as above.

> When being selected for additional scrutiny by airport security?
Whether the guards use their own judgment, or delegate judgment to computers, is irrelevant. The only question is whether they have the right to detain and search us in the first place.

> Do we have a right to correct data about us?
If you mean the file on my computer that says "Bruce Schneier is a woman", then no, you don't have the right to correct it, but you're welcome to ask me to correct it. If the file is on your computer, then you have the right to correct it.

> To delete it?
Not from my computer. I have the right to store whatever mistakes and lies (and truths) about you that I want, and you have no right to stop me. The same is true if I'm a company.

> Do we want computer systems that forget things after some number of years?
Presumably you mean for my computer to forget about you. You're welcome to want it, and I have the right to disappoint you.

> These are complicated issues
No, they aren't.

> that require meaningful debate
No, they don't.

> international cooperation
Only to broadcast the pictures of faces of child porn victims, missing people, and fugitives, and broadcast the alarms when people's security cameras see them. Fortunately, we already have the technology to do these broadcasts. And "international cooperation" is needed only in the sense of people cooperating across national borders; governments aren't needed. Court cooperation is needed only for extraditing fugitives.

> and iterative solutions.
No.

> Does anyone believe we're up to the task?
The only major technological challenge is increasing the reliability of face recognition software, but we're making good progress. Ubiquitous surveillance is inevitable, so we might as well put it to good use. It need not even be the privacy disaster that you fear; just as most Tor relay operators abide by the etiquette of not recording traffic, most people will abide by the etiquette of keeping their surveillance recordings private except when alarms are triggered, so nobody can use the surveillance grid to track anybody unless he can convince everybody that the target is somebody who should be tracked.

If some company tries to create its own ubiquitous surveillance grid, then boycott the company, so it can't afford its own grid. If some government tries, then boycott it. If the government attacks you for boycotting it, then you have a much bigger problem than just a surveillance grid: your problem is a planetful of borgified people who support taxation, just as they support "intellectual property", just as until recently they supported slavery. If you can't convince them to stop trying to assimilate you, then resistance is futile, and woe unto you. If you yourself support taxation, then you're part of the problem. It's irrational for you, as a willing drone, to complain about lack of privacy in the collective.

P.S. your comment posting program makes commenting unnecessarily difficult. See your logs for details.

One thing about a lot of these institutions is that they are specifically set up to do nothing. One time honored way of getting nothing done is to start a committee which issues reams of reports that no one reads or cares about. The "purpose" of those committees is to keep people busy so that they don't do anything that might actually change things. Requiring consensus is a sure sign that you will get nothing done. The US, Saudi Arabia, and China are just not going to agree to "cooperate" on a lot of internet related issues.

Something that is amazing is to see how quickly things get done, when someone wants something to get done, and how easy it is to block action when people don't want to change things.

One problem with UN policy forums is that *even as debating societies* they aren't very good.

Similarly, all of the corporate and government bashing misses the point that corporations and governments were instrumental in setting up the internet. One of the major milestones in the development in the internet was in 1993, when the NSF lifted the prohibition on using its network (which formed a large part of the internet) for commercial purposes.

I think we are. Also, there is a model of decision making here that assumes that we are all going to agree and come up with a definitive and permanent set of norms. The world doesn't work that way. We'll never agree on everything, but things end up happening because just because we can't agree on everything doesn't mean that we can't agree on anything.

Also who are "we"? I'd imagine that an employee of a movie studio would be very much in favor of strong copyrights. One other flaw is to talk about "the people" versus "special interests" when in fact everyone is involved in some special interest.

For example, it's hardly the "powerless" that found a voice in the early days of the internet.

In my high school you had "geeks" and you had "jocks." What the internet did was for a few years change the balance of power to make the "geeks" more powerful before the "jocks" ended up running things in part because they could buy off the "geeks."

"You don't remember seeing the FBI warnings on videotapes? Or law enforcement raids on video pirates in the 80s and 90s?"

Exactly. Back then, I had to be prepared to fast forward through the first few minutes of almost every movie. Some people recorded their legit movies to blank VHS just to cut all the fat out of it. Another reason was to merge several videos to one high capacity VHS in case of sequels and trilogies.

In the digital age, we've seen the same thing happen with DVD's. The content controllers made unskippable copyright scenes the norm. Then, many owners of legitimate DVD's ripped to DivX files, stripped all that crap, optionally burned DivX to discs (up to 6 movies a disc) for watching on big TV, and stashed the actual DVD's in the garage or storage. I've done all of the above.

Perfect Illustration
http://i.imgur.com/GxzeV.jpg

You don't remember seeing the FBI warnings on videotapes? Or law enforcement raids on video pirates in the 80s and 90s?

This has been repeated throughout history.

Every lobbyist is attached to a commercial interest. Every last one. The workers of K Street are very wealthy. Not a coincidence.

I'd put more trust in the computer engineers & programmers, if only they could ensure their rules superceded that of the government that rules over them.

What does disruptive and revolutionary have to do with trustworthy, reliable, viable and easy?

The criteria for using something is entirely different from the criteria for thinking it's a good idea which is entirely different from acknowledging it's 'revolutionary'.

Only then will people be able to say what they want and help the internet develop into whatever its destiny should entail.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesh_networks

As for the issue of power it seems obvious that the internet ought to be used for the power of the average person, and that it will be used for political groups instead to protect their corporate sponsors. Honestly, I liked the internet a lot more in the early 90s before it became mainstream. Having a lot of idiots and unidealistic people in the system means there is more room for puppeteers (leaders, politicians, CEOs) to manipulate the masses. If the internet task forces had another decade or two head start we might've made the system much more resilient to governments and corporations, and hence more empowering to individuals.

For the road forward, it makes sense to continue to develop technologies to empower individuals and undermine corporations and governments. It makes sense to play to the advantages of individual actors and technology instead of playing in the realm of politics where the government has all the advantages. So tools worth working on might include: Tor, Bitcoin, low-cost legal and educational services, 3D printing, file sharing, Wikileaks, free/libre software that is less likely to infringe on users' liberties, anonymized smartphones, and so forth.

It concern me greatly that the tables have turned, as Bruce highlighted, so that the general users are in general less able (or interested!) in controlling the data they create. So many people are simply unaware of the amount of information they create, just by showing up to the online arena.

The dangerous thing is that a lot of the power struggle is so hidden from view that people don't think to fight it.

It would be nice if the organizations we do have that support the freedoms of the people (EFF and ACLU, for examples) were more supported and more effective. Perhaps the question should be what we need to do to make them so.

In the U.S. it is a criminal copyright violation "if the infringement was committed (A) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain; (B) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000; or (C) by the distribution of a work being prepared for commercial distribution, by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution", according to Title 17 Section 506 of the United States Code. This was enacted into law in 1982, well before the rise of widespread file sharing on the Internet.

While you are certainly entitled to hold the position that copyright violations should not be considered criminal offenses, the fact remains that some are. Therefore, criminal copyright violations are a "law enforcement issue." If you disagree with the law, then work to change the law.

The only person/entity that has your best interests at heart is yourself (with the possible exception of family), everyone / everything else has an alterior motive.

If you won't accept the nomination yourself, can you identify a few candidates?

Interesting observation about Bruce succumbing to what was described. What I find troubling is that you don't have to be in the wrong to lose in a civil suit to a copyright holder. Even if you win the case, you will spend a lot of money paying your lawyer(s). For those not familiar with the American legal system. All parties are responsible for their own legal fees, regardless of whether they win or lose the case.

This is great. I hope it will be distributed outside this blog. For sure I will draw the attention of colleagues to this article.

It is a very pessimistic view on the future of the internet: in the end it will be ruled by the already powerful and we will be manipulated and controlled. And we, the powerless citizens - even from the 'free' countries - will not be able to gain back the original freedom of the internet.

Does anyone else remember how incompetent the FBI was at investigating Internet crimes in the early 1990s

Many would answer they still are because they still use "the rubber hose" to get results, it's easier to just threaten somebody into submission than it is to go out and actually do the job properly.

All they've got better at is lying to those above and those below them oh and a bit of blackmail on the side.