[ih] [IP] EFF calls for signatures from Internet Engineers against censorship

[John Curran]

On Dec 19, 2011, at 5:57 PM, Dave CROCKER wrote:
> >   I noted that the benefit of having such mechanisms in
>> this case *is not that they would be useful* as a solution, but that they
>> would serve to highlight that the  underlying problems are the result of
>> "actual failure of common values&  diplomacy" (i.e. or as you put it, derived
>> from entirely social problems)
> 
> Telephonic and postal communications do not require identification of the person originating the communication nor even of the person receiving ("identify parties", per your note.)

Actually, international telephony provides exactly that information, 
including number identification services as required by the ITU 
International Telecommunications Regulations (ITRs).

> Diligent diplomancy could, I suppose, produce restrictions on /all/ communications to require formal identification of the the parties, but we haven't done that for postal or telephonic, so it would be difficult to justify for Internet-based.  It would, after all, produce a rather horrible world to live in.

See above; required already for telephony by ITU-T E.157.

> As for my earlier "See below", I think the underlying assumption I claim still applies.  The meaning I take from your assumption about highlighting is that the "failure" you cite is special to the Internet and/or is solvable, neither of which is correct.  Perhaps you meant something else?

I meant exactly what I wrote: If the Internet we had provided better mechanisms
(as we presently have with telephony) then the inability for the US government 
to obtain cooperation to identify and shutdown a given foreign website streaming
US-illegal content would much more clearly be seen as an actual failure of common 
values & diplomacy rather than "a problem with the Internet" per se.  

We have mechanisms which work fine for telephony: if you receive death threats 
via an international caller, there is actual law enforcement protocols to deal 
with such.  While its theoretically possible that one could hunt down an overseas 
mail-order pharmacy or cloned DVD distributer via the same records, it's simply
not going to happen in jurisdictions where they don't see making copies or generics 
without license as an issue.  SOPA is trying to solve a problem of differing legal
priorities between countries for which we lack any solution (an issue completely 
independent of the Internet), and one which would much clearer if there were more 
formal identification of parties over the Internet.  Instead of talking about
"rogue websites", we'd be talking about the criminals running rogue websites in 
countries that won't pursue the violators in the presence of clear evidence.

In fact, if there were actually a pervasive Internet usage/accounting framework
deployed, we'd be dealing with a very different problem than SOPA... The ability
to definitively obtain who downloaded what content would have created enormous
pressure for after-the-fact billing and/or prosecution rather than controls on 
the distribution side.

/John