ExitPolicy abuse

Matej Kovacic matej.kovacic at owca.info
Wed Feb 9 10:44:07 UTC 2005


Hi,

Probably you are focusing on a wrong problem, You all are looking for 
possible abuses and methods how to avoid them (blocking some ports, IP 
rangs, etc.).

But for me the real question is: who is abusing the power in such cases 
(described in previous e-mails).

I think the real problem of American people is they generally beleive 
that the State is a potentially Bad Guy, who should be supervised in 
order to avoid abusing it's powers.

But I think the real problem is becoming private sector. In US you don't 
have legislation to protect information privacy in private sector 
(majority of legislation deals with limiting State's power only), and 
very interesting sign of this problem is privacy in the workplace: since 
the employer owns all the equipment, it is absolutely reasonable he or 
she monitors all the activities of employees. (This is not the case in 
Europe.)

Here we have similar problem. ISP owns the equipment, and this 
supposedly means they could disconnect you of almost any reason, even 
poorly argumented. If that has been done by some state court, I am sure 
everybody would jump up and start screaming it is illegal, "innocent 
until not proven guilty", etc. Slashdot would be reporting long stories 
about abuse of state's powers and illegality of such actions.

In this case, we have ISP, which is owner of an equipment and all you 
simply assume that this fact gives him the right to disconnect you based 
on one, unproven e-mail complaint. Here ISP is this subject who has the 
power, and such acts means he is abusing it.

What is wrong with you guys? I mean, I am really interested in if you 
see this as a problem or not? And if you do - why do not take any 
actions against this abuses of power?
If I would be the guy in Justice Department, I wouldn't take any legal 
steps against Tor network. Of course not, because we all know that legal 
steps against it would cause great public reaction. I would rather annoy 
Tor users by sending unproven e-mail complaints to their ISP's and with 
imilar preassures. The result would be the same: destruction of Tor 
network, but in the latter case, there would be no public reaction.

At the end remains simple question - what is more important: personal 
rights and freedoms of people OR the right to dispose absolutely freely 
with private property? I thik the state is not the biggest problem - the 
biggest problem becomes society.

Bye, Matej
-- 
http://matej.owca.info/
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