Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
Jim is the Director of Information Policy Studies at The Cato Institute, the Editor of Web-based privacy think-tank Privacilla.org, and the Webmaster of WashingtonWatch.com. Prior to becoming a policy analyst, Jim served as counsel to committees in both the House and Senate.
Nate Anderson has an Arsticle on the major new copyright bill introduced yesterday.
H.R. 4279 is the bill, named the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2007 by its sponsors. “PRO-IP,” get it?
As I write this, voting, commenting, and wiki edits on WashingtonWatch.com have barely begun. The current vote can be seen below, and your opinion can be registered by clicking the appropriate place:
Shane Harris of National Journal has a good article out on the telecom immunity question.
Privacy is a dimension of goods and services just like any other – price, quality, customer service, “green” values, etc. As rarely as the consuming public demands privacy (alas), it’s worth pointing out when it does. I think the Facebook “beacon” brouhaha is a good example.
As I have yet to believe in the ‘phenomenon’ of social networking, I haven’t followed it carefully, but Facebook rolled out an ‘ingenious’ advertising program that – incidentally – was very privacy-invasive. After a week or two of unceasing derision from a number of quarters, the company has admitted error and backed away.
Now, I believe that this is the market functioning. The most persistent (and obnoxious!) critic of Facebook in my field of vision was ValleyWag. But MoveOn.org also petitioned the company, another iteration of market pressure – any such communication from the public implicitly threatens direct action against a company’s bottom line.
Others may believe that threatened complaints to the FTC prompted Facebook to see the error in its ways. These folks would accordingly credit government regulation and the threat of regulation.
It would be worth studying as an empirical matter what inputs Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was exposed to, and what most influenced him and his team. I bet the derision of commentators and his local, tech-industry peers was strongest. That’s the market working.
But I’d be happy to consider better surmise – or even actual evidence!
Though I haven’t studied the company’s involvement in REAL ID promotion, my sense is that identification technology provider Digimarc has staked a lot on the national ID law. So it is with some pleasure that I note the announcement by their Chairman and CEO, Bruce Davis, that the company will fail to turn a profit this year.
Davis said the 2008 outlook is also clouded by the uncertainty over federal regulations for an identification system known as Real ID. The CEO said the revenue effects from the completion of regulations may not occur until late 2008 or 2009.
Actually, Bruce, the revenue affects from the completion of the regulations may not occur at all.
When I talk about identification issues, I often go to my wallet and show the “fake” ID that I carry with me. Several people have asked me over time where to get one.
I use this card whenever I get “bogus” ID requests – requests at hotels, office buildings, and such where they have no business seeing my ID and they don’t get anything from doing so.
The card has only been refused twice – once at the Sears Tower in Chicago, and once when I tried to use it at airport security. (Regulations there specify government-issued ID. I went through secondary search because I told them I didn’t have one.) Everywhere else, they are just checking to see that you are carrying a card. I haven’t tried to use the card for proof of age – most jursidictions require government-issued ID for this purpose.
The card I use has accurate information on it (except for my weight . . .), but it reflects my own assertions about myself, rather than any government’s or other card issuer’s. It’s very exciting to use this card the first few times. You really feel like you’re getting away with something. In fact, you’re just proving to yourself that “identity checks” are empty ritual.
More people should do this, so why don’t you join in the fun?
YouFinishIt.com is where I got mine. They have a nice array of cards that appear quite fancy and official looking. I got the “Standard Identification” card.
To my knowledge, none of their cards are knock-offs of any other issuers’ cards, and I don’t recommend using cards like this for any fraudulent purpose. I don’t think presenting an ID with inaccurate identifiers is fraudulent when the recipient does not rely on that information. It’s like tipping your hat to someone whom you don’t really mean to wish well. So, go for it!
Lauren Weinstein has a good run-down and warning about a thing called Automated Content Access Protocol and why it might not be a good idea. Indeed, it might be better titled the Automated Content Restriction/Access Protocol. Do the acronym yourselves.
Ed Felten has announced a workshop at Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy called “Computing in the Cloud.”
“Computing in the cloud” refers to the trend toward online services that run in a Web browser and store users’ information in a provider’s data center. Examples include webmail services such as Hotmail and Gmail, online photo sites such as Flickr, social networks such as Facebook and Myspace, office suites such as Google Docs, markets such as eBay, and many more.
This is an important subject and the workshop looks like it will explore some very interesting issues. Among them is the increasingly outdated doctrine that information held by third parties cannot be the subject of Fourth Amendment protection. (The problem was summarized well by Julian Sanchez on TechDirt a few days ago.)
Here’s my problem: The Internet is not a cloud! It is a network of telecommunications providers and Internet service providers that have legal commitments to one another and to end-users. I’m concerned with talk of the Internet or computing as happening in a “cloud” because this could be used to deny the rights and responsibilities of each actor in the network.
Clouds drop water as rain at random across the earth. The Internet should not do that with data, and we shouldn’t talk about it as a thing that could.
In February, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the following about the REAL ID Act: “If we don’t get it done now, someone is going to be sitting around in three or four years explaining to the next 9/11 Commission why we didn’t do it.”
Alice Lipowicz of Washington Technology reported on REAL ID today:
[Chertoff] and other DHS officials have said that older drivers present a lower terrorism risk and, therefore, might be allowed more time to switch to Real ID licenses. According to the Washington Post, DHS might extend the deadline to 2018 for drivers older than 40 or 50. Moreover, states will have more time to implement the act, Chertoff said.
DHS had previously extended the statutory May 2008 deadline for beginning implementation to December 2009 and recently set 2013 as the deadline for full implementation.
2013 is more than 5 years from now – 2018 is more than eleven. For all Chertoff’s urgency at the beginning of the year, has the Department abandoned its mission to secure the country?
Of course not. But Chertoff and the DHS were clearly trying to buffalo the Congress and the American people on REAL ID earlier this year. They haven’t succeeded.
Happily, this national ID system doesn’t add to our country’s security as its proponents have imagined. We are not unsafe for lacking a national ID. I explored all these issues in my book Identity Crisis.
If REAL ID were a sound security tool, pushing back the deadline for compliance would be a security risk, of course, as would reducing the quality of the cardstock used to make REAL ID-compliant cards – another measure DHS is considering.
Forget security, though. DHS is straining to get the program implemented just so it can claim success and save some face.
“[T]hose who are singing a funeral dirge, I think they’re singing the wrong tune,” Chertoff said November 6th. Alas, as before, Secretary Chertoff is the one more likely to sing a different song.
I had fun just now looking over the Northern Virginia Technology Council’s upcoming dog-and-pony show promoting the REAL ID Act. It’s a big business opportunity for Washington, D.C.-area technology vendors – nevermind that this national ID law is dying because of nationwide disapproval.
Why fun? Because clicking on the link to Gold Sponsor Wiley Rein LLP, I saw the promotional blurb below their Web banner: “‘Demonstrates a high-caliber command of privacy’ issues. – Computerworld” (It rotates through blurbs – you might have to hit reload once or twice to see it for yourself.)
You can’t promote REAL ID and claim a command of privacy issues. So which is it gonna be?
And what other promotional blurbs might go there? Let’s see ’em in the comments. A few to prime the pump, after the jump.
This Arsticle goes through the details. Which I don’t understand. And that makes me all the more certain that Al Qaeda will get their hands on dark-energy observation tools and use them to establish a Muslim caliphate!
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
