There seems to be no shortage nowadays of people willing to explain at tedious length why it is perfectly OK for the government to take away our freedoms. Usually, they just trot out the old "if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide" mantra - crude, but effective, because it can be conveyed in less than 10 seconds, whereas the rebuttal requires reasoned explanation. In a country with high schools that don't teach people how to think, that's a winning strategy.
This article's attack on freedom is a little more subtle. The essence is this:
My fundamental problem with Tor is connected to my experience as an IRC operator. On IRC networks, Tor prevents freedom from abuse....While IP-address-based restrictions may not be an ideal solution for managing services on the Internet, it is the best currently available.
In other words, he wants to be able to use his power as an IRC operator to block people whom he decides are "abusing" the facility. He's not concerned about anyone's freedom, he's concerned about the operator's loss of power.
The obvious problem with that argument is that he really doesn't have the power even without Tor. Most internet users have dynamic IP addresses from their ISP anyway. Sure, if the abuse is really bad, he may be able to get the ISP to terminate the user's account, but I doubt that is easy.
The other problem with the argument is that by operating a slightly different kind of service, he can achieve "freedom from abuse" anyway. There are IRC communities that want the operator to be able to block abusive people, and who share the operator's standards. They can still have that. All it takes is a "login" requirement - a username and password, given only to users who supply a verifiable email address within the domain of their ISP.
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A flawed attack
Posted by: observer222 on June 24, 2006 04:35 PMThere seems to be no shortage nowadays of people willing to explain at tedious length why it is perfectly OK for the government to take away our freedoms. Usually, they just trot out the old "if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide" mantra - crude, but effective, because it can be conveyed in less than 10 seconds, whereas the rebuttal requires reasoned explanation. In a country with high schools that don't teach people how to think, that's a winning strategy.
This article's attack on freedom is a little more subtle. The essence is this:
My fundamental problem with Tor is connected to my experience as an IRC operator. On IRC networks, Tor prevents freedom from abuse....While IP-address-based restrictions may not be an ideal solution for managing services on the Internet, it is the best currently available.
In other words, he wants to be able to use his power as an IRC operator to block people whom he decides are "abusing" the facility. He's not concerned about anyone's freedom, he's concerned about the operator's loss of power.
The obvious problem with that argument is that he really doesn't have the power even without Tor. Most internet users have dynamic IP addresses from their ISP anyway. Sure, if the abuse is really bad, he may be able to get the ISP to terminate the user's account, but I doubt that is easy.
The other problem with the argument is that by operating a slightly different kind of service, he can achieve "freedom from abuse" anyway. There are IRC communities that want the operator to be able to block abusive people, and who share the operator's standards. They can still have that. All it takes is a "login" requirement - a username and password, given only to users who supply a verifiable email address within the domain of their ISP.
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