By SN
Saturday October 17, 2009
Slashdot – October 17, 2009:
“Eugene Kaspersky, CEO of well-known computer security company Kaspersky Labs, is calling for an end to the anonymity of the Internet, 
and for the creation of mandatory ‘Internet passports’ for anyone who wishes to browse the Web. Says Kaspersky, ‘Everyone should and must have an identification, or internet passport … the internet was designed not for public use, but for American scientists and the US military. Then it was introduced to the public, and it was wrong … to introduce it in the same way.’ He calls anonymity ‘the Internet’s biggest security vulnerability’ and thinks any country that doesn’t follow this regime should be ‘cut off.’ The EFF objects, and it’s likely that they won’t be the only ones.”
Alfie:
Benjamin Franklin paraphrased himself many times. As far as I can tell, this is one of those paraphrases that comes closest to what most of his paraphrases intended:
“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
While anonymity wasn’t achievable in those days (except through encrypted letters), I’m sure Franklin would have approved of anonymity through encryption.
Alfredone – What’s your full name and home address?
#46 Alfred1
What did you hope to achieve with this shameless piece of exhibitionism? You know that its not just the readers of DU that now have this information (if it is indeed bona-fide), but any idiot who scrapes websites for email addresses and/or postal addresses etc. You may be ‘fearless’ but you have nothing to gain from this.
In any case this ‘internet passport’ ideas it a bit of a pipe-dream (nightmare?). Who’s gonna regulate and enforce it? You would need an international body.
It sounds like Eugene Kaspersky, CEO of well-known computer security company Kaspersky Lab and former KGB goon, is trolling for an invitation to Skull Island, the secure lair where Dick Cheney lurks.
#45
First. I’m glad my government cares for my anonymity.
Second : Good reasons? People have mentioned the tweets from Iran as a recent example of what happens when government is not in control of their citizens identity on the net.
Burma (Myanmar) is also a good example.
China?
The question is WHY does western countries like yours want the same thing (control of their citizens) as those repressive regimes? Could it be that they share the same fear? Fear of their citizens getting information they should not get, publicating information that is bad for the government?
# 45 Alfred1:
“I only asked for good reasons…if malware, virus’, smear attacks, lies etc., are diminshed, but free speech really isn’t, except for the fearful…then I’d say its a good idea.”
We have “malware and viruses” in the “real world ” too alfred (bacteria/viruses/chemicals). We also have smearattacks and lies too.
Diseases we fix with medicine, chemicals we regulate/forbid.
Smearattacks and lies about/from public figures/politicians has been a problem for a long time, and we have learned to live with it and deal with it.
When it comes to smearattacks about/from regular citizens ( like posting a homemade pornmovie of your ex girlfriend) is a CRIME and is not difficult to investigate.
Lies? Happens every day, to everyone. DEAL WITH IT, MOVE ON!
Alfred,
I’m curious. How old are you?
There are many like you who baffle me. I’m old enough to have almost been drafted to Vietnam, a pointless waste on so many levels. I watched with relish at the Watergate hearings as they took down a paranoid and corrupt administration. And on and on.
The left is as corrupt as the right, only different people get the money and power. So getting Obama out of office as you so dearly want would simply put the corrupt right back in office to restrict our freedoms and rob our money and kill our children just as Bush & Co. did so recently.
Will you rail with equal fervor if that were to happen? Would you quote pointless bible passages to prove how wicked the Republicans are who take a different path to destroying our country?
# 52 Alfred1
WOW! Just wow…
WOW…
…speechless….
Yes! You have nothing to fear. You will be welcomed in heaven and everything will be fine. Now move along!
I will try once more :
Let’s try a hypothetical scenario:
Christianity and missionary work is illegal in america, but you saw it as your right to belive in jesus and to preach about it. How would you feel about preaching in the streets of SF with a big sign that says “ALFRED bla bla address bla bla..”?
# 54
Learn to skip those posts, learn not to be offended by anonymous babble. Everyone else does. (politicians, celebs etc)
I hear anonymous people scream and insult irrationally all the time in the real world. They are anonymous in the same way they are online; NO ONE KNOWS WHO THEY ARE and/or they are just stupied/wasted (or both) Most people with common sense ignore them and move along.
Alfred1
Do you belive viruses/trojans/whatever exists because the internet is anonymous? NO! They exist because gathering information about you and me is a billiondollar industry (legal and illegal)
Do you belive the information they gather will be worth more or less if they easily can put a identity-tag on the information?
Just curious…
Alfred1
I also belive in total surveilance (thats what this is) but ONLY if EVERYONE has access to the surveilance.
MEANING : I can monitor my neighbour, my neighbour can monitor me and that I am monitoring him (what/when/how I am monitoring him).
This would prevent corruption, taxfraud, wifebeating, weapons of mass destruction, terrorism etc.
It would kill the porn industry though.
Realityshows would be pretty pointless too…
Wow.. only positive effects..
Anyone have any possible negative sideeffects?
Realized I was off in two respects on my last post. .1% bad, not .01% and 10M bad users, more like 1M at any given time. Oops.
I see this as beneficial for companies in two respects.
First is a sort of “LifeLock” for the virtual world. They are protecting your identity, man…. that would be worth $30-50/month at least.
Second is a fee for universal quality of service. Maybe the net will be neutral, but YOUR access would depend on how much you are paying per month. Instead of one line you get charged per person. It would also simplify who to sue when Garth Brooks wants a new mansion(previous thread).
There are a ton of threats in this that make it a horrendous idea, but I will narrow it down to one. The “universal” ID has always been hobbled by a glaring weakness. Every ID can be counterfeited or stolen. Once you make an ID universal the benefits and risks of false IDs rise proportionally.
If you leave your email client up and some office joker sends the boss a nastygram under your name… well, this is an international system protected and supported by Verisign, MSoft, Oracle and the top 50 comp-sec companies… You might find your ass in the street.
When people are “sure” they can identify you then penalties assessed can be increased without worrying about false positives.
A second pernicious effect would be to allow holes in the system to become more profitable. Nigeria doesn’t seriously chase scams, so Nigeria has a thriving scam industry. Someone is always looking the other way either for profit or due to incompetence.
If the answer, in the Nigeria case, is to shut Nigeria off the net… fine, no harm done(except they often use remailers and recallers out of the UK). But WHO in their right mind is going to call Putin and tell him Russian hacker activity has caused TOS violations and account cancellation?
# 61
Again – WOW..
Again – speechless..
My hope is that you are a troll.
Live long and prosper!
Peace!
BTW : I know you think you answered my question in my hypothetical scenario, but you really did not. You just proved yourself to be a religious nut with no empathy.
Live long and prosper!
Ever heard of the Federalist Papers? Think such a thing would be possible in a society without anonymity? I think not.
# 68
You know nothing abour freedom.
you christian? yeah right
you a troll? HELL YEAH 😀
Yo, goombah, -how about not putting vital information systems on the net
-don’t ya just love how they are slowly trotting out all these “important industry extremists” so the twisted egomaniacs that make law can shape the pretext for turning the internet into a high security prison for thought..and feel good [and vindicated] about it in the process.
-s
Lies and slander are a small price to pay for the freedom of the net. Think of the big picture.
This is not the first time I have heard the idea of an ‘internet passport’ floated. I don’t know if it originated from Kaspersky, or someone else, but this idea has been floated by various people for at least the last 6 months (that’s when I heard it first – and I’m not on the ‘leading edge’ of the Freedom of the Net thing). And, many lawmakers are aware of it.
Let’s face it: the net is limited by the nature of its infrastructure. This permits all kinds of manipulation and control, state, corporate or whatever.
Solution?
I don’t know. May be we need to start thinking about a parallel system, more of a mesh, perhaps, which would be much more flexible and much harder to throttle, filter, censor, control.
#8
You sir are a genius. Kaspersky will talk about controlling the internet as he is a Russian in the end. Blame Putin!
Eliminating anonymity online, as opposed to specifically on the Internet, simply isn’t possible. Anonymity existed in the BBS system long before the Internet became popular. Further, if one government decided to mandate identity, other nodes on the Net would crop up and block it.
Arguing that the elimination of anonymity would help catch criminals is akin to the argument that NSA used in their attempt to block public knowledge of encryption systems. The argument is empty. The cost of government corruption is order of magnitude higher than the cost of anonymous speech. Free speech does mean hearing people say things with which you disagree or even hate. That is the price of freedom and it is a bargain.
Tar and feahter that man and run him out of the country. He should feel right at home in China working for the government. Well the elite Democrats all seem to like Castro so maybe they like Mao too.
What a douche! And nice hair and beard, bet he doesn’t get laid much.
Anonymity is, at the same time, the Net’s greatest asset and its worst drawback.
On the one hand, Thomas Paine at first published Common Sense anonymously (probably wisely).
On the other hand, the botnets, with the threat of DDOSs attacks for money or national intimidation have become a serious menace and it would be a much better world if it were possible to identify (and possibly temporarily cut off) each individual zombie computer.
I don’t know where the balance point is, but I suspect it’s just a little farther down the road away from total anonymity.
Sorry folks! The only thing I can think that happened was when I dropped the fucker on his head when he was a baby. And we use to shake him.
We need to keep the internet free of any government regulation. Period.
Don’t need any great conservative ideas some ID card to browse it. I don’t care how many children will be saved.
Holy communist Batman! Obviously this madman shouldn’t be loose! Sounds as if he was bullied on the playground as a little boy, only to grow up and have sand kicked in his face at the beach. Should his insideous plot come to fruition, he could be deploying troops to lay siege to my home, for this comment, the moment I hit ‘Submit’! FYI: I never liked the inferior quality products his company churns out. Please sir, would you kindly vanish into oblivion with your boyfriend?
#37 (and #33) for the win….
How many other business models are based on the same thing:
– Create half-assed solution to negligible but politically charged “problems”;
– Create interwebtube “stink” about said problem;
– Sell half-assed solution.
Then Mr. Kapersky can go buy a gold-plated beard trimmer.
As far as the anonymity debate – I think there should be a distinction made between privacy and anonymity.
Alfred has a point; We SHOULD be able to say anything we want freely and not be afraid of retribution; But you have to be a bit naive to think that happens in the real world.
What do you think would happen if one of the preselected, prescripted question-askers at Obama’s town hall meetings asked an unscripted question? The expectation would be ‘free speech’; But what would really happen is that footage would be edited out, and we would soon see another “Don’t taze me Bro!” video on youtube captured by someone who smuggled in a camera phone into the meeting.
In an ideal world, we could have privacy and free speech without anonymity; But that will not happen until politicians stop lying and corporations stop being greedy.
…don’t hold your breath.
Why is there even a ‘debate’ about privacy?
This assclown can go F+U=C-K himself.
If he hates the internet so dammed much, crybaby Kaspersky can go buy some modems, and make the “lameassnet” and get people to give up blood to ride his friggen modems.
that’s right, #82
BTW the only loon here is Alfred1. If you don’t understand WHY, there is no point to discuss it with you. And as someone else told you: until you start signing all your web posts with your real name at least, you have no right to demand it from others.
Oh, My name is Alfred K Persson, I live at 35099 State Hwy 74, Spc 3, Hemet Californa, 92543
I’m a born again Christian…
Fearless.
What a stinking LIAR! Google maps shows that Hwy 74, a.k.a. W. Florida Ave only goes to 34000, then starts numbering down from about 8500. There is a ratty looking tailor park in what would be the 85000 block.
how about serious penalties for those who misuse the web – consistent with the damage that they do. If 100,000 man hours are required to undo the damage of a virus – then it’s author goes to jail for that long regardless of their age. Pretty soon, they won’t be walking around free anymore.