Re: [projectvrm] Does this list welcome natural law/rights wonks?

[Brian Behlendorf < >]

Crosbie, I think people here respond poorly to your emails (when they 
bother to respond at all) for two reasons:

1) It doesn't come across like you're here for a conversation, or to build 
something, or help someone else build something.  You're here to give us a 
lecture, like a stern professor who is disappointed when the class dares 
to think about what's possible or derivative rather than simply focus on 
what _is_, what has been proven, what needs no further explanation.  Or 
just to win an argument rather than share and enlighten.

2) You don't seem all that interested in connecting with your audience 
over shared interests, at least so far as addressing the issues that frame 
this list.  I don't mean coming up with straw man arguments, of which the 
other side is guilty too.  If your email below is an attempt to find that 
common ground it really misses the mark.  Without shared interests any 
conversation quickly becomes a mere re-iteration of viewpoints, leaving 
everyone frustrated.

I believe I understand the principle you're arguing.  At the end of the 
day, technologies that aim to attach physical-boundary like elements to 
information - such as many variations on "tracking where my data goes" - 
are indistinguishable from DRM.  DRM attempts both the impossible - 
wresting control over information away from those who hold it physically 
in their hands - and the morally repugnant, denying people the right to 
hack their devices and control their digital+physical world.  I get it. 
Cory Doctorow makes the case eloquently in his piece on the Coming War on 
General Purpose Computing.  This is a Big Deal and I can't blame you for 
being a jerk about reminding us not to slip down that slope.  Likewise, 
the rise of "the right to be forgotten" brings along a lot of thorny 
questions and edge cases which scream for first principles - and the first 
principle that if I possess information in my personal hands/devices 
there's nothing you should be able to do to delete it, is very persuasive.

The sad thing is, we have DRM in the real world, and it does give the 
illusion of violating these natural laws.  Even if we can jailbreak our 
phones and strip identifiers out of our iTunes purchases, DRM has the 
pragmatic effect of accomplishing the impossible and the morally 
repugnant.  Way too many people seem to be OK with this.  Maybe it's 
because they are simple-minded and amoral; or maybe it's because at this 
point the costs are tolerable or too abstract to notice, and alternatives 
exist.  E.g., it's a compromise they're willing to make, not a trick being
pulled on them.  Will that be enough to win the war Cory worries about 
when our backs are up against the wall?  Or will we be the frog boiled 
alive, not noticing until it's too late?  Hard to tell at this point, so 
worth keeping on our minds.

What isn't hard to tell, though, is that good, honest people want 
something better than the status quo, and feel disenfranchised by 
technology rather than empowered.  Some better solutions, like strong 
crypto properly implemented, will solve a problem with mathematical rigor 
and provable security, so strongly you can bet your life on it.  But many 
solutions unavoidably will be mixtures of software, policy, and business 
rules, imperfectly implemented but still valuable, where violations are 
not impossible but are discoverable and correctable, and where the 
costs/risks will be tolerable for the value created.  These are likely 
worth doing, if the alternative is nothing.

Brian

On Mon, 5 Jan 2015, Crosbie Fitch wrote:
> Here's an opportunity for list subscribers to decide if natural law/rights
> discussion is constructive to the VRM mission, or disruptive and not
> conducive to progress.
>
> As Swilson put it: "Insisting on physicality, and denying the possibility of
> virtual powers and arrangements, is quite a state of denial. An ironical act
> of imagination."
>
> If I was to write something similar, it'd go more like this: "Insisting upon
> the possibility of virtual powers, whilst denying physical limitations, is
> quite a state of denial (of reality), and a victory of imagination over
> pragmatism."
>
> Are such polar opposites a sign that each should go their own way, or that
> they should remain to sort out their differences?