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

[Brian Behlendorf < >]

On Tue, 6 Jan 2015, Crosbie Fitch wrote:
> And yes, as you observe, the misadventure is 'DRM for personal data'.

OK, phew, I am always on treacherous ground when trying something like 
that, glad it connected.

Would you concede, then, that there is a difference between attempting to 
build:

a) systems that hard-code DRM-personal-data principles in algorithm and 
promise it's unbreakable

versus

b) systems that use a combination of default settings, contract law, and 
consensus to achieve some personal-data protection

The former may be both folly and immoral and right to oppose; but the 
latter seems permissable, let me illustrate with your example:

> It is difficult to argue with those with unshakeable faith in the
> impossible, that I can be told Fred's favourite colour and be subsequently
> constrained by Fred (or some system) as to who I can or cannot disclose it
> to, moreover that even those to whom I am authorised to disclose it, are
> similarly constrained.

Let's posit this differently, to be more like the systems usually 
discussed here.  Let's say I was willing to tell you Fred's favorite 
color, but ONLY on the condition that you not disclose it to anyone else, 
and on the condition that you delete that data if I ask you to, with cash 
penalties in case you violate that.  You willingly agree because, for 
whatever reason, you want to know Fred's favorite color.

No natural law prevents you from violating that contract.  No technology 
barrier is likely to keep the most detemined of technologists from being 
able to share that.  Granted.

But that's not the end of the story, it's not mere "sloppy thinking" to 
think that a contract may be sufficient to compell the appropriate 
behavior in enough cases to be worthwhile.

> > 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.
>
> If the understanding of what a right was hadn't been forgotten people 
> would readily recognise that there is no such thing as a 'right to be 
> forgotten'.

Ha, good pun.  But yeah, I wasn't defending any such "right".  What I was 
suggesting was that sometimes what people want is often more complicated 
than can be answered by first principles - which doesn't make it wrong, 
just more complicated.

> VRM facilities can be produced entirely with software alone.
>
> A sign that things have gone astray is a claim that something else is
> needed, e.g. a law.

I submit this may be the actual bone of contention - is this list limited 
to discussing solutions that are only software in nature, or are solutions 
that are a mix of software, law (contract or otherwise), business, etc. 
Seems like there are few which are strictly about software.  It's a straw 
man to evaluate these hybrid solutions on the basis of whether only the 
software component will work alone.

> VRM should attempt to make it easier for people to communicate, to trade, to
> collect and share data as a consequence of their trades, not to make it
> harder.
>
> Unfortunately, it looks like the latter is the more popular direction.

Could you be more specific about the kinds of VRM projects you see, or 
think should exist, that are purely about the above?

One example I remember giving Doc when we first discussed VRM was a mail 
client plug-in that parsed receipts from the major retailers (Amazon, etc) 
and built a client-side database of everything you buy, as an inventory 
tracker, insurance database, and even warranty clearing house; sort of a 
client-side equivalent of Tripit.  Then from there you might be able 
to reasonably build an intentcasting system that first went to the 
retailers you have shopped from in the past.  Hell, maybe Tripit is a VRM 
company.

Are you working on anything along these lines or others?  Because an 
implementation in hand is worth a thousand on the list.

Brian