Communications tracking.

"the more you tighten your grip Lord Vader, the more star systems will fall through your grasp"

Power is by its nature, the pursuit of pigs, and there is nothing more motivated than a pig a foot from the trough.

If you want security get off the net. No reasonable person could believe that the nature of man and his technology is going to focus on the altruistic positive application of technology. Technology is, always has been, and will remain; a means of filling the trough.

Also, in this day and age, the lines are blurred between the "good-guys" and the "bad-guys." I have even more disdain for the jingo who uses technology to mock our constitution in the name of "security" than the uncommon thief who uses it to steal. But then again, it only becomes a matter of time when the dishonor of the Jingo brings him to the motive of the theif.

Defeating a thief has always been easier than defeating a traitor.

The cyber thief could easily be defeated or at least deterred by honey-pots. The defeat of traitors, however, has become much more problematic.

Gavilan

In the end, it would seem it is not what you have, but what you do with it.

Why does anyone need privacy? It is so we can do private things.

Would be wonderful if the laws were not written and everyone had good manners and the same amount of power.

A good government regardless of its name, does not persecute the minorities.

Nor is the minority free to persecute the majority in a just society.

We do not live in a just society, and the lawyers tell you that we live in an adversarial world. It is not about justice, but about winners and losers.

Therefore the assault on privacy is only to be fought by the losers who have taken from them more privacy than they take from those collecting information about them.

The Freedom of Information Act was a good thing as far as a bit of legislation empowering individuals.

Part of the reason for the protection of privacy in a free society is that those who seek to change things, or just be themselves as equal citizens regardless of those who view them as unequal will be persecuted for being themselves when it is legal for the government to spy on them.

The very fact that it is legal for the government to spy on everyone makes everyone a suspect and there is evidence that that leads to a Stalinist sort of state.

In this day and time in the US every law that is passed to protect the populist from terrorist invaders is likely to be used to prosecute, pursue and imprison drug dealers and growers and smugglers, who have a defacto reason to put up with people who have real threat to all.

Hence my own position that ending The War on Drugs, would benefit general safety of international working classes by separating the Drug Smugglers from the Weapons Smugglers.

In my world I would not object to all espionage technics being used to track down and elimanate the threat of the use of Weapons of Mass Destruction on us, however since I am aware that that is not the agenda of the government I suffer from, I must support privacy laws knowing that the government failures will be taken out on me in recognition of the laws empowering the local police to show success by taking it out on me for their failures in concert with the ideals of their leadership, which is ideologically corrupt.

So I just swim around as a small fish hoping to hide in the open, and the answer to your question is, general espionage goes too far.

Transcendian,

You have made very many eloquent points. I don't believe there is any such thing as anonymous, and therefor call upon moose to name me. That presents a dilemma - CR4 Admin would have to demonstrate ability in relation to a minor point. it would force them into making a minor point that compromises the whole. For my own part, I don't mind, but overall it may make it clearer that 'anonymous' does not exist. We should all be aware that anonymous is a fiction, and moose may decline to say who I am in order to protect CR4 members confidence, but the point remains. We are not anonymous on the web. If moose tells me by way of private message I shall report it back here - UNLESS I AM TOLD IT WOULED COMPROMOMISE SECURITY AND INTEGRITY WITHIN CR4. Here is the choker - if CR4 can identify me, they may not bwish to say so , or for me to elaborate on it.We are all caught within a trap. Moose may say 'I can track you, but please don't disclose it, because it will compromise security'. Back to square one. Always assume that a post on the internet can be tracked. Hit the return key, and you can be tracked. What matters is the intent.

My answer to the question was that general esponage led to Stalinism regardless of the intent. This is due to the law of unintended consequences.

One may very well have a good intent, but have the results turn out badly because all factors have not been addressed or alined in a system.

This is a question that is in the realm of Political Science, which is not yet, far as I know a formally recognized category.

I answered the question without concern for whether I was anonymous or not, or the category.

Truth is the target.

What is the good thing about telling the truth?

When you tell the truth about a mistake to the pilot, the mistake can be corrected. The pilot will be able to correct the problem and fly on, or may cancel the flight.

In fact it would seem to be more difficult to tell the truth in advance of an obvious problems outcome when you are trying to warn of the future when there is a chance the truth will be changed by unfactored influences, of to your mind, low probablity.

I did assume that whatever I wrote on the screen might be read.

When I was a child my mother told me not to write down things you didn't want people to read.

CR4 does not yet have a feature that enables anonymous posts by Guests to be ID'd. ( ie Guest 1. Guest 2. etc). This could, and should be done to clarify the line of discussion. Some discussions become confused when multiple people post as 'Guest'.

Registering as a user is reasonably anonymous, and the technology is there to enable people to enter discussion without using their usual avatar. There are some (but not many, I think) reasons for doing so. I hope that by posting as 'Guest' i have made some small point toward this discussion, and will leave it now. Your points are all valid, well presented, and will hopefully enable further debate on the topic by the people who run CR4.

My overall point is that there is no such thing as 'anonymous', on CR4 or anywhere else. In my opinion, this is to the betterment of all. With respect, and 10/10 for your comments,

'Guest x'

The instances of justified anonymity are different for the thief, than they are for the civilized man.

Ben Franklin, a scientist and statesman felt that anonymity had value when otherwise the truth would not be told. Anonymity would not have been possible in The Juno, since they met in person to discuss such things.

The spy and detective are justified in becoming others, or being anonymous, as it is often enough necessary if they are to discover the truth.

Faulkner in A Fable, wrote, "He was too young to be trusted with the knowledge that the truth is not necessarily the facts."

In the Commons the conflicts between people based on their "beliefs", which are for them as much "truth", as the facts, require the social lubricant of privacy if that society is to function as a civil society.

This is most pronounced as far as Religion is concerned, and really it ought not be required that any citizenship papers or documents in any country list religious affiliation.

I myself don't really like it when on forms I am supposed to tell people what my paying job is. From now on I am inspired to just write "Worker" on the line.

Of course who would expect the spy or the terrorist, or a criminal who knows he is a criminal to write down the truth?

In the Americas, before there was really a United States the Massachussets Witch Hunts were conducted and are evidence of what happens when everyone is a suspect and there is a money motive. Currently in the US the continuing Drug War has damaged and killed many more than the Witch Hunts ever.

The illegality of Drug use, which of itself is a victimless crime, especially as regards marijuana, creates crimes where otherwise there would be none.

You can be assured that any laws of the US that infringe on privacy rights in the name of Terrorists and a universal threat to citizens will be used on Drug Dealers and Drug users more ubiquitiously than any real threats to the general citizenry.

The Democrats say, "We Love You, But we want your Guns." and the Repulicans say,"We hate you, but you can keep your guns."

In the meantime a working guy has to get to work and back and not get caught being on the wrong block at the wrong time by either the police, or the spawn of it all that want to rob them whether they are doing something legal or not.

There really is not much romantic about being a spy. I think we are all discovering that it is hard to keep track of all our different names and numbers.

I myself would rather read about spies than have to be one, and wish my government actually protected my identity and private information instead of my having to pay for firewalls and virusware etcetera.

As far as why it is okay it is to be a spy, or anonymous, it is because you have a right to protect yourself.

Ben Franklin did leave a good deal of evidence of his thinking on this subject, and I am inclined to agree with him as I understand his positions in general.

Again to the topic I say, spying on everybody who goes online and writes something to anyone they write, for public and private reasons, goes too far, if we are to have a civil society.

What is illegial one day, may be legal another day, and private anonoymous discussions are required for the correct changes to be made.

Andre` Lewin recommends more secret meetings at the UN under Article 99 for the same reasons that Ben Franklin endorsed anonymity.

Nobody seems to have made a big deal in France at the time over Franklin's infidelity to his suffering wife, though in the America's his son became a Royalist.

My heroes are on the 50 Dollar and 100 dollar bill.

Ben Franklin and Grant are fitting reminders of what is always going on for the working man. Linclon being on the penny would recommend it not be discontinued.

Personally as a convience, in this modern time, I wish all the laws left my plastic card with an anonymous private option that was protected by my government so I could do private things without the threat of being ripped off by hackers in Russia without having to set up a Pay Pal account through The Bank of America, which I don't trust at all as caring much about my privacy, or even endorsing any right to it.

One time I got arrested because my motocycle muffler fell off, and when I was looking for it a pair of State Patrolmen in an ugly threatening car stopped to ask me what I was doing.

Unfortunately I had only been able to get a "Learners Permit", for my license concerning the motorcycle. They gave me 100 dollars worth of tickets when I had no job and was working day labor for 30 bucks a day if I was lucky enough to get put on someplace.

Most of my crimes have been crimes of poverty, or inattention to details.

I'd like to keep it a secret that I have been poor.

Therefore I resent Credit Reports.

The Motivating factors for crimes or virtuous act are Money, Ideology, Compromise and Ego.

Stealing Money or property because you are compromised is the most common crime that is sublimated to Ideology, but may be sometimes entirely pivoted on the Ego.

The most dangerous people to a civilization are the Idealogue.

It is a mistake to believe in anything too much, especially when there are no facts to support the belief.

For instance, I have no facts to support my belief in a soul that is mine that goes on with a life of any sort when my brain is nothing more than maggot food.

If my father shows up in a dream, is that proof?

What about the ex-girlfriends or wives?

Martin Luther King said, "I have a Dream."

We all knew what he was talking about.

You are no secret when you have Black Skin.

You cannot be anonoymous in the light.

Standing around or walking you have no secrets in the light by which you are seen.

What Black Man could have been a spy on Hitler?

Not one. This line of thought justifies spying to benifit your fellow citizens who may not be able to pass.

Those who can keep secrets, must measure the work against the good that comes from it.

Daniel Schoor said in a speech that he did not report on an exodus corridor for Jews because he knew if he did, it would be closed and more of his tribe would be exterminated. Such is the reasoning to justify secrecy and anonynimity.

My initial comment, although flippant, was intended to indicate that as one side gets better tools the other side has to learn to subvert them (in Star Wars the bad guys were in power). I don't know but I imagine the pay is better on the wrong side of the fence. It makes sense if you are trying to keep the law not to advertise what you can do, or those breaking it will know what to look out for. I am impressed by the range and depth of thought going on in this thread. At the top of my screen is a box I can tick if I want to post anonymously, what does this mean? That sometimes we don't want to put our head above the parapet, yet ultimately everything we do on the net is trackable. The time the trail is worth following is the time that we cross a line morally or someone says we have. Even if we have done or are doing nothing wrong it is not a nice feeling to know someone is watching, I think that is what people don't like. Because everyone has a different opinion of what is wrong. I don't like speeding cars but many drivers see an attempt to impose speed limits (the law) as an attack on their personal freedom. I have read 1984 and it is easier to sympathize with Winston than the State. But he is breaking the law. This is a big topic, I'll stop now.