> "Wrong on several counts. You can publicly access the records of who owns every radio station, television station, and newspaper in the US and a lot of other countries. "
You can't access their *sources* without a warrant. You seem to be conflating private individuals with corporations. > "No one ever had the liberty of publishing information to the public without accountability." That's provably false. I can type whatever I want, hit print, and scatter it around town unobserved at 3 AM. > "The whole protecting you from the government point is nothing but a straw man." That's not what I'm advocating. If whois disappeared entirely tomorrow, it wouldn't protect me from government. But it *would* protect me from crazy nutjobs. > "Do you really believe that ICANN will stand up to the world governments if they ask for the data?" Obviously not. But there's nothing I can do about it except tell them to come back with a warrant. There *is* something I can do to help limit the ability of crazy nutjobs to find out my information so they can visit my home and harass my family. Anyways, I think this has rambled on long enough. -A On Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 1:55 PM Naslund, Steve <snasl...@medline.com> wrote: > > >...in every other form of communication, the phrase "get a warrant" comes > to mind. > >Except on the internet where we require the information to be public so > that anyone and their dog can view it without a warrant. > > Wrong on several counts. You can publicly access the records of who owns > every radio station, television station, and newspaper in the US and a lot > of other countries. All of those organizations are REQUIRED by law to file > ownership statements. Every periodical published in the United States has a > block in it identifying the publisher. Every book sold has a publisher > listed even if the author chooses to remain anonymous. It is a violation > of the law for a telemarketer to call you without identifying themselves > (which is what we complain about with phone scammers). > > Get a warrant only applies to communications (like your phone calls and > your personal Internet traffic) that have a reasonable expectation of > privacy. If you are in the public square shouting to the world you have no > expectation of anonymity and you can actually be held responsible for false > statements about another individual. A publicly accessible website’s > published pages would not have any expectation of privacy whatsoever. > Besides we are talking about identification of ownership of a > communications site not the communications going through it. Just because > I have your WHOIS data does not mean I have root access to your server. > The government needs a warrant to listen to your phone calls but not to > know you have a phone and where it is. We are not letting people monitor > your traffic through WHOIS, we are only identifying who is responsible for > all communications coming from that site. > > Another point is that “get a warrant” does not apply in totalitarian > countries in any case. Try saying get a warrant in North Korean or China. > Pretty moot point there. > > > "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary > Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." > > No one ever had the liberty of publishing information to the public > without accountability. There are tons of laws protecting you from false > statements and communications intended to harm your reputation or damage > your business. > > You are giving up an essential liberty here which is knowing who is saying > what about you. Do you not want the right to know the sources of > information presented to the public? Do you think I should be able to post > anything I want about you in the public square without accountability? Can > I put up a billboard criticizing you personally and keep my identity a > complete secret? Might it be nice to know that the source of political > news might have an axe to grind or an ideological bent, would you like to > know that the news story you just read was actually from an opposition > candidate? Are we not making a huge deal about Russia messing around with > elections and trolling? How would you ever know that was going on with no > accountability of the source of information? > > The whole protecting you from the government point is nothing but a straw > man. There is no nation state that does not have enough resources to > recover that information from you or your communications carrier. Even if > your traffic is encrypted, it is trivial to figure out who is posting to > social media or underground websites via other intelligence or simple > traffic analysis. They can deny their entire populations access to just > about any communications media they like. Most of them don’t because it is > actually a more lucrative source of intelligence than a threat. If you are > a dissident I might be better off leaving you on the Internet and trying to > map your network of people even though it would be easy to just interrupt > your comms. > > From a technical perspective, the domain naming system and Internet > addressing system are assets you do not own. They are assigned to you and > are considered a type of resource under quasi governmental control. If you > keep WHOIS data secret all you are really doing is keeping the public out > and the government in. Do you really believe that ICANN will stand up to > the world governments if they ask for the data? If so, you probably also > believe that the UN is effective at keeping the world at peace. > > Steven Naslund > Chicago IL > >
