Re: Fwd: Re: Fwd: Book Review: Peter Wayner's "Translucent Databases"

[R. A. Hettinga]

At 7:52 PM -0700 on 6/24/02, Somebody wrote:


> Uh, come on, Bob. If the original message is sent to a certain list, there
> is no reason to forward it without comment to that same certain list.

Damn. Got cryptography confused with cypherpunks.

My mistake. Sorry about that.

Cheers,
RAH

-- 
-
R. A. Hettinga 
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

Re: Fwd: Re: Fwd: Book Review: Peter Wayner's "Translucent Databases"

[R. A. Hettinga]

--- begin forwarded text


Status:  U
Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2002 17:02:52 -0400
To: "R. A. Hettinga" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Peter Wayner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Fwd: Book Review: Peter Wayner's
 "Translucent  Databases"

>

I think Bob made some great points about my book, but it's clear that
this debate
is revolving around a few sentences in Bob's review. Perhaps he miscategorizes
Brin, perhaps he doesn't. I haven't read _Transparent Society_ in some time.

Still, it's important to realize that this isn't just a battle
between the state
and its citizens. Encryption can provide a practical tool and a great option
for the data management engineers. Brin has a good point about the value
of openness, but I'm sure he doesn't extend it to things like people's credit
card numbers. Brin would probably be interested in the book and the way
it leaves some things in the clear. It's all about translucency,
which is, after
all, partially transparent. The glass is half empty or full. So maybe there's
something in common here?

The right use of encryption (and any anonymity that comes along with it) can
protect businesses, customers, clients, employees and others. I'm sure it
might also be used to by a few elites to avoid scrutiny, but that doesn't have
to be the case.




For me, the mathematics of on-line anonymity are essential parts of
on-line security. While I think that there are plenty of personal and
emotional reasons to embrace anonymity, one of the best is the higher
amount of security the systems offer. Simply put, identity-based
systems are more fragile because identity theft is so easy. Systems
designed for anonymity avoid that weakness because they're designed,
a priori, to work without names. So I think they're just bound to be
a bit safer.

It should be noted that the anonymous techniques developed by Chaum,
Brands and others do not have to be used to avoid scrutiny. You can
always tack on your true name in an additional field. To me, the
systems just avoid relying on the the name field to keep people
honest.

I'm glad Bob sees the resonance between _Translucent Databases_ and
the world of cypherpunk paranoia, but I would like to avoid a strong
connection. It's not that there's no relationship. There is. But the
book is meant to be much more practical. It explores how to use the
right amount of encryption to lock up the personal stuff in a
database without scrambling all of it. In the right situations, the
results can be fast, efficient, and very secure. So the techniques
are good for the paranoids as well as the apolitical DBAs who just
want to do a good job.









>  >
>>It is particularly dishonest of a so-called reviewer not only to
>>misinterpret and misconvey another person's position, but to abuse
>>quotation marks in the way Robert Hettinga has done in his review of
>>Translucent Databases By Peter Wayner. Openly and publicly, I defy
>>Hettinga to find any place where I used the word "trust" in the fashion or
>>meaning he attributes to me.
>>
>>In fact, my argument is diametrically opposite to the one that he portrays
>>as mine.  For him to say that 'Brin seems to want, "trust" of state
>>force-monopolists... their lawyers and apparatchiks." demonstrates either
>>profound laziness - having never read a word I wrote - or else deliberate
>>calumny.  In either event, I now openly hold him accountable by calling it
>>a damnable lie.  This is not a person to be trusted or listened-to by
>>people who value credibility.
>>
>>Without intending-to, he laid bare one of the 'false dichotomies" that
>>trap even bright people into either-or - or zero-sum - kinds of
>>thinking.  For example, across the political spectrum, a "Strong Privacy"
>>movement claims that liberty and personal privacy are best defended by
>>anonymity and encryption, or else by ornate laws restricting what people
>>may know. This approach may seem appealing, but there are no historical
>>examples of it ever having worked.
>>
>>INdeed, those mired in these two approaches seem unable to see outside the
>>dichotomy.  Hettinga thinks that, because I am skeptical of the right
>>wing's passion for cowboy anonymity, that I am therefore automatically an
>  >advocate of the left wing's prescription of  "privacy through state
>>coercive information management'.  Baloney.  A plague on both houses of
>>people who seem obsessed with policing what other people are allowed to know.
>>
>>Strong Privacy advocates bears a severe burden of proof when they claim
>  >that a world of secrets will protect freedom... ev

Re: Fwd: Re: Fwd: Book Review: Peter Wayner's "Translucent Databases"

[Peter Wayner]

I think Bob made some great points about my book, but it's clear that 
this debate
is revolving around a few sentences in Bob's review. Perhaps he miscategorizes
Brin, perhaps he doesn't. I haven't read _Transparent Society_ in some time.

Still, it's important to realize that this isn't just a battle 
between the state
and its citizens. Encryption can provide a practical tool and a great option
for the data management engineers. Brin has a good point about the value
of openness, but I'm sure he doesn't extend it to things like people's credit
card numbers. Brin would probably be interested in the book and the way
it leaves some things in the clear. It's all about translucency, 
which is, after
all, partially transparent. The glass is half empty or full. So maybe there's
something in common here?

The right use of encryption (and any anonymity that comes along with it) can
protect businesses, customers, clients, employees and others. I'm sure it
might also be used to by a few elites to avoid scrutiny, but that doesn't have
to be the case.




For me, the mathematics of on-line anonymity are essential parts of 
on-line security. While I think that there are plenty of personal and 
emotional reasons to embrace anonymity, one of the best is the higher 
amount of security the systems offer. Simply put, identity-based 
systems are more fragile because identity theft is so easy. Systems 
designed for anonymity avoid that weakness because they're designed, 
a priori, to work without names. So I think they're just bound to be 
a bit safer.

It should be noted that the anonymous techniques developed by Chaum, 
Brands and others do not have to be used to avoid scrutiny. You can 
always tack on your true name in an additional field. To me, the 
systems just avoid relying on the the name field to keep people 
honest.

I'm glad Bob sees the resonance between _Translucent Databases_ and 
the world of cypherpunk paranoia, but I would like to avoid a strong 
connection. It's not that there's no relationship. There is. But the 
book is meant to be much more practical. It explores how to use the 
right amount of encryption to lock up the personal stuff in a 
database without scrambling all of it. In the right situations, the 
results can be fast, efficient, and very secure. So the techniques 
are good for the paranoids as well as the apolitical DBAs who just 
want to do a good job.









>  >
>>It is particularly dishonest of a so-called reviewer not only to
>>misinterpret and misconvey another person's position, but to abuse
>>quotation marks in the way Robert Hettinga has done in his review of
>>Translucent Databases By Peter Wayner. Openly and publicly, I defy
>>Hettinga to find any place where I used the word "trust" in the fashion or
>>meaning he attributes to me.
>>
>>In fact, my argument is diametrically opposite to the one that he portrays
>>as mine.  For him to say that 'Brin seems to want, "trust" of state
>>force-monopolists... their lawyers and apparatchiks." demonstrates either
>>profound laziness - having never read a word I wrote - or else deliberate
>>calumny.  In either event, I now openly hold him accountable by calling it
>>a damnable lie.  This is not a person to be trusted or listened-to by
>>people who value credibility.
>>
>>Without intending-to, he laid bare one of the 'false dichotomies" that
>>trap even bright people into either-or - or zero-sum - kinds of
>>thinking.  For example, across the political spectrum, a "Strong Privacy"
>>movement claims that liberty and personal privacy are best defended by
>>anonymity and encryption, or else by ornate laws restricting what people
>>may know. This approach may seem appealing, but there are no historical
>>examples of it ever having worked.
>>
>>INdeed, those mired in these two approaches seem unable to see outside the
>>dichotomy.  Hettinga thinks that, because I am skeptical of the right
>>wing's passion for cowboy anonymity, that I am therefore automatically an
>  >advocate of the left wing's prescription of  "privacy through state
>>coercive information management'.  Baloney.  A plague on both houses of
>>people who seem obsessed with policing what other people are allowed to know.
>>
>>Strong Privacy advocates bears a severe burden of proof when they claim
>  >that a world of secrets will protect freedom... even privacy... better
>  >than what has worked for us so far - general openness.
>  >
>  >Indeed, it's a burden of proof that can sometimes be met!  Certainly there
>>are circumstances when/where secrecy is the only recourse... in concealing
>>the location of shelters for battered wives, for instance, or in fiercely
>>defending psychiatric records.  These examples stand at one end of a
>>sliding scale whose principal measure is the amount of harm that a piece
>>of information might plausibly do, if released in an unfair manner.  At
>>the other end of the scale, new technologies seem to make it likely that
>>we'll just have to get used to cha

Fwd: Re: Fwd: Book Review: Peter Wayner's "Translucent Databases"

[R. A. Hettinga]

...More fun and games from the "We're Monkeys, we'll *go*!!!" school of
disputation...

:-).

Cheers,
RAH

--- begin forwarded text


Status:  U
Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2002 07:58:45 +0530
To: Robert Hettinga <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From: Udhay Shankar N <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Fwd: Re: Fwd: Book Review: Peter Wayner's "Translucent
  Databases"

Bob,

I forwarded your review of Wayner's book to, among others, David Brin. He
sent this reply, asking me to pass it on. Seems to have touched a nerve!

Udhay

>Uday, thanks for sharing this.
>
>Could you submit the following reply?
>
>---
>
>It is particularly dishonest of a so-called reviewer not only to
>misinterpret and misconvey another person's position, but to abuse
>quotation marks in the way Robert Hettinga has done in his review of
>Translucent Databases By Peter Wayner. Openly and publicly, I defy
>Hettinga to find any place where I used the word "trust" in the fashion or
>meaning he attributes to me.
>
>In fact, my argument is diametrically opposite to the one that he portrays
>as mine.  For him to say that 'Brin seems to want, "trust" of state
>force-monopolists... their lawyers and apparatchiks." demonstrates either
>profound laziness - having never read a word I wrote - or else deliberate
>calumny.  In either event, I now openly hold him accountable by calling it
>a damnable lie.  This is not a person to be trusted or listened-to by
>people who value credibility.
>
>Without intending-to, he laid bare one of the 'false dichotomies" that
>trap even bright people into either-or - or zero-sum - kinds of
>thinking.  For example, across the political spectrum, a "Strong Privacy"
>movement claims that liberty and personal privacy are best defended by
>anonymity and encryption, or else by ornate laws restricting what people
>may know. This approach may seem appealing, but there are no historical
>examples of it ever having worked.
>
>INdeed, those mired in these two approaches seem unable to see outside the
>dichotomy.  Hettinga thinks that, because I am skeptical of the right
>wing's passion for cowboy anonymity, that I am therefore automatically an
>advocate of the left wing's prescription of  "privacy through state
>coercive information management'.  Baloney.  A plague on both houses of
>people who seem obsessed with policing what other people are allowed to know.
>
>Strong Privacy advocates bears a severe burden of proof when they claim
>that a world of secrets will protect freedom... even privacy... better
>than what has worked for us so far - general openness.
>
>Indeed, it's a burden of proof that can sometimes be met!  Certainly there
>are circumstances when/where secrecy is the only recourse... in concealing
>the location of shelters for battered wives, for instance, or in fiercely
>defending psychiatric records.  These examples stand at one end of a
>sliding scale whose principal measure is the amount of harm that a piece
>of information might plausibly do, if released in an unfair manner.  At
>the other end of the scale, new technologies seem to make it likely that
>we'll just have to get used to changes in our definition of privacy.  What
>salad dressing you use may be as widely known as what color sweater you
>wear on the street... and just as harmlessly boring.
>
>The important thing to remember is that anyone who claims a right to keep
>something secret is also claiming a right to deny knowledge to
>others.  There is an inherent conflict! Some kind of criterion must be
>used to adjudicate this tradeoff and most sensible people seem to agree
>that this criterion should be real or plausible harm... not simply whether
>or not somebody likes to keep personal data secret.
>
>
>The modern debate over information, and who controls it, must begin with a
>paradox.
>
>(1) Each of us understands that knowledge can be power. We want to know as
>much as possible about people or groups we see as threatening... and we
>want our opponents to know little about us. Each of us would prescribe
>armor for "the good guys" and nakedness for our worst foes.
>
>(2) Criticism is the best antidote to error. Yet most people, especially
>the mighty, try  to avoid it. Leaders of past civilizations evaded
>criticism by crushing free speech and public access to information. This
>sometimes helped them stay in power... but it also generally resulted in
>horrific blunders in statecraft.
>
>3) Ours may be the first civilization to systematically avoid this cycle,
>whose roots lie in human nature. We have learned that few people are
>mature enough to hold themselves accountable. But in an open