The Domesticated Primate

So a favorite talking point of dittoheads I've noticed is that "we need to find out who is using the computers at the library". Besides actively cheering on a total surveillance society (which I just can't understand why supposedly freedom-loving people would cheer for that), this position just relies on ignorance on the dittoheads' part.

Why do I say that? Well, for a few reasons - one, all the open wireless access points in any given residential (not to mention industrial parks, too - amazing how ill-informed some "administrators" can be) area. Any "evildoers" could just wardrive a bit, find a point to jump on, and then use that to do their evil deeds.

And what about fake IDs - a terrorist could always have a fake ID with a bogus address, no? Well, I guess many of these same dittoheads would cheer on the videotaping of every person in public + use of facial recognition technology at all times, too, so I guess that might catch a few if they tried that.

Another reason I say that is for reasons like Torpark.

This isn't to say that Torpark is used by terrorists only - I'd say everyone should use this - especially those that think their surfing habits (along with most of their day-to-day activities) should not be an open book for their respective governments, ISPs, etc.

It's a good thing that open source and things like public key infrastructure got out there before 9/11. Otherwise, we'd have dittoheads calling the people using related technologies "terrorists" as these things were released. Since things like PGP, SSH, VPN & SSL are already part of the landscape it makes it harder. Hell, even when PGP was created, the Feds wanted to go after Zimmerman for exporting munitions. I wrote a paper on this back in university in the early 90's, so I remember well the Clipper chip and how well it bombed despite some rather blustery talk from some in our government. If that discussion was going on now instead of in 1993, we'd have the clipper chip.