\newcommand{\cm}[0]{$\checkmark$} \newcommand{\subsubsubsection}[1]{\paragraph{#1}} \newcommand\topquote[2]{\begin{quotation} \singlespace \em #1 \par \leftskip=0pt \hfill --- #2 \end{quotation}} \newcommand{\dofig}[3]{\begin{figure} \epsfbox{#1} \caption{#2} \label{#3} \end{figure}} %\documentstyle[12pt,twoside,fancyheadings,doublespace,fullpage,epsf,amssymbols]{article} %\documentstyle[twoside,fancyheadings,doublespace,fullpage,epsf,amssymbols]{article} \documentstyle[simplemargins,fancyheadings,tgrind,vi,epsf,bibcontents,amssymbols]{mitthesis} % include 'times' if you like that font \pagestyle{plain} %\setstretch{1.0} \settopmargin{1in} \setbottommargin{1.25in} \setleftmargin{1.25in} \setrightmargin{1.25in} \headheight 32pt \lhead{The Free Haven Project} \rhead{Roger Dingledine} \begin{document} \title{The Free Haven Project: Design and Deployment of an Anonymous Secure Data Haven} % {\tt http://freehaven.net/} \author{Roger R. Dingledine} \department{Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science} \degree{Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Engineering \and Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science} \degreemonth{June} \degreeyear{2000} \thesisdate{May 22, 2000} \supervisor{Ron Rivest}{Webster Professor of Computer Science and Engineering} \chairman{Arthur C. Smith}{Chairman, Department Committee on Graduate Students} %\maketitle %\newpage~\thispagestyle{empty}~\newpage%\addtocounter{page}{-2} %%%Abstract %\newpage % Uncomment the next line if you do NOT want a page number on your % abstract and acknowledgments pages. \pagestyle{empty} \setcounter{savepage}{\thepage} \begin{abstractpage} \input{abstract} \end{abstractpage} \pagestyle{plain} % \pagenumbering{roman} \setcounter{tocdepth}{1} \tableofcontents \newpage % \listoffigures % \newpage \pagestyle{fancy} % \pagenumbering{arabic} \input ./fh-intro.tex \newpage \input ./fh-anonymity.tex \newpage \input ./fh-related.tex \newpage \input ./fh-app-ethics.tex \newpage \input ./fh-design.tex \newpage \input ./fh-impl.tex \newpage \input ./fh-attacks.tex \newpage \input ./fh-future.tex \newpage \input ./fh-conclusion.tex \newpage \appendix \input ./fh-acks.tex % \input ./fh-notation.tex \input ./fh-related-comm-appendix.tex % \input ./fh-ida.tex \newpage \bibliographystyle{plain} \bibliography{freehaven.bib} \end{document} \section{Issues in Free Software from Anarchist Perspective} \footnote{This is chapter 4 from our paper entitled ``The Free Software Movement as an Example of a Limited Anarchy'', written by Roger Dingledine, Matthew Malchano, and James Waldrop as a term paper for William B. Watson's class on Anarchism. {\tt http://web.mit.edu/arma/Public/anar.ps}} \subsection{Intellectual Property} In our capitalist society, there is a value on nearly everything. Everything is viewed as property, and very few things are truly ``community'' property or globally owned. The vast majority of things of value are owned by individuals or corporate entities. Intellectual products, original ideas, and other created information is no exception to this: intellectual property is quite hotly defended and contested in our society. We have a Patent Office to issue permits to use new ideas, and to catalog who came up with a given idea first. This idea of owning all and cataloging who owns what is very central to our current society; therefore, with the advent of computers and computer software, we applied the same ownership paradigm to individual copies of software. Our society currently attempts to enforce a centralized system to watch over information, specifically computer software, and apply non-zero {\em property} values to each copy of each piece of computer software in existance, thus making every program an item of {\em intellectual property} belonging to its author (individual or corporation). However, information in general, and computer software specifically, seems to be unique (or nearly so) in the domain of items classified as property in that information can be copied without loss of quality. For example, if a carpenter creates a piece of woodwork or a structure, this structure possesses a certain integral value. There is no mechanism currently for replicating the existance of this structure other than having another structure built. However, with information, to replicate the existance of a piece of computer software, all one is required to do is to issue a simple command and another distinct copy of the information springs into existance. There is no loss in the copy; it is trivial to check for errors in the transfer such that lossless replication is assured. Therefore, it seems absurd to assign an integral value to a piece of software the same way we do a house or a car, given that the software can multiply at any point and with it, its value. This sort of system can never work; due to the fact that information can be copied without loss of quality, any sort of value system applied on a copy-by-copy basis becomes purely artificial. Since it must be enforced by an oversight agency of some sort, it will almost certainly fail as it attempts to grow. Any oversight committee of this sort will become overloaded by the sheer task of applying value to every copy of every program in existance. \subsection{Information as a Service} The current system for dealing with the commodity of information lumps information in the same group as property. This is not a reasonable pairing, as information has the property that it is possible to copy it without quality loss, thus making any value placed upon it as property meaningless and artificial. As artificial values must be enforced by a higher authority and said higher authority must be relatively central and overarching in nature, this method of information commodity is ultimately doomed to failure. A better means of valuing information is to treat information as a {\em service} rather than as {\em property}. Information as a service is a much more decentralized system and avoids any aspect of artificial valuation if implemented properly. The revelation that information is an essentially valueless object means that we must look at information in a completely different way. Instead of treating information as an {\em object} to be catalogued as property and tracked as such, we can treat it as a {\em service} performed by skilled artisans. The information itself is of no value; it is the genesis of the information, or perhaps the skilled use of information, that carries value. If we treat information as a service in this manner, the programmer or organization that created the information can gain income not by selling pieces of software to a consumer, but by aiding the consumer in using these pieces of software. As an analogy, under this system the computer programmer becomes less of an artisan like the carpenter above, and becomes more of a skilled service provider, like a dentist that you call upon to clean your teeth when it becomes necessary. For this ``information is a service'' paradigm to work, the initial programmer, be that an individual or some larger entity, must have some sort of worthy service to provide in return for income, just as any other type of skilled service provider must be able to do something worthwhile in order to make a living. This could be done by making the information initially provided so complex as to ensure that only the initial programmer knows exactly how to make it do useful things; however, this begins to require the initial programmer to perform oversight on all copies of the program they have written to ensure that the 'secret' of how to operate their program doesn't become public. As this is an attempt at a centralized oversight of discrete bits of information (which can be copied), it is almost certainly as doomed to failure as the objectifying of information described above. Instead of attempting to control the program itself, the writers of a program can make a living not by selling the program proper, but by documenting the use of a program well and being able to service the program better than anyone else simply by familiarity with the information. In this system, the previous 'property', the program, is absolutely free. However, the programmers can sell a package with documentation on how to use the software and an agreement to help the consumer service the software, and give the software itself away for free. You no longer buy software; you buy what the programmers will do to help you if you buy their service and documentation package. A few of the possible directions in which the software industry can travel in this regard are covered below in Subsection \ref{fnord1}. One of the best parts of this view is that it becomes decentralized. No central oversight committee or organization is required to make sure copying of software (or {\em software piracy}) doesn't occur; copying of software is perfectly acceptable. However, if you wish that software serviced, you need to request aid from a computer professional; either the original writers of the software or someone that has studied how the software you are using works and has learned enough about it to service it. Sometimes, you will be able to service your own software, and documentation, provided by the producers of the software or perhaps even someone else, can aid you in this task. Information becomes a service, not a bunch of discrete bits of property. \subsection{Direction and Philosophy} \label{fnord1} The computer industry has pioneered several tactics for treating information as a non-replicable commodity, either as a service or as a product. The goal of these tactics is generally to sell a combination of information, property, and service that is not easily replicable for less value than it is sold for. Listed below are a few such tactics, along with advantages and disadvantages of each approach. \begin{itemize} \item One method of making information back into property is closed development and copy protection. The internals of the programmer's application are secret, both by closed-source development and by cryptographic controls within the program or some other security measure. This prevents easy copying of the software, producing something with most of the characteristics of ``normal'' property. The drawback to this system is that usually, the codes are breakable and the software is copyable anyway. In addition, most of these systems are not too complex, or the developers would not have resorted to closed development. This means that when someone eventually 'breaks the code', they can offer service as well. This method is the most capitalist-oriented approach to offering a software 'package'; as it tends to fail most horribly, it is a good example case for a more distributed and anarchic approach to software packaging and sales. \item Another way to protect your information is to profit from the service of the software. In this tactic, the software product is so complex that only the programmer who initially wrote it and people he trains (or maybe a few others) can offer effective service. Other people can try, but just aren't quite as good as the real thing, because it is unprofitable to attempt to reverse-engineer the software. \item The writers of a program can make a living not by selling the program proper, but by producing documentation of high caliber and selling the documentation. In this approach, the writers are selling documentation with free software, not licensed software with free documentation. If you extend this a bit, you get a system where you buy a service and documentation pack for a certain fee and get the actual program, the previous "intellectual property", for free. \end{itemize} \end{document} http://www.shmoo.com/~pablos/articles/12181999TimMayZKS.shtml http://www.newstimes.com/archive96/may1096/nab.htm ms poison java http://newsweek.com/nw-srv/printed/int/sr/a33705-1999oct8.htm#TOP :great firewall of china http://www.infoshop.org/quotes.html "The whole history of progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning, they want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted. . ." -- Frederick Douglass (1857) "It is not enough for a handful of experts to attempt the solution of a problem, to solve it and then to apply it. The restriction of knowledge to an elite group destroys the spirit of society and leads to its intellectual impoverishment." -- Albert Einstein http://www.infoshop.org/news5/a16_call.html "one man, one vote will result in the eventual failure of democracy as we know it." -- US Corporate Executive [L. Silk and D. Vogel, Ethics and Profits: The Crisis of Confidence in American Business, pp. 189f] People aren't going to be throwing virtual flowers to each other, they're going to be mixing full-color animations of aborted fetuses crying `mommy... mommy' into their abortion flamewars. They're going to burn each other in virtual effigy. Christians will dangle fantastically well-rendered 3-D pork chops in front of Moslems, Moslems will dangle 3-D T-bones in front of Hindus. And those are just the interpersonal problems... just wait until governments get involved. http://www.eff.org/pub/Privacy/Anonymity/net_anonymity.faq http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~daw/classes/cs268/taz-www/rewebber.html http://www-eecs.mit.edu/ug/thesis-guide.html