CFP2000 WFPD: Lenny Foner's raw notes

Morning Session

   Rebecca Wright
   Alma Whitten

Replacing the Domain Name System

o Distributed Searching:  overlay on DNS?
  Availability and Anon Speech:  via Freenet?
o Route around DNS
o Is it too late b/c of multinationals?
o System must be a superset of DNS
o Hierarchy?  Dist DB?  Goals vs means?
o How to init a comp w/your context? [Biz cards?]
o Deployment & wide distribution?
o Bookmarks/aliases for IP addrs?  Share alists?
o Caches vs crowds
o Chokepoints vs govt coordination
o Expectations
    usually right vs always right
    common nameproblems
    privacy
    how do you know when -wrong- site?
    diameter dichotomy (needs experimental data!)
o Attacks
o Lots of glTLD's?
o Land grabs vs price to grab them all?
o Can we make a simple prototype to start with?
o Do we need different disamb. proto's for diff. types?
o Tension between the big guys and the little guys
o Focus on better system, -not- current DNS politics!
o Browser infrastructure lock-in vs naming
o -Hundreds- of glTLD's? Can we do it?
o -Findable- names vs -good- names
o Ontological solutions?
o Are multinationals the most important entity?
o Do web YP's solve the small -co- problem now?
o What is the killer app?
o DNS -was- meant to be used by individuals originally
o Throw away DNS and -not- replace it? :)
o Search -up- and -around- in DNS, not just -down-
o DNS queries don't nec. req. -static- server lookup
o Even thousands of glTLD's don't solve TM issue
o Can we separate tech and intprop issues?
o Naming vs finding (also well-known biz vs individuals)
o Solve the -naming- problem, -not- the -finding- problem!
o How to concretize discussion?
o Multiplicity of naming & finding systems
o DNS is already being used as a -dynamic- database
o The killer app might be for the ISP's, not the users
o DNS as a hinting system?
o How do you prevent the biggies from smashing soln?
o Unique domains for each person or not?
o New namespaces, e.g., Napster
o In some parts of world, many people per machine
o Do we have data about how users use the DNS?
  (and how do we get some?)
o SN as a finding engine only?
o How do we -change- things once we know what to do?
o How do we prevent capture by the biggies?
o Name freehold w/o interference to use in the appropriate
  context
o Should/could we punt some of this back into the courts?
o Separate tm and non-tm spaces?
o How do we continue after the WS?
o What are the new services that might start?
o Ambiguity is a good thing! (also enables anon speech)
o Don't combine too many things or we'll get brown
o Don't conflate net and web!
o Progress comes from small isolated coding groups...
o How do we give incentives to unsophisticated users?
o Can we use our influence w/our respective companies?
o Geography may be a red herring
  ...but maybe it's useful after all...
o Language issues!  The UI is a problem...

Afternoon Session

   David Phillips
   John Gilmore

Business Methodology

Anti-nuke activism:
o Narrow focus
o Social movement
How do we create a cognitively-prepared
 and socially-resourceful populace?
Possible privacy threats: intimacy, autonomy, discrimination
Demographic maintenance of schisms
Coalition poss: WTO, World Bank, etc; biotech

Free Software:
Giving SW away doesn't break your business!
You can't screw up any of 1000 different things
Go make some news
FS reduces transaction costs of cooperation
$1M compiler contracts didn't work...
Cross-compilation and embedded systems worked
Cross/embed 50x PC market
Must minimize the barrier to entry for improvements
Egalitarian control over the direction of the product
Cygnus may be the only -profitable- FSW co
FreeS/WAN

Discussion:

o What resonates w/the public?
o Groups of people fall into a legal hole
o Libertarian social autonomy vs coalition-building?
o Chernobyl may not be appropriate analogy
o Privacy implications when tech works -as designed-
o Chernobyl opportunities?
o Secure fn eval, blinding as tech solns
o A privacy disaster causes -loss of trust in priv advocates!-
o Homework: legal, interest groups, reg groups
o Expectations: confidentiality, lack of surveillance
o Privacy problems are highly situational (specific measures)
o Biz comm helpful in defeating key escrow
o It's not just biz that gains from data mining!
  People get a lot, too, 'cause biz pays them off
o What are the biz models in which there is an inherent
  incentive to build in and profit from trust?
o What might a Chernobyl get us?
o 30+ privacy bills in Calif, but often not well thought out
o How do we get biz to think about privacy at design stage?
o Tort law?
o Theories of economics: liability, labor, price
o Feature creep -> privacy disaster... (ontological assumps)
o There are other legis models than EU: think NZ!
o Biz motivators: fear, greed
o Privacy is not just an Internet problem
o Privacy problem 'cause you can't move money on the net
o A fair question can motivate biz (PIII SN)

Afternoon Session

   Deirdre Mulligan

Cash

discussion:

_Toxic Sludge is Good For You_

o SpendCash: but clearing is a problem
o Netherlands: barcoded cash
o Prepaid cellular cards outside US can help leverage
  the distribution of plain prepaid cash cards---but
  must move fast before credit cards eat this!
o Critical mass (where's the knee in the curve?)
  Payment systems should interoperate
  PayPal:  > 250K active users (eBay drove this)
o Prepaid cards are too heavily regulated to escape from
  severe govt interference
o CC history: _The Credit Card Catastrophe_ (Matty Simmons)
o Demand side: anonymity (your favorite sins)
o Economics
o We routinely engage in anon transactions (buying a paper)
o "Cash through the mail" analogies
o CC vs DC liability differences
o Prepaid card float is good for card vendor
o Anonymity? Liability? 
o Who underwrites? What are their motivations?
  (French Telecarte system and lack of anonymity)
o The headache of CC fraud for -merchants-
  ...but merchant misuse is the dominant fraud!
o RocketCash (mostly for teenagers)---take cash from all over
o Will float tighten up?
o Disincentives: float, incentive programs, [3% charges...]
o ICanBuy.com
o Porn vs -lack- of anon -> proof of adulthood
o Calling pattern-matching vs supposed anonymity
o Can we use CC infrastructure as a scaffold for cash?
  Anon CC's at -any- price? Bootstrapping via market?
o -Any- system can bootstrap the whole thing!
o Are we talking about cash on the net, or just replacing
  or augmenting CC's w/an anon system irrespective of net?
o Merchants are hypersensitive about CC chargebacks, rates...
o Many CC's want to do the right thing:  Visa doesn't
  data mine, but their member banks -do-
o Dealing w/govt interference makes CC's eager to -not-
  know where the money's going!
o It's the clearing system that we have to pay attention to
o Individually noncontestable payments (for when you want
  the anonymity)---an incremental approach!
o Smartcard interoperability still a big problem
o Prepaid cards might expand the informal economy
o pcix.org (fora for tech discussions, consumers, govt, ...)
  going up this week (permission tracker, owned by
  followup.net)
o cash is a fundamentally social construction
o Privacy International, EPIC, EFF, CDT, CPSR, ...
o Pierce (clearinghouse) in Dublin
o We have no marketing/demographics/advertising people here!
o _Blown to Bits_, p.167:
  "Privacy is the Achilles heel of ecommerce."
o Simultaneous needs for autonomy and community
o We don't need another Chernobyl---we need another Silent
  Spring