> Considering Tor: I'm perfectly OK recommending people check sports scores and read Wikipedia through Tor in the US or other Western countries; but I would feel irresponsible giving that advice to people in, say, North Korea or Iran.
Shouldn't it feel more uncomfortable than this casting the US into a comparison with North Korea and Iran? It seems like it should feel more uncomfortable than this.
But let's see if we can at least distinguish them a little so we can at least pretend. Using Tor is (presumably) illegal in itself in North Korea and Iran. Having your computer set up to delete data in the event of a home invasion isn't, to my knowledge, illegal in the US. You aren't guilty of destroying evidence of a crime if the thing you destroyed was not evidence of a crime.
The concern is presumably that it would look like destroying evidence of a crime, and that you might be prosecuted or falsely convicted for that even though it isn't what you did. But if you haven't committed any serious crime then the probability of a police raid against you is (hopefully) very low, which is the only apparent circumstance where it becomes an issue. Moreover, the more innocent people who have such a thing set up, the less prosecutors are able to argue that only the guilty would do it. Having innocent people do it is the only way to allow the argument that someone doing it is innocent.
> Civil disobedience is admirable, but it's easy to forget that civil disobedience is most effective when people are severely punished for standing on their morals, especially when the punishments are extra-judicial (unnecessarily rough arrests, paperwork snafus with real world consequences, difficulty getting medication ( http://herculesandtheumpire.com/2013/12/28/casual-cruetly/ ), etc.).
I don't think I can agree with that. Civil disobedience is most effective when people are unjustly and publicly harmed but not destroyed. MLK was in the Birmingham jail for eight days. Being beaten by the police while offering no resistance or being jailed for a matter of days is exactly what you want, because the next day the victim is standing behind a podium in front of a thousand people decrying the obvious injustice and demonstrating that their resolve holds.
Which is why the police don't do those things anymore. Today you don't get beaten, you get shot and killed. You don't go to jail for a few days only to be released into a community that rallies behind you, you get prosecuted for years until your entire family is bankrupt and then go to prison until your ties to your community are severed. Can you even name a US civil rights leader who is under 40 and has been incarcerated? An obvious example might have been Aaron Swartz. Or Manning, or Snowden. But those people can't exactly lead a march on Washington now, can they?
We need a different tack. And something that could conceivably work is for as many people as possible to interfere with the ability of malicious government officials to persecute citizens who do the right thing, by doing things that aren't strictly illegal, like operating Tor nodes and using encryption and so on. And yes, that means some risk that a prosecutor somewhere is going to step way over the line and make somebody's life hard who wasn't doing anything wrong. But that isn't the tone of your previous post. There is a big difference between "there is a chance this could go badly, are you in?" and "I wouldn't do that if I were you."
We're clearly not making any progress, so I'll boil down my objections and leave it at that. My biggest problem with the original article is simply that it doesn't mention that setting up a dead man's switch could expose somebody to a legitimate charge of destruction of evidence or contempt of court. That seems like an important detail.
I'll accept your argument that there may be valid reasons for innocent people to set up a dead man's switch, but even so it's irresponsible to tell people "look at this cool thing you can do" without mentioning that doing it could -- in some circumstances -- lead to jail time and legal bills.
Yes, if I set up a dead man's switch and am never investigated, it will never be triggered, and I will never face charges because of it. But then the police will never know that the thing existed, so they would have no reason to believe that lots of innocent people are using dead man's switches for legitimate purposes.
I would still insist on a disclaimer if the advice only increased the chance somebody would be charged with a crime, even if it were impossible to be convicted. I don't believe everything should carry a disclaimer, but I do believe that if I'm aware of a nonobvious risk, I should mention it.
Years ago, I was a teller for BB&T bank. When the economy started slowing down in early 2001, and our competitors announced layoffs, the CEO sent out a memo stating that BB&T didn't plan any layoffs and that the CEO thought the company had a bright future. As proof of that bright future, he mentioned that he was "fully vested" in the company, i.e., his only investments were cash and BB&T stock, and he swore that he would not sell his stock because a captain has a duty to go down with the ship. It's certainly legal to put all of your investments in one company, but it's generally considered a risky move, so the CEO also included a disclaimer that he wasn't suggesting we put all of our money in BB&T stock. But he wanted us to know that he either sincerely believed in the company, or was willing to risk a fortune pretending to.
> > Considering Tor: I'm perfectly OK recommending people check sports scores and read Wikipedia through Tor in the US or other Western countries; but I would feel irresponsible giving that advice to people in, say, North Korea or Iran.
> Shouldn't it feel more uncomfortable than this casting the US into a comparison with North Korea and Iran? It seems like it should feel more uncomfortable than this.
I'm feeling the smugness, but I'm not able to figure out the logic behind it. My complaint with the original article is that it gives advice without mentioning the consequences for following that advice. My list of things that should include disclaimers is based on my understanding of US law and the potential consequences of using Tor, secure HTTP connections, encrypted email, etc. It seems obvious to me that the list of things that should include disclaimers under various legal regimes will be influenced by the consequences of taking those actions in those regimes. Indeed, mentioning that the consequences of using Tor, encrypted email, etc. are different in the US than in North Korea (or Iran, or Saudi Arabia, or Cuba, depending on who's on the other end of the connection) seems to me to be a compliment to the US.
Shouldn't it feel more uncomfortable than this casting the US into a comparison with North Korea and Iran? It seems like it should feel more uncomfortable than this.
But let's see if we can at least distinguish them a little so we can at least pretend. Using Tor is (presumably) illegal in itself in North Korea and Iran. Having your computer set up to delete data in the event of a home invasion isn't, to my knowledge, illegal in the US. You aren't guilty of destroying evidence of a crime if the thing you destroyed was not evidence of a crime.
The concern is presumably that it would look like destroying evidence of a crime, and that you might be prosecuted or falsely convicted for that even though it isn't what you did. But if you haven't committed any serious crime then the probability of a police raid against you is (hopefully) very low, which is the only apparent circumstance where it becomes an issue. Moreover, the more innocent people who have such a thing set up, the less prosecutors are able to argue that only the guilty would do it. Having innocent people do it is the only way to allow the argument that someone doing it is innocent.
> Civil disobedience is admirable, but it's easy to forget that civil disobedience is most effective when people are severely punished for standing on their morals, especially when the punishments are extra-judicial (unnecessarily rough arrests, paperwork snafus with real world consequences, difficulty getting medication ( http://herculesandtheumpire.com/2013/12/28/casual-cruetly/ ), etc.).
I don't think I can agree with that. Civil disobedience is most effective when people are unjustly and publicly harmed but not destroyed. MLK was in the Birmingham jail for eight days. Being beaten by the police while offering no resistance or being jailed for a matter of days is exactly what you want, because the next day the victim is standing behind a podium in front of a thousand people decrying the obvious injustice and demonstrating that their resolve holds.
Which is why the police don't do those things anymore. Today you don't get beaten, you get shot and killed. You don't go to jail for a few days only to be released into a community that rallies behind you, you get prosecuted for years until your entire family is bankrupt and then go to prison until your ties to your community are severed. Can you even name a US civil rights leader who is under 40 and has been incarcerated? An obvious example might have been Aaron Swartz. Or Manning, or Snowden. But those people can't exactly lead a march on Washington now, can they?
We need a different tack. And something that could conceivably work is for as many people as possible to interfere with the ability of malicious government officials to persecute citizens who do the right thing, by doing things that aren't strictly illegal, like operating Tor nodes and using encryption and so on. And yes, that means some risk that a prosecutor somewhere is going to step way over the line and make somebody's life hard who wasn't doing anything wrong. But that isn't the tone of your previous post. There is a big difference between "there is a chance this could go badly, are you in?" and "I wouldn't do that if I were you."