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List:       dmca-discuss
Subject:    [DMCA_Discuss] Reed: Free Speech Dies at UC Berkeley
From:       Seth Johnson <seth.johnson () realmeasures ! dyndns ! org>
Date:       2005-05-04 15:29:47
Message-ID: 4278EA6B.CD4FA6E8 () RealMeasures ! dyndns ! org
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> http://www.satn.org/archive/2005_05_01_archive.html#111521463872601897


Wednesday, May 04, 2005

DPR at 9:12 AM:


Free Speech dies, with nary a protest, at UC Berkeley


UC Berkeley, home of the Free Speech Movement
(http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/FSM/chron.html), has just removed
itself from the Internet.*


The FSM responded strongly to the campus's attempt to claim that
its "ownership" of the campus facilities allowed it to decide who
could communicate what ideas to whom.

In other words, before communicating about an idea, one had to
ask the administrators' permission. Though it was typically
granted, the triggering events that led to riots and civil
disobedience were attempts by students to speak, to organize with
like-minded people various kinds of ideologies that the campus
administration found to be uncomfortable (like civil rights).

It may seem like a stretch, but Berkeley now requires computers
to register all "contact ports" on every computer on the campus,
implicitly requiring pre-authorization before you can provide
information to those who request it.

If you run a "service" on your personal computer that uses such a
port, you have no recourse but to tell the IT administration
computers about it, and get them to "open up the firewall" in
order for you to speak.

This has been done in the name of "security", and indeed, it may
reduce the level of spam and bots on campus (though email seems
to be the viral replication process of choice, and unless the
administration reads your email, mucking with its content if they
don't like it, that seems to be the far bigger risk).

In fact, the problem is that the kind of "security" being offered
provides no security at all to the end user, but does reduce the
workload of the IT department. Further, it creates the
opportunity for administrative attempts to control content and
speech. It creates the precedent that attempts to bypass the
firewall by building an overlay network or using encryption with
your friends will be seen as an attack on "security", which it is
not, since it is clearly done by consent.

Finally, it disrupts research, which is the main output of UCB.
Research runs on open communications. It's not just an issue of
political viewpoint, but while the rest of the world is becoming
more open, UCB is shutting itself off, admittedly only in a small
way today, but the UC administration is hardly likely to stop
there in deciding what communications are worthy and what
communications are not.

There is no Mario Savio today. UCB's view of itself as just
another corporation that claims ownership of all information flow
on its premises is becoming precedent by default and passivity.
You won't find anyone at UCB putting their jobs or degrees on the
line. It's not time for the rest of us to save Berkeley from
itself (I'm not suggesting "mass hack attacks" would help - they
would hurt). It's time for UCB netizens to listen to an address
to another college, at another time, about expediency vs. freedom
(http://www.reed.com/Papers/Chapman.html). And ask themselves
whether freedom is just an abstraction - whether the IT
department should decide what research should be done and what
ideas should be disseminated.

And for that matter, ask themselves whether by delegating the
very definition of "security" to the IT department, and
continuing to use wide-open operating systems without sensible
authentication, they haven't given the IT department the right to
decide how they work.

Would you give the IT department the right to tell you whether
you could receive cellphone calls in the halls of the Berkeley
campus, or whether you must register a special password every
time you give out your phone number on a business card, so that
your phone number cannot be used for spam?

By delegating to IT the definition of security, that's exactly
what you will get.


*UC Berkeley now requires advance permission to receive TCP
connections at any port on any computer. This policy is typical
of "locked down" corporations, but now applies to all parts of UC
Berkeley, including CS.
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