Hi Paul,
At 10:33 AM 19-12-2023, Paul Wouters wrote:
And on top of that, the PGP lawsuit in the US in
the 90's already showed that opensource code is
the equivalent of free speech, so making
opensource illegal constitutes making freedom of speech illegal.
I am unfortunately not in the United States or
else I might have made the above argument.
Additionally, since people in other countries
can legally write such modified opensource
software, you would additionally need to ban all
software (opensource or not) that doesn't have
the backdoor/government reporting/filtering
code. How would endusers even know this ? Eg
they download chrome or Firefox and now they are a criminal ?
There is some crypto at my location which most
likely has a defect. I may write about it in future if I am free to do so.
If I understood what you wrote correctly, the
point is that the software could be retrieved
from other jurisdictions as it is easily
available. Is there anyone from the IETF who
would volunteer to testify in a criminal case about that?
In response to your question about end-users, I'd
say that someone would have to explain what could be going on.
Saying you approve of banning opensource is at
best an unwise recommendation. And if one
believes the IAB shouldn't make statements
touching politics, I guess this counter
statement fulfills all the same checkboxes for
being inappropriate coming from our community ? It's a ?.. paradox ?
Many years ago, a person visited a location which
is south of the Equator. The person introduced
himself/herself as a member of an IETF working
group and argued that the IETF was a
threat. Would such a statement be considered as
inappropriate? For what it is worth, I politely
provided some input on the matter as I was in the room.
Last year, someone asked me a question about some
censorship. I replied that it was quite regrettable.
As a comment about recommendations, there is a
directive to do some Internet filtering at my
location. Could an Area Director write to a government on that matter? :-)
Regards,
S. Moonesamy
