Re: from the horse's mouth

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Steve (and Ned),

Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
In message <4363C039.4090109@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Brian E Carpenter writes:

Steven M. Bellovin wrote:

In message <43632D40.7090502@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Brian E Carpenter writes:


Eduardo Mendez wrote:


What IETF discuss may hurt thir people, peace, culture.
But I am sure IETF Member do not realize this?
If they were told they would understand.

What people do with technology may have good or bad effects.
That is well understood by all technologists, I think.
But this is not the place to discus the social impact
of our technology.



I don't think I agree with that statement. In fact, I'm fairly sure I do not.

Steve, I'm not suggesting that technologists should duck responsibility.
But I really think there are better fora. In fact, that's one of the
reasons I've always supported the ISOC in its wider role.



As Ned pointed out, a lot of our technology -- especially, but not only, security technology -- can't be divorced from its societal asepcts. When I advocate strong cryptography, I'm certainly protecting passwords. But am I also protecting privacy, or am I hindering investigations into terrorist organizations? Is OPES a way to localize content or is it a way to enable censorship? Will charging for email -- or rather, the protocols for doing so -- help stop spam, or will it cut off the third world from the net?

Yes. It's clear that there are cases where the social implications of
a technology have direct relevance to the IETF's technical choices, and
it's clear that such cases are in IETF scope. Security is the most obvious
area (cf RFC 1984 and RFC 2804) but there are others. But what doesn't
help us get on with our work here is discursive decision of vaguely defined
societal or cultural implications. That's what I was getting at.


Amorality among scientists, engineers, and technologists has gotten the world into a lot of trouble. I prefer to think about the consequences of what I do.

I completely agree.

   Brian


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