On Jun 28, 2006, at 5:51 AM, Harald Alvestrand wrote:
Shouting "pedophile" or "terrorist" tends to shut down reasoned debate in most public spaces, and reduce the respect for facts to a level that is far below any level I'm willing to enter into debate on.
I agree. But the fact that people are hysterical doesn't necessarily mean there isn't a problem at all, either. Statistically, parents should be more worried about their kids not getting vaccinated than about them being abused by a stranger. But when such horrors actually happen, statistical arguments are no comfort to the unlucky parents, and neither the media nor politicians can resist using their suffering to increase ratings or garner votes.
As engineers and scientists we have to be more rational about these topics than the general public, but we still have to take them seriously. If the Internet has caused even one additional case of child abuse, then all of us who have helped build the Internet bear some responsibility to confront the problem.
It would be good if we had a clear, non-technical statement showing how the IETF is working on technologies which, in the long run, can help with tracing and apprehending the bad guys while preserving privacy. We need to make it clear to the rest of the world that we as an institution are opposed to child abuse (and terrorism, for that matter) and are making a sincere effort to find effective and appropriate countermeasures. Otherwise, I predict that ineffective and inappropriate countermeasures will eventually be forced upon us.
None of the above should be construed as meaning that I think these problems are solvable. But if anyone is going to be worrying about these things and looking for solutions, it should be us, because anyone else is likely to do far worse. -- Nathaniel
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