At 7:50 PM -0500 on 2/11/07, Wendy Seltzer wrote to a bunch of us, saying:
Neil Schwartzman wrote:
Like I said - show me a list of names of people who can't afford the commercial obfuscation systems, who have an identifiable need for a domain and a private whois record, and I will pay out of my own pocket to cover the services.
How about an orthogonal set: people who need more than obfuscation, but actual anonymity in their domain registrations?
I've worked with and talked to people whose names were revealed by "proxy" services such as Domains-by-Proxy based on an unverified complaint from an adverse claimant. These are people engaged in legitimate advocacy and criticism, who have legitimate interests in stable location pointers for their online speech, who fear reprisals if their identities are known.
Hi Wendy, Why do they not use a hosted offshore service and post-through-proxy if they want truly secure anonymity? Anyone with a true desire to post data that could land them in trouble doesn't want a domain in their own name - they want to be several arms lengths away from the public data. I'm also left wondering what these activists did prior to them having Internet access and why are those methods no longer effective? Owning a domain is akin to driving a car, owning a piece of land, or anything else that is public-facing; there is a measure of personal responsibility involved.
It's not that they can't pay, but that no one offers them the anonymity they want at any price.
So is it your position that there needs to be completely anonymous domain registration? Clearly, there will be no end to this discussion, we both remain entrenched in our positions, but please keep in mind, I too am fighting on behalf of activists: tens of thousands of CAUCE members who want spam viruses and spyware to stop violating their personal privacy on a constant, daily basis. -- == Neil Schwartzman Chair, Board of Directors CAUCE Canada: The Canadian Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email Canada: +1 (514) 485-9713 US: +1 (303) 800 6345 UK: 020 8144 6345 Skype: spamfighter666 Fax: +1 (419) 793-0430 [AIM / MSN / Yahoo!]: CAUCECanada [Web]: http://cauce.ca See http://stopspamhere.ca for ways to prevent spam from hitting your inbox.