ARTS & FARCES internet

It’s a fight worthy of any playground audience and the battle has been raging for almost twenty years.

Companies that amass and sell personal information do so without compunction and insist, with a straight face, that they have every right to do so. Like rabid weasels, they ferociously guard what they consider to be their turf. Weasel teeth bare in fully-foamed mouths, growls rise in weasel throats, and scruffy weasel hair raises in response to so much as a hint of government regulation.

These weasels remind me—figuratively and literally—of a poodle my grandma had late in her life that would fiercely react to any attempt to remove him from behind the toilet when he misbehaved. Grandma would use a broom and that poodle would make quick work of it, redefining in my mind the whole concept of “hellhound.”

On the other side are the weaseled. You and me. Most of us (according to Georgia Tech’s annual surveys) want “complete control” over our personal data.

Every time we manage to corner the weasel behind the toilet, we draw back a gnawed nub of a broom handle.

Think anonymity is an issue of little interest to you because you have nothing to hide? Think again. Almost anyone, given a little thought, can imagine a scenario where absolute anonymity would be necessary to avoid harm.

Think about ethnic Albanians being rooted out of Kosovo. Anonymity helps victims of ethnic cleansing and associated atrocities document their plight with some measure of safety.

Think about an abusive working environment or relationship and being able to register a complaint, anonymously, with the appropriate agency.

Even the Justice Department, no friend of secure communications of any kind, recognizes the inherent value of anonymity: “Anonymity has incontestable value in a huge number of situations, and it is constitutionally protected,” Philip Reitinger, a Justice Department prosecutor, told attendees of the mid-April 1999 Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference in Washington, DC. Maybe it was a mistake because Reitinger told the next session that “if you’re serious about prosecuting crime on the global communications infrastructure, you have to have traceability.”

The eve of Book Expo America is an appropriate time to survey the state of independent publishing. It sucks. The end. (But consider reading on; it’s getting even worse.)

“Returns” is one of the biggest problems facing independent publishers. It’s a system for generating more waste than value. For the uninitiated, books are traditionally sold on consignment to what’s called the “channel.” The channel is the chain by which publishers sell to distributors who sell to wholesalers who sell to bookstores who sell to you. At every link in the chain except the last, the books are usually fully returnable.

ARTS & FARCES sells its titles to the channel on a non-returnable basis. Books we sell to you are fully returnable, for any reason, for thirty days. We don’t actively court the channel; we’d rather talk to and trade with you directly. I’ve written previously about our alternative publishing model (“Way New Publishing” Part 1 and Part 2).

Returns, we are told, are a cost of doing business and are the sole responsibility of publishers. This is hammered into our pointed heads until they are flattened. Our trade associations tell us this, as do many of our fellow publishers. Books wouldn’t sell, we’re told, if they can’t be returned.

“The clue train stopped there four times a day for ten years and they never took delivery.”

Get a great big pile of sand and put it on your kitchen table. Notice that when you add more sand the pile begins to collapse around the edges. All it takes is a single grain of sand to start an avalanche. Such is the state of business today: a pile of sand and one more grain is going to make it topple.

Cluetrain is that one grain of sand, and the business avalanche is coming so strong that it will make any Y2K problems seem like a day at the beach.

Screw a bunch of sand. Cluetrain is leading the way for the New Reformation, complete with Ninety-Five Theses. Martin Luther began the Reformation by nailing his Ninety-Five Theses to the church door. Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses opposed the practice of payment to the Church—called indulgences—to absolve one’s sins. The corporation has become the new church and the practice of indulgences is alive and well. Cluetrain has nailed its Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the new church.

America just can’t seem to get its collective mind around the legal use of strong cryptography. Senator Conrad Burns (R-Montana) is expected to again introduce legislation that would allow U.S. businesses to sell products outside the U.S. borders that contain stronger encryption than is currently allowed.

Burns, chair of the Senate Commerce Telecommunications Subcommittee has already introduced his Promotion of Commerce Online in the Digital Era Act (Pro-Code) twice. Law enforcement and national security agencies within the government have consistently rebuffed the proposed legislation. The agencies charge that strong cryptography will give criminals the upper hand against enforcement and surveillance when they use it to secure communications.

Law enforcement agencies insist that manufacturers must provide access to encrypted material through a key-escrow—or key-recovery—system that will allow encrypted material to be decrypted on-demand during investigations. Privacy advocates counter that key-escrow systems will constrict both personal privacy and commerce. Pro-Code would specifically prohibit any sort of key-escrow or key-recovery system.