Gavin’s Digital Diner

This is a copy of a reply I posted on the NTEN-Discuss listserv. The original post was a call to action about Congress implemeting an "anti-spam" feature on constituant email. The plan called for implementing a system that would:

…“require human interaction (by answering a question or retyping displayed letters/numbers) before the email could be submitted to [Congress]” and thus make the “use of 3rd-party email vendors impossible.”

I think I’d like to take a whack at this issue, even though the discussion has died down a bit. First off, let me just state, up front, that I believe in democracy, really. And, in line with that, I believe that all people should have a voice and that voice should — indeed must — be heard. Deep down, democracy is the first exercise of the concept of the wisdom of crowds. I would like to believe that, eventually, wisdom will win. And, while lately we (as a crowd) don’t seem all that wise (at least not to me), I live with the constant hope that — over time — we slouch towards the common good. (Although, today, looking out across time and space, we seem to be slouching more towards bedlam, than Bethlehem.)

That said, it’s clear to me that we have several broken systems here. And, this particular change, to me, is a little like debating whether or not to use Little Mermaid or Mickey Mouse-themed Band-Aids on a patient with broken bones and severed limbs.

I’d like to look at the other broken systems — First, the people’s voice is kind of broken, second, email is kind of broken, and third, government itself seems broken too.

IMHO, the "people’s voice" is broken, especially the people’s ability to make their voice heard. Power is unequal, influence is unequal, and government is ruling by inciting fear, championing ignorance, and shrouding things in secrecy. Clearly, for example, those with more money seem to speak louder (and are heard more clearly). The Supreme Court, for example, has even gone so far as to equate money and speech (Buckley v. Valeo, 1976). (For more on this, see "Money and Politics" by Donnelly, Fine, and my friend, Ellen Miller.) While I agree, in principle, that I should be able to do anything with my money that I want to, it is also clear to me that, in the case of politics and democracy, to quote Bob Dylan, "Money doesn’t talk, it swears."

Things are out of whack.

Again, to me, things seem out of control and moving against the will of the people. But, back to the point, anything that might help this would be a good thing. If a logic test would INCREASE the efficacy of the people’s voice that’s a good thing. If it such a change would have the effect of actually increasing the voice of the people by removing the chaff from the wheat, so to speak, and letting that voice be heard, then it would be a very good thing.

However, as others have observed, I am not convinced it would have any effect on the real problem here. That problem is: all this email stuff — thrown at Congress — is just so many wasted electrons. And, this is where government is broken. (I am also going to say, up front, that I don’t know the answer here at all. But, I know that there is a problem.)

As someone else observed, Congress doesn’t read the stuff. I am not even sure they count it. With all this bot-generated stuff, I am sure they (Congress) know that it’s not indicative of anything but the power of someone’s server to trigger a knee-jerk (liberal or conservative) reaction from a pre-selected list of pre-polarized monkeys. Worse, I AM one of those monkeys!

Years ago, one of Bob Dole’s LA’s told me that they just weighed it. (This was in the days of letters and postcards). Two tons for, one ton against. I’m not teasing here. According to her, it was measured it in tons. Today, it’s just so many bytes into the bit bucket, and even easier to ignore. Perhaps they count it, but the analysis probably stops there; so much for hearing the people’s voice.

Now I am going to speak heresy: I think what we (the collective we) have done of the past few years has been to introduce VOLUME (and by volume I mean quantity) into the discussion, but we have not substantially given the people any more voice. Perhaps more people are involved and politicized — and that’s a good thing — but the unintended consequence has been that we have so devalued the available communications channels that they are worthless.

(Don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking about online organizing — clearly that seems to be working in many ways. But, when these tools are pointed blindly and without any personal investment from the sender, they miss their mark, and instead decrease the overall value of all communications. The voice of the people is lost in the din.)

We have built massive technological towers of babble whose whole purpose is to try to rise above the din by shoveling it out faster and faster. They have not succeeded, and in the final analysis, I think they have actually done the opposite. I would argue that we have exacerbated the problem, first, by filling up the channel and hence turning it into so much spam, and, second, by selling modern day indulgences in the form of email "action systems."

When I say indulgences, I mean we make it easy to assuage our outrage, and in the end, that outrage is impotent — just go to this web site and click this link to send a letter to your congressperson. Now you’re done, you’re sins are absolved. We have linked action to information, we have succeeded in educating someone about an issue, or bill, or latest attack on our privacy or civil liberties, but we’ve also succeeded in channeling that action nowhere, defusing that outrage by clicking a button with no real effect.

The problem is that the voice of the people has been muted and I am not sure if technology is changing that. All of this (including the proposed need for a logic test) points out that Email, in general, is broken too. Clearly it is. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not an advocate of the GoodMail/"pay for delivery email" scheme. I think that that system has perverse incentives that reward the wrong entities. However, I can state that there is a problem.

Fact is, all of us are "paying" in one way or another for the broken system. Simply put, we need a reasonable way to authenticate the origin of email. IF we could be reasonably sure that the originator was really the originator — perhaps just at the domain level — and if such authentication was priced accordingly (read: cheap), then spoofing email addresses becomes a thing of the past.

Naughty people could be quickly blacklisted, naughty domains could be blocked wholesale, and then when you complain to Abuse@ it might really have some effect…

I cast these electrons to the aether.

Gavin Clabaugh - June 2006

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