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The publication of written words has long been a tool for spreading
new (and sometimes controversial) ideas, often with the goal of
bringing about social change. Thus the printing press, and more
recently, the World Wide Web, are powerful revolutionary tools. But
those who seek to suppress revolutions possess powerful tools of
their own. These tools give them the ability to stop publication,
destroy published materials, or prevent the distribution of
publications. And even if they cannot successfully censor the
publication, they may intimidate and physically or financially harm
the author or publisher in order to send a message to other
would-be-revolutionaries that they would be well advised to consider
an alternative occupation. Even without a threat of personal harm,
authors may wish to publish their works anonymously or pseudonymously
because they believe they will be more readily accepted if not
associated with a person of their gender, race, ethnic background, or
other characteristics.
Quotations about the Internet's ability to resist censorship and
promote anonymity have become nearly cliche. John Gillmore's quote
``The Net treats censorship as damage and routes around it'' has been
interpreted as a statement that the Internet cannot be censored. And
Peter Steiner's famous New Yorker cartoon captioned ``On the
Internet, nobody knows you're a dog'' has been used to hype the
Internet as a haven of anonymity. But increasingly people have come to
learn that unless they take extraordinary precautions, their online
writings can be censored and the true identity behind their online
psuedonyms can be revealed.
Examples of the Internet's limited ability to resist censorship can be
found in the Church of Scientology's attempts to stop the online
publication of documents critical of the Church. Since 1994 the
Church has combed the Internet for documents that contain what they
describe as Church secrets. Individual authors, Internet service
providers, and major newspapers such as The Washington Post, have had
to defend their publication of excerpts from Church documents (some of
them fewer than 50 words) in court. The Church has used copyright and
trademark law, intimidation, and illegal searches and seizures in an
attempt to suppress the publication of Church
documents [13]. In 1995 the Church convinced the Finnish
police to force Julf Helsingius, the operator of anonymous remailer
anon.penet.fi, to
reveal the true name of a user who had made anonymous postings about
the Church. When the Church tried to obtain the names of two more
users the following year, Helsingius decided to shut the remailer
down [16].
The U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act, established to help copyright
owners better protect their intellectual property in an online
environment, is also proving to be yet another useful tool for
censors. The Act requires online service providers to take down
content upon notification from a copyright owner that the content
infringes their copyright. While there is a process in place for the
content owner to refute the infringement claim, the DMCA requires the
online service provider to take down the content immediately and only
restore it later if the infringement claim is not proven to be valid.
We developed Publius in an attempt to provide a Web publishing system
that would be highly resistant to censorship and provide publishers
with a high degree of anonymity. Publius was the pen name used by the
authors of the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and
James Madison. This collection of 85 articles, published
pseudonymously in New York State newspapers from October 1787 through
May 1788, was influential in convincing New York voters to ratify the
proposed United States constitution [17].
Next: Design Goals
Up: Publius: A robust, tamper-evident,
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Avi Rubin
2000-06-13