Hillary Clinton and the Cybersitter genre

[Paul Hower]

At 01:35 PM 3/7/97 -0800, Nick Arnett wrote:

>>Suppose the client device (browser, terminal, appliance, etc.) had a sign-in
>>mechanism to identify who is using it. Suppose that ID was associated with a
>>bonafide legal, demographic and psychographic profile of that user. Suppose
>>that user had a simple interface to regulate which parts of that profile
>>would be revealled to a messaged or visited party on the net. Suppose those
>>parties had a similar feature, allowing messages and visits from anyone who
>>revealled the minimum disclosure specifications for access. Now suppose
>>parents set the limits of disclosure for their children.
>>
>>What's wrong with this picture?
>
>What's wrong?  It's a straw man, that's what's wrong.
>
>Nick

All imaginative, early suppositions are straw men. This one supposes that
the act of self-disclosure will become more discretionary and accurate as
the net matures. It also supposes that disclosure will embrace a more
interactive, transactional realm involving trade-offs by both "sellers" and
"buyers" of "IDs".

Malls, stores, P.O.s, 7-11s, libraries will all have to get decoupled from
privacy, security and censorship liability before net access for the rest of
us starts to approximate the ubiquitous ease of telephones.

You have, maybe, a man with more flesh and blood in him?




Paul Hower

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