Presence and IntComm WG

[Candace Holman <>]

We started this discussion to talk about the social controversy space in 
technology decisions that are being made for PIC/ALS, and collect some 
ideas for a paper.  I'm new to this list, but expected more argument.

Jeremy said:
"...the centralized architecture favors the government in that it has
a single point to tap with an appropriate court order.  The latter [edge 
architecture] presents a technical barrier to that law enforcement 
approach.  Each stakeholder has a clearly defined interest and each of the 
architectures
tilts the field."

Let me become his devil's advocate, but anyone can answer these 
questions.  What kind of privacy can you provide with an edge server that 
doesn't work on a central server of similar design?   Tell me more about 
the technical barrier to law enforcement.  What would prevent the 
government from asking the service provider to provide a point to tap on 
the edge server?  What are the details?  What if the hackers wanted to do 
the tapping, is each type of server secured by the same means?

If you don't want to address that issue, another social issue we can 
discuss has to do with anonymous subscription, protecting anonymity and 
preventing forged identity.  The teams are privacy pundits (civil liberties 
organizations, people who don't want to be stalked, criminals who don't 
want to be found, etc) vs data miners (marketing organizations, the 
customer who requires a follow-me communication service level from her 
consultant, homeland security agents, etc).  I think at this point in time 
we have both bases covered, but does anyone see technology decisions being 
made where one "team" is being favored over the other?

Candace