[Air-l] one good idea one dubious one, and one possibly better one

Barry Wellman wellman at chass.utoronto.ca
Sat Mar 10 13:19:42 PST 2007


1. Good idea: Use a one-time only code to protect student identity. Weaker
form: using existing student number, which surveillance forces would
require a subpoena to get.

2. Dubious idea: House it all at each university. Except around my
university are "editing services' which i believe bring in papers from
elsewhere (not all published) as "aids". I don't think the
within-university model would handle this.

3. Better idea: House the centralized service in a country that doesn't
honor US Homeland Security (or other countries') subpoenas. Perhaps the EU
with its data privacy regs, except judging by their complicity in US
"rendition", there may be a gap between what EU countries say and what
they do.
	Historical note: When a friend did abortion(ist) research in the 1960s,
and it was illegal in US, she stored her names/addresses in Canada. What
was old can become new again!

Barry Wellman
 _____________________________________________________________________

  Barry Wellman   S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology   NetLab Director
  Centre for Urban & Community Studies          University of Toronto
  455 Spadina Avenue    Toronto Canada M5S 2G8    fax:+1-416-978-7162
  wellman at chass.utoronto.ca  http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman
        for fun: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php
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