RE: [Ampu-dev] New site sections

[Stover, Michael]

My thought was that only the Taskforce activities would need to be private.

The confusion I think is that these secrect Taskforces are essentially the
private Forums you're talking about.  In the public forum,
an initiative is proposed (ie we need to make a bid for contract X).  In the
forum itself, it is decided that the bid needs to be secret, so a
"Taskforce" is assigned, which turns out to be select members of the Forum
(selected democratically and openly, of course).  This taskforce is
essentially a closed jury at this point that deliberates.  They have to
communicate back to the forum (ie "we've written up a bid and submitted to
the customer"), but some things are kept secret, as needed.

Maybe this taskforce creates a private forum on the spot to make further
decisions - but it's not a permanent forum.  It's only for this particular
decision.  So, there aren't private forums "sitting out there" unaccounted
for, and becoming a member of a secret taskforce is a matter of open
discussion.

-Mike

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lee Braiden [mailto:address@hidden
> Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2002 11:01 AM
> To: AMPU Developers' List
> Subject: RE: [Ampu-dev] New site sections
> 
> 
> On Wed, 2002-03-06 at 14:15, Stover, Michael wrote:
> > Heh, I'm imagining putting the entire population of the US behind a
> > firewall.....
> > 
> > It might also occur that a jury might choose a taskforce 
> that has to make a
> > secret decision - everyone knows there is a decision, but 
> can't let everyone
> > know what the decision actually was.  I'm thinking in terms 
> of a business
> > that bids on a contract.  They don't want other companies 
> to know what their
> > bid is, but they need to decide themselves.  A jury, rather 
> than deciding
> > the bid directly, might assign a Taskforce to create a bid, 
> and then that
> > Taskforce would keep it's decision secret till it's not 
> important anymore.
> > 
> > Without a connection between the open system and the secret 
> system, you lose
> > accountability.  The secret system can go off and do who 
> knows what - this
> > is similar to the problem Congress has keeping the military 
> in check.  I
> > think they create committees (ie Taskforces) that are 
> briefed on secret
> > information that doesn't get shared with the rest of 
> Congress or the nation
> > as a whole.  Thus, secret decisions are accountable to 
> taskforces, which are
> > accountable to the whole.  
> > 
> > -Mike
> 
> Yes, you're right Mike.. and that's possible.  We could have some sort
> of members-only forum with encrypted content.  Same goes for Juries,
> etc.  In fact, we could build the Jury system on top of a closed-Forum
> system.  Can't say I like the idea much, but it's probably preferrable
> to an entirely closed server.  At least you know the forum exists, in
> that case.
> 
> I had expected some use of the resource import and export 
> system, already
> mentioned, to allow a gateway between public and private 
> systems.  However,
> upon thinking about it, that would still require some sort of token
> availability of the private Forums within the public Forum 
> structure, at
> least enough to know it's name, and which resources are made 
> public from
> it.
> 
> This then, necessitates some sort of private Forums within the public
> system.  I'll say again that it's not my favourite idea -- I can't see
> any alternative, however, now that you mention it.
> 
> Unless anyone can come up with a better solution, I guess we'd better
> include this, and leave it up to society itself to demand the proper
> accountability.
> 
> Given that, there are a few more issues... how do people get the right
> to join these private Forums?  Invite only, by Forum leaders 
> (built upon
> the Forum leaders discussed on IRC), I presume?  Any problems 
> with that,
> or more flexible options?  There is the Jury's random 
> selection process,
> I guess, anything else?  
> 
> I'd like (at least the option) to allow Citizens to join 
> Forums based on
> more than simple prior knowledge of that Citizen.  It seems incredibly
> small-minded, given the amount of people on the planet, that 
> only those
> known to you could join.  Maybe that is the nature of the beast,
> though?  Hell, should we even be trying to make such private 
> Forums work
> *extra* well?
> 
> -- 
> Lee Braiden,
> Artelos.com
> 
> mailto: address@hidden
> ICQ: 24346459
> Jabber: address@hidden
>