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I wrote a comment to JP’s post to which Stephen weighed in and expanded. As the web progresses this will be an ongoing conversation. Security vs. freedom. The embrace of new technology has a particular characteristic. It has been tied to the ease of its use - even when the technology is not perfect. The choice of Windows operating system over Unix is a good example. Ten years ago, I began my career porting power plant control software from Unix platforms to Windows. Why? A simple reason. Windows based system was easy to learn and use for power plant operators. This decision was a tough decision that most of us did not like. Another example is what David Weinberger in Everything is Miscellaneous talks about how Tim Berners-Lee’s brilliant decision to keep things simple with HTML catapulted internet’s growth to where it is now in just a few years. When we are in this riding tide of progress and development, we don’t want to see a red stop sign. We don’t want lawyers and security experts or for that matter anybody to caution us or forbid us. We hate security. Then comes some jerk who invents a computer virus, a freak who breaks in to a sensitive system, or a sociopath who post nasty messages and causes harm. We are alarmed. We start locking our doors and windows by creating accounts and passwords and installing anti-viruses. We start encrypting our data packets and suddenly the network that was running so fast now slows down as it spends more time encrypting and decrypting, thus carrying less real information than it used to do before during that given time. Stephen mentions about how creation of Department of Homeland Security is retrograde from our movement from Dept. of War to Dept. of Defense. Take for instance the long queues in airport security after 9/11. Many business travelers like me still hate it but I have gotten used to it. If you ask a random grandma in the airport, who does not run against a tight schedule, she’d probably tell that she is happy because she feels safer. I cant deny that in some corner of my mind I feel the same way. I think as in real life, in internet too, we will always confront diverse opinions on how much security and how much openness will be allowed. In Web 2.0, world views about what sort of conversations are harmful and needed to be restricted for “security” reasons. There will always be people who will differ in their positions. Conversations surrounding issues like change in military policy will take place for a while and settle to an equilibrium point like the way a page in wikipedia stops from changes until the point when something happens and disturbs the equilibrium. It is too farfetched (and utopian) to think that our real world will replicate the possibilities of Web 2.0 world entirely, albeit all of its good intentions. Nor will the Web 2.0 world squeeze and morph into another reflection of the real world. Both will change and are changing as we keep swinging from one to the other. Eventually we will find the temporary mean position. Needless to say, I am looking forward to this exciting journey.