BBS in a Box 2

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ BBS in a Box 2 / BBS in a box - Trilogy II.iso / Files / MUG News / EFF / effector1.05 < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1992-07-14 | 44.3 KB | 810 lines | [TEXT/EDIT]

########## | Volume I Number 5 | ########## | | ### | EFFECTOR ONLINE | ####### | | ####### | In this issue: | ### | NetNews: Prodigy's Stage.Dat | ########## | Crooks,Big Brother,Biden,and the F.B.I. | ########## | Privacy: The Real Vs. The Ideal | | Five (Common?) Misperceptions about the NREN | ########## | Macrotransformation: The 'Telecosm' | ########## | Crunch, Stoll, and Optick at the CFP | ### | A Daytrip to Prodigy Land | ####### | -==--==--==-<:>-==--==--==- | ####### | Editors: | ### | Gerard Van der Leun (boswell@eff.org) | ### | Mike Godwin (mnemonic@eff.org) | ### | Mitchell Kapor (mkapor@eff.org) | | | ########## | The general contents of Effector Online may be | ########## | freely reproduced throughout the Net. | ### | To reproduce signed material herein outside the | ####### | Net, please secure the express permission of | ####### | the author. | ### | | ### | Published Fortnightly by | ### | The Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org) | effector n, Computer Sci. A device for producing a desired change. -==--==--==-<>-==--==--==- FAST BREAKS: Net News from throughout known Cyberspace >>The Stage.Dat Flap: Prodigy took it on the chin yet again this month. A rumor began to circulate around the nets, (followed by numerous assertions of the "truth" of these rumors) that Prodigy, through a part of their program known as Stage.Dat, was actively spying on and collecting information from its users' hard disks. Exactly why Prodigy would want to do this went largely unasked. As did the question of what in the world Prodigy would do with the shards, bits,odd bytes,code clusters and fragments of information it collected. It was also unclear whether or not the Stage.Dat program sucked user data off the hard disk in the first place. None of this mattered to numerous online factions ready to believe anything evil about Prodigy in the wake of the company's recent orgy of user abuse. Ultimately, the Stage.Dat file was found to be harmless and the users' suspicions without foundation. When the Prodigy software creates Stage.Dat, it essentially "lays claim" to a chunk of the hard disk. Any remnants and scraps of previously deleted material inside the new boundries of Stage.Dat will naturally be contained in the file. Nothing malign can be laid at Prodigy's door. It merely continues to pay the price in user mistrust for its previous attempts to control its users by seeing them as revenue sources rather than human beings. Until Prodigy recognizes that basic rights extend even to the private and corporate realms of Cyberspace, it will continue to be plagued with incidents such as Stage.Dat. >>Tracking Steve Jackson Many people have asked what has happened since the EFF filed suit against the U.S. Secret Service and others two weeks ago. Other than a spate of stories in the public and trade press, not a lot has happened. The wheels of justice grind slow and fine. The EFF will be in this for the long haul, but lawsuits don't have dramatic new twists and turns on a weekly basis, no matter what we see on L.A. Law. In the meantime, watch this space. >>EFF Opposes Federal Restrictions on Encryption Use The Electronic Frontier Foundation opposes Senate Bill.266 and any other proposed federal statute that would limit the private use of encryption technology. If the language in SB 266 had the force of law, it would require commercial and noncommercial service providers and system operators to produce plain-text versions of public or private messages on their systems when presented with a proper warrant. This would, in effect, prohibit users of these systems from using public key encryption technology on these systems, since no service provider or system operator who allowed such encryption would be able to comply with the law. We at the EFF believe that, in an era of increasing technological encroachments upon everyone's privacy, public key encryption presents at least a partial defense for individuals and organizations that are concerned about privacy. We believe that making the use of such encryption technology illegal, or creating strong legal disincentives for its use, would deprive Americans of an important tool they can now use to help preserve their privacy. At the same time, we believe, it would do little to keep such technology, already well-documented and widely available, out of the hands of the terrorist and criminal entities with which the bill is concerned. We also believe this legislation flies in the face of the government's own policies, since the Department of Defense has long subsidized the development of commercial encryption technology. Currently, it is legal for any citizen to encrypt a letter and send it through the U.S. mail system. Because we believe that computer-network communication will assume an increasingly important role in the lives of all Americans, we oppose any statutory scheme that would grant less privacy to computer-based electronic communication than it grants to the mails. In a late breaking development, the ACLU and the EFF have been in contact with Senator Biden's staff. The staff has agreed to sit down with us and hear our concerns. Any people with information or concerns about S.266 are invited to send email to Mitchell Kapor (mkapor@eff.org). >>EFF Assists Challenge of Computer-Use Prohibition In Atlanta Case The Electronic Frontier Foundation has sought amicus curiae status to assist in challenging a condition of a computer-crime defendant's supervised release that prohibits the defendant from owning or personally using a coputer. Defendants Robert Riggs, Adam Grant, and Frank Darden, who pled guilty last summer to offenses relating the unauthorized copying of a memorandum concerning the E911 emergency telephone system, received, in addition to prison terms and restitutionary requirements, a prohibition on personal use and ownership of computers. Because the EFF believes this prohibition was overbroad, infringing upon the First Amendment rights of the defendants and extending far beyond the scope of federal sentencing law, the Foundation has chosen to assist defendant Robert Riggs in his challenge of the prohibition. It is EFF's position that the restriction on computer-use is not sufficiently narrowly tailored to achieve the government's purposes as set out in federal sentencing law. We believe that computer use is so fundamentally related to First Amendment rights of expression and association that restrictions on such use, even when imposed on convicted defendants, must meet high standards of Constitutional scrutiny. >>Two Distinguished Professionals Join EFF Board Mitchell Kapor recently announced the election of Esther Dyson and Jerry Berman to the Board of The Electronic Frontier Foundation. In making the announcement, Kapor said, "These are two terrific people and will bring an incredible amount of expertise and wisdom to the board. Esther knows the industry and the issues as well as anyone on the planet. And Jerry Berman's experience with the legal aspects of all the EFF issues -- stemming from his first-rate work with the ACLU -- is is outstanding." >>Anonymous FTP Available At EFF The EFF's anonymous FTP area is now set up. If you are on the Internet,you can use your computer's FTP program to connect to eff.org (192.88.144.3). Login as "anonymous" and use your e-mail address as the password. Example: eff% ftp eff.org Connected to eff.org. 220 eff FTP server (SunOS 4.1) ready. Name (eff.org:ckd): anonymous 331 Guest login ok, send ident as password. Password:ckd@eff.org (NOTE: this will not display) 230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply. From there you can use the normal ftp commands to look around, change directories, and the like. See your local system documentation or type 'help' at the ftp prompt. Files available include back issues of Effector Online, information about the EFF's activities and goals, and documents on the Steve Jackson Games lawsuit. For more information, contact ftphelp@eff.org. >>System Manager Joins EFF Staff Christopher Davis recently joined the EFF's staff as Network Administrator and System Manager. He is responsible for the day-to-day operations of eff.org (a Sun 4/110), several Macintoshes in the office, the local network, and printers. A 1990 Magna Cum Laude graduate from Boston University, he holds a Bachelor of Science in Management Information Systems. His electronic mail address is (ckd@eff.org). -==--==--==-<>-==--==--==- CROOKS, BIG BROTHER, BIDEN AND THE F.B.I. by Denise Caruso Dateline: May 5, 1991 How do you both keep Big Brother at bay and criminals out of circulation when computer technology has become a easy, powerful enhancement to traditional spying techniques such as wiretapping and encryption? Yet another ugly question looming on the electronic frontier. It looms large as debate rages about a proposal tucked into a Senate bill on terrorism, S. 266, which "suggests" that makers of computer security equipment consider building trap-doors into their systems. Though at first it was thought that the S. 266 provision was cooked up by the National Security Agency, most now believe it was engineered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Of late, the FBI quietly got a similar suggestion placed in another Senate crime bill, S.618, "the Violent Crime Control Act of 1991." The FBI wants to easily intercept and interpret encrypted phone calls, data transmissions and electronic files when they've has been given the authority to do so by the courts. Gorges are rising in the technology community as a result. What happens in a court of law, for example, when a vendor hasn't followed this "suggestion"? Another argument asks whether a suspected criminal, being forced to provide a "key" to decrypt a message, could be seen as "self-incriminating" something we're protected against in the Fifth Amendment. Also, does forcing me to compromise the security of my data infringe on my right to self defense? Since encryption is considered a munition, making it less reliable could be tantamount to, say, forcing me to use a varmint rifle instead of a sawed-off 12-gauge. You got it: "When encryption is outlawed, only outlaws will use encryption." These examples don't even begin to address the significant industry aspects of such a proposal. A group of heavy-hitting companies including Apple Computer, Novell, Lotus Development, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems and Digital Equipment are almost finished drafting a plan to implement encryption technology from RSA Data Security in Redwood City. Why do you think companies like these (they're competitors, in case you hadn't noticed) are toiling away together on implementing encryption in their products? They've lived the experience of not having it: Hacker invasions and compromised passwords. Viruses infecting diskettes that get shipped to customers. Sensitive competitive information siphoned off telephone lines and local-area networks. And there is a growing customer clamor for secure electronic data interchange or EDI, an electronically transmitted document that is as legally binding as a written and signed paper contract. Who would use an EDI security product with a built-in back door? Intruders don't need search warrants. Here's another interesting scenario. The Prodigy Information Service software, via an alleged "quirk" in the program, gives Prodigy access to the contents of a user's computer files. But Apple Computer (with permission, please note) can essentially "reach in" to your system and record what equipment you've got hooked up, what kind of software you use, etc., via its AppleLink online service. This is not particularly high-tech or even unusual. America Online, where I spend a lot of time, automatically updates its software onto my hard disk -- without my permission -- when another version is ready for use. It saves the enormous cost and hassle of sending diskettes to thousands of users. The phone link is a two-way connection: if AO wanted to read the contents of my hard disk, it could, as could Apple or any online service -- or well-equipped individual, for that matter -- who wanted to. Personal encryption software would make it impossible to do so. In a world where online communications makes it ridiculously easy to reach out and grab someone's private information, I find it counterproductive to introduce doubt and suspicion into the good news of a growing data protection industry. It's bad enough that bills such as S. 266 and S. 618 would probably kill the cryptography business in the United States and strengthen it offshore. But worse yet is that the privacy and protection of proprietary information will take a big hit. I want crime to stop. I want terrorism to stop. But do we want to secure the networks or not? I have never seen evidence that power in the hands of government authority didn't corrupt. I have never heard of a compromise-able network that didn't get compromised. With increasing reliance on computer-based networks, back doors for law enforcement (or whoever else figures out how to crack them) make me afraid. I don't think they're a good idea. Copyright 1991 by Denise Caruso. (dcaruso@well.sf.ca.us) Reproduced by permission of the author. -==--==--==-<>-==--==--==- Recent Microsoft ad: "Some people don't see the advantages of combining Microsoft applications. But then some people didn't see what would come of mixing nitro and glycerin" -==--==--==-<>-==--==--==- THE REAL AND IDEAL LIMITS OF PRIVACY: How Far Apart? by Jim Warren (jwarren@well.sf.ca.us) [Editor's note: At the Computer Freedom & Privacy Conference, Marc Rotenberg vigorously defended the following position: "No organization shall make secondary use of personal information without the individual's affirmative consent." After the event, Jim Warren, the organizer and Chair of the CFP Conference considered ramifications of such a policy, posted some thoughts on the WELL, and edited and condensed them at our request for publication, here.] Here are some specific examples of how "affirmative consent" might impact use of personal information: Although there were a multitude of co-sponsors of the March CFP Conference, CPSR was the sponsor and is the legal owner of the database detailing those who registered and/or paid fees to attend the event. OK: Should CPSR be prohibited from using that list for anything other than validating registrant's access to the Conference? CPSR had a fund-raising reception at the Conference hotel. Should CPSR be prohibited from mailing invitations to Conference registrants? The registrants provided addresses for Conference registration; not to be invited to one of the co-sponsor's fund-raiser. Would it make a difference if the invitation did or did not request a donation? How about if it required a "donation" for admission? Please note that some percentage of the participants almost certainly oppose some or most of what CPSR espouses. Those who provided their personal information in this database -- names, addresses, phones, etc., -- for the singular purpose of being permitted to attend the Conference. Should they be notified of the availability of audio-tapes, video-tapes and printed Proceedings of the Conference? I.e., should their computerized personal information be used for direct-mail marketing of products related to the CFP Conference? How about its use for mailing information about related events, publications and organizations (such as EFF)? What if someone is -- gawd forbid! -- someone makes a profit from products or services offered by such direct mail to those database names? Like nasty, awful capitalist publishers -- who take the entrepreneurial risk of publishing the Proceedings in hopes of making a profit (and risk a loss)? If affirmative consent is required, but was not obtained in the first [unsolicited, direct-mail] advertisement of the Conference, how can CPSR obtain the required consent without mailing a solicitation for which they have no affirmative consent [seeking permission to solicit]? Should only those who asked for information about tapes and published Proceedings be notified of their availability? Then, prices of the tapes and books would have to be much higher than if unauthorized solicitation were made to the much-broader potential customer-base. Should the database owner, CPSR, be permitted to use the personal information on the CFP registrants' to solicit new members? Should CPSR be permitted to use it to mail notices about the U.S. Privacy Council -- that was created during the Conference, but was not an official Conference activity? Note: Conference registrants included direct-marketing representatives -- hardly eager to support ardent privacy regulation. Should CPSR use the CFP database to distribute advocacy of their Freedom of Information Act litigation against the FBI? After all, the database includes FBI agents and other enforcement officers -- who furnished names and addresses for the singular purpose of registering for the Conference. (This is a hypothetical. I know of no CPSR plans to produce or mail such an announcement.) Or, should CPSR use the personal profiling information collected from registrants to segment the CFP reg list -- to mail solicitations [though without affirmative consent] only to those likely to be interested in promoting privacy, or supporting FOIA actions against the FBI -- avoiding those who would probably be uninterested or offended? This is exactly what the direct-marketing groups try to do. They use personal profile information to attempt to identify only addressees who will want and use their catalogs. There are other practical issues. As a minor datapoint -- the CFP Conference would probably be in the black and would have been better organized, had it not been for the *many*, many hours spent by my assistant, entering, checking and endlessly modifying the privacy locks Conference registrants could check. It was *very* costly data-processing. Or, here's an example of government efficiency versus privacy: We had a number of government employees attend the CFP Conference. Most required that we accept a purchase order and bill them. (Given the April 15th season, I thought of demanding immediate payment from the several IRS representatives, however I decided that such demands only work one-way.) The purchase orders were some approximation of Standard Form 182 or DD1556 -- those eleventeen-part forms that are supposed to provide all needed information to all involved bureaucrats and outside parties. Thus, they included registrants' *home* addresses, home phones, social security numbers, dates of birth, office phones, years and months of continuous service, position-levels, pay grades, type of appointments, whether they were handicapped and education levels. This included information on at least one attendee from an investigative agency, plus others responsible for their agency's privacy project! Some of the forms arrived with all this typewritten info clearly visible -- to me, my staff and CPSR, the legal owner of those records. Other forms had some of the really important personal stuff blocked out. Not, of course, the home address or personal work phone-extension or education level. I mean *important*, secret stuff -- like the "first five letters of the last name" and years and months of service. In fairness, one form did block out the social security number and date of birth. Another had the home phone X'ed out by typewriter. However, all left most personal information clearly visible. Had they computerized the records, they could have avoided inappropriate disclosures, unneeded multi-part forms and rekeying of information -- which several agencies did. Internal managers could have simply referred to the computer record, as needed. But, that would create one of those terrifying computerized records containing all that personal information. Here's an example of selective privacy, granted only to certain powerful public officials -- including those Los Angeles Police officers featured in recent videos (to which this is in no way specifically related): An organization of California judges joined forces with a statewide police officers' association and persuaded the Legislature and Governor to pass special legislation authorizing judges and police officers to seal their personal information in some otherwise-public records (e.g., voter registration). More recently, information-provider companies proudly demonstrated to a meeting of judges how much information they had compiled on the judges, their families, personal habits, biases, etc. -- sold to attorneys with litigants wealthy enough to research jurists before going to trial. The judges freaked! First, they considered going back to the Legislature to ask for still more special privacy benefits for themselves. Finally, they decided they'd tolerate the same lack of privacy of everyone else -- a laudable judgement! Should some public officials have greater privacy rights than the general public? Should they be able to seal their voter reg records? How about their residency information -- so citizens are unable to verify whether officials really fulfill perhaps-mandated jurisdiction residency? How about their property assessment records -- prohibiting concerned citizens from verifying that officials are fairly assessed? If judges can seal records -- as they can, to some extent -- to protect them and their families, then cannot the same case be made for all political figures, the wealthy and the powerful? How about Hollywood stars and starlettes (however defined)? And rock stars? How about attractive women -- and men? How about the elderly and frail -- less able to defend themselves? How about all those big bucks political donors who would prefer to have no public record on themselves, their property or their financial activity? In fact, how about everyone who wants to keep their "public" records secret? Should property assessments be secret? Voter registrations? Professional licenses? Professional competency findings? To what extent do citizens want to be prohibited from accessing records by which they may independently and personally verify that all citizens -- great and small -- are being equitably and fairly treated? Sealing public records guarantees opportunity for covert manipulation, special treatment, and rampant abuse. Sealed voter registrations deter citizens' ability to communicate with the electorate and make independent citizen review functionally impossible. Let us think carefully before we too-quickly seal records in the sacred name of "privacy," or we may later discover that we have destroyed our citizenry's ability to effectively communicate with itself and make informed judgements about the equitable treatment of its members. Reproduced by permission of the author. -==--==--==-<>-==--==--==- Excerpt from conversation between customer support person and customer working for a well-known military-affiliated research lab: Support:"You're not our only customer, you know." Customer:"But we're one of the few with tactical nuclear weapons." -==--==--==-<>-==--==--==- Five (Common?) Misconceptions About the NREN by Tom Valovic (tvacorn@well.sf.ca. us) 1. NREN will solve the most critical problem in the US telecom infrastructure namely, the lack of band width capacity in the local loop. ((Comment: NREN, either via Gore or ANI, will not even begin to address this problem.)) 2. NREN will provide certain advanced capabilities that don't exist today, but that can be considered the wave of the future. For example, hospital teleradiology applications; modeling and simulation capabilities for use in private enterprise R&D, etc.. ((Comment: Many of the kinds of applications frequently invoked to justify NREN are already being done today, and a fair measure involve either trials or actual service being developed by the RBOCs. One example is Nynex's SMDS trial in Boston which links four major medical centers for teleradiology and other applications. There are many such activities underway, in many areas of the country. They have nothing whatsoever to do with NREN. Similarly, many companies are using workstations and networked CAD/CAM to do collaborative R&D among geographically dispersed sites and this too has been going on for some time, sans NREN.)) 3. NREN will allow the US to stay competitive with the Japanese in telecommunications. ((Comment: The Japanese have an aggressive program in place to deploy fiber throughout NTT's subscriber base i.e. residential applications. We do not. This -- the deployment of fiber and high band width capacity in the local exchange -- is where we are falling behind with respect to the telecom policies and programs of some other developed countries, including Japan. The lack of progress has much to do with the CATV/telco stalemate over who gets to deliver the fiber to your neighborhood. Again, NREN as currently conceived, will do nothing to address this.)) 4. NREN/K-12 represents a major set of solutions to the educational crisis in the US. ((Comment: Maybe. But as Stephen Wolff pointed out at a recent NREN seminar, it's mainly intended to serve the needs of the "best and the brightest", whereas educational problems in the US cut across a broad spectrum. If NREN/K-12 is going to help most of our kids, and not just a select few, then the little girl in Tennessee accessing the Library of Congress via modem first has to learn how to read. Further, there is already an abundance of computer technology in K-12 today that's being wasted because of poor utilization. This is a human resources and training problem not a technological problem. Until we solve it, throwing more technology at the educational system (K-12, at least) will continue to be ineffective.)) 5. NREN will provide the "data superhighways of the future" on a nationwide basis if its implemented. ((Comment: This is somewhat misleading since these data superhighways already exist in the form of interexchange carrier fiber capacity that's already been deployed by the likes of ATT, Sprint, MCI, and a large group of independent long-haul fiber providers like Wiltel and others. Alternate (non-RBOC) fiber is also being deployed in many major metro areas by ALC's like Teleport (Merrill Lynch), MFS, Eastern TeleLogic, ICC, and many others. All of this activity constitutes the real basis for the "data superhighways of the future". Much of this capacity, at least as far as the major metro areas are concerned, is available right now. The real issues are cost and access --which, in theory, NREN does address.) (BTW, the foregoing is *not* an argument against NREN, but rather an attempt to demonstrate that some of the arguments now being used to justify it are based on somewhat dubious assumptions.) Reproduced by permission of the author. -==--==--==-<>-==--==--==- "The less you know about home computers, the more you'll want the new IBM PS/1." -- Ad in The Edmonton Journal -==--==--==-<>-==--==--==- MACROTRANSFORMATION: A Review of "Into the Telecosm" by George Gilder by Scott Loftesness (Compuserve: 76703,407 ) In my reading this week, I came across an article by George Gilder in the latest issue of the Harvard Business Review. "Into the Telecosm" urges action at the state and national levels to begin rapid deployment of a national fiber-optic networking capability that ultimately would provide a fiber connection to every American home. Gilder claims that the rapidly advancing technologies of microchips, electromagnetic waves, and fiber optics will transform commerce: "In the next decade or so, microchips will contain a billion or more transistors, expanding a millionfold the cost-effectiveness of computer hardware. The terminals on our desks and televisions in our living rooms will give way to image-processing computers, "telecomputers" that will not only receive but also store, manipulate, create and transmit digital video programming. Linking these computers will be a worldwide web of fiber-optic cables reaching homes and offices." The problem, according to Gilder, is that only one of these technologies - computer power - is developing at a rapid pace. The big problem area is communications or, rather, the lack of it. "Today the wiring is holding back what people and boxes can do." Progress in the computer area is indeed impressive. Gilder cites quadrupling the number of transistors on a chip every three years and reductions in the cost of processing power of up to 50% a year as two examples of the incredible progress being made on the hardware side of computing. Much of this new power is being put to work on images of one sort or another. But there is a big problem. The telecommunications infrastructure can't handle what the new telecomputers require in terms of information bandwidth. "You cannot send an ocean through pipes developed for a stream," says Gilder. "While the efficiencies of decentralized computing spring from the laws of solid-state physics - the "microcosm" - breakthroughs in communications will spring from the "telecosm," a domain of reality governed by the action of electromagnetic waves and in which all distances collapse because communication is at the speed of light. The law of the microcosm militates for increasingly distributed computing; the telecosm enables powerful links between computers. The challenge is to close the gap between microcosm and telecosm, between the logical power of computers and the power of their communications." Gilder points out that much of the work in the computer industry is devoted to trying to live within the limited bandwidth available on today's networks, on compression hardware and software products. Claiming that the communications crisis is more "a failure of imagination than of technology," Gilder points out that a major piece of the potential solution is at hand: "In a crisp formula, Nicholas Negroponte of MIT's Media Lab outlines the needed change: what currently goes through wires, chiefly voice, will move to the air; what currently goes through the air, chiefly video, will move to wires. The phone will become wireless, as mobile as a watch and as personal as a wallet; computer video will run over fiber-optic cables in a switched digital system as convenient as the telephone today." Citing this "reversal" issue as a key one for policy makers, Gilder points out that there is plenty of spectrum available for new innovative services if the FCC's regulations were changed to help force this shift in delivering video from over-the-air to fiber optics. Citing the common industry objections to this approach, Gilder claims "costly fiber optics is just as mythical as scarce spectrum." The problem is the regulatory environment that prevents telephone companies from laying fiber to homes. Fearing a situation analogous to the videotape recorder, Gilder fears that the delays in deploying fiber to the home will result in the U.S. again losing a critically important technology leadership position in opti-electronic technology and that the U.S. fiber optic production capacity is at exposed to lower cost competition from Japan, a country that apparently is getting very serious about installing fiber to the home. Gilder says that although the U.S. still spends far more money per capita on its communications infrastructure than any other country, a large chunk of that spending is for private business networks that will "ultimately be bad for U.S. business and, ironically, is starving the ultimate distribution system for its services and products. To open new markets, business leaders need a national network, not simply a Babel of business networks." A very important effect of this kind of transition to fiber to the home, according to Gilder, will be the transition from broadcast to narrowcast that the technology will now permit. Fiber will enable cause a shift "from a mass-produced and mass-consumed horizontal commodity to a vertical feast with a galore of niches and specialties." Marginal costs of delivering another program choice drop to almost nothing. The two-way nature of the medium enables a huge number of new sources of program material, driving the money from the distribution channel of today to the creators of programming tomorrow. Gilder urges business leaders to take action to force the reform of the "telecom snarl that imperils creativity and progress in computers and communications." The problem is political. The vested interests "all focus on the destruction and mobilize to prevent it. In the U.S., the broadcasters are marshaling their forces to preserve what they claim are the special virtues of free and universal broadcast service. The cable industry is fast becoming a political juggernaut-a group of PACs with coax - moving to prevent the phone companies from installing fiber-optic networks. Meanwhile, television networks and manufacturers around the world are holding out the promise of HDTV, which is the old medium dressed up with a bigger screen and sharper pictures." Gilder's article makes very interesting reading for a very interesting time. In April, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) of the U.S. Department of Commerce is scheduled to release its "comprehensive study of the national telecommunications infrastructure." How strongly will the administration advocate a dramatic shift in the regulatory environment to enable this kind of national broadband network? As they say on TV, "film at 11." Reproduced by permission of the author. -==--==--==-<>-==--==--==- Real Americans talk About Why They Chose the Sun SPARCstation 2000 (tm): "Last week we had a fella from Digital come out and look at the soybean crop. After 20 minutes, Ma chased him off and threw his keyboard out the window. We`re from old Norwegian stock, and we know a thing or two about bus controllers." -- Buck Flange, Arkansas, Texas [Collected internally from a gag article at Sun...] -==--==--==-<>-==--==--==- Crunch, Stoll, Optik and the Other Usual Suspects A Snapshot of the Computer Freedom and Privacy Conference by Kevin Kelly (kk@well.sf.ca.us) I was blown away by this conference. I expected a decent education and left today feeling I had attended an EVENT. Impressions is all I can offer right now. Crunch coming up to Phiber Optik who is talking to me. "Boy this is a weird conference. All my friends are here, but so is my prosecutor." "Yeah," says Phiber, "my prosecutor is here, too!" I didn't have a personal prosecutor and sort of felt left out. Just before Crunch had appeared, Phiber was telling me about his late night rendezvous with Donn Parker. Parker and Phiber are sitting in a hotel cafe booth and Parker is giving Phiber fatherly advice (you should go to school), while Phiber is telling him what's really cool (and better than school) about tunneling through cyberspace. Oh.... to have been there! Cliff Stoll scampering on the floor in agitated delirium telling his story about the Strange Lady of the conference confronting him, saying, "I disagree with everything you ever wrote." I nearly got knuckled by his yo-yo as he talked. Sterling telling the university of Florida crime professor his version of what happened to all the computer cops. He weaves in references to turf battles, and the fact that 'my computer is better than any of the computers the feds have to work with'. Later, the crime professor admits on a panel that half of all the computer trained cops with a job today are at this conference! John Gilmore's rousing speech. "I want to be able to rent a video without having to identify myself. I want to get a drivers' license without having to identify myself." I spent a lot of time with David Chaum, the totally anonymous electronic money guy, whom Gilmore was referencing, and I now believe Gilmore's dream is possible (though unlikely as put). -==--==--==-<>-==--==--==- A Day In The Life of Prodigy by Mitchell Kapor I spent half a day at Prodigy the other week with a dozen senior managers. Reconstructed and condensed dialog from my notes: MK> Why do you feel it's necessary to pre-screen postings to public conference areas? P> Two reasons. Prodigy is a family oriented service. We have to screen out offensive material. Also, topic drift. Many of our subscribers are more interested in information than in conversation so we remove irrelevant comments. Of course, those affected never *think* they're being irrelevant. MK> You could offer uncensored public conferencing without fear of offense if you offered a free blocking option that would let subscribers block particular conferences so their children couldn't read them. You could also have your editors create digests of conferences for the information-minded to read. (Prodigy refers to the people who screen conference postings as editors, not censors. All have journalism backgrounds, I was told.) P> We never thought of that. From this I concluded that promotion of free and open inquiry simply didn't sit very high in their pantheon of values. I also mentioned that the Well had a method of on-line dispute resolution which did not involve throwing people off the system. (I didn't mention that it works by endless rehashing of issues intermixed with invective until everyone is too tired to go on. :-) ). I sang the praises of virtual community self-managed as developed in these parts. About a week later I got a follow up call from one of the folks at the meeting who asked me to arrange a meeting for Prodigy management to visit the Well and learn what it's all about. I asked Cliff and he agreed. I'm not sure how much of the Well is going to rub off on the Prodigy. Their corporate immune system can knock out almost any foreign meme, but we can always hope for a mild memetic infection. -==--==--==-<>-==--==--==- Topic 192: 'Misuse of Copyrighted material on the Well' Not without merit (jrc) Thu, May 9, '91 _16 Lines Friends, this break in the action is brought to you by rent-a-flamer. Fed up with garbage that you've been seeing flow across your screen? Are your favorites getting abused by lowlife meatheads? And yet, are you afraid to get involved in the endless wrangle and end up like (oops, almost mentioned a userid there) so many hapless souls who now only post in Forth and who want to meet jax face to face. Well, hey! We've got a staff of experts waiting to serve you. Just tell use which loathsome self-righteous toadstool you want us to go after, and one of our Bonded Flamers will get on the case and in his/her face Right This Minute! Pick your issue: You own your words, passive hosting techniques, racial epithets, technical competence *or* who did what hacking where first! It's your choice! $50 per hour plus all online charge. Void where prohibited. -==--==--==-<>-==--==--==- Computer Freedom and Privacy Conference Available Now! Audio-tapes of the First Conference on Computers, Freedom & Privacy Tue-Thu Conference sessions are now available. They may be ordered from: Recording, Etc./Soper 633 Cowper Street Palo Alto CA 94301 (415)327-9344 (800)227-9980 [for calls from beyond California] (415)321-9261 by fax TAPES AVAILABLE: 1. Constitution in the Information Age Laurence Tribe, Harvard Law School Professor; J.Warren/Chair Tuesday, March 26th: 2. Trends in Computers & Networks D.Chaum, P.Denning, D.Farber, M.Hellman, P.Neumann,J.Quarterman; P.Denning/Chair 3. International Perspectives & Impacts D.Flaherty, R.Plesser, T.Riley, R.Veeder; R.Plesser/Chair 4. Personal Information & Privacy - I J.Baker, J.Goldman, M.Rotenberg, A.Westin; L.Hoffman/Chair 5. Personal Information & Privacy - II S.Davies, E.Hendricks, T.Mandel, W.Ware; L.Hoffman/Chair 6. Network Environments of the Future Eli Noam, Columbia University Professor; M.Rotenberg/Chair Wednesday, March 27th: 7. Law Enforcement Practices & Problems D.Boll, D.Delaney, D.Ingraham, R.Snyder; G.Tenney/Chair 8. Law Enforcement & Civil Liberties S.Beckman, C.Figallo, M.Gibbons, M.Kapor, M.Rasch, K.Rosenblatt, S.Zenner; D.Denning/Chair 9. Legislation & Regulation J.Berman, P.Bernstein, B.Julian, S.McLellan, E.Maxwell, C.Schriffries; B.Jacobson/Chair 10. Computer-Based Surveillance of Individuals D.Flaherty, J.Krug, D.Marx, K.Nussbaum; S.Nycum/Chair 11. Security Capabilities, Privacy & Integrity William Bayse, FBI Asst.Director; D.Denning/Chair Thursday, March 28th: 12. Electronic Speech, Press & Assembly D.Hughes, E.Lieberman, J.McMullen, G.Perry, J.Rickard, L.Rose; E.Lieberman/Chair 13. Access to Government Information D.Burnham, H.Hammitt, K.Mawdsley, R.Veeder; H.Hammitt/Chair 14. Ethics & Education S.Bowman, J.Budd, D.Denning, J.Gilmore, R.Hollinger, D.Parker; T.Winograd/Chair 15. Where Do We Go From Here? P.Bernstein, M.Culnan, D.Hughes, D.Ingraham, M.Kapor, E.Lieberman, D.Parker, C.Schiffires, R.Veeder, J.Warren/Chair PRICES & SHIPPING in United States: to Canada: other int'l: any one audio-tape ( 1 tape ) $14.95 +sales tax* +$2.50 US +$ 5.00 US five-tape tape-set ( 5 tapes) $34.95 +sales tax* +$5.00 US +$10.00 US Set A: tapes 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6(Noam) Set B: tapes 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11(Bayse) Set C: tapes 12, 13, 14, 15 and 1(Tribe) full-Conference set (15 tapes) $59.95 +sales tax* +$7.50 US +$20.00 US * - include 6.5% for sales tax to Cal.addresses; prices include U.S. shipping Make checks to *Recording, Etc.*; MasterCharge, Visa & American Express OK. -==--==--==-<>-==--==--==- Where is the REAL Legion of Doom When The Government Needs Them? (Found in rec.arts.comics) From: wga@po.CWRU.Edu (Will G. Austin) Subject: The Legion of Doom The members of the Legion of Doom (that I remember) were: Lex Luthor Giganta Brainiac Black Manta Toyman Riddler Sinestro Scarecrow Capt. Cold Cheetah Solomon Grundy -==--==--==-<>-==--==--==- ENDNOTES AND FEEDBACK We are always interested in news, pointers, tall tales, true stories, quotes, jokes and brilliant strokes related to life on the Electronic Frontier. Write to us with comments and criticism, or write for us if you prefer. Any letters or stories can be posted to comp.org.eff.talk, or sent directly to the editor of Effector Online: boswell@eff.org We'll be back in a fortnight with another edition. In the meantime, you are still on the Electronic Frontier. Be careful out there. -==--==--==-<>-==--==--==-