THE JOURNAL OF AMERICAN UNDERGROUND COMPUTING / Published Periodically

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  ISSN 1074-3111           Volume One, Issue Five         August 1, 1994

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      Editor-in-Chief:               Scott Davis      (dfox@fc.net)

      Co-Editor/Technology:          Max Mednick      (kahuna@fc.net)

      Consipracy Editor:             Gordon Fagan     (flyer@fennec.com)

      Information Systems:           Carl Guderian    (bjacques@usis.com)

      Computer Security:             John Logan       (ice9@fennec.com)



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     THE JOURNAL OF AMERICAN UNDERGROUND COMPUTING - Volume 1, Issue 5



                          TABLE OF CONTENTS



 1)  The Next Thirty Years:  Sociolegal Implications 

     Of The Information Technology Explosion                Steve Ryan



 2)  Advertising On The Net                                 Fawn Fitter

 3)  Availability Of TJOAUC; Overseas Fido Gateways         Editors

 4)  Cyberpasse Manifesto                                   Don Webb

 5)  AA BBS Convicted!                                      Anon News Svc

 6)  Open Platform Under Threat By Monopoly Interests       Anonymous

 7)  House Opens Vote Results; HR 3937                      Shabbir Safdar

 8)  High-Speed Internet Access Expanded; Minnesota         Dennis Fazio

 9)  Internet Access Now Available For All Minn. Teachers   Dennis Fazio

 10) Legion Of Doom T-Shirt Ad                              Chris Goggans

 11) White House Retreats On Clipper                        Stanton McCandlish

 12) Why Cops Hate Civilians                                Unknown

 13) Public Space On Info Highway                           Ctr. Media Ed.

 14) Software Key Escrow - A New Threat?                    Tim May

 15) Hoods Hit The Highway                                  Charlotte Lucas

 16) The Internet And The Anti-Net                          Nick Arnett



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  The Computer Is Your Friend         -Unknown

  Send Money, Guns, And Lawyers       -H. S. Thompson



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                THE NEXT THIRTY TEARS:  SOCIOLEGAL IMPLICATIONS

                  OF THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY EXPLOSION



 By Steve Ryan (blivion@nuchat.sccsi.com)



  [EDITOR'S NOTE:  This is facinating reading! It is a college thesis

  written by an attorney who is a friend of the JAUC staff. Please

  keep in mind that it was written in *1980* and is a fantastic

  and accurate look into the future from his perspective in 1980.

  Feel free to mail the editors with any comments on this one and

  especially feel free to drop Steve a note with your opinions.]





 I do romance the law.  It's alive, it's vibrant, its' bubling. Every time 

 society tries something, we have new laws.



 --Hon. Jack Pope, Associate Justice Supreme Court of Texas



 INTRODUCTION



 The purpose of this paper is twofold.  First, an attempt is made to 

 acquaint the reader with current trends in computer technology which are 

 likely to have a major impact on American life in the forseeable future, 

 and to provide an overview of the staggering dimensions of the information-

 handling revolution now in progress.  Second, the response of the American 

 legal system to this explosive growth in the application of computer 

 technology is examined critically and areas of current and future legal

 concern are outlined.  No attempt has been made to provide an in-depth 

 legal analysis of the current state of the law in any single area;  

 the reader in search of such is reffered to the numerous excellent legal 

 periodicals presently published in this field.



 I.  DATA-HANDLING SYSTEMS OF THE FUTURE

 

 It is difficult to overstate the rapidity oand magnitude of the

 technological advances occurring every year in the data processing industry.  

 New developments and applications of those developments are announced with 

 bewildering rapidity.  Enormous amounts of dollars are poured into research 

 and development every year by the American data processing industry, and 

 the pace of change is so rapid that those who work with customers must keep 

 current or risk having their knowledge and skills become obsolescent within 

 a year or two.



 HARDWARE

 

 This near-exponential rate of technical progress can be quantiativley 

 expressed through several different conceptual "handles."  The number of 

 additions per second performed by computers in the U.S. every year grew by 

 three orders of magnitude (factor 1,000) between 1955 and 1965, and again 

 by the same factor in the decade 1965-1975.  This number appears to be still 

 growing at the rate of 100% per year.  Between 1955 and 1975 C. P. U.

 memory size shrank by over four orders of magnitude (factor 10,000) and 

 this trend continues.  Speed of operation has been rising more linearly, 

 at the rate of two orders of magnitude (factor 100) per decade, and the 

 ultimate limiting speed (dictated by the speed with which the electrical 

 impulses propagate through conductors) is still almost two and a one-half

 orders of magnitude away.  The cost of computer storage devices is plunging 

 at the rate of nearly three orders of magnitude per decade.  The density 

 with which intergrated circuit chips can be packed with electronic 

 components is now measured in the millions devices per square inch.  It 

 has been projected that during this decade the percentage of the gross 

 national product contributed by the data processing industry (broadly 

 defined) will outstrip that contributed by the auto industry.



 COMMUNICATIONS



 Similar advances have been occurring in the communications industry, 

 slashing the cost of maintaining computer-to-user and computer-to-computer 

 information links.  The major trends are development of satellite, fiber 

 optic, and laswer methods of data transmission.  As initially developed, 

 the cost to lease a 900-channel transponder on a satellite was between on 

 and one-half and two million dollars per year.  In the first half of this 

 decade , this cost is expected to drop to $250,000 per year.  The greatest 

 expense of satellite utilization is the cost of placing it in orbit; this 

 will become cheaper by at least this tak.  The new generation of satellites 

 launched by reusable shuttle will offer a greater number of data channels

 and perform switching functions as well as relay tasks; and all of this 

 greatly reduced cost.  Annual growth of data communiccations through the 

 middle of this decade is projected to be 35 percent.  Additionally, federal 

 deregulation of and new competitor entry into the communications industry 

 is expected to lower data communications costs in the future.



 ECONOMICS

 

 This author believes that the rapidly falling costs of computer hardware 

 and data links carry tremendous implications for the future.  Economic 

 barriers to computer utilization are falling, and the end result will be 

 an exlosive profilferation of small personal and business computers and 

 intelligent terminals in an incredible variety of application.  The 

 structure of business relations and transactions will change radically

 as corporate America discovers that they cannot afford not to utilize 

 the new technology.



 It will simply become bad business to process most transactions through 

 human hands and the mails in the form of paper of documents, when powerful 

 microprocessors having large memories are available for literally pennies 

 per chip.  Speed-of-light datalinks cheaply available for these machines 

 will eliminate time lags as a source of inefficiency and boost productivity.



 PERSONAL COMPUTING



 The same factors that make widespread use of data handling equipment 

 inevitable in the business world will also have the effect of placing 

 small, cheap computers by the millions in nonbusiness or personal 

 applications.  Computers are possibly the most versatile tool human beings 

 have ever invented to extend their capabilities.  Because they deal with 

 pure information, their potential applications are limitless, or rather

 limited only by the ingenuity of their users.  Nowhere is this more 

 evident than in the brand-new field of personal computers. For better or 

 worse, the personal computer revolution is upon us.  The first true 

 personal computer was brought out in 1974 by M.I.T.S. Corporation.  

 Baded on the Intel 8080 Comuter-on-a-chip, the Model T of microprocessors, 

 it was sold by mail in kit form for $420.00.  Customer response was 

 overwhelming, and M.I.T.S. was unable to to keep up with demand.  At the 

 time of this writing, six years later, the American consumer is the

 target of an enormous marketing effort for similar small computers mounted 

 by such corparate giants as Texas Instruments, Tandy Corp. (Radio Shack), 

 Sears & Roebuck, and a host of smaller competitors.  Clearly, these 

 corporations believe in the market for and future of home computing enough 

 to back their beliefs with large capital investments.



 The home computer, with appropriate interfaces and accessory hadware, can 

 play games, balance its owner's checkbook, optimize household energy usage, 

 play music, store information, show movies, do typing, draw pictures, 

 give its owner access to any database or other systems accessible by phone, 

 send mail, and let the cat out.  Some enthusiasts predict that the home 

 computer will remake our way of life as drastically as the automobiles, and

 will be the most explosive consumer product in human history, having a more 

 revolutionary effect than any other object ever sold.  it is also predicted 

 that home and personal uses of computers will dwarf the ordinary computer 

 industry within five or ten years, and will do IBM great economic harm by 

 destroying the IBM-fostered image of computers as enormous, centralized,

 horrendouly expensive machines requiring the services of a band of devoted 

 priest-programmers.  These things remain to be seen.  This author believes 

 that the most profound effects on American society created by the 

 microcomputer revolution will not be the result of dedicating small 

 computers to specific business and personal tasks but rather will result 

 from the ability of these countless small C.P.U.'s to communicate with

 one another economically.



 THE CONCEPT OF "THE NET"



 In recent years, as communication technology began to catch up with advanced 

 computer technology, a trend toward distributed computation has occured in 

 systems design.  Instead of a massive central computer linked to many 

 unitelligent I/O terminals, this new method of system architecture links 

 a number of central processing units into a network in which tasks can be 

 distributed to different locations for maximum efficiency in processing.  

 Networks are very efficient method of processing where the amount of 

 processing needed increases faster than the amount of data to be 

 transferred, and where a common specialized resouce is shared among 

 geographically desperesed end users.  Minicomputers linked into centralized

 computers in some applications, and they can be linked in such a manner that 

 individual minicomputers can fail without affecting the operational status 

 of the network.



 Given the above-forecasted situation of millions of small business and 

 personal computers linked by common inexpensive communications channels, 

 it is easy to see how a gigantic, highly flexible meta-network of 

 minicomputers could be said to exist.  The terms "network" and "distributed 

 processin" have customarily been used to refer to relatively small, 

 tightly interfaced groups of processors and are thus inadequate to use in 

 reference to such a huge complex of computers as would be formed by the 

 potential linkage of all the home and business computers of America.  

 Therefore the term "The Net" will be used in this paper to refer to such 

 a potential structure. This term has already gained currency with some 

 writers who are concerned with the social implicaitons of such an 

 electronic network.



 Persons who are fearful of suspicious of the advent of The Net for whatever 

 reason, and persons who doubt that such a broadly-based and widely linked 

 national (and transnational) EDP system wil become an operational reality 

 in the near future will no doubt be suprised and/or dismayed to learn

 that two private information utilities which demonstrate the feasibility 

 and usefulness of the Net concept are already on line and available to 

 minicomputer users today.  These are The Source and MicroNet, both about a 

 year old.  These services are accessed through telephone lines, which will 

 be the primary method of Net linkage until new technology make satellite-

 based or fiber optic linkage economically competitive with ordinary 

 landline and microwave channels.  Accessing these services augments the 

 computing power and usefulness of a home computer to and amazing extent. 

 By linking to a large mainframe, the small ones gain the power to program 

 in many languages ordinarily unavailable to them and gain the use of 

 utility programs such as word processors and text editors.  Large libraries 

 of generally applicable business and financial programs and data are 

 available to subscribers, as well as stock market information.  Also 

 available are game programs, UPI news wire service, New York Times news 

 service, and the New York Times Consumer Data Base, which abstracts over 

 60 publications.



 The flexibility and broad utility of even these fledgling Net Linkage 

 systems is demonstrated by other revolutionary services information 

 utilities offer.  The Source offers electonic mail service to its 

 subscribers; when users log on, the system notifies them of any messages 

 or mail it is holding for them.  Users of the Source can also call a program 

 named CHAT, which enables direct two-way between any users simultaneously 

 logged on.  MicroNet offers a fasicinating computerized version of CB radio 

 in which the user selects a numbered "Channel" which, in effect is a 

 "public airwave" of this small Net.  All users linked on the same channel 

 receive every message transmitted on that channel;  they can either join 

 the discourse or remain passive and watch the coversations of others on 

 their CRT.  A disadvantage is that like CB, two users cannot transmit on 

 the same channel simultaneously without mutual interference.



 The Source and MicroNet are privately operated for profit and charge the 

 subscriber for registration as a user and access time.  An alternative 

 mode of linking isolated home computers is provided by Computer Community 

 Bulletin Boards (CCBBS), of which there are well over one hundred operating 

 now in the U.S. These are free services operated by a variety of small 

 computer users and related organizations, and are rapidly growing in 

 popularity. Unlike the information utilities, which have phone exchanges in

 most large cities and therby spare their users high connect charges, CCBB 

 users must pay long distance charges unless the usefulness of CCBBs is 

 that no two-way communication is possible, only message posting within 

 the system.  The software package needed to establish a CCBB costs only 

 about $65.



 One final, rather ominous aspect of the commercial information utilities 

 is that it is required of applicants for user status to have a 

 Mastercharge or Visa card account for billing purposes. In other words, 

 person without identity in the presently existing credit subnet are denied 

 access to these new private Net components.  As the Net incorporates more 

 data-handling subunits into itself and becomes more ubiquitous in American 

 life, it may strike users as unfair and coercive to discover that routing 

 one's financial transactions through the Net is a necessary prerequisite 

 to enjoying certain limited uses and benefites of The Net.



 It is impossible to summarize or secribe all potential structures and 

 applications of the net likley to impact our society in the future because 

 of the amorphousness inherent in its conceptualization. For example, 

 although every EDP device capable of linking to the Net must be considered 

 a part of it, this linage may be "broad" or "Narrow": a sensitive 

 Government EDP file system with heavy security would be only narrowly

 accessible from other Net components, whereas an individual's personal 

 computer would of necessity be broadly accessible form almost all other 

 Net components because of the wide variety of functions it performs (mail, 

 entertainment access, retail buying and recordkeeping, phone message 

 functions, etc.).  As each new Net subunit goes online to the common Net, 

 that subunit must determine (1) what it wants from the rest of the Net, 

 and (2) what it is willing to make available to those who can now access

 it as part of the net.  Thus, considerations of function and security 

 determine what role each subunit will play in relation to The Net as a 

 whole, and these considerations will be different for each subunit.  

 The net must not be thought of as monolithic block of EDP devices joined 

 together, but rater as a vast and turbulent population of dicrete subunits 

 whose only common characteristic is a need for the efficient communication 

 and optimal use of EDP technology provided by The Net's linkage.



 The Net will be far more than a group of computers exchanging data and 

 software; widespread acceptance and utiliztion of Net linkage and 

 effieciency concepts will probably eventually result in the routing of 

 most current non-EDP methods of information transfer through the omnipresent 

 microcomputers. It will become inefficient and unnecessary to have a TV 

 set, or a newspaper, or a mailbox, or a radio in one's house when

 comprehensive Net access through an efficient, centralized home computer

 (whose sole design function is information handling) is just a keystroke 

 away.  One theme which home computer/Net enthusiasts frequently sound these 

 days is that the Net will solve the petroleum crisis by making ti largely 

 unnecessary for people to leave their homes.  Why drive to an office when 

 one can transact business, give a lecture, attend a class, generate 

 documents, transfer information, access a huge variety of data bases, and 

 receive all communications at one's home keyboard?  The Net has the 

 potential of becoming America's primary avenue of business and even social 

 interaction in the forseeable future.

 

 One troubling question occurs as we examin the social consequence of the 

 Net ethic of efficiency as the ultimate justification for change: what 

 happens to individuals who, for economic or personal reasons, cannot or 

 will not participate in the net society?  Unless non-net modes of 

 information handling are retained in all areas of Net pre-eminence, these 

 individuals run the risk of effectibely becoming non-persons.  One 

 solution to this problem would be govermental maintenece of free public 

 computer terminals, where those unfortunate enough to lack the cash or 

 hardware necessary for net access could perform the necessary interactions 

 with their electronic society.  Hopefully, net Participants will keep open 

 non-net channels of comminication to forestall the possiblity that the 

 information revolution will create two classes of American citizens: 

 Net-priviledged and invisible.  Property utilized, The Net can be 

 beneficial in countless ways.  But even if its use becomes a new norm,

 legal protection is necessary to ensure that no citizen suffers injury or 

 diadvantage as a result of failing to join The Net.  This writer believes 

 that economic considerations related to efficiency and the technology 

 revolution now occurring cannot fail to propel us willingly down the road 

 to a Net society, even in the face of the vague hostility most people feel 

 toward the increasing intrusion of computers into their lives.  The day

 may yet come when The Net is so central to American life that a person 

 excluded from access to it by State action might successfully argue in 

 court that his Constitutional rights to freedom of speech and assembly 

 have been effectively abrogated.





 II. AREAS OF CONTINUING LEGAL CONCERN



 PRIVACY



 Privacy will continue to be a controversial issue as computer technology 

 increases in impact on the daily life of Americans.  The magnitude of the 

 perceived threat to individuals created by computer recordkeeping will 

 increase as the system-to-system network of computer linkages expands.  

 The scope of future Federal protective legislation will almost certainly 

 extend to regulate private data collectors as well as governmental ones.



 Efforts have already been made in this direction. In 1974, Congressional 

 legislation was proposed containing provisions making all private personal 

 record systems subject to F.O.I.A.- type controls on collection, accuracy, 

 and dissemination.  This bill also set up a Federal Privacy Board to 

 monitor and enforce its provisions, and provided criminal penalties for 

 its violation as well as vibil remedies for persons injured by unfair 

 information practices.



 The gradual development of a Net-Type structure of data processors and 

 their associated databases will surely result in extreme public concern 

 about its possible harmful uses.  It is thus a certainty that such a 

 system would be very heavily regulated by the congress under its commerce 

 and "federal media" powers.  In fact, it is impossible to conceive of how 

 the public would tolerate the existence of such an intimidating system 

 without detailed privacy controls on it.  The Privacy Act of 1974 is only 

 the first halting step toward the creation of a comprehensive code of fair 

 information practices necessary to let Americans enjoy the benefits of 

 advanced computer technology without fear.





 PROTECTION OF ECONOMIC INTERESTS



 Since copyright protection of proprietary computer software is inadequate 

 to protect novel ideas and algrorithms incorporated therein, and since 

 the patenablility of software has been effectively denied by Supreme Court 

 ruling, further protection of substantial financial investments made in 

 the development of software would seem to be necessary in the future.  

 Common law and State statutory protection of such programs as trade secrets 

 will probably be inadequate in many respects to afford the degree of 

 protection necessary to encourage heavy corporate investment in software 

 research and development, as the industry grows in importance to all areas 

 of economic life.  Public policy will militate that further protection 

 be granted by explicit statutory means. The most logical way to go about 

 this would be by act of Congress, under either of the broad copyright or 

 commerce powers.



 Congress has already realized that the trend toward the use of Electronic 

 Funds Transfers and the computerization of economic activity will present 

 unknown problems in the future.  Current EFT legislation in force has 

 established a commission charged with the duty of evaluating the future 

 development of this area and reporting to the congress its findings and 

 conclusions.  Present legislation concering EFT can only be considered a 

 skeleton of what will eventually prove necessary.





 THE PROBLEMS OF ABUSE AND VULNERABILITY



 The wide linkage capabilities of the components of The Net coupled with 

 the computerization of business records and transactions creates an 

 enormous potential for abuse in a variety of ways.  Theft of CPU time and 

 software, manipulation of financial records, destruction of datafiles, 

 and even sabotage of whole systems are just a few of the potential abuses 

 that might occur.  Computer people often see the compromise of a security 

 system designed to prevenet unauthorized access as a challenging 

 intellectual game, and try it even without criminal motive.  Already, one 

 consequence of wide use of timesharing and networking techiniques is the 

 widespread acceptance of the ethic that any programs which may be found to 

 be somehow accessible from remote terminals can be treated as used as if 

 in the public domain (the "Peninsula Ethic").  Security problems are the 

 number-one concern in the design and establishment of The Net.  The Net 

 concept is unworkable without means of controlling access and limiting

 possible manupulations of data contained in Net subunits.  Due to its 

 flexibility of linkage, security control in the Net will not be physical 

 in nature but will be provided by confidential coding and password 

 techniques.  Although generally speaking, what one person can do, another 

 can undo, new "trapdoor" cryptological techniques have been discovered

 that make it possible to create an access control code system that cannot 

 be cracked even by computers in a reasonable amount of time.  This offers 

 hope for the feasibility of a fairly abuse-free Net.



 Still, no security system can be said to be totally proof against 

 compromise.  Prevention of abuse is the job of computer sercurity 

 specialist, but the law can play a large role in discouraging abuse by 

 imposing sanctions for it.  The currecnt Federal criminal law provisions 

 applicable to computer abuse are a hodge-podge of miscellaneous statutes 

 generally oriented around traditional fraud and misappropriation-of-

 property concepts that often present difficulties in application to 

 computer-related wrongful activity.  In the future it will become necessary 

 to greatly refine our collective societal concepts of what contitutes 

 impermissible conduct in relation to computers and their manifold 

 applications.  The deterrent effect on persons tempted to misuse the vast 

 capbilities of computers would be greatly enhanced by the passage of 

 legislation targeted specifically at computer abuse rather than framed in 

 terms of traditional concepts of wrongdoing like fraud, theft, and 

 misappropriation.  Prosecutors, when confronted by an instance of computer 

 abuse that clearly has damaged someone in a criminal manner, should not be 

 forced to search among and "stretch" the applications of the miscellaneous 

 batch of statutory provisions enacted when computers were a laboratory 

 curiosty.



 Response to this problem has been made be Senator Abraham Ribibcoff of 

 Connecticut, the Charman of the Senat Governmenatal Affairs Committee.  

 In 1977, he sponsered legislation entitled The Federal Computer Systems 

 Protection Act of 1977,which has never been enacted.  This proposed law 

 provides comprehensive santions against (1) introduction of fraudulent 

 records into computer systems, (2) improper alteration of destruction of 

 computer records, (3) unauthorized use of computer facilities, and (4) use 

 of computers to steal property of data.  The bill was drafted to apply to 

 all computer systems used in interstate commerce, and not just those in

 use by the Federal Governmet.  Additionally, the measure eases the 

 jurisdictional and evidentiary burdens on prosecutors that make prosecution 

 of computer crime so difficult. Specific thought was given by the framers 

 of this legislation to the problems of unauthorized access and to the need 

 to assure the integrity of the growing EFTS network.  This bill is an 

 outstinding attempt to deal now with the computer abuse problems that will 

 become increasingly more threatening in the future, and it is an excellent 

 example of how the response of the legal system should aggressively track 

 the pace of technological development.



 CONCLUSION



 The next thirty years will be a time of swift and revolutionary change in 

 American life related to computer usage on an uprecedented scale.  At this 

 point in time, the emerging outline of the social and legal changes this 

 will inevitably cause are visible.  The first halting steps have been

 taken by congress to enact legislation dealing with the problems caused 

 by these changes, but the pace of progress is so rapid that there is 

 substantial time lag between the time a problem comes into existence and 

 the time our legal system turns its attention to the necessary solution.  

 This lag time must be reduced by increased awareness of the capabilities

 and coming applications of computers on the respective parts of legislators, 

 attorneys, and judges; it is the duty of the legal system to serve the 

 needs of its society, and our society cannot wait until tomorrow to be 

 given the legal safeguards and processes it needs today in the area of 

 data processing.

      

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                         ADVERTISING ON THE NET



 By Fawn Fitter (fsquared@netcom.com)

 This article is copyright 1994 by Fawn Fitter



 A cybersavvy business owner could be forgiven for thinking of the 

 Internet as an advertising opportunity like no other. After all, the Net, 

 with its 6,000 discussion groups known as "newsgroups," connects -- at 

 last count -- 2 million sites in 60 countries. That's 10 million 

 potential customers already self-sorted into 6,000 demographic slots, a 

 thought to make marketing executives weep with joy. 

 

 But while many commercial online services like CompuServe and Prodigy 

 have built electronic shopping malls where virtual vendors peddle their 

 wares, advertising is a touchy subject on the Internet itself. 

 

 Originally, commercial messages were banned on the government-funded 

 portions of the Net. Today, while they aren't forbidden, they are still 

 highly controversial. A practice known as "spamming" -- posting a message 

 to all 6,000 newsgroups at once -- has infuriated longtime citizens of 

 cyberspace.

 

 Not long ago, two Phoenix attorneys "spammed" the Net with a long post 

 touting their expertise in U.S. immigration law. Mere weeks later, 

 another advertiser followed suit, shilling thigh-reducing cream in every 

 group from alt.pagan to comp.sys.mac.advocacy. Both were kicked off their 

 respective Net access providers for inappropriate use.

  

 "The problem is not content, it's the appropriateness of the forum where 

 the ad appears," explained Mike Godwin, staff counsel for the Electronic 

 Frontier Foundation, which focuses on public interest and civil liberties 

 issues as they relate to computer communications. "The value of the 

 newsgroups lies in their being organized by subject matter. 'Spamming' is 

 like reshelving all the books in a library -- the information is there, 

 but it's impossible to find what's valuable."

 

 Although indiscriminate salesmanship is frowned upon, there are still 

 ways to advertise online without crossing the bounds of netiquette. The 

 simplest way is to keep ads short and tasteful, indicate in their subject 

 headers that they are advertisements so people can skip them if they so 

 choose, and post them only to appropriate groups. In other words, a legal 

 advice newsgroup is the wrong place for an ad for couples workshops.

 

 Signature files, which provide a tagged-on signature (or .sig, pronounced 

 "dot-sig") at the end of a user's post, are another inoffensive and 

 discreet way to promote a product or service provider. Many programmers 

 and consultants identify themselves in their .sigs, which are 

 automatically appended to their every post in any group they frequent.

 

 The now-infamous "green card lawyers" have been dumped unceremoniously 

 from several online systems and have been refused accounts by others. 

 Despite the furor against them, they've defended their actions in 

 postings and newspaper articles by claiming that mass-distributed 

 advertising on the Net is convenient and therefore inevitable. They've 

 even started their own Internet marketing company, Cybersell, to bring 

 that day closer. One of the lawyers argued on CNN that "spamming" was 

 like "picking up the newspaper and getting advertisements along with the 

 sports pages."

 

 But Howard Rheingold, author of The Virtual Community and a well-known 

 defender of the Net, thinks it's more like "going to your mailbox and 

 finding two letters, a magazine, and 65,000 pieces of junk mail, 

 postage-due."

 

 The Net works because people agree to give each other the minimal amount 

 of cooperation necessary to keep information flowing in a free but 

 organized way, Rheingold explained. "IIf people don't abide by an 

 agreement to limit discussion to the appropriate group, the groups lose 

 their function, and there will be no value in the system any more," he 

 said. But, he added, "the day will pass when sleazebags who try to take 

 advantage of the openness of the system will be shut out."

 

 Rheingold is executive editor of HotWired, an online magazine being 

 launched this fall by the publisher of WIRED. HotWired will bring in 

 revenue by soliciting "sponsors" rather than "advertisers," as the Public 

 Broadcasting System does, he said.

  

 In the future, advertisers may also spread the word by subsidizing 

 people's net usage, Godwin said. "They may say, 'look at our ads in 

 e-mail and we'll give you an hour's free online time'," he speculated. 

 "No one's actually done it yet, but companies are thinking about it."



 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%



                      AVAILIBILITY OF THIS MAGAZINE

                   A Message from the editorial staff



      OVERSEAS FIDONET GATEWAYS NO LONGER SUPPORTED BY THIS MAGAZINE!



   We will do everything in our power to get this publication to you in

 a timely manner. And we certainly appreciate the hundreds of subscription

 requests that we have received. There is one slight issue regarding the

 distribution of this magazine that we must address. This new policy will

 take effect immediately.



 It is no longer feasable for us to add people to the mailing list who have

 OVERSEAS FIDONET GATEWAYS. The reason for this is that some administrators

 who operate these gateways are getting irate with the amount of traffic

 coming through their systems from the USA in the form of large electronic

 magazines. 



 AS LONG AS YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS DOES NOT HAVE A "%" IN IT, YOU'RE OK!



 The second reason is that our mailing system may not handle the address

 line properly due to the fact that Fido addresses overseas are usually

 very long.



 We are currently working on a way to set up an automatic mailing list

 for those who do fit into this catagory so that you can have the magazine

 mailed back to you when you know that the traffic in your area will be low.

 We will update you as the situation develops.



 Thank you for your understanding.

 

 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%



                           CYBERPASSE MANIFESTO



 By Don Webb (0004200716@mcimail.com)

 This has no Copyright, and may be reposted at will.



 We have long awaited the moment to release our manifesto, so that we would 

 not appear guilty of the sin of vanguardism.  Since Bart Nagle has noted 

 that book publishers now note books bearing the suffix "Cyber" in the 

 title passe, we realize that it is time to strike while the iron is cooling.  

 The Cyberpasse movement began on October 8, 1966 when the BBC aired *The 

 Tenth Planet* -- part of their popular %Dr. Who% series.  The Cybermen have 

 replaced their natural bodies with plastic and thus have become disease free 

 and nearly immortal.  They represent the ideal of the Cyberpasse movement.  

 Cyberpasse will overtake cyberpunk, because we created it as a front.  

 The movement has great wealth and power, and is an open conspiracy.  Any

 number may play, provided that they obey the Cyberlaws.  We are the rulers 

 of the world, the makers of the zeitgeist, and the oatmeal of reality.

 

 These are the Cyberlaws, the key to Cyberpasse:

 

 1.  You must own a computer.  It must be a boring computer with lots of 

     capacity for upward and downward networking.  You favorite phrase is 

     "The computer is a tool." You must pretend incompetence with your 

     computer, so that people explain things for you, and do things for you. 

     Thus you learn to tap the skills of lots of experts.

 

 2.  You must belong to a frequent flyer plan.  You'll travel a lot to see 

     other Cybermen.  You must own a futon to put up traveling Cybermen.  

     You must make your visitors look as boring as possible, so as not to 

     tip off your neighbors that you are a planetary ruler.

 

 3.  You must appear dull.  This is essential.  Everyone must view you as a 

     harmless amateur.  You must practice perfect manners, so you don't get 

     thrown out of places for being too dull.

 

 4.  You must foster a myth of a long-term illness. 

     Thusly you can call in sick for work, whenever a learning opportunity 

     presents itself.  Knowledge is power.

 

 5.  You must You must place yourself in the middle of various webs of 

     information.  Always share information, but always filter to extend 

     the Cybervalues of logic, and of slow and steady change.  You must deny 

     that you are trying to improve the world, as always appear to be a 

     shambling slow witted machine that just happens to pass along the

     correct information at one time.  Remember humans are hostile to change 

     agents.

 

 6.  You must make sure that they're a lot of cutting edge movements around 

     to draw fire.  As a long term way to secure this, be sure and strongly 

     support civil liberties issues.

 

 7.  You must always deny the importance of new information technologies. 

     This is not to stifle, but to make people think they are harmless. Always 

     argue that there is nothing new going on.  This will make people, less 

     likely to fear/resist certain changes.

 

 8.  You must act every day to bring about the change into a cybersociety.  

     Each act must may be downplayed, but it must be constant and quiet.  

     Accumulate power to make your actions a little stronger.  Afterall the 

     boss can OK the T1 phone lines for the business, and she can allow

     personal Email accounts.  Always have a boring explanation, economy, 

     efficiency, whatever.  But be sure you never allow a step backward.

 

 9.  You must deny there is an organized Cyberpasse movement.  Even to 

     yourself.

 

 10.  You must seek allies in all areas of society. 

  

 11.  You must never act in anger, but only with logic

      and harmonious feelings.  Our battles are not the day to day battles 

      of the news.  Our battle is that of the vegetable empire vast and slow.



 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%



                           AA BBS - CONVICTED !



 MEMPHIS, Tenn -- A federal jury convicted a California couple Thursday 

 of transmitting obscene pictures over a computer bulletin board.



 The case has raised questions, in this age of international computer 

 networks, about a 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that defines obscenity 

 by local community standards.



 ``This case would never have gone to trial in California,'' defense lawyer 

 Richard Williams said.



 Prosecutor Dan Newsom, an assistant U.S. attorney, said the trial was the 

 first he knows of for computer bulletin board operators charged under federal 

 law with transmitting pornography featuring sex by adults.



 Robert and Carleen Thomas, both 38, of Milpitas, Calif., were convicted of 

 transmitting sexually obscene pictures through interstate phone lines via 

 their members-only Amateur Action Bulletin Board System.



 The Thomases were convicted on 11 criminal counts, each carrying maximum 

 sentences of five years in prison and $250,000 in fines.



 Thomas was acquitted on a charge of accepting child pornography mailed to him 

 by an undercover postal inspector.



 The Thomases refused to comment after the verdict. They remain free on 

 $20,000 bond to await sentencing, for which no date was set.



 Williams said his clients will appeal, arguing the jury was wrongly 

 instructed on how to apply the Supreme Court's standard on obscenity.



 The trial raised questions of how to apply First Amendment free-speech 

 protections to ``cyberspace,'' the emerging community of millions of 

 Americans who use computers and modems to share pictures and words on every 

 imaginable topic.



 Williams argued unsuccessfully before trial that prosecutors sought out a 

 city for the trial where a conservative jury might be found.



 During the weeklong trial jurors were shown photographs carried over the 

 Thomases' bulletin board featuring scenes of bestiality and other sexual 

 fetishes. Williams argued this was voluntary, private communication between 

 adults who knew what they were getting by paying $55 for six months or $99 

 for a year.



 Their conviction also covers videotapes they sent to Memphis via United 

 Parcel Service. The videotapes were advertised over the bulletin board.



 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%



          OPEN PLATFORM UNDER THREAT BY MONOPOLY INTERESTS!!!



 Anonymously Submitted



 First off, I apologise for sending this anonymously, but my company is

 sufficiently close to the center of this dispute that the usual personal

 disclaimers would not be enough.  We have to do business with these people

 and public criticism of them could lead to disconnexion and the collapse of

 our business. 



 Recently the CIX Association (a Non-Profit 501(c)6 Trade Association) has

 chosen to make a change to its policies that will make entry into the

 internet extremely hard if not impossible for small companies or individuals

 or cooperatives. 



 Some background:  first there was the Arpanet, and it was for government

 organizations and academics only.  Slowly, private companies attached to the

 Arpanet, but only when they had legitimate reasons to communicate with the

 government organizations they connected to.  Soon, enough private

 organizations were connected that they saw advantages in talking to each

 other, and they put in direct links to each other because they couldn't

 transit the NSF backbone.  Sometimes the connexion agreements for these

 links were informally ad-hoc, other times the people connecting would come

 to a 'settlement agreement'.  This meant that at the end of each year, they

 would work out the net flow of traffic over their link, and the side that

 got the most benefit from it was contracted to pay the other side a cash

 settlement.  



 There were the bad old days, and getting full connectivity to non-academic

 sites by making lots of individual connexions was expensive.  



 Then along came the group of big companies who formed the CIX.  They wrote a

 contract that said that members would route each others packets without

 settlement.  People still made their own arrangements about who they

 physically connected to, and their share of the cost of the wire etc, but

 once connected, they could send packets to _anyone_ who was a

 mutually-connected CIX member.  And just to make sure there weren't pockets

 of unconnected members, every member had also to make sure they had a

 working path to the CIX backbone.  That way A could talk to B even if it

 meant going all the way to the CIX backbone in Falls Church VA.  



 In fact, most of the big vendors have direct connexions to each other, and

 the CIX backbone itself is seldom transited.  It's not an expensive or long

 wire--just a couple of routers in Falls Church.  



 Now, the arrangement that CIX has decided to enforce as of November is that

 they will route for their clients, and people directly connected to their

 clients, but not people a step further downstream than that.  Which means

 that the clients of CIX clients who re-sell services will have to become

 members of the CIX themselves, at a cost of $10000. 



 This isn't small change for the majority of sites that it affects, and it is

 particularly insidious in that it halts completely the process that was

 beginning to take place where bandwidth would be split into smaller and

 smaller units by smaller and smaller enterprises, until you got down to the

 level of a guy in his garage running 6 modems on his PC allowing access to

 local people over his SLIP or PPP line to his own access provider down his

 v.fast modem, that would be a small company running a 56K line up to their

 access provider, who might be a medium company running a T1 to a big

 provider. 



 With this change in policy, "Mom & Pop" internet connexions are no longer

 possible.  The game is for big players only.  And I mean BIG--calculations

 show that to reach break-even, a new vendor needs something like 400

 customers from the start.   



 The CIX board justifies their change in policy by claiming it will actually

 increase mutual interconnectivity, by adding more people to the communal

 interoperability agreement.  However, the facts are that the downstream

 sites who are affected by this would have routed all packets going through

 them anyway.  It is, quite simply, an attempt by the big players to lock the

 small players out of the market, to consolidate their oligarchy.  And the

 fact that they'll be collecting many many more $10,000 annual fees has not

 gone unnoticed either. 



 This is one area where government interference _to ensure interoperability

 only and to stop restrictive practises_ would be welcome by we smaller

 players.  All that the CIX contributes is a piece of paper saying that

 people will cooperate--the cost of their hardware is small beer.  People

 who are in the CIX have an incentive to stay in because it keeps the

 competition out.  People outside the CIX _could_ make their own mutual

 care because we can afford the fees (almost), and

 it keeps out up and coming competitors.  I don't feel this way, which is why

 I'm posting, and why I have to post anonymously.  But then, I don't own the

 company.



 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%



          HOUSE RULES VOTE RESULTS; HR 3937 A DEAD END THIS YEAR



 By Shabbir J. Safdar (shabbir@panix.com)

 Organization: Voters Telecomm Watch (vtw@vtw.org)





 INTRODUCTION



 Voters Telecomm Watch keeps scorecards on legislators' positions on 

 legislation that affects telecommunications and civil liberties.

 If you have updates to a legislator's positions, from either:



        -public testimony,

        -reply letters from the legislator,

        -stated positions from their office,



 please contact vtw@vtw.org so they can be added to this list.



 General questions:      vtw@vtw.org

 Mailing List Requests:  vtw-list-request@vtw.org

 Press Contact:          stc@vtw.org

 Gopher URL:             gopher://gopher.panix.com:70/11/vtw

 WWW URL:                We're working on it. :-)



 RESULT OF THE HOUSE RULES COMMITTEE VOTE ON HR 3937



 Based on information gathered by volunteers, we've been able to

 piece together some of the positions of the House Rules Committee

 as to how they voted for/against opening up HR 3937 to amendments on

 the House floor.  [This is now somewhat moot, as is explained in the

 next section.]



 Extensive kudos go to

        Joe Thomas <jthomas@pawpaw.mitre.org>

        gaj@portman.com (Gordon Jacobson)

 who both did extensive work to help find this information.



 Here are the results we were able to obtain:



        [The committee voted 5-4 to open the bill]



                HOUSE RULES COMMITTEE MEMBERS



   Dist ST Name, Address, and Party       Phone            

   ==== == ========================       ==============  

      9 MA Moakley, John Joseph (D)       1-202-225-8273  

        UNSPECIFIED POSITION



      3 SC Derrick, Butler (D)            1-202-225-5301 

        UNSPECIFIED POSITION



     24 CA Beilenson, Anthony (D)         1-202-225-5911

        UNSPECIFIED POSITION



     24 TX Frost, Martin (D)              1-202-225-3605 

        UNSPECIFIED POSITION



     10 MI Bonior, David E. (D)           1-202-225-2106

        UNSPECIFIED POSITION



      3 OH Hall, Tony P. (D)              1-202-225-6465

        UNSPECIFIED POSITION



      5 MO Wheat, Alan (D)                1-202-225-4535

        UNSPECIFIED POSITION



      6 TN Gordon, Bart (R)               1-202-225-4231

        UNSPECIFIED POSITION



     28 NY Slaughter, Louise M. (D)       1-202-225-3615

        Voted "open"



     22 NY Solomon, Gerald B. (R)         1-202-225-5614

        Voted "open"



      1 TN Quillen, James H. (R)          1-202-225-6356

        Told a constituent he would vote for "open".



     28 CA Dreier, David (R)              1-202-225-2305

        UNSPECIFIED POSITION



     14 FL Goss, Porter J. (R)            1-202-225-2536

        UNSPECIFIED POSITION



 It is probably not worth the trouble to ask the remaining legislators

 how they voted unless you happen to chat with their staff often. 



 STATUS OF THE BILL (updated 7/21/94)



 If you read the appropriate newsgroups (or any major newspaper) you've

 seen the news about the Gore/Cantwell compromise.  Since everyone

 has reprinted it already, we'll not reprint it again, though we'll

 happily send you a copy should you have missed it.



 The upshot of this is that Rep. Maria Cantwell will not be offering

 her amendment and therefore HR 3937 is a dead end this year for

 liberalizing cryptography exports.  Since VTW is an organization dedicated

 to working on legislation, and there is no longer a piece of relevant

 legislation, we will be concentrating on other projects.  The "cantwell"

 section of our archive will be reworked, and the records of legislators

 that voted will be kept there for future reference.  [NOTE: these

 voting records will also be rolled into our 1994 Voters Guide]



 Here is the final schedule/chronology of the bill



 Jul 21, 94  Rep. Cantwell and Vice Pres. Al Gore compromise on seven

             principles, retreating on the Clipper chip; Rep. Cantwell

             chooses not continue to press the legislation or the amendment

             (see relevant articles in today's NY Times and Washington Post)

 Jul 20, 94  HR3937 comes to House floor; a "good" amendement will be offered

 Jul 11, 94  House Rules Committee marks HR3937 "open"; allowing amendments

 Jun 30, 94  [*** vote postponed, perhaps till the week of 7/11/94]

             House Rules Comm. decides whether to allow amendments

             on the bill when it reaches the House floor 

 Jun 14, 94  Gutted by the House Select Committee on Intelligence 

 May 20, 94  Referred to the House Select Committee on Intelligence 

 May 18, 94  Passed out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on May 18

             attached to HR 3937, the General Export Administration Act

 Dec  6, 93  Referred to the Subcommittee on Economic Policy, Trade and

 Nov 22, 93  Referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.



 1994 VOTERS GUIDE



 Voters Telecomm Watch believes that you should be informed about your

 legislators' positions on key issues.  We will be developing a survey

 to give to current legislators and their challengers that will gauge

 their positions on key issues involving telecommunications and civil

 liberties.  These results will be made publicly available on the net

 for you to use in casting your vote in November.



 We'll be depending on you to help get legislative candidates to fill

 out and return their surveys.  Please watch this space for the

 announcement of survey availability in the coming weeks.



 If you wish to participate in the development of the survey, feel free

 to join the working list by mailing a note to that effect to 



                       vtw@vtw.org



 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%



      HIGH-SPEED INTERNET ACCESS EXPANDED THROUGHOUT MINNESOTA



 By Dennis Fazio (dfazio@mr.net)



 Contact:

 Dennis Fazio, Executive Director

 Minnesota Regional Network

 511 11th Avenue South, Box 212

 Minneapolis, MN 55415

 (612) 342-2890

 dfazio@MR.Net



 Minneapolis, MN, July 18, 1994 -- The Minnesota Regional Network (MRNet), a

 nonprofit corporation that provides connections to the burgeoning world-wide

 Internet in Minnesota, has implemented a major statewide expansion by

 installing several additional access sites around the state using a new data

 transport technology called Frame Relay. This new technology is available as

 a regular service by US West s !nterPRISE Networking Services division. It

 allows MRNet to expand its central hub sites, which are locations where many

 customer connections are gathered together, to the four corners of

 Minnesota, providing a more economical means of connection for colleges,

 schools, libraries, government agencies and businesses in any city or town

 in the state.



 The Internet, a high-speed network of networks, is a current major component

 of what is coming to be called the "Information Superhighway". It is

 composed of a multitude of computer and information networks including

 international links, national backbones, regional and state distribution

 networks and campus or corporate networks. These are all connected in a

 seamless whole creating an information infrastructure containing several

 million individual computers used by ten to twenty million people around the

 globe. In Minnesota, the Minnesota Regional Network or MRNet, is the primary

 statewide distribution network for Internet access.



 "The deployment of these new network switching technologies has the

 potential to revolutionize the creation of wide-area networks," says Dennis

 Fazio, Executive Director of MRNet. "It has reduced the cost of providing

 high-speed connections to customer sites, not only within the US West Frame

 Relay service areas, but even in the outlying towns beyond the suburbs and

 in between the major state metropolitan areas." 



 Previously, point-to-point phone circuits had to be connected and expensive

 multi-port hub equipment installed in hub sites. Frame Relay service allows

 MRNet to install smaller less complex and less expensive equipment since the

 aggregation of traffic from multiple customer connections is done within US

 West s switching equipment. It is necessary to only have a single connection

 from the hub site into the Frame Relay service. Additionally, the end-site

 connection links are less expensive, since they now only need a termination

 point at the customer's site. The other end of the link is brought directly

 into the Frame Relay system and doesn t incur any termination charges, which

 are the most expensive portion of a digital circuit. This means that it is

 now more economical to cover the entire state by extending links to the

 nearest Frame Relay service area than it is to distribute many more hubs to

 cover the large number of communities necessary to provide full state-wide

 access. Finally, Frame Relay service is a much higher quality of service,

 since all links are monitored and maintained 24 hours a day by US West s

 advanced engineers and technicians.



 With this new expansion, MRNet can provide lower cost direct Frame Relay

 access in Duluth, Hibbing, Thief River Falls, Bemidji, Brainerd, Moorhead,

 Willmar, St. Cloud, Marshall, Owatonna and Rochester in addition to the Twin

 Cities metro area. Those towns outside these areas can be served by

 extending a link to one of these 12 distributed sites. 



 MRNet has established partnerships with the University of Minnesota in the

 Twin Cities and Duluth and the Minnesota State University System to share

 long distance trunk lines, which bring the outstate traffic to the Twin

 Cities for forwarding to the Internet, and to obtain space to house

 equipment.



 Beyond this initial new deployment, plans are being put in place to expand

 local calling access for dialup subscribers in other parts of the state.

 This will provide lower-cost links to the Internet for individuals and small

 organizations who cannot yet justify the effort and expense of a high-speed

 digital link. Presently, local calling access is available in the Twin

 Cities, Rochester and St. Cloud. Toll-free access is already available to

 Minnesota educators in all parts of the state through the InforMNs

 demonstration project, a joint effort implemented by MRNet, TIES and the

 Minnesota Department of Education. This effort is partially subsidized by

 the state to provide equal access to all state educators. There are now

 about 1,000 subscribers on the InforMNs system. 



 The ability to provide this state-wide network expansion was helped in part

 with funds from the National Science Foundation via a grant to CICNet, a

 regional network comprised primarily of the Big-10 Universities in which

 several state networks including Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois,

 Michigan and Indiana participated. This was a for a project titled "Rural

 Datafication" whose purpose was to extend Internet access to areas not

 easily served in the major metropolitan areas. 



 The Minnesota Regional Network is an independent member-based nonprofit

 corporation that has been providing access to the Internet since 1988. Its

 mission is to enhance the academic, research and economic environment of the

 state through the use of computer and information networks. It is the

 leading provider of Internet access in Minnesota and now has more than 100

 colleges, universities, libraries, school districts, nonprofit

 organizations, government agencies and businesses listed as connected

 members. Additionally, over 250 individuals and small organizations or

 businesses have access via various forms of dialup connections. MRNet works

 cooperatively with the state s higher education community, the state

 government and several other service organizations of all types to expand

 and increase the level and quality of world-wide network access for the

 improvement of education, general research and commercial business

 operations.



 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%



       INTERNET ACCESS NOW AVAILABLE FOR ALL MINNESOTA TEACHERS



 By Dennis Fazio (dfazio@mr.net)





 MINNEAPOLIS-ST. PAUL, MN, July 24, 1994 -- Nearly 1,000 Minnesota teachers

 are cruising the information superhighway this summer via InforMNs -

 Internet for Minnesota Schools, a service offered to K-12 educators

 throughout the state.  Using the direct full-function access to the Internet

 that InforMNs provides, teachers browse through on-line databases and

 library catalogs around the world; they have access to U.S. government

 information from a number of agencies including NASA, the Department of

 Education, and the National Institutes of Health; and they share lesson

 plans, ideas for more effective teaching, and thematic classroom activities

 with other teachers and students. 



 For instance, the Wolf Studies Project of the International Wolf Center in

 Ely, Minnesota allows students and teachers around the world to hear, see,

 and track radio-collared wolves in the Superior National Forest via the

 Internet.  They can read reports, see pictures and video images, and hear

 sound files about the wolves' movement and activity that are posted on the

 Wolf Studies Project Gopher server.  In another project, students and

 teachers in Minnesota have been exchanging electronic mail with their

 counterparts in Kamchatka, Russia for the past year.  This August the

 Kamchatka Ministry of Education is sponsoring the Second Annual Educational

 Travel Seminar to the Russian Far East with the help of the Minnesota

 Global Education Resource Center.  These kinds of resources and activities,

 and the communication that happens between people, are what make the

 Internet what is -- a worldwide network of computers, resources, and the

 people that use them.



 InforMNs is available to teachers, administrators, and staff from any

 school district, public or private, in Minnesota.  Subscriptions run for a

 12-month period and can start at any time.  The fee is $20 per month, paid

 annually, and provides up to 30 hours of toll free access per month. 

 Software, user guides, and a toll free helpline for on-going support are

 included.  In addition, the InforMNs service provides one day of training

 for one person in each subscribing school building to prepare that person

 to give on-site assistance to his or her colleagues.  To subscribe or for

 more information, call InforMNs at (612) 638-8786 or send email to

 howe@informns.k12.mn.us.  



 InforMNs is funded in part by an appropriation from the state legislature

 to the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) to provide Internet access

 to all Minnesota schools.  The appropriation subsidizes the cost of

 providing the service so that toll free dial-up access is ensured from any

 school in the state, regardless of its location.  Of the 1,000 subscribers,

 approximately half connect to the network via local calls in St. Cloud,

 Rochester, and the Twin Cities, and half use the InforMNs 800 toll free

 access number.  



 In addition to toll free access, InforMNs subscribers receive all the

 software they need to connect their Macintosh or IBM-compatible personal

 computers directly to the Internet.  After making a dial-up connection with

 an ordinary phone line and a modem, the InforMNs user's computer becomes

 one of the estimated two million computers now on the Internet worldwide. 

 This method of connection differs from the more familiar link to a bulletin

 board system or on-line service like Compuserve, where the user's access to

 the Internet is relayed through a central computer operated by the bulletin

 board owner or on-line service provider.  The InforMNs direct connection

 allows teachers to use all the features and resources available on the

 Internet including news groups, discussion lists, electronic mail,

 Gopher-organized resources, the World Wide Web, and file transfer. 

 Information flows from a distant Internet repository directly to the user's

 own Macintosh or PC.



 The InforMNs service is provided by a partnership of the Minnesota

 Department of Education, the Minnesota Regional Network (MRNet), and

 Technology Information and Educational Services (TIES).  In addition, the

 University of Minnesota and the Minnesota State University System (MSUS)

 share use of their telecommunications infrastructure with the project, and

 InforMNs was launched with the support of the Minnesota Educational Media

 Organization (MEMO) and the Project for Automated Libraries (PALS) at

 Mankato State University.



 For more information, contact:

 Marla Davenport, davenpo@informns.k12.mn.us, (612)638-8793

 Margo Berg, mberg@mr.net, (612)724-2705



 InforMNs - Internet for Minnesota Schools

 2665 Long Lake Road, Suite 250

 Roseville, MN  55113-2535



 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%



                       LEGION OF DOOM T-SHIRTS



 By Chris Goggans <phrack@well.sf.ca.us>



 After a complete sellout at HoHo Con 1993 in Austin, TX this past

 December, the official Legion of Doom t-shirts are available

 once again.  Join the net luminaries world-wide in owning one of

 these amazing shirts.  Impress members of the opposite sex, increase

 your IQ, annoy system administrators, get raided by the government and

 lose your wardrobe!

 

 Can a t-shirt really do all this?  Of course it can!

 

 

 "THE HACKER WAR  --  LOD vs MOD"

 

 This t-shirt chronicles the infamous "Hacker War" between rival

 groups The Legion of Doom and  The Masters of Destruction.  The front

 of the shirt displays a flight map of the various battle-sites

 hit by MOD and tracked by LOD.  The back of the shirt

 has a detailed timeline of the key dates in the conflict, and

 a rather ironic quote from an MOD member.

 

 (For a limited time, the original is back!)

 

 "LEGION OF DOOM  --  INTERNET WORLD TOUR"

 

 The front of this classic shirt displays "Legion of Doom Internet World

 Tour" as well as a sword and telephone intersecting the planet

 earth, skull-and-crossbones style.  The back displays the

 words "Hacking for Jesus" as well as a substantial list of "tour-stops"

 (internet sites) and a quote from Aleister Crowley.

 

 All t-shirts are sized XL, and are 100% cotton.

 

 Cost is $15.00 (US) per shirt.  International orders add $5.00 per shirt for

 postage.

 

 Send checks or money orders.  Please, no credit cards, even if

 it's really your card.

 

 

 Name:       __________________________________________________

 

 Address:    __________________________________________________

 

 City, State, Zip:   __________________________________________

 

 

 I want ____ "Hacker War" shirt(s)

 

 I want ____ "Internet World Tour" shirt(s)

 

 Enclosed is $______ for the total cost.

 

 Mail to:   Chris Goggans

            603 W. 13th #1A-278

            Austin, TX 78701

 

 

 These T-shirts are sold only as a novelty items, and are in no way

 attempting to glorify computer crime.



 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%



                     WHITE HOUSE RETREATS ON CLIPPER



 By Stanton McCandlish (mech@eff.org)



 Yesterday, the Clinton Administration announced that it is taking several

 large, quick steps back in its efforts to push EES or Clipper

 encryption technology.  Vice-President Gore stated in a letter to

 Rep. Maria Cantwell, whose encryption export legislation is today being

 debated on the House floor, that EES is being limited to voice

 communications only.



 The EES (Escrowed Encryption Standard using the Skipjack algorithm, and

 including the Clipper and Capstone microchips) is a Federal Information

 Processing Standard (FIPS) designed by the National Security Agency, and

 approved, despite a stunningly high percentage anti-EES public comments on

 the proposal) by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.  Since

 the very day of the announcement of Clipper in 1993, public outcry against

 the key "escrow" system has been strong, unwavering and growing rapidly.



 What's changed?  The most immediate alteration in the White House's

 previously hardline path is an expressed willingness to abandon the EES

 for computer applications (the Capstone chip and Tessera card), and push

 for its deployment only in telephone technology (Clipper).  The most

 immediate effect this will have is a reduction in the threat to the

 encryption software market that Skipjack/EES plans posed.  



 Additionally, Gore's letter indicates that deployment for even the telephone

 application of Clipper has been put off for months of studies, perhaps

 partly in response to a draft bill from Sens. Patrick Leahy and Ernest

 Hollings that would block appropriation for EES development until many

 detailed conditions had been met.



 And according to observers such as Brock Meeks (Cyberwire Dispatch) and

 Mark Voorhees (Voorhees Reports/Information Law Alert), even Clipper is

 headed for a fall, due to a variety of factors including failure in

 attempts to get other countries to adopt the scheme, at least one state

 bill banning use of EES for medical records, loss of NSA credibility after

 a flaw in the "escrowed" key system was discovered by Dr. Matt Blaze of

 Bell Labs, a patent infringement lawsuit threat (dealt with by buying off

 the claimant), condemnation of the scheme by a former Canadian Defense

 Minister, world wide opposition to Clipper and the presumptions behind it,

 skeptical back-to-back House and Senate hearings on the details of the

 Administration's plan, and pointed questions from lawmakers regarding

 monopolism and accountability.



 One of the most signigicant concessions in the letter is that upcoming

 encryption standards will be "voluntary," unclassified, and exportable,

 according to Gore, who also says there will be no moves to tighten export

 controls.



 Though Gore hints at private, rather than governmental, key "escrow," the

 Administration does still maintain that key "escrow" is an important part of

 its future cryptography policy. 



 EFF would like to extend thanks to all who've participated in our online

 campaigns to sink Clipper.  This retreat on the part of the Executive

 Branch is due not just to discussions with Congresspersons, or letters

 from industry leaders, but in large measure to the overwhelming response from

 users of computer-mediated communication - members of virtual communities

 who stand a lot to gain or lose by the outcome of the interrelated

 cryptography debates.  Your participation and activism has played a key

 role, if not the key role, in the outcome thus far, and will be vitally

 important to the end game!





 Below is the public letter sent from VP Gore to Rep. Cantwell.



 ******



 July 20, 1994



 The Honorable Maria Cantwell

 House of Representatives

 Washington, D.C.,  20515



 Dear Representative Cantwell:



        I write to express my sincere appreciation for your efforts to move

 the national debate forward on the issue of information security and export

 controls.  I share your strong conviction for the need to develop a

 comprehensive policy regarding encryption, incorporating an export policy

 that does not disadvantage American software companies in world markets

 while preserving our law enforcement and national security goals. 



        As you know, the Administration disagrees with you on the extent to

 which existing controls are harming U.S. industry in the short run and the

 extent to which their immediate relaxation would affect national security. 

 For that reason we have supported a five-month Presidential study.  In

 conducting this study, I want to assure you that the Administration will

 use the best available resources of the federal government.  This will

 include the active participation of the National Economic Council and the

 Department of Commerce.  In addition, consistent with the Senate-passed

 language, the first study will be completed within 150 days of passage of

 the Export Administration Act reauthorization bill, with the second study

 to be completed within one year after the completion of the first.  I want

 to personally assure you that we will reassess our existing export controls

 based on the results of these studies.  Moreover, all programs with

 encryption that can be exported today will continue to be exportable.



        On the other hand, we agree that we need to take action this year

 to assure that over time American companies are able to include information

 security features in their programs in order to maintain their admirable

 international competitiveness.  We can achieve this by entering into an new

 phase of cooperation among government, industry representatives and privacy

 advocates with a goal of trying to develop a key escrow encryption system

 that will provide strong encryption, be acceptable to computer users

 worldwide, and address our national needs as well.



        Key escrow encryption offers a very effective way to accomplish our

 national goals,  That is why the Administration adopted key escrow

 encryption in the "Clipper Chip" to provide very secure encryption for

 telephone communications while preserving the ability for law enforcement

 and national security.  But the Clipper Chip is an approved federal

 standard for telephone communications and not for computer networks and

 video networks.  For that reason, we are working with industry to

 investigate other technologies for those applications.



        The Administration understands the concerns that industry has

 regarding the Clipper Chip.  We welcome the opportunity to work with

 industry to design a more versatile, less expensive system.  Such a key

 escrow system would be implementable in software, firmware, hardware, or

 any combination thereof, would not rely upon a classified algorithm, would

 be voluntary, and would be exportable.  While there are many severe

 challenges to developing such a system, we are committed to a diligent

 effort with industry and academia to create such a system.  We welcome your

 offer to assist us in furthering this effort.



        We also want to assure users of key escrow encryption products that

 they will not be subject to unauthorized electronic surveillance.  As we

 have done with the Clipper Chip, future key escrow systems must contain

 safeguards to provide for key disclosure only under legal authorization and

 should have audit procedures to ensure the integrity of the system.  Escrow

 holders should be strictly liable for releasing keys without legal

 authorization.



        We also recognize that a new key escrow encryption system must

 permit the use of private-sector key escrow agents as one option.  It is

 also possible that as key escrow encryption technology spreads, companies

 may established layered escrowing services for their own products.  Having

 a number of escrow agents would give individuals and businesses more

 choices and flexibility in meeting their needs for secure communications.



        I assure you the President and I are acutely aware of the need to

 balance economic an privacy needs with law enforcement and national

 security.  This is not an easy task, but I think that our approach offers

 the best opportunity to strike an appropriate balance.  I am looking

 forward to working with you and others who share our interest in developing

 a comprehensive national policy on encryption.  I am convinced that our

 cooperative endeavors will open new creative solutions to this critical

 problem.



 Sincerely,

 Al Gore

 AG/gcs



 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%



                         WHY COPS HATE CIVILIANS



 Author Unknown

 Posted By Don Montgomery (donrm@sr.hp.com)



      Why Cops Hate You or If You Have to Ask, Get Out of the Way



 Have you  ever been  stopped by  a traffic  cop and,  while he  was

 writing a  ticket or  giving you a warning, you got the feeling he would

 just love  to yank  you out  of the  car, right  through the window, and

 smash your face into the front fender?  Have you ever had a noisy little

 spat with  someone, and  a cop  cruising by  calls, Everything all right

 over there?



 Did you  maybe sense  that he  really hoped  everything was not all

 right, that  he wanted  one of  you to answer, No, officer, this idiot's

 bothering me?   That  all he  was looking  for was  an excuse  to launch

 himself from  the cruiser  and play  a drum  solo on your skull with his

 nightstick?



 Did you  ever call  the cops to report a crime, maybe someone stole

 something from  your car or broke into your home, and the cops act as if

 it were  your fault?   That they were sorry the crook didn't rip you off

 for more?   That  instead of looking for the culprit, they'd rather give

 you a  shot in  the chops  for bothering  them with your bullshit in the

 first place?



 If you've  picked  up  on  this  attitude  from  your  local  sworn

 protectors, it's  not just  paranoia.  They actually don't like you.  In

 fact  cops  don't  just  dislike  you,  they  hate  your  fucking  guts!

 Incidentally, for a number of very good reasons.



 First of  all, civilians  are so goddamn stupid.  They leave things

 lying around,  just begging  thieves to  steal them.   They park cars in

 high crime  areas and  leave portable  TVs,  cameras,  wallets,  purses,

 coats, luggage,  grocery bags  and briefcases in plain view on the seat.

 Oh, sure  maybe they'll  remember to  close all the windows and lock the

 doors, but  do you  know how  easy it is to bust a car window?  How fast

 can it be done?  A ten-year-old can do it in less than six seconds!  And

 a poor cop has another Larceny from Auto on his hands.  Another crime to

 write a  report on,  waste another  half hour on.  Another crime to make

 him look bad.



 Meanwhile the  asshole who  left the  family heirlooms  on the back

 seat in  the first  place is raising hell about where were the cops when

 the car  was being  looted.  He's planning to write irate letters to the

 mayor and  the police commissioner complaining about what a lousy police

 force you  have here;  they can't  even keep  my car from getting ripped

 off!  What, were they drinking coffee somewhere?



 And the cops are saying to themselves.  Lemme tell ya, fuckhead, we

 were seven  blocks away,  taking  another  stupid  report  from  another

 jerkoff civilian about his fucking car being broken into because he left

 his shit on the back seat too!



 These civilians  can't figure  out that  maybe they shouldn't leave

 stuff lying  around un-attended  where anybody  can just  pick it up and

 boogie.   Maybe they  should put the shit in the trunk, where no one but

 Superman is  gonna see it.  Maybe they should do that before they get to

 wherever they're  going just  in case  some riffraff  is hanging  around

 watching them while the car is being secured.



 Another thing  that drives  cops wild  is the, "surely this doesn't

 apply to  me" syndrome,  which never fails to reveal itself at scenes of

 sniper or barricade incidents.  There's always some asshole walking down

 the street  (or jogging  or driving) who thinks the police cars blocking

 off the  area, the  ropes marked  Police Line:   Do  Not Cross, the cops

 crouched behind  cars pointing  revolvers and  carbines and shotguns and

 bazookas at  some building  has nothing whatsoever to do with him, so he

 weasels around  the barricades  or slithers  under the restraining ropes

 and blithely continues on his way, right into the field of fire.



 The result  is that some cop risks his ass (or her's, don't forget,

 the cops include women now) to go after the cretin and drag him, usually

 under protest,  back to  safety.   All of  these cops, including the one

 risking his  ass, devoutly  hope  that  the  sniper  will  get  off  one

 miraculous shot and drill the idiot right between the horns, which would

 have two  immediate effects.   The  quiche-for-brains civilian  would be

 dispatched to  his  just  reward  and  every  cop  on  the  scene  would

 instantaneously be  licensed to  kill the  scumbag  doing  the  sniping.

 Whereupon the  cops would destroy the whole fucking building, sniper and

 all, in  about 30  seconds, which is what they wanted to do in the first

 place, except  the brass  wouldn't let  them  because  the  motherfucker

 hadn't killed anybody yet.



 An  allied  phenomenon  is  the  My  isn't  this  amusing  behavior

 exhibited, usually  by Yuppies  or other  members of  higher society, at

 some emergency  scenes.   For example,  a group  of trendy types will be

 strolling down  the street  when a  squad car  with lights  flashing and

 siren on  screeches up  to a  building.  They'll watch the cops yank out

 their guns  and run up to the door, flatten themselves against the wall,

 and peep  into the  place cautiously.   Now,  if  you  think  about  it,

 something serious  could be  happening here.   Cops  usually don't  pull

 their revolvers to go get a cup of coffee.  any five-year-old ghetto kid

 can tell  you these  cops are  definitely ready to cap somebody.  But do

 our society  friends perceive  this?   Do they stay out of the cops way?

 Of course  not!  They think it's vastly amusing.   And, of course, since

 they're not involved in the funny little game the cops are playing, they

 think nothing  can happen  to them!       While the ghetto kid is hiding

 behind a  car for  the shooting  to start,  Muffy and Chip and Biffy are

 continuing their  stroll, right  up to  the  officers,  tittering  among

 themselves about  how silly  the cops look, all scrunched up against the

 wall, trying  to look in  through the door without stopping bullets with

 their foreheads.



 What the  cops are  hoping at  that point is for a homicidal holdup

 man to  come busting  out the  door with  a sawed-off  shotgun.  They're

 hoping he  has it  loaded with  elephant shot,  and that  he immediately

 identifies our socialites as serious threats to his personal well-being.

 They're hoping  he has  just enough  ammunition to blast the shit out of

 the gigglers,  but not  enough to  return fire  when the cops open up on

 him.



 Of course,  if that  actually happens,  the poor  cops will be in a

 world of  trouble for not protecting the innocent bystanders.  The brass

 wouldn't even  want to  hear that  the shitheads  probably  didn't  have

 enough sense to come in out of an acid rain.  Somebody ought to tell all

 the quiche  eaters out  there to  stand back when they encounter someone

 with a  gun in  his hand,  whether he happens to be wearing a badge or a

 ski mask.



 Civilians also  aggravate cops  in a  number of other ways.  One of

 their favorite games is Officer, can you tell me?  A cop knows he's been

 selected to  play this game whenever someone approaches and utters those

 magic words.   Now, it's okay if they continue with How to get to so and

 so street?   or Where such and such a place is located?  After all, cops

 are supposed  to be  familiar with  the area they work.  But it eats the

 lining of  their stomachs  when some jerkoff asks, Where can I catch the

 number fifty-four bus?  Or, Where can I find a telephone?



 Cops look  forward to  their last  day before retirement, when they

 can safely  give these  douche bags the answer they've been choking back

 for 20  years:   No, maggot,  I can't  tell you where the fifty-four bus

 runs!   What does  this look  like an MTA uniform?  Go ask a fucking bus

 driver!   And, No,  dog breath, I don't know where you can find a phone,

 except wherever  your fucking  eyes see one!  Take your head out of your

 ass and look for one.



 And cops  just love  to find  a guy  parking his car in a crosswalk

 next to  a fire  hydrant at  a bus stop posted with a sigh saying, Don't

 Even Think  About Stopping, Standing, or Parking Here.  Cars Towed Away,

 Forfeited to  the Government,  and Sold at Public Auction.  And the jerk

 asks, Officer, may I park here a minute?



 What are  you nuts?   Of  course ya  can park  here!  As long as ya

 like!   Leave it  there all  day!   Ya don't  see anything  that says ya

 can't, do  ya?   You're welcome.   See  ya later.   The  cop then drives

 around the  corner and  calls a tow truck to remove the vehicle.  Later,

 in traffic  court, the  idiot will  be whining  to the  judge But,  Your

 Honor, I  asked an  officer if  I could park there, and he said I could!

 No, I don't know which officer, but I did ask! Honest!  No, wait, Judge,

 I can't afford five hundred dollars!  This isn't fair!  I'm not creating

 a disturbance!   I've got rights!  Get your hands off me!  Where are you

 taking me?  What do you mean , ten days for contempt of court?  What did

 I do?   Wait,  wait,...   If you  should happen  to see  a  cop  humming

 contentedly and  smiling to  himself for no apparent reason, he may have

 won this game.



 Wildly unrealistic civilian expectations also contribute to a cop's

 distaste for  the general  citizenry.  An officer can be running his ass

 off all  day or  night handling  call after  call and writing volumes of

 police reports,  but everybody thinks their problem is the only thing he

 has to  work on.  The policeman may have a few worries, too.  Ever think

 of that?   the sergeant is on him because he's been late for roll call a

 few days;  he's been  battling like  a badger  with his wife, who's just

 about to leave him because he never takes her anywhere and doesn't spend

 enough time at home and the kids need braces and the station wagon needs

 a major  engine overhaul and where are we gonna get the money to pay for

 all that  and we haven't had a real vacation for years and all you do is

 hang around with other cops and you've been drinking too much lately and

 I could've  married that  wonderful guy  I was going with when I met you

 and lived  happily ever  after and  why don't you get a regular job with

 regular days  off and  no night  shifts and  decent pay and a chance for

 advancement and no one throwing bottles or taking wild potshots at you?



 Meanwhile, that  sweet young thing he met on a call last month says

 her period is late.  Internal Affairs is investigating him on fucking up

 a disorderly  last week;  the captain  is pissed  at him  for tagging  a

 councilman's car; a burglar's tearing up the businesses on his post; and

 he's already  handled two robberies, three family fights, a stolen auto,

 and a half dozen juvenile complaints today.



 Now here he is, on another juvenile call, trying to explain to some

 bimbo, who's  the president of her neighborhood improvement association,

 that the  security of  Western Civilization is not really threatened all

 that much  by the kids who hang around on the corner by her house.  Yes,

 officer, I  know they're not there now.  They always leave when you come

 by.   But after  you're gone,  they come  right back, don't you see, and

 continue their  disturbance.   It's intolerable!   I'm  so upset,  I can

 barely sleep at night.



 By now,  the cops  eyes have  glazed over.    What  we  need  here,

 officer, she  continues vehemently,  Is greater attention to this matter

 by the  police.   You and  some other officers should hide and stake out

 that corner  so those  renegades wouldn't see you.  Then you could catch

 them in  the act!   Yes, ma'am, we'd love to stake out that corner a few

 hours every night, since we don't have anything else to do, but I've got

 a better idea, he'd like to say.  Here's a box of fragmentation grenades

 the Department  obtained from  the Army  just for  situations like this.

 The next  time you see those little fuckers out there, just lob a couple

 of these into the crowd and get down!



 Or he's  got and  artsy-craftsy type  who's  moved  into  a  tough,

 rundown neighborhood  and decides  it's gotta  be cleaned up.  You know,

 Urban Pioneers.   The  cops see  a lot  of them  now.   Most of them are

 intelligent(?), talented, hard-working, well-paid folks with masochistic

 chromosomes interspersed  among their otherwise normal genes.  They have

 nice jobs,  live in nice homes, and they somehow decide that it would be

 a marvelous  idea to  move into a slum and get yoked, roped, looted, and

 pillaged on  a regular  basis.   What else  do you  expect?   Peace  and

 harmony?  It's like tossing a juicy little pig into a piranha tank.



 Moving day:  Here come the pioneers, dropping all their groovy gear

 from their  Volvo station  wagon, setting it on the sidewalk so everyone

 can get  a good  look and  the food processor, the microwave, the stereo

 system, the  color TV,  the tape deck, etc.  At the same time, the local

 burglars are  appraising the goods unofficially and calculating how much

 they can get for the TV down at the corner bar, how much the stereo will

 bring at  Joe's garage, who might want the tape deck at the barber shop,

 and maybe mama can use the microwave herself.



 When the  pioneers get  ripped off,  the cops figure they asked for

 it, and  they got  it.   You want to poke your arm through the bars of a

 tiger cage?   Fuck you!  Don't be amazed when he eats it for lunch!  The

 cops regard  it as  naive for  trendies to  move into  crime  zones  and

 conduct their  lives the same way they did up on Society Hill.  In fact,

 they can't fathom why anyone who didn't have to would want to move there

 at all,  regardless of  how they want to live or how prepared they might

 be to  adapt their  behavior.   That's probably  because  the  cops  are

 intimately acquainted  with all  those petty  but disturbing  crimes and

 nasty little  incidents that  never make  the newspapers  but profoundly

 affect the quality of life in a particular area.



 Something else  that causes  premature aging  among cops  is the, I

 don't know who to call, so I'll call the police ploy.  Why, the cops ask

 themselves, do  they get so many calls for things like water leaks, sick

 cases, bats in houses, and the like, things that have nothing whatsoever

 to do  with law  enforcement or  the maintenance  of public order?  They

 figure it's  because civilians  are getting  more and more accustomed to

 having the government solve problems for them, and the local P.D. is the

 only governmental  agency that'll  even answer  the phone a 3:00 am, let

 alone send anybody.



 So, when  the call  comes over  the radio  to go  to  such-and-such

 address  for  a  water  leak,  the  assigned  officer  rolls  his  eyes,

 acknowledges, responds,  surveys the problem, and tells the complainant,

 Yep, that's  a water  leak all  right!   No doubt  about it. Ya probably

 ought to  call a  plumber!   And it  might not be a bad idea to turn off

 your main  valve for  a while.   Or,  Yep, your  Aunt Minnie's  sick all

 right!   Ya probably ought to get'er to a doctor tomorrow if she doesn't

 get any  better by  then.S   Or, Yep,  that's a bat all right!  Mebbe ya

 ought to open the windows so it can fly outside again!



 In the meantime our hero is wasting his time on this bullshit call,

 maybe someone  is having  a real  problem out there, like getting raped,

 robbed or  killed.   Street cops would like to work the phones just once

 and catch  a few  of these idiotic complaints:  A bat in your house?  No

 need to  send an officer when I can tell ya what to do right here on the

 phone, pal!  Close all your doors and windows right away.  Pour gasoline

 all over  your furniture.   That's  it.   Now, set  it on  fire and  get

 everybody outside!   Yeah,  you'll get the little motherfucker for sure!

 That's okay, call us anytime.



 Probably the  most serious beef cops have with civilians relates to

 those situations  in which  the use  of force  becomes necessary to deal

 with some desperado who may have just robbed a bank, iced somebody, beat

 up his wife and kids, or wounded some cop, and now he's caught but won't

 give up.  He's not going to be taken alive, he's going to take some cops

 with him, and you better say your prayers, you pig bastards!  Naturally,

 if the  chump's armed  with any  kind of  weapon, the  cops are going to

 shoot the  shit out  of him  so bad  they'll be able to open up his body

 later as  a lead  mine.  If he's not armed, and the cops aren't creative

 enough to find a weapon for him, they'll beat him into raw meat and hope

 he spends  the next  few weeks  in traction.  They view it as a learning

 experience for  the asshole.  You fuck up somebody, you find out what it

 feels like  to get  fucked up.  Don't like it?  Don't do it again!  It's

 called Street  Justice, and  civilians approve of it as much as cops do,

 even if they don't admit it.



 Remember how  the audience  cheered when  Charles Bronson fucked up

 the bad  guys in  Death Wish?  How they scream with joy every time Clint

 Eastwood's Dirty  Harry makes his day by blowing up some rotten scumball

 with his  .44 Magnum?  What they applaud is the administration of street

 justice.   The old  eye-for-an-eye concept, one of mankind's most primal

 instincts.  All of us have it, especially cops.



 It severely  offends and  deeply hurts  cops when they administer a

 dose of  good old-fashioned  street justice  only to have some bleeding-

 heart do-gooder  happens upon  the scene  at the  last minute,  when the

 hairbag is  at last  getting his just deserts, and start hollering about

 police brutality.   Cops  regard that  as very  serious business indeed.

 Brutality can get them fired.  Get fired from one police department, and

 it's tough to get a job as a cop anywhere else ever again.



 Brutality exposes  the cop  to civil  liability as well.  Also, his

 superior officers,  the police  department as  an agency, and maybe even

 the local  government itself.  You've seen those segments on 60 Minutes,

 right?   Some cop  screws up, gets sued along with everybody else in the

 department who  had anything to do with him, and the city or county ends

 up paying  the plaintiff  umpty-ump million  dollars, raising  taxes and

 hocking its  fire engines  in the process.  What do think happens to the

 cop who fucked up in the first place?  He's done for.



 On many occasions when the cops are accused of excessive force, the

 apparent brutality  is  a  misperception  by  some  observer  who  isn't

 acquainted with  the realities of police work.  For example, do you have

 any idea  how hard  it is to handcuff someone who really doesn't want to

 be handcuffed?   Without  hurting them?   It's almost impossible for one

 cop to  accomplish by  himself unless  he beats  the  hell  out  of  the

 prisoner first,  which would  also be viewed a brutality!  It frequently

 takes three or four cops to handcuff one son of a bitch who's determined

 to battle them.



 In situations  like that,  it's not  unusual for  the cops  to hear

 someone in  the crowd  of onlookers comment on how they're ganging up on

 the poor  bastard and  beating him  unnecessarily.  This makes them feel

 like telling  the complainer,  Hey,  motherfucker,  you  think  you  can

 handcuff this  shithead by  yourself without killing him first?  C'mere!

 You're deputized!  Now, go ahead and do it!



 The problem  is that,  in addition  to being  unfamiliar  with  how

 difficult it  is in the real world to physically control someone without

 beating  his   ass,  last-minute   observers  usually   don't  have  the

 opportunity to see for themselves, like they do in the movies and on TV,

 what a  fucking monster  the suspect  might be.   If  they  did,  they'd

 probably holler  at the  cops to  beat his  ass some  more.   They might

 actually even  want to  help!      The best thing for civilians to do if

 they think they see the cops rough up somebody too much is to keep their

 mouths shut  at the  scene, and  to make  inquiries of  the police brass

 later on.   There  might be  ample justification for the degree of force

 used that  just wasn't  apparent at the time of the arrest.  If not, the

 brass will  be very  interested in  the complaint.  If one of their cops

 went over  the deep end, they'll want to know about it.     Most of this

 comes down  to  common  sense,  a  characteristic  the  cops  feel  most

 civilians lack.   One of the elements of common sense is thinking before

 opening one's  yap or  taking other  action.   Just a  brief  moment  of

 thought will  often prevent  the utterance  of something  stupid or  the

 commission of  some idiotic  act that will, among other things, generate

 nothing but  contempt from  the average street cop.  Think, and it might

 mean getting  a warning instead of a traffic ticket.  Or getting sent on

 your way  rather than being arrested.  Or continuing on to your original

 destination instead of to the hospital.  It might mean getting some real

 assistance instead  of the runaround.  The very least it'll get you is a

 measure of  respect cops  seldom show  civilians.  Act like you've got a

 little sense,  and even  if the cops don't love you, at least they won't

 hate you.



 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%



           PUBLIC SPACE ON INFO HIGHWAY: CALL CONGRESS ASAP!



By The Center For Media Education (cme@access1.digex.net)



People For the American Way is 300,000-member nonpartisan constitutional

liberties public interest organization. 2000 M Street NW, Suite 400,

Washington DC 20036.



 ACTION ALERT  --  From People For the American Way (DC)



 SENATE TO ACT ON INFO-HIGHWAY BILL -- ACTIVISTS NEEDED TO ENSURE THAT

 PUBLIC ACCESS PROVISIONS ARE INCLUDED.



 The Issue



 -  The "information superhighway" has the potential to give rise to a new

 era of democratic self governance by providing the means through which

 civic discourse can flourish.  Turning this into a reality means that

 those committed to promoting this new marketplace of ideas must be given

 the tools to use new telecommunications networks.



 -  A diverse coalition of public interest organizations is supporting

 legislation introduced by Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Chairman of the

 Communications Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee, to encourage

 this new marketplace of ideas by ensuring that the public has access to

 the information superhighway is protected (S. 2195). 



 -  Without reserved capacity, the ability of local governmental

 institutions, libraries, schools, public broadcasters and other nonprofit

 organizations to take advantage of new telecommunications technologies

 will be determined by private gatekeepers who have few economic incentives

 to permit those institutions without the means to pay commercial rates

 access to their networks.



 -  Without Senator Inouye's legislation, the information superhighway will

 carry little more than video games, movies on demand and home shopping. 



 -  There has been a great deal of rhetoric about the telecommunications

 networks of the future being of unlimited capacity.  This is certainly the

 goal.  However, it is necessary to ensure that between now and the time

 that such capacity is unlimited, that there is meaningful access available

 for those entities proving important educational, cultural, informational,

 civic and charitable services to the public.



 -  Senator Inouye's legislation must be included in the debate with the

 larger telecommunications legislation (S. 1822) introduced by Senator

 Ernest Hollings (D-SC), Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. 





 LEGISLATIVE TIMING



 Senator Hollings (D-SC), Chairman of the Commerce Committee, and Senator

 Danforth (R-MO), Ranking Minority Member of the Commerce Committee are

 busily working on amendments to S. 1822, a major telecommunications reform

 bill.  Next week, the full Committee is expected to consider these

 amendments.  Therefore, a public access provision must be included now.



 ACTION REQUEST 



 -  Please call Senator Hollings at the Commerce Committee and Senator

 Danforth (Ranking Minority Member) immediately!!  Ask them to support S.

 2195 and guarantee that requirements are put in place for public access at

 low or no-cost rates are included in the Chairman's Mark.  Phone calls on

 this issue by the public will have a profound effect on the outcome of

 this legislation--so please call!



  Senator Hollings  202-224-5115

  Senator Danforth  202-224-6154



 -  Please also call Senator Inouye and encourage him to continue to push

 for passage of S. 2195 and to seek it's combination with S. 1822.



  Inouye (D-HI)   202-224-3934



 -  Please try to find the time to make a few calls and ask the other

 Senators on the Commerce Committee to support S. 2195 and ensure public

 access provisions are included in S. 1822. Other Senators on the Commerce

 Committee are:



 Exon  (D-NB)   202-224-4224

 Ford  (D-KY)   202-224-4343

 Rockefeller (D-WV)  202-224-6472

 Kerry  (D-MA)   202-224-2742

 Breaux (D-LA)   202-224-4623

 Bryan (D-NV)   202-224-6244

 Robb (D-VA)   202-224-4024

 Dorgan (D-ND)   202-224-2551

 Matthews (D-TN)   202-224-4944 

 Packwood (R-OR)   202-224-5244

 Pressler (R-SD)   202-224-5842

 Stevens (R-AK)   202-224-3004

 McCain (R-AZ)   202-224-2235

 Burns (R-MT)   202-224-2644

 Gorton (R-WA)   202-224-3441

 Lott (R-Miss.)   202-224-6253

 Hutchison (R-TX)   202-224-5922



 -  Calling these Senators *works*!!



 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%



                   SOFTWARE KEY ESCROW - A NEW THREAT?



 By Timothy May (tcmay@netcom.com)



 At the June Cypherpunks meeting, Whit Diffie (co-inventor of

 public-key crypto, as you should all know) filled us in on a workshop

 on "key escrow" held in Karlsruhe, Germany. All the usual suspects

 were there, and I gather that part of the purpose was to bring the

 Europeans "into the tent" on key escrow, to deal with their objections

 to Clipper, and so on.



 Diffie described in some detail a software-based scheme developed by

 NIST (and Dorothy Denning, if I recall correctly) that, as I recall

 the details, avoids public key methods. Perhaps this was also

 described here on the list. I know Bill Stewart has recently discussed

 it in sci.crypt or talk.politics.crypto.



 What has me worried about it now is evidence from more than one source

 that this program is actually much further along than being merely a

 "trial balloon" being floated. In fact, it now looks as though the

 hardware-based key escrow systems will be deemphasized, as Al Gore's

 letter seems to say, in favor of software-based schemes. 



 While I've been skeptical that software-based schemes are secure (the

 bits are hardly secure against tampering), the addition of negotiation

 with another site (a lot like online clearing of digital cash, it

 seems) can make it nearly impossible for tampering to occur. That is,

 I'm now more persuaded that the NIST/NSA(?) proposal would allow

 software-based key escrow.



 Here's the rub:



 * Suppose the various software vendors are "incentivized" to include

 this in upcoming releases. For example, in 30 million copies of

 Microsoft's "Chicago" (Windows 4.0) that will hit the streets early in

 '95 (betas are being used today by many).



 * This solves the "infrastructure" or "fax effect" problem--key escrow

 gets widely deployed, in a way that Clipper was apparently never going

 to be (did any of you know _anybody_ planning to buy a "Surety"

 phone?).



 (Granted, this is key escrow for computers, not for voice

 communication. More on this later.)



 * Once widely deployed, with not talk of the government holding the

 keys, then eventual "mandatory key escrow" can be proposed, passed

 into law by Executive Order (Emergency Order, Presidential Directive,

 whatever your paranoia supports), an act of Congress, etc.



 I don't claim this scenario is a sure thing, or that it can't be

 stopped. But if in fact a "software key escrow" system is in the

 works, and is more than just a "trial balloon," then we as Cypherpunks

 should begin to "do our thing," the thing we've actually done pretty

 well in the past. To wit: examine the implications, talk to the

 lobbyist groups about what it means, plan sabotage efforts (sabotage

 of public opinion, not planting bugs in the Chicago code!), and

 develop ways to make sure that a voluntary key escrow system could

 never be made mandatory.



 (Why would _anyone_ ever use a voluntary key escrow system? Lots of

 reasons, which is why I don't condemn key escrow automatically.

 Partners in a business may want access under the right circumstances

 to files. Corporations may want corporate encryption accessible under

 emergencyy circumstances (e.g., Accounting and Legal are escrow

 agencies). And individuals who forget their keys--which happens all

 the time--may want the emergency option of asking their friends who

 agreed to hold the key escrow stuff to help them. Lots of other

 reasons. And lots of chances for abuse, independent of mandatory key escrow.)



 But there are extreme dangers in having the infrastructure of a

 software key escrow system widely deployed.



 I can't see how a widely-deployed (e.g., all copies of Chicago, etc.)

 "voluntary key escrow" system would remain voluntary for long. It

 looks to me that the strategy is to get the infrastructure widely

 deployed with no mention of a government role, and then to bring the

 government in as a key holder.



 (The shift of focus away from telephone communications to data is an

 important one. I can see several reasons. First, this allows wide

 deployment by integration into next-gen operating systems. A few

 vendors can be "incentivized." Second, voice systems are increasingly

 turning into data systems, with all the stuff surrounding ISDN,

 cable/telco alliances, "set-top" boxes, voice encryption on home

 computers, etc. Third, an infrastructure for software key escrow would

 make the backward extension to voice key escrow more palatable. And

 finally, there is a likely awareness that the "terrorist rings" and

 "pedophile circles" they claim to want to infiltrate are more than

 likely already using computers and encryption, not simple voice lines.

 This will be even more so in the future. So, the shift of focus to

 data is understandable. That it's a much easier system in which to get

 40-60 million installed systems _almost overnight_ is also not lost on

 NIST and NSA, I'm sure.)



 In other words, a different approach than with Clipper, where

 essentially nobody was planning to buy the "Surety" phones (except

 maybe a few thousand) but the government role was very prominent--and

 attackable, as we all saw. Here, the scenario might be to get 40-60

 million units out there (Chicago, next iteration of Macintosh OS,

 maybe Sun, etc.) and then, after some series of events (bombings,

 pedophile rings, etc.) roll in the mandatory aspects.



 Enforcement is always an issue, and I agree that many bypasses exist.

 But as Diffie notes, the "War on Drugs" enlistment of corporations was

 done with various threats that corporations would lose

 assets/contracts unless they cooperated. I could see the same thing

 for a software-based key escrow.



 A potentially dangerous situation. 



 I was the one who posted the Dorothy Denning "trial balloon" stuff to

 sci.crypt, in October of 1992, six months before it all became real

 with the announcement of Clipper. This generated more than a thousand

 postings, not all of them useful (:-}), and helped prepare us for the

 shock of the Clipper proposal the following April.



 I see this software-based key escrow the same way. Time to start

 thinking about how to stop it now, before it's gone much further.



 Putting Microsoft's feet to the fire, getting them to commit to *not*

 including any form of software-based key escrow in any future releases

 of Windows (Chicago or Daytona) could be a concrete step in the right

 direction. Ditto for Apple. 



 I'm sure we can think of other steps to help derail widespread

 deployment of this infrastructure.



 --Tim May



 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

 

            HOODS HIT THE HIGHWAY; COMPUTER USERS WARNED OF SCAMS

 

 By Charlotte-Anne Lucas

 Austin Bureau of The Dallas Morning News

 REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS

 

 AUSTIN -- Computer users, beware: Driving on the information highway,

 it's possible to get fleeced.

 

 Scam artists have hit the cyberspace, offering high-tech ponzi schemes,

 sending illegal electronic chain letters and hyping virtually worthless

 stock, according to state securities regulators across the nation.

 

 In Texas, regulators say an Austin retiree lost $10,000 in a fake mutual

 fund deal sold by a man who promoted his "money managing" skills through

 an on-line computer service.

 

 "The danger here is that cyberspace, which could be a beneficial way for

 consumers to do a better job of informing themselves, will instead be

 discredited as a haven for fast-buck artists," said Denise Voigt

 Crawford, the Texas Securities Commissioner.

 

 In New Jersey and Missouri on Thursday, securities regulators filed

 cease and desist orders against promoters who used computer links to

 tout allegedly fraudulent deals.  Texas regulators say it is likely that

 they will seek an indictment in the case of the nonexistent mutual fund.

 

 But with nearly 4 million computer users nationwide linked into

 commercial computer services and 20 million people on the internet,

 a world-wide computer network, "it is almost too big to police

 effectively," said Jared Silverman, chief of the New Jersey Bureau of

 Securities and chairman of a multi-state team that investigates computer

 fraud.

 

 In response, regulators in all 50 states issued a bulletin to

 investigators, describing the potential frauds and listing steps small

 investors can take to protect themselves.  "We're trying to tell people

 to be careful," said Ms. Crawford, "there is a new fraud on the

 horizon."

 

 Although regulators are concerned about the problem, Ms. Crawford

 acknowledges enforcement will be a challenge.  Because electronic

 conversations, or E-mail, are considered private, "we don't know what

 difficulties we are going to have getting subpoenas enforced or what

 kind of cooperation we will get from (commercial bulletin board

 systems)." [sic]

 

 Officials say promoters tend to advertise offers or stock tips on the

 financial bulletin board sections of on-line computer services such as

 CompuServe, America Online and Prodigy, or in the specialized discussion

 forums in the Internet.

 

 Regulators said that of 75,000 messages posted on one computer service

 bulletin board during a recent two-week period, 5,600 were devoted to

 investment topics.  While some commercial computer bulletin board

 services try to control the publicly posted investment tips, most do not

 try to control most communications on the service.

  

 What begins as innocent E-mail can end with an unwary investor "getting

 cleaned out by high-tech schemers," said Ms. Crawford.

  

 In Texas, the case under investigation began when an Austin retiree

 posted a public note in a commercial bulletin board system looking for

 conversations about the stock market, according to John A. Peralta,

 deputy director of enforcement at the Texas Securities Board.

 

 "He was contacted.  It turned into a private E-mail conversation, a

 telephone conversation and then exchanges through the mail," said

 Mr. Peralta.  But the person who promoted himself on the computer as a

 skilled money manager turned out to be unlicensed -- and the mutual fund

 the retiree invested in turned out to be nonexistent.

 

 Mr. Peralta said at least one other person, not from Texas, invested

 $90,000 in the same deal, "We are aware of two, but we don't really

 know," he said.  "There may be dozens of victims."

 

 Securities regulators began taking interest in on-line scams last fall,

 after Mr. Silverman -- a computer junkie -- raised the issue at a

 national meeting of regulators.  "I heard stories about things going on

 on computer bulletin board services, and I have been monitoring these

 things for close to a year," he said.

 

 In fact, the New Jersey case came from Mr. Siverman's off-hours cruising

 of an on-line service.  "I sit at a keyboard two hours a day -- to the

 chagrin of my wife -- scanning these things," he said.

 

 What he found was a promoter pushing an E-mail chain letter.  The

 promoter, identified only as from San Antonio, claimed that in exchange

 for $5, investors could earn $60,000 in three to six weeks.

 

 Regulators said participants were told to send $1 to each of five people

 on a list in the computer bulletin board, add their own name to the list

 and post it on 10 different computer bulletin board sites.

 

 That, regulators said in a statement, "amounted to a high-tech

 variation on the old pyramid scam, which is barred by federal and state

 laws."

 

 In Missouri, regulators Thursday moved against an unlicensed stockbroker

 for touting his services and "making duubious [sic] claims for stocks

 not registered for sale in the state."  Among other things, regulators

 said, the promoter falsely claimed that Donald Trump was a "major,

 behind-the-scenes player in a tiny cruise line" whose stock he pitched.

 

 Ms. Crawford said that while computer users may be sophisticated in some

 ways, they still are attractive targets because they tend to have

 discretionary income and frequently are looking for ways to invest their

 money.

 

 Some of the commercial services also allow users to use various aliases,

 making it all the more difficult for investigators to figure out who

 they are really communication with.

 

  %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%



                      THE INTERNET AND THE ANTI-NET



 By Nick Arnett (nicka@mccmedia.com)



 Two public internetworks are better than one



 Networking policy debates tend to paint a future monolithic internetwork

 that will follow consistent policies despite a number of independent

 operators.  Although that's how the interstate highway and telephone

 systems -- favorite metaphors for network futurists -- operate, historical

 comparisons suggest that it is probably not what the future holds.  Two

 distinct, interconnected publicly accessible digital internetworks are

 likely to emerge, which is surely better than just one.



 One of the future internetworks will grow out of today's Internet, whose

 roots are in the technology and scientific/academic communities, funded by

 government, institutions and increasingly, corporate and individual users.

 Although the Internet will support commercial services, they rarely will

 depend on advertising.  The other great internetwork will grow out of the

 technology and mass communications industries, especially cable and

 broadcast industries.  The "Anti-net" will rely on advertising revenue to

 recoup the cost of the infrastructure necessary to create cheap, high-speed

 bandwidth.  (I call this second network the Anti-net not to be a demagogue

 but to make a historical allusion, explained shortly.)  All three

 communities -- technology, science and academia, and mass media -- will

 participate in many joint projects.  The most successful new ventures often

 will arise from three-way collaborations; skills of each are essential to

 create and deliver network-based information products and services.



 The Internet community reacts with profound anger and resentment at

 Anti-net behavior on the Internet -- in net-speak, "spamming" advertising

 messages into hundreds of discussions.  The outrage is based in part on the

 idealistic traditions of academic and scientific freedom of thought and

 debate, but there's more behind it.  Anger and resentment fueled by the

 world's love-hate relationship with the mass media, particularly

 television, surface in many other contexts.  Nearly everyone in the modern

 world and large segments of the third world watches television; nearly all

 think broadcast television is stupid, offering a homogenized,

 sensationalized point of view that serves advertising interests above all

 others.  In competition with television's hypnotic powers, or perhaps

 simply due to the high cost of distribution, other mass media have followed

 suit.



 Idealistic defenders of the Internet's purity believe they are waging a

 humanitarian or even a holy war that pits a democracy of ideas against the

 mass media's empty promises and indulgences.  Television and its kin offer

 the false idols and communities of soaps, sitcoms and sports.  The mass

 media tantalize with suggestions of healing, wealth, popularity and

 advertising's other blessings and temptations.  Internet idealists even

 question the U.S. administration's unclear proposal of an "information

 superhighway," suspecting that the masses will be taxed only to further

 expand the Anti-net's stranglehold on information.



 The same kind of stage was set 500 years ago.  The convergence of

 inexpensive printing and inexpensive paper began to loosen the Roman

 Catholic church's centuries-old stranglehold on cultural information.  The

 church's rise to power centuries earlier had followed the arrival of the

 Dark Ages, caused in Marshall McLuhan's analysis by the loss of papyrus

 supplies.  The church quickly became the best customer of many of the early

 printer-publishers, but not to disseminate information, only to make money.

 The earliest dated publication of Johann Gutenberg himself was a "papal

 indulgence" to raise money for the church's defense against the Turk

 invasions.  Indulgences were papers sold to the common folk to pay for the

 Pope's remission of their sins, a sort of insurance against the wrath of

 God.  Indulgences had been sold by the church since the 11th century, but

 shortly after the arrival of printing, the pope expanded the market

 considerably by extending indulgences to include souls in purgatory.

 Indulgence revenue was shared with government officials, becoming almost a

 form of state and holy taxation.  The money financed the church's holy

 wars, as well as church officials' luxurious lifestyles.



 Jumping on the new technology for corrupt purposes, the church had sown the

 seeds of its own undoing.  The church had the same sort of love-hate

 relationship with common people and government that the mass media have

 today.  The spark for the 15th-century "flame war," in net-speak, was a

 monk, Martin Luther.  Outraged by the depth of the church's corruption,

 Luther wrote a series of short theses in 1517, questioning indulgences,

 papal infallibility, Latin-only Bibles and services, and other

 authoritarian, self-serving church practices.  Although Luther had

 previously written similar theses, something different happened to the 95

 that he nailed to the church door in Wittenburg.  Printers -- the "hackers"

 of their day, poking about the geographic network of church doors and

 libraries -- found Luther's theses.



 As an academic, Luther enjoyed a certain amount of freedom to raise

 potentially heretical arguments against church practice.  Nailing his

 theses to the Wittenburg door was a standard way to distribute information

 to his academic community for discussion, much like putting a research

 paper on an Internet server today.  In Luther's time, intellectual property

 laws hadn't even been contemplated, so his papers were fair game for

 publication (as today's Internet postings often seem to be, to the dismay

 of many).  Luther's ideas quickly became the talk of Europe.  Heresy sells,

 especially when the questioned authority is corrupt.  But the speed of

 printing technology caught many by surprise.  Even Luther, defending

 himself before the pope, was at a loss to explain how so many had been

 influenced so fast.



 Luther's initial goal was to reform the church.  But his ideas were

 rejected and he was excommunicated by his order, the pope and the emperor,

 convincing Luther that the Antichrist was in charge in Rome.  Abandoning

 attempts at reform, but accepting Biblical prophecy, Luther resisted the

 utopian goal of removing the Antichrist from the papacy.  Instead, as a

 pacifist, he focused on teaching and preaching his views of true

 Christianity.  Luther believed that he could make the world a better place

 by countering the angst and insecurity caused by the Antichrist, not that

 he could save it by his own powers. 



 Luther's philosophy would serve the Internet's utopians well, especially

 those who believe that the Internet's economy of ideas untainted by

 advertising must "win" over the mass media's Anti-net ideas.  The

 Internet's incredibly low cost of distribution almost assures that it will

 remain free of advertising-based commerce.  Nonetheless, if lobbying by

 network idealists succeeds in derailing or co-opting efforts to build an

 advertising-based internetwork, then surely commercial interests will

 conspire with government officials to destroy or perhaps worse, to take

 over the Internet by political and economic means.  Historians, instead of

 comparing the Internet to the U.S. interstate highway system's success, may

 compare it with the near-destruction of the nation's railroad and trolley

 infrastructure by corrupt businesses with interests in automobiles and

 trucking.



 (which, like the Internet, was originally funded for military purposes)



 The printing press and cheap paper did not lead to widespread literacy in

 Europe; that event awaited the wealth created by the Industrial Revolution

 and the need for educated factory workers.  Printing technology's immediate

 and profound effect was the destruction of the self-serving, homogenized

 point of view of a single institution.  Although today's mass media don't

 claim divine inspiration, they are no less homogenized and at least as

 self-serving.  The people drown in information overload, but one point of

 view is barely discernable from another, ironically encouraging

 polarization of issues.



 Richard Butler, Australia's ambassador to the United Nations, draws the

 most disturbing analogy of all.  Butler, a leader in disarmament, compares

 the church's actions to the nuclear weapons industry's unwillingness to

 come under public scrutiny.  Like the church and its Bible, physicists

 argued that their subject was too difficult for lay people.  Medieval popes

 sold salvation; physicists sold destruction.  Neither was questioned until

 information began to move more freely.  The political power of nuclear

 weapons has begun to fall in part due to the role of the Internet and fax

 communications in the dissolution of the Soviet Union.



 The truly influential and successful early publishers, such as Aldus

 Manutius, were merchant technologists who formed collaborations with the

 scientific/academic community and even the church, especially those who

 dissented against Rome.  Out of business needs for economies of scale, they

 brought together people with diverse points of view and created books that

 appealed to diverse communities.  The Renaissance was propelled in part by

 books that allowed geniuses such as Copernicus to easily compare and

 contrast the many points of view of his predecessors, reaching

 world-changing conclusions.



 Today we are at a turning point.  We are leaving behind a world dominated

 by easy, audiovisual, sensational, advertising-based media, beginning a

 future in which the mass media's power will be diluted by the low cost of

 distribution of many other points of view.  Using the Internet is still

 something like trying to learn from the pre-Gutenberg libraries, in which

 manuscripts were chained to tables and there were no standards for

 organization and structure.  But like the mendicant scholars of those days,

 today's "mendicant sysops," especially on the Internet, are doing much of

 the work of organization in exchange for free access to information.



 Today, the great opportunity is not to make copies of theses on the digital

 church doors.  It is to build electronic magazines, newspapers, books,

 newsletters, libraries and other collections that organize and package the

 writings, photos, videos, sounds and other multimedia information from

 diverse points of view on the networks.  The Internet, with one foot in

 technology and the other in science and academia, needs only a bit of help

 from the mass media in order to show the Anti-net how it's done.



 ------------

 Nick Arnett [nicka@mccmedia.com] is president of Multimedia Computing

 Corporation, a strategic consulting and publishing company established in

 1988.  On the World-Wide Web: <URL:http://asearch.mccmedia.com/>



 Recommended reading:  "The printing press as an agent of change:

 Communications and cultural transformation in early-modern Europe," Vols. I

 and II.  Elizabeth Eisenstein.  Cambridge University Press, 1979.



 Copyright (c) 1994, Multimedia Computing Corp., Campbell, Calif., U.S.A.

 This article is shareware; it may be distributed at no charge, whole and

 unaltered, including this notice.  If you enjoy reading it and would like

 to encourage free distribution of more like it, please send a contribution

 to Plugged In (1923 University Ave., East Palo Alto, CA 94303), an

 after-school educational program for children in under-served communities. 



 Multimedia Computing Corp.

 Campbell, California



  %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

  

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