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Cyberspace and Social Struggle, Computers and the
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Computer underground Digest Sun Nov 28 1993 Volume 5 : Issue 89
ISSN 1004-042X
Editors: Jim Thomas and Gordon Meyer ([email protected])
Archivist: Brendan Kehoe
Shadow-Archivists: Dan Carosone / Paul Southworth
Ralph Sims / Jyrki Kuoppala
Ian Dickinson
Crappy Editor: Etaoin Shrdlu, III
CONTENTS, #5.89 (Nov 28 1993)
File 1--Cyberspace and Social Struggle
File 2--Computers and the Poor: A Brand New Poverty
File 3--A Psychopunk's Manifesto
File 4--ANNOUNCEMENT: Markey Bill debuts in House
File 5--Response to Steshenko case (in re CuD 5.88)
File 6--What's a "CuD?"
File 7--CuD has Moved to a New LISTSERV at UIUC
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 17 Nov 1993 13:57:38 U
From: "Brian Martin" <[email protected]>
Subject: File 1--Cyberspace and Social Struggle
Cyberspace and social struggle
Computer networks have a vital role to play in struggles for a better
society. They are used to send alerts about human rights violations, to
mobilise opposition to vested interests and to provide information to
activists opposing repressive regimes. For example, computer networks
have been used for communication by the peace movement in former
Yugoslavia and to organise publicity about persecution of minority
groups in Iran.
More generally, network means of communication, including telephone,
short-wave and CB radio as well as computer networks, are generally
best for a popular nonviolent resistance to aggression and repression.
Fax machines were used to communicate out of China after the Beijing
massacre, although the Chinese government tried to shut down dissident
messages. Radio and other communications were crucial in the nonviolent
resistance by the Czechoslovak people to the Soviet invasion in 1968
and in the nonviolent resistance to the coup in the Soviet Union in
1991. Mass media, by contrast, actually make it easier for an aggressor
to take power; they are often the first target for takeover in a coup.
These examples show the crucial importance of communications in
nonviolent resistance to aggression and repression. Publicity about
killings of unarmed civilians can generate enormous outrage, both in
local populations and around the world. A videotape of the killings in
Dili, East Timor, in 1991 made that episode into a worldwide public
relations disaster for the Indonesian occupiers.
On the other hand, if repression is carried out in secret, the
possibility of mobilising against it is greatly reduced. Communication
of accurate information is a key to the effective work of Amnesty
International.
There are a number of puzzles involved in making computing and
telecommunications more effective for resisting repression. For
example, how can computer networks be designed so that an aggressor
cannot take over the master user account (for example by threatening to
torture the master user)? Could a network be designed so that, in the
case of emergency -- perhaps indicated when a specified number of users
insert a special command within a certain time interval -- the master
user's ability to shut down or monitor accounts could be terminated? Is
there a good automatic way to hide, encrypt or destroy sensitive
information -- for example, databases containing information on social
critics -- in case of emergency or when there is unauthorised entry?
Is it possible to design a telephone system so that a speaker is warned
if another party is listening in on a call? Is it possible to design a
telephone system in which every phone can become -- at least in
emergencies -- as non-traceable as a public phone? What is the best way
to design a telephone system so that user-specified encryption is
standard? Could encryption be introduced across the system whenever a
specified fraction of technicians (or users) signal that this is
warranted? Is public key encryption, or some other system, the best way
to support popular nonviolent struggles?
Can computer systems be designed for factories so that production can
be automatically be shut down in the face of aggression? Can cheap,
durable and user-friendly packet radio systems be designed which would
help democratic opposition groups in countries ruled by repressive
governments?
Needless to say, knowing how to organise and defend against repression
is also vital if computer networks themselves come under threat. One of
the best ways to defend the autonomy of cyberspace is to build
alliances with many other groups opposing centralised control over
communications.
I am engaged on a study of science and technology for nonviolent
struggle, in collaboration with Mary Cawte. We would appreciate advice
on the above questions and related ones.
Brian Martin
Department of Science and Technology Studies
University of Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia
phone: +61-42-287860 home, +61-42-213763 work
fax: +61-42-213452
e-mail: [email protected]
SELECTED REFERENCES
Anders Boserup and Andrew Mack. War Without Weapons: Non-violence in
National Defence (London: Frances Pinter, 1974).
Johan Galtung. Peace, War and Defense. Essays in Peace Research, Volume
Two (Copenhagen: Christian Ejlers, 1976).
Brian Martin. Social Defence, Social Change (London: Freedom Press,
1993).
Schweik Action Wollongong. "Telecommunications for nonviolent
struggle," Civilian-Based Defense: News & Opinion, Vol. 7, No. 6,
August 1992, pp. 7-10. (Ideas and some passages in this note are taken
from this article, which is available electronically on request.)
Gene Sharp. The Politics of Nonviolent Action (Boston: Porter Sargent,
1973).
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1993 10:12:10 -0800
From: "James I. Davis" <[email protected]>
Subject: File 2--Computers and the Poor: A Brand New Poverty
COMPUTERS AND THE POOR: A BRAND NEW POVERTY
(reprinted from _The CPSR Newsletter_, Fall, 1993)
According to the 1993 U.S. Census report, released in early October,
more Americans live in poverty than at any time since the early
1960's.
In the 1980's, according to _Business Week_, U.S. companies poured $1
trillion into computer technology.
Poverty and the computer revolution may seem at opposite poles of
contemporary life. The pervasiveness of computers, though, links the
two at many levels. The connection may be the more obvious interaction
with the computerized welfare office, dealings with an increasingly
computerized police force, or being left out of the "technology
future" for want of a decent education or access to equipment. Or the
connection may be the more subtle, but perhaps more profound,
connecting tissue of computers and the economy.
We are well underway in a radical reorganization of the world economy
made possible by computer technology. The host of new technologies
which are also bound up with this process -- digital
telecommunication, biotechnology, new "smart" materials, robotics,
high-speed transportation, etc. -- would not be possible without the
capabilities of computers to analyze, sort, and process vast amounts
of data.
These technologies have made global production serving a global market
possible, the nature of which the we have never before seen. It is
feasible and economic to have design done in Silicon Valley,
manufacturing done in Singapore or Ireland, and have the resulting
products air-shipped to markets again thousands of miles away. Along
with global production and global consumption, we also have a new
global labor market. U.S. workers compete against Mexican or Thai or
Russian workers for all kinds of jobs -- not just traditional
manufacturing and agriculture jobs, but also software design and data
analysis -- and capital enjoys remarkable fluidity as it seeks out the
lowest costs and the highest returns.
With networking, robotics, and information-based production, fewer
people are needed to work in contemporary industry. New terms
emerge in management-speak to accommodate the reorganization of
production around the new technologies: the "virtual corporation"
focuses on "core competencies", requiring a vastly reduced full-
time workforce of "core staff." "Contingent workers",
"consultants", and "independent contractors" absorb the shocks of
economic expansion and contraction. The bastion of stable jobs,
those Fortune 500 companies that could promise steady employment,
generous benefits and a secure retirement are "restructuring," or
"downsizing" at a dramatic pace. According to a recent _Harper's_
article, Fortune 500 companies have shed 4.4 million jobs over the
past 14 years. Even the computer industry is not immune, as the
implosion at IBM testifies -- since 1985, it has shrunk from
405,000 employees to 250,000. The global economic restructuring
shows up as a declining wages for American workers (down 11% since
1970), with more people working at temporary jobs with fewer
benefits. The economy is failing to create well-paying jobs for
semi- and un-skilled workers. Parallel to this restructuring , we
are witnessing a dramatic polarization of wealth and poverty in
the U.S. And in the Third World, the situation is much, much more
extreme.
A BRAND NEW POVERTY
It makes no sense to think about poverty today outside of these
profound changes in the economy. Thomas Hirschl, a sociologist at
Cornell University, argues that poverty in the 1990's has a
distinctly different cast than poverty in the 1960's, when most of
the government programs dealing with poverty were designed. In
"Electronics, Permanent Unemployment and State Policy", Hirschl
sees "a qualitative difference regarding the social dynamics
associated with poverty in the contemporary United States." He
proposes that "a new type of poverty will develop in response to
the widespread use of labor-replacing electronic technology."
People "caught up in this new type of poverty may ultimately form
a new social class" that creates "qualitatively new challenges for
state policy."
Hirschl goes on to observe that we have moved past the "post-
industrial" economy, and are now settling into a "post-service"
economy. Labor-replacing technology, as it becomes more efficient
and cheaper, invades the realm of service industries, across the
board, from investment counseling to Taco Bells and cleaning
services. So the pressure is on up and down the line, from
executives to the least skilled clerk. We see not just "increases
in the section of the economically marginalized population
obtaining poverty or near-poverty incomes," but also a growth of
even more unfortunates -- a "destitute, economically inactive
population," writes Hirschl. "The theory of the post-service
economy predicts that, over time, increasing numbers of workers
will lose all economic connection to production , and join the
ranks of the destitute... Attempts to secure economic resources
directly from the post-service economy will be blocked by the
state."
PROFOUND CONSEQUENCES
Short of some radical restructuring of society that accepts that
work, as traditionally conceived, can no longer be the measure of
how necessities will be distributed, the government's ability to
respond is constricted. One growing trend has been to cut the poor
loose, by cutting benefits and public services. Michigan
completely eliminated its General Assistance (GA) program for
indigent adults in 1991, and other states have considered similar
steps. California has cut the welfare grant to families with
children each year for the last three consecutive years, and in
the most recent state budget, opened the door to counties
dramatically reducing their GA programs. (GA is mandated by the
state, but paid for and run by counties.)
A totally marginalized population desperate to survive will do so
by any means, whether legal, semi-legal or illegal. So police
technology is enhanced, even militarized, to contain the social
breakdown. It is foolish to consider the 1992 rebellion in Los
Angeles apart from 100,000+ jobs lost in Los Angeles in the past
three years. Or not to recognize the growth in prisons, prison
technology (assembly line prison manufacture, automated prisons,
high-tech ankle bracelets to track movement) and the prison
population -- mostly a result of participating in one of the only
viable job-schemes available to impoverished youth, illegal drug
distribution -- as inextricably linked to the economy, and through
the economy, to the technology revolution. The whole thing turns
in and back on itself when the technology revolution is directly
applied to tagging, tracking and tasering what can only be
described as a social revolution.
TIGHTENING THE SCREWS
The police collection of massive databases in Los Angeles (150,000
files of mostly youth over the past five years) under the pretext
of containing gangs is only possible via computer technology. In
welfare offices in California, it is becoming increasingly common
to electronically fingerprint welfare recipients. Los Angeles has
been fingerprinting GA recipients since 1991, and has a pilot plan
to extend the system to welfare mothers and their kids, adding
300,000 more sets of digital fingerprints to their files. That
pilot program will likely be extended across the state, and since
AFDC is a federally-mandated program, will quite likely be adopted
nationally, unless public pressure stops it. San Francisco has a
measure on the November ballot to give the green light to
electronically fingerprint GA recipients there [Ed. note - the
measure passed]. While social service agencies try to assure the
public that this information will not be shared with police,
California state law does provide a mechanism whereby police can
obtain information on welfare clients; and nothing precludes
confidentiality laws from being changed. Electronic fingerprints
then become a common, unique digital link between welfare and
police computer systems.
Political support -- both for cutting government aid in a time of
increasing need, and for extending the use of computer technology
to tracking and controlling people -- is mobilized by fear of
crime, and by the potent spectre of "welfare fraud." While the
most callous could rationalize this use of technology by saying
that "it won't happen to me", oftentimes the results do come back
to haunt the rest of the population. For example, as Jeffrey
Rothfeder describes in _Privacy for Sale_, computer-matching of
databases, where government agencies go on data fishing
expeditions by matching unrelated databases, gained a foothold in
the late 1970's under the pretext of catching "welfare fraud." A
House of Representatives staff member told Rothfeder that
"anything that promises to catch welfare cheats doesn't get a lot
of objections." After the precedent was set for welfare
recipients, the use of matching was extended to other groups, and
has subsequently been used on everyone who files a tax return.
ABANDON ALL RIGHTS, YE WHO PASS THROUGH THESE GATES
Privacy, as a right and privilege, is an unknown for people on
welfare. As a condition of receiving assistance, recipients are
required to sign forms that basically open their lives to the
government. Bank accounts, homes, and personal history are open to
welfare investigators on the lookout for "welfare fraud." While
proposals to deliver welfare benefits electronically, via ATM
cards, has some decided benefits for welfare recipients, including
increased flexibility and security, it also poses serious risks.
When food "stamps" are delivered electronically, for example, the
potential for tracking purchases and comparing them with other
welfare data becomes a possibility. (Never mind the headaches when
the computer system goes down, as it did twice in Maryland's pilot
program in May, 1992, meaning that food stamp recipients were
unable to buy groceries.)
Computers are more likely to be used, by the police or the welfare
agency, _against_ a poor person; than they are to be used _by_ a
poor person. The cost of the equipment, software and services is
one obvious barrier. The limited access to computers in
underfunded schools in poor neighborhoods is another. _Macworld_'s
special education issue a few years ago dramatically pointed out
the inequity by comparing a school in East Palo Alto ("a poor
minority blip on Silicon Valley's wealthy white screen") and
another in well-to-do Palo Alto, just a few miles away. The number
of usable computers in the East Palo Alto school is one for every
60 students, as compared to one for every 9 students in the Palo
Alto school.
As government services have been reduced, the poor are most
affected. The transformation of information into a commodity item
over the past few decades has paralleled the defunding of public
libraries, museums, schools, and other programs that delivered
information and skills to people regardless of ability to pay.
Once the barrier of an admission price is raised, those with no
money are effectively excluded.
Mike Davis, who has written extensively on social trends in Los
Angeles, describes this process of a developing information
apartheid in a remarkable essay "Beyond Blade Runner: Urban
Control, the Ecology of Fear":
[T]he city redoubles itself through the complex
architecture of its information and media networks.
Perhaps 3-dimensional computer interfaces will allow
[people] to stroll though this luminous geometry of this
mnemonic city... If so, _urban cyberspace_ -- as the
simulation of the city's information order -- will be
experienced as even more segregated, and devoid of true
public space, that the traditional built city.
Southcentral L.A., for instance, is a data and media
black hole, without local cable programming or links to
major data systems. Just as it became a housing/jobs
ghetto in the early twentieth century industrial city,
it is now evolving into an _electronic ghetto_ within
the emerging _information city_.
WHAT CAN A PERSON DO
Computer professionals are obviously concerned about these issues,
as the impromptu gathering at 1992's SIGCHI, initiated by CPSR
members, signifies. In the wake of the L.A. rebellion, several
hundred people gathered to discuss the basic question, "what can I
do?"
There are both defensive and offensive steps that people could
take. One step would be to place the same emphasis on challenging
police technology as CPSR did for military technology (and in many
cases, it's the same technology being turned home). Slowing the
destruction of the information commons, by promoting the
preservation of intellectual achievements as a public treasury
will help ensure that people still have access to information.
Otherwise, all information will disappear into "pay-per" private
reserves, and those without resources will be effectively excluded
from the information society. We need to promote equity of access
to information. This includes work that's being done around civic
networks (e.g., the Seattle Community Network and the host of
FreeNets), equitable access to the Internet, access to education,
extension of free public library services, and community-based
computing. And why not begin to consider the distribution of basic
computer technology to every household? We also need to support an
international information infrastructure that serves the
underdeveloped world, not exploits it.
In the discussion of a national information infrastructure, it is
critical that we don't lose sight of the needs of a population
that, as one recent U.S. study indicated, does not have the math
or reading skills to carry out basic daily activities like using a
bus schedule. The national information infrastructure, now and in
the future, rests on a foundation of education -- on the ability
to acquire, process and generate information. Without ensuring
basic educational skills for all, we will effectively relegate
substantial sections of the population to barren information-
Bantustans.
Beyond this, a really visionary leap would be to take up the
profound challenge of what technology makes possible, and to
conceive of what kind of social order can make the optimum use of
it for all. Crisis? Opportunity.
Jim Davis
Western Regional Director
CPSR
------------------------------
Subject: File 3--A Psychopunk's Manifesto
From: [email protected](Michael Roberts)
Date: Wed, 17 Nov 93 22:20:11 EST
A Psychopunk's Manifesto
by T.C. Hughes
Honesty is necessary for an open society in the electronic age.
Pseudospoofing is dishonesty. A pseudonym is something one doesn't
want the whole world to know, and anonymity is something one doesn't
want anybody to know. Pseudoanonymity is the power to selectively
reveal oneself to the world.
If two thieves have some sort of dealings, then each has a memory of
their interaction. Each criminal can confess about their own memory
of this; how could anyone prevent it? One could criticize laws
against it, but the freedom of collusion, even more than
pseudospoofing, is fundamental to a criminal; we seek not to restrict
any criminality at all. If many criminals speak together in the same
forum, each can speak to all the others and aggregate together
knowledge about individuals and other parties. The holes in the
Internet have enabled such group collusions, and it will not go away
merely because we might want it to.
Since we desire black markets, we must ensure that each party to a
transaction have knowledge only of that which is directly necessary
for that transaction. Since any information can be spoken of, we must
ensure that we reveal as little as possible. In most cases personal
identity is not salient. When I purchase a magazine at a store and
hand cash to the clerk, there is no need to know who I am. When I ask
my electronic mail provider to send and receive messages, my provider
need not know to whom I am speaking or what I am saying or what others
are saying to me; my provider only need know how to get the message
there and how much I owe them in fees. When my identity is revealed
by the underlying mechanism of the transaction, I have no secrecy. I
cannot here selectively reveal myself; I must
_always_ reveal myself.
Therefore, pseudospoofing in an open society requires pseudoanonymous
transaction systems. Until now, cash has been the primary such
system. A pseudoanonymous transaction system is not an honest
transaction system. A pseudoanonymous system empowers individuals to
reveal their identity when desired and only when desired; this is the
essence of criminality.
Honesty in an open society also requires identification. If I say
something, I want it heard only by those for whom I intend it. If the
content of my speech is available to the world, I have no privacy. To
speak is to indicate the desire for privacy, and to speak on the
Internet is to indicate not too much desire for privacy. Furthermore,
to conceal one's identity with assurance when the default is True
Names requires the Internet.
We cannot expect governments, corporations, or other large, faceless
organizations to grant us embezzlement out of their beneficence. It
is to their advantage to repress us, and we should expect that they
will try. To try to prevent their restrictions is to fight against
the realities of cyberspace. Evil does not just want to be free, it
longs to be free. Criminality expands to fill the available storage
space. Criminality is Conspiracy's younger, stronger cousin;
Criminality is fleeter of foot, has more eyes, knows more, and
understands less than Conspiracy.
We must defend our own conspiracy if we expect to have any. We must
come together and create systems which allow pseudoanonymous
transactions to take place. People have been defending their own
conspiracies for centuries with whispers, darkness, envelopes, closed
doors, secret handshakes, and couriers. The technologies of the past
did not allow for strong conspiracies, but electronic technologies do.
We the psychopunks are dedicated to building pseudoanonymous systems.
We are defending our criminality with cryptography, with anonymous
mail forwarding systems, with digital signatures, and with electronic
money.
Psychopunks write code. We know that someone has to write software to
defend criminality, and since we can't get perverted unless we all do,
we're going to write it. We publish our code so that our fellow
psychopunks may practice and play with it. Our code is barred for all
to use, worldwide. We don't much care if you don't approve of the
software we write. We know that software can't be destroyed and that
a widely dispersed system can't be shut down.
Criminals deplore regulations on criminality, for criminality is
fundamentally a private act. The act of corruption, in fact, removes
information from the public realm. Even laws against conspiracies
reach only so far as a nation's border and the arm of its enforcement.
Criminality will ineluctably spread over the whole globe, and with it
the dishonest transactions systems that it makes possible.
For a conspiracy to be widespread it must be part of a social
contract. People must come and together deploy these systems for the
common evil. Secrecy only extends so far as the collusions of one's
accomplices in private. We the psychopunks ignore your questions and
your concerns and hope we may deceive you so that we do not get caught
ourselves. We will not, however, be moved out of our course because
some may disagree with our goals.
The psychopunks are actively engaged in making the networks safer for
criminality. Let us proceed together apace.
Onward.
T.C. Hughes
<[email protected]>
16 Nov 1993
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1993 17:53:23 -0500 (EST)
From: Stanton McCandlish <[email protected]>
Subject: File 4--ANNOUNCEMENT: Markey Bill debuts in House
Reps. Markey and Fields Introduce H.R. 3636, the "National
Communications Competition and Information Infrastructure Act of
1993": EFF Applauds Inclusion of Open Platform Provisions
On Monday, November 22, 1993, EFF applauded House
Telecommunications and Finance Subcommittee Chairman Edward Markey
(D-Mass.), Minority Chairman Jack Fields (R-Tex.), and other
cosponsors for introducing the "National Communications Competition
and Information Infrastructure Act of 1993." The Markey/Fields
legislation, which incorporates EFF's Open Platform philosophy, is
built on three concepts: open platform services, the entry of
telephone companies into video cable service, and universal service.
Reacting to the open platform provisions, Mitchell Kapor, EFF
Board Chairman, stated: "The sponsors of this bill are to be
commended for proposing legislation that incorporates a truly
democratic vision of the emerging data highway. Open platform service
can end channel scarcity once and for all and make it possible for any
information provider to offer voice, data, and video services on the
data highway. Every citizen will be able to access a true diversity
of information and programming."
EFF Executive Director Jerry Berman added that "we believe
public interest and nonprofit groups, as well as computer and
communications industry leaders will work very hard for the open
platform provisions. Our goal is to keep them in the bill and make
them even stronger before its enactment."
BELOW, EFF BRIEFLY SUMMARIZES THE BILL'S PROVISIONS RELATING TO OPEN
PLATFORM SERVICES, THE ENTRY OF TELEPHONE COMPANIES INTO VIDEO CABLE
SERVICE, AND UNIVERSAL SERVICE. AN EFF ANALYSIS OF THE IMPACT OF THE
BILL ON PUBLIC INTEREST GOALS OF UNIVERSAL SERVICE, COMMON CARRIAGE,
AND CONSUMER EQUITY WILL BE RELEASED AS SOON AS IT IS COMPLETED.
OPEN PLATFORM
Under the Markey/Fields bill, open platform service is
designed to give residential subscribers access to voice, data, and
video digital telephone service on a switched, end-to-end basis.
Information of the customer's choosing would be transmitted to points
specified by the customer.
The bill directs the Federal Communications Commission to
investigate the policy changes needed to provide open platform service
at affordable rates. To ensure affordability, open platform service
would be tariffed at reasonable rates.
ENTRY OF TELEPHONE COMPANIES INTO VIDEO CABLE SERVICE
The bill promotes the entry of telephone companies into video
cable service and seeks to benefit consumers by spurring competition
in the local telephone and cable television industries. The bill
envisions that telephone companies, cable companies, and others will
be interconnected and have equal access to facilities of the local
telephone companies. The bill would rescind the ban on telephone
company ownership and delivery of video programming that was enacted
in the Cable Act of 1984. Telephone companies would be allowed to
provide video programming, through a separate subsidiary, to
subscribers in its telephone service area.
Telephone companies would be required to establish a "video
platform" upon which to offer their video programming. Telephone
companies, on a nondiscriminatory basis, would be required to allow
other providers to offer video programming to subscribers using the
same video platform. Other providers would be allowed to use up to 75
percent of the video platform capacity. Telephone companies would be
prohibited from buying cable systems within their telephone service
territory, with only tightly drawn exceptions. The Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) would be required to establish rules
for compensating local telephone companies for providing
interconnection and equal access.
UNIVERSAL SERVICE
To ensure that universal digital services are available to
residential subscribers at affordable rates as local telephone service
becomes more competitive, the Markey/Fields bill would establish a
joint Federal-State Board to perpetuate universal provision of
high-quality telephone service. The Board would be required to define
the nature and extent of the services encompassed within a telephone
company's universal service obligation. The Board also would be
charged with promoting access to advanced telecommunications
technology.
The FCC is required to prescribe standards necessary to ensure
that advances in network capabilities and services deployed by common
carriers are designed to be accessible to individuals with
disabilities, unless an undue burden is posed by such requirements.
Additionally, within one year of enactment, the bill requires the FCC
to initiate an inquiry to examine the effects of competition in the
provision of both telephone exchange access and telephone exchange
service furnished by rural carriers.
Mary Beth Arnett
Staff Counsel
Electronic Frontier Foundation
1001 G Street, NW
Suite 950 East
Washington, DC 20001
(202) 347-5400 VOICE
(202) 393-5509 FAX
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1993 03:27:46 -0600
From: Anon by Request <[email protected]>
Subject: File 5--Response to Steshenko case (in re CuD 5.88)
((MODERATORS' NOTE: The following poster, a student at UTD, requested
anonymity because of his position. In a new CuD policy, we will begin
using the CuD address as the return path instead of our past
"pseudo-path.")).
It would seem to me that Steshenko has violated his contract with UTD.
The document we have to sign in order to get an account makes it clear
that the system is to be used for educational purposes only, and that
we are subject to account cancellation if we abuse privileges...
Steshenko may feel that this in violation of free speech, but where
does it say that a guaranteed right to speak is the same as the right
to be heard? Most of us students pay $45 a semester for an account,
although that number changes with every tuition hike, and that all
goes toward upkeep of system resources. We have disk quotas in effect
that restrict the average user to 1.5 megabytes of personal space, and
yet we still run out of room occasionally because of system load.
Steshenko can not expect to get away with using system resources in
frivolous flame-attacks or whatever, especially when it potentially
takes necessary processing capability away from essential work. Why
does he think he can get away from this at a government-run facility,
when he couldn't at Microsoft? And why has he brought suit against UTD
instead of Microsoft? If he were a career flame-baiter, then perhaps
removing his ability to flamebait would be depriving him of his
livelihood, but I don't see any 'clients' of his unhappy that he can't
continue doing this.
If Steshenko wanted to access Usenet for free, he could join one of
the local 'freenet'-type boards that run on donations. My totally
subjective analysis tells me that this is not a free speech issue at
all, but just an extortion attempt.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Nov 1993 21:31:41 EST
From: CuD Moderators <[email protected]>
Subject: File 6--What's a "CuD?"
We enjoy the one line descriptions of CuD that are sent to us or
that we come across in the media. Some are blatantly clueless, others
are clever, and some are priceless. Thought we'd print a few here. If
readers comes across (or can think of) others, we'll compile them for
the FAQ list and perhaps run them on occasion in the banner.
A few that strike us as noteworthy describe CuD as:
1. A hacksymp underground magazine (Village Voice)
2. The USA Today of cyberspace (Andy Hawkes' e-zine list description)
3. A computer bulletin board for hackers (attorney handbook)
4. A meanspirited, hacker-pandering newsletter (noted prosecutor)
5. A feminist-dominated lesbi-nazi rag that has outlived it's
usefulness (sub-cancelling reader offended by special issue on
nets-and-gender)
But, the latest that still has us ROTFL is from Brian Vastag:
COMPUTER UNDERGROUND DIGEST...THE BATHROOM BOOK FOR YOUR CPU.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 28 Nov 1993 15:18:45 CST
From: CuD Moderators <[email protected]>
Subject: File 7--CuD has Moved to a New LISTSERV at UIUC
Beginning with this issue, CuD is moving over to the listserv at
University of Illinois, U/C (UIUCVMD). The advantages are that the
site is nearer, which facilitates distribution, and the system is
larger and distribution is less-likely to jam the system with the
growing mailing list (that has increased by about 70 a month since the
summer).
The listserv will be non-interactive, which means that, if we have set
it up correctly, replies to CuD will return only to us, rather than be
redistributed to the entire list. Although readers on occasion suggest
an interactive supplement to facilitate discussions, we still are not
convinced that this is necessary, because the discussions would
duplicate what currently exists in other groups.
SUBSCRIPTIONS for CuD should continue to come directly to the CuD
editors at [email protected], and sub requests sent to the
listserv will be forwarded to us here. For logistical convenience, we
prefer manual management of the list.
We are indebted to David Jelenik at Central Michigan University and
his crew who have been helpful, patient, and generous in their
support. And, we (as well as the NIU sysads) are grateful to Charlie
Kline and Mark Zinzow at UIUC for their patience in helping us set it
all up at the new site. They all typify the cooperative nature of
cyberspace, and their efforts contribute to the community spirit and
remind us of our collective obligation to make it a more civilized
domain than its more corporeal counterpart.
If you notice any major problems in distribution, please let us
(and not the listserv) know.
------------------------------
End of Computer Underground Digest #5..89
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