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1996- 10- 10 Background on Next Generation Internet,
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Computer underground Digest Wed Nov 6, 1996 Volume 8 : Issue 78
ISSN 1004-042X
Editor: Jim Thomas ([email protected])
News Editor: Gordon Meyer ([email protected])
Archivist: Brendan Kehoe
Shadow Master: Stanton McCandlish
Field Agent Extraordinaire: David Smith
Shadow-Archivists: Dan Carosone / Paul Southworth
Ralph Sims / Jyrki Kuoppala
Ian Dickinson
Cu Digest Homepage: http://www.soci.niu.edu/~cudigest
CONTENTS, #8.78 (Wed, Nov 6, 1996)
File 1--1996-10-10 Background on Next Generation Internet
File 2--Justice Dept completes second phase of CDA appeal (HotWired)
File 3--AOL Blocking hits Ron Newman
File 4--U.S. crypto-czar appointment -- "Crypto Imperalism" in HotWired
File 5--(Fwd) News.groups reform
File 6--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 7 Apr, 1996)
CuD ADMINISTRATIVE, EDITORIAL, AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION ApPEARS IN
THE CONCLUDING FILE AT THE END OF EACH ISSUE.
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Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 14:04:44 -0500
From: Jerrold Zar <[email protected]>
Subject: File 1--1996-10-10 Background on Next Generation Internet
<snip>
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release October 10, 1996
BACKGROUND ON CLINTON-GORE ADMINISTRATION'S
NEXT-GENERATION INTERNET INITIATIVE
The Internet is the biggest change in human communications since
the printing press. Every day, this rapidly growing global network
touches the lives of millions of Americans. Students log in to the
Library of Congress or take virtual field trips to the Mayan ruins.
Entrepreneurs get the information they need to start a new business and
sell their products in overseas markets. Caregivers for people with
Alzheimer's Disease participate in an "extended family" on the
Cleveland FreeNet. Citizens keep tabs on the voting records and
accomplishments of their elected representatives.
We must invest today to create the foundation for the networks of
the 21st Century. Today's Internet is an outgrowth of decades of
federal investment in research networks such as the ARPANET and the
NSFNET. A small amount of federal seed money stimulated much greater
investment by industry and academia, and helped create a large and
rapidly growing market. Similarly, creative investments today will set
the stage for the networks of tomorrow that are even more powerful and
versatile than the current Internet. This initiative will foster
partnerships among academia, industry and government that will keep the
U.S. at the cutting-edge of information and communications technologies.
It will also accelerate the introduction of new multimedia services
available in our homes, schools, and businesses.
Economic benefits: The potential economic benefits of this
initiative are enormous. Because the Internet developed in the United
States first, American companies have a substantial lead in a variety of
information and communications markets. The explosion of the Internet
has generated economic growth, high-wage jobs, and a dramatic increase
in the number of high-tech start-ups. The Next Generation Internet
initiative will strengthen America's technological leadership, and
create new jobs and new market opportunities.
The Administration's "Next Generation Internet" initiative has
three goals:
1. Connect universities and national labs with high-speed
networks that are 100 - 1000 times faster than today's
Internet: These networks will connect at least 100
universities and national labs at speeds that are 100 times
faster than today's Internet, and a smaller number of
institutions at speeds that are 1,000 times faster. These
networks will eventually be able to transmit the contents of
the entire Encyclopedia Britannica in under a second.
2. Promote experimentation with the next generation of
networking technologies: For example, technologies are
emerging that could dramatically increase the capabilities
of the Internet to handle real-time services such as high
quality video-conferencing. There are a variety of research
challenges associated with increasing the number of Internet
users by a factor of 100 that this initiative will help
address. By serving as "testbeds", research networks can
help accelerate the introduction of new commercial services.
3. Demonstrate new applications that meet important national
goals and missions: Higher-speed, more advanced networks
will enable a new generation of applications that support
scientific research, national security, distance education,
environmental monitoring, and health care. Below are just a
few of the potential applications:
Health care: Doctors at university medical centers will use
large archives of radiology images to identify the patterns
and features associated with particular diseases. With
remote access to supercomputers, they will also be able to
improve the accuracy of mammographies by detecting subtle
changes in three-dimensional images.
National Security: A top priority for the Defense
Department is "dominant battlefield awareness," which will
give the United States military a significant advantage in
any armed conflict. This requires an ability to collect
information from large numbers of high-resolution sensors,
automatic processing of the data to support terrain and
target recognition, and real-time distribution of that data
to the warfighter. This will require orders of magnitude
more bandwidth than is currently commercially available.
Distance Education: Universities are now experimenting with
technologies such as two-way video to remote sites, VCR-like
replay of past classes, modeling and simulation,
collaborative environments, and online access to
instructional software. Distance education will improve the
ability of universities to serve working Americans who want
new skills, but who cannot attend a class at a fixed time
during the week.
Energy Research: Scientists and engineers across the
country will be able to work with each other and access
remote scientific facilities, as if they were in the same
building. "Collaboratories" that combine
video-conferencing, shared virtual work spaces, networked
scientific facilities, and databases will increase the
efficiency and effectiveness of our national research
enterprise.
Biomedical Research: Researchers will be able to solve
problems in large-scale DNA sequencing and gene
identification that were previously impossible, opening the
door to breakthroughs in curing human genetic diseases.
Environmental Monitoring: Researchers are constructing a
"virtual world" to model the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem, which
serves as a nursery area for many commercially important
species.
Manufacturing engineering: Virtual reality and modeling and
simulation can dramatically reduce the time required to
develop new products.
Funding: The Administration will fund this initiative by
allocating $100 million for R&D and research networks to develop
the Next Generation Internet. This increase in FY98 funding will
be offset by a reallocation of defense and domestic technology
funds. As with previous networking initiatives, the
Administration will work to ensure that this federal investment
will serve as a catalyst for additional investment by
universities and the private sector.
Implementation: The principal agencies involved in this
initiative are the National Science Foundation, the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Department of Energy,
NASA, and the National Institutes of Health. Other agencies may
be involved in promoting specific applications related to their
missions.
INTERNET TIMELINE
1969 Defense Department commissions ARPANET to promote
networking research.
1974 Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf publish paper which specifies
protocol for data networks.
1981 NSF provides seed money for CSNET (Computer Science
NETwork) to connect U.S. computer science departments.
1982 Defense Department establishes TCP/IP (Transmission
Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) as standard.
1984 Number of hosts (computers) connected to the Internet
breaks 1,000.
1986 NSFNET and 5 NSF-funded supercomputer centers created.
NSFNET backbone is 56 kilobits/second.
1989 Number of hosts breaks 100,000.
1991 NSF lifts restrictions on commercial use of the
Internet.
High Performance Computing Act, authored by
then-Senator Gore, is signed into law.
World Wide Web software released by CERN, the European
Laboratory for Particle Physics.
1993 President Clinton and Vice President Gore get e-mail
addresses.
Mosaic, a graphical "Web browser" developed at the
NSF-funded National Center for Supercomputing
Applications, is released. Traffic on the World Wide
Web explodes.
1994 White House goes on-line with "Welcome to the White
House."
1995 U.S. Internet traffic now carried by commercial
Internet service providers.
1996 Number of Internet hosts reaches 12.8 million.
President Clinton and Vice President Gore announce
"Next Generation Internet" initiative.
[Source: Hobbes' Internet Timeline, v. 2.5]
Business and University Leaders Endorse the Administration's
Next-Generation Internet Proposal
"Silicon Graphics applauds the current Administration for
recognizing the power and limitless value of the Internet. Their
forward-thinking Next Generation Internet initiative sets an
example by leadership that will encourage organizations, in both
public and private sectors, to fully leverage the Internet, and
to become a part of the Information Age."
Edward R. McCracken, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of
Silicon Graphics
"I include myself among the many who have encouraged judicious
Government sponsorship of research beyond the horizon of normal
product development. The Next Generation Internet initiative
builds on the foundation of earlier research sponsored by
far-sighted funding agencies seeking to solve real problems but
willing to take risks for the sake of high payoff. As in the
recent past, the results of this program will almost surely
trigger serendipitous discoveries and unlock billions of dollars
in corporate product/service development. With any reasonable
success, America will enter the 21st Century surfing a tidal wave
of new networking technology unleashed by the Next Generation
Internet."
Vinton G. Cerf, Senior Vice President of Data Architecture, MCI
"There is no question that the Internet would never have happened
without the leadership of the government and universities working
together. The Next Generation Internet will have an even bigger
impact on the world."
Eric Schmidt, Chief Technology Officer, Sun
The continued advance of computer networking technology is
fundamental to our nation's continued leadership in scientific
research. Just as higher education, in partnership with industry
and government, led in the development and realization of the
Internet, this effort will once again focus our best minds on
another significant advance in the use of network technology.
The result will not only strengthen our research capability, but
will also lead to innovations that provide broader access to
education.
Homer Neal, President, University of Michigan
"The promise of a new generation of networks that will enable
collaborative, multi-disciplinary research efforts is essential
to meeting national challenges in many disciplines, and to ensure
a continuing leadership role for the United States' academic
community. Higher Education welcomes the opportunity for a
renewed partnership with the federal government and industry to
develop the advanced network infrastructure upon which these
networking capabilities depend."
Graham Spanier, President, Pennsylvania State University
Qs and As on Next-Generation Internet Initiative
October 10, 1996
Q 1. Why does the government need to do this, given that the
commercial Internet industry is growing so explosively?
The U.S. research community and government agencies have
requirements that can not be met on today's public Internet or
with today's technology. For example, the Department of Defense
needs the ability to transmit large amounts of real-time imagery
data to military decision-makers to maintain "information
dominance." Scientists and engineers at universities and
national labs need reliable and secure access to remote
supercomputers, scientific facilities, and other researchers
interacting in virtual environments. The productivity of the
U.S. research community will be increased if they have access to
high-speed networks with advanced capabilities. These new
technologies will also help meet important national missions in
defense, energy, health and space.
An initiative of this nature would not be undertaken by the
private sector alone because the benefits can not be captured by
any one firm. The Administration believes that this initiative
will generate enormous benefits for the Nation as a whole. It
will accelerate the wide-spread availability of networked
multimedia services to our homes, schools and businesses, with
applications in areas such as community networking, life-long
learning, telecommuting, electronic commerce, and health care.
Q 2. What are some of the capabilities that the "Next Generation
Internet" will have that today's Internet does not?
Below are just of the few of the possibilities. Many new
applications will be developed by those using the Next Generation
Internet.
o An increased ability to handle real-time, multimedia
applications such as video-conferencing and "streams" of
audio and video -- very important for telemedicine and
distance education. Currently, the Internet can't make any
guarantees about the rate at which it will deliver data to a
given destination, making many real-time applications
difficult or impossible.
o Sufficient bandwidth to transfer and manipulate huge volumes
of data. Satellites and scientific instruments will soon
generate a terabyte (a trillion bytes) of information in a
single day. [The printed collection of the Library of
Congress is equivalent to 10 terabytes.]
o The ability to access remote supercomputers, construct a
"virtual" supercomputer from multiple networked
workstations, and interact in real-time with simulations of
tornadoes, ecosystems, new drugs, etc.
o The ability to collaborate with other scientists and
engineers in shared, virtual environments, including
reliable and secure remote use of scientific facilities.
Q 3. Is it still Administration policy that the "information
superhighway" will be built, owned, and operated by the private
sector?
Absolutely. The Administration does believe that it is
appropriate for the government to help fund R&D and research
networks, however.
Partnerships with industry and academia will ensure that the
results of government-funded research are widely available.
Q 4. Will this benefit all Americans, or just the research
community?
By being a smart and demanding customer, the federal
government and leading research universities will accelerate the
commercial availability of new products, services, and
technologies. New technologies have transitioned very rapidly
from the research community to private sector companies. For
example, Mosaic, the first graphical Web browser, was released by
the National Center for Supercomputing Applications 1993. By
1994, Netscape and other companies had formed to develop
commercial Web browsers. Today, millions of Americans use the
Web.
The public will also benefit from the economic growth and
job creation that will be generated from these new technologies,
the new opportunities for life-long learning, and research
breakthroughs in areas such as health.
Q 5. What will it do about "traffic jams" on the Internet, or
the ability of the Internet to continue its phenomenal rate of
growth?
The lion's share of the responsibility for dealing with this
problem lies with the private sector. Internet Service Providers
will have to invest in higher capacity, more reliable networks
to keep up with demand from their customers.
However, this initiative will help by investing in R&D,
creating testbeds, and serving as a first customer for many of
the technologies that will help the Internet grow and flourish.
One of the goals of the initiative is to identify and deploy
technologies that will help the Internet continue its exponential
rate of growth. Examples include:
o Ultra-fast, all-optical networks;
o Faster switches and routers;
o The ability to "reserve" bandwidth for real-time
applications;
o A new version of the Internet Protocol that will prevent a
shortage of Internet addresses;
o "Multicast" technology that conserves bandwidth by
disseminating data to multiple recipients at the same time;
o Software for replicating information throughout the
Internet, thereby reducing bottlenecks;
o Software for measuring network performance; and
o Software to assure reliability and security of information
transmitted over the Internet.
Q 6. How does this initiative relate to existing government
programs, such as the High Performance Computing and
Communications Initiative? Will this be a totally new network?
The initiative represents an increase in the HPCC budget.
The initiative will include both: (1) an expansion and
augmentation of existing research networks supported by NSF, the
Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, and NASA; (2)
new networks;and (3) development of applications by agencies
such as the National Institutes of Health.
Q 7. Are more technical details on the initiative available?
The Administration intends to consult broadly with the
research community, the private sector, and other stakeholders
before developing the final technical details for this
initiative.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 04:47:33 -0700 (PDT)
From: Declan McCullagh <[email protected]>
Subject: File 2--Justice Dept completes second phase of CDA appeal (HotWired)
http://www.hotwired.com/netizen/96/40/special3a.html
HotWired, The Netizen
3 October 1996
CDA and the Supremes
by Declan McCullagh ([email protected])
Washington, DC, 2 October
Racing against a midnight deadline, the Justice Department late
Monday evening completed the second phase of its appeal to the Supreme
Court after its initial loss in the Communications Decency Act
lawsuit.
The solicitor general only has to argue in the 28-page jurisdictional
statement that there's a substantial constitutional issue at stake in
this lawsuit - something transparently obvious to anyone who's been
following the CDA court battle.
The next move is up to the attorneys from the American Civil Liberties
Union and the American Library Association. They plan to file a motion
asking the High Court to uphold the Philadelphia court's decision
without scheduling a full hearing.
Chris Hansen, who heads the ACLU legal team handling the CDA case,
says that if the Supreme Court grants their motion, it would
effectively be saying "the lower court was so deeply correct" that the
justices don't need to learn more about the case. As a legal tactic,
it means the more censor-happy justices couldn't water down the
Philadelphia judges' unanimous decision upholding free speech online.
"Anytime the Supreme Court decides the case with a full briefing,
there's no guarantee that we'll win - or win in the same terms,"
Hansen says.
But because this is a precedent-setting and controversial lawsuit, the
Supremes almost certainly will want to hear the appeal themselves.
When the justices place this case on the court's calendar, they'll
likely give both parties a few months to file the next stage of the
lawsuit, which will be a strained and torturous collection of
arguments from the government trying to explain why the lower court
was wrong. Then oral arguments will be held next spring.
The solicitor general's jurisdictional statement itself largely
summarizes the arguments the government has already made. It does
additionally argue, however, that a cable television indecency case
the High Court decided after the June CDA decision buttresses the
government's defense of the law:
"Because the CDA's definition of indecency is almost identical to the
decision [the Supreme Court] upheld against a vagueness challenge ...
that decision reinforces the conclusion that the CDA's restrictions
are not unconstitutionally vague."
Not so, says the ACLU's Hansen: "Even if that were true, it wouldn't
change the result in our case. All three judges in our case thought
the CDA was flawed in other ways besides vagueness."
The government also cites the Shea v. Reno lawsuit - a weaker case
that challenges half of the CDA - that Joe Shea filed in Manhattan
earlier this year on behalf of his online publication, the American
Reporter. Shea won only a partial victory on 29 July, which the DOJ is
now exploiting: "The three-judge court in Shea v. Reno ... held that
the CDA's definition of indecency is not unconstitutionally vague. The
district court in this case erred in reaching a contrary conclusion."
[...]
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 1996 22:33:03 -0800 (PST)
From: David Cassel <[email protected]>
Subject: File 3--AOL Blocking hits Ron Newman
>From -- [email protected]
It's been a bad week for Ron Newman. First he received five copies of the
mass-mailed child pornography spam over three of his accounts. Then, AOL
mistakenly put his ISP on the list of automatically-blocked sites.
"Several AOL users have already lost e-mail that I sent them yesterday,"
Newman said in a Usenet post Friday. Protests from his domain would fall
on deaf ears, since they'd also presumably be filtered. "And if I get
spammed *by* an AOL user," he added, "I no longer have any way to complain
to AOL, because the 'abuse' address at AOL is probably filtering out my
mail as well."
Even more ironic, Newman is a well-respected MIT graduate who established
a set of technical standards for evaluating newsreaders--and he was an
early figure in the internet's clash with the church of Scientology.
"I've never heard of a single net-abuse complaint against my ISP," Newman
observed.
This looks like a mistake. In their war on Cyber Promotions, America
Online blocked delivery for mail from cyber-promo.com, cyberpromo.com, and
cyberpromotions.com. But there's also a Massachusetts internet service
called cybercom.net--Newman's ISP. And AOL put them on the blocked list.
But unlike the spam-only domains, this one has over 1500 users--including
the Art Institute of Boston!
This highlights the pitfalls of the way AOL implemented their mail
controls. All 6 million of the service's members found the blocking had
already taken place. It went into effect immediately, and e-mail delivery
for blocked domains only returned if users pro-actively disabled it. And
AOL appears to have deleted all e-mail from the banished
domains--including Ron's--the day they put the filters onto the 6 million
accounts! "They should have given every AOL user several days' advance
notice that the blocking would begin," Newman said in an interview, "or
required an affirmative decision by each user to begin having their mail
filtered."
Instead, the corporate giant imposed their enemies list from above. For 6
million users, Ron Newman and his fellow users were "vanished" overnight.
More importantly, no one knew why. "The list of sites to be blocked
should include the specific reason that each site is on the list," Newman
continued. "Every AOL user should have ready access to this information."
He points out that AOL users can't even add or remove sites. (Though one
Usenet post suggested this is an unpublicized feature of AOL's
mailreader.)
And the incident suggests another important feature. "Mail should *never*
be silently "eaten"..." ("I no longer get a bounce message even when I
send to a non-existent user name at AOL!" Newman's Usenet post observed
Friday.) So what does he think of AOL's new filtering system? "I think
it sucks!"
"Nothing like having a 800-lb gorilla sit on you," one observer commented
privately. The irony is, it's trivial for junk mailers to elude AOL's
blocks simply by creating new domain names. (A point AOL conceded to
Interactive Week [9/5/96]) And of course, the blocking controls won't
affect spam originating from AOL--a British newspaper reported that up to
9,000 people received last week's AOL-domain child pornography
solicitation. AOL's moves appear mostly for show--a test mailbox tonight
still contains 5 pieces of junk mail.
While cybercom.net wondered if they'd be the first casualty of AOL's
once-a-week update policy for the blocked-domains list, AOL quietly
scratched them off the list Monday afternoon--"pending a further review"
AOL's spokesman told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. While AOL's
postmaster publicly announced the new mail controls Friday, he was
noticeably silent about the correction. Possibly because it calls
attention to flaws in AOL's procedure. "The AOL tool 'silently' blocks
incoming mail, without notifying the sender, as is customary on the
Internet," Art Kramer wrote in the Journal-Constitution. "So senders at
the 53 domains are not aware that any e-mail to AOL users has been
intercepted and destroyed." "I'd like AOL to tell me and my ISP what is
going on," Newman told me Monday night. "So far I've heard *nothing* from
AOL other than 'we're looking into it.' I had to read Usenet to learn that
AOL had removed us from the block list -- just as I had to read Usenet a
few days ago to learn that AOL had put us on the list in the first place."
In Newman's opinion, AOL's policy is "fundamentally flawed". "It is
*wrong* for AOL to produce a blacklist without an accompanying document
explaining why each particular site is on the blacklist. It is *wrong*
for AOL to silently discard mail instead of rejecting or bouncing it."
For Newman, AOL's actions raise the specter of arbitrary mail disruptions.
"If AOL doesn't review its policies, what happened to Cybercom this week
could happen to *your* domain next week."
Footnote: the court date for AOL's suit against the junk-mail king begins
two weeks from Tuesday.
THE LAST LAUGH
One reader reports that an ad for AOL's "PrimeHost" web-hosting service
appeared in an unusual Yahoo category. "Anti-AOL sites".
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 03:50:17 -0700 (PDT)
From: Declan McCullagh <[email protected]>
Subject: File 4--U.S. crypto-czar appointment -- "Crypto Imperalism" in HotWired
http://www.hotwired.com/netizen/
HotWired, The Netizen
Global Network
Crypto Imperialism
by Declan McCullagh, Kenneth Neil Cukier, and Brock N. Meeks
Washington, DC, 23 October
The US offensive for international controls on strong encryption
will soon become a fusillade. In the next week, the Clinton
administration is set to create the position of a roving ambassador
whose job will be to marshal international support for a controlling
new US crypto policy, the Netizen has learned.
The crypto-czar will lobby foreign governments to change their laws
to comply with the US regulations announced on 1 October, which
temporarily allow businesses to export slightly stronger
data-scrambling applications if they pledge to develop a "key
recovery" system. In such a system, a still-undefined "trusted third
party" would hold the unscrambling key to any encryption, and could
be forced to give it over to law enforcement officials with a
warrant. The catch, of course, is that such a system permits
continued government access to encrypted communications.
But for that plan to work, an international "key recovery" framework
must be established. "What we need to do very clearly is to spend a
lot of time with other countries," William Reinsch, the US Department
of Commerce's undersecretary for export administration, told The
Netizen.
Reinsch said the newly annointed crypto ambassador would be
responsible for helping these countries move "in the same direction"
as the US by "helping facilitate that process and helping to reach any
agreements that need to be reached between us and them."
Reinsch said the position would defy the label "crypto-czar," because
the position isn't "a czar in the policy sense.... We don't envision
this person as one who would be giving a lot of speeches on the
subject and operating as a kind of public defender of the process."
Rather, the person would work within "a context which is largely
private, not public," Reinsch said. The president can confer the rank
of ambassador on a political appointee for up to six months without
Senate confirmation, the State Department said. And with ambassadorial
rank, the czar will be able to speak for the president.
The administration is currently considering a "short list" of
candidates "in the low single digits," drawn from current government
employees and private citizens, Reinsch said. If a current government
employee is chosen, he or she would be at the ambassadorial level, he
said, and the crypto duties would simply become an additional
responsibility.
If chosen from the private sector, it will be someone with
"significant stature," Reinsch said. That person would have "a close
association with the administration and the president and would be
viewed by the other countries as a senior representative who could
speak for the president with some confidence," Reinsch said. If a
private citizen is chosen, they would "do it for free and we'd pick up
the travel I guess."
The announcement should come "fairly quickly," he said. "I would hope
next week we could ice this one."
This bypasses the ongoing public debate in Congress over lifting
crypto export controls through legislation - Sen. Conrad Burns
(R-Montana) has pledged to keep fighting next year - and in the OECD,
says Marc Rotenberg, the director of the Electronic Privacy
Information Center. "This is backdooring the backdoor."
While others - notably Clint Brooks and Mike Nelson - have played the
role of crypto spokesperson before, this move represents a redoubling
of the administration's plans to impose its will internationally.
Yet international observers say the United States may find its plans
thwarted in the global arena, where many governments - already uneasy
about America imposing its hegemony on regional politics - will likely
resist another cryptocrat, even if the person comes with an
ambassador's honorific before his or her name.
"Europe would consider that unacceptable and arrogant, no question,"
says Simon Davies, director of Privacy International and a fellow at
the London School of Economics. "There would certainly be a backlash,
and it would cause immense suspicion. This whole business has become
extremely sleazy, and the Americans appear to have taken it all very
personally. I would be very surprised if it was taken seriously here."
Viktor Mayer-Schvnberger at the University of Vienna Law School, an
expert on international crypto policy, said that "if the US ups the
ante and brings in a sort of a quasi-diplomatic person to push
European countries further, I think we'll see tremendous
arm-twisting."
"It may backfire," says Mayer-Schvnberger. "The US put tremendous
pressure on Europe and that is going to increase if the US government
makes such a bold move as to appoint someone to do nothing but lobby
for key escrow." Many countries, he said, "have been very apprehensive
of the US coming in as the 'big guy' and telling the world what is
good and what is bad" regarding encryption.
###
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 17 Oct 1996 15:35:23 GMT
From: tallpaul <[email protected].com>
Subject: File 5--(Fwd) News.groups reform
[BEGIN INSERT]
On Oct 13, 1996 22:56:24 in <news.groups>, 'Christopher Stone
<[email protected]>' wrote:
In light of soc.culture.indian.muslims, I am presenting my ideas on how
best to reform news.groups. Please feel free to make comments.
PROPOSAL FOR NEWS.GROUPS REFORM
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I. INSTITUTIONAL SETUP
1) Group Advice, Group Mentors, and the Usenet Volunteer Votetakers (UVV)
are henceforth abolished. Their present memberships are consolidated into
a new body called the Usenet Coordinating Committee (UCC).
2) New members may periodically join the Usenet Coordinating Committee.
New members must be nominated by a current member, and their nomination
must be ratified by a 2/3 supermajority of the current UCC membership.
Likewise, members may be expelled from the UCC by a 2/3 supermajority.
Of course, UCC members may resign of their own volition at any time.
3) Tale shall retain his current position as moderator of
news.announce.newgroups and as the issuer of newgroup commands. Should
Dave
Lawrence ever resign as Tale, a new Tale shall be chosen by a 5/6
majority vote of the UCC. Likewise, Tale may be forcibly removed from
his post and a new Tale appointed only with the consent of 5/6 of the UCC.
II. MECHANICS OF NEWSGROUP CREATION
1) Anyone who wishes to form a new newsgroup shall contact the Usenet
Coordinating Committee, who will assist in writing a formal proposal for a
newsgroup.
2) Tale shall continue to post all formal proposals to
news.announce.newgroups, news.groups, and other relevant newsgroups. The
subject lines of such proposals shall bear the tag
"PROPOSAL: group.foo.bar" in lieu of the current tag "RFD: group.foo.bar."
3) Members of the Usenet Coordinating may brainstorm names for the
newsgroup in question, should the proposal itself contain an inadequate
name. UCC members also may voice other objections to the creation of the
proposed newsgroup, such as a lack of demonstrated traffic on the topic
in question.
4) UCC members may communicate amongst themselves via private e-mail;
however, they are urged to post their comments publicly to news.groups to
add transparency to the newsgroup creation process. Usenet readers at
large may also contribute input on proposals by crossposting to
news.groups and up to two other relevant groups. The UCC shall extend all
due consideration to such public comments.
5) The UCC shall vote on all proposals within two weeks of their posting
to news.announce.newgroups. Tale may order an extension of this deadline
if he deems fit, or if a majority of UCC members request it. Tale shall
post notice of the vote in news.announce.newgroups and news.groups. Such
notice shall carry the tag "VOTE: group.foo.bar" in its subject line, in
lieu of the current tag "CFV: group.foo.bar."
6) Votes may consist of YES, NO, or ABSTAIN. Tale shall be repsonsible
for tallying votes, or, if he chooses, he may delegate this responsibility
to volunteers from the UCC, who shall report back to Tale. Votes shall
last
one week. The voting record of UCC members shall not publicized outside of
the UCC.
7) Any proposal that earns the support of a simple majority of the UCC
shall be created within five days of passing its vote. Tale remains
responsible for issuing newgroup commands.
8) Newsgroups that fail their votes may not be reconsidered for six months.
III. NEWS.GROUPS REFORM
1) News.groups shall be robomoderated to filter out the following posts:
A) Articles that contain more than 75 characters per line;
B) Articles of more than 10 lines consisting of more than 3/4
quoted text;
C) Articles crossposted to three or more newsgroups other than
news.groups (excluding articles crossposted to
news.announce.newgroups or news.answers);
D) Articles that do not contain the tag words "PROPOSAL" or "VOTE"
or "FAQ" in their subject lines.
E) Article from certain individuals, as discussed below.
2) From time to time, certain individuals unfortunately post harrassing
and/or off-topic messages to news.groups. With the consent of a 2/3
supermajority of the UCC, the robomoderator shall be configured to reject
articles from such posters for a period of six months.
3) Tale shall periodically post various FAQ's on newsgroup creation to
news.announce.newgroups, news.announce.newusers, news.answers, and
news.groups. These FAQ's shall be proceeded with the tag "FAQ" in the
subject line. These FAQ's shall also be automatically sent to every
first-time poster to news.groups.
4) Discussion of proposals shall bear the tag "PROPOSAL" in their subject
lines. Discussions relating to votes in progress shall bear the tag
VOTE. FAQ's shall bear the tag FAQ. The robomoderator shall reject
articles lacking such tags.
5) The UCC shall maintain a database of sites willing to host
robomoderation programs. This information may be posted to news.groups
periodically as a FAQ.
ADVANTAGES
^^^^^^^^^^
1) This proposal eliminates much needless haggling on news.groups. For
instance, we will not go through several weeks worth of wrangling over
whether moderation constitutes censorship, or why obscure names such as
rec.pets.cats.clowder are ill-conceived.
2) This plan offers the advantage of consistency in namespace. Since the
same people will be voting on new groups, their preferences are unlikely
to vary from one proposal to another without good reason.
3) The proposal eliminates the problem of vote fraud altogether. No
longer will throngs of angry nationalist voters be able to nix newsgroups
for ethnic groups they dislike. Nor will a determined proponent be able
to ram proposals through news.groups -- thereby increasing the quality of
proposals. As things currently stand, news.groups is a paper tiger. We
cannot hope to defeat proposals such as soc.culture.indian.jammu-kashmir.
My proposal puts an end to such nonsense.
Additionally, this proposal will vastly cut down on harrassment of UVV
members and people whose e-mail addresses appear in RESULT postings.
4) The proposal makes it extremely easy for anyone who sincerely desires
to participate in the creation of newsgroups to do so. Basically, any new
poster who hangs out on news.groups for a while will be able to join the
UCC if he or she wants to. At the same time, the proposal prevents
net.kooks from disrupting the newsgroups creation process.
Furthermore, in some ways, my proposal makes the newsgroup creation
process less intimidating to outsiders. By allowing discussion to be
crossposted to two other groups besides news.groups, the proposal ensures
that readers of all relevant groups are aware of a given RFD. News.groups
will become more hospitable once robomoderation cuts down on all the
racist spam we have seen recently. And by eliminating acronyms such as
"RFD" and "CFV" in favor of clear English-language terminology, the
newsgroup creation process seems less mysterious.
I hope that Russ Allbery will consider integrating his proposal for
news.groups moderation with mine.
5) The proposal saves a lot of labor and time in the newsgroup creation
process. Increasingly, creating newsgroups takes far too much time and
effort. Bottlenecks in the newsgroup creation process are becoming all
too frequent. The UVV does not have enough votetakers to cope with the
mass of CFV's they must run, and more and more votetakers are quitting
after proposals such as rec.music.white-power. The same is true of Group
Mentors, and even Group Advice is overworked.
By streamlining the newsgroup creation process, the proposal eliminates
many of these steps; it will also cut down on many time-consuming
flamewars, such as the "clowder" debate that consumed news.groups in July.
6) The proposal recognizes that a CFV is *not* an interest poll, but
rather a measure of a proponent's skill at campaigning. These days, most
every CFV that fails does draw significant votes does not fail because of
a genuine lack of interest in the topic, but because the proponent did not
widely publicize the CFV.
Usenet has become so popular that virtually any topic will command some
traffic. The trick these days is to name groups correctly, so that
interested readers can readily find the groups they want.
The conventional RFD/CFV process, which relies on the goodwill of
proponents to name groups properly, is producing gems such as
soc.culture.scientists, misc.activism.mobilehome, sci.aquaria,
rec.aviation.air-traffic, and so forth. Some of these absurdities pass
their CFV in spite of the poor name. Even those groups that news.groupies
manage to defeat would have made interesting groups had the proponent been
more reasonable about selecting a good name. The new proposal eliminates
this problem.
In short, a reformed newsgroup creation process allows us to get on with
our business -- the creation of interesting, well-named newsgroups --
with a minimum of disruption. Therefore I urge support of this proposal
for news.groups reform.
[END INSERT]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 22:51:01 CST
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Subject: File 6--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 7 Apr, 1996)
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