Computer underground Digest Thu May 19, 1994 Volume 6 : Issue 43 ISSN 1004-042X Editors: Jim Thomas and Gordon Meyer (TK0JUT2@NIU.BITNET) Archivist: Brendan Kehoe Retiring Shadow Archivist: Stanton McCandlish Shadow-Archivists: Dan Carosone / Paul Southworth Ralph Sims / Jyrki Kuoppala Ian Dickinson Covey Editors: D. Bannaducci & S. Jones CONTENTS, #6.43 (May 19, 1994) File 1--Details on Brock Meeks Case (fwd) File 2--Re: CuD 6.42 (Response to Review of Anti-Virus Book) File 3--CPSR Response to FCC CNID (fwd) File 4--PGP 2.6 Arriving Soon File 5--Mitch Kapor's TV Show (fwd from Mitch Kapor) File 6--Possible "Court Fraud" twist in Amateur Action BBS Case? File 7--DIAC Video Available Cu-Digest is a weekly electronic journal/newsletter. Subscriptions are available at no cost electronically. CuD is available as a Usenet newsgroup: comp.society.cu-digest Or, to subscribe, send a one-line message: SUB CUDIGEST your name Send it to LISTSERV@UIUCVMD.BITNET or LISTSERV@VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU The editors may be contacted by voice (815-753-0303), fax (815-753-6302) or U.S. mail at: Jim Thomas, Department of Sociology, NIU, DeKalb, IL 60115, USA. Issues of CuD can also be found in the Usenet comp.society.cu-digest news group; on CompuServe in DL0 and DL4 of the IBMBBS SIG, DL1 of LAWSIG, and DL1 of TELECOM; on GEnie in the PF*NPC RT libraries and in the VIRUS/SECURITY library; from America Online in the PC Telecom forum under "computing newsletters;" On Delphi in the General Discussion database of the Internet SIG; on RIPCO BBS (312) 528-5020 (and via Ripco on internet); and on Rune Stone BBS (IIRGWHQ) (203) 832-8441. CuD is also available via Fidonet File Request from 1:11/70; unlisted nodes and points welcome. UNITED STATES: etext.archive.umich.edu (141.211.164.18) in /pub/CuD/ ftp.eff.org (192.88.144.4) in /pub/Publications/CuD aql.gatech.edu (128.61.10.53) in /pub/eff/cud/ world.std.com in /src/wuarchive/doc/EFF/Publications/CuD/ uceng.uc.edu in /pub/wuarchive/doc/EFF/Publications/CuD/ wuarchive.wustl.edu in /doc/EFF/Publications/CuD/ EUROPE: nic.funet.fi in pub/doc/cud/ (Finland) ftp.warwick.ac.uk in pub/cud/ (United Kingdom) JAPAN: ftp.glocom.ac.jp /mirror/ftp.eff.org/ COMPUTER UNDERGROUND DIGEST is an open forum dedicated to sharing information among computerists and to the presentation and debate of diverse views. CuD material may be reprinted for non-profit as long as the source is cited. Authors hold a presumptive copyright, and they should be contacted for reprint permission. It is assumed that non-personal mail to the moderators may be reprinted unless otherwise specified. Readers are encouraged to submit reasoned articles relating to computer culture and communication. Articles are preferred to short responses. Please avoid quoting previous posts unless absolutely necessary. DISCLAIMER: The views represented herein do not necessarily represent the views of the moderators. Digest contributors assume all responsibility for ensuring that articles submitted do not violate copyright protections. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 17 May 1994 09:37:38 -0400 (EDT) From: Meeks Defense Fund Subject: File 1--Details on Brock Meeks Case (fwd) ((MODERATORS' NOTE: Brock Meeks is a respected journalist specializing in cyber-issues. He was the first to break the story of law enforcement spying on a 2600 meeting in Washington, D.C. in '92, and he has been an invaluable source of information and commentary. Those who know him or have read his material respect his integrity and competence. It was with shock that we read about the defamation suit against him by Suarez. We have read the article that Benjamin Suarez finds objectionable, and Brock's facts would appear to be a matter of public record. The following summary explains the case and the issues. We urge readers to contribute just a dollar or two each to Brock's defense fund)). Dear Net Citizen: The recent Internet posting launching a fund raising drive in order to help Brock Meeks defray the legal expenses of a lawsuit brought against his news wire, CyberWire Dispatch, has drawn several inquiries for a summary of the issues involved in this case. In response, we have put together the following summary. (Please note, too, that the case was featured in the April 22 (Fri.) issue of the Wall St. Journal (page B1)) Sometime during February of this year, an electronic solicitation began appearing on the Internet from a company identified only as the "Electronic Postal Service" (EPS). The solicitation from EPS said the service, "will pay you money to receive commercial e-mail. EPS estimates you will be paid an average of 6.5 cents per commercial e-mail message. It is estimated that the average commercial e-mail receiver can make $200.00 to $500.00 a year and likely more. There is absolutely no charge, periodic charge, hourly charge or phone charge to receive or review EPS commercial e-mail. The sender bears all of the cost. You are provided with a free EPS mailbox and you may access this EPS mailbox through a toll free phone number so there are no phone line charges... In addition... EPS offers you... full Internet access including network Internet e-mail remote log-in, file transfer capability and much more." To sign up you were required to call an 800 number or send for information to the EPS Internet account (eps@world.std.com). You had to include your name and address. Brock called and asked for the EPS information. It never came. Instead, he received an unwanted and unsolicited direct mailing from a company called Suarez Corporation Industries (SCI). The mailing came in the form of a 6 page letter signed by Benjamin Suarez. That mailing claimed that for a price of $159, Suarez would send you a book and software that could help you create a "net profit generation system" capable of earning anywhere from $30,000 to $1 million per year. Brock began investigating why he received the SCI mailing and soon found out that Suarez had obtained his name from the request for EPS information. More investigation found that the EPS account was registered to Suarez Corporation Industries. Brock then looked into the background of this company. During his investigation into SCI, Brock discovered that state and federal enforcement agencies had brought actions against SCI result of their direct mailing practices. In his article, Brock expressed his personal disapproval of the SCI business activities. SCI objected to the article and has filed a defamation lawsuit claiming Brock made defamatory remarks and sought to disparage his products "and otherwise tortiously (sic) interfere with the plaintiff's ability to develop" EPS. Suarez claims the Dispatch article lost him business and he is seeking compensatory and punitive damages and demanding an injunction to block Brock from writing further about SCI or its founder, Benjamin Suarez. The April 22 (page B1) issue of the Wall St. Journal says lawsuit "is one of the first U.S. libel cases to arise out of the free-for-all on the Internet... If it succeeds, some legal experts say it could spawn other complaints." For those who don't know Brock, he has a long history as a journalist writing in the on-line field, having written for Byte, Wired and other journals over the years. He lives and works today in the Washington, D.C. area writing during the day for a communications trade journal. Cyberwire Dispatch is his own creation. The suit against him was filed in Ohio. Without the generous offer of legal support from his current lawyers, who have offices in Ohio, Brock's situation would be even more dire. The Meeks case raises legal issues that may have far-reaching implications for freedom of speech and free expression on the internet. If journalists are unable to pursue important investigative issues without fear of reprisal, then all of us will suffer. This is exactly the type of chilling effect hat the First Amendment was intended to avoid and the reason we need your support. Of course defamation laws are to be applied to the Net, but how they are applied -- and this case will be an important first step in that process -- could determine just how open and free people will feel to speak their minds. This is NOT a case in which a writer on the Internet has, in fact, libeled someone else. Brock absolutely denies the charges against him. And every lawyer that Brock has consulted and looked at the text Brock wrote, and the charges against him, believe that he ha not written anything that can fairly be characterized as libelous. The Legal Defense Fund is formed to assure that Brock is well defended. As a reminder, contributions can be made in two ways, either tax-deductible or non-deductible. A special thanks goes to the Point Foundation for agreeing early on in the process to assist in organizing and serving as a collection agent for the Fund. If you have any questions, you can contact the Fund at Fund@idi.net. For tax-deductible contributions send those checks to: Meeks Defense Fund c/o Point Foundation 27 Gate Five Road Sausalito, CA 94965 For those who don't care about the tax deductible status, send contributions to: Meeks Defense Fund c/o IDI 901 15th St. NW Suite 230 Washington, DC 20005 THE BROCK MEEKS DEFENSE FUND COMMITTEE Samuel A. Simon President, Issue Dynamics, Inc.* ssimon@idi.net John Sumser Editor/Executive Director Whole Earth Review/ Point Foundation jrsumser@well.sf.ca.us Mitch Kapor Chair, Electronic Frontier Foundation* mkapor@eff.org David Farber The Alfred Fitler Moore Professor of Telecommunications Systems University of Pennsylvania* farber@central.cis.upenn.edu Philip Elmer-DeWitt Senior Writer TIME Magazine* ped@panix.com Marc Rotenberg Electronic Privacy Information Center* Rotenberg@epic.org Nicholas Johnson Former FCC Commissioner* 1035393@mcimail.com Jerry Berman Electronic Frontier Foundation* jberman@eff.org Mike Godwin Electronic Frontier Foundation* #################################################################### # Meeks Defense Fund | Internet: fund@idi.net # # ---------------------------------------------------------------- # # c/o IDI c/o Point Foundation # # 901 15th St. NW 27 Gate Five Road # # Suite 230 Sausalito, CA 9465 # # Washington, DC 20005 # #################################################################### ------------------------------ Date: 19 May 94 10:03:20 GMT From: frisk@COMPLEX.IS(Fridrik Skulason) Subject: File 2--Re: CuD 6.42 (Response to Review of Anti-Virus Book) In CuD 6.42, Urnst Couch writes: >International, Solomon interviewing himself and bursts of writing >which make absolutely zero sense. >For example: >"It would be difficult to create more [virus] experts, because the >learning curve is very shallow. The first time you disassemble >something like Jerusalem virus, it takes a week. After you've done a >few hundred viruses, you could whip through something as simple as >Jerusalem in 15 minutes." Well, this may not make sense to you, but nevertheless it is pretty accurate. The first virus I analysed (which, by the way was a Cascade variant) did take me a week or so....today I can easily go through dozens of viruses of similar complexity in a single day. The problem is that becoming a virus "expert" five years ago was much, much, easier than becoming one today...simply because the number of viruses is so much greater, and because of the "advances" in virus development during the past few years. >S&S International and was nominated for membership in the >pan-professional Computer Anti-Virus Research Organization by Solomon, >one of its charter members. This is an outright lie. John Buchanan has never (and would never have been) considered for CARO membership. There are several people that have been proposed, voted on and failed the vote....he is not one of them. I know, I am one of the founding members of CARO too. >What a lot of people don't know is that other public systems have been >a target of the same people. And what is wrong with that ? Public systems that distribute viruses any way or other are IMHO a part of the virus problem....they are not serving any useful purpose, and I will not oppose any attempts by anyone to shut them down. (I will not actively attempt to shut them down myself, though...I have more important things to do). >"The anti-virus software industry is going through a shake-out; not >everyone is successful anymore," said Braun. This is true. Just look at all the anti-virus products that have been withdrawn from the market, discontinued or just falled hopelessly far behind. On the other hand, there is not a single good new anti-virus product (written from scratch, that is) that I am aware of, which has appeared in the last two years. >"It's my opinion, most >of these kinds of things are really attempts to keep access to >information from competitors." Simple nonsense. In fact, there is a high degree of co-operation among most of the companies in the anti-virus industry. One of the main functions of CARO is to share information - in particular virus samples, but also useful technical information. For example, earlier this month there was considerable discussion on the detection of the two SMEG viruses that have just been reported in the UK. -frisk ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 May 1994 14:22:35 -0400 (EDT) From: Stanton McCandlish Subject: File 3--CPSR Response to FCC CNID (fwd) From--jjohnson@FirstPerson.COM (Jeff Johnson) Date--18 May 1994 17:28:55 GMT CPSR has responded to the FCC's recent ruling on Calling Number Identification (CNID). Our response took two forms: 1. Carl Page of CPSR/Oregon, who was (with Erik Nilsson) an active participant in the Oregon state hearings two years ago that led to an Oregon decision that followed many of CPSR's recommendations, wrote a "Petition for Reconsideration" of the FCC's ruling, and is submitting it today to the FCC. I provided advice and editorial feedback on the petition. The main points of CPSR's petition are: 1) Phone companies argue that line blocking undermines the value of CNID, but in fact the evidence suggests that this is false, 2) CNID with no line-blocking undermines the value of the "unlisted number" service, which has a higher market penetration rate than is projected for CNID, 3) per-call blocking is unreliable as a way to preserve privacy, especially in the age of direct marketing, "data harvesters," and the information superhighway, 4) Call Trace could be more useful to residential phone customers than CNID if it were inexpensive and universally available, yet the FCC's ruling ignores it entirely, and 5) the distinction between CNID, which can be blocked, and Automatic Number Generation (ANI), which provides calling numbers to 800 and 900-service providers and which cannot be blocked, should eventually be eliminated, such that blocking is available for all calls. 2. I provided advice to the National Association of State Consumer Advocates (NASUCA), which is submitting its own "Petition for Reconsideration" with the FCC. NASUCA consists of the majority of state Consumer Advocates, who work for their respective state Public Utilities Commissions. NASUCA's main arguments are: 1) the ~40 states that have considered CNID did so in a very open and democratic manner (e.g., held public participation hearings and evidentiary hearings, solicited and received numerous letters and written arguments, etc.), and most (36) of those states have decided that per-line blocking is necessary to provide a fair balance between the privacy of callers and callees, 2) the FCC's ruling, which was not based on such a democratic process, may well pre-empt those of the states, so the FCC should reconsider its ruling and allow CNID blocking, however generated (i.e., per-line or per-call), to work for interstate calls. In other words, calls for which the caller has blocked number disclosure should simply be marked as blocked, regardless of whether the blocking was initiated on a per-call or per-line basis. This would actually be simpler than requiring callers (and the network) to treat interstate calls differently from local calls. Hopefully, the FCC will reconsider. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 May 1994 11:58:50 -0700 From: Tommy the Tourist Subject: File 4--PGP 2.6 Arriving Soon Date--Mon, 16 May 94 11:38:50 PDT From--Michael Ghens _MIT PGP Release_ PGP 2.5 BETA RELEASE OVER, PGP 2.6 TO BE RELEASE NEXT WEEK -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- The beta version of PGP 2.5 is now being removed from MIT file servers. In about a week, MIT will begin distribution of a new release numbered PGP 2.6. PGP 2.6 will incorporate a new version of RSAREF, scheduled for release by RSA Data Security next week, and will also correct bugs that were reported in PGP 2.5. In order to fully protect RSADSI's intellectual property rights in public-key technology, PGP 2.6 will be designed so that the messages it creates after September 1, 1994 will be unreadable by earlier versions of PGP that infringe patents licensed exclusively to Public Key Partners by MIT and Stanford University. PGP 2.6 will continue to be able to read messages generated by those earlier versions. MIT's intent is to discourage continued use of the earlier infringing software, and to give people adequate time to upgrade. As part of the release process, MIT has commissioned an independent legal review of the intellectual property issues surrounding earlier releases of PGP and PGP keyservers. This review determined that PGP 2.3 infringes a patent licensed by MIT to RSADSI, and that keyservers that primarily accept 2.3 keys are mostly likely contributing to this infringement. For that reason, MIT encourages all non-commercial users in the U.S. to upgrade to PGP 2.6, and all keyserver operators to no longer accept keys that are identified as being produced by PGP 2.3. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 May 94 19:19 CDT From: P30TMR1@NIU.BITNET Subject: File 5--Mitch Kapor's TV Show (fwd from Mitch Kapor) Date--Tue, 10 May 1994 09:13:23 -0400 From--mkapor@kei.com (Mitchell Kapor) New Cyberspace TV Program I am developing a new program on cyberspace in conjunction with WGBH-TV, PBS' Boston affiliate. The show is intended to be a window onto the world of computer networks for the television viewer, whose point of view is that the world of on-line communications is interesting because of what people do there, not because of the digital plumbing which enables it. We will be focusing on the human aspects of networking and the individual and social aspects of being on-line. Cyberspace will be portrayed as a not-so-really strange territory after all, where all of us will increasingly come to live and work. My role is to guide people through this new territory, introducing the audience to its native culture, its scenic attraction, and its sights and sounds. We assume our audience is motivated by curiosity to learn more about what goes on in cyberspace, but we do not assume they are knowledgeable or, in general experienced with it. On the other hand, we will not trivialize the subject matter by reducing it to a least common denominator. We will give the show a look and feel which is approachable and down-to-earth. Interview guests and roundtable participants will be drawn from the net community itself. There will be plenty of demos of cool net stuff from Mosaic, CU See Me, and other cutting-edge applications and services. We are taping two test shows in mid-June which will be shown in Boston and other cities and hope to have some sort of national distribution (to be determined) in the fall for a regularly scheduled program. We are also going to create a WWW server for the show, the segments of which will be downloadable. The server will be have on it additional material which won't fit into the show format. An Invitation: We would like to include some video clips of net citizens expressing their greatest hope and worst fear about the future of the net which we will edit into an on-air piece for our regular feedback session. It's important to me to have the voices heard (and faces seen) of people already on the net. This is an opportunity for those of us who enjoy appreciate the decentralized and democratic character to express that sentiment to a mass audience. I hope you'll take advantage of the opportunity. Guidelines: Since an individual on-air clip will run at most 20-30 seconds, please keep your statement succinct. In shooting the clip, please feel free to pick a location which says something about yourself, whether it's your computer, your pet, or the great outdoors. We can accept Quicktime movies, VHS cassettes, or 8mm tapes. If you enclose a mailer, we will return your tape. We can also pick up digital submissions from any FTP site, etc. Contact Information: email: cybertv@kei.com Postal: Cybertv c/o Kapor Enterprises, Inc. 238 Main St., Suite 400 Cambridge MA 02142 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 May 94 12:52:35 PDT From: hkhenson@CUP.PORTAL.COM Subject: File 6--Possible "Court Fraud" twist in Amateur Action BBS Case? Wrote this a few weeks ago. Got so busy I never posted it. Keith ----- Monday I had an interesting conversation with an FBI agent. (Who will remain nameless here, since I may want to be able to talk to him again.) To bring you up to date, I uncovered evidence of outright fraud on the court system, and brought it to the attention of the FBI two weeks ago. It involved the San Francisco US Attorney who unilatterally took a motion off a judge's calendar after it had been placed there by a court clerk. (For those of you who do not understand how serious this is, imagine yourself showing up at a suit you had filed and discovering the oposing side had it removed from the calendar of the court and you had no way to get a hearing before a judge.) I presented court records to the FBI agent which clearly showed the problem. The agent claimed to be absolutely baffled. He admitted that I had shown clear evidence of serious problems which he said he had discussed over the last two weeks with his superiours. He admitted that I had every right to be concerned, but was certain that the FBI would be unable to do anything at all --since they had to ask the very person responsible for the fraud for permission to investigate! Neither he nor his bosses were so naive as to believe this request would be permitted. Please note: there are agents of the government who can committ serious crimes--in this case sedition, i.e., undermining the constitutional provisions for separation of powers--and get clean away with it. We concluded the conversation on the note of understanding how the FBI agents must have felt during the Hoover years when Hoover kept them from going after the Mafia. For those not up on the history involved, the Mafia had photographic evidence that Hoover was gay (at a time when being gay would get you kicked out of any government position) and deeply into gambling. They used this evidence to blackmail Hoover for decades--much as Hoover compiled lists of sins and blackmailed every politician of the times. And these people want us to *trust* them? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 May 1994 11:56:44 -0700 From: email list server Subject: File 7--DIAC Video Available CONFERENCE VIDEOS AVAILABLE ============================ DEVELOPING AN EQUITABLE AND OPEN INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE (DIAC-94) Sponsored by Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA April 23 - 24, 1994 CPSR's Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing biannual conferences (DIAC) are explorations of the promises and threats stemming from computer technology. DIAC-94 was a two-day symposium dedicated to public interest issues related to the National Information Infrastructure (NII), the proposed next-generation "Information Superhighway." Academia, libraries, government agencies, media, and telecommunications companies, as well as public interest groups and the general public, all have a stake in the current development. Videotapes of this conference are now available. Videos are available for $20 per tape ordered (the cost of reproduction and distribution). All tapes are on standard home VHS format. To order, send a check made out to "CPSR/Boston" and the names of the videos you want to: CPSR/Boston PO Box 962 Cambridge, MA 02142-0008 Videos: A0: "WHO WILL BE HEARD? ACESS TO THE INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY" Patrice McDermott, OMB Watch Herbert Schiller, University of California at San Diego Benjamin Barber, Rutgers University Jeffrey Chester, Center for Media Education Lauren-Glenn Davitian, Alliance for Community Media Tom Grundner, National Public Telecomputing Network This video is a 2-hour edited summary of the invited speakers from the first day of the conference. For viewers interested in an overview of the conference, this tape is recommended. A1: CONSTITUENCY PLENARY Bill Johnson, Massachusetts Corporation for Educational Telecommunications (MCET) Elaine Bernard, Harvard Trade Union Program Earl Hancock, MassCUE Joseph Lazzaro, Massachusetts Commission for the Blind Michael Roberts, Freedom House A cross-section of successes and disappointments experienced by K-12 educators, labor, disabled, and community organizations. A2: PUBLIC ACCESS TELEVISION / MEDIA ARTS CENTERS: MODELS FOR COMMUNITY ACCESS TO THE INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE - Rika Welsh, Susie Walsh, Abigail Norman, Susan Fleischmann, Cambridge Community Television Public access television began 20 years ago, the result of hard work of activists concerned with some of the same issues being addressed at this conference: With the advent of emerging technologies, how do we ensure that those who do not have access to traditional, mainstream media and technologies are provided a forum to express themselves, their cultures, political and social beliefs, and to communicate and interact with others? We will seek to learn from participants how access television might work with computer professionals to ensure that the communities that we now serve will have comparable access to the emerging communications technologies. H2. PC's EMPOWER INDIVIDUALS WITH DISABILITIES - Joseph J. Lazzaro, Massachusetts Commission For The Blind For persons with disabilities, the online community represents an electronic bill of rights and a new found freedom. The workshop will focus on how to adapt personal computers for individuals with vision, hearing, and motor disabilities. Basic concepts of computer modifications that are common across hardware platforms will be highlighted. B3: INFORMED PARTICIPATION AND THE NATIONAL INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE - Thomas A. Kalil, The White House, John Mallery, Joshua Cohen, MIT How can digital computer networks could be used to improve the policy-making process in government? Thomas Kalil will review opportunities for public input into decisional processes. Then, John Mallery will discuss several technologies that might be applied to public access. Finally, Joshua Cohen will comment and guide the discussion, focusing on the need to ensure fair access to public discussion and to avoid the imposition of new barriers to entry. B4. PLAYING TO WIN AND THE COMMUNITY COMPUTING CENTER MOVEMENT - Antonia Stone and Peter Miller The growth of the community computing center movement--low-income neighborhood centers which provide computer training, access and integration into community programs--is one response to the presuppositions of taking a democratic NII seriously. B5. THE GREATER BOSTON COMMUNITY-WIDE EDUCATION AND INFORMATION SERVICES ORGANIZING PROJECT (CWEIS) - Marlene Archer, The Boston Computer Society This workshop is an excellent opportunity for the CWEIS Organizing Committee to help define the Boston community on-line service, gain suggestive feedback and insights, and make useful in-person contacts and connections. C2. MEASURING THE NII - Richard Civille, Ann Bishop This workshop will introduce participants to issues and techniques related to collecting data on NII use and impacts. Participants will also contribute to the development of appropriate measures and methods for assessing the effectiveness and equitability of NII implementation and outcomes. C3. POLICY FOR THE GLOBAL INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE (I) - William Drake with Herbert Schiller, UCSD The first workshop session will analyze global and national policy challenges to equitable information infrastructure development. The role of international institutions; intellectual property in a globally networked environment; the role of community networks, and National Information Infrastructure (NII) technology policies will be emphasized. C4. PUBLIC SERVICES FOR THE GLOBAL INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE (II) - Lee McKnight, MIT The second workshop session will present concrete examples of prototypical NII services along with future application areas. Through dialog and interaction with workshop participants, it is hoped that critical variables for NII public policies can be identified in their global context. C5: NII: PUBLIC OR PRIVATE? DEFINING RESEARCH PARAMETERS Sherwood A. Dowling The immediate purpose of the workshop is to introduce participants to the economic concepts of public goods, privatization and externalities in the context of government information. The ultimate purpose of the workshop will be the definition of one or more testable hypothesis, recognition of policy option points, determination of potential policy impacts, identification of prospective survey participants or other data sources, and enumeration of possible evaluation criteria. D4. DEMOCRACY IN CYBERSPACE - Amy Bruckman, MIT Media Lab How is cyberspace to be governed? Commercial service providers require new members to agree to a set of "terms of service" which establishes standards for appropriate conduct. More democratic methods of governance are possible. E1: A POSTMODERN VIEW OF NATIONAL INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE - Dr. Bob Barbour, The University of Waikato, New Zealand The purpose of the workshop will be to identify the possible future consequences of applying a postmodernist view to Information Technology practice as it relates to NII. The central focus of the workshop will be to consider how NII can contribute to or inhibit discourse. E4. THE POLITICAL RHETORIC OF NII - Steve Fuller, University of Pittsburgh We will consider the rhetoric used to knit together various constituencies that are needed to get behind the development of NII -- and then examine the extent to which these constituencies (which include the President, Congress, the military, big business, universities, and "ordinary folks") are likely to benefit from it. G1: INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM: PARKS, STREETS, SIDEWALKS AND ...CYBERSPACE? FREE SPEECH IN THE NEW PUBLIC SQUARE - Anne Levinson Penway, ALA, Paul Vermouth, MIT Librarians have long supported the principles of intellectual freedom in defending library users' rights to have access to ideas and information from all points of view without restriction, including restrictions based upon the age of the library user. How should these principles guide the development of the national information infrastructure? G3: SECURING THE INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE: NEW CRIMES, CRIMINALS, LOSSES, AND LIABILITIES IN THE POST-HACKER ERA - Sanford Sherizen, Data Security Systems, Inc. Less attention seems to have been raised about how to protect information from a growing populations of "new" computer criminals. In the Post-Hacker Era, they include competitors, inside traders, governments, journalists, and "crackers." While the Clipper controversy continues, this is only one of a number of information security policy issues that will arise and need informed resolution. H5. ETHICS, EDUCATION AND ENTERTAINMENT ON THE NII: WHAT SHOULD RESEARCH PRIORITIES BE? - Rachelle D. Hollander, National Science Foundation The focus of this workshop is on developing research proposals to the Ethics and Values Studies Program, National Science Foundation. EVS is interested in supporting research on ethical and value issues associated with high performance computing and the national information infrastructure. But what topics should have priority? And how should the research be done? The Proceedings book from DIAC-94 can be ordered from CPSR's national headquarters: CPSR, PO Box 171, Palo Alto, CA 94301. For more info, contact: CPSR at (415) 322-3778 or cpsr@cpsr.org ------------------------------ End of Computer Underground Digest #6.43 ************************************