Computer underground Digest Sun Dec 16, 1997 Volume 7 : Issue 97 ISSN 1004-042X Editors: Jim Thomas and Gordon Meyer (TK0JUT2@MVS.CSO.NIU.EDU 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, #7.97 (Sun, Dec 16, 1997) File 1--CuD is Changing Servers - RESUBS ARE NECESSARY File 2-- ALERT: The Net rocks the capitol;still time to call (fwd) File 3-- Last Stop Before the Censorship State (Reprint) File 4--Re: Child Pornography and Beastiality File 5--Response to "Bestiality on the Net (Re: CuD 7.96) File 6--Privacy: What is it? File 7--Computer, Freedom and Privacy 1996 File 8--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 5 Nov, 1995) CuD ADMINISTRATIVE, EDITORIAL, AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION APPEARS IN THE CONCLUDING FILE AT THE END OF EACH ISSUE. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 16 Dec, 1995 16:19:32 CST From: CuD Moderators Subject: File 1--CuD is Changing Servers - RESUBS ARE NECESSARY ** CuD IS CHANGING SERVERS ** In about mid-January, Cu Digest will be moving to a new server at weber.ucsd.edu. We're following the strong consensus of readers and requiring that, to continue to receive CuD after mid-January, you must RE-SUBSCRIBE. Although the move will not take place for a few weeks, you can enter your subscribtion before then, so WE STRONGLY URGE YOU TO SUB NOW. Re-subbing is easy. Just send a message with this in the "Subject:" line SUBSCRIBE CU-DIGEST send it to: cu-digest-request@weber.ucsd.edu Issues will still be sent out from the older server for a few weeks, so the strategy is to collect the resubs first, and then make the transition. If you prefer to access CuD from Usenet, use comp.society.cu-digest If you prefer archives, you can use the ftp/www site at ftp.eff.org (or www.eff.org) or the CuD archives at: http://www.soci.niu.edu/~cudigest. We also hope to have a mail archive set up soon as well. You can still contact the moderators at: cudigest@sun.soci.niu.edu or tk0jut2@mvs.cso.niu.edu Please *DO NOT* send inquiries to the server at UIUC. Jim and Gordon ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 23:33:11 -0500 (EST) From: "Shabbir J. Safdar" Subject: File 2-- ALERT: The Net rocks the capitol;still time to call (fwd) ======================================================================== CAMPAIGN TO STOP THE NET CENSORSHIP LEGISLATION IN CONGRESS THE NET ROCKS AMERICA'S CAPITOL - NEARLY 20,000 PARTICIPANTS THURSDAY DECEMBER 14, 1995 SENATE CONFEREES COULD STILL VOTE THIS WEEK RALLIES HAPPENING IN AUSTIN, NEW YORK, SF, & SEATTLE PLEASE WIDELY REDISTRIBUTE THIS DOCUMENT WITH THIS BANNER INTACT REDISTRIBUTE ONLY UNTIL December 25, 1995 ________________________________________________________________________ RECAP: INTERNET DAY OF PROTEST: TUESDAY DECEMBER 12, 1995 The net came into its own as a political force on Tuesday. The press release has more details. If you haven't taken a moment to call, fax, or email, do so now. We're still keeping track and only need a few more to break 20,000. VTW had someone onhand in DC monitoring the response at the Congressional offices. The feedback was amazing; Congress got the message. We need to sustain that by continuing to tell them we're not happy with the options being offered to us at this time. Directions for calling Congress can still be found at http://www.vtw.org/ and the many other sites listed at the end of this message. Take a moment to call! Don't forget to mail us a note at protest@vtw.org to let us know you took part in the Day Of Protest (and Day 2, and Day 3, and Day 4). FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 13, 1995 Contact: Steven Cherry (718) 596-2851 stc@vtw.org Shabbir Safdar (718) 596-2851 shabbir@vtw.org New York, NY Are 20,000 phone calls a lot? 30,000? 50,000? They are if you're one of a handful of Congressional staffers trying to field them. Tuesday, December 12th was the Internet's Day of Protest. A variety of net-activists and telecommunications-related services exhorted the on-line community to call a selected group of Senators and Representatives to declare their opposition to the threat of Internet censorship. And call they did. As the Senate members of the Telecommunications Reform conference committee contemplated portions of legislation that would censor "indecent" material on-line, their staffers were being overwhelmed with phone calls. Senator Inouye's office said they were "getting lots and lots of calls and faxes." Senator Lott's said they were "flooded with calls." At Senator Stevens' office there were so many calls they couldn't keep a complete tally. At Senator Exon's office, the fax machine was "backed up." And at one point, activists couldn't even get through to Senator Gorton's office to ask. Exon is the Senator whose Communications Decency Act started the nearly year-long struggle between those who would create special regulations to restrict speech on-line (even, in certain instances, private email between two individuals) to a greater extent than even traditional broadcast media; regulations that, according to the ACLU and many other civil liberties groups, will certainly be proven to be unconstitutional if passed into law. "We've never seen anything like it," said Stanton McCandish of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The EFF is one member of the on-line coalition that has been fighting an array of censorship legislation since this spring, when Senator Exon introduced his Communications Decency Act. "We may have almost overwhelmed our provider," said Shabbir Safdar, head of Voter's Telecommunications Watch (VTW). VTW is the organization that organized the on-line coalition. Their on-line connectivity is provided by Panix.com, a New York-area Internet service provider. "Panix has been doing some maintenance work today, so it's hard to tell," Safdar continued. "But we think it's actually made a dent in their connection to the rest of the Net." How many calls were actually made? No one can tell. For Leslie Miller, a reporter for USA Today, it took much of the afternoon to get some counts from Congressional staffers, and she couldn't get any report from the Senate's Sergeant-At-Arms, the office nominally responsible for the Senate's telephone system. VTW may be the only organization that can really make an educated guess. "In our Alerts we ask that people drop us an email note after they call," explained VTW board member Steven Cherry. "The message count peaked in the late afternoon at over 70 per minute. Many of those were from people who called several offices. By 7:30 P.M. (EST) we had gotten 14,000 messages. By Wednesday morning the count was over 18,000. And of course there are the people who called but didn't send us email. So all told, our very rough guess is there were well over 50,000 phone calls and faxes made on the one day." "The Net is coming of age, politically," said Jerry Berman, Director of the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), another member of the on-line coalition. Safdar, of VTW, concurred, saying, "I think Washington got the message today that there's a new grass-roots interest group around, and we're going to be a big part of the 1996 elections." (VTW's initial election activities can be found at http://www.vtw.org/pledge.) In addition to the Day of Protest, rallies are scheduled on Thursday, December 14th, in San Francisco and Seattle, and a protest will be held that day at 2:00 in New York City. The New York rally will be at the Cyber-Cafe, 273A Lafayette St from 2-3pm on Thursday, Dec 14th. Contact Steven Cherry or Shabbir J. Safdar for details. The Austin rally is planned for Tue. Dec 19th. No more information is available at this time. Information about the San Francisco rally can be obtained from http://www.hotwired.com/staff/digaman/. Information about the Seattle rally can be obtained from http://www.wnia.org/WNIA/hap/rally.html. Voters Telecommunications Watch is a volunteer organization, concentrating on legislation as it relates to telecommunications and civil liberties. VTW publishes a weekly BillWatch that tracks relevant legislation as it progresses through Congress. It publishes periodic Alerts to inform the about immediate action it can take to protect its on-line civil liberties and privacy. More information about VTW can be found on-line at gopher -p 1/vtw gopher.panix.com www: http://www.vtw.org or by writing to vtw@vtw.org. The press can call (718) 596-2851 or contact: Shabbir Safdar Steven Cherry shabbir@vtw.org stc@vtw.org ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Dec 1995 16:47:19 -0600 From: jthomas@SUN.SOCI.NIU.EDU(Jim Thomas) Subject: File 3-- Last Stop Before the Censorship State (Reprint) From: Howard Rheingold (hlr@well.com) Date: Fri Dec 15 '95 (14:52) Last Stop Before the Censorship State By Howard Rheingold Americans have one last chance before we lose the Net. If American citizens write, call, and fax the President now and urge him to veto the telecommunications deregulation bill, we might not lose an opportunity to revitalize the democratic process and grow hundreds of thousands of small Net-based businesses. And we might not hand over a nascent native industry - the industry of the twenty first century - to international competitors. The effects of this legislation [BILL NUMBERS TK] go far beyond the Internet, reaching into every aspect of American lives, undoubtedly influencing the shape of the democracy our children will grow up in. This telecommunications bill encourages the concentration of ownership of all news, entertainment, and communication media, institutes censorship provisions that will put online service providers out of business, cut off universities from the worldwide network, and turn American scientists, engineers, educators, entrepreneurs into a nation of Net-morons in an increasingly online world. This bill allows rates to rise too high and too fast, is generous with megacorporations and stingy with education, and it completely ignores the widening gap between information-rich and information-poor. Through months of committee debates and decisions, censors and monopolists have won every battle over the future of the Internet. By shamelessly exploiting legislators' and citizens' ignorance of the nature of the Internet, a small group who are intent upon imposing their brand of morality on everyone else,are about to silence a potentially powerful medium for citizen-to-citizen communication, cripple American industries trying to compete in global markets, and create a Federal bureaucracy with the power to determine what is decent for citizens to say. Congress will almost certainly send to the President a telecommunications reform bill that can send people to jail for two years and fine them $100,000 for mentioning the seven words that are forbidden from radio and television. Mention of abortion, condoms or safe sex are almost certain to be the next items forbidden. American universities, on the advice of their attorneys will turn off all Internet access for their students as soon as the law goes into effect. American citizens don't have to be electrical engineers to understand the nature of the new communication media. But we do need to have the truth told and the complexities explained, and that has not happened. Computer BBSs, e-mail, citizen networks, mean that you no longer have to own a press to benefit from freedom of the press: every desktop connected to the Net is a printing press, a place of assembly, a broadcasting station. The idea that ordinary taxpayers should have the power to publish eyewitness reports, argue policy, distribute information threatens the old power structures. Politicians and corporations whose fortunes are based on control of mass media fear their power will erode to the citizens. Legislators have failed to uphold their oath to defend the Constitution by pursuing such nonsense as flag-burning amendments to the Constitution while at the same time destroying the liberties that flag symbolizes. Internet censorship legislation is not about pornography on the Internet - that will easily move offshore. It's about who will have the power and control to broadcast words, images, and sounds, to everyone else. Citizens? Or cartels? A trillion-dollar pie is being cut up. We, the people, are getting cut out. Speak up. We still have the right to communicate with the President and demand that he hold the line. Tell him to send this back to Congress. We've been living for sixty years under the rules set forth in the Communications Act of 1934. Now the Congress is changing the rules again, determining the way our nation and its industries will communicate, educate, and do business for decades to come. We deserve better than this. Tell Clinton to tell Congress to try again, to cut the citizens of this country into the deal, and to keep their hands off the Bill of Rights. ------------------------------ From: glaze@RCLSGI.ENG.OHIO-STATE.EDU(Larry Glaze) Subject: File 4--Re: Child Pornography and Beastiality Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 10:48:04 -0500 (EST) Content-Length: 7350 Patrick A. Townson wrote in File 5--Child Pornography and beastiality, Cu Digest, #7.96: >No sysadmin is required to carry any alt group not of his (or his >employer's) liking. No explanation required, it simply does not >appear on his news spool. Some sites don't carry ANY alt groups >period. Some sites have even violated the (long-ago) gentlemen's >agreement of Usenet that for widest possible propogation, each >site carry all groups, i.e. as a courtesy I display messages from >your users and in return you display messages from my users. Very true. >So if the sysadmin at your site carries alt.sex.whatever.variations >on his spool, it is because he *wants* to carry it there. It >might be a business decision (lots of subscribers paying good money >to have this available to read) or a personal decision (he wants >to read it himself). Don't believe him if he rationalizes it >by claiming 'we have to carry all newsgroups'. He can make the >needed changes in the system .newsrc file, and that, as they say, >will be that. It is doubtful these days he has to carry all of >the Usenet groups and he never was required to carry alt groups. Due to the size of Usenet, you are not required to carry anything you don't want to. There are thousands of newsgroups related to only one city, or one country. We do not have to carry any of these newsgroups, nor do we have to carry any of the more traditional ones. The bandwidth and disk space required for a full newsfeed has gotten so large that it is impossible for most sites to carry a full feed. >If you do NOT want to have such a newsgroup, then you tell your >syadmin about it. You tell him in your opinion it cheapens and >harms the reputation of his site by having those groups available. >You ask him to remove them (or not make them available for public >reading) and perhaps you offer to take your business elsewhere >to a site you feel is better operated, or with higher quality. >If the sysadmin gets enough comments on a newsgroup, he will take >action on that group. Oh, come on now. This is the equivalent of 'I don't like this channel on my cable services so I am going to try to get the cable services to drop it so nobody can watch it.' That is totally uncalled for. If someone doesn't like a newsgroup, then they don't have to subscribe to it. Like you say, it is as simple as that. If you don't like it personally and feel strongly enought about it then the best thing to do would be to leave. But lets not keep everyone else using the services from reading a particular newsgroup you don't like. It is as much their right to choose to read a newsgroup as it is yours to choose not to. > After all, there are people who read {The New York Times} specifically > because they do not fill up their pages with the likes of columnists > like Ann Slanders or her sister Scabby Van Buren, and I believe > sites which carry only a limited subset of the news, picking the > groups which meet their taste requirements have a place also. I agree. > Just because 'child porn may be legal in some countries in Europe' (I > hear that one a lot) and just because the {New York Times} is sold and > distributed regularly in Europe and a lot of the readers are European > there still is no requirement that the {New York Times} print child > porn under some vaugely thought out line of reasoning which says 'well > it came here on our newsfeed from someplace in Europe where it is > legal so how can the authorities here punish us for printing it?' ... > Very easily ... that is what editors are for. If you carry > Usenet/altnet/*net news on your site, then the sysadmin becomes an > editor by default. > > Remember, a 'news' group without any news spools to sit on really > doesn't exist. Self-censorship is the best censorship of all ... it > works, is far more effective than anything the government tries to > legislate, and even the ACLU has not yet been able to figure out > how to force people to like it who in reality are totally opposed to > the actual/perceived or encouraged abuse of children/animals in this way. You said it right here, self-censorship is the best censorship of all. If I do not want to see or read something, then it is *my* choice not to see or read it. *I* make the decision, not the government or any other person forcing me not to read or see it by completely keeping it off of the system. Also, I highly doubt the ACLU is condoning any "actual/perceived or encouraged abuse of children/animals". They are just trying to protect our freedom of speech so I can say "You don't have a damn clue what you are talking about" and not get thrown in jail for it. > So sysadmins, start acting more like responsible publishers/editors. > If you want that garbage at your site, hey -- just say so and > carry it. If you don't, then get rid of it and block it out of > your accepted newsfeed. News admins *are not editors or publishers*. PERIOD! This has already been proven in court. Prodigy lost their court case because they monitored a chat room and, therefore, the courts said that they were a publisher because of that fact. If they had not been monitoring the chat room then they would have been found innocent. News admins do not monitor content of the newsgroups and it would be very difficult to do so due to hardware/software requirements needed to scan *every* news article that comes through the site. Besides all of that, I have better things to do with my time than to go reading through all of the articles my users post. I am *not* an editor and I do not want to be one. Nor am I a publisher. I am the equivalent of the phone company. I provide a gateway for people to send out their messages to Usenet. Adults have to start taking responsibility for what their children see. If you don't want your child coming into contact with certain segments of the net community then you take the time to monitor their activity. Just because you are too lazy to take the time to monitor your child while they surf the net is no reason to limit what *everyone* else can see, say or do on the net. If you would rather the government ban "indecent" images/language, then you have just forced your moral standards upon everyone else in the country. What will you do when someone decides they don't like a particular activity that you enjoy? I suppose you will just say "Oh, they think it is too dangerous for me or too 'indecent' for me so I will just go along with it. Never mind the fact that I have every right to choose for myself what I do." And no, I am not advocating child pornography or beastiality. My response is directed towards all of the people who, because they deem something inappropriate, feel they have the right to impose their views or opinions on me. ------------------------------ From: tallthin@IRS.COM(Tall Thin Jones) Subject: File 5--Response to "Bestiality on the Net (Re: CuD 7.96) Date: Sun, 17 Dec 1995 11:49:00 -0500 * Carbons Sent to: Alt.sex.bestiality In File 5, CuD #7.96, Patrick A. Townson spoke against "bestiality" on the net. I believe he was wrong on several points, and I want to submit a rebuttal here. Bestiality, in its definition of "humans having sex with animals" is not inherently cruelty. It's not illegal in all fifty states, as even under humane laws, harm has to be real. Animals do form romantic, loving relationships, they do experience sex for pleasure, they do exercise discretion in their choice of mates, and they do consent or withhold consent, to the point of using deadly force. Anyone who is literate can learn these things from the scholarly literature. If Mr. Townson wants to discuss it further, he can go to alt.sex.bestiality. Try to keep it rational, please, we do have standards. Mr. Townson urged that providers be encouraged to drop groups like alt.sex.bestiality and others he doesn't like. I'm sure they have a right to choose what they will carry, but it is also a principled stand to carry all of the USENET groups if one is a USENET provider. This is the support of the larger principle that the Constitution protects everyone or it protects no one. If it worked otherwise I'd be on the bandwagon against the pedophiles in an instant. But maybe hatred is still hatred even against the right targets... But I ramble. The hyenas are at our door. Our situation as users of the Internet will not improve if we give them a little of what they want, taken from our neighbors who we don't like or approve of. The hyenas see us all as meat. In plainer English, the Christian Coalition that is pushing the decency laws has already labelled all users of the Internet as potential pedophiles who must be restricted for our own good. Pointing fingers at each other will weaken us and strengthen them, then they will take all of our freedoms. Patrick L. Townson's proposals will make it much easier for them to do this. We have to decide which is worse. Having a few newsgroups some of us can't stand reading, and a few websites some of us won't use, or allowing the Christian Coalition to filter all of human knowledge for the rest of us. They didn't do too well when they were able to do this before. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 15:16:44 -0500 From: Galkin@AOL.COM Subject: File 6--Privacy: What is it? THE COMPUTER LAW REPORT *+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+ December 14, 1995 [#14] SORRY FOR THE DELAY SINCE THE LAST ISSUE. THIS ISSUE BEGINS A SERIES DISCUSSING PRIVACY RIGHTS IN THE DIGITAL AGE. ===================================== GENERAL INFO: The Computer Law Report is distributed (usually) weekly for free and is prepared by William S. Galkin, Esq. The Report is designed specifically for the non-lawyer. To subscribe, send e-mail to galkin@aol.com. All information contained in The Computer Law Report is for the benefit of the recipients, and should not be relied on or considered as legal advice. Copyright 1995 by William S. Galkin. ===================================== ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mr. Galkin is an attorney in private practice in Owings Mills, Maryland (which is a suburb of Baltimore), and has been an adjunct professor of Computer Law at the University of Maryland School of Law. Mr. Galkin has concentrated his private practice in the Computer Law area since 1986. He represents small startup, midsized and large companies, across the U.S. and internationally, dealing with a wide range of legal issues associated with computers and technology, such as developing, marketing and protecting software, purchasing and selling complex computer systems, and launching and operating a variety of online business ventures. He also enjoys writing about computer law issues! ===> Mr. Galkin is available for consultation with individuals and companies, wherever located, and can be reached as follows: E-MAIL: galkin@aol.com/TELEPHONE: 410-356-8853/FAX: 410-356-8804/MAIL: 10451 Mill Run Circle, Suite 400, Owings Mills, Maryland 21117 ^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^ Articles in The Report are available to be published as columns in both print and electronic publications. Please contact Mr. Galkin for the terms of such usage. ^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^ *+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+ PRIVACY: WHAT IS IT? *+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+ [This is the first of a series of articles discussing privacy rights in the digital age.] As the Information Age reaches maturity, its tentacles seem to stretch into every aspect of our lives. These fiber optic tentacles gather information from us often without our knowledge. Vast amounts of personal information is collected, sorted, organized by both government and private entities, and then used for a wide variety of purposes. Do we have any right to control the uses made of "our" information? Is there a right to privacy that provides us with some protection? I remember once calling an 800 number. The person who answered the phone knew my name and address immediately without my giving this information. Through use of a caller identification system linked to a data base sorted by phone numbers, they had personal information available instantaneously when people called. I was disturbed by the knowledge that making a telephone call could no longer be done with anonymity. I wondered how much information they had about me, where it was gleaned from, and whether I could have any control over how this information would be used. It is important to identify what is meant by a right to privacy in the context of personal information. In 1928, the Supreme Court in Olmstead v. United States, explained the right to privacy as the right to be "left alone." While many will agree with this description, it will need to be much further refined to be useful for applying it in the many different situations where this right will arise. Rather than trying to define the right to privacy at this point, it is better to look at some circumstances where such a right might arise: (1) Where the government unlawfully seizes evidence of a crime and the evidence is then inadmissible in court. One example of this is where the unlawful seizure occurs in a location where the possessor of the information had a "reasonable expectation of privacy." Where a car is lawfully stopped by the police for a simple traffic violation, illegal objects that are in plain view from outside the car may be seized because there cannot be a reasonable expectation of privacy, but , without probable cause for suspicion, objects seized from the glove compartment would not be admissible because there is a reasonable expectation of privacy applicable to the glove compartment. (2) Where government agencies or private entities are lawfully collecting personal data, but more data is collected than is needed to accomplish the purpose of the data collection. The collection of this excess data might amount to an invasion of privacy, even though the data is never misused. (3) Where information that has been lawfully collected is then disclosed (e.g., disclosure to the public under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) or disclosure to other entities). The courts have determined that since the purpose of the FOIA is to allow the public to monitor the activities of government, disclosure of personal data about individuals does not further this purpose, and therefore is not subject to disclosure under the FOIA. This conclusion results from balancing the public's right to access to government records and the privacy interests of individuals. Disclosure to third parties might be data transfer or data matching between government agencies or a business selling customer lists. (4) Where information lawfully collected is not disclosed, but rather used for a purpose different than the purpose for which it was originally collected. For example, information collected pursuant to an application for a mortgage might be used for trying to sell other products or services offered by the same company. (5) Where data lawfully collected is inaccurate. The classic case of this is the credit report. In this context, the right to privacy might be the right to examine and correct these records. The "Right to Privacy" is a battle cry we often hear these days as we see our cherished realm of privacy being invaded by the onslaught of technology. However, legal scholars and the courts have had difficulty identifying the specific source of this right and defining its scope and application. Many believe that this right emanates from the Constitution. While it may, the U.S. Supreme Court has never expressly recognized a constitutionally-based right to privacy relating to collection and use of personal data, except as regards disclosure in criminal law proceedings. In 1965, in the case of Griswald v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court recognized a right to privacy relating to birth control counseling. This and subsequent cases identified the right to privacy relating to controlling an individual's life as relates to personal decisions. However, this does not provide a foundation for a right to privacy of personal information. Others prefer to view the right to privacy as a property right, similar to the accepted corresponding property right found in the commercial context: trade secrets. As a property right, the owner of this information would have the right not to disclose the information and to restrict others who received this information through a permitted disclosure from further disclosure in a manner that is not inconsistent with the "owner's" expressed instructions. The comparison of trade secrets law with a right to privacy of personal information is difficult to take too faIÔ.