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Computer Undergroud Digest Vol. 06 Issue 43
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
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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/
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violate copyright protections.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 17 May 1994 09:37:38 -0400 (EDT)
From: Meeks Defense Fund <fund@idi.net>
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 <mech@EFF.ORG>
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 <nobody@SODA.BERKELEY.EDU>
Subject: File 4--PGP 2.6 Arriving Soon
Date--Mon, 16 May 94 11:38:50 PDT
From--Michael Ghens <mghens@rain.org>
_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-----
<deleted by eds for parsimony>
------------------------------
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 <listserv@SNYSIDE.SUNNYSIDE.COM>
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
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End of Computer Underground Digest #6.43
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