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Computer Undergroud Digest Vol. 08 Issue 65
Computer underground Digest Sun Sep 8, 1996 Volume 8 : Issue 65
ISSN 1004-042X
Editor: Jim Thomas (cudigest@sun.soci.niu.edu)
News Editor: Gordon Meyer (gmeyer@sun.soci.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, #8.65 (Sun, Sep 8, 1996)
File 1--BOOK> GOVERNMENT ONLINE IN CANADA (fwd)
File 2--China slices off access to web sites including CNN and WSJ
File 3--US Army troubled by viruses, France with hackers...
File 4--Germany censors dutch website www.xs4all.nl
File 5--Indonesia detains democracy activist after post to mailing list
File 6--Singapore
File 7--Kuwait moves to censor "sin-inducing" Internet
File 8--NSF yanks Iran's Internet connection, from HotWired
File 9--CITA 'declares war' on SaskTel
File 10--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 7 Apr, 1996)
CuD ADMINISTRATIVE, EDITORIAL, AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION ApPEARS IN
THE CONCLUDING FILE AT THE END OF EACH ISSUE.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 19 Aug 1996 14:40:18 -0400 (EDT)
From: Pierre Bourque <pierre@dragon.achilles.net>
Subject: File 1--BOOK> GOVERNMENT ONLINE IN CANADA (fwd)
Hi,
would appreciate it if you could consider the following for an upcoming
edition of CUD.
Thanks in advance,
Pierre Bourque
Mercenary Scribbler
--
GOVERNMENT ONLINE CANADA: The Internet User's Comprehensive Directory !
by Pierre Bourque (pierre@achilles.net) Foreword by Prime Minister Jean
Chretien (pm@pm.gc.ca)
This unique Internet Directory is the ultimate guide to the maze of
government websites in Canada and perhaps the most important political
book of the year. With thousands of relevant web and
email addresses, Pierre Bourque's book is the only reference you need.
The book also holds important appendices filled with key links to online
educational, business, and journalistic resources, online research tools,
domestic and international media, search engines, and glossaries of terms.
GOVERNMENT ONLINE IN CANADA (www.achilles.net/~pierre/GOC.html)
Published by Stoddart Publishing Co. Limited.
Media Contact: Patti McCabe (Patti.Mccabe@ccmailgw.genpub.com)
Distributed in Canada and the USA by General Distribution Services Inc.
(Customer.Service@ccmailgw.genpub.com)
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 23:09:52 -0500
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject: File 2--China slices off access to web sites including CNN and WSJ
[One aspect to stress here is understanding what technical means the
Chinese government is using, so net-activists can subvert it better. Anyone
want to give me an account on a machine in China so I can experiment?
--Declan]
September 5, 1996
China Bans Internet Access To as Many as 100 Web Sites
By KATHY CHEN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
BEIJING -- Acting on its threat to control Internet use, China blocked
access to as many as 100 sites on the World Wide Web, according to
Chinese and Westerners who monitor the industry.
[...]
The ban on select Web sites comes amid a broad tightening of control
over the rising flood of information into China. In January, Beijing
announced that economic news services sold by foreign companies --
including Dow Jones & Co., publisher of this newspaper -- must be
distributed by the official Xinhua news agency.
...a Chinese official who works in the information industry confirmed
that the State Council Information Leading Group last week ordered the
ministry to block access to one batch of sites "suspected of carrying
spiritual pollution," with a second group likely to follow soon.
Western industry sources estimated that China has banned access on as
many as 100 Web sites by using a filtering system to prevent delivery
of offending information. Checks by the sources over the past few days
showed that China has shut access to sites in the following five
categories for subscribers of China's commercial network:
English-language sites sponsored by U.S. news media such as The Wall
Street Journal, the Washington Post and CNN.
Chinese-language sites featuring news and commentaries from Taiwan,
which Beijing considers a renegade province of China.
Sites sponsored by Hong Kong newspapers and anti-Beijing China-watching
publications.
Overseas dissident sites, including those providing data on the restive
Himalayan region of Tibet and Xinjiang's independence movement.
Sexually explicit sites, such as those sponsored by Playboy and
Penthouse. Some such sites remain unblocked.
[...]
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1996 15:07:23 +0100
From: Jean-Bernard Condat <jeanbc@INFORMIX.COM>
Subject: File 3--US Army troubled by viruses, France with hackers...
Despite the hype, there are important historical trends behind the
interest in information warfare. French military authorities, for
example, suspect that unidentified hackers broke into their navy
system in July and, according to Reuters on September 20, "tapped
into the data on the acoustic signatures of hundreds of French and
allied ships." President Jacques Chirac ordered a major
investigation. While American and British liaison officers, who
provided information on their own vessels, were furious at the
French and suspected the Russians, some French officers suspect that
the Americans were testing French security.
Writing in an article entitled "US Army Seeks Computer Antivirus
Plan" in the August 26 issue of "Defense News" magazine, reporter
Pat Cooper reveals the US Army suffered from serious computer virus
infections while deployed in Bosnia.
Infections by Monkey, AntiEXE and Prank Macro caused computer
software malfunctions and related problems which "forced Army
personnel to waste hundreds of hours finding the viruses and
cleaning them from the systems (...)" Apparently, imperfect Monkey
virus removals also resulted in non-critical data being lost from
infected hard disks. The widespread dispersal of the viruses on Army
computers in Bosnia have catalyzed a review of informations systems
procedures and could have implications for all future force
deployments, servicewide, according to Cooper and Defense News.
Army Captain Steve Warnock told Cooper that while virus computer
trouble was widespread, it affected only "nonsensitive data and did
not adversely affect the Bosnian mission."
Army officials pressed for solid recommendations that all computers
be checked for computer viruses prior to future deployments. One
suggestion aired involved the maintenance of an on-line site from
which Army personnel could download current anti-virus software
while in the field. Pat Cooper commented to "Crypt Newsletter" that
the US Army had used IBM Anti-virus and McAfee Associates software
while in Bosnia.
-- Jean-bernard Condat, Senior Consultant, Smart Card Business Unit
| Informix, La Grande Arche, 92044 La Defense Cedex, France
| Phone: +33 1 46963769, fax: +33 1 46963765, portable: +33 07238628
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 21:16:33 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Felipe Rodriquez <felipe@xs4all.nl>
Subject: File 4--Germany censors dutch website www.xs4all.nl
Please forward:
Contact: XS4ALL Internet BV (http://www.xs4all.nl)
Postbus 1848
1000BV Amsterdam
Fax: +31-20-6274498
Email: felipe@xs4all.nl
* * * P R E S S R E L E A S E * * *
GERMANY CENSORS DUTCH WEBSITE WWW.XS4ALL.NL, WITH 3100 WEBPAGES
German internetproviders, joined in the Internet Content Taskforce
(ICTF), started censoring the Dutch website www.xs4all.nl, containing
3100 personal and commercial homepages. This act of censorship is
caused by the webpage of a magazine that is banned in Germany, Radikal
(http://www.xs4all.nl/ ~tank/radikal/).
A German prosecutor sent the following message to the ICTF
(http://www.anwalt.de/ictf/p960901e.htm):
"Under the following addresses in Internet:
http://www.serve.com/spg/154/
http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/radikal//154/
and using the link on page
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/angela1/radilink.htm
one can call up the entire edition of the pamphlet entitled radikal Nr.
154". Parts of this pamphlet justify preliminary suspicion of promoting
a terrorist organization under ' 129a, Par.3 of the German Criminal
Code, public condoning of criminal activities penalizable under ' 140
no.2 of the German Criminal Code and preliminary suspicion of inciting
to criminal activity under ' 130a Par.1 of the German Criminal Code.
The Public Prosecutor General at the Federal Court of Justice has
therefore initiated a criminal investigatory procedure against the
parties disseminating this pamphlet.
You are herewith informed that you may possibly make yourself subject
to criminal prosecution for aiding and abetting criminal activities if
you continue to allow these pages to be called up via your access
points and network crosspoints"
Providers in Germany are already blocking packets to and from the
host www.xs4all.nl. The 3100 websites on this server include the
Kurdistan Information Network (http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/kurdish/htdocs/),
the very popular Internet Charts (http://www.xs4all.nl/~jojo/) and
the world famous Chip Directory (http://www.xs4all.nl/~ganswijk/chipdir/).
XS4ALL has not received any request from the German Government regarding
the homepage of Radikal. Without any prior contact the German prosecutor
decided that the XS4ALL website needs to be blocked for German
Internet Users. XS4ALL is awaiting legal advice, and will investigate
if legal procedures against the German government are possible.
Censorship on Internet usually has the opposite effect. Internetusers
consider it a sport to publish censored materials. Many users have already
published the Radikal website on other Internet hosts. Here are some of
the URL's:
http://burn.ucsd.edu/%7Eats/RADIKAL/
http://www.jca.or.jp/~taratta/mirror/radikal/
http://www.serve.com/~spg/
http://huizen.dds.nl/~radikal
http://www.canucksoup.net/radikal/index.html
http://www.ecn.org/radikal
http://www.well.com/~declan/mirrors/
http://www.connix.com/~harry/radikal/index.htm
http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/radikal/index.htm
Xs4all Internet will rotate the IP-numbering of the website www.xs4all.nl
to ensure that it's 3100 userpages will all remain available for any
internet-user.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 1996 21:23:29 -0700 (PDT)
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject: File 5--Indonesia detains democracy activist after post to mailing list
Indonesia is joining the rest of the world in cracking down on online
speech. Perhaps the lesson here is that no matter how much the Internet
supposedly "routes around censorship," the most vulnerable points are the
humans on both ends. More info on the global net-crackdown is at:
http://www.eff.org/~declan/global/
-Declan
---
http://www.hotwired.com/netizen/96/34/special0a.html
HotWired, The Netizen
19 August 1996
Trouble in Paradise
by Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com)
Washington, DC, 18 August
Indonesian democracy activists have taken their fight for freedom
to the Net, and the government doesn't approve.
After distributing email messages about riots in Jakarta last month to
an international Indonesian-politics mailing list, Prihadi Beny
Waluyo, a lecturer at Duta Wacana Christian University, was arrested
and interrogated by the military. Since then, the mailing list has
been banned from the country and Waluyo has returned to his house,
where he remains under surveillance.
Until now, Indonesian cyberspace has been relatively free, with no
regulations or laws explicitly restricting online discussions. By
contrast, newspapers and magazines are subject to strict censorship,
following a 1984 ministerial decree requiring the press to obtain
licenses from the government.
[...]
"He [Waluyo] was arrested and accused of sending messages to Holland
and printing out photocopies," said Sidney Jones, executive director
of Human Rights Watch/Asia. "The army is out to stop any kind of
discussion of the riots."
The censor-happy regime of President Suharto tried to stop journalists
from reporting on the outbreaks of violence - which shattered his
carefully cultivated image of a stable Indonesia. The worst domestic
disturbance in a decade, the uprising started after police stormed the
headquarters of an opposition party and ejected anti-government
activists from the building...
[...]
---
August 14, 1996
His Excellency M. Arifin Siregar
Ambassador to the United States
Embassy of Indonesia
2020 Mass. Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20036
Your Excellency:
I am writing on behalf of Human Rights Watch/Asia to protest the
arrest of Drs. Prihadi Beny Waluyo, a lecturer at Duta Wacana Christian
University. Drs. Waluyo was arrested at his home by soldiers of the
district military command. He was reportedly accused of distributing
e-mail messages and also of sending messages relating to the July 27 riots
to a destination in Holland. His arrest came after an unidentified person
gave an officer photocopies of e-mail messages that were traced to Drs.
Waluyo. The person claimed the printouts came from a store in Kebumen, a
district of Yogyakarta.
Following his arrest, Drs. Waluyo was interrogated by the military
about his connections with the Peoples Democratic Party (PRD), which the
government has accused of masterminding the riots, but he denied any
involvement with the PRD. He acknowledged that he had sent messages over
the Internet. Following his questioning, he was reportedly ordered to go
to his home and was told to report to the district military command on a
regular basis. He is said to be under strict surveillance.
Human Rights Watch opposes actions by the Indonesian government to
restrict electronic communication. As stated in Article 19 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression: this
right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to
seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and
regardless of frontiers.
We believe that such forums provide a truly unique opportunity for people
from around the globe to share their views with an international audience.
By allowing unrestricted communication, important issues can receive the
benefit of serious discussion by the broadest cross-section of society. If
the Internet is to achieve its potential to become a global information
infrastructure, it is important, at the present moment, to agree to allow
its unrestricted development.
We urge that Drs. Waluyi and every other citizen be allowed to
receive and transmit electronic mail without fear of harassment,
intimidation, or arrest.
Sincerely,
Sidney Jones
Executive Director
Human Rights Watch/Asia
cc: His Excellency Nugroho Wisnumurti, Ambassador to the United Nations
---
[Thanks to Bruce Sterling for this excerpt. --Declan]
>From the INDEX ON CENSORSHIP web site:
http://www.oneworld.org/index_oc/
INDONESIA
It was reported in May that the government has banned the book Bayang Bayang
PKI (In the Shadows of the PKI). Published by the Institute for Studies on
the Free Flow of Information (ISAI), it focuses on the 1965-1966 events
leading to the assumption of power by President Soeharto. It is now a
criminal offence for any person to process, publish, distribute, trade or
reprint the book. (A19)
The government has put pressure on the media to report positively on
government-backed efforts to oust the leader of the opposition Indonesian
Democratic Party (PDI), Megawati Sukarno-putri. On 2 June army officers
invited most of Indonesia's chief editors to attend media briefings where,
among other things, they were told not to use the words 'unseat' or 'topple'
in their reporting.
A rally in Jakarta organised by members loyal to Megawati on 20 June was
broken up by troops, who killed at least one of the protesters, and arrested
hundreds. Erwin Hadi, photographer with the weekly Sinar, Iqbal Wahyudin of
CNN, Tomohiko Ohtsuka of Mainichi Shimbun and Reuters photographer Enny
Nuraheini were among the journalists injured by soldiers during the rally.
Local stations were also banned by the government from broadcasting images
of the protest or from helping foreign news agencies feed their pictures of
the rally abroad. Megawati was finally ousted as PDI leader on 22 June.
(Institute for Studies on the Free Flow of Information)
The Supreme Court voted on 13 June to uphold the government's ban on the
independent newsweekly Tempo (Index 4&5/1994, 3/1995, 1/1996). The Court
ruled that the information minister has the right to revoke publishing
licences since he also has the right to issue them. (Institute for Studies
on the Free Flow of Information)
Index Index incorporates information from the American Association for the
Advancement of
Science Human Rights Action Network (AAASHRAN), Amnesty International (AI),
Article 19
(A19), the BBC Monitoring Service Summary of World Broadcasts (SWB), the
Committee to
Protect Journalists (CPJ), the Canadian Committee to Protect Journalists
(CCPJ), the
Inter-American Press Association (IAPA), the International Federation of
Journalists (IFJ/FIP), the
International Federation of Newspaper Publishers (FIEJ), Human Rights Watch
(HRW), the Media
Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), International PEN (PEN), Open Media
Research Institute
(OMRI), Reporters Sans Frontires (RSF), the World Association of Community
Broadcasters
(AMARC) and other sources
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1996 21:57:06 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Felipe Rodriquez <felipe@XS4ALL.NL>
Subject: File 6--Singapore
Hi,
The Singaporean system will be followed up by other countries. I expect
this to happen almost immediately. Other countries have been looking at
similar systems, and will try to perfect the licensing system Singapore
created. Just wait to see China, Taiwan, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia to
impose similar legislation. Even Europe may have a brainwave leading
us all into a system of licensing the Internet.
In every country there is discussions about legislation on Internet. Every
country will feel a need to uphold the national moral standards. It
will cause people to migrate their information to other, more tolerant, parts
of the world. People from singapore may have websites in Holland or
the US. (some sex-companies from singapore already operate digitally from
Holland). Singapore can block those pages off, but would have an
increasingly burdensome task to track down all 'hostile' and 'dangerous'
information. I doubt if they will succeed, as the Net grows larger. Three
years ago the worldwide usenet-flow was 100mb/day. Today it's about
two gigabytes. In two years this will have quadrupled. No organisation
can control such enormous flows of information. I don't want to even
start thinking about tracking and censoring webpages, because
they will just be put on a new URL every day.
Any country trying to impose national or regional legislation on
the Net will have a hard time. A global consensus is needed for
the Internet, a consensus of tolerance. We need to let go of regional
issues, and try to define global issues.
A global system would need an enourmous amount of tolerance. There is
no other choice than accepting total tolerance, because there is no way
to shut your opponents up. The replication of censored information seems
to be a favourite sport of internet users around the world. Most censored
documents on Internet had many more readers _after_ the attempts
to censor them. If you would ever want to write a bestseller on the Net,
be sure to have the governments and coorporations censor it. It'll
ensure thousands of readers.
Child-pornography and copyrights may very well be the only two issues
where global consensus is possible. Other issues like racism and
pornography would be very difficult to deal with. Some countries on the
Net will tolerate it, under their local freedom of speech legislation.
Realize that because of this the information will be available on the
entire Net. It becomes clear that on a global scale pornography and
racism are hard, even impossible, to censor from the Net. As are other
documents that may offend someone, somewhere in the world. Expect all
the human expressions to be reproduced on the Net, its poetry but also
its excrements. Accept it, or disconnect.
I don't know if we should all be happy or unhappy about all these
things on the Net. It's not very positive to see racist propaganda
spread over the world, it does not make me very happy. A lot of Americans
will not be happy about the fact that there's loads of pornography on
the Net, coming from Europe. But agression about these publications
will not solve your or my own problems. The Internet is not there to make
us happy, it is not there to irritate us either. The Internet is there
to use, to communicate. The Net is part of our universal right to express
ourselves and communicate with eachother.
Communication on such a vast scale is only possible through tolerance,
by accepting things on a global scale. Accept that there're other
cultures, with other beliefs and moral codes. To accept and be tolerant
to the other gives you the right to demand a tolerant approach
by others. There're some things we may agree on together, like
persecution of child pornography. But there's a lot of other things
that we will have to accept on the Net. We are forced into tolerance,
because there's no other option.
Imagine living in a country with 5 different races, and 100 different
religions. A country where people speak many dialects and where
every village has their own legal system. This is basically what
the Net is. So how can you remain order and harmony in such a country ?
By killing off all your opponents, because they think differently ? By
persecuting them because they believe in a different god ? By exploiting
the others for your own sake ? By shutting people up, to find out that
you will be shut up yourselve some day ?
In my opinion tolerance would be key, because otherwise the
villages would all slaughter each other with their intolerant
agression. Out of tolerance and mutual respect comes order and
harmony.
Don't forget ! We are all clueless and lost on the Net. We can only
speculate where this thing is going. But it's going somewhere :-)
Kind regards,
Felipe Rodriquez
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1996 13:15:58 -0500
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject: File 7--Kuwait moves to censor "sin-inducing" Internet
August 28, 1996
KUWAIT (Reuter) - An Islamist Kuwaiti deputy, citing
concern over "sin-inducing" material on the worldwide computer
network Internet, Wednesday called for government curbs on
access to some Internet sites by users in Kuwait.
"It (Internet) carries material...inducing sin. This is a
matter that should not be met with silence," a proposal
submitted to parliament by Abdulla al-Hajri said. "This is most
dangerous."
"Concerned government bodies should take the measures they
envisage to prevent viewing all (material) breaching our belief
and values on the information network, the Internet," it said.
Hajri told Reuters by telephone: "There have been some
images that breach decency and do not suit our social values on
the Internet."
He said his proposal did not call for any restrictions that
would harm the freedom of expression. "I believe the government
would respond to this proposal," he said.
The government in the conservative Gulf Arab state imposes
strict censorship on nudity and revealing photographs in
magazines.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1996 20:08:06 -0700 (PDT)
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@eff.org>
Subject: File 8--NSF yanks Iran's Internet connection, from HotWired
Attached is my column on the NSF and Iran. After I filed it, I received an
unconfirmed note from the NSF saying that they removed the restriction in
response to my calls earlier today. I'll verify tomorrow.
I have some original documents on the Iran sanctions law and executive
order at:
http://www.eff.org/~declan/global/
-Declan
// declan@eff.org // I do not represent the EFF // declan@well.com //
http://www.netizen.com/netizen/96/35/special3a.html
HotWired
The Netizen
Banning Iran
by Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com)
Washington, DC, 28 August
The US government has quietly pulled the plug on Iran's Internet
connection. The catch? No one gave it permission.
Earlier this month, a National Science Foundation official blocked
crucial international links to Iran, apparently in response to an Iran
and Libya Sanctions Act that became law on 5 August. The move prevents
people in the United States from connecting to Iranian computers by
cutting off access to the country's only permanent Net connection - a
single, achingly slow 9600 bps modem.
The link joins the Internet at Austria's Vienna University, which
received a letter from an NSF employee - who the foundation claims
acted without authority - asking their network gurus to cease
forwarding Iranian data to American networks. The NSF employee, Steve
Goldstein, told the university that the United States embargoed such
exchanges with Iran.
From Austria, packets travel across the Atlantic through links funded
in part by US taxpayers, which Goldstein claims gives the NSF control
over them. Goldstein works in the agency's Networking and
Communications Research and Infrastructure division.
The NSF's action, however, tramples on the First Amendment. The
Supreme Court has upheld the right of Americans to receive a wide
range of information from abroad. An existing executive order
explicitly allows the import and export of Iranian informational
materials regardless of medium of transmission, according to Solveig
Bernstein, a lawyer with the Cato Institute. "Congress intended any
sanctions the president took to be directed at money and weapons
production, not communications," she said.
The NSF isn't accepting responsibility. The agency claims Goldstein
acted on his own volition. Although Goldstein declined comment, the
agency's lawyers say he was not authorized to block the line. "We were
not asked by Dr. Goldstein for any opinions, so I'm not sure on what
basis we're doing it," said John Chester, NSF legal counsel. Other NSF
officials did not return repeated phone calls.
Many Iranians in the United States are outraged at losing access to
friends, family, and educational links in Iran. Farhad Shakeri, a
software engineer at Stanford University who operates the Iranian
Cultural and Information Center, says: "Lots of people in Iran are
confused. They can't talk to any university in the world.... We just
want the problem fixed." Anoosh Hosseini, a webmaster at the Global
Publishing Group, says: "It affects me as a person. I want to visit my
cousin's homepage, and my brother's homepage. The University of Texas
has a Middle Eastern research center, but now they can't research Iran
[on the Net]."
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1996 15:11:25 -0700 (PDT)
From: Tim Harris <maxexpo@SASKMAPLE.NET>
Subject: File 9--CITA 'declares war' on SaskTel
For Immediate Release
C.I.T.A. -- Canadian Information Technology Association Declares War on
SaskTel
SASKATOON, August 30, 1996 -- The C.I.T.A. -- Canadian Information
Technology Association has officially declared war on SaskTel. An
official investigative report released by the provincial government
August 27, 1996 indisputably shows that SaskTel is deliberately pushing
private sector Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and federal government
subsidized Community Access Program communities out of business.
According to the report, 100 Internet users, each operating a 28.8 k/sec
modem would be able to concurrently use a single 56 k/sec line. "You do
not have to know anything about computers to do the math." says Lyndon
Holm Vice Chairman of the C.I.T.A. "This is technically impossible."
The C.I.T.A. confronted Robert Hersche, Senior Advisor on
Telecommunications for Saskatchewan Intergovernmental Affairs, about
some of the comments made in his report. Mr. Hersche acknowledged that
he is not familiar with Internet technology and that the report was
constructed from the statements made from the SaskTel Engineering
Department. Mr. Hersche indicated that he "took their word for it." When
asked if any independent consultants were used for the investigation he
replied that they did not have the budget for that.
"This assault on private business by this crown corporation grossly
violates the Competition Act." says Tim Harris, Chairman of the C.I.T.A.
"Unfortunately, as we can see with this provincial government report,
the private business owners can not even get a fair investigation to
determine wrong doing. SaskTel is judge and jury on every issue."
Since the private sector has been challenging SaskTel on these issues of
unfair competition, SaskTel insists they are bound by tariffs. These
tariffs are not federal but from the Provincial Cabinet. The role of
Saskatchewan Intergovernmental Affairs is to advise the Minister about
policy issues concerning SaskTel. It is the position of the C.I.T.A.
that the Provincial Cabinet is just as ignorant as their advisors and
are passing tariffs "taking SaskTel's word for."
The C.I.T.A. will be releasing an official challenge to SaskTel and
provincial government representatives to have an on-camera debate later
next week. "We don't expect them to show up." says Harris "To this point
they have backed out of every request to meet this organization."
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 22:51:01 CST
From: CuD Moderators <cudigest@sun.soci.niu.edu>
Subject: File 10--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 7 Apr, 1996)
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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) (860)-585-9638.
CuD is also available via Fidonet File Request from
1:11/70; unlisted nodes and points welcome.
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In LUXEMBOURG: ComNet BBS: +352-466893
UNITED STATES: etext.archive.umich.edu (192.131.22.8) in /pub/CuD/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/
wuarchive.wustl.edu in /doc/EFF/Publications/CuD/
EUROPE: nic.funet.fi in pub/doc/CuD/CuD/ (Finland)
ftp.warwick.ac.uk in pub/cud/ (United Kingdom)
The most recent issues of CuD can be obtained from the
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End of Computer Underground Digest #8.65
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