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Computer Undergroud Digest Vol. 09 Issue 08
Computer underground Digest Sun Feb 9, 1997 Volume 9 : Issue 08
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, #9.08 (Sun, Feb 9, 1997)
File 1--LAWSUIT: Case Filed with "Intent to Annoy"
File 2--"Hacking Chinatown"
File 3--An Auschwitz Alphabet (In re Milburn/Solid Oak)
File 4--CyberLex -(Summary of legal issues) Updated 1/97 (fwd)
File 5--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 13 Dec, 1996)
CuD ADMINISTRATIVE, EDITORIAL, AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION APPEARS IN
THE CONCLUDING FILE AT THE END OF EACH ISSUE.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 1997 10:25:04 -0700
From: --Todd Lappin-- <telstar@wired.com>
Subject: File 1--LAWSUIT: Case Filed with "Intent to Annoy"
THE CDA DISASTER NETWORK
January 30, 1997
Today Mr. Steve Silberman -- one of my distinguished comrades at Wired
News -- brings us an interesting scoop about a new lawsuit that has
been filed challenging one of the little-known provisions of the
Communications Decency Act.
The new suit targets a section of the CDA that criminalizes any
"indecent" computer communications intended to "annoy" another person.
This provision outlaws constitutionally protected communications among
other adults, including public officials. Under the CDA, such actions
could be prosecuted as a felony, punishable by a fine and up to two
years imprisonment. The lawsuit was filed to protect the "annoy.com"
Web site at http://annoy.com.
Steve's full report follows below.
Work the network!
--Todd Lappin-->
Section Editor
WIRED Magazine
(From: http://www.wired.com/news/ )
Designed to Annoy, Web Site Flouts CDA
by Steve Silberman
11:29 am PST 29 Jan 97 - If "flaming" is the favorite sport of the
online world, annoy.com is a high-octane flame-thrower on a
mission.
Slated for launch Thursday, annoy.com takes aim at the provision
in the Communications Decency Act that bans communication "with
intent to annoy."
By offering an online service that delivers scathing, anonymous
postcards to public figures, and dishes up corrosive commentary
and graphics hammering every hot-button issue from abortion to
Zionism, annoy.com's creator, Clinton Fein, hopes to engage
readers in dialogues
about freedom and censorship that will continue past the Supreme
Court's
review of the CDA this spring.
"Some might call it subversive," Fein declares. "We call it
democracy."
On Thursday morning, Fein and his attorneys, Mike Traynor and William
Bennett Turner, will file a complaint for declaratory and injunctive
relief in the US District Court in San Francisco, naming Fein's
ApolloMedia Corporation as the plaintiff, and Attorney General Janet
Reno as the defendant. The suit aims to establish that the provisions
banning annoying and "indecent" speech in the CDA are
"unconstitutional
on their face," overbroad, and indefensible.
Fein says he's angry that media critiques of the CDA focused on
wording
in the act that claimed to protect children from vaguely defined
"indecency," and ignored provisions throttling communication between
adults. "Where was The New York Times," asks Fein. "Covering the O. J.
trial?"
Traynor insists that his client's intentionally provocative site -
abuzz
with four-letter words and ire-arousing icons - is "not about throwing
mudpies, but having the elbow room to use blunt, robust language, not
just language that's PC. ApolloMedia and its lawyers are not
deliberately urging people to use nasty language. They're encouraging
people to be very forceful in their defense of freedom."
Annoy.com is divided into sections with titles like "Heckle,"
"Censure,"
and "Weekly Irrit8." The ransom-letter layout and label-maker fonts on
annoy.com are like a call to battle stations, but many of the texts -
including the polymorphously perturbing "annoy libs," with a menu of
targets including Sen. Jesse Helms - are as witty as they are angry.
"Media Muck" aims barbs at perceived hypocrisy in all media, from
dead-tree to digital, and guest writers will contribute essays to the
site on inflammatory topics, starting with novelist Patricia Nell
Warren's "Youth - Seen But Not Heard," and a rant by Gary McIntosh
titled "Pornography Is Good for You." With a conferencing system on
board called "Gibe" - think late-'80s Spy crossed with Electric Minds.
Fein's commitment to the Bill of Rights, he says, began in South
Africa,
where Fein, as he puts it, grew up censored. "The First Amendment was
a
strong motivation for my coming to America," Fein says. "Imagine how I
felt when I realized America was kidding about it."
Annoy.com is not Fein's first attempt to resist censorship. Threatened
by the Navy for reproducing a Navy recruiting poster in his CD-ROM
production of Randy Shilts' "Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in
the
U.S. Military" - depicting an African American who was later
discharged
for being gay - Fein included both the poster and the Navy's
threatening
letter in the final product. The acerbic Fein says one of his goals
for
annoy.com is "to get people to talk to each other even if they hate
each
other."
For Jonah Seiger of the Center for Democracy and Technology, the
addition of the ApolloMedia complaint to the arsenal of legal
challenges
to the CDA "makes sense because it makes sense to raise every question
and pick every nit about this law."
Fein vows that even if the Supreme Court does not overturn the
injunction made against the CDA by a panel of three federal judges in
Philadelphia last June, annoy.com will stay up and running. "The
issues
that it touches on are not going away," he says. "Whether the CDA is
there or not, you've still got Bill Clinton and Congress signing
stupid
legislation."
<smaller>Copyright 1993-97 Wired Ventures, Inc. and affiliated
companies.
All rights reserved. </smaller>
###
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
This transmission was brought to you by....
THE CDA DISASTER NETWORK
The CDA Disaster Network is a moderated distribution list providing
up-to-the-minute bulletins and background on efforts to overturn the
Communications Decency Act. To subscribe, send email to
<<majordomo@wired.com> with "subscribe cda-bulletin" in the message
body. To unsubscribe, send email to <<info-rama@wired.com> with
"unsubscribe cda-bulletin" in the message body.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 8 Feb 1997 09:01:52 -0600
From: Richard Thieme <rthieme@thiemeworks.com>
Subject: File 2--"Hacking Chinatown"
"Hacking Chinatown"
by
Richard Thieme
"Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."
Those are the last words of the movie "Chinatown," just
before the police lieutenant shouts orders to the crowd to clear
the streets so the body of an innocent woman, murdered by the Los
Angeles police, can be removed.
"Chinatown," with Jack Nicholson as Jake Gittes, is a fine
film: it defines an era (the thirties in the United States) and a
genre -- film noir -- that is a unique way to frame reality.
"Film noir" is a vision of a world corrupt to the core in
which nevertheless it is still possible, as author Raymond
Chandler said of the heroes of the best detective novels, to be
"a man of honor. Down these mean streets a man must go who is not
himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid."
"Chinatown" also defines life in the virtual world -- that
consensual hallucination we have come to call "cyberspace." The
virtual world is a simulation of the "real world." The "real
world" too is a symbolic construction, a set of nested structures
that -- as we peel them away in the course of our lives --
reveals more and more complexity and ambiguity.
The real world IS Chinatown, and computer hackers --
properly understood -- know this better than anyone.
There are several themes in "Chinatown."
(1) People in power are in seamless collusion. They take
care of one another. They don't always play fair. And sooner or
later, we discover that "we" are "they."
A veteran police detective told me this about people in
power.
"There's one thing they all fear -- politicians,
industrialists, corporate executives -- and that's exposure. They
simply do not want anyone to look too closely or shine too bright
a light on their activities."
I grew up in Chicago, Illinois, known for its political
machine and cash-on-the-counter way of doing business. I earned
money for my education working with the powerful Daley political
machine. In exchange for patronage jobs -- supervising
playgrounds, hauling garbage -- I worked with a precinct captain
and alderman. My job was to do what I was told.
I paid attention to how people behaved in the real world. I
learned that nothing is simple, that people act instinctively out
of self-interest, and that nobody competes in the arena of real
life with clean hands.
I remember sitting in a restaurant in a seedy neighborhood
in Chicago, listening to a conversation in the next booth. Two
dubious characters were upset that a mutual friend faced a long
prison term. They looked and sounded different than the
"respectable" people with whom I had grown up in an affluent part
of town.
As I grew up, however, I learned how my friends' fathers
really made money. Many of their activities were disclosed in the
newspaper. They distributed pornography before it was legal,
manufactured and sold illegal gambling equipment, distributed
vending machines and juke boxes to bars that had to take them or
face the consequences. I learned that a real estate tycoon had
been a bootlegger during prohibition, and the brother of the man
in the penthouse upstairs had died in Miami Beach in a hail of
bullets.
For me, it was an awakening: I saw that the members of the
power structures in the city -- business, government, the
religious hierarchy, and the syndicate or mafia -- were
indistinguishable, a partnership that of necessity included
everyone who wanted to do business. Conscious or unconscious,
collusion was the price of the ticket that got you into the
stadium; whether players on the field or spectators in the
stands, we were all players, one way or another.
Chicago is South Africa, South Africa is Chinatown, and
Chinatown is the world. There is no moral high ground. We all
wear masks, but under that mask is ... Chinatown.
(2) You never really know what's going on in Chinatown.
The police in Chinatown, according to Jake Gittes, were told
to do "as little as possible" because things that happened on the
street were the visible consequences of strings pulled behind the
scenes. If you looked too often behind the curtain -- as Gittes
did -- you were taught a painful lesson.
We often don't understand what we're looking at on the
Internet. As one hacker recently emailed in response to someone's
fears of a virus that did not and could not exist, "No
information on the World Wide Web is any good unless you can
either verify it yourself or it's backed up by an authority you
trust."
The same is true in life.
Disinformation in the virtual world is an art. After an
article I wrote for an English magazine about detective work on
the Internet appeared, I received a call from a global PR firm in
London. They asked if I wanted to conduct "brand defense" for
them on the World Wide Web.
What is brand defense?
If one of our clients is attacked, they explained, their
Internet squad goes into action. "Sleepers" (spies inserted into
a community and told to wait until they receive orders) in usenet
groups and listserv lists create distractions, invent
controversies; web sites (on both sides of the question) go into
high gear, using splashy graphics and clever text to distort the
conversation. Persons working for the client pretend to be
disinterested so they can spread propaganda.
It reminded me of the time my Democratic Party precinct
captain asked if I wanted to be a precinct captain.
Are you retiring? I asked.
Of course not! he laughed. You'd be the Republican precinct
captain. Then we'd have all our bases covered.
The illusions of cyberspace are seductive. Every keystroke
leaves a luminous track in the melting snow that can be seen with
the equivalent of night vision goggles.
Hacking means tracking -- and counter-tracking -- and
covering your tracks -- in the virtual world. Hacking means
knowing how to follow the flow of electrons to its source and
understand on every level of abstraction -- from source code to
switches and routers to high level words and images -- what is
really happening.
Hackers are unwilling to do as little as possible. Hackers
are need-to-know machines driven by a passion to connect
disparate data into meaningful patterns. Hackers are the online
detectives of the virtual world.
You don't get to be a hacker overnight.
The devil is in the details. Real hackers get good by
endless trial and error, failing into success again and again.
Thomas Alva Edison, inventor of the electric light, invented a
hundred filaments that didn't work before he found one that did.
He knew that every failure eliminated a possibility and brought
him closer to his goal.
Listen to "Rogue Agent" set someone straight on an Internet
mailing list:
"You want to create hackers? Don't tell them how to do this
or that. Show them how to discover it for themselves. Those who
have the innate drive will dive in and learn by trial and error.
Those who don't, comfortable to stay within the bounds of their
safe little lives, fall by the wayside.
"There's no knowledge so sweet as that which you've
discovered on your own."
In Chinatown, an unsavory character tries to stop Jake
Gittes from prying by cutting his nose. He reminds Gittes that
"curiosity killed the cat."
Isn't it ironic that curiosity, the defining characteristic
of an intelligent organism exploring its environment, has been
prohibited by folk wisdom everywhere?
The endless curiosity of hackers is regulated by a higher
code that may not even have a name but which defines the human
spirit at its best. The Hacker's Code is an affirmation of life
itself, life that wants to know, and grow, and extend itself
throughout the "space" of the universe. The hackers' refusal to
accept conventional wisdom and boundaries is a way to align his
energies with the life-giving passion of heretics everywhere. And
these days, that's what needed to survive.
Robert Galvin, the grand patriarch of Motorola, maker of
cell-phones and semi-conductors, says that "every significant
decision that changes the direction of a company is a minority
decision. Whatever is the intuitive presumption -- where everyone
agrees, "Yeah, that's right" -- will almost surely be wrong."
Motorola has succeeded by fostering an environment in which
creativity thrives. The company has institutionalized an openness
to heresy because they know that wisdom is always arriving at the
edge of things, on the horizons of our lives, and when it first
shows up -- like a comet on the distant edges of the solar system
-- it is faint and seen by only a few. But those few know where
to look.
Allen Hynek, an astronomer connected with the U. S. Air
Force investigation of UFOs, was struck by the "strangeness" of
UFO reports, the cognitive dissonance that characterizes
experiences that don't fit our orthodox belief systems. He
pointed out that all the old photographic plates in astronomical
observatories had images of Pluto on them, but until Clyde
Tombaugh discovered Pluto and said where it was, no one saw it
because they didn't know where to look.
The best computer consultants live on the creative edge of
things. They are path-finders, guides for those whom have always
lived at the orthodox center but who find today that the center
is constantly shifting, mandating that they learn new behaviors,
new skills in order to be effective. In order to live on the
edge.
The edge is the new center. The center of a web is wherever
we are.
When I looked out over the audience at DefCon IV, the
hackers' convention, I saw an assembly of the most brilliant and
most unusual people I had ever seen in one room. It was
exhilarating, and I felt as if I had come home. There in that
room for a few hours or a few days, we did not have to explain
anything. We knew who we were and what drove us in our different
ways to want to connect the dots of data into meaningful
patterns.
We know we build on quicksand, but building is too much fun
to give up. We know we leave tracks, but going is so much more
energizing than staying home. We know that curiosity can get your
nose slit, but then we'll invent new ways to smell.
Computer programmers write software applications that are
doomed to be as obsolete as wire recordings or programs for an
IBM XT. The infrastructures built by our engineers are equally
doomed. Whether a virtual world of digital bits or a physical
world of concrete and steel, our civilization is a Big Toy that
we build and use up at the same time. The fun of the game is to
know that it is a game, and winning is identical with our
willingness to play.
To say that when we engage with one another in cyberspace we
are "Hacking Chinatown" is a way to say that asking questions is
more important than finding answers. We do not expect to find
final answers. But the questions must be asked. We refuse to do
as little as possible because we want to KNOW.
Asking questions is how human beings create opportunities
for dignity and self-transcendence; asking questions is how we
are preparing ourselves to leave this island earth and enter into
a trans-galactic web of life more diverse and alien than anything
we have encountered.
Asking questions that uncover the truth is our way of
refusing to consent to illusions and delusions, our way of
insisting that we can do it better if we stay up later,
collaborate with each other in networks with no names, and lose
ourselves in the quest for knowledge and self-mastery.
This is how proud, lonely men and women, illuminated in the
darkness by their glowing monitors, become heroes in their own
dramas as they wander the twisting streets of cyberspace and
their own lives.
Even in Chinatown, Jake. Even in Chinatown.
copyright Richard Thieme 1997
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 08 Feb 1997 09:32:04 -0800
From: Jonathan Wallace <jw@bway.net>
Subject: File 3--An Auschwitz Alphabet (In re Milburn/Solid Oak)
((MODERATORS' NOTE: Although we normally attempt to give both
sides to every issue such as this, an attempt to contact Mr.
Milburn of Solid Oak led to a bizarrre "never contact this site"
again response from him, and an accusaton that CuD was harassing
and intimidating him and his employees. Although this was, we have
since learned, a canned response, it prevents us from further
attempts to solicit a view from the "other side." Milburn's
response to CuD would seem to confirm the criticisms of him and
his company)).
===================
Brian Milburn
President,
Solid Oak Software
Dear Mr. Milburn:
In December you added my site, The Ethical Spectacle,
http://www.spectacle.org, to Cybersitter's list of blocked
sites because of my criticism of your company
(see http://www.spectacle.org/alert/cs.html).
Below is a small sampling of the letters I receive every day
from teachers and students about my
Holocaust compilation, "An Auschwitz Alphabet",
http://www.spectacle.org/695/ausch.html.
Please read these over and reflect on the following
issues:
1. Why do you think your dislike of criticism is more important
than the benefit these students gain from accessing my site?
2. Why do you think you are more qualified than these teachers
to determine what our children should see?
There is a trend beginning in state legislatures to pass
legislation mandating that schools buy blocking software.
For as long as you continue blocking The Ethical Spectacle,
I will share a copy of this correspondence with any
school system or university considering purchasing
your product.
Here are three of the teachers who have assigned An
Auschwitz Alphabet to their classes:
"I just discovered your work online and am impressed! I am teaching a
second level composition course thematically based on the Holocaust. I
am teaching research writing skills in a computer lab with access to
e-mail and the Internet and WWW. Have been surfing around looking for
source material for myself and also for places to send the students.
Some of them learned a little about the Holocaust in high school, but
most are not too aware. Some are of German background and want to know
what happened. This is a four year university in Michigan and most of
the students are traditional freshmen, although I do have a couple of
older students too."
"I just wanted to let you know that I found your site as I was gathering
resources to teach a unit on the Holocaust to my middle school students.
They will be reading the book Night by Elie Weisel. That will serve as a
launching pad into our study. Your site is going to be a fabulous
resource. Most of what I have found so far is not very 'kid friendly'.
Your site is going to allow them to explore on their own as they learn
more about a topic most of them know nothing about. Thanks for providing
such a valuable resource."
"I am teaching summer school--US history, 20th Century--and found the
Alphabet a powerful tool to convey what must be known about the
Holocaust.
"Each student was given a letter to read to the class. A few others read
excerpts from the recollections of a child I found on another server.
When we were finished, I needed to say no more."
And here are a few of the students from around the
world who have written to me:
"I am a tenth grade student in Australia and I would just like to
congratulate you on this homepage. This information has been most
helpful for an assignment I am doing. So thanks."
"I am an Abilene Christian University student in Texas. I am doing a
report over the Holocaust. You information is wonderful and greatly
appreciated. Keep it up."
"Hey, I would like to congratulate you on your wonderful page, I am
currently in the middle of a huge holocaust project for school, Im in
eigth grade and your page helped me the most, I found it to be thorough,
clean and very factual. I like it and will reccomend it to many of my
friends!! Thank-you for your wonderful service!!"
"I think this is great. I am a 14 year old boy that lives in Indiana.
(USA) I really think what you are doing is important. If kids my age
aren't told of this tragedy, than it will be forgotten about and the
likelier the possibility of it happening again in some shape or form.
Thank you."
"I am a college student writing a paper on the happenings in Auschwitz.
The pages that I read were enlighting as to what really occured. Many
people do not believe in the Holocaust but after my presentation some
changed their minds. Thank you for condensing many hours of reading."
"Your Auschwitz Alphabet is amazing. Funny how you can be researching to
write a paper and end up reading an entire collection of information
that is actually extremely interesting. All I can say is wow. Truly
awesome."
"After coming across your page when looking for information for a school
research assignment, I was amazed at the information in your 'Auschwitz
Alphabet'. It has given me many ideas for my 1000 word essay due next
week :-)"
"I am a student at Jakarta International School and presently in tenth
grade. At this moment I am doing research on the Holocaust. And by
searching through the web I learned a lot of information about the
Holocaust from you. So I was wondering if I could interview you and ask
you some questions about the Holocaust in Auschwitz and asking how
people escaped from the Holocaust."
This is one of my favorites:
[An Italian girl]"I read all the books of Primo Levi, I hope in one best
world I'm only 14 but I know a lot of things about the past I'm not a
Jew but I will don't forget..."
There's no shame in correcting a moral misstep. I suggest
you unblock my pages, and those of your other critics
such as Bennett Haselton of Peacefire, www.peacefire.org,
immediately. Otherwise you will continue to raise serious
questions as to your competence to determine what is safe
for children to see.
Sincerely yours,
Jonathan Wallace
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 2 Feb 1997 13:48:13 -0600 (CST)
From: David Smith <bladex@BGA.COM>
Subject: File 4--CyberLex -(Summary of legal issues) Updated 1/97 (fwd)
CyberLex may have been around for a while, but since I just discovered it
that makes it a new resource..........
This is a monthly summary of news items about legal developments and high
profile events affecting the online community.
David Smith *
bladex@bga.com *
President, EFF-Austin *
512-304-6308 *
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date--Sat, 1 Feb 1997 12:12:59 -0800
From--Jonathan Rosenoer <cyberlaw@cyberlaw.com>
Subject--CyberLex - Updated 1/97
Dear CyberLaw/CyberLex subscriber:
Here is the latest edition of CyberLex!
Best regards,
Jonathan
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
CYBERLEX
by Jonathan Rosenoer
Notable legal developments reported in December 1996 include the following:
# A state court judge ruled that Minnesota may enforce consumer protection
laws against out-of-state businesses operating on the World Wide Web. The
decision comes in a case on Internet gambling. __Minnesota v. Granite Gate
Resorts__, No. C 6-95-007227 (Dist. Ct. Cty of Ramsey, filed July 18,
1995).
# Georgia Tech Lorraine, the European platform of the Georgia Institute of
Technology, has been sued for failing to comply with a French law requiring
that goods and services be offered in French in addition to any other
language in which they may be offered.
# One third of Internet users provide false demographic data at Internet
sites because they are not told how the information will be used and fear
it will end up on a marketing list, according to a new study of 14,000 Web
users by the Georgia Institute of Technology.
# Charles Morrell, 34, a disgruntled former employee of a Connecticut
Internet company (Diversified Technologies Group), was arrested and charged
with felony computer crime relating to the erasure of all the company's
computer files, including backups.
# A World Wide Web service company, WebCom in San Francisco, California,
suffered a syn-flood/denial-of-service attack that knocked out more than
3,000 Web sites for 40 hours during the holiday shopping season. WebCom
halted the attacks after tracing the source of the attacks to MCI
Communications Corp., which, in turn, tracked further back to CANet in
Canada and a compromised account on BC.Net in Vancouver, British Columbia.
As it could not end the attack, MCI blocked all traffic from CANet.
# The US Air Force temporarily closed its Web site and the Department of
Defense temporarily shuttered 80 other Internet sites after hackers broke
into the Air Force's site and replaced files with prank messages and a
sexually-explicit video clip.
# FBI agents participated in searches in 20 cities as part of a nationwide
investigation into the use of computer online services and the Internet to
lure children into illicit sex and to distribute child pornography. The
3-year old investigation has already resulted in 80 arrests, 103
indictments and charges, 66 felony convictions, and 207 searches.
# The Center for Media Education and the Consumer Federation of America,
both non-profit groups, urged the Federal Communications Commission to set
guidelines for children's advertising and marketing on the Internet. The
groups find that companies collect personally identifiable information from
children without disclosing how the information will be used, or who will
have access to it -- all without requesting parental consent.
# The US Supreme Court agreed to decide whether the Communications Decency
Act, which bans the transmission of indecent material to minors, violates
the First Amendment.
# A television industry group announced a rating system that will rank
shows based on appropriateness for age groups, similar to that used for
movies. The system, which will determine the shows blocked by the V-chip
that will be built into new televisions, is subject to Federal
Communications Commission approval. Critics complain the approach is too
vague and of little use to parents, particularly regarding shows with
violence or sexual themes.
# A Brooklyn, NY, jury awarded $5.3 million in favor of a former executive
secretary, Patricia Geressy, who claimed she developed carpal tunnel
syndrome using keyboards made by Digital Equipment Corp. Two other women,
Jill Jackson and Janet Tolo, were awarded $306,000 and $278,000,
respectively. No defective keyboard design was found, but Digital was
faulted for failing to issue warnings about the dangers of repetitive
typing.
# Labor Secretary Robert Reich said the government is moving ahead with
new regulations to prevent repetitive motion injuries in the workplace.
# An Australian Federal Court upheld copyright protection for a popular
shareware program, the Trumpet Winsock application. This program allows
personal computers to access the Internet. Software developer Trumpet
Software International filed suit against OzEmail, the largest Internet
service provider in Australia and New Zealand, after learning that 60,000
unauthorized copies had been made. The court also ruled that OzEmail
violated the Trade Practices Act by misleading and deceiving people that it
had permission to publish the shareware.
# The California Supreme Court ruled that prosecutors may not solicit
financial assistance from crime victims, as they may create a legally
cognizable conflict of interest for the prosecutor." The ruling came in a
case involving the alleged theft of trade secret and confidential
information from Borland International. The District Attorney accepted
more than $13,000 from Borland, after telling the company it needed money
for a computer expert and other expenses relating to the case. __People v.
Eubanks__, 927 P.2d 310, 59 Cal.Rptr.2d 200, 1996 Cal. LEXIS 6829 (1996).
# Cyber Promotions, Inc., a purveyor of unsolicited e-mail, agreed to
settle a trademark infringement lawsuit brought by Prodigy Services Corp.
The settlement followed the issuance of a permanent injunction ordering
Cyber Promotions to stop sending unsolicited e-mail advertisements falsely
indicating they came from Prodigy.
# A US District Court Judge in San Francisco ruled that the First
Amendment was violated by a 1993 State Department export ban relating to a
software encryption program (Snuffle) written by Dr. Daniel Bernstein.
# The Business Software Alliance, a group that includes IBM, Microsoft,
Apple Computer, and nine other companies, criticized the Clinton
administration on early versions of regulations implementing an October 1
compromise allowing for the export of robust computer-encryption software.
A November 15, 1996, executive order provides that the Justice Department
will play a consulting role with the Commerce Department, which is viewed
as giving law-enforcement to big a role in the export process. The order
also indicates that export licenses for 56-bit key encryption software will
be considered largely on a case-by-case basis, instead of being
automatically allowed. It is further faulted for not accounting in the
export review process for the availability of comparable overseas
technology. And the order is also criticized for giving the Government the
upper hand in developing a key-recovery system that would allow for the
legal breaking of encrypted data once a warrant is obtained, as well as for
prescribing a system that might enable Government decryption of messaging
during transmission.
# America Online says it has resolved concerns of 19 state Attorneys
General, agreeing to make better pricing disclosures and extending the date
that customers can receive automatic refunds relating to its change to new
flat-fee pricing of $19.95 per month.
# The World Trade Organization, a trade pact with 128 member nations,
endorsed the Information Technology Agreement, which will abolish import
duties on computers, software, semiconductors and telecommunications
equipment between July 1, 1997, and January 1, 2000.
# Final treaties agreed to by 160 nations, negotiating under the auspices
of the United Nation's World Intellectual Property Organization, will
reflect that temporary copies of copyrighted materials automatically made
when a user is browsing the Internet will not be considered a copyright
violation. A proposed treaty to extend copyright protection to databases
was set aside, as many countries were not ready to address the issue.
# Unauthorized service conversion, commonly known as "slamming," is the
most frequently lodged consumer grievance about long-distance companies,
according to the Federal Communications Commission's "Common Carrier
Scorecard."
# Microsoft Corp. has renegotiated license agreements with major computer
makers, blocking them from using Microsoft's Windows operating system
unless Microsoft's screen comes up when a user boots up. Several computer
makers have provided a copy of the new agreement to the Justice Department
for review.
# The Federal Communications Commission unanimously approved technical
standards for advanced digital television.
# Television broadcasters, including CBS, Fox, and others, filed suit in
federal court in Miami against a satellite programming company, PrimeTime
24 (a unit of Great Universal American Industries Inc.), alleging that
illegally provides network shows to certain satellite dish owners. Federal
law allows satellite carriers to sell network programming to consumers who
cannot obtain decent reception of network programs. The broadcasters
complain that PrimeTime 24 crowds out network affiliates and discourages
advertisers from buying time on local stations.
Sources for CyberLex include the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Marin
Independent Journal, The (San Franciso) Recorder, USA Today, and Le Monde.
CyberLex (tm) is published solely as an educational service. The author is
a California attorney. He may be contacted at cyberlaw@cyberlaw.com.
Questions and comments may be posted at the CyberLaw Internet site
(www.cyberlaw.com), hosted by Best Internet Communications, Inc.
(www.best.com). ISDN Internet connectivity is provided by InterNex
(www.internex.com). Legal research assistance is provided by Lexis-Nexis.
CyberLex is a trademark of Jonathan Rosenoer. Copyright (c) 1997 Jonathan
Rosenoer; All Rights Reserved.
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
CyberLaw.com
Jonathan Rosenoer, Esq. | Kentfield, California, USA
cyberlaw@cyberlaw.com | www.cyberlaw.com
Ph. 415-461-3108 | Fax 415-461-4013
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
------------------------------
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 1996 22:51:01 CST
From: CuD Moderators <cudigest@sun.soci.niu.edu>
Subject: File 5--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 13 Dec, 1996)
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