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Netizens-Digest Volume 1 Number 262
Netizens-Digest Wednesday, January 27 1999 Volume 01 : Number 262
Netizens Association Discussion List Digest
In this issue:
Re: [netz] AP: Lin Hai sentenced
[netz] Lin Hai
[netz] FYI: The cybercops are coming???
[netz] more resources
[netz] Beginning Report on Berkman Center Mtg 1/23/99
[netz] Netizens list members in NYC area?
[netz] FYI: Deregulation, Taxation, Access, and Proaction
[netz] Can these statistics be valid?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 12:23:38 -0500 (EST)
From: Luis G de Quesada <lgd1@columbia.edu>
Subject: Re: [netz] AP: Lin Hai sentenced
On Thu, 21 Jan 1999, Kerry Miller wrote:
>
>
> Luis,
>
>
> { > Lin was convicted of "inciting the subversion of state power," said a
> { > spokesman for the Sha{ > as Mr. Zhou. The crime is among China's most
> serious and is normally used
> { > against political dissidents.
> { >
> { > [...]
> { >
> { Hello: Its a shame about Lin Hai and my heart and prayers go out to
> him.
> { That regime in Beijing insists on being fascistic and medieval and
> kills &
> { incarcerates anyone who dissents from their policies, politics,
> opinions,
> { etc.
>
> It wasnt to argue national politics, but to illustrate an alternative
> view of the wonderful world of global communication that I posted the
> report -- and to raise the question in some minds as to just what keeps,
> or will keep, such oppressive policies from being adopted in their own
> 'free' cyberspaces.
>
> The times, they are a-changing.
>
> Cheers,
> kerry
>
Hello Kerry: I don't like to argue about politics either, but I believe
when it comes to human rights and the regime in Beijing has been a
consistant and habitual violator since its creation in 1949, we in
Netizens should show solidarity with those who's rights have been
violated, whether its here or elsewhere, our government and institutions
have also been guilty of that all along. So if there is a way to launch
an electronic protest against the PRC's government for this new human
rights transgression, then we at Netizens should do so.
I agree with you that times "a-changing" and I certainly hope they do
change for the oppressed people in China and elsewhere, including those
of us under "Corporate America's" thumb!
Salud!
Lou D.>
>
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 14:07:44 -0500 (EST)
From: Luis G de Quesada <lgd1@columbia.edu>
Subject: [netz] Lin Hai
Hello Jay: I think we should e-mail the PRC's government on behalf of
Lin Hai. I suggest we seek out their "Foreign Relation's Ministry" (or
whatever they call it) e-mail address and send e-mails asking for
the immediate release of our comrade. We should also make the CLinton
Whitehouse aware that the pro-democracy/anti-privatization of the Internet
and other sources in this country condemn such a human rights violation
and demand our government to put pressure on the Chinese gov't to release
Lin Hai. I believe this is just as serious as our fight against
privatization of the Int. and the fight against the so called "Citizens
Card" which our So.Korean counterpart was so vehemently denouncing some
time ago. I never heard anything else from that fellow and I don't like
it. For all I know he could be locked up in some torture chamber cell,
just like Lin Hai is right now!
Remember what's happening in So.Korea and the PRC can also happen here
if we remain silent.
Lou D.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 17:17:50 -0500
From: "P.A. Gantt" <pgantt@icx.net>
Subject: [netz] FYI: The cybercops are coming???
http://www.idg.net/idg_frames/english/content.cgi?allowFeedback=false&referer=&outside_source=newsletter&url=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2efcw%2ecom%2fpubs%2ffcw%2f1999%2f0118%2fweb-budget-1-22-99%2ehtml&doc_id=47839
Sorry for the long URL in advance.
Source: Federal Computer Week
JANUARY 22, 1999 . . . 12:10 EST
"Clinton calls for $1.4 billion to secure key systems"
BY HEATHER HARRELD (heather@fcw.com)
<snip>
According to the article, Clinton budget proposal calls for
"...the creation of Information Sharing and
Analysis centers, in which the federal government will provide private
industry
with information about threats to industry's computer systems without
compromising corporations' privacy, civil liberties or proprietary data.
Finally, the proposal will call for a new government "cybercorps,"
composed of
newly recruited experts, to respond to attacks on federal agency
computer
networks..."
- --
P.A. Gantt, Computer Science Technology Instructor
Electronic Media Design and Support Homepage
http://user.icx.net/~pgantt/
mailto:pagantt@technologist.com?Subject=etech
http://horizon.unc.edu/TS/vision/1998-11.asp
Common sense is not common, and conventional wisdom is not
wisdom. But at least you can have conventional sense. ~~ Daily Whale
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1999 00:44:39 -0400
From: kerryo@ns.sympatico.ca (Kerry Miller)
Subject: [netz] more resources
http://www.patents.com/nsi.sht
NSI Flawed Domain Name Policy information page
http://www.domain-name.org/
Domain Name Rights Coalition contains several worthwhile papers
http://www.domainhandbook.com/dd.html
The Rony's list of net name disputes suggests a dismal future for
rationality.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 00:18:57 -0500 (EST)
From: Ronda Hauben <ronda@panix.com>
Subject: [netz] Beginning Report on Berkman Center Mtg 1/23/99
I Went to the Berkman Institute meeting on memberhip for ICANN
held on Saturday, January 23, 1999.
Following is a brief report on what happened. I welcome
any comments you may have. I'll try to post more as I
get a chance to do more of a summary of what happened.
It was set to be about the issue of membership.
It was a hard decision about whether it would be worth going
or not because the question of membership they were taking up
was a diversion from the real issues.
However, it was important to have gone for several reasons.
John Zittrain in passing said that ICANN was getting the
crown jewels of the Internet. Helpful phrasing of some of
what is at stake in this all.
I emphasized the importance of taking up the issue of
the "crown jewels" and that the U.S. government had
up to the current time in general protected the essential
functions of the Internet. It requires something with the
strength of government to do that. There is no piece of
membership to provide that protection.
Zittrain cut me off and stopped me from being able to
speak. He obviously didn't feel that there was any reason
to allow there to be open discussion.
The Berkman Center had invited a number of people from
different organizations like the ACM and ISOC to speak
about membership. But the issue was irrelevant to the
nature of ICANN as the groups that had been invited were
groups, not corporations being given publicly owned
and cooperatively administered resources to privatize.
So the discussion that had been set up for most of the
day by the Berkman Institute was irrelevant to the
problems of what to do about the central functions of
the Internet.
The final panel presented a speaker, Elaine Kamarck who
said that she was here at the insistance of the Dean of
the Kennedy School.
Kamarch said that the task folks have is very difficult and
it is unprecedented. That essentially there are two
organizational forms to consider, the first panel
considered interest group organizations. These are protected
by the first amendment, the right of freedom of speech and
of association. People ban together to influence some entity,
usually the government. Membership is voluntary, usually there
is easy entrance and easy exit. And membership is not required
to function like one can practice law without being in the
American Bar Association. Interest groups are what this meeting
has heard from all day. But those are meant to influence.
As opposed to that, there are regulatory agencies of the
government. And those exercise the power of the state.
Therefore the head of such agencies are required to
submit financial statements checked by law enforcement
agencies. And in the U.S. regulators are confirmed by
the U.S. Senate. That is because they have real economic
power. Therefore, the US requires regulators to go through
lots of hoops. On the International level, legitimacy
is by treaty of sovereign governments.
What is the ICANN? Is it going to be an interest group
or a regulatory body? No (non government) ICANN that one
can build can have an enforcement capacity and therefore
how can it have any legitimacy? It will have the power to
end the economic life of a company by for example denying
it a domain name that it feels is crucial for its business.
But it won't have the legitimacy to do that. She had the
impression that ICANN is trying to build something between
the two forms.
If one is trying to create a self-governing entity,
while dealing with the exponential growth of the Internet,
on the horizon there will be public issues even if one doesn't
feel there are public issues now. And interest groups
can't deal with these.
So it is necessary to figure out when and where
the government comes into this issue, asking
the question what are the things realistic to do
in a self governing role and what things need
government and how should these government things
be implemented?
She basically said that the form being created for ICANN
was fundamentally inappropriate for the task that it
was being created for.
Not only was her talk important, but the response of the ISOC
people there was similarly important.
An ISOC person from France who is also on the Membership Advisory
Committee said that ICANN had to stick to its limited
functions or that governments would defranchise it, that
governments can take their powers back and they will.
Several ISOC folks said that there was nothing basically at
stake in what ICANN would be doing. That they were
just boring technical functions and that there was no reason
for anyone to really be concerned with what was being done
with ICANN. Also they began talking about specific examples
that they made especially confusing so as to confuse anyone
who didn't have a technical background (and even those who did).
One of the IFWP list members said that governments that he
has known have nationalized private entities and privatized
public entities. That government has the right to do it.
Dyson said that ICANN will be a public entity, just not
the U.S. public.
In general of what these respondents said was that there was
nothing at issue in the transfer to ICANN of Internet essential
functions, assets, policy making etc. That these were just boring
tasks. In this way they threw up confusing examples to spread sand in
the eyes of anyone trying to figure out what the issues were.
I said that the Internet was built with a great amount of
taxpayer money. This is the biggest ever grab and giveaway.
We are creating something totally new. The way to try to
do something new is to do it on a small scale and test it. That's
the way the Internet was built and its achievement is based
on that process. That would be a proper way to do this.
But instead the whole thing is being done at once. But this
is part of a big battle as there are public interests in the U.S.
and this is a battle ground over the public interest. (I was
interrupted by the French ISOC member of the membership
advisory committee.)
He interrupted by saying that those who came a long distance
shouldn't have to hear these things. There's more to do.
The person from Asia on the Membership Advisory Committee also
interrupted saying he had come the longest distance and he agreed
with the French ISOC person.
The director of the Berkman Center said he objected
to the speaker abusing her privilege and cut her off from
speaking.
Someone from China said that if ICANN was to balance the
distribution of scarce resources you need the checks
and balances like a President, Congress and a Supreme
Court. He said that in China who is in charge is unknown
sometimes. And that there were 2.5 million users.
Another person said that it sounded as if ICANN was building
a multinational company with great resources and many
contractors and no competition. He said that's simple
to do and there are many examples already of such corporations.
Dyson disagreed saying that for those corporations there is
competition whereas for ICANN there won't be any.
The meeting ended on a note of the ICANN people
ignoring that the contradiction between doing government
functions outside of any accountability by government had
been presented. It had been presented both from the
audience and from a speaker on the final panel.
And the Berkman Center's scribes notes posted online at
their site make it impossible to have any idea of what
happened at the meeting.
Ronda
ronda@panix.com
Netizens: On the History and Impact
of Usenet and the Internet
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/
in print edition ISBN 0-8186-7706-6
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 00:22:49 -0500 (EST)
From: Ronda Hauben <ronda@panix.com>
Subject: [netz] Netizens list members in NYC area?
I wondered if any Netizens list members in the NYC area
may be available to meet at lunch time on Friday. One
person on the list from another country is hoping to
be in the NYC area and it would be good to have a chance
to have a chance to get together and say hello.
Write me ronda@panix.com or rh120@columbia.edu if anyone
on the list is interested in trying to meet for lunch
on Friday 1/29/99.
Probably it would be best to try to find a place to have lunch
near Columbia around 110th Street and Broadway.
Ronda
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 09:23:55 -0500
From: "P.A. Gantt" <pgantt@icx.net>
Subject: [netz] FYI: Deregulation, Taxation, Access, and Proaction
Please excuse the cross postings and the long URLs in advance.
The following URLs are important for you to be informed about if you
are:
o an individual user of the Net
o a small business i.e. web designer
o an educator using the Net for course delivery
o a First Amendment advocate
o a researcher using the Net for information retrieval
o concerned for challenged individuals needing accessibility to
information (PWD)
Please become informed and be proactive. Let the FCC and your Congress
Persons
know your concern. Also remember Congresspeople are not always well
informed re: communication and Internet issues.
You may want to help them become knowledgeable.
Note: I will be sending this post to:
o Senator Frist
o Senator Thompson
o Rep. Duncan
Hint: use Ctrl C and Ctrl V to copy the below long links to your
website: location window of your
browser for links too long to be clickable.
Source: InfoWorld Electric) [OPINION] from the Ether by Bob Metcalf
http://www.idg.net/idg_frames/english/content.cgi?allowFeedback=false&referer=&outside_source=newsletter&url=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2einfoworld%2ecom%2fcgi-bin%2fdisplayNew%2epl%3f%2fmetcalfe%2f990125bm%2ehtm&doc_id=48343
o Progress & Freedom Foundation
http://www.pff.org
o Federal Communications Commission
http://www.fcc.gov
http://www.fcc.gov/search/wordsearch.html
FCC Chairman Kennard and Bells/Telophony/Cable Companies
http://www.pff.org/popdec98.html
o FCC Rules Metalist and comments filed in LPFM proceedings by
Harold Hallikainen
http://hallikainen.com/FccRules
http://hallikainen.com/lpfm
o ComNet Panel
http://www.comnetexpo.com/cndc99
o Bruce Kushnick, _The Unauthorized Biography of the Baby Bells &
Info-Scandal_
http://www.newnetworks.com
o Additional phone line access charges
http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/1998/db980917/stgt823.txt
o FCC Truth in Billing???
http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Factsheets/access2.txt
http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/1998/db980917/stgt823.txt
Proactive Government Links:
o Official Federal Government WebSite, Library of Congress
http://lcweb.loc.gov/global/executive/fed.html
o Legislative Branch
http://lcweb.loc.gov/global/legislative/congress.html
o Constituent Email to House of Representatives
http://www.house.gov/writerep/
o Constituent Email to Senate Alphabetical Listing
http://www.senate.gov/senators/index.cfm
o Newspaper & Current Periodical Room Home Page
http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/news/ncp.html
http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/news/ss.html
o OMB Activist Central
http://www.capweb.net/omb/
o January 24, 1999, Cybertimes
State Lawmakers Ready Scores of Internet Bills
by JERI CLAUSING
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/01/cyber/articles/24states.html
o United States Internet Council,
"the home for State Legislators and National policy makers on
the Internet."
http://www.usic.org/
For news by state...
http://www.usic.org/stanid.htm
More Proactive Organizations:
o Project Open -- part of Internet Alliance Partnership
http://www.internetalliance.org
http://www.internetalliance.org/policy/7_core_issues.html#taxation
o Internet Tax Fairness Coalition which took me here
http://www.stopnettax.org/state.html
***The choice of your proactivism is now in your hands***
***Keep the above links handy***
- --
P.A. Gantt, Computer Science Technology Instructor
Electronic Media Design and Support Homepage
http://user.icx.net/~pgantt/
mailto:pagantt@technologist.com?Subject=etech
http://horizon.unc.edu/TS/vision/1998-11.asp
Common sense is not common, and conventional wisdom is not
wisdom. But at least you can have conventional sense. ~~ Daily Whale
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 22:34:00 -0500 (EST)
From: Jay Hauben <jay@dorsai.org>
Subject: [netz] Can these statistics be valid?
Hi,
Every so often I try to post Internet statistics to this list but I am
always doubtful that they can be trusted as anywhere near accurate. In
any case, below is part of a post that appeared on the Universal Access -
Canada list last week UA-C@CCEN.UCCB.NS.CA
Jay
- -------------
Subject: [GKD] Internet developments in China (fwd)
******************************************************************
NUA INTERNET SURVEYS NUA INTERNET SURVEYS NUA INTERNET SURVEYS
Weekly free email on what's new in surveys on the Internet
By Nua Email: surveys@nua.ie Web:
<http://www.nua.ie/surveys>http://www.nua.ie/surveys/
*******************************************************************
January 20th 1999 Published By: Nua Limited Volume 4 No. 2
********************************************************************
Welcome to another weekly edition of Nua Internet Surveys. This newsletter
provides information on surveys and reports on the Internet, and is
brought to you by Nua - one of Europe's leading Internet consultancies and
developers.
This week "The China Daily" released the results of a survey they
conducted online. The newspaper reported that there are 747,000 computers
online in the country and that one quarter of those are concentrated in
Beijing.
Among other questions, respondents were asked what problems the Internet
posed and the lack of Chinese content was among the highest on the
complaints list. A report released last week said there were only 5,000
Chinese Web sites on the Net. In response, there is now a concerted effort
being made on behalf of the government to increase the amount of Chinese
interest Web sites on the Internet.
While Chinese officials put the demographic at 1.5 million this week,
there is considerable speculation that this figure is not an accurate
reflection of the situation. The accusation is that the government are
keeping the figures low in an attempt to hide the fact that subscribers
are sharing accounts, a practice which is illegal in China.
......
------------------------------
End of Netizens-Digest V1 #262
******************************
