Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Netizens-Digest Volume 1 Number 250
Netizens-Digest Wednesday, January 13 1999 Volume 01 : Number 250
Netizens Association Discussion List Digest
In this issue:
Re: [netz] Internet Society
Re: [netz] Internet Society
[netz] Re: ICANN membership--a Usenet perspective
[netz] Censored Australian crypto report liberated
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 16:30:15 -0800 (PST)
From: Greg Skinner <gds@best.com>
Subject: Re: [netz] Internet Society
Ronda wrote:
>I went to a talk by someone from ISOC on Monday night and he said the
>membership agrees to them mission but has no influence on what happens
>in the society. And that this is under contention from French ISOC at
>least.
Since the ISOC is a non-profit org with no governmental authority, I
don't see how it could influence what ICANN does. Any influence on
ICANN would come from the NTIA, who are overseeing them (for now).
>I have submitted proposals for papers several years in a row to be
>taken on a merry go round - ISOC very much needs to have a broader
>social focus, and instead the corporate commercial view of the Internet
>dominates most of what they do.
Well, possibly. But they do have an individual membership, and any
member is free to contribute to the discussions. It seems like the
people there would be more open to a discussion that calls
privatization into question.
- --gregbo
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 22:39:39 -0400
From: kerryo@ns.sympatico.ca (Kerry Miller)
Subject: Re: [netz] Internet Society
http://www.wia.org/pub/no-duck.html
[Rutkowski, Apr 1998]
{ ISOC supported the gTLD-MoU, which was scrapped in favor of the Green and
{ White Papers, which eventually led to the formation of ICANN.
Anything having to do with public interfaces and identifiers has long been viewed as
prime governmental turf. Only a few years ago, a single top-down global electronic
network naming system managed by governments - F.500 - was sought by treaty
agreement, and still remains theoretically in effect. The history of these efforts goes
back to early telegraph messages in 1850.
Each body will either do this unilaterally or cut a deal with other governmental
organizations or private-sector groups toward this end. The ITU-WIPO-ISOC-INTA
coalition is a case in point. Similar deals will be attempted at regional international and
national levels. Although the private-sector Internet groups sometimes naively believe
they gain by selling themselves into these configurations, the governmental groups will
win in the end because they enjoy sovereign authority.
The bottom line is that until the last Nation-State disappears from the world, in bilateral
or multilateral relations, only sovereigns can deal with sovereigns. If the U.S.
Administration elects to simply "play dead" on Internet DNS matters as they arise in
other governmental forums around the world, the Internet world is going to find itself in
another F.500 style, government mandated structure woven into a vast new labyrinth of
ITU, WIPO, EU, and other intergovernmental agreements and bureaucracies.
A unique opportunity exists at this time for the U.S. government to transition its
governance responsibilities and the attendant intellectual property to a wholly
private-sector arrangement with appropriate accountability mechanisms, and keep the
other governmental organizations at bay. Conversely, if the U.S. government blows this
one, it will be almost impossible to shape the dynamics, since everything will begin
devolving to one-country, one-vote forums where there is little or no control of other
governmental agendas....
========
http://www.wia.org/skunkworks/assessment.html
is another useful perspective piece, esp since the ITU standards
are no longer freely distributed:
>>>
The file you have attempted to copy has been available
on this server since late in 1992. In June 1998 we
received a communication from the ITU pointing out that
this material was copyright, consequently it is no
longer available on this server.
Copies of ITU and CCITT standards are available at a cost
of 20 Swiss Francs (about 13 US dollars) each from the ITU.
Further details can be found on their WWW pages at
http://www.itu.int
The files were originally purchased from Infomagic of
Flagstaff, Arizona who can supply an extensive set
of communications protocols and related information
on CDROM for 30 US dollars. Details are on their WWW
pages at http://www.infomagic.com/backup%20files/2standards.html
or http://www.infomagic.com
Peter Burden, jphb@scit.wlv.ac.uk
<<<
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 23:19:45 -0500 (EST)
From: Ronda Hauben <ronda@panix.com>
Subject: [netz] Re: ICANN membership--a Usenet perspective
"Lee S. Bumgarner" <lee_s_bumgarner@yahoo.com> on the ICANN membership
list wrote:
>Many of the problems that ICANN faces are similar
>to what Usenet faces whenever the issue of changing
>how new "Big 8" newsgroups are created comes up
>are similar to what ICANN is facing now.
To the contrary, if you don't know the history you are bound to
go backwards.
>As it is, Usenet newsgroup creation has fallen appart
>because the system wasn't designed for today's Usenet.
>But reforming the system would be difficult because
>it's hard to determine how to determine who votes and
>how the votes would be collected. And there is always
>the problem of "trust"--how do you know that someone
>isn't going to try to mess with the system?
It hasn't fallen apart at all. It has made it possible to
add many new newsgroups.
And Usenet is a laboratory for democracy so there will
be ways that we will learn about democracy from what
happens.
The important part of the newsgroup creation process is
the discussion (not the vote) and the discussion gives
a chance for people to figure out the issues.
>With ICANN, if you have an open membership with the simple requirement
>that you have a valid e-mail address, isn't it possible that a company
>like M$ could simply have all its employees join and thus warp the
>voting process?
Once you rely on a voting process (especially with regard to the
Internet as the early Usenet pioneers recognized) you have a problem.
The discussion that the Internet and Usenet make possible is
the means to solve problems, not the voting.
>Thus, you'd need some sort of way to prevent that or
>at least midigate its probablity of happening. One idea that I've had
>for reforming the Usenet system would be
>there be a "nomination" method of allowing someone to
>vote. That way, if you can get someone who is trusted
>to "nominate" you then are allowed to participate.
Interesting - as that was precisely what folks on early Usenet
clarified is exactly *what* doesn't make sense.
Early on on Usenet there was the suggestion of how to create new
newsgroups. And one of the suggestions was to get a committee
of those who knew how Usenet functioned to make decisions. Others
pointed out the problem with this. That if a committee was formed,
it would end up being a rubber stamp as "who has the time to do
the work necessary to come to a rational decision about a group.
Or if the committee does turn a group down, the metadiscussion
generated would be worse than any group one could think of."
from a post on Usenet, Dec. 27, 1981)
Thus it was decided to have an administrative way of determining
if there were enough people wanting a new group and if so to
have a way of starting the new group.
This paper is at
http://www.ais.org/~ronda/new.papers/usenet_early_days.txt
The paper is called "Early Usenet(1981-2): Creating the Broadsides
of Our Day"
>Simply letting anyone with an email address vote seems
>to easily abused. Whatever the decision, one group I believe needs to
>have the ablity to vote and that's people who have bought a domain
>name. They are the people most to have a "vested interest" in such
>matters, or at least enough to have an informed opinon
>about the matter. Additional types of people could
>be added to them.
The problem is talking about votes. The issues need to be
clarified in any process, *not* just having meaningless votes.
Thomas Paine recognized that
"Forms grow out of principles and operate to continue the
principles they grow from" (The Rights of Man)
Open communication and discussion makes it possible to establish
the principles that will lead to the creation of valuable forms.
However, if folks are jocking over who will control the essential
functions of the Internet, there is *no* way to have communication
and discussion. There are just power struggles.
Thus the whole ICANN proposal doesn't allow the needed communication
that would make it possible to administer the essentail functions
of the Internet, as that would require that a legitimate and
responsible enity not open to power grabbing maintain ownership
and control of the IP numbers, domain name system, etc. in the
public trust - and that isn't ICANN or anything that exists in
the private sector.
> -l
Thus membership can't solve the ICANN problem of being the home of
a power struggle as the control over the Internet that they are
willing to seize is too great a prize to be able to have anything
responsible or open etc go on.
The problem first that has to be solved is how to keep the ownership
and control of the essential Internet functions in public hands
that are responsible and capable of protecting them for cooperative
and public purposes.
I am just reading a book that points out that the American people
have spent $1 trillion dollars on public expenditures on computers
and work to do the research to build the important achievements
like the Internet and that this public investment must go for
something that the public benefits from, which is not what is
happening with the essentially functions of the Internet being
transferred to any private sector.
Ronda
BTW there are also chapter on Usenet history in the Netizens netbook -
see especially chapter 2 and chapter 10.
It's at http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 23:42:14
From: John Walker <jwalker@networx.on.ca>
Subject: [netz] Censored Australian crypto report liberated
Registrations for the On-line Learning Series of Courses
for January/February '99 are now being accepted. All courses are
delivered by e-mail, are two to three weeks in duration and cost
between $5.00 US and $15.00 US. Information is available at:
http://www.bestnet.org/~jwalker/course.htm
Starting 15 January 1999
How to Search the World Wide Web Level 2
Creating web pages with HTML Level 1
Creating web pages with HTML Level 2
Effective Use of E-Mail
Eudora Pro Level 2
Using Netscape Messenger Level 1
Using Netscape Messenger Level 3
Using Netscape Messenger Level 4 (a)
Starting 1 February 1999
Introduction to the Internet and On-line Learning
How to Search the World Wide Web Level 1
Using Eudora Lite and Pro Level 1
Using Eudora Pro Level 3
Using Netscape Messenger Level 2
Using Netscape Messenger Level 4
The following is an excerpt from the CSS Internet News. Please feel
free to pass this along to other Netizens provided that the complete
message is forwarded with all attributes intact.
- --------------------
Censored Australian crypto report liberated
Greg Taylor
Electronic Frontiers Australia
EFA has obtained access to an uncensored copy of the "Review of
Policy relating to Encryption Technologies" (the Walsh Report) and
this has now been released online at:
http://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Crypto/Walsh/index.htm
The originally censored parts are highlighted in red.
The report was prepared in late 1996 by Gerard Walsh, former deputy
director of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation
(ASIO).
The report had been commissioned by the Attorney-General's
Department in an attempt to open up the cryptography debate in
Australia. It was intended to be released publicly and was sent to
the government printer early in 1997. However, distribution was
stopped, allegedly at a very high (i.e. political) level.
EFA got wind of this and applied for its release under FOI in March
1997. This was rejected for law enforcement, public safety and
national security reasons. We persisted, and eventually obtained a
censored copy in June 1997, with the allegedly sensitive portions
whited out.
The report was released on the EFA website, and in the subsequent
media coverage the department claimed that the report was never
intended to be made public, a claim that is clearly at odds with
Gerard Walsh's understanding of the objectives, as is obvious from
his foreword to the report.
It has now come to light that the Australian Government Publishing
Service, which printed the report, lodged "deposit copies" with
certain major libraries. This is a standard practice with all
Australian government reports that are intended for public
distribution. The Walsh Report is quite possibly the first instance
where a report was withdrawn after printing but before any public
release. It is believed that the Attorney-General's department was
unaware that not all copies had been returned to them.
To this day, the report remains officially unreleased, except for
the censored FOI version. Interestingly, several Australian
government sites now link to the report on the EFA website.
Quite possibly, this situation would have remained unchanged, except
for an alert university student, Nick Ellsmore, who recently stumbled
across an unexpurgated copy of the report, gathering dust in the
State Library in Hobart. The uncensored version has now replaced the
censored report at the original URL.
The irony of this tale is that the allegedly sensitive parts of the
report, which were meant to be hidden from public gaze, are now
dramatically highlighted. The censored sections provide a unique
insight into the bureaucratic and political paranoia about
cryptography, such that censorship was deemed to be an appropriate
response. The official case for strict crypto controls is
conseuently weakened, because much of the censored material consists
of unpalatable truths that the administration would prefer to be
covered up, even though the information may already be known, or at
least strongly suspected, in the crypto community.
This apparent unwillingness to admit the truth is an appalling
indictment on those responsible for censoring the report. It is
indicative of a bureaucracy more anxious to avoid embarrassment and
criticism than adhere to open government principles and encourage
policy debate. Even worse, the censorship was performed under the
mantra of law enforcement and national security, a chilling example
of Orwellian group-think.
There are also some controversial recommendations in the report that
demand attention, since they could well be still on the current
policy agenda, in Australia or elsewhere. Examples are proposals for
legalised hacking by agencies, legalised trap-doors in proprietary
software, and protection from disclosure of the methods used by
agencies to obtain encrypted information, an apparent endorsement of
rubber-hose code-breaking.
On top of all this is the matter of allegedly sensitive material
being released to public libraries. It would seem that a number of
copies have been gathering dust now for at least a year. So far the
sky hasn't fallen, nor has the country succumbed to rampant threats
to national security.
Attached is a brief summary of what seem to be the important
censored items, including a few which make the Attorney-General's
Department look somewhat precious, to put it mildly.
The more interesting exercise is to scroll through the report until
you see red.
Greg
===================
Paragraphs censored for reasons of national security, defence or
international relations
- --------------------------------------------------------------------
- - A statement that there are "design flaws" in US and British key
recovery proposals (1.2.52 and 1.2.57)
- - An opinion that export controls are of dubious value (1.2.60,
3.7.6)
- - Commentary that US agencies sought to dominate public discussion
of encryption policy (5.1.3)
Paragraphs censored because they are classified as "internal working
documents"
- --------------------------------------------------------------------
- - A recommendation that "hacking" by law enforcement agencies should
be above the law (1.2.28, 6.2.3)
- - Recommendation that authorities be given the power to demand
encryption keys, in contravention of the principle of non
self-incrimination.
Paragraphs censored by reason of affecting enforcement of law and
protection of public safety
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
- - A statement that encryption is a "looming problem" (1.2.1)
- - Statements that strong encryption is widely available and cannot
be broken. (1.2.15 and 1.2.16, 3.5.1, 3.5.4)
- - Acknowledgment that more overt forms of surveillance carry
"political risk" (1.2.22, 3.6.1, 4.3.1, 4.3.2)
- - A recommendation that law enforcement and national security
agencies should arrange to put back doors in proprietary software for
surveillance purposes. (1.2.33, 6.2.10, 6.2.11, 6.2.22)
- - A statement that communications interception is valuable (1.2.42)
- - A statement that criminal elements are using prepaid SIM cards in
mobile phones (3.2.2)
- - Speculation about forming another cryptanalytical agency to
parallel DSD. (4.4.2)
- - Commentary about the vulnerability of key escrow systems (4.5.8)
- - Statement that agencies want protection from disclosure of how
keys were obtained (6.2.16)
- - Recommendation that the Federal Police Act permit covert entry to
premises. (6.2.20)
- - Recommendations for exemption of Federal Police from the normal
legal discovery process (6.2.20)
Courtesy POLITECH
- -----------
Also in this issue:
- - Censored Australian crypto report liberated
EFA has obtained access to an uncensored copy of the "Review of
Policy relating to Encryption Technologies" (the Walsh Report) and
this has now been released online
- - Ore. Anti-Abortion Defendant Talks
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- An anti-abortion activist conceded that he
has advocated the use of lethal force to halt abortions, but denied
direct links to a Web site plaintiffs say amounts to a hit list.
- - Betsie brings Web to the blind
Betsie: Said to work on 95% of BBC pages
BBC Education has produced a new piece of software to help blind and
visually impaired people navigate the Internet.
- - Warning on children without computers
Access at school is not enough, Charles Clarke warns
The Schools Minister, Charles Clarke, has said there is a danger of
an underclass of children emerging who do not have the use of
computers at home.
- - Call for rationing of school computer use
Alastair Wells: "Pupil demand for e-mail is massive"
A technology teacher says schools are getting swamped with demands
on their computers.
- - Teachers 'resisting' new technology
Not enough simply to provide computers, report says
Headteachers are said to be facing resistance from their staff as
they attempt to use information and communication technologies (ICT)
to improve the quality of teaching and learning in schools. A report
by UK telecommunications giant BT says they also have concerns over
training, funding and access to advice.
- - Search engines improving, but still frustrating
Searching for a site on the Web is like panning for gold. You take a
pan full of mud and begin to sift, and if you're patient and keep up
the mechanical motion, at the bottom of the pan you find a few
specks of gold.
- - French Netizens Plan Second Web Boycott
PARIS For unhappy Web surfers in France fed up with high phone
bills, it appears one boycott against incumbent telecommunications
provider France Telecom was not enough to get the telco to lower
local-call rates.
- - `Cyberlearning' Causes Rift Within the Ivory Tower
SAN FRANCISCO -- The 63 students who enrolled in Peter
Navarro's introductory macroeconomics course at the University of
California at Irvine last spring had a choice: Take a seat and
listen to the lectures, or take off and on your way out grab a
multimedia CD-ROM containing lectures.
- - New List and Journals
* CHANGE: Business Women Connected
* CHANGE: Heart Disease - The Heart Survival Guide [TM]
* NEW: weerbigger - sharing school-age educational ideas
On-line Learning Series of Courses
http://www.bestnet.org/~jwalker/course.htm
Member: Association for International Business
- -------------------------------
Excerpt from CSS Internet News (tm) ,-~~-.____
For subscription details email / | ' \
jwalker@hwcn.org with ( ) 0
SUBINFO CSSINEWS in the \_/-, ,----'
subject line. ==== //
/ \-'~; /~~~(O)
"On the Internet no one / __/~| / |
knows you're a dog" =( _____| (_________|
http://www.bestnet.org/~jwalker
- -------------------------------
------------------------------
End of Netizens-Digest V1 #250
******************************
