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Netizens-Digest Volume 1 Number 325
Netizens-Digest Sunday, August 1 1999 Volume 01 : Number 325
Netizens Association Discussion List Digest
In this issue:
Re: [netz] Delays Accessing CSS Internet News Site.
Re: [netz] Delays Accessing CSS Internet News Site.
Re: [netz] Re: Freedom for Commercial content?
[netz] An Example of Effective 'Net Activism
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 16:28:25 +0200
From: Carsten Laekamp <carsten.laekamp@wanadoo.fr>
Subject: Re: [netz] Delays Accessing CSS Internet News Site.
On Fri, Jul 30, 1999 at 09:41:51PM +0000, John Walker wrote:
> I use two sig files when posting to lists. One is for excerpts from the
> 'news and the other is for posts from me. It is usual to include a .sig
> file.
Which shows that your only interest in those «lists» is mostly
commercial:
- - if you were intested in what's going on on those lists, you could
well post excerpts without referring to your newsletter (or just
mention it in one line in your signature, which I believe no one
would complain about).
- - you're posting it to several lists (maybe not the same excerpt, but
the most important part of your messages is the sig). That's called
"bulk e-mail", which is unsolicited. Technically speaking, that means
spam. Of course, if it isn't unwanted, in can be tolerated. (BTW:
how many lists are you spamming this way ?)
BTW: your tone when replying to criticism ("whining", as you'd say)
makes me wonder what "netizens" means to you. Probably there are
three categories for you: customers, potential customers and those
people who'd better be silent, instead of criticising _publically_
your methods.
> The message I posted dealt with the serious matter of a government sanctioned
> attempt to deprive Internet access to over 5,000 Canadians by 'denial of
> service' attacks on an ISP.
If that information had been important enough for you, you could
well have posted it under your name, not as a mere excerpt from one
of your commercial products.
BTW: if I understood that information right, it was an attempt,
_probably_ sanctioned by _a foreign_ government (and one that's known
for not liking free speach or democracy) to censor the content of
a web site. This still is an important information but much less
dramatical as what you are saying now suggests.
>
> Something that I consider to be of importance to all Netizens.
>
> All this list heard from you and Mr. Hauben was a whine about a .sig file.
>
> As I told you, if you want to whine do it in a private message.
That much for the free flow of information. Thank you for clarifying
this point.
- --
Carsten Läkamp
carsten.laekamp@wanadoo.fr
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 13:18:25 -0400 (EDT)
From: Bino Gopal <bino@rabi.columbia.edu>
Subject: Re: [netz] Delays Accessing CSS Internet News Site.
On Sat, 31 Jul 1999, Kerry Miller wrote:
> Bino,
>
> > Your statement about not sending 'any' extraneous material is just
> > not true; the 4 line sig standard shows that.
> >
> The purpose of a .sig was to ensure that the ID of the sender
> was visible to recipients whose mail readers did not display the
> header information. This purpose is now almost completely
> iimaterial under the systems in use now, but the point is, that *as
> such* it was not extraneous.
>
> As to what may or not have been the 'standard,' I think one will find
> much more evidence to describe it in terms of senders name and
> email address, and that even the 4-line idea was a compromise
> with those who liked ascii art and quips.
>
> kerry
While the sig was originally there b/c some mail readers stripped the
headers, there is also this:
"If you include a signature keep it short. Rule of thumb is no longer
than 4 lines. Remember that many people pay for connectivity by the
minute, and the longer your message is, the more they pay."
- -RFC 1855, Page 4
Umm, so...what's the problem with saying a sig should be 4 lines again, as
you did in your first reply to this? It seems a pretty reasonable
criterion to me!
Also, for some light humor on the subject, which just reinforces my point,
see:
http://www.templetons.com/brad/emily.html
Read the first two questions. *grin*
BINO
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 1 Aug 1999 17:37:38 +0200
From: Carsten Laekamp <carsten.laekamp@wanadoo.fr>
Subject: Re: [netz] Re: Freedom for Commercial content?
On Thu, Jul 29, 1999 at 12:54:49AM +0000, Kerry Miller wrote:
>
>
> Carsten Laekamp wrote,
> > > > IMHO, even the meaning of "information" doesn't need any discussion
> > > > here.
> ...
> > a) in an computer-network context, "flow of information" mostly refers
> > to "series of 0's and 1's"
>
> Engineers like to speak of 1s and 0s as information, but they are
> unable to say what is *informed* by them. It may be useful to talk
> about information at this level in the same terms as your bank
> balance, my medical records and Ronda's book, but I have yet to
> see the case made for it.
I don't believe that the use of "information" for any kind of data is
restricted to engineers. "Information technology" is a common phrase
nowadays, yet it doesn't imply that the data stored in computers
carries any meaning. I don't think that Lara Croft has informed me
on anything yet :)
But even if only engineers understood "information" to be raw data,
my second point, which is by far the most important, would still be
valid, wouldn't it ? Of course your lengthy nit-picking about 0's
and 1's allows you to ignore that point.
<CUT>
> In short (to reduce a couple hundred years of epistemology here ;-
> )), to equate definition with content is to not only miss the forest for
> the trees, but to lop all the limbs off and call the stems trees
Yes. Still, your examples weren't about definition but about
representation (or coding, if you prefer). "A" has as much meaning as
"065.": none.
But epistemology is NOT appropriate here, since the word "information"
has more than one meaning and since those meanings cover different
fields.
> What is at issue in any discussion of 'what we mean' -- such as
> 'free flow of information' -- is *not whether the information can be
> displayed by 1s and 0s;
I agree. But that's something YOU started to talk about. But if you
want to have a debate with yourself, feel free to do so. Just leave
my name out of that.
My point, anyway, whichever starting point you take, is that if don't
define "information" in a very general way, the definition you give it
does influence its free flow. Let's rather use the telecommunications
vocabulary here. The equivalent of "information" would be "signal" and
all the rest would be "noise". Now, how do you define what's "signal"
and what's "noise" ? Would you be able to find a definition that
would suit everyone on the Earth, regardless of cultural, political,
etc... differences ? Say the idea some people here seem to have of
information, which excludes statements of opinion and debate but
allows for advertising, should be adopted, would you accept that ?
And, even if you ban advertising (and thus propaganda,
which is basically the same), what _is_ information and what
propaganda/advertising/statement of opinion ? When you know that CNN
makes big money every time the US get involved in a war, how do you
value their information on Iraq, Serbia, etc... ? (I am not saying
they're not objective -- I don't watch CNN and I don't know what's
really going on in Iraq or Serbia -- I am just asking a question).
>
> > Someone posted here a call for a petition. We can either decide,
> > everyone on his own, whether to sign it or not. Or we could
> > discuss the issue. Not to have one's own decisions implemented, but
> > to see different points of view. Up to everyone else to sign the
> > petition afterwards or not. I would very much like to hear others'
> > opinions on that subject, because I am not really certain what
> > answer is the right one (although I do have a preference, of
> > course).
>
> Im glad to see you agree with me ;-) The call, however (if I
> understand you) was for a 'vote' - not a discussion, scrutiny or
> consideration or even a sharing of opinions,
Erm... quoting myself:
<QUOTE>
Personnally, I think that the free flow of information on the Internet
would deserve a discussion (on this list, for instance, if there was
any hope to, at least once, have more than three people involved in a
discussion here :( ) before any call for a petition.
</QUOTE>
Maybe "before any call for a petition" was misleading you. Still I said
"would deserve a discussion", nothing else. I didn't even say that that
call should be issued by this list. I just think it to be a shame that,
once again, this list should only serve for posting advertisements
(this time for a petition) and not for discussing issues.
> is, the appropriate netizeny activity is precisely discussion,
> scrutiny and consideration; 'voting' is the very last stage of the
> process, not the first.
Show me where I said anything else. Or, if you are addressing some
other (imaginary ?) person, please make that clear in your postings.
> > > Now, if I may be so gauche as to take your question literally,
> >
> > Why "gauche" ?
>
> One usually find figurative speech used for the sake of
> sophistication; to my mind, the 'royal we' (as in "Do we want every
> content to be freely distributed or do we prefer restrictions") is
> figurative and not literal. As a *style of speaking that assumes that
> *we* can not merely 'represent' the opinion of every netizen, but
> *act to realize that 'want,' it devalues *our individual powers of
> decision: its basic message is, 'Dream on, fnurk; youre nobody
> and always will be nobody, but you might as well *pretend to be
> grandiose because what else is there?'
>
> Of course, many people will vehemently deny they ever intended
> any such thing; its just a 'manner of speaking,' a 'fashion' that
> doesnt *mean* anything. But its easy enough to experiment: what
> does one say,in this fashion, when one means, 'Carsten and Kerry
> and anybody who wants to join in'? Isnt it the same word, 'we'?
> How then does one tell the difference between the we who are you
> and me and the we who want life to be simple? I prefer to be clear
> in my mind, and to use language that matches (when it can ;-)) --
> and that is gaucherie to some.
Erm, why should I use the "royal we" instead of the other one ? If
you are constantly reading wrong meanings into what others say/write,
I can understand that it is hard for you to believe that three people
could understand each other.
Of course, I'm denying now that I was using it that way, as you
predicted ;) but, still I never heard that the first meaning was the
more common one in the US. And, if my use of "we" really led to the
wrong impression (but I'd rather suspect that you are being dishonest
here), please excuse me for not being a native English-speaker. Let's
go on in French and I'll treat you to your own standards...
> My idea is that one is addicted to *being prevented from stealing* --
> doesnt this explain why people behave as if 'its ok unless you're
> caught'?
Are you serious there ? If people would be addicted to that, they'd
turn themselves in to the police after stealing, instead of thinking
it to be ok if they aren't caught.
>
> > Second:
> > unlike the problem of addiction (not talking about indirect
> > consequences here), some of the information carried by the 'Net can
> > have direct consequences on other people than the reader: warez sites
> > do harm the manufacturer of the "stolen" software; instructions on how
> > to manufacture weapons will hurt the people they will be used against
> > (ok, this _is_ an indirect consequence, but it still is the purpose
> > of those sites), ...
>
> I disagree. The manufacturer may have turned to other work
> because s/he wasnt paid; sure, wouldnt you? How can changing
> jobs be harmful?
Hmmm.... I *hope* (for your sake) that this is sarcasm.
> Bomb recipes can have the purpose of showing
> Joe Citizen just how fragile the 'security' provided by the state
> actually is: any damn fool can blow your door off and there is
> precious little anyone can do about it *afterwards. Know this and
> that, and the neighbour kid wheeling a sack of nitrogen phosphate
> into his garage begins to look a little different...
Are American kids really that innocent that they don't know about
nitrogen phosphate ? :) Anyway, just look at what sites (some of
?) those instructions are on: I've seen them on "revisionist" (read
neo-Nazi), and islamist sites, for instance. Those people are just
caring citizens, aren't they ? (and, btw, there aren't only recipes
for bombs, but for all kinds of weapons).
>
> The point, in the context of understanding one another, is that the
> way you state the case conditions the others interpretation. You
> say 'harm,' I think 'ooh, we shouldnt cause harm; you say '*the*
> purpose,' and I think 'we ;-) ought to put a stop to that!' (Its not the
> 'information; its the strings, see?)
Sure. And you seem to be very bad at not understanding... or, I
suspect, rather very good at not understanding.
<final sarcasms deleted>
- --
Carsten Läkamp
carsten.laekamp@wanadoo.fr
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 01 Aug 1999 14:29:00
From: John Walker <jwalker@networx.on.ca>
Subject: [netz] An Example of Effective 'Net Activism
Below are copies of messages sent to the 'Net regarding
an attack by the Government of China on a Canadian ISP.
I would like to thank the list members for their messages of
support during the recent attempts by the Government of China
to shut down the Internet Service Provider Bestnet for mirroring
the Falundafa/Falungong web site.
I am pleased to report that after the CSS Internet News statement
directly accusing the Government of China was released on Thursday
evening by 4:00 A.M. Friday GMT -0500 the attacks on Bestnet had
stopped.
On Friday, 30 July the CSS Internet News passed the information
it had obtained to a source with the mainstream press.
Both Wired and AP investigated and filed their own reports.
Both have been included below.
AP found a direct link between the attacks and "a Chinese national
police bureau in Beijing" and to the "Internet Monitoring Bureau of
the Public Security Ministry".
What I find most interesting is this.
If the words of one person can reach so many in such a short period of
time and force a repressive regime to back off what would happen if we
all banded together.
There are 179 million of us on the 'Net and that number grows by tens
of millions each year.
That can be quite a force for change.
You can join the Net Action Group by sending a blank e-mail message to:
nag1-subscribe@egroups.com
John Walker
Attachments:
1. Canadian ISP's Under Attack in Internet War (Canada/China)
CSS Internet News, Tuesday, 27 July 99
2. Notice to the 'Net: Delays Accessing CSS Internet News Site.
CSS Internet News, Thu, 29 Jul 1999 21:02:47 -0400
3. ISPs Accuse China of Infowar (Canada/China)
http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/21030.html
12:00 p.m. 30.Jul.99.PDT
4. Meditation group says China assaulting its Web site (US/China)
Associated Press, NEW YORK (July 30, 1999 5:14 p.m. EDT)
- --------------
Canadian ISP's Under Attack in Internet War (Canada/China)
Hamilton, Ontario Internet service provider experiences Denial of
Service attacks after hosting Falundafa site.
by John Walker
CSS Internet News
http://www.bestnet.org/~jwalker
Tuesday, 27 July 99
The Falundafa site was transferred to Bestnet Internet Inc late last
night after another Canadian ISP which had been hosting the site
could no longer cope with the continual attacks.
Eric Weigel, Director of Bestnet Internet Inc. said in an interview
today that the site was up at Bestnet by about 10:00 P.M. EST last
night and the Denial of Service attacks began within an hour.
Bestnet is one of several ISP's mirroring the sect's site after it
was banned by the Government of China.
System logs show attacks originating from The Information Service
Center of XinAn, Beijing, China, and other locations in China.
One ISP reports that "It is not just my machine under attack it is
many machines from all over the US and Canada many of which are .edu
(educational) sites."
Mr. Weigel says "Bestnet will attempt to continue hosting the site in
spite of attacks from individuals or governments. That's what we do."
A regime that attempts to stifle free speech on the 'Net is bound to
fail. A site that is banned in one country can be mirrored on
hundreds of servers all over the world in just hours.
This is one of the great strengths of the Internet.
Links:
Falundafa
http://www.falundafa.ca
Bestnet Internet Inc.
http://www.bestnet.org
Asia Pacific Information Center
http://www.apnic.net/db
Eric Wiegel, Director Bestnet Internet Inc.
ericw@bestnet.org
- ------------
Thu, 29 Jul 1999 21:02:47 -0400
Delays Accessing CSS Internet News Site.
http://www.bestnet.org/~jwalker
Please note that if you have any trouble reaching the site just try
again a little later. Service outages have been kept to an absolute
minimum.
Bestnet is at present under cyber attack for hosting a mirror site
of the Falundafa/gong site. This sect was banned by the Government
of China and the attacks appear to be coming from sources inside of
China.
Even though these Denial of Service attacks affect the CSS Internet
News site, along with 5,000 others hosted by this service I fully
support Bestnet's effort.
The Government of China may use intimidation to rule inside it's own
borders but I'll be damned if I will let them get away with it here.
John Walker
Publisher
CSS Internet News
Links:
http://www.falundafa.ca
- ---------------
ISPs Accuse China of Infowar (Canada/China)
by Oscar S. Cisneros
12:00 p.m. 30.Jul.99.PDT
http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/21030.html
Two Canadian ISPs said Friday that their networks were attacked this
week by Chinese government crackers with a political agenda.
"The hack attempts I could trace [originated with] Chinese
government offices in Beijing," said Eric Weigel, director of Bestnet
Internet, a Hamilton, Ontario-based ISP.
Weigel said he suspected that the "denial of service" attack, which
ended at 4 a.m. EST Friday, was motivated by his organization's
hosting a Web site for a religious group outlawed in China.
"I know the Chinese government doesn't like the Falundafa Gong
religion. They've arrested some people, but I don't know if
anybody's been shot."
The Chinese government last week banned the "wheel of law," or Falun
Gong, sect, stating that the group corrupted people's minds,
disrupted social order, and sabotaged stability. The nation's
state-run television network launched a negative media blitz against
Falun Gong.
The group, which claims more than 2 million members, advocates
meditation and exercise. In April, in a protest at Beijing's
Zhongnanhai leadership compound, more than 10,000 Falun Gong members
demanded protection for their religion. The government responded by
destroying more than a million of the sect's books, tapes, and CDs.
If Weigel's hunch is correct, that fury has now extended into the
world of the Internet.
"The Chinese government didn't even phone me up and say, 'Please
remove this site,'" Weigel said. "That's pretty rude."
Weigel said he traced the hack attacks back to the Beijing
Application Institute for Information Technology and the Information
Center of Xin An Beijing.
The attackers used two common techniques to take on Bestnet and
Nebula Internet Services, a smaller ISP in the nearby town of
Burlington: They attempted to penetrate the ISPs' systems and also to
flood their servers with incomplete requests for data -- a technique
that overwhelms a Web server such that it is unable to serve up a Web
site (in this case, Falun Gong's).
Neither effort was successful at Bestnet, Weigel said. But the
denial of service attack did thwart Nebula Internet Services, which
hosted Falun Gong's site until last week.
"They didn't have enough bandwidth to handle them, plus they're
using a Windows machine," said Weigel. "I couldn't even copy the site
using FTP -- they had to physically bring the files on a hard drive."
Nebula's owner, Greg Alexander, said that the attacks started a
month ago and coincided with media reports of a government crackdown
on the sect.
"The Chinese government has called the Falun Gong an enemy of the
state and so we assumed that it's the Chinese government," he said.
"They actually swamped our lines for two days -- we were maxed right
out."
Alexander also said a US Department of Transportation official
contacted him to ask about an attack on a server at the Federal
Aviation Administration. The unnamed official told him that the
"probe" of the FAA's server originated from one of Nebula's
machines. Alexander added that the specific IP address was at the
time assigned to Falun Gong.
"We didn't have control of our own IP address," he said.
The Department of Transportation could not be reached for comment
late Friday afternoon. Alexander speculated that if someone made the
attack look as if it originated from Falun Gong's IP address, they
did so to make "the US government think that these people are bad
people."
Reuters contributed to this report.
Links:
http://www.bestnet.org/
http://www.falundafa.ca/
http://nebula.on.ca/
- ---------------
Meditation group says China assaulting its Web site (US/China)
Copyright © 1999 Nando Media
Copyright © 1999 Associated Press
http://www.techserver.com/noframes/story/0,2294,76012-120030-851579-0,
00.html NEW YORK (July 30, 1999 5:14 p.m. EDT
http://www.nandotimes.com) -
Web sites in the United States and elsewhere devoted to the Falun
Gong meditation group are coming under heavy electronic attack,
managers of the sites said Friday. At least one attempt at disruption
appears to trace back to a Chinese national police bureau in Beijing.
Falun Gong has been banned in China, where communist authorities are
engaged in an escalating crackdown, arresting adherents and
confiscating publications and videos.
Bob McWee, of Middletown, Md., a Falun Gong practitioner, said a
site he maintains to promote the group, www.falunusa.net, has been
under persistent electronic assault.
McWee said his Web server was undergoing a continuous
"denial-of-service" attack, a common Internet tactic used to
overwhelm a computer with repeated electronic requests - like a
telephone ringing nonstop to block other callers.
In addition, someone tried to gain access to the server, pretending
to be a legitimate webmaster, and in the process left an Internet
address, he said.
"They tried to hack my machine from theirs. And they can't do that
without revealing their" Internet address, he said.
The address that McWee said was left behind is registered with the
Asia Pacific Network Information Center, a public registry service
for Internet addressees. According to the service, there are two
telephone numbers in Beijing listed with that address.
When The Associated Press called the numbers, a person who answered
the phone identified them as belonging to the Public Security
Ministry. A telephone operator at the ministry said they belonged to
its Internet Monitoring Bureau.
Ministry officials and spokesmen refused to comment Friday.
McWee registered a complaint about the hacking attempt with the
Maryland state police's computer crimes division.
Police spokesman Pete Piringer said that because the attack did not
succeed in getting access to McWee's server, there did not seem to
be a crime committed.
A U.S. government agency saw an indirect sign of the attacks.
A network engineer at the U.S. Department of Transportation
contacted McWee when they noticed his server was contacting one of
their computers unasked, according to Everett Dowd, deputy director
of telecommunications of the Information Technology Operation at the
department.
McWee said this was because the denial-of-service attack sent
requests to his server with forged return addresses, one of which
happened to be the department's server.
Administrators of other Web sites devoted to the movement also said
they had been attacked.
Li Shao, in Nottingham, Britain, said the site he maintains was
hacked into Monday. What he called Chinese "government propaganda"
was placed on some pages, while others were deleted.
Jillian Ye, of Toronto, Canada, who maintains two sites, said that
beginning one or two months ago, her server began going down almost
every day. The problems got progressively worse, until she
recognized the symptoms of an attack and moved the sites to a more
secure server.
In their barrage of criticism of Falun Gong, Chinese state media
have cited the group's Internet presence as proof that it was
well-organized and not just harmless meditation buffs.
A government ban on Falun Gong publications passed after the group
was outlawed includes electronic publications. Nearly all of Falun
Gong Web sites in China have been shut down since the ban was
announced.
China's communist leaders banned the Falun Gong movement last week,
accusing it of trying to develop political power. Falun Gong leaders
have denied any political ambitions and denied they organized
protests that erupted two weeks ago after authorities reportedly
arrested leading members of the group.
Falun Gong, founded by Li Hongzhi, who now lives in the United
States, draws on martial arts, Buddhism and Taoism. The group says
its goals are physical and mental fitness and high moral standards,
and denies that it is either a religion or a political movement.
Associated Press Writer John Leicester in Beijing contributed to
this report.
- ------------
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 #325
******************************
