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Computer underground Digest Wed Dec 20, 1998 Volume 7 : Issue 98
ISSN 1004-042X
Editors: Jim Thomas and Gordon Meyer (TK0JUT2@MVS.CSO.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, #7.98 (Wed, Dec 20, 1998)
File 1--CuD of for Holidays -- Back around January 3
File 2--REMINDER - CuD is Changing Servers - RESUBS ARE NECESSARY
File 3--Reconfiguring Power, Challenges for the 21st century
File 4--DC-ISOC Meeting - 1/18/95
File 5--AP/WP/NYT: Online Smut and Bogus Net Stats
File 6--Employees Disciplined for accessing Internet "porn"
File 7--OPEN LETTER TO NEWT GINGRICH
File 8--New authorization to put all people in a secret file...
File 9--PRIVACY WATCHDOG OUTS BIG BROTHER...
File 10-- Computer, Freedom and Privacy 1996
File 11--"The Underground Guide to Computer Security" by Alexander
File 12--SotMESC Information
File 13--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 16 Dec, 1995)
CuD ADMINISTRATIVE, EDITORIAL, AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION APPEARS IN
THE CONCLUDING FILE AT THE END OF EACH ISSUE.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 20 Dec, 1995 22:51:01 CST
From: CuD Moderators <cudigest@sun.soci.niu.edu>
Subject: 1--CuD of for Holidays -- Back around January 3
CuD will be taking two weeks off. We will return about Jan 3 with
Volume 8.
We will continue to read and respond to mail.
Happy Holidays, and thanks to everybody who has contributed
posts, advice, criticisms, and information over the past
year.
Jim Thomas and Gordon Meyer
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 16 Dec, 1995 16:19:32 CST
From: CuD Moderators <tk0jut2@mvs.cso.niu.edu>
Subject: 2--REMINDER - CuD is Changing Servers - RESUBS ARE NECESSARY
** CuD IS CHANGING SERVERS **
In about mid-January, Cu Digest will be moving to a new server
at weber.ucsd.edu. We're following the strong consensus of
readers and requiring that, to continue to receive CuD after
mid-January, you must RE-SUBSCRIBE.
Although the move will not take place for a few weeks, you can enter
your subscribtion before then, so WE STRONGLY URGE YOU TO SUB NOW.
Re-subbing is easy. Just send a message with this in the
"Subject:" line
SUBSCRIBE CU-DIGEST
send it to:
cu-digest-request@weber.ucsd.edu
Issues will still be sent out from the older server for a few weeks,
so the strategy is to collect the resubs first, and then make the
transition.
If you prefer to access CuD from Usenet, use
comp.society.cu-digest
If you prefer archives, you can use the ftp/www site at
ftp.eff.org (or www.eff.org) or the CuD archives at:
http://www.soci.niu.edu/~cudigest.
We also hope to have a mail archive set up soon as well.
You can still contact the moderators at:
cudigest@sun.soci.niu.edu
or tk0jut2@mvs.cso.niu.edu
Please *DO NOT* send inquiries to the server at UIUC.
Jim and Gordon
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 12:08:05 -0800
From: Gilberto Arriaza <arriaza@UCLINK2.BERKELEY.EDU>
Subject: 3--Reconfiguring Power, Challenges for the 21st century
Dear colleagues: Here is a Call for Papers you might be interested.
Gilberto Arriaza. School of Education, UC Berkeley
Journal of Social Justice
Reconfiguring Power, Challenges for the 21st century
Recent backlash against immigrants and affirmative action can be seen as
part of a larger struggle over resources, national identity, and more
generally (re)configurations of power in the United States in the twenty
first century. Demographic trends continue to point to greater diversity
in the U.S. population, however there is growing resistance to the
adjustments which must be made in society generally, and in the
workplace and social institutions (i.e. education, the arts, political
parties) in particular, to accommodate those who have historically and
who are presently excluded. Already the debates which have emerged over
these issues differ in several important ways from the manifestations of
social conflict and polarization that occurred in the latter part of the
twentieth century.
This issue of the Journal of Social Justice is dedicated to exploring the
contours and substance of these new struggles. In addition to
documenting how these conflicts are being played out in particular social
and cultural contexts, contributors will analyze the underlying social
and cultural forces and interests which influence how issues are viewed,
and how social action and discourse are affected. Beyond analyzing the
content and character of those conflicts, contributors are encouraged to
illuminate possibilities of influencing how they can be resolved such
that greater social justice is achieved.
Topics for this issue may include::
Issues of immigration, cultural identity and the nation state.
Dismantling of the welfare state, social implications.
Schools and the meaning of citizenship, national identity and cultures,
and the access to power.
Obstacles to Gay, Lesbian and bisexual rights.
Crime, violence and social policy.
Language, language rights and the dynamics of power.
Gender equity, reproductive rights.
Local impact of macro level economic and political change.
Racial and ethnic conflict.
Review: Each submission will be read by a committee of two members. In
case a disagreement among them arises, the editors will call for the
opinion of a third member..
Format: Submit three hard copies of a 12 size font, double spaced of no
more than thirty 8 X 11.5 pages. This includes references. Each paper
must have an abstract of no more than one, double space, 8 X 11.5 page.
On a separate card of 3 X 5 (approximately) include title, your name,
affiliation, local address, telephone numbers, fax and electronic mail,
to contact you.
Deadline: Submission must be in our office by Monday, May 6th, 1996. No
contributions will be accepted after this date. The accepted papers will
be part of a panel for AERA '97.
Address: c/o Professor Pedro Noguera
University of California at Berkeley
School of Education
Social and Cultural Studies
4501 Tolman Hall
Berkeley, 94720
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 01:26:25 -0500 (EST)
From: russ@NAVIGATORS.COM(Russ Haynal)
Subject: 4--DC-ISOC Meeting - 1/18/95
The Washington DC Chapter of the Internet Society (DC-ISOC)
announces its next event, co-sponsored by the Office of the Senior
Information Officer of the Smithsonian Institution.
"New Year, Fresh Look: The Internet and Legislation"
When: Thursday, January 18, 1996
7:00 - 9:00 pm
Where: Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Auditorium
Freer Gallery of Art
Independence Ave and 12 St., S.W.
Washington, D.C.
As the title suggests, this meeting will discuss how the Internet and
Legislation will continue to "Interact" Please mark this date on your
calendar.
A follow-up meeting announcement with additional details (speakers, topics,
etc.) will be made in January.
On a related note: As you may have heard, on Wednesday December 6, 1995,
the House Conference Committee on Telecommunications Reform approved
legislation which has been a topic of debate throughout the Internet.
Several organizations are sponsoring "A NATIONAL INTERNET DAY OF PROTEST"
on Tuesday, December 12. Rather than re-distribute that announcement in
this forum, anyone interested in this protest, or the details of the
legislation can visit several web sites such as:
Voters Telecommunications Watch (http://www.vtw.org/)
Electronic Frontier Foundation (http://www.eff.org/)
-------------- Meeting Location Information ---------------------------
This event will be held in the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., e
northeast corner of Independence Avenue and 12th St., SW. Use the entrance
on the Independence Avenue side of the building (there is a street-level
wheelchair entrance as well).
Metro:
Smithsonian metro stop on the Blue or Orange lines.
Take the Independence Ave./Holocaust museum exit. The
Freer Gallery is diagonally across the street.
Street parking is available after 6:30 pm on the Mall,
on Independence Avenue and on l'Enfant Promenade.
---------------------- About DC-ISOC ---------------------------
DC-ISOC was formed to meet unique needs of Washington, DC-area Internet
planners, builders, and users, and to help represent the Internet to the
U.S. government. (For additional information visit:
http://www.dcisoc.org/about.html)
Individuals who are interested in becoming members of DC-ISOC can do so by
joining the Internet Society. See their web site at http://www.isoc.org
(or call 703-648-9888) for more information
Feel free to forward this announcement to anyone who might be interested.
If you would like to receive future DC-ISOC announcements directly (i.e.
this message was forwarded to you), please register with DC-ISOC at
http://www.dcisoc.org/register.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our last several meetings have included "door prizes" for attendees.
Please contact me if your organization would like to donate any
Internet-related items for the meeting.
______________________________________________________________
Russ Haynal - Internet Consultant, Instructor, Author, Speaker
"Helping organizations gain the most benefit from the Internet"
E-Mail: russ@navigators.com Business: 703-729-1757
http://www.clark.net/pub/rhaynal
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 1995 18:31:01 -0500 (EST)
From: "Declan B. McCullagh" <declan+@CMU.EDU>
Subject: 5--AP/WP/NYT: Online Smut and Bogus Net Stats
December 15, 1995
RICHLAND, Wash. (AP) -- Nearly 100 employees at a federally
funded laboratory are being disciplined for using their work
computers to access sexually explicit Internet sites, officials
said Friday.
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory suspended the 21 workers
who used the sites most frequently. Another 77 workers will receive
written reprimands...
The usage was discovered when Battelle Memorial Institute, which
operates the lab, was trying to determine its Internet capacity for
a new building. The sexually explicit addresses showed up on
Internet records.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
December 15, 1995
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- A city man has pleaded guilty to a
federal child pornography charge involving pictures transmitted on
the American Online service.
David H. Gillon, 43, pleaded guilty to interstate distribution
of child pornography in U.S. District Court on Thursday. He
admitted to transmitting a pornographic picture over America Online
in August.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
New York Times [Forwarded]
December 18, 1995
"The prospect of Internet censorship raises troubling
issues for business." Denise Caruso's column.
While most of the outcry has raised valid concerns about
the First Amendment and civil liberties, little of the
discussion has focused on how censorship could cripple
much of the Internet's commercial potential. "This
proposal will have more than a chilling effect," Ms.
Fulton said. "It may well mean a cold death for everyone
except very rich and very cautious media companies."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Washington Post
December 18, 1995
Editorial
How Many Netheads?
IT SOUNDS like a minor statistical dispute, but one whose results take
on more significance as claims and counterclaims proliferate about the
Internet and its importance. How many people are actually signing on?
A survey done for the Nielsen Co. earlier this fall found surprisingly
high numbers of net and e-mail users -- about 24 million "affluent"
adult users in the United States and Canada alone. But one of that
survey's academic advisers says the data were processed wrongly, and
the number should be more like 10 million. It seems that serious and
habitual Internet use will remain a difficult activity to track with
any certainty.
Vanderbilt University business Prof. Donna L. Hoffman says the
surveyors made some statistical miscalls in characterizing the
technical comfort level of the people who were asked to answer
questions about their Internet use. Thus, she argued in criticism
first reported in the New York Times, those less likely to use or own
computers ended up dropping out of the sample, skewing the attempts to
generalize to the larger population. But the mathematical arguments
here are less interesting than the chasm they point to in discussions
of the Internet generally. The distance between life as it looks to
users "on-line" and life as it looks elsewhere is hard to measure and
in some cases hard to see.
You could see this gap, for instance, in the efforts Internet users
have made in recent weeks to express their opposition to the
restrictive Exon provisions concerning pornography in cyberspace. A
much-touted "day of protest" on-line could cause a Net denizen to
believe that the entire sentient world was rocked by storms of
outrage, while those who don't habitually sign on or don't know how to
do so -- including, in all likelihood, many lawmakers -- could be
unaware of the outcry. Reports have multiplied of the initial
fascination and obsessive focus that the possibilities of on-screen
contact produce in so-called "newbies," not to mention the tendency of
some habitual net-users to refer dismissively to everything outside
the screen as mere "RL," or Real Life.
Most predictions of the Internet's usefulness and importance rely on
the assumption -- again borne out in most accounts -- that this
initial intensity wanes for most users and that e-mail, the World Wide
Web and other Internet functions will end up as a broad, everyday tool
rather than the province of an insular or obsessive subculture. That
era of wide and ordinary usage, though, may creep up and be hard to
measure until it has truly arrived.
------------------------------
From: hsu@VA.PUBNIX.COM(Dave Hsu)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 1995 18:26:17 -0500
Subject: 6--Employees Disciplined for accessing Internet "porn"
In Cu-D 7.97, galkin@aol.com notes:
>Rather than trying to define the right to privacy at this point, it is better
>to look at some circumstances where such a right might arise:
...
>(2) Where government agencies or private entities are lawfully collecting
>personal data, but more data is collected than is needed to accomplish the
>purpose of the data collection. The collection of this excess data might
>amount to an invasion of privacy, even though the data is never misused.
Not having seen any mention of this yet in the Digest (and
understanding the caveat that not all discussions so float up) I bring
to your attention a story buried in the "A" section of Sunday's
Washington Post on a recent disciplinary action at Pacific Northwest
Laboratories taken against several dozen employees accused of using
government resources to visit "pornographic" sites.
As the story was rather brief, I'll sum up to say that Battelle, which
operates the laboratories, claims to have been measuring Internet
usage at the facility to estimate new capacity requirements for some
new space when they found these accesses in their logs. Presumably,
their investigation was comprehensive, as the Post article mentions
that the twenty or so biggest users were singled out for additional
action. Ignoring the ethical question of misappropriating their
employer's resources, which I believe is not in dispute, I ask if
anyone has seen a report with more detail about the accounting methods
used, and the ethical problems with selective these particular
employees apparently solely on the basis of the _content_ of the sites
visited.
[As I am not a list member, I will watch the Digest for any ensuing
discussion]
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 1995 20:38:38 -0800
From: Michael Hollomon, Jr. <mhollomo@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: 7--OPEN LETTER TO NEWT GINGRICH
OPEN LETTER TO NEWT GINGRICH, SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE:
Dear Mr. Speaker:
I know that congress is currently debating legislation aimed at protecting
children from pornography on the Internet. I feel it my duty as an American
to make my views known to someone who is in a position to have an impact on
this potentially far-reaching issue.
First of all I would like to make it clear to you that I am _not_ a
pornographer. I neither produce nor nor indulge in the use of pornography.
In fact, if it is relevant to the issue at all, I am a Bible believing
Christian who feels that pornography is detrimental not only to America's
children, but also to the men who choose consume it. I think it would be a
wonderful thing to be able to insure that my children are not exposed to
obscene or pornographic material, by computer or by any other means.
However, I cannot lend support to any of the legislation currently being
considered by Congress to censor communication on the Internet, obscene or
otherwise. I will forewarn you that this correspondence is going to be
rather lengthy, but I beg your indulgence and I hope that you will take time
from your busy schedule to hear me out.
By way of a very brief history, the Internet is the first ever
communications technology created by "the people" for "the people." It's
structure and protocols were created and implemented by diverse groups of
people for the purpose of sharing materials and resources and making
information freely available to other persons on the inter network. It is
the result of one of the rare _truly_ democratic dynamics ever encountered
on such a large scale.
There has never been any form of centralized control over the Internet. The
policing of the Internet has always been carried out by local systems
administrators ("sysadmins"). However this "police power" was exercised by
the sysadmin only over her/his own local system. No one sysadmin had the
authority to monitor content or activity on any system on the Internet, save
her/his own. Admittedly, the Internet has a rather anarchic structure, but
it is one that has worked quite well and, in the absence of any centralized
regulation whatsoever, the Internet has grown to the incredibly useful,
informative and entertaining concentration of digital information and
resources that it is today.
As is to be expected with any frontier devoid of a central governing and
police authority, there have arisen some areas on the Internet that are not
suitable for children. In fact, it could easily be argued that these
"places" on the 'net are not suitable for responsible _adults_. While
pornography on the Internet is the topic which gets most of the press, and
therefore public attention, there are several other types of information
available on the 'net which many Americans would find offensive. Examples
include inflammatory speech by members or aficionados of this or that hate
group, and information of a more palpably dangerous ilk (i.e., how to build
explosives and other weaponry).
Should any of this type of information be accessible to our children? The
answer is an obvious "no." Should this information be accessed by
consenting adults? Perhaps not. But then more than a few "reasonable"
adults would argue, quite persuasively, that they should be entitled to
access any public information that they choose. My point is simply that I
heartily agree with anyone who takes the position that our children should
be shielded from such unsavory material.
Why then do I not support the currently proposed legislation to censor this
type of material on the Internet? My reasons are several:
1. NOT EVERYONE ON THE INTERNET IS SUBJECT TO U.S. LAW
As you and your colleagues no doubt realize, the Internet is a truly global
phenomenon. People access the Internet from over a hundred different
nations and from virtually every continent around the world. U.S.
legislation to censor the Internet would be equivalent to Canadian
legislation regulating what I as an American can and cannot say in an
international telephone call from the U.S. to someone in Canada, or even in
a telephone call from California to Alaska that happened to use lines which
cross Canadian territory. Stated simply, there would be a very sticky
problem of personal jurisdiction in attempting to enforce such legislation
upon a foreign violator.
How can the U.S. prevent someone in Finland from posting a pornographic
picture to any given Usenet newsgroup? The simple truth is that, no matter
how repulsive the post may be to our sensibilities, there is simply _no_
workable way to prevent foreigners from posting offensive material to the
international Internet. And, once material is posted, wherever from, there
is nothing to prevent anyone in the U.S., child or adult, who has Internet
access from accessing that material. It has often been stated that the
Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. This
resilience to blockage was intentionally built into the Internet by its
early U.S. military-backed developers. The idea was to develop a
communications technology that would be virtually impervious to a large
scale nuclear strike. This fact may be contemporarily seen as unfortunate,
but the fact nonetheless remains.
2. WIDESPREAD FLOUTING OF UNENFORCEABLE LAW WILL ENGENDER DISRESPECT FOR
THE LAW
Because of the unenforceability of censorship legislation on foreign
violators, any such legislation will have little or no effect on the type of
information contained on the Internet. The only real change that such
legislation might have would be that offensive material would only be, or
appear to be, posted from foreign sources. Law abiding Americans wouldn't
post illegal material. But there would be nothing preventing Americans from
accessing illegal material posted by foreigners.
For this reason, any U.S. legislation which attempts to regulate the content
of the Internet will have an inherent loop-hole in it large enough "to drive
a truck through." A loop-hole so large, in fact, as to subsume the
underlying legislation. The routine disobedience (or technical avoidance)
of such legislation would result in our children being no more shielded from
harmful material than they would be in the absence of any such legislation.
This would no doubt lead to the kind of disregard and disrespect for
legislation (and legislators) which followed the advent of the prohibition
of alcohol in this country (legislation that ultimately the government had
to concede was completely unworkable). Do we really need an "information
prohibition?" If it passes, do you want to be responsible for it?
3. UNREASONABLE "CHILL" ON PROTECTED SPEECH
Even assuming that it was possible to legislatively control content
available on the Internet (which I firmly believe it is not), at what cost
would such control come? For fear of subjecting themselves to criminal
liability for the offending posts of their members or customers, every
sysadmin, BBS system operator ("sysop"), online service and Internet service
provider, would have to become a de facto police agent, thoroughly
inspecting every piece of email or other electronic correspondence made.
This would effectively mean the end of any semblance of digital privacy for
law abiding Americans on the 'net.
There are of course myriad ways to avoid such eavesdropping (i.e. strong
encryption, foreign anonymous remailers and the like), however in order for
censoring legislation to have any meaning whatsoever I would assume that the
legislature would outlaw these measures as well. Then only criminals would
be able to enjoy private electronic communications in America. (The gun
control slogan comes to mind: "Make it a crime to own a gun and only the
criminals will have guns.")
The Federal courts have routinely struck down laws as unconstitutional where
the legislation's regulation of unprotected speech affects an unreasonable
"chill" on constitutionally protected free speech. Knowing that _every_
electronic communication that I send will be read by any number of
intervening systems administrators will without doubt make me much more
circumspect about my electronic communications. No longer would I feel free
to discuss matters of any personal nature, much less matters concerning
confidential business information. In fact _every_ electronic communication
would have to be considered by the sender as an open letter to the public.
To describe such a scenario as having a chill upon free speech would, I
think, be a definite understatement.
4. THE U.S. MAY WELL FORFEIT ITS ENVIABLE POSITION IN THE FOREFRONT OF
THE INFORMATION REVOLUTION
The Internet was originated in America by Americans. The present Internet
is a direct legatee of the ARPAnet developed in the U.S. by the Advanced
Research Projects Agency. *Almost 3/4 of all Internet hosts today are
located in North America (the _great_ majority of those are certainly in the
U.S.). Many of the technological and social innovations which make the
Internet the phenomenal success that it is were implemented by American free
thinkers who were allowed to think freely with few, if any, constraints upon
their ideas save the effectiveness of the ideas themselves. The greatest
financial beneficiaries of the success of the Internet to date have been
U.S. companies providing Internet access, advertising and/or doing business
on the Internet.
Once Congress starts imposing legislative restrictions on electronic
information, the only people which will be hindered by those restrictions
will be citizens of the U.S. This will leave citizens of foreign countries
in potentially advantageous competitive positions to U.S. citizens. The
U.S. just might go from being the country to emulate in information
technology to being the country to surpass. Granted, such results are not
likely solely from a single piece of obscenity legislation. But one bad
law, more times than not, leads to another. It may only take a single
ill-advised law to start our esteemed Congress on such a precarious trend.
Having said all of the foregoing, are there any workable solutions to
protecting children from offensive material over the Internet? In fact,
there are. At this point, let me state my position that, among the several
responsibilities that come with being a parent, is the responsibility to
monitor the materials and information accessible to your children. The
information available to children should, without question, be regulated.
That regulation, however, should be performed by parents and guardians,
_not_ by Congress. I realize that there are many "computer illiterate"
parents who have technologically knowledgeable children. However, there is
help even for these parents in regulating what their children experience online.
Most of the major online services have restrictions of some sort on the
seamier sites available on the internet and/or other safeguards which allow
parents to control the types of material which their children can access
online. In addition, there are other resources, apart from the major
commercial online services, which assist parents in this regard. There are
software and commercial services which inform parents of unsuitable
materials available on the Internet and assist parents with Internet
accounts in restricting unauthorized access to those areas by their children.
Of course, there will always be those parents who are intimidated by the
technology, or simply don't want to take the time to understand it. These
parents will certainly sleep a little easier knowing that Congress is
stepping in and attempting to protect their children from obscene material.
These people, in my opinion, are inexcusably lazy parents who, if they are
not going to monitor their children's online communications, should _not_
permit their children to go online.
In closing, I would strongly urge that you and the other members of Congress
look closely into the several available alternative options of regulating
online materials available to children, as Internet censorship simply will
not work. Thank you for your time.