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Computer underground Digest Wed Nov 6, 1996 Volume 8 : Issue 78
ISSN 1004-042X
Editor: Jim Thomas (cudigest@sun.soci.niu.edu)
News Editor: Gordon Meyer (gmeyer@sun.soci.niu.edu)
Archivist: Brendan Kehoe
Shadow Master: Stanton McCandlish
Field Agent Extraordinaire: David Smith
Shadow-Archivists: Dan Carosone / Paul Southworth
Ralph Sims / Jyrki Kuoppala
Ian Dickinson
Cu Digest Homepage: http://www.soci.niu.edu/~cudigest
CONTENTS, #8.78 (Wed, Nov 6, 1996)
File 1--1996-10-10 Background on Next Generation Internet
File 2--Justice Dept completes second phase of CDA appeal (HotWired)
File 3--AOL Blocking hits Ron Newman
File 4--U.S. crypto-czar appointment -- "Crypto Imperalism" in HotWired
File 5--(Fwd) News.groups reform
File 6--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 7 Apr, 1996)
CuD ADMINISTRATIVE, EDITORIAL, AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION ApPEARS IN
THE CONCLUDING FILE AT THE END OF EACH ISSUE.
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Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 14:04:44 -0500
From: Jerrold Zar <T80JHZ1@WPO.CSO.NIU.EDU>
Subject: File 1--1996-10-10 Background on Next Generation Internet
<snip>
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release October 10, 1996
BACKGROUND ON CLINTON-GORE ADMINISTRATION'S
NEXT-GENERATION INTERNET INITIATIVE
The Internet is the biggest change in human communications since
the printing press. Every day, this rapidly growing global network
touches the lives of millions of Americans. Students log in to the
Library of Congress or take virtual field trips to the Mayan ruins.
Entrepreneurs get the information they need to start a new business and
sell their products in overseas markets. Caregivers for people with
Alzheimer's Disease participate in an "extended family" on the
Cleveland FreeNet. Citizens keep tabs on the voting records and
accomplishments of their elected representatives.
We must invest today to create the foundation for the networks of
the 21st Century. Today's Internet is an outgrowth of decades of
federal investment in research networks such as the ARPANET and the
NSFNET. A small amount of federal seed money stimulated much greater
investment by industry and academia, and helped create a large and
rapidly growing market. Similarly, creative investments today will set
the stage for the networks of tomorrow that are even more powerful and
versatile than the current Internet. This initiative will foster
partnerships among academia, industry and government that will keep the
U.S. at the cutting-edge of information and communications technologies.
It will also accelerate the introduction of new multimedia services
available in our homes, schools, and businesses.
Economic benefits: The potential economic benefits of this
initiative are enormous. Because the Internet developed in the United
States first, American companies have a substantial lead in a variety of
information and communications markets. The explosion of the Internet
has generated economic growth, high-wage jobs, and a dramatic increase
in the number of high-tech start-ups. The Next Generation Internet
initiative will strengthen America's technological leadership, and
create new jobs and new market opportunities.
The Administration's "Next Generation Internet" initiative has
three goals:
1. Connect universities and national labs with high-speed
networks that are 100 - 1000 times faster than today's
Internet: These networks will connect at least 100
universities and national labs at speeds that are 100 times
faster than today's Internet, and a smaller number of
institutions at speeds that are 1,000 times faster. These
networks will eventually be able to transmit the contents of
the entire Encyclopedia Britannica in under a second.
2. Promote experimentation with the next generation of
networking technologies: For example, technologies are
emerging that could dramatically increase the capabilities
of the Internet to handle real-time services such as high
quality video-conferencing. There are a variety of research
challenges associated with increasing the number of Internet
users by a factor of 100 that this initiative will help
address. By serving as "testbeds", research networks can
help accelerate the introduction of new commercial services.
3. Demonstrate new applications that meet important national
goals and missions: Higher-speed, more advanced networks
will enable a new generation of applications that support
scientific research, national security, distance education,
environmental monitoring, and health care. Below are just a
few of the potential applications:
Health care: Doctors at university medical centers will use
large archives of radiology images to identify the patterns
and features associated with particular diseases. With
remote access to supercomputers, they will also be able to
improve the accuracy of mammographies by detecting subtle
changes in three-dimensional images.
National Security: A top priority for the Defense
Department is "dominant battlefield awareness," which will
give the United States military a significant advantage in
any armed conflict. This requires an ability to collect
information from large numbers of high-resolution sensors,
automatic processing of the data to support terrain and
target recognition, and real-time distribution of that data
to the warfighter. This will require orders of magnitude
more bandwidth than is currently commercially available.
Distance Education: Universities are now experimenting with
technologies such as two-way video to remote sites, VCR-like
replay of past classes, modeling and simulation,
collaborative environments, and online access to
instructional software. Distance education will improve the
ability of universities to serve working Americans who want
new skills, but who cannot attend a class at a fixed time
during the week.
Energy Research: Scientists and engineers across the
country will be able to work with each other and access
remote scientific facilities, as if they were in the same
building. "Collaboratories" that combine
video-conferencing, shared virtual work spaces, networked
scientific facilities, and databases will increase the
efficiency and effectiveness of our national research
enterprise.
Biomedical Research: Researchers will be able to solve
problems in large-scale DNA sequencing and gene
identification that were previously impossible, opening the
door to breakthroughs in curing human genetic diseases.
Environmental Monitoring: Researchers are constructing a
"virtual world" to model the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem, which
serves as a nursery area for many commercially important
species.
Manufacturing engineering: Virtual reality and modeling and
simulation can dramatically reduce the time required to
develop new products.
Funding: The Administration will fund this initiative by
allocating $100 million for R&D and research networks to develop
the Next Generation Internet. This increase in FY98 funding will
be offset by a reallocation of defense and domestic technology
funds. As with previous networking initiatives, the
Administration will work to ensure that this federal investment
will serve as a catalyst for additional investment by
universities and the private sector.
Implementation: The principal agencies involved in this
initiative are the National Science Foundation, the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Department of Energy,
NASA, and the National Institutes of Health. Other agencies may
be involved in promoting specific applications related to their
missions.
INTERNET TIMELINE
1969 Defense Department commissions ARPANET to promote
networking research.
1974 Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf publish paper which specifies
protocol for data networks.
1981 NSF provides seed money for CSNET (Computer Science
NETwork) to connect U.S. computer science departments.
1982 Defense Department establishes TCP/IP (Transmission
Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) as standard.
1984 Number of hosts (computers) connected to the Internet
breaks 1,000.
1986 NSFNET and 5 NSF-funded supercomputer centers created.
NSFNET backbone is 56 kilobits/second.
1989 Number of hosts breaks 100,000.
1991 NSF lifts restrictions on commercial use of the
Internet.
High Performance Computing Act, authored by
then-Senator Gore, is signed into law.
World Wide Web software released by CERN, the European
Laboratory for Particle Physics.
1993 President Clinton and Vice President Gore get e-mail
addresses.
Mosaic, a graphical "Web browser" developed at the
NSF-funded National Center for Supercomputing
Applications, is released. Traffic on the World Wide
Web explodes.
1994 White House goes on-line with "Welcome to the White
House."
1995 U.S. Internet traffic now carried by commercial
Internet service providers.
1996 Number of Internet hosts reaches 12.8 million.
President Clinton and Vice President Gore announce
"Next Generation Internet" initiative.
[Source: Hobbes' Internet Timeline, v. 2.5]
Business and University Leaders Endorse the Administration's
Next-Generation Internet Proposal
"Silicon Graphics applauds the current Administration for
recognizing the power and limitless value of the Internet. Their
forward-thinking Next Generation Internet initiative sets an
example by leadership that will encourage organizations, in both
public and private sectors, to fully leverage the Internet, and
to become a part of the Information Age."
Edward R. McCracken, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of
Silicon Graphics
"I include myself among the many who have encouraged judicious
Government sponsorship of research beyond the horizon of normal
product development. The Next Generation Internet initiative
builds on the foundation of earlier research sponsored by
far-sighted funding agencies seeking to solve real problems but
willing to take risks for the sake of high payoff. As in the
recent past, the results of this program will almost surely
trigger serendipitous discoveries and unlock billions of dollars
in corporate product/service development. With any reasonable
success, America will enter the 21st Century surfing a tidal wave
of new networking technology unleashed by the Next Generation
Internet."
Vinton G. Cerf, Senior Vice President of Data Architecture, MCI
"There is no question that the Internet would never have happened
without the leadership of the government and universities working
together. The Next Generation Internet will have an even bigger
impact on the world."
Eric Schmidt, Chief Technology Officer, Sun
The continued advance of computer networking technology is
fundamental to our nation's continued leadership in scientific
research. Just as higher education, in partnership with industry
and government, led in the development and realization of the
Internet, this effort will once again focus our best minds on
another significant advance in the use of network technology.
The result will not only strengthen our research capability, but
will also lead to innovations that provide broader access to
education.
Homer Neal, President, University of Michigan
"The promise of a new generation of networks that will enable
collaborative, multi-disciplinary research efforts is essential
to meeting national challenges in many disciplines, and to ensure
a continuing leadership role for the United States' academic
community. Higher Education welcomes the opportunity for a
renewed partnership with the federal government and industry to
develop the advanced network infrastructure upon which these
networking capabilities depend."
Graham Spanier, President, Pennsylvania State University
Qs and As on Next-Generation Internet Initiative
October 10, 1996
Q 1. Why does the government need to do this, given that the
commercial Internet industry is growing so explosively?
The U.S. research community and government agencies have
requirements that can not be met on today's public Internet or
with today's technology. For example, the Department of Defense
needs the ability to transmit large amounts of real-time imagery
data to military decision-makers to maintain "information
dominance." Scientists and engineers at universities and
national labs need reliable and secure access to remote
supercomputers, scientific facilities, and other researchers
interacting in virtual environments. The productivity of the
U.S. research community will be increased if they have access to
high-speed networks with advanced capabilities. These new
technologies will also help meet important national missions in
defense, energy, health and space.
An initiative of this nature would not be undertaken by the
private sector alone because the benefits can not be captured by
any one firm. The Administration believes that this initiative
will generate enormous benefits for the Nation as a whole. It
will accelerate the wide-spread availability of networked
multimedia services to our homes, schools and businesses, with
applications in areas such as community networking, life-long
learning, telecommuting, electronic commerce, and health care.
Q 2. What are some of the capabilities that the "Next Generation
Internet" will have that today's Internet does not?
Below are just of the few of the possibilities. Many new
applications will be developed by those using the Next Generation
Internet.
o An increased ability to handle real-time, multimedia
applications such as video-conferencing and "streams" of
audio and video -- very important for telemedicine and
distance education. Currently, the Internet can't make any
guarantees about the rate at which it will deliver data to a
given destination, making many real-time applications
difficult or impossible.
o Sufficient bandwidth to transfer and manipulate huge volumes
of data. Satellites and scientific instruments will soon
generate a terabyte (a trillion bytes) of information in a
single day. [The printed collection of the Library of
Congress is equivalent to 10 terabytes.]
o The ability to access remote supercomputers, construct a
"virtual" supercomputer from multiple networked
workstations, and interact in real-time with simulations of
tornadoes, ecosystems, new drugs, etc.
o The ability to collaborate with other scientists and
engineers in shared, virtual environments, including
reliable and secure remote use of scientific facilities.
Q 3. Is it still Administration policy that the "information
superhighway" will be built, owned, and operated by the private
sector?
Absolutely. The Administration does believe that it is
appropriate for the government to help fund R&D and research
networks, however.
Partnerships with industry and academia will ensure that the
results of government-funded research are widely available.
Q 4. Will this benefit all Americans, or just the research
community?
By being a smart and demanding customer, the federal
government and leading research universities will accelerate the
commercial availability of new products, services, and
technologies. New technologies have transitioned very rapidly
from the research community to private sector companies. For
example, Mosaic, the first graphical Web browser, was released by
the National Center for Supercomputing Applications 1993. By
1994, Netscape and other companies had formed to develop
commercial Web browsers. Today, millions of Americans use the
Web.
The public will also benefit from the economic growth and
job creation that will be generated from these new technologies,
the new opportunities for life-long learning, and research
breakthroughs in areas such as health.
Q 5. What will it do about "traffic jams" on the Internet, or
the ability of the Internet to continue its phenomenal rate of
growth?
The lion's share of the responsibility for dealing with this
problem lies with the private sector. Internet Service Providers
will have to invest in higher capacity, more reliable networks
to keep up with demand from their customers.
However, this initiative will help by investing in R&D,
creating testbeds, and serving as a first customer for many of
the technologies that will help the Internet grow and flourish.
One of the goals of the initiative is to identify and deploy
technologies that will help the Internet continue its exponential
rate of growth. Examples include:
o Ultra-fast, all-optical networks;
o Faster switches and routers;
o The ability to "reserve" bandwidth for real-time
applications;
o A new version of the Internet Protocol that will prevent a
shortage of Internet addresses;
o "Multicast" technology that conserves bandwidth by
disseminating data to multiple recipients at the same time;
o Software for replicating information throughout the
Internet, thereby reducing bottlenecks;
o Software for measuring network performance; and
o Software to assure reliability and security of information
transmitted over the Internet.
Q 6. How does this initiative relate to existing government
programs, such as the High Performance Computing and
Communications Initiative? Will this be a totally new network?
The initiative represents an increase in the HPCC budget.
The initiative will include both: (1) an expansion and
augmentation of existing research networks supported by NSF, the
Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, and NASA; (2)
new networks;and (3) development of applications by agencies
such as the National Institutes of Health.
Q 7. Are more technical details on the initiative available?
The Administration intends to consult broadly with the
research community, the private sector, and other stakeholders
before developing the final technical details for this
initiative.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 04:47:33 -0700 (PDT)
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject: File 2--Justice Dept completes second phase of CDA appeal (HotWired)
http://www.hotwired.com/netizen/96/40/special3a.html
HotWired, The Netizen
3 October 1996
CDA and the Supremes
by Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com)
Washington, DC, 2 October
Racing against a midnight deadline, the Justice Department late
Monday evening completed the second phase of its appeal to the Supreme
Court after its initial loss in the Communications Decency Act
lawsuit.
The solicitor general only has to argue in the 28-page jurisdictional
statement that there's a substantial constitutional issue at stake in
this lawsuit - something transparently obvious to anyone who's been
following the CDA court battle.
The next move is up to the attorneys from the American Civil Liberties
Union and the American Library Association. They plan to file a motion
asking the High Court to uphold the Philadelphia court's decision
without scheduling a full hearing.
Chris Hansen, who heads the ACLU legal team handling the CDA case,
says that if the Supreme Court grants their motion, it would
effectively be saying "the lower court was so deeply correct" that the
justices don't need to learn more about the case. As a legal tactic,
it means the more censor-happy justices couldn't water down the
Philadelphia judges' unanimous decision upholding free speech online.
"Anytime the Supreme Court decides the case with a full briefing,
there's no guarantee that we'll win - or win in the same terms,"
Hansen says.
But because this is a precedent-setting and controversial lawsuit, the
Supremes almost certainly will want to hear the appeal themselves.
When the justices place this case on the court's calendar, they'll
likely give both parties a few months to file the next stage of the
lawsuit, which will be a strained and torturous collection of
arguments from the government trying to explain why the lower court
was wrong. Then oral arguments will be held next spring.
The solicitor general's jurisdictional statement itself largely
summarizes the arguments the government has already made. It does
additionally argue, however, that a cable television indecency case
the High Court decided after the June CDA decision buttresses the
government's defense of the law:
"Because the CDA's definition of indecency is almost identical to the
decision [the Supreme Court] upheld against a vagueness challenge ...
that decision reinforces the conclusion that the CDA's restrictions
are not unconstitutionally vague."
Not so, says the ACLU's Hansen: "Even if that were true, it wouldn't
change the result in our case. All three judges in our case thought
the CDA was flawed in other ways besides vagueness."
The government also cites the Shea v. Reno lawsuit - a weaker case
that challenges half of the CDA - that Joe Shea filed in Manhattan
earlier this year on behalf of his online publication, the American
Reporter. Shea won only a partial victory on 29 July, which the DOJ is
now exploiting: "The three-judge court in Shea v. Reno ... held that
the CDA's definition of indecency is not unconstitutionally vague. The
district court in this case erred in reaching a contrary conclusion."
[...]
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 1996 22:33:03 -0800 (PST)
From: David Cassel <destiny@wco.com>
Subject: File 3--AOL Blocking hits Ron Newman
From -- fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu
It's been a bad week for Ron Newman. First he received five copies of the
mass-mailed child pornography spam over three of his accounts. Then, AOL
mistakenly put his ISP on the list of automatically-blocked sites.
"Several AOL users have already lost e-mail that I sent them yesterday,"
Newman said in a Usenet post Friday. Protests from his domain would fall
on deaf ears, since they'd also presumably be filtered. "And if I get
spammed *by* an AOL user," he added, "I no longer have any way to complain
to AOL, because the 'abuse' address at AOL is probably filtering out my
mail as well."
Even more ironic, Newman is a well-respected MIT graduate who established
a set of technical standards for evaluating newsreaders--and he was an
early figure in the internet's clash with the church of Scientology.
"I've never heard of a single net-abuse complaint against my ISP," Newman
observed.
This looks like a mistake. In their war on Cyber Promotions, America
Online blocked delivery for mail from cyber-promo.com, cyberpromo.com, and
cyberpromotions.com. But there's also a Massachusetts internet service
called cybercom.net--Newman's ISP. And AOL put them on the blocked list.
But unlike the spam-only domains, this one has over 1500 users--including
the Art Institute of Boston!
This highlights the pitfalls of the way AOL implemented their mail
controls. All 6 million of the service's members found the blocking had
already taken place. It went into effect immediately, and e-mail delivery
for blocked domains only returned if users pro-actively disabled it. And
AOL appears to have deleted all e-mail from the banished
domains--including Ron's--the day they put the filters onto the 6 million
accounts! "They should have given every AOL user several days' advance
notice that the blocking would begin," Newman said in an interview, "or
required an affirmative decision by each user to begin having their mail
filtered."
Instead, the corporate giant imposed their enemies list from above. For 6
million users, Ron Newman and his fellow users were "vanished" overnight.
More importantly, no one knew why. "The list of sites to be blocked
should include the specific reason that each site is on the list," Newman
continued. "Every AOL user should have ready access to this information."
He points out that AOL users can't even add or remove sites. (Though one
Usenet post suggested this is an unpublicized feature of AOL's
mailreader.)
And the incident suggests another important feature. "Mail should *never*
be silently "eaten"..." ("I no longer get a bounce message even when I
send to a non-existent user name at AOL!" Newman's Usenet post observed
Friday.) So what does he think of AOL's new filtering system? "I think
it sucks!"
"Nothing like having a 800-lb gorilla sit on you," one observer commented
privately. The irony is, it's trivial for junk mailers to elude AOL's
blocks simply by creating new domain names. (A point AOL conceded to
Interactive Week [9/5/96]) And of course, the blocking controls won't
affect spam originating from AOL--a British newspaper reported that up to
9,000 people received last week's AOL-domain child pornography
solicitation. AOL's moves appear mostly for show--a test mailbox tonight
still contains 5 pieces of junk mail.
While cybercom.net wondered if they'd be the first casualty of AOL's
once-a-week update policy for the blocked-domains list, AOL quietly
scratched them off the list Monday afternoon--"pending a further review"
AOL's spokesman told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. While AOL's
postmaster publicly announced the new mail controls Friday, he was
noticeably silent about the correction. Possibly because it calls
attention to flaws in AOL's procedure. "The AOL tool 'silently' blocks
incoming mail, without notifying the sender, as is customary on the
Internet," Art Kramer wrote in the Journal-Constitution. "So senders at
the 53 domains are not aware that any e-mail to AOL users has been
intercepted and destroyed." "I'd like AOL to tell me and my ISP what is
going on," Newman told me Monday night. "So far I've heard *nothing* from
AOL other than 'we're looking into it.' I had to read Usenet to learn that
AOL had removed us from the block list -- just as I had to read Usenet a
few days ago to learn that AOL had put us on the list in the first place."
In Newman's opinion, AOL's policy is "fundamentally flawed". "It is