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Computer underground Digest Tue Dec 17, 1996 Volume 8 : Issue 89
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, #8.89 (Tue, Dec 17, 1996)
File 1--Jonathan Wallace letter in re Censorship/Blocking
File 2--Internet and Copyright (fwd)
File 3--EDITORIAL: Troubles On The Net...
File 4--clueless paranoid politicians. (fwd)
File 5--Major Denial of Service Attack Hits San Francisco (fwd)
File 6--German Cabinet Approves Internet Regulation (fwd)
File 7--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 13 Dec, 1996)
CuD ADMINISTRATIVE, EDITORIAL, AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION ApPEARS IN
THE CONCLUDING FILE AT THE END OF EACH ISSUE.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 22:31:18 -0500 (EST)
From: jw@bway.net
Subject: File 1--Jonathan Wallace letter in re Censorship/Blocking
Dear Mr. Milburn:
I am a business executive and attorney, publisher of The
Ethical Spectacle, http://www.spectacle.org, and co-author
of Sex, Laws and Cyberspace (Henry Holt, 1996), a book
on Internet freedom of speech.
In that book, we support blocking software as a less restrictive
alternative to the Communications Decency Act. Perhaps naively,
I never imagined that companies like yours would use their
power in the marketplace not merely to assist parents in
controlling what their children see, but to block speech
which has nothing to do with your stated mission.
Your actions in blocking Bennett Haselton's Peacefire.org
site and in threatening his ISP with a total block of all
its subscribers are extremely reprehensible and reflect very
poorly on your company. Your customers--and potential purchasers--
deserve to have a full understanding of your company's behavior,
so that they can make informed product decisions. Effective immediately,
I am mirroring Bennett's essay "Where Do They Not Want You to Go
Today?" on my site at http://www.spectacle.org/peace.html, along
with my own essay, "Don't Buy Cybersitter." I will also be distributing
copies of this letter in the Fight Censorship mailing list
(which is read by many journalists nationwide) and in other
Internet publications.
Sincerely yours,
Jonathan Wallace
jw@bway.net
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 19:47:48 -0600 (CST)
From: Avi Bass <te0azb1@corn.cso.niu.edu>
Subject: File 2--Internet and Copyright (fwd)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Subject--Internet and Copyright
I received permission to send out a copy of the following letter, thinking
it would be interesting for some of you on the list and because this is a
current topic in the news...
Susan
==========
>The following is a letter by CEO's from 11 important Internet and
>Telecommunications firms. It focuses on the sections in the WIPO
>treaties that would make Internet Service Providers liable for
>unauthorized transmissions of copyrighted works.
>
>The key point of the letter are:
>
>- The exclusive rights created by these Articles could result in
> making service providers liable without knowledge for every
> potentially infringing communication on the Internet.
>
>- Such potential liabilities would force us to monitor third-party
> communications.
>
>- Not only is this technically and economically impractical, it would
> require us to violate individual citizens' privacy rights.
>
>- The result would be sharply increased prices for Internet/online
> services, reduced privacy for users, and reduced connectivity among
> "information have nots" in our society and throughout the world.
>
>
>The letter follows
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>December 10, 1996
>
>President William J. Clinton
>The White House
>1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
>Washington, DC 20500
>
>Dear Mr. President,
>
> As CEOs of America's leading Internet, online, and communications
>companies, we write to express our great concern about draft language in
>the "Basic Proposal for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works" and
>the so- called "New Instrument," supported by your Administration,
>currently under consideration at the World Intellectual Property
>Organization ("WIPO") Diplomatic Conference in Geneva.
>
> Our companies have significant intellectual property interests to
>protect on the NII and GII, and we strongly support the development of all
>future technological measures that will help to prevent infringements of
>copyright in the online environment. We are supportive of the
>Administration's goal of updating the Berne Convention for the digital
>age. However, this goal must not be achieved in a way that severely
>limits development of the Internet/online medium as a widely accessible,
>low-cost means of communication.
>
> Our companies build and operate the "Information Highway" that
>figures so prominently in your vision of the 21st Century. We provide the
>facilities for hundreds of millions of Internet communications that flow
>over our networks each day. These transmissions travel in digital form
>and are often compressed, split among separate packets, and/or encrypted,
>each of which forecloses any practical way of knowing their content.
>Unfortunately, in their current form, Articles 7 and 10 of this draft
>treaty would create and codify new and significant exclusive rights over
>transmission of information and over the operation of computer servers
>that relay information on the Internet by making an automatic, ephemeral
>copy of a communication while sending it toward its destination.
>
> The exclusive rights created by these Articles could result in making
>service providers liable without knowledge for every potentially
>infringing communication on the Internet. Such potential liabilities
>would force us to monitor third-party communications. Not only is this
>technically and economically impractical, it would require us to violate
>individual citizens' privacy rights. The result would be sharply
>increased prices for Internet/online services, reduced privacy for users,
>and reduced connectivity among "information have nots" in our society and
>throughout the world.
>
> We have negotiated with all stakeholders in an attempt to address
>these concerns, while preserving all the important substantive features of
>the draft treaty. Unfortunately, our attempts to seek a balanced
>resolution have thus far been rejected by the Administration. _Unless
>Articles 7 and 10 of the draft treaty address these critical concerns, we
>will have no choice but to work to prevent its ratification by Congress._
>
> Some members of your Administration understand that we are correct on
>the merits of this debate. Others contend that the treaty would not
>affect the issue of liability. It is important to understand, however,
>that the proposed treaty would be self-executing in many countries.
>Further, Articles 7 and 10 may be perceived as precluding protections from
>liability for conduit providers and limitations on liability for service
>providers who act in a timely fashion to "take down" material to protect
>the rights of content owners.
>
> We urge you to reconsider the Administration's current position
>before the WIPO Convention makes a final determination on the issue.
>Rational policy, simple fairness, and consistency with your
>Administration's many positions on the importance of the Internet require
>nothing less.
>
>
>William L. Schrader
>Chairman, President and CEO
>PSINet, Inc.
>
>Steve Case
>Chairman and CEO
>America Online, Inc.
>
>Raymond W. Smith
>Chairman and CEO
>Bell Atlantic Corporation
>
>John L. Clendenin
>Chairman and CEO
>BellSouth Corporation
>
>Robert Massey
>President and CEO
>CompuServe Incorporated
>
>Gerald H. Taylor
>CEO
>MCI Communications Corporation
>
>James Q. Crowe
>Chairman and CEO
>MFS Communications Company, Inc.
>
>David W. Garrison
>President, CEO and Chairman
>Netcom On-Line Communication Services, Inc.
>
>Ivan Seidenberg
>Chairman and CEO
>NYNEX
>
>Paul W. DeLacey
>President and CEO
>Prodigy, Inc.
>
>John Sidgmore
>President and CEO
>UUNet Technologies, Inc.
>
>
>cc: Vice President Albert Gore, Jr.
> Secretary Mickey Kantor
> Ira Magaziner
> Greg Simon
> Dan Tarullo
>
>
>----- End Included Message -----
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>James Love / love@tap.org / P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
>Voice: 202/387-8030; Fax 202/234-5176
>Center for Study of Responsive Law
> Consumer Project on Technology; http://www.essential.org/cpt
> Taxpayer Assets Project; http://www.tap.org
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 20:40:25 -0600 (CST)
From: "Scott A. Davis" <sdavis@fc.net>
Subject: File 3--EDITORIAL: Troubles On The Net...
The following is a small exerpt from an article from the Philadelphia
Inquirer and a follow-up editorial from Scott A. Davis. Scott is the
system administrator and Editor In Chief of Banzai-Institute.org, a site
dedicated to conservative and common sense opinion and commentary on the
news. The following article, as well as others like it can be found at
http://www.banzai-institute.org. Scott can be reached by email at
sdavis@fc.net or sdavis@banzai-institute.org
TITLE: *** Troubles on the Net mirror those elsewhere
"Recent accounts of bogus news downloaded from the Internet, along with
fresh reports of online child pornography and cybersex leading to offline
rape and murder, make this a good time to ask: What is going on with
this Internet thing, anyway?"
"The Internet is portrayed by turns as monstrous -- a fountain of
obscenity, hate and lies -- or as the brightest hope for democracy and
liberty, the renaissance of letter-writing, and on-demand access to the
unexpurgated wisdom of everyone from William Shakespeare to Homer
Simpson."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
[Begin Editorial]
Let me answer the original question "What is going on with this
Internet thing, anyway?" What is going on is that like real society, it is
becoming cluttered with idiots who have nothing better to do than to spam
the world with their commercial advertisements, upload pictures of their
latest 12 year old boy-toy or to partake in other activity that gives the
Internet a bad name.
The Internet was developed by people who have an education level
much higher than the typical American. It was developed for the purpose of
exchanging information between researchers in educational institutions
and/or government agencies. Some years later, the Internet became
semi-public when large companies and other organizations were taking part.
This occurrence didn't do much to lower the quality of the net, as the
"new" people to come onboard had some common sense about them. These large
companies, in the eyes of many, had the same need for the Internet as did
the government and educational institutions.
Then came the World Wide Web. While the web is a great tool and a
fantastic resource, it has...and will be, in my opinion the death of the
Internet.
One cannot put a price on the wealth of information that the web
can produce. One can visit the Smithsonian Institution, every major
college, government agencies, et. al. And for that reason, the web won't
be going away any time soon. But the advent of the web, as well as it's
continuous use and promotion has opened the doors to placing loaded guns
in the hands of children, so to speak.
For instance, the Philadelphia Inquirer's article goes on to say
"In an ongoing investigation that has produced 80 arrests and 66
convictions over the last three years, the FBI last week raided the homes
of Internet users suspected of downloading child pornography in 20 cities
in its crackdown on kiddie porn that is being transmitted via online
services and the Internet." And for that effort, I must say that this is
one good thing that the government is doing in respect to the Internet.
What have people like this done for the Internet? Well, besides
cluttering my news server with pictures of six year old boys, we see or
read almost on a daily basis about attempts by the government to enact
regulation and monitoring of our revered network. And the government's
behavior and thoughts regarding this medium are at times, bloated and
fallacious.
While these people who commit crimes using the Internet should be
punished just as if they had walked outside their front door and
perpetrated the act out on the street, they are causing some entities in
position of power and other decision makers to think that people become
more susceptible because the crime was committed with or originated with a
computer and the Internet.
The Internet is nothing special. It is not the "new society" or
"global community" in the sense that many portray it to be. In many ways,
it is nothing more than an extension of the lives we live away from the
computer. We can't legally abduct a child while walking down the street by
luring them away from their parents with a candy bar.
It is terribly sad, and angering at times, to see that decent,
intelligent people who use the net have been mobbed with idiots, but we
have to learn when and where to draw the line. The Inquirer's article
quoted Neal Goldsmith, social psychologist and publisher of the online
periodical BusinessTech.com as saying "Finding a better fit, a comfort
level, between people and the Internet machine will take a few years..."
Sooner or later, he says, "common sense has to prevail."
Other items that the Inquirer's article lists that I personally
think are bad reflections on the net are:
"In July, three Penncrest High School juniors, one of them an Eagle
Scout, were caught breaking into the chemistry lab at their school
carrying a "shopping list" of chemicals, dozens of bomb recipes and a
terrorist handbook that had been downloaded from the Internet."
I went down to one of the local book stores here in Virginia the
other day and saw several copies of "The Anarchist Cookbook" on the shelf.
These punks could have just as easily done the same thing. Just because
information like is available on the Internet means nothing more than they
didn't have to get off their lazy asses to go to the book store and spend
their lunch money on the book, which I'm sure contains some of the same
information they obtained on the net.
"Police say a Maryland woman, Sharon Lopatka, was killed last month by a
man she had met on the Internet who had agreed to fulfill her bizarre
request to be tortured to death."
It takes all kinds to make the world go 'round. A match made in
heaven, evidently.
"A Columbia University graduate student, Oliver Jovanovic, was charged
nine days ago with the sexual torture of a woman he allegedly met in a
chat room on America Online."
Well, as Neal Goldsmith said, "common sense has to prevail."
However, it is obvious that that time is not yet upon us. There are still
stupid people in this world who do stupid things and promote stupid
misconceptions about the Internet. This story might have been printed deep
in the bowels of your local news paper had it not involved a computer. But
since these two people met over a computer, the world has the story
plastered to it's face.
"Advice columnist Ann Landers has been airing the painful stories of
people who say that their marriages are breaking up because of online
affairs, or that finally meeting that dream cyberlover turned into a
real-life nightmare."
...and just like in real life, if you ain't gettin' it at home, you
gotta go elsewhere. ...and in typical fashion, let's write a cry-baby
letter to Ann Landers rather than solve the problem at home.
The point is, the Internet is not some new-sprung,
disproportionate world. It's just another medium for the same injustices
and misgivings to take place as do in the real world. Crimes and other
unfortunate happenings should not be spotlighted because they entail the
use of a computer. That's what I think.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 00:20:30 -0500 (EST)
From: "noah@enabled.com" <noah@enabled.com>
Subject: File 4--clueless paranoid politicians. (fwd)
From -Noah
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date--Mon, 16 Dec 1996 21:21:17 -0600 (CST)
From--Brett L. Hawn <blh@nol.net>
Parolees can be kept offline
By Courtney Macavinta
December 16, 1996, 6:30 p.m. PT
A branch of the U.S. Department of Justice today approved new
restrictions on parolees that allow judges to prohibit them from
using the Internet.
Adding to restrictions parolees already face on their travel and
association, the U.S. Parole Commission stated: "Responding to
increased criminal use of the Internet has approved the
discretionary use of special conditions of parole that would
impose tight restrictions on the use of computers by high-risk
parolees."
The Commission made the decision noting the "surge of 'how-to'
information available on the Internet and other computer online
services." The statement went on to say that the Net gives
sophisticated offenders new avenues to commit crime or forge
criminal associations.
The new restrictions would allow the parolee to get written
permission to surf the Net or get an Internet account. The
provision allows for unannounced searches of a parolee's computer
system and could require a daily computer log of the user's
activity.
<snip>
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 08:49:13 -0500 (EST)
From: "noah@enabled.com" <noah@enabled.com>
Subject: File 5--Major Denial of Service Attack Hits San Francisco (fwd)
From -Noah
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date--Tue, 17 Dec 1996 08:56:06 -0500
From--Betty G. O'Hearn <betty@infowar.com>
We thank our sponsors:
Internet Security Solutions
New Dimensions International - Security Training
Secure Computing Corporation
HOMECOM Communications
National Computer Security Association
OPEN SOURCE SOLUTIONS, Inc.
Denial of Service-
COMPUTER ATTACKS AGAINST WEBCOM
By Elizabeth Weise
AP Cyberspace Writer
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- An computer attack against WebCom, one of
the nation's larger World Wide Web service providers, knocked out
more than 3,000 Web sites for 40 hours this weekend during the
busiest shopping season of the year. The attack began Saturday
morning at 12:20 a.m., said Web Communications' chief operating
officer Chris Schefler from the company's offices in Santa Cruz,
Calif. Service resumed at 4 p.m. Sunday. WebCom helps companies
and individuals set up Web sites and provides storage space on
its computer from which the sites run.
The outage was particularlyhard on retailers who promote and sell
products on WebCom-based home pages. The attack, launched by an
unknown individual or party, blocked service by sending as many
as 200 messages a second to the WebCom server, or host computer.
This specific "denial of service" attack, known as a SYN-flood,
leaves the computer unable to respond to the flood of messages,
which queue up and eventually render it unable to function at
all.
<snip>
A91996 Associated Press
__________________________________________________________________