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Computer underground Digest Sun Mar 8, 1998 Volume 10 : Issue 17
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
Shadow-Archivists: Dan Carosone / Paul Southworth
Ralph Sims / Jyrki Kuoppala
Ian Dickinson
Field Agent Extraordinaire: David Smith
Cu Digest Homepage: http://www.soci.niu.edu/~cudigest
CONTENTS, #10.17 (Sun, Mar 8, 1998)
File 1--Re: Brian Milburn (Cu Digest, #10.16, Wed 4 Mar 98)
File 2--Re: Censorware (Cu Digest, #10.16, Wed 4 Mar 98)
File 3--Re: Net Disruption (Cu Digest, #10.16, Wed 4 Mar 98)
File 4--Re: *ALERT* Internet Vulnerability * COUNTERMEASURES *
File 5-- In Re - European Parliment STOA Program
File 6--"USAG Reno pushes for computer security" (infoworld fwd)
File 7--"Computers, Freedom, Privacy"
File 8--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 7 May, 1997)
CuD ADMINISTRATIVE, EDITORIAL, AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION APPEARS IN
THE CONCLUDING FILE AT THE END OF EACH ISSUE.
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Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 06:42:45 -0800 (PST)
From: "Robert J. Woodhead (AnimEigo)" <trebor@ANIMEIGO.COM>
Subject: File 1--Re: Brian Milburn (Cu Digest, #10.16, Wed 4 Mar 98)
>The question is, why should we have to work to get around Brian Milburn's
>censorship, (or should I say Focus on the Family, to think I used to be
>intimately involved with them?)? You and I may be able to create an
>application that could send CyberSitter every URL listed on Yahoo, but the
>average parent can't and doesn't want to. The average parent should be able
>to pick and choose what is blocked -- if they choose to block anything. As
>usual, in this type of debate, the fact that a child who is supervised
>while using the Internet by their parent has the best "filter" of all
>installed is never mentioned.
As to pick-n-choose, I agree. Insofar as censorware has a use, it should
be parent-configurable - with the current settings readable by the user.
The problem isn't so much with the idea of censorware, but the current
implementations - and the current implementors (!)
So, if you really want to piss off Bruce Milburn, write a totally
configurable censorware product, and make it freeware, with a "Prejudice
Construction Kit" that lets every nutgroup in the world build a module that
eradicates their particular infidels from their kids view of the internet.
Then, of course, spam the net to announce it ;^)
Finally, consider that the *publication* of CyberSitter's settings (as
reverse engineered) would be illuminating.
>No offense to anyone else out there, but it is beginning to seem -- with
>this filterware debate -- that I spend more time supervising my dog, Lady
>Joyous of Shasta, CD (Golden Retriever, the 'CD' means 'companion dog' and
>is a result of winning obedience trials), than they do supervising their
>kids.
Intelligent parents (of which I am hopefully one, with computer-literate
but not yet surfing kids) tend to view censorware as a first-cut "spam" (or
"scum") filter. Anyone who has kids know they are a 24-7 proposition, and
an exhausting one at that. Labor saving devices are seized upon, so that
the time can be spent on hopefully more important parenting tasks.
I personally would want one that blocked spelling and grammar errors, so
that my kids aren't corrupted by bad writing. Of course, this would mean
they couldn't visit their daddy's pages...
>This all seems like too much work. The persons who are able to do this,
>won't want to take the time to do it, because they won't buy into Milburn's
>tripe and the others, well, unfortunately, they will probably buy his tripe
>and be none the wiser. By the way, I am still not convinced that breaking
>the weak encryption on CyberSitter's software for your own information
>would be illegal, either criminally or tortiously.
Maybe not, but I doubt Mr. Milburn will agree with your legal analysis.
Lawsuits are so pesky, so why not simply be more elegant?
(that rustling sound is Bruce Milburn checking his clickwrap agreement to
see if he's got that base covered...)
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 12:15:26 -0500 (EST)
From: "Bill Michaelson" <bill@COSI.COM>
Subject: File 2--Re: Censorware (Cu Digest, #10.16, Wed 4 Mar 98)
> >Regarding the various censorware programs... everyone seems to be
> >making the assumption that parents _do_ have the right to censor
> >what their children see. But is this truly the case, in ethics if
> >not in law?
It's not strictly the case, as you have ably pointed out.
BTW, I'm not one of "everyone", although I agree that most people seem to
accept as a basic premise that children should be shielded from certain
types of information. We who believe otherwise are in a very tiny minority.
I suppose this doctrine is firmly embedded in our culture, with
movie rating schemes and similar filtering/censoring devices all
around. It's practically apostasy to suggest that children can
handle any information with proper guidance. But having been a child
who was allowed access to any type of information, I find this
censorship quite repugnant.
It is comforting to me to believe that we are very concerned with child
welfare, but I am cynical because of the many who apparently trot
out the child welfare issue as justification for their political agendas.
I think children are far more resilient than we give them credit
for being. We only stunt their intellectual growth when we withhold
information (of any kind) from them. And when some claim that children
are not "ready" for information, it is really the *adults* who are not
ready or willing to discuss the issues with their children.
> If I don't have the right to control and monitor the information my
> children receive, than who does? The guvmint? No one?
Controlling and monitoring are distinct activities. I heartily approve
of monitoring (and editorializing upon) the information children receive.
I do not approve of controlling it to the extent that any information
is excluded.
Regardless, I would give you the right to do both with your children,
just so that I could live in peace with you. I wouldn't necessarily
approve, and we might clash at the school board meeting occasionally.
In the end, I suppose my child would then have a competitive advantage
over yours.
> >We do not allow parents to keep their children from getting an
> >education. We do not allow this even though that education can lead
> >to those children learning things that will cause them to disagree
> >with their parents.
>
> Parents do not have the right to keep their children from an education
> but with things like the PTA and school board meetings we do have some
> control on the content of that education.
And the PTA and the school board, et al, battle it out, and the kids are
taught the resulting curriculum over some parents' objections. That
was the original poster's point.
> > We do not allow this even though that education
> >can lead to those children learning things that will shock them -
> >such as about war.
>
> War is a fact and cannot be hidden, however are you going to show photos
> of Aushwitz to a 3rd grade class or pictures of liberated villages whose
> people are glad that some one stood up to fight when it was necessary.
Is that how you choose to introduce the concept of war to children? Show
them the glory before you show them the horror? I'm getting a fresh
perspective on why war has persisted through the ages.
> Showing a little child pictures of horror will not end wars
Not by itself it won't.
> in the future but it will frighted, shock, and disturb him. Is this
> the way we want our small children to feel?
Yes. That is exactly how I want our small children to feel about war.
Frightened, shocked and confused. That's how I feel about war. What
about you?
> I don't and will do everything I can to
> block such sights from them until I think they're ready.
"Ready", how? Ready to accept such sights unemotionally?
Interesting to me that you use Aushwitz and third grade as an example.
That's when I first learned about the Holocaust. I was about 7 or 8 years
old when I pulled a history book off my aunt's shelf while looking for
entertainment and found graphic descriptions of what man does to man in the
photos of liberated Nazi concentration camps. Yeah, I was disturbed and
confused. It was the weirdest shit I'd ever seen, and it took me years
to digest it. But I was old enough to go seeking information in history
books, so I found history, in a dosage exactly proportional to my
perceptual abilities at the time. Later, when I heard about this
guy called Hitler, it really meant something to me.
I disagree with the notion that showing a child pictures of horror will
not end war. It will require a lot of factors to end war, but at the
core of our motivation will be a visceral revulsion of it. Short of
first-hand experience (which would be self-defeating), how are people
to acquire such revulsion through sanitized presentations at only
"appropriate" times?
Through a picture is the best way for a child to see a war, and it should
be seen, as early as possible, as far as I'm concerned. A child can
then contrast it with the reality of the decent civilized community within
which (hopefully) they live. They need to see the possibilities while
they're young and it will make the most lasting impression. This is
important stuff to learn while young.
> Violence is a fact of life but it is my job as a parent to protect my
> children from violence as long as I can. I fail to see how teaching
So protect them from violence. Don't "protect" them from knowledge.
> self-defence to an eight year old can protect them from violence from an
> adult. I must and do teach my kids what they can do in a bad situation,
> but I also try to teach them that in many instances violence is not as
> ubiquitious as the media portrays. I don't hide the fact of violence and
> hate from them but if I left it up to them to learn on their own, would
> they not learn that it is unavoidable, everyone is evil, and they can do
> nothing to escape it? Wouldn't it be more traumatic for my kids to live
> paranoid and afraid? Because of the sensational nature of the really
> heinous crimes, might they not think they are more prevelant then they
> actually are? Of course I'm going to keep some of this from my kids
> until I, no one else, decide that they are ready to handle it.
So you are seeking a sense of balance in how media portrays life for your
child. That's sensible. Supervise and mediate, advise and consult. Help
them think critically. Don't let them live in a fantasy world shaped by
television and video games. You sound like a concerned, well-meaning and
loving parent.
But don't prohibit them from learning about ANYTHING. You can't stop it,
and if you try, you'll lose some of their trust. They're very smart, and
if you think you are keeping information from them, then it's almost
certain that THEY are or will be keeping information from YOU. Believe it.
> >Yes, as a previous poster said, a 10-year-old searching for
> >information under "American Girl" may see things that will remain
> >with that child for the rest of his or her life. But there is no
> >evidence that this harms the child; there are a _lot_ of things that
> >remain with people throughout their lives. Parents have the
> >opportunity to do a lot of things that have this characteristic;
> >should they be able to shut children off from others doing the same,
> >if no harm is done to the child?
>
> Maybe this stuff will do no permanent harm but they can be confusing to
> a child without the maturity to handle it. The little folks have enough
That's how maturity is acquired.
> problems living in the big folks world as it is. So I will keep things
> from my kids that I don't think they are ready for.
Like the military draft was something my mother thought I wasn't ready
to handle at the tender age of 18, I'm sure.
Events march on, and you can't stop them.
You're not helping the kids. I suspect that it is you who are not ready
to face these issues with your kids. It's tough to explain to a child why
someone would hang a person from their skull on a meathook. In fact, I
don't really know how to explain it, or whether it merits explanation so
much as it calls for introspection. But if you have kids, you're stuck with
this sort of problem, if you accept the responsibility. Your kids will
know when you are hiding something, or are too squeamish to talk to them
about it. That does not foster trust. Get over it before the gulf gets wide.
> It boils down to a matter of values, not the PC "Family Values" that are
> being touted but the values that I've learned over the years and have
> put into my own life. I will try to instill those values in my children
> until such time as they are ready to develop their own. And I will do it
> by "censorship" if I think that is the way it should be done.
You lead by example. Regardless of your motives, the value you are
instilling is to control people by limiting their access to information.
Perhaps they will learn this lesson well, and use it on you. Watch out
for the teen years.
But that's your privilege. Keep your kids off the 'net until you think
they're "ready". Or supervise them. But don't surrender your parental
responsibilities to someone else with their own social agenda, like a
censorware software maker.
I'm willing to pay the school tax for your kids, and to subsidize your
extra tax write-offs. No problem. But don't ask me to pay the cost of
your parenting responsibilities with my freedom of speech, or the freedom
to seek information of *any* sort. Don't lend support to cockamamie rating
systems that will sterilize the 'net.
I don't mind too much if some parents choose to keep their kids ignorant,
but not anyone else's, and certainly not the world at large.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 20:56:07 +0000
From: Name-Withheld <XXX@XXX.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: File 3--Re: Net Disruption (Cu Digest, #10.16, Wed 4 Mar 98)
>If serious net disruption does occur, for whatever reason, it is critically
>important to observe certain common-sense protocols in the use of phone and
>fax numbers. Effective anarchic communications require a certain finesse
>and forethought.
It's worth pointing that the UK, only, has a system by which the
telephone system could be "pulled" in time of crisis. This has been
publicised in various books by Duncan Campbell, but OTOH it is one
of the things which under the voluntary censorship system papers
and broadcasters have agreed not to mention. Exchanges have
"telephone preference" which can be switched to three (all numbers),
two (political and military numbers in time of civil crisis), or
one (military only in the run up to a war threatening the home
territory). The supposed justification is that people making extra
panic calls in time of crisis would jam the system for priority
callers. Not that they may be supporting the general strike, or
protesting the coming war, of course. Though actually using it
would bring its existence to widespread notice, and probably cause
more panic than it cured! Still, it is hard to make contingency
plans against interefrence with communications in a country
that repressive.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 23:11:36 PST
From: shadow@KRYPTON.RAIN.COM(Leonard Erickson)
Subject: File 4--Re: *ALERT* Internet Vulnerability * COUNTERMEASURES *
In Cu Digest, #10.16, Wed 4 Mar 98, "Richard K. Moore" <rkmoore@iol.ie>
writes:
> The next step is to contact those people NOW - while you still can
> conveniently - and exchange with them your phone numbers, fax numbers, and
> postal addresses. You might even go so far as to make preliminary
> arrangements for "phone-tree" or "photocopy-tree" protocols for
> distributing information, but most of us probably won't get around to that,
> life being what it is. The important thing is to have the necessary data
> on hand well in advance of need.
I suggest checking out Fidonet. Unlike the Internet, Fidonet is *based*
on a "phone directory" (the nodelist) that permits *direct* exchange of
email and files between sites. It also has some elementary security
provisions, such as pre-arranged session passwords.
If a system attempts to connect to my node (1:105/51) and claims to be
a node I have a session passwortd with, it has to include the proper
password in the session handshake. Failure to do so will get the
connection rejected.
Denial of service requires attack dialing my node's phone number, which
is easily reported to the telephone company, who will cheerfully nail
any non-government entity doing such a thing.
Also, I can simply hook my hardware up to a different phone line and
poll the nodes that I expect mail from.
While Fidonet can learn (and has!) a lot from the Internet, I think we
have some features that the Internet could stand to adopt. (e.g. we