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From dfox@fc.net Wed Jan 18 09:48:08 1995
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 1995 08:45:02 -0600
From: JAUC <dfox@fc.net>
Subject: JAUC-INDEX
THERE ARE 13 FILES (INCLUDING THIS TITLE) IN THIS ISSUE... PLEASE ALLOW
3 DAYS BEFORE COMPLAINING ABOUT NOT RECEIVING THEM. THANK YOU.
=======================================================================
THE JOURNAL OF AMERICAN UNDERGROUND COMPUTING / Published Quarterly
======================================================================
ISSN 1074-3111 Volume One, Issue Seven January 17, 1994
======================================================================
Editor-in-Chief: Scott Davis (dfox@fc.net)
Co-Editor/Technology: Max Mednick (kahuna@fc.net)
Conspiracy Editor: Gordon Fagan (flyer@io.com)
Information Systems: Carl Guderian (bjacques@usis.com)
Legal Editor Steve Ryan (blivion@sccsi.com)
Computer Security: George Phillips (ice9@paranoia.com)
Graphics/WWW Design Mario Martinez (digital@comland.com)
** ftp site: etext.archive.umich.edu /pub/Zines/JAUC
** ftp site: ftp.fc.net /pub/tjoauc
U.S. Mail:
The Journal Of American Underground Computing
or Fennec Information Systems
10111 N. Lamar - Suite 25
Austin, Texas 78753-3601
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
IMPORTANT ADDRESSES -
============================================================================
To Subscribe to "TJOAUC", send mail to: sub@fennec.com
All questions/comments about this publication to: comments@fennec.com
Send all articles/info that you want published to: submit@fennec.com
Commercial Registration for Profitable Media: form1@fennec.com
============================================================================
"The underground press serves as the only effective counter to a growing
power, and more sophisticated techniques used by establishment mass media
to falsify, misrepresent, misquote, rule out of consideration as a priori
ridiculous, or simply ignore and blot out of existence: data, books,
discoveries that they consider prejudicial to establishment interest..."
(William S. Burroughs and Daniel Odier, "The Job", Viking, New York, 1989)
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Contents Copyright (C) 1995 The Journal Of American Underground Computing
and/or the author of the articles presented herein. All rights reserved.
Nothing may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission
of the Editor-In-Chief and/or the author of the article. This publication
is made available periodically to the amateur computer hobbyist free of
charge. Any commercial usage (electronic or otherwise) is strictly
prohibited without prior consent of the Editor, and is in violation of
applicable US Copyright laws. To subscribe, send email to sub@fennec.com
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
DISCLAIMER AND NOTICE TO DISTRIBUTORS -
NOTE: This electronic publication is to be distributed free of charge
without modifications to anyone who wishes to have a copy. Under NO
circumstances is any issue of this publication, in part or in whole,
to be sold for money or services, nor is it to be packaged with other
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the express written or verbal consent of the author and/or editor.
To obtain permission to distribute this publication under any of the
certain circumstances stated above, please contact the editor at one of
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This publication is provided without charge to anyone who wants it.
This includes, but is not limited to lawyers, government officials,
cops, feds, hackers, social deviants, and computer hobbyists. If anyone
asks for a copy, please provide them with one, or mail the subscription
list so that you may be added.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
TABLE OF CONTENTS
[File #1:]
Is There A Santa Claus Unknown
What Do People Think Unknown
.SIG Heil K. K. Campbell
WWW - The Junkyard Of The Internet Ram Samudrala
Austin (Tx) Zeen Scene Josh Ronsen
Object Technology In Cyberspace Chris Hand
[File #2]
Deadkat Deadkat
EFF Personnel Announcement Stanton McCandlish
Reader Feedback Our Reader(s)
Call Security / Voice Crypto FAQ Neil Johnson
There's A Body On The Internet Uncle Bob's NN #103
[File #3]
Windows And TCP/IP For Internet Access Harry Kriz
[File #4]
Windows And TCP/IP For Internet Access (Cont...) Harry Kriz
[File #5]
Say What? Libel And Defamation On The Internet Eric Eden
Jacking In From The "Back From The Dead" Port Brock Meeks
Announcing Slipknot Felix Kramer
[File #6]
Telecommunications Security Howard Fuhs
[File #7]
Old Freedoms And New Technologies Jay Weston
Information Superhighway: Reality Reid Goldsborough
Internet Tools Summary John December
LOD T-Shirts Chris Goggans
[File #8]
Interview With Erik Bloodaxe (Chris Goggans) Netta Gilboa
[File #9]
Review Of Slipknot 1.0 Scott Davis
cDc GDU #18 Swamp Ratte
My Letter To Wired Magazine Scott Davis
[File #10]
Caller ID FAQ Padgett Peterson
The Pentium Bug War Ends As We Know It James/Ted Barr
Pentium Non-Disclosure Agreement Of Dr. Nicely Thomas Nicely
The Computer Nevermore [A Late Christmas Tale] Unknown
Twas The Night Before Star Trek [Another One] Unknown
Santa Claus Source Code [The Last Late X-Mas Tale] Unkown
[File #11]
My Life As An International Arms Courier Matt Blaze
An Open Letter To Wired Magazine Chris Goggans
When Bigotry Outpaces Technology Douglas Welch
Letter From Steve Case: Child Porn On AOL Steve Case
[File #12]
Lee Harvey Oswald Died For Your Sins Gordon Fagan
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 1995 09:44:40 -0600
From: JAUC <dfox@fc.net>
Subject: JAUC-File1
[Editor's note: Since we did not come out with an issue anytime near
Christmas, I am throwing all of our holiday stuff in first. Have a
great year]
IS THERE A SANTA CLAUS?
By: Unknown
As a result of an overwhelming lack of requests, and with research help
from that renown scientific journal SPY magazine (January, 1990) - I am
pleased to present the annual scientific inquiry into Santa Claus.
1) No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000
species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of
these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying
reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.
2) There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT
since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and
Buddhist children, that reduces the workload up to 15% of the total -
378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average
(census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million
homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.
3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the
different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he
travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6
visits per second. That is to say that for each Christian household
with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of
the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the
remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left,
get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the
next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly
distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false
but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now
talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million
miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once
every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc.
This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second,
3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the
fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at
a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops,
15 miles per hour.
4) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element.
Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego
set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting
Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land,
conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting
that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal
amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need
214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the
weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this
is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.
5) 353,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous
air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as
spacecrafts re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of
reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second.
Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously,
exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in
their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26
thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to
centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound
Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of
his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.
In conclusion - If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve,
he's dead now.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
WHAT DO PEOPLE THINK?
[Editor's Note: This was sent to us from a person who thought this
was funny...and indeed it was. But I was blown back by trying to
discover how (or WHAT) this person was thinking... In order not to
reveal any company or the stupidity of some people, I have deleted
the name of the author, and removed the name of the computer company
and replaced their name with [COMPUTER COMPANY]. The
company is a Fortune 500 company in Texas.
Subj: [COMPUTER COMPANY] Suggestion Box
Date: 94-11-11 18:49:05 EST
From: xxxxxxxxx
To: [COMPUTER COMPANY] Sysop
To: Sysop
Sent on: America Online (using WAOL 1.5)
Field 3 = I would like for [COMPUTER COMPANY] to send me a free
MultiMedia Computer, Monitor, printer, mouse, and modem. I need the
equipment to start my own Charter business, but I am furloughed (pilot)
and can't afford the equipment. I'll be happy to pay for it when I am
able.
Please send the equipment to:
[name and address deleted to avoid terminally embarrassing the poor idiot]
I thank [COMPUTER COMPANY] in advance for its generosity.
xxxxx
Here is their response:
Subj: Re: [COMPUTER COMPANY] Suggestion Box
Date: 94-11-11 23:22:00 EST
From: xxxxxxxxxx
To: AirLnPilot
CC: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent on: America Online (using WAOL 2.0)
While [COMPUTER COMPANY] understands your situation completely,
certain regulations delineate proper handling of requests of this nature.
Therefore I am forwarding your message to the appropriate agency. You may
want to follow up with them - the address is:
Mr. S. Claus
North Pole, Earth
Please direct any addition requests of this nature directly to this
department to avoid unnecessary delays, especially here at the end of
the fiscal year.
Glad I was able to help,
Sincerely,
xxxxxxxxxxx
[COMPUTER COMPANY]
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
.SIG HEIL
Holocaust revisionism goes up in flame wars
By K.K. Campbell
It was 56 years ago today that Germans awoke to find the Nazis had
spent the night terrorizing Jews and destroying property in something
called "Crystal Night." It was a trial-run pogrom for the Holocaust to
follow.
Once upon a time, net.news (the Internet's public discussion forums)
was swamped with flame wars about the Holocaust. They'd be found
anywhere -- in newsgroups like alt.conspiracy, soc.history,
soc.culture.canada, misc.headlines, alt.individualism etc.
One of the most persistent Nazi-apologists, Dan Gannon
(dgannon@banished.com), wildly spammed Holocaust-denying material,
either not understanding or not caring about netiquette -- that is, you
post appropriate material to appropriate groups. Thousands, from dozens
of newsgroups, complained. Gannon's posts were bad enough, but they
always brought rebuttal and endlessly repeated arguments.
Today, most of these debates are found in one newsgroup:
alt.revisionism -- dedicated to discussing "Holocaust revisionism," the
claim that the Nazi extermination of Jews and other distinct peoples is
a "hoax" exacted upon millions of unwary non-Jews.
Anti-racist and anti-fascist online activists continue to track Gannon
and his pals around the 9,000-odd newsgroups. One such hunter is
Canada's Ken McVay (kmcvay@oneb.almanac.bc.ca). McVay, 53, came to
Canada in 1967 from the U.S. and is now a Canadian citizen (holds dual
citizenship). He's Canada's foremost online anti-revisionist warrior.
I've been reading his stuff for years.
TRUE COLORS
"When I first got started on this, everyone was sort of out there on
their own," McVay told eye in a phone interview from his Vancouver
Island home. "Almost by accident, working groups started coordinating
their efforts." McVay works closely with Danny Keren (dzk@cs.brown.edu)
and Jamie McCarthy (k044477@hobbes.kzoo.edu), among others.
The goal is not censorship. "I am absolutely, unequivocally opposed to
any kind of censorship," McVay says.
This is a real shift in McVay's thinking. I vividly recall reading
McVay his posts from about two years ago, where he'd vehemently defend
Canadian anti-hate speech laws.
"I don't anymore. I think it's the biggest possible mistake." What
changed his mind? "Dealing with these guys on a daily basis for over
two years. Seeing how easy it is to shoot them down. And it is. The
most intellectual among them are stupid and completely inept when it
comes to historical research. And, of course, they are liars. That
being the case, why on Earth would anyone want to shut them up or force
them underground? I want to know who I'm dealing with. I want to know
where they are. And I want to know how their minds work."
To see their true colors, McVay and compatriots badger and prod
revisionists until they drop the scholarly pretense by, say, calling
McVay a "Jew-lover" or complaining Hitler unfortunately missed the
parents of some Jewish netter. It happens regularly.
"These online discussions are not aimed at getting Gannon and his pals
to change their minds," McVay says. "That ain't gonna happen. It's to
reach the rest - - such as the new users that pop up every September in
universities and stumble on this stuff. Many don't know how Nazis
operate. Most racists don't go around with a little patch on their
shoulder proclaiming: `I hate Jews, or blacks, or natives.' But it's
there. We work to bring it out in the open."
A.R. AS TESTING GROUND
McVay and company are working on putting together a book, a primer on
Holocaust-denial techniques. (He hasn't approached a publisher yet.)
You often see the results of this ongoing research in alt.revisionism .
McVay chuckles about having rabid anti-Semites ever at hand to help
write it.
"We throw out a chapter when we think it's done, content-wise. If the
revisionists ignore it completely, then we know it's finished. If they
respond, we say, `Ah! We missed that trick, calling a maple tree a
Porsche.' So we add that argument in." A month later, they upload the
chapter again.
McVay says the "classic" revisionist tactic is misrepresentation of
text. Outright lies.
"They'll cite a historical text: `K.K. Campbell says on page 82 of his
famous book that nobody died at Auschwitz.' Then you go to the Library
of Congress and look up K.K. Campbell, page 82, and what you find he
really said was, `It was a nice day at Dachau.' They get away with this
because they know goddamn well most people don't have time to rush off
to the Library of Congress. But people read that and say to themselves,
`Who would lie about such a thing when it's so easy to prove them
wrong? They must be telling the truth.' "
The years of refutation have resulted in anti-revisionists transcribing
mass amounts of death camp evidence and testimony into computer text
files. McVay saved them. Soon netters requested the material. It began
to take up so much time, he automated the process. You send an email
request, the computer sends you back the file(s).
The archive is now maybe 60 megs and may swell to over a gig in 1995.
Write email to listserv@almanac.bc.ca with the message GET HOLOCAUST/INDEX --
you'll be sent a huge index of Holocaust files (other files, too, on
fascist racist-right groups). If you like the convenience of gopher,
check out jerusalem1.datasrv.co.il .
Revisionists often assert McVay "secretly" gets operating funds from
Jews.
"I don't," McVay says. "The hard-drives are spread out on a table with
a Canadian Tire fan blowing right at them. I can't afford to replace
things, if it breaks, it's gone. However, I'm upfront -- if I get
support money, I'll take it, Jewish or not. The fact that a Jewish
organization would offer several grand to help wouldn't change the
value of the historical data." He'd like to put it all on CD-ROM.
"The Internet has to be a revisionist's worst communications
nightmare," McVay says. "They can't ignore it, because, as you and I
know, in 10-15 years everyone in North America is going to read stuff
through the Internet.
"And that's the beauty of the Internet: once it's refuted in an honest
and academic fashion, you can't run away from it," McVay says.
When the latest revisionist recruit charges in with the same old
pamphlets, it's almost effortless for anyone to request a file and
reply: "We covered this two years ago. Here is the massive refutation
of that so-called scholarly report."
It's there. For everyone. Forever.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Retransmit freely in cyberspace Author holds standard copyright
Full issues of eye in archive gopher://interlog.com
Coupla Mailing lists available http://www.interlog.com/eye
eye@interlog.com "Break the Gutenberg Lock..." 416-971-8421
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
THE WORLD WIDE WEB - The JUNKYARD OF THE INTERNET
By Ram Samudrala (ram@mbisgi.umd.edu)
[Author's Note:]
I am not completely happy with this, especially the second part,
because when I started writing this I had a lot of ideas about it and
now I seem to have run dry. But I went ahead and finished it anyway,
before I lost all interest. Feel free to post this wherever...
For those of you who are familiar with the workings of the web, you
can skip to The Junkyard of the Internet.
------
The World Wide Web
About a year or so ago, there were about 500 HyperText Transfer Protocol
(HTTP) servers on the World Wide Web (www). Now, every other person on
the Internet with some basic computing experience can install their own
server and provide information (I'm using the world quite liberally here)
to the web. I wonder if Tim Berniers-Lee, the person who started the
www project at CERN, really thought it would become the thing that
revolutionized the Internet and end-user computing.
And this issue, the ability to put yourself on a soapbox and be heard by
the world, and the subsequent consequences, is what I will attempt to
address here. First, what does the www give us that we didn't have before?
By posting on USENET news, for example, you're probably heard by a lot
more people than having a web server. Well, the main difference is that
anything you posted normally was lost within in a few days, so your ideas
didn't stay around long enough for everyone to assimilate. On the web,
your pages are permanent, and you can promote them as much as you want
and people will continue increasing the accesses made. But the www
project would probably be doomed without the software that keeps
everything working. Almost every w^3 browser I've used has been of high
quality (which is absolutely crucial), but one of them, NCSA's Mosaic,
stands out in terms of availability and accessibility for a variety of
problems. Marc Andreessen wrote Mosaic for X and it spread like wildfire
when NCSA released free versions of mosaic not just for X, but for a
variety of other platforms, again, about a year ago (September). A friend
of mine referred to it as "The Program of the Gods".
I happened to get seriously addicted to the www at the beginning of this
year, but I got over it soon. I then realized that all one needed was an
anonymous FTP server set up and they could serve documents to the www.
I did this initially, and this is yet another design decision that has been
crucial---the www incorporates several existing information retrieval
mechanisms out on the net, primarily gopher and ftp. I never thought
gopher would be a big hit, and with the advent of the numerous w^3 browsers
for almost any imaginable platform, there really is no need for gopher
clients and why have a gopher server if you can get a http one up running
just as easily? There is only a small (depending on how aesthetically
pleasing you want your pages to look like---one can waste hours making
things look pretty) overhead involved in converting plain documents to the
HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the language that www browsers understand
and use to format your text.
Philosophically, the idea behind the www simply takes Unix philosophy to
the extreme. The whole Internet is abstracted as a gigantic file system,
and HTML allows you to specify any object on the Internet, be it a movie
of comet Shoemaker colliding with Jupiter, gifs of paintings by Dali, a
song you recorded on your 4-track that you have a soundfile of, or things
you should know before you delve into linear and non-linear programming,
by linking the locations of these objects to an anchor of your choice.
And like Unix, a link could be anything, including other programs, telnet
/news/mail/ftp/gopher ports, or just another section of a document. The
touch of button that activates the anchor is all you need to access any
particular link---the software figures out the rest for you---if it's a
soundfile, it'll play it. If it's a movie or a picture, it will bring up
the appropriate viewer, and so on.
The Junkyard of the Internet
This is all very nice, but what it lets you do is also access the latest
porn clip, let you see gifs of Kurt Cobain's shotgunned face, contact your
favourite astrologer for a consultation on-line, and do on-line shopping.
I'm not going to pass judgement on whether these things are "wrong", but
as the web grows, it is clear that it is the entertainment side of the web
that is thriving. Megadeth is probably is one of the first groups to
commercial go all out to advertise a release on the w^3 (the CD comes with
a sticker saying "check out Megadeth, Arizona at through the www at
http://bazaar.com or through FTP" (or something like that), and while
Megadeth, Arizona is a cool place to visit, it is akin to the junk mail
with colourful pictures that you receive in your postbox. It is propaganda.
There are a lot of advantages to having entertainment information
available on the net---but it also results in a lot of spam. And this
is evident not only on the w^3, but also in the USENET newsgroups,
where the commercial Internet provider industry thrives as millions of
subscribers come on line and run amok. A few months ago, an advertisement
on the net would've been flamed to ashes. Now there is a weak response,
but the people who opposed this are fighting a losing war. Advertisers
continue to spam the net. Not to mention the increase in the number "job
wanted" or "items for sale" ads in completely inappropriate newsgroups.
The number of inane USENET groups created for local objects of worship
(I am guilty of this) are numerous. The ease with which computers can
transmit hypermedia (pictures/movies/sounds) has not only furthered the
www revolution but is pushing bandwidth to its limits (a state that we
may perpetually exist in). All this has contributed to an increase in
the noise:signal ratio on the net as a whole, but particularly in USENET
newsgroups and the www.
As w^3 usage increases, and it becomes more flexible to incorporate
some sort of a BBS-type system, like USENET, or USENET itself, in www
browsers, then we will see a exodus from the traditional forms of
Internet use to w^3 use, just as there is a movement from people typing
stuff at the prompt to clicking buttons on the mouse to perform local
tasks. In fact, I predict that many people simply won't even figure out
how to FTP or read news from the prompt, just like many people don't
figure out how to do send mail from the prompt and instead type in a number
or click on the mail icon for their favourite mailer, since they can do
this at the click of a button. Again, this isn't necessarily A Bad Thing.
What this means, however, is that there will be a dichotomy that will
exist on the Internet. There will be people who can navigate the
Internet only with help of the www and there will be those who can do
both, i.e., use the prompt to do stuff. The advantages that the
people who do have access to the internal workings of the system is
left to your imagination. But what this is also leading to is the
concentration of all the spam on the several networks that compose the
Internet to the w^3, and hopefully it will leave the traditional forms
of Internet use as it were. Commercial advertisers are more likely to
find the w^3 a more viable medium to display their wares than making
ephemeral postings on USENET newsgroups, especially given the
capability for multimedia plugs. People, visionaries and otherwise,
can put forth their agenda with ease. Real information will be much
harder to find even with tools like the Web Crawler. All this will
result in The Program of the Gods becoming a metal detector.
Not everything has to be negative: the ability to reach the masses in
an unprecedented way will also hopefully lead to an information
revolution, where information will be made available free (this is
evident in the www pages of the two camps of the San Francisco
newspaper strike). It will lead to independent reporting of events,
and even though these will be biased, the perceiver, facing many
alternatives, can discern the relevant bits themselves. The www, more
than anything else, will lead to a society where information is free.
While I have always been for this, I just realized it comes with a
price---lots of noise. But this might push us to developing better
software that will allow one to filter signal from noise in a
efficient manner.
And then of course, there's the issue of speed---there is nothing like
the net for receiving the latest information on the fly. Sure, it
might be tainted, but when one's working and if, for example, one
wants to check what the latest election results are (why one would
want to do this is another issue), just get on your local newsgroup
and post a message, if there isn't already a continuous thread going
on. And of course, we all know how the www let us view the pictures
of Shoemaker/Jupiter collision almost as it happened. This is
probably the greatest advantage of maintaining a net-lifestyle. No
longer do we have to rely on one or two view points---you can select
among several and information is made available as soon as it is
disseminated.
And what about the incorporation of computers and networking into our
lifestyle? We're holding the First Protein Folding Competition in
Asilomar, CA, and the top priority is making sure we have access to
the Internet. We would be basically lost without this access, i.e.,
without being "plugged in". It is interesting how life has changed
for some of us. 5 years ago, I hated computers and now I cannot go
for a few hours without having access to one. Visions of cyberspace
as portrayed in the cyberpunk genre are still far away in reality, but
a similar affect seems to have been achieved by the people who exist
on the net.
Disclaimers: the Internet isn't just about the USENET or the w^3. I'm
addressing only certain aspects of it.
ram@elan1.carb.nist.gov ...because you believe that science is the
greatest achievement so far of the human race
and its long term best hope for survival and enlightenment.
---John Moult
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
AUSTIN ZEEN SCENE
By Josh Ronsen (rons@quads.uchicago.edu)
Here are some Austin zeens I've read recently. I am somewhat surprised
on how good so many of these are, considering the somewhat stale
nature of Austin's music scene. I've recently posted to alt.zines the
Austin Zine Guild's "Scratch Paper" #2, which is more of an overall
commentary on Austin Publications rather than reviews of individual
zeens as this is. Email me if you missed SP #2, and I will send it to
you.
PEEK-A-BOO #10: This marks the recovery of Peek-A-Boo from a
flirtation with blandness in recent issues, the sex issue, the
Halloween issue, back to the glory of it's first bunch of issues. Lots
of personality and personalities in here. An interview with Blast Off
Country Style, a "scene girl" report (hopefully to become a regular
column) on cute boys at a Jon Spencer show (which I missed, damnit!),
and a page of stuff from the women who do the wonderful zeen MTM (see
below), including a dream featuring Joan Jett, are my faves in this
ish. Plus cool comic and xerox artwork. P-A-B is free in Austin, so I
guess send them a dollar at 305 W. 39th St #107, Austin, TX 78751.
They also claim to have email at boo-key@mail.utexas.edu
SAD #1: I just picked this up today, and I like it lots. It's kinda
tiny and is all about (surprise) sadness: people who are sad, music
that is sad, and three pages of the sadder entries in Kafka's diaries
(really!). Very well done. The four music reviews, Joy Division,
Idaho, Bedhead and Timco, are rated by how likely their members are to
off themselves. Nice touch. Cheer up the sad publisher and send 2
stamps to 704 W. North Loop, Austin, TX 78751
MTM #3: Another really fine Austin zeen! What's going on here? Is it
something in the water? I missed #'s 1 and 2, and deeply regret it. A
number of interviews here, with 7 Year Bitch, Glorium and two guys
from Ken's Donuts. I love the witty, irrelevant questions and answers
in the interviews. The other stuff has some very humorous and spirited
writing, including the two editors, Lula and Alabama, trading stories
of weird incidents in their lives, a page of "Uppity Women" you might
not be aware of, but should (I didn't, but now I do), and an expose on
a local strip club. This is another freebie, so sent $1 or stamps for
this or a future issue to 2834 Salado B, Austin, TX 78705.
RETICENCE AND ANXIETY #3: I think #4 just came out, but this is the
first one that I've gotten (for the somewhat slimy reason that it was
the cheapest). Written by lesbian lovers (is that really important for
me to mention? They refer to the two interviews in #3 as being with
"queer men", so I can call them "lesbians", can't I? Well, I will and
there's nothing you can do about it!) who write under the pseudonyms
R. and A. (this *is* Texas, you know, not that there is any bigotry or
intolerance around these parts, not here!) This is very well written,
with moving and interesting accounts of their first days after moving
to Austin, coming out to one's grandmother, dealing with unsympathetic
(and downright hostile!) parents and... Having two wonderful,
intelligent, loving parents, I am always surprised to hear how shitty
other parents can be. Anyways, interviews with film-maker Todd Haynes
(after reading this I really want to see his film "Poison") and David
Wojnarowicz (whose interview I have not read yet). Some political
articles, A.'s liking for some Heavy Metal, and a photo and commentary
of Chris Carter of Throbbing Gristle round everything up. All in all,
an interesting look into two people's lives. Sometimes it is difficult
to separate writing like this from fiction (I read a lot of fiction).
After all, what is the difference between writing from someone you do
not know and a first-person fictional narrative? R&A makes clear this
difference. $2 and 2 stamps to PO Box 2552, Austin, TX 78768. The
other issues have differing prices, so just send them lots of cash,
that's all I'm saying.
ALCOHOL, DRUGS, AND DRIVING #1: There are more issues, but I haven't
read any, and I'm not very thrilled with this, and not just because of
the multi-page feature on the guy who gunned down 40 people from the
UT Tower years and years ago. I think this is unequivocally inferior
to my zeen, unlike everything mentioned above and probably below, and
I have a problem with anyone who does something worse than me. I mean,
if I can do something, surely you can do it better. Also they guy's
address is not in the issue, so I have to look it up in Scratch Paper
#2: oops, it's not in their either, so if you really want this, you
have to come down to Austin and get it for yourself.
MONK MINK PINK PUNK #2: This is my zeen, and it is not out yet despite
rumors to the contrary. When it does come out (don't hold your
breath), expect interviews with prolific punkers God Is My Co-Pilot,
and story-teller Juliana Leuking. Also expect a unique and exciting
format, which is under secret development in what is only known as
"Josh's Bedroom" (it's worth spending a night there) (anyone who gets
this reference I'll send you a prize). Email me for details on #1, of
which I am quite proud of, and of which I have, well, more than a few
copies left. I have been getting a lot of promo stuff in the mail from
MMPP's not unfavorable Factsheet 5 review, including anti-rock
Christian literature (wow, those arguments were really convincing; I'm
burning my record collection tomorrow!), lollipops from Atlantic
records to entice me to go see a Melvins show, and a few actually good
records!
ASIAN GIRLS ARE RAD #'s 1-10: A very amusing fetish zeen on the beauty
and wonder of Asian chicks. Sounds disgusting and perverted? Well,
it's actually quite cute and endearing. I always enjoy this...as an
anthropological study into intercultural relations, not because
I'm...you know...you're not buying this, are you? Anyways, Dave writes
a lot about his life, cool moms, astronomy, taking classes,
dishwashing, washing dishes with Asian girls and... Like an old
friend, but only $1 a back issue. #7 has a Shonen Knife review, and a
picture of them reading AGAR...wow! (When God Is My Co-Pilot read my
zeen, they verbally harassed me for not liking Elliott Sharp, really!)
AGAR c/o David O'Dell, 707 W. 21st St, Austin, TX 78705
LAZY WAYS #1 (?): Marc just sent me his zeen as a trade for mine, so
right off the bat you know he is cool, although he does not live in
Austin. Lots of gloriously positive admiration for many indie-pop
bands that don't seem to get mentioned very often, something which I
really admire. One more article on Sebadoh and I will barf! Stuff here
on Allen Clapp, Bomb Pops, Musical Chairs and many more bands I have
never even heard of (and I read every issue of the Indie-(Music
Mailing)-List). Hurrah! Marc really likes this stuff and his
enthusiasm only infects me with the same, despite the fact that I've
probably listened to too much of this kind of music already. $2 to
Lazy Ways, PO Box 17861, Plantation, FL 33318.
BLIND STUMBLING AFTERLIFE by Elisabeth Belile: This is not a zine and
is not from Texas, but is so marvelously wonderful that I must rant
and rave about it. Belile writes/produces some of the best and most
rewarding poetry that I've read in years, if not ever. Her stuff is
very dada/surreal, and seems to be the product of some cut-up process
that is not explained. Not stream-of-consciousness, but cut-up. I
would quote the entire thing if I could, but my fave (since getting
this just today):
"These are the politics of my dream:
1. Crush Beauty
2. Spit It Out!
3. Plagiarize -- go naked for a sign!
4. Appropriate when appropriate
5. Follow and run on angel's clocks
6. Command them to call you, *now*."
The book is one long four-part poem, with a (not meaning to make it
sound trite) a strong feminist bent to it, esp the last two parts. I
really have not pondered on it's meaning yet, just enjoyed the
beautifully powerful juxtapositions of words and phrases. This is
must-read stuff. $4 -> Broad Press, 2816 Avenel St, LA, CA 90039.
While on the subject, BSAL, good as it is, no where near approaches
the power, the emotional malaise, the surrealness of the other book
I've read from Belile, called "AFTER WITH HOPE", which is a chap book,
and quite an amazing one at that. I do not have the words to describe
how great this , so just trust me or email me for more info. $4 ->
We Press, PO Box 1503, Santa Cruz, CA 95061
Thanks to anyone who has read any or all of this. I wrote this not
only because I really like most of these publications, and want to see
them thrive and prosper, but also because I am generally too shy to
write to these people myself to praise their efforts. I figure if I
can turn anyone on to any of these, and they send letters of praise,
well, that's just about the same, right?
Peace,
Josh Ronsen
rons@midway.uchicago.edu
ps: I am in Austin despite the email address...
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
PRESS RELEASE: Object Technology in Cyberspace
By Chris Hand (cph@dmu.ac.uk)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Chris Hand, De Montfort University. Fax +44 116 254-1891.
e-mail: cph@dmu.ac.uk
** A Hypertext version of this Press Release is on the World-Wide Web **
** at http://www.cms.dmu.ac.uk/Research/OTG/Online/pr1.html **
________________________________________________________________________
OBJECT TECHNOLOGY MOVES INTO CYBERSPACE
Leicester, England -- 28th November 1994.
De Montfort University's TaTTOO'95 conference to be held in January will
feature the world's first commercial exhibition held in Cyberspace.
A number of companies world-wide have already expressed an interest in
sponsoring a stand in the Virtual Exhibition Hall, where anyone on the
Internet will be able to browse on-line product information and chat in
real time with company representatives.
"This will be just like a `real-life' trade exhibition, but without the
hassles of travelling long distances or struggling through the crowds",
says Chris Hand, organizer of the Virtual Conference. "Exhibitors will
benefit since they won't have to worry about travelling costs or time
away from HQ. In fact, it will be possible for one exhibitor to work on
several stands simultaneously. The potential for events of this kind is
enormous."
Advertising space will be available both in the Virtual Exhibition hall
and on an integrated World-Wide Web server. Other on-line events planned
to run alongside the real-life conference include a Virtual Press
Conference and Discussion to be chaired by Eric Leach of the Object
Management Group, and tutorials on working within object-oriented
virtual environments. Internet users will be free to mingle on-line with
the TaTTOO'95 delegates and speakers.
Alan O'Callaghan, conference organizer, adds: "With the recent
investments in Object Technology by giants such as IBM, it's now more
important than ever that we bring the message to as many people as
possible. The Virtual Conference will allow us to do this. OT is moving
so quickly now that if you're not on-line to it you could easily miss
the wave."
More details on the on-line events are available from Chris Hand
(e-mail: cph@dmu.ac.uk) and Mark Skipper (mcs@dmu.ac.uk), fax. +44 116
254-1891. WWW: http://www.cms.dmu.ac.uk/Research/OTG/tattoo-online.html
Background
TaTTOO (Teaching and Training in The Technology of Objects) is an
international conference which in 1995 will be held in the Queens
Building, De Montfort University, Leicester on 4-6 January. TaTTOO'95
follows the highly successful inaugural event in 1994 which was attended
by 185 delegates from academia and industry in the UK, USA, Sweden,
France, Holland and Germany.
More information:
e-mail: tattoo@dmu.ac.uk
WWW: http://www.cms.dmu.ac.uk/Research/OTG/tattoo.html
De Montfort University is recognized by the World Bank as the fastest
growing university in Western Europe. A distributed university with
sites in Leicester, Milton Keynes, Bedford and Lincoln, DMU is
pioneering the use of Video-Conferencing and Internet services by staff
and students. The School of Computing Sciences, well-known for its
expertise in Object Technology, has been operating a World-Wide Web
server since 1993.
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 1995 06:33:41 -0600
From: JAUC <dfox@fc.net>
Subject: JAUC-File2
DEADKAT
[Editor's note: This stuff here is published to humor you. We do not
in any way condone cruelty to any animal. This was found when one of
our editors randomly fingered an account. If you've been into the
hacking/phreaking scene for a while (at least since the 80's) like
us (the editors) you will understand all of this...if not, just read it.]
[GeeK-Speak mode: ON]
(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)
(#) (#)
(#) /|narkiztik /<nightz uv $mokeBombz (#)
(#) -=- [ANuS] -=- (#)
(#) */* T-PHiLE DiViSiON */* (#)
(#) PrEsEnTs (#)
(#) (#)
(#) [KAT KiLLERZ HANDBooK TO THE BLACK ARTz] (#)
(#) [THE FeLiS-MoRTiSiKoN] (#)
(#) bY: D-CeLLeRaTiON TRaUMA (#)
(#) (#)
(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)(#)
PHuCK YEW !@# EYE GOT GROUNDED TODAY FER PUTTiNG THERMiTE iN THE
FiSH TANK AT SKEWL SEW HERE EYE AM WRiTiNG ANoTHER QUaLiTY T-PHiLE FOR
ALL YEW @!# OH SHiT EYE FORGOT THAT DiSKLAiMER THiNG, OK:
DiSKLAiMER: iF YEW GO AND KiLL KATz B-KUZ OF THiS T-PHiLE, EYE AM NOT
RESPONSiBLE, THiS iS FOR iNPHORMATION PURPOSES ONLY #@!#
IN FACT IM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYTHING AND BY REaDING
THIS YER AGREEING TO NOT SUE ME AND STUFF...
======================================================
/\__/\ WELKUM TO THE FELiS-MoRTiSiKON, THE SEKRUT BLACK BOOK
DEWMED | x x / OF KAT KiLLiNG, iF YEW HAVE A WEAK STOMACH OR YOU ARE
KaT --> \ ^ / ONE OF THOSE GREENPEACE OR SPCA FAGGOTZ THEN PHuCK YEW
| | PANZIE, GO WATCH 101 DALMATIONS OR SUMTHING @!!@#
/ \ ======================================================
| . . |
(" "
)
ONE OF MY FAVOURiTE METHODZ OF KAT EXTERMINTATION IS A PLAY ON THE
OLD HOCKEY KARD IN THE SPOKES OF YER BICYCLE TO MAKE A KEWL SOUND
THING, IF YEW HAVE NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE WHAT ESSENTIALLY YOU DO
IS AFFIX A HOCKEY KARD TO YER SPOKES AND AS YOU PEDAL IT MAKES A
KEWL KLICKING SOUND.. WELL THIS IZ FOR PANZIE FAGGOTZ #@!@ IF YER
KEWL WHAT YEW DO IZ TAKE A LiVE KAT aND AFFIX IT TO THE SPOKES OF
YER BIKE AND PEDAL AROUND TOWN VIGOROUSLY, NOT ONLY DOEZ IT SOUND
KEWL BUT ALSO YOU GET SUM CHOICE LOOKZ FROM ANYONE YOU HAPPEN TO
PASS BY !@#@!
[NoTe: Thiz method will not work on bikes without spokes,
ie: big wheels, if you own a big wheel: get some skipping
rope and tie one end to the kat and the other end to the back of
your big wheel, position yourself at the top of a big hill and
pedal downward vigorously]
ANOTHER FAVOURITE OF MINE REQUIREZ ACCESS TO YER SCIENCE TEACHERS
STOREROOM OR SOMEPLACE WHERE YOU KAN AQUIRE LARGE AMOUNTS OF PURE
POTASSIUM. BASICALLY WHAT YOU DO IS SHOVE LARGE AMOUNTS OF PURE
POTASSIUM DOWN THE CATS THROAT AND THEN ONCE IT IS SUFFICIENTLY
STUFFED WHIP IT INTO THE BATHTUB WHEN YER MOTHER IS HAViNG A BATH
OR EVEN INTO A PUBLIC SWIMMING POOL. YOU WILL REVEL IN THE XPLOSION
OF KAT FUR AND INTESTINES THAT WILL RESULT FROM SUCH ELEETNEZZ..
IN KASE YOU DONT KNOW, POTASSIUM + h2o (water) kauses a minor xplosion.
THE MORE PURE POTASSIUM YEW STUFF THE KAT WITH THE BETTER THE BOOM.
[NoTe: Another play on this method iz to stuff the kat with the
potassium and then remark to your mom that the kat looks like it
needz a bath, when yer mom immerses the kat in water *B00M*.. hehe
If you want to be elaborate, talk to your mom alot about spontaneous
combustion, fill her head with lotz of horror stories about it then
proceed with the plan... it will take her weekz to recover from
the shock when FeFe goez BooM-BooM]
[NoTe#2: ThiZ meth0d iz loadz of fun when you employ one of th0se
panzie 'throw in yer quarterz' publik fountainz as yer detonator]
DEW YEW HAVE A MIKROWAVE ?!?!? iF SO THiS NEXT MeTHOD IZ DEFINITELY
THE THiNG TEW DEW ON THoZE RAiNY SUMMER DAZE WHEN YEW R BORED OUT OF
YER MIND @!#@! EYE AM SURE BY NOW YEW R BORED OF MERELY JAMMiNG YER
FAVOURiTE FELiNE iNTO THE MiCROWAVE ON HIGH FOR 10 MiNUTES, WELL HERE
iZ A METHOD WHICH ADDZ SUM EXCiTEMENT !@#!@ WHAT YEW WiLL NEED BESiDES
THE OBViOUS KAT AND MiCROWAVE iZ: a) YER MOTHERZ FAVOURiTE PEARL
NECKLACE. b) A SHiTLOAD OF POPKORN KERNELZ !@#!@ STRiNG THE PEARLZ
AROUND THE KAT, THROW IT IN THE MiCROWAVE AND THEN FiLL THE MiCROWAVE
WiTH POPKORN... KLOSE THE DOOR, CRANK IT ON HIGH AND RUN LiKE HELL #@!#
THiS METHoD iZ VERY MESSY #!@# THE RESULTANT EXPLOSION WiLL B MAMMOTH
SEW MAKE SURE NOONE IZ AROUND BuT YEW WHEN YEW DEW THiS ONE !@#@!
THiZ ENDZ PART ONE oF THE FELiS-MoRTiSiKON #@!# PHUCK YEW !@#@!
WATCH FER MORE QUALiTY [ANuS] PHiLeZ KUMMING YER WAY SooN !@#
GREETZ GOEZ OUT TEW: SKAR-TiSSUE, MuTiLaTeD-KaT [FEaR]
SPECIAL GREETZ GOEZ OUT TEW ALL [FEaR] MEMBERZ @!#@!
FeLiNe Exterminatorz/Anarkistik R0dentz 0H SHiT!@# THAT REMiNDZ
ME, EYE FORGOT TO MENTION ANARKYKON @!# OK:
==========================
= ANARKYKON '94 =
==========================
EYE ARRiVED AT THE CONVENTION CENTER AROUND 5PM JUST AS SEVERED LiMB AND
DEMONiKiZT WERE HEADiNG OUT TO GO TRASHiNG AT SMITH AND WESSON, LUCKiLY
THEY HAD ROOM FOR ME, SO OFF WE WENT.. THE THREE OF US SPED OFF
TOWARDZ THE SMITH AND WESSON BUILDING IN DEMONiKiZT's VAN AT QUITE
A FRANTiC PACE ONLY STOPPING AT A RED LiGHT ONCE TO PuLL OVER AND MaCE
AN OLD LADY WHO WUZ STaNDiNG ON A KURB.. OK, WE ARRiVED AT SMiTH AND
WESSON JUST AZ THEY WERE KLOSING SO WE WAiTED OUTSIDE IN THE VAN UNTIL
THE LAST EMPLOYEE HAD LEFT, AT WHICH POINT DEMONIKiZT LEAPED OUT WiTH
SEVERED LiMB AND EYE IN TOW, WE MADE A QUIK B LiNE TO THE DUMPSTER AND
EYE LEAPED iN.. SEVERED LiMB LiT A SMOKE BOMB TO PROViDE US WITH SUM
DEGREE OF COVER AND QUICKLY JOINED ME iN THE DUMPZTER @!# WE SiFTED
THROUGH THE MEZZ AND ALL WE GOT WERE A FEW SHELL CAZINGZ AND EYE FOUND
SUM PRiNTOUTZ FER A LAZERSKOPE PLANS OR SUMTHiNG #@!# OK BACK TO THA
KONVENTION CENTER #!@# WHEN WE ARRiVED WE WERE GiVEN OUR NAMETAGZ AND
SHuFFLED OFF TEW A ROOM WHERE A FEW TALKZ WERE GIVEN ON TERRORIZM AND A
FEW BORING LEKTUREZ ON SNEAKING INTO BUILDINGZ AND LOCK PICKING #!@
EYE RAN INTO RANCiD MEAT AT THE LEKTUREZ AND HE INVITED ME UP TO HIZ
ROOM TO LOOK AT HIZ CHEMICAL WEAPONS, WHEN WE GOT UP THERE HE SUGGEZTED
WE TEAR GAZ THE LOBBY, WHICH WE DID... NEEDLEZZ TO SAY THE POLIZE
SHOWED AND THA KONVENTION ENDED EaRLY @!#!@ PHUCK YEW !@#@! EYE GOTTa
GO NOW..
D-CeLLeRaTiON TRaUMA
[ANuS] '94
$@#!$#@$@$^M
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
EFF PERSONNEL ANNOUNCEMENTS
By Stanton McCandlish (mech@eff.org)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Personnel Announcements at EFF.
Contact: EFF: Andrew Taubman <drew@eff.org>, +1 202 861 7700
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) announced today several
significant personnel changes. EFF is a non-profit, public interest
organization that seeks to protect and enhance the growth of "Cyberspace"
(the Global Information Infrastructure) as a diverse, free, responsible
and empowering environment.
David Johnson has been named Chair of the EFF Board of Directors and
Senior Policy Fellow of EFF. Johnson, an EFF Board member since 1993,
has been practicing computer law with the Washington, DC, law firm of
Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering. He has direct experience with computer networks
as Chairman of LEXIS Counsel Connect (an on-line system for lawyers).
He joins Andrew Taubman, Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer,
who began at EFF in September of 1994.
Esther Dyson has been named Vice-Chair and will serve on the EFF Executive
Committee. Dyson is President of EDventure Holdings Inc., a venture
capital firm focused on emerging information technologies, particularly in
Eastern Europe. Dyson is a member of the US National Information
Infrastructure Advisory Council, has board memberships at the Global
Business Network, Perot Systems, the Santa Fe Institute, and is a founding
member of the Software Publishers Association.
Johnson and Dyson join David J. Farber and Rob Glaser on the EFF
Executive Committee. Farber holds the Alfred Fitler Moore Professorship
of Telecommunications at the University of Pennsylvania, is a fellow at the
Annenberg School for Public Policy and at the Glocom Institute in Japan and
was one of the creators of many of the parts that evolved into the modern
Internet - such as CSNet, CREN, and NSFNet. Glaser is President and CEO of
Progressive Networks, an interactive media and services company and serves
on such boards as the Foundation for National Programs and the Washington
Public Affairs Network.
EFF co-founders Mitchell Kapor (immediate past Chair) and John Perry Barlow
(immediate past Vice-Chair) remain Directors and will continue to
participate actively in the development and implementation of EFF policy
programs.
Also announced, Jerry Berman, who held the position of Policy Director, has
left EFF. Janlori Goldman and Daniel Weitzner, who have worked closely
with Mr. Berman over the years, and other policy staff members, also have
left to establish with Mr. Berman a new organization to be called the
Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT). EFF wishes CDT success in its
new venture and thanks Jerry and his colleagues for their substantial
contributions over the past three years.
In 1995, EFF will continue to pursue its policy mission of protecting the
health and growth of the global computer networks. The 1995 policy agenda
includes such projects as an innovative new "State of the Net" report;
studies of the implications of the global nature of the net for
jurisdictional and governance questions; a study of the protection of
intellectual property on networks; and efforts to preserve the free
flow of information across the Global Information Infrastructure. EFF
expects to continue to intervene actively to counter threats to
computer-mediated communications networks, and virtual communities, such
as limitations on the use of cryptography and intrusions into personal
privacy, as it has in previous years.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
READER FEEDBACK
[Editor's note: This is a response form one of our readers in reply
to the 'Porn On The Net' article we ran in the last issue]
By Michael Stutz (at118@po.cwru.edu)
Hello--
I didn't see a Letters section in this issue [vol i, issue 6] and I really
hadn't intended on writing one, but that article -- Paul Pihichyn's rant
on porn -- was so stupid I had to say *something*.
Calling it all those names ("filth," "slime," etc) made it immediately
suspect. What are these things he's talking about? Naked people. People
without their clothes on. What's so filthy and slimy about that? Nothing.
His fears about exposing porn to children are silly; what children know
how to uudecode, assemble and view an image? None that *I* know. Besides,
what would happen if a child saw a picture of a naked woman?
What would happen?
Probably nothing much. Maybe (s)he'd laugh, I don't know. While I'd
hardly recommend throwing porn into the laps of kids, we have to remember
that it doesn't do much for them, either. We're all naked and we all have
sex. That this guy suggested that we don't 'need' groups like alt.sex
is more than ridiculous -- it tells me that there's a lot of people out
there (like him) who need help.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
CALL SECURITY, PUBLIC KEY VOICE CRYPTOGRAPHY FAQ
By Neil Johnson (njj@pokey.mc.com)
Call Security, Public Key Voice Cryptography FAQ
------------------------------------------------
Call Security is a shareware program which provides public key
cryptography for voice telephone conversations. In other words private
phone conversations. Like as in voice scrambling. All you need is a
modem, a sound card, PC, and someone to talk to (with the same).
This my first version of the Call Security FAQ. Its very brief but
should get you going if you plan to use it. If you have suggestions,
comments, or criticism, please let the current editors know by sending
e-mail to njj@mc.com. Things like, bugs, sound card how to, modem
init. strings etc... are especially welcome.
Many thanks to David Colston, Charlie Merritt the authors of Call
Security. These guys have been sharing info with me regarding this
program in the many months prior to its release.
This is the very first & rough draft version of this faq. Some things
are sure to be missing, just plain wrong, etc... Your get the
point. Trust only what can you verify yourself. This faq is actually
bound to create more questions than it answers. Hopefully it gets you
to use Call Security.
Call Security FAQ Author Neil J. Johnson, email njj@mc.com
Table of Contents
-----------------
1. Overview, what is Call Security?
2. How well does it sound?
3. What kind of hardware do I need?
4. Where do I Get Call Security?
5. Quick, can you tell me how to run it step by step?
5.1 Ok how do I stop talking now?
6. How Does It Work?
7. What public key algorithm does it use?
8. Is it really secure?, You, decide!
9. Is it safe to give them my public key when i upgrade from shareware
(512 bit key) to the registered version (1024 bit key)?, Yes,
its only the public key!
10. How do I set up my sound card?
10.1 How do I set up my Gravis Ultrasound?
11. My modem is full duplex why isn't Call Security?
12. Are there any bugs in the program?
13. Where do I get DSZ or GSZ for doing Zmodem transfers with Call Security?
Answers to Questions
--------------------
1. Overview
Well Call Security (CS) turns your ordinary PC into a very secure
voice telephone. CS also works as a general purpose data
comm. program with zmodem support, ansi/vt100 terminal, & regular
unencrypted digital voice. Call Security is also a general purpose
public key cryptography program for encrypting/decrypting any computer
file (like email).
2. How well does it sound?
The sound quality varies depending upon how many (compressed) samples
per second your hardware can do. Here is a little chart.
Sample rates:
7600 Acceptable
10000 sounds like good CB Radio (486 with 14.4bps modem)
16000 Real sweet
3. What kind of hardware do I need?
The minimum recommended system is a 386sx with a 9600bps modem & a
sound blaster compatible sound card. A 486 system with a 14.4bps modem
is recommended. A 28.8bps modem is still even better! You should also have
a copy of pkunzip to uncompress the program if you get a zipped copy off
the Call Security BBS.
4. Where do I Get Call Security?
Right now the only place to get it is at the following BBS phone number.
Note I didn't see any support for kermit transfers. I recommend using zmodem
protocol.
Call Security BBS
1 (501) 839 - 8579
- Give your full name.
- The password is "security"
- Use the "d" command to download
- select transfer type like "z" for zmodem (sorry no kermit support)
- enter file name "callsec1.zip"
- put your comm program in zmodem mode (automatic for most comm programs)
5. Quick, can you tell me how to run it step by step?
- DOS stuff
>mkdir callsec1
>pkunzip callsec1
>pkunzip software
- I recommend printing the documents, readme.1st, security.doc,
svterm.doc.
- If your in windows exit now.
- determine which comm port your modem is on & determine the address &
IRQ. The DOS command msd.exe (Microsoft Diagnostic) can help with this
task. Write this down for later.
- determine the address of your sound card. Write down for later use.
- If you don't have a sound blaster then put you sound card in sound
blaster emulation mode.
- type "security" at the dos prompt.
- Your now in the security program. Select option A. Make My Own
Secret & Public Keys (cursor to & hit return)
- Now unfortunately CS makes public key exchange a hassle. You need to
extract your public key from your key list it (& uu encode it
optionally), and give it to the person you wish to talk to with
CS. The first 2 steps can be done with the menu picks. The last part
can be done with CS zmodem, if you happen to have the DSZ shareware
program.
Since this is a quick start guide lets skip this for now and use password
encryption instead. If you don't want to skip the public key stuff read the
documentation.
- Use menu pick J. Go To Secure Voice Terminal
You will be prompted for info on you modem set up & sound card setup.
Just enter the info as it comes up. For sample rate select 10,000 samples
per sec. for a 14.4 modem, 16,0000 for a 28.8, & 7,600 for a 9,600. Note:
if you have a 386 16/SX machine don't go over 8,000 samples per second.
- When your done setting the modem & sound card you will be a menu for
where to go next. Hit the return key. You will be popped into the comm.
program/terminal emulator.
- Now it time for one person using CS select auto answer mode & the other CS
to dial.
- the auto answer person/side presses function key F8
- the caller does the following:
press function key F6. Enter name & number of person you plan to dial.
Note: field are separated with spaces, tab keys won't work. Now dial,
directions are on the screen to do this (I think you just hit the return
key).
- The machines will now connect. Anything you type will go on their screen.
Anything they type will go on your screen. Note, this text is not
encrypted.
- When your ready to talk hit alt-s on you key board. Then select
password mode (or public key if you've done public key exchange).
Each side now enters the same secret password (like hello).
- On your screen it will either indicate that your listening or talking.
to toggle listening/talking hit the space bar. To end the session hit
the esc key. Note: it helps if you use it like a CB & say over while
you hit the space key (when your done talking).
5.1 Ok how do I stop talking now?
Well If your talking you must hit the space key to become the listener.
To end a voice session & go back to the terminal chat mode, you must hit
the <esc> key while you are in talk mode.
6. How Does It Work?
In laymans terms, each person who uses CS has two keys, a matched
pair. One is public & the other is private. The way program works is
public key are used to encrypt voice (or computer
files/email). Private keys are used to decrypt the voice. Hence know
one can listen in on a conversation (or computer file/email) that was
meant for you (encrypted with your public key). However you still have
to trust the person you are talking to!
7. What public key algorithm does it use?
No CS doesn't use the RSA [Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman] public key
cryposystem as featured in PGP. A bonus feature of not using RSA is
the avoidance of RSA patent restrictions.
CS uses QPK Quick Public Keys by David Colston. This
public key system has been reviewed by Whit Diffee, Gus Simmons
(Sandia Labs), and posted on sci.crypt.
On the plus side QPK is fast. On the down side the CS implementation
of QPK does not support digital signatures. FYI, Digital signatures are
signed with private keys & verified with public keys.
Like virtually all public key systems CS uses QPK to encrypt a random
(private) session key, The session key is then used to encrypt the voice
conversation. This is because public key systems are too slow for
realtime voice.
The private (session) key encryption algorithm uses a very long many
bit linear feedback shift register LFSR pattern which is xored with
the voice data. To greatly increase the security, only short (many
times less than the LSFR total length) sequences of this LFSR are used
between transmission of a new (really) random seed for the LFSR. Hence
a random seed constantly restarts the LFSR at truly random points in
the sequence.
Well I'm sure I didn't do justice to the crypto stuff, but its a start.
If you want to know more general info read the cryptography-faq. It
can be found in news groups sci.crypt, talk.politics.crypto,
sci.answers, news.answers, talk.answers. Another good faq is pgp-faq
found in news groups alt.security.pgp, alt.answers. Once you have read
these faqs you will have to consult the authors of CS for more
specific info on the various crypto features of CS and QPK.
8. Is it really secure?, You, decide!
Well the public keys system used by Call Security, QPK ( Quick Public
Keys) by Dave Colston has survived peer review. This is good.
Charlie Merritt did the single private key stuff. I described this
algorithm briefly (from a phone conversation) in question 7. Maybe
this needs further public review?
Also we don't have the source code so its hard to check for trap doors.
I don't know what their motivation for a trap door is however. They want
to make money off this thing.
Plus all the normal stuff needs to be considered, like did some one
put a bug (transmitter) in you sound card microphone, did they break in
and steal the private key off your harddrive/ floppy drive, etc...
Well you decide if you think call security is secure. I think it is
but what do I know? Only time will tell how secure CS really is.
9. Is it safe to give them my public key when i upgrade from shareware
(512 bit key) to the registered version (1024 bit key)?, Yes,
its only the public key!
Yes, the authors only want half of your public key. This public key is
then used to create a file which enables receiving encrypted voice
with your larger key. Note: Non-registered versions work just fine
with registered users with large keys.
10. How do I set up my sound card?
Well if you have an original mono 8 bit sound blaster you do nothing.
If you don't have a classic sound blaster then you should put you sound card
in sound blaster (8 bit mono) emulation. Please send me email njj@mc.com on
how you set up your sound card to work with CS. I will add the info to this
faq.
10.1 How do I set up my Gravis Ultrasound?
Ultrasound cards have two sound blaster emulators. Only the SBOS emulator
works with Call Security. Don't use MEGAEM.
Before you run Call Security "SECURITY.EXE" Just exit windows & type
SBOS at the DOS prompt. You should here the words SBOS installed on
your sound card speakers, plus you will see confirmation of SBOS
loading on your computer screen.
If SBOS doesn't work consult your ultrasound documentation. Or read
the gravis faq found on the news group
comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard. Other sights for gravis sound card info
include:
FTP Sites Archive Directories
--------- -------------------
Main N.American.Site: archive.orst.edu pub/packages/gravis
wuarchive.wustl.edu systems/ibmpc/ultrasound
Main Asian Site: nctuccca.edu.tw PC/ultrasound
Main European Site: src.doc.ic.ac.uk /packages/ultrasound
Main Australian Site: ftp.mpx.com.au /ultrasound/general
/ultrasound/submit
South African Site: ftp.sun.ac.za pub/packages/ultrasound
Submissions: archive.epas.utoronto.ca pub/pc/ultrasound/submit
Newly Validated Files: archive.epas.utoronto.ca pub/pc/ultrasound
Mirrors: garbo.uwasa.fi mirror/ultrasound
ftp.st.nepean.uws.edu.au pc/ultrasound
ftp.luth.se pub/msdos/ultrasound
Gopher Sites Menu directory
------------ --------------
Main Site: src.doc.ic.ac.uk packages/ultrasound
WWW Pages
---------
Main Site: http://www.cs.utah.edu/~debry/gus.html
Main European Site: http://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/packages/ultrasound/
Main Australian Site: http://ftp.mpx.com.au/archive/ultrasound/general/
http://ftp.mpx.com.au/archive/ultrasound/submit/
http://ftp.mpx.com.au/gravis.html
Mirrors:
http://www.st.nepean.uws.edu.au/pub/pc/ultrasound/
11. My modem is full duplex why isn't Call Security?
The simple answer is sound blasters (and virtually every other sound
card known to the program authors) are not full duplex. You can't
sample digital sound at the same time you are playing digital sound!
But if the authors, Dave & Charlie start making money off Call Security
maybe they will be motivated to do a version with 2 sound cards, one
for record the other for playback.
12. Are there any bugs in the program?
Well one very minor bug is the wrong help file (security.doc) pops up
when you request help in the terminal session of the program. What you
really want to see is the svterm.doc file when trying to figure out
how to send/receive voice messages. As I stated before print the
documentation files svterm.doc, securty.doc, & readme.1st before
running the program. Remember the Call Security is not windows
compatible, so you can't have help in one window and call security in
the other window!
Another feature I find annoying is that public key exchange is not
built in to the voice session. Okay maybe public key exchange is not
something you want to do for every call (to prevent forgery) but at
least make it a non-default menu pick! The best work around is to pull
a copy of DSZ or GSZ off one of the shareware sights. This will allow
Secure Voice to perform file exchange. Then use DSZ to exchange public
keys prior to running a voice session.
13. Where do I get DSZ or GSZ for doing Zmodem transfers with Call Security?
I haven't tried personally tried DSZ or GSZ yet. But here is one FTP
sight (the SIMTEL primary mirror sight) I downloaded DSZ from while
writing this faq:
FTP Location: oak.oakland.edu: /pub/msdos/zmodem
dsz-read.me A 516 890115 Explains what DSZ program is
dsz0920.zip B 91253 940930 X/Y/Zmodem protocol file transfer pgm
txzm241.zip B 42734 941005 Texas Zmodem: Fast/free Zmodem prot. driver
gsz0920.zip B 112428 940930 X/Y/ZMODEM driver with graphic file xfer
For more info on shareware sights read the news group
comp.archives.msdos.announce. Other SIMTEL mirror sights include:
St. Louis, MO: wuarchive.wustl.edu (128.252.135.4)
/systems/ibmpc/msdos
Corvallis, OR: archive.orst.edu (128.193.2.13)
/pub/mirrors/simtel/msdos
Australia: archie.au (139.130.4.6)
/micros/pc/oak
England: src.doc.ic.ac.uk (146.169.2.10)
/pub/packages/simtel
Finland: ftp.funet.fi (128.214.248.6)
/pub/msdos/SimTel
France: ftp.ibp.fr (132.227.60.2)
/pub/pc/SimTel/msdos
Germany: ftp.uni-paderborn.de (131.234.2.32)
/SimTel/msdos
Hong Kong: ftp.cs.cuhk.hk (137.189.4.57)
/pub/simtel/msdos
Israel: ftp.technion.ac.il (132.68.1.10)
/pub/unsupported/dos/simtel
Poland: ftp.cyf-kr.edu.pl (149.156.1.8)
/pub/mirror/msdos
South Africa: ftp.sun.ac.za (146.232.212.21)
/pub/simtel/msdos
Sweden: ftp.sunet.se (130.238.127.3)
/pub/pc/mirror/SimTel/msdos
Switzerland: ftp.switch.ch (130.59.1.40)
/mirror/msdos
Taiwan: NCTUCCCA.edu.tw (140.111.1.10)
/PC/simtel
Thailand: ftp.nectec.or.th (192.150.251.33)
/pub/mirrors/SimTel/msdos
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
THERE IS A BODY ON THE INTERNET
From Uncle Bob's Network News #103
There is a body on the Internet!
At the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of America in Chicago
on November 18, 1994, the National Library of Medicine unveiled its
"Visible Man," a three-dimensional, computer-generated cybernetic body,
which is now available on the Internet. "Visible Man" is an atlas of
the human body, assembled digitally from thousands of x-ray, magnetic,
and photographic images of cross sections of the body of Joseph Paul
Jernigan, who was executed in Texas for murder, and who had willed his
body to medical science.
Using digitalized radiological data from the cadaver, researchers at the
Heath Science Center of the University of Colorado, under a project funded
by the NLM, compiled a virtual human body that can be viewed on a screen
from any angle, dissected and reassembled by anatomy students, or used as
a model to study the growth of cancer cells, for example.
First, the real body was photographed with CT scans, magnetic resonance
imaging, and conventional x-rays. Then it was embedded in gelatin,
frozen, and sliced with a laser knife into more than 1,800 cardboard-thin
cross-sections. One by one, the cross-sections were removed from the
cadaver and digitally photographed. Thousands of pictures were entered
into the computer.
The main users are expected to be medical schools and researchers at large
medical centers. There is no charge for the access but users must sign
a licensing agreement with the NLM. The library has already heard from
about 300 applicants, including brain surgeons, clothing designers, and
traffic safety crash testers. According to NLM director Donald A. B.
Lindburg, "People are awestruck by how detailed and good the images are."
Don't expect to download "Visible Man" at home: the program is so complex
it will require up to two weeks of Internet time to download and a
capacity on the receiving computer of 15 gigabytes--or 15,000 megabytes.
The project, costing $1.4 million, will continue next year with phase two:
"Visible Woman."
(compiled from news reports in The Richmond Times-Dispatch, The
Washington Post, and The New York Times)
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 1995 06:55:18 -0600
From: JAUC <dfox@fc.net>
Subject: JAUC-File3
WINDOWS AND TCP/IP FOR INTERNET ACCESS
By Harry M. Kriz (hmkriz@vt.edu)
University Libraries
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
Blacksburg, VA 24061-0434
http://learning.lib.vt.edu/authors/hmkriz.html
In response to popular demand, I am publishing a new release of my paper
on using Microsoft Windows to access Internet resources. Thanks to
everyone who has e-mailed me and called me over the past year. I am
delighted that the paper has been useful. I have been even more delighted
to give permission for distributing copies at Internet workshops, and for
copies to be posted on Internet servers. Perhaps this new release will
find it's way into the hands of all those folks who are getting their
first computers this Christmas. I hope this paper can play some small
part in getting them over the rough spots.
A plain text version of this complete document is available by anonymous
ftp from: nebula.lib.vt.edu in directory /pub/windows/winsock
under filename wtcpip06.asc
A hypertext version is available at:
http://learning.lib.vt.edu/wintcpip/wintcpip.html
--------
ABSTRACT
Internet, the global network of computer networks, is arousing enormous
popular interest. In part this interest is being driven by the
availability of free or inexpensive shareware software for Microsoft
Windows. It is now technically simple for a personal computer to become
a host on the Internet. The casual user can find, retrieve, and view
information gathered from around the world without having to learn
complicated computer commands. In this paper I describe the principal
functions and services available via the Internet. Then I outline the
technical background and terminology needed by the beginner who wants to
make his PC a host on the Internet. Finally, I describe several Windows
software packages and programs that facilitate using Internet services.
All the software is freely available over the Internet.
-------------------
PUBLICATION HISTORY
The most recent plain text (ascii) version of this paper is always
available by anonymous FTP from nebula.lib.vt.edu in directory
/pub/windows/winsock under the name wtcpip**.asc. For example, this
version is available as wtcpip06.asc. A hypertext version of this paper
that is maintained on a more regular basis is available through the
World Wide Web at: http://learning.lib.vt.edu/wintcpip/wintcpip.html
The first version of this paper was released via Internet news and BITNET
listserv on November 15, 1993. Revised and expanded versions were released
on January 16, February 9, and March 21, 1994. A version was published
by O'Reilly Associates in the March 14, 1994 issue of the "Global Network
Navigator Toolkit," which was then accessible at:
http://nearnet.gnn.com/GNN-ORA.html.
Release 05 (June 21, 1994) was a major revision that was published by the
Virginia Tech College of Engineering on the CD-ROM "1994-95 VT Engineering
Tools." A print copy of Release 05 was also published by the Computing and
Systems Technology Division of the American Institute of Chemical
Engineers in "CAST Communications," Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 6-14 (Summer 1994).
------------
INTRODUCTION
Internet, the world-wide network of computer networks, has captured the
imagination of the general public. Eighteen months ago, the Internet was
barely mentioned in the popular computing magazines. Now it is the topic
of articles in national news magazines, local newspapers, and grocery-store
tabloids.
Awareness of the Internet has spread primarily by word of mouth. Computer
pundits were not discussing the Internet in Spring 1993 when I first began
investigating the Internet in my work as a librarian. Indeed, most pundits
seem to have acquired Internet access only in the Spring of 1994. Thus,
computer magazines have not been helpful for those wishing to learn about
the Internet.
Now, in December 1994, there is something of a feeding frenzy of interest
in the Internet. Bookstores are flooded with guides to the Internet.
Software vendors are rushing to market with collections of software
designed for navigating the resources on the Internet. It is almost as if
the crest of the Internet wave has passed. Pundits who did not have access
to the Internet last year are already writing negative opinions about the
difficulties of navigating Internet resources, and about the uselessness
of those resources.
Complaints about the Internet are many. Certainly it can be difficult to
find information and resources on the Internet. A great deal of
information is unvalidated, non-authoritative, or otherwise questionable.
Some resources should not be available to children. Some would argue that
some of the information should not be distributed even to adults.
It is important to remember that the Internet is not a service. Rather,
it is a means of gaining access to services and of retrieving information
and other objects that can be represented electronically. In considering
complaints about the Internet, one might draw an analogy between the
Internet and New York City.
New York is big, complicated, and disorganized. The city's myriad resources
can be hard to find. Some of what happens or what is available in New York
should not be seen by children. For those wishing to navigate the
complexity of New York, there are guidebooks, phone directories, magazine
articles, and individuals with expert knowledge about areas of particular
interest. One can navigate the complexity of the city by subway, taxi,
and bus. One can even hire a private guide to conduct a tour of the city.
The Internet can be compared to the streets of New York City. The services
available on the Internet have their analogies in the city's libraries,
department stores, bookshops, art galleries, street vendors, and street-
corner zealots passing out literature or lecturing the passing crowds. It
is safe to assume that somewhere on the streets of the city there will be
found information and services of interest to almost anyone. However,
finding that information might take some time for someone who is new to
the city and its resources. Similarly, somewhere on the Internet there
also will be found information and services of interest to almost anyone.
Traveling on the Internet requires only a few basic tools. First is a
computer with a network connection to the Internet. A direct connection
using a PC equipped with a network interface card that interfaces with a
local area network linked to the Internet is common at universities, and
becoming more common in businesses. If a direct network connection is not
available, an alternative is to connect to the Internet through the
computer's serial port. This involves a telephone connection to a terminal
server that offers SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol) or PPP (Point
to Point Protocol) service. Any of these connections can be used with a
variety of commercial or shareware software to make your personal computer
a host on the Internet and to access services and information from the
entire earth. This paper will emphasize the use of freeware and shareware
versions of software running under Microsoft Windows.
-----------------
INTERNET SERVICES
The Internet services of interest to most people consist of four basic
functions. These are electronic mail (e-mail), Internet news, file
transfer between computers (FTP), and remote login to another computer
(telnet). Access systems like Gopher and World Wide Web now supplement
these basic Internet functions by assisting the user in searching for
and retrieving relevant information in a user-friendly manner.
Until recently, Internet functions were accessible primarily through
character-based interfaces using a variety of complex command sets. Thus,
until recently, best-selling books on the Internet contained page after
page of screen displays or command sequences captured from UNIX-based
systems executing basic Internet functions.
Affordable Internet software for Windows first became available in Spring
1993. Prior to that time, Windows users were dependent for Internet access
on expensive, proprietary, commercial products in which each vendor's
offerings were mutually incompatible with every other vendor's offerings.
Publication of the Winsock applications programming interface provided a
way for individual client software (such as a telnet or FTP client) to be
compatible with every vendor's networking products. As a result, beginning
in 1993 there was a blossoming of freeware, shareware, and commercial
Internet software for Windows.
Of special interest has been the development of Windows interfaces to the
World Wide Web. Mosaic is the best known Web browser. Other choices
include Cello, Netscape, and WinWeb. The Web was developed by the high
energy physics community to distribute technical papers and other forms
of data. WWW is now widely viewed as a means for educators, businesses,
and hobbyists to distribute multimedia information to a world-wide
audience. Graphical WWW clients enable publication of data over the
Internet in a manner which allows the user to view text, color graphics,
sound, and video in a manner that approaches the usability, and surpasses
the functionality, of a printed magazine. Those interested in publishing
WWW documents may find it useful to read my paper "Teaching and
Publishing in the World Wide Web." A plain text version is available by
anonymous FTP from: nebula.lib.vt.edu in directory /pub/www under the
name websrv01.asc. A hypertext version is available through the Web at
http:/learning.lib.vt.edu/webserv/webserv.html.
******
E-MAIL
Electronic mail is probably the most widely used Internet function. A
commonly used configuration requires that a user have an account on a
POP (Post Office Protocol) mail server. The e-mail client software
accesses the server and downloads any incoming messages to the user's
PC. Mail composed at the user's PC is transmitted to the Internet through
the mail server.
*************
INTERNET NEWS
Internet news, also referred to as USENET news, is a conferencing system
made up of thousands of topical conferences known as news groups. Those
familiar with electronic bulletin board systems will compare Internet
news to echo conferences. Others will draw an analogy to mailing lists
such as listserv on BITNET. The user reads the news by using client
software to subscribe to a selection of news groups. When the client
software accesses an NNTP (Network News Transfer Protocol) server, the
server downloads to the client a list of subjects for all unread messages
stored on the server for the selected news group. The user can then select
any message for reading, post a response to the message to the group, or
reply directly to the original poster of the message. The client software
maintains on the user's PC a list of all available groups on the server,
along with records of which messages have been read or skipped over.
Only the messages selected for reading are actually downloaded to the
user's PC.
***
FTP
FTP (File Transfer Protocol) allows the transfer of files between any two
computers of any type. Files can be transferred from PC to PC, PC to
mainframe, PC to Mac, PC to UNIX machine, and vice versa. Any kind of
computer file, whether it be a text file or a binary file representing
software, graphics images, or sounds, can be transferred. Of course,
whether the file is usable on the receiving machine depends on the nature
of the file and the availability of software to make use of the file.
******
TELNET
Telnet enables the user of a PC to login to a host computer at another
site on the Internet. The user's PC then acts as a dumb terminal attached
to the remote host. Such access usually requires that the user have an
account on the remote host. For instance, a student or faculty member at
one university might have an account on a computer located at another
university. An increasing number of commercial services are becoming
available via telnet, including services such as the Dow Jones News
Service and the Lexis/Nexis service. In addition, some services are
available without charge. For example, hundreds of libraries in all parts
of the world allow free remote access to their computerized catalogs and
to some specialized databases.
******
GOPHER
Gopher is a system that enables the user to find files and other Internet
services by navigating a system of text menus and submenus. As a corollary,
it provides a means for information providers to publish information on
the Internet in a discoverable manner. Prior to the development of Gopher
at the University of Minnesota, information on the Internet was located
by asking friends and strangers where to look.
The first step in using a Gopher client is to "point" the client at the
address of a known Gopher server. The client then retrieves that Gopher's
menu of topics. Typically, many of the topics on a Gopher menu are
pointers to yet other menu items on other Gopher servers. The fact that
items in the sequence of selections might come from different Gopher
servers in widely scattered parts of the world is transparent to the user.
The Gopher client software presents the many different Gopher servers
as if they represented a single application on a single machine.
Navigating such menus can lead the user to skip from one Gopher server to
another, literally retrieving information from servers scattered around
the world in just a few minutes.
Items on Gopher menus can be of many different data types in addition to
menus listing choices of topics. When an item such as a text, graphics,
or sound file is selected, the Gopher client transfers the file to the
user's PC. Then, as an option, it may load the file into an appropriate
"viewer" selected by the user. A simple text file could be loaded into
Windows Notepad. A graphics file in GIF or JPEG format might be loaded
into LVIEW, a popular freeware graphics viewer for Windows. A binary
program file would simply be downloaded into a designated directory for
use at some other time. Finding relevant Gopher menu items is facilitated
through the use of Veronica, which is a database of the text of Gopher
menus. Most Gopher servers will include Veronica access as a menu
selection.
**************
WORLD WIDE WEB
World Wide Web (WWW) is a system that enables users to find and retrieve
information by navigating a system of hypertext documents. In a hypertext
document, selecting a highlighted word or phrase causes a new document to
be retrieved and displayed. Thus, WWW leads the user to skip from one
document to another, retrieving information from servers scattered around
the world.
Viewing a WWW document with a Windows graphical client such as Cello,
Mosaic, Netscape, or WinWeb is similar to reading a magazine. Information
is displayed with typographic fonts and color graphics. Unlike a magazine,
the static display can be supplemented by sound and video clips that are
played by clicking an icon embedded in the document. Clicking on a
highlighted word or phrase in the document may cause the reader to skip to
another part of the displayed document, or it may cause yet another
document to be retrieved.
-----------------
TECHNICAL DETAILS
It is helpful to know some Internet terminology when working with your
local network specialist or Internet service provider to make your PC a
host on the Internet. The two common modes of Internet access are through a
direct network connection or through a serial connection to a SLIP or PPP
server.
A direct network connection involves installing a network interface card
(NIC) in your PC. Most likely this will be an ethernet card. This card
in turn is connected to your organization's local area network. Wiring
usually consists of coaxial cable (as in thin-wire ethernet) or twisted
pair telephone wiring (as in 10Base-T ethernet). The local network in
turn must be connected to the Internet, and it must be capable of handling
TCP/IP data packets.
TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) is the method by
which data on the Internet is divided into packets of bytes. Each packet
is delimited with header information that includes the destination address
where the packet is to be routed when it is transmitted over the Internet.
The local network and your PC may also be using other network protocols
simultaneously with TCP/IP. For instance, your PC may already be connected
to a network using Novell, LANtastic, or Windows for Workgroups network
protocols.
***************
SOFTWARE LAYERS
Several layers of software are involved in implementing a direct network
connection. A commonly used method is to first install a piece of software
called a packet driver that deals directly with the network interface
card. This is loaded under DOS from the AUTOEXEC.BAT file as a TSR
(terminate and stay resident) program. A packet driver should be included
with the software that comes with the card. If the manufacturer of the card
does not supply a packet driver, free packet drivers are available in the
Crynwr Packet Driver Collection as described at the end of this document.
The next layer of software is the TCP/IP driver, which can be implemented
in a variety of ways. Until recently, this was often another DOS TSR
program loaded from the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Increasingly this layer of
software is implemented as a Windows dynamic link library (DLL) or virtual
device driver (VxD). The DLL and VxD implementations do not require any
modification of the boot files on the PC.
The TCP/IP driver that implements TCP/IP functionality for the system is
referred to as the TCP/IP protocol stack. The driver may be written to work
with a specific network card, or it may be written to interface with a
packet driver. In the latter case, a single TCP/IP driver can be used with
any network card for which an associated packet driver is available. Thus,
the packet driver specification eliminates the need for software vendors
to customize their TCP/IP protocol stack for every network card with which
it is used. When using a packet driver with Windows applications, another
DOS TSR referred to as a virtual packet driver may be required to
interface between the Windows-based TCP/IP protocol stack and the
DOS-based packet driver.
When a direct network connection is not available, Internet TCP/IP software
can be used over serial lines to connect to a SLIP (Serial Line Internet
Protocol) or PPP (Point to Point Protocol) server that provides a
connection to the Internet. SLIP and PPP do not require the software
drivers that are necessary with a direct network connection. The Trumpet
Winsock shareware package to be described later has all SLIP and PPP
functions included in the TCP/IP driver, which is configured through a
Windows dialog box.
SLIP and PPP are less transparent to the user than a direct network
connection. The user first obtains an account on a SLIP or PPP server.
Connecting to the Internet involves dialing the server using normal
serial communications software and establishing a SLIP or PPP session.
Once the session is established, TCP/IP software running on the PC can be
used just as if the PC was connected directly to the Internet through a
network card. SLIP and PPP users are well advised to settle for nothing
less than transmission at 14,400 bits per second. World Wide Web
especially transmits a great deal of data when images or sound are
involved. Slow modems and slow connections will discourage anyone but the
most dedicated user from exploring the possibilities of the Internet.
TCP/IP client applications work at the top of the layers of software so
far described. Client software runs independently of the type of connection
to the Internet. TCP/IP applications frequently are referred to as clients
because they access a corresponding server (a daemon in UNIX terminology)
on another machine. An FTP client, for instance, is the application on the
user's machine that accesses the FTP server running on a host computer
located elsewhere on the Internet.
Until recently, each TCP/IP client had to be written to interface with a
particular vendor's TCP/IP protocol stack. Clients that worked with one
vendor's TCP/IP driver would not work with a driver from another vendor.
This restriction was eliminated with the development of the Windows
Sockets Application Programming Interface, otherwise known as the Winsock
API, or more simply Winsock. Winsock works in the layer between the
TCP/IP client and the TCP/IP protocol stack.
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 1995 06:38:14 -0600
From: Malik Al-Rashim <dfox@fc.net>
Subject: JAUC-File4
-------
WINSOCK
"Winsock" is the buzzword that dominates discussion about TCP/IPand Windows.
All of the software to be described here is based on Winsock. The
implementation of Winsock is transparent to the user, but it is helpful
for the end-user to know how it supports Windows applications.
Winsock (short for Windows sockets) is a technical specification that
defines a standard interface between a Windows TCP/IP client application
(such as an FTP client or a Gopher client) and the underlying TCP/IP
protocol stack. The nomenclature is based on the Sockets applications
programming interface model used in Berkeley UNIX for communications
between programs.
When you launch a Winsock compliant client like WSGopher, it calls
procedures from the WINSOCK.DLL dynamic link library. These procedures in
turn invoke procedures in the drivers supplied with the TCP/IP protocol
stack. As described earlier, the TCP/IP driver communicates with the
computer's ethernet card through the packet driver.
The WINSOCK.DLL file is not a generic file that can be used on any system.
Each vendor of a TCP/IP protocol stack supplies a proprietary WINSOCK.DLL
that works only with that vendor's TCP/IP stack.
The advantage of Winsock to the developer of a client is that the
application will work with any vendor's Winsock implementation. Thus, the
developer of an application such as a Gopher client has to understand the
Winsock interface, but he does not have to know the details of each
vendor's TCP/IP protocol stack in order to make his client application
compatible with that stack. Winsock also eliminates the need for an
application developer to include a custom TCP/IP protocol stack within the
application program itself. This was a common means of implementing TCP/IP
clients under DOS, and some early Windows TCP/IP clients also used this
method. The use of protocol stacks internal to the client results in
conflicts when two clients try to access the single packet driver that is
communicating with the network card. The ability to create applications
compatible with any vendor's Winsock compliant protocol stack resulted
in a blossoming of Winsock compliant shareware applications beginning in
Summer 1993.
The Winsock standard also offers advantages to the end-user. One advantage
is that several Winsock applications from different vendors can be used
simultaneously. This is a marked improvement over earlier packet driver
applications in which each application contained a built-in TCP/IP stack.
Such applications cannot share the packet driver except through the added
complexity of a packet multiplexer such as PKTMUX. A second advantage to
the user is that any Winsock compliant application will run with any
vendor's TCP/IP protocol stack and accompanying WINSOCK.DLL.
Unfortunately, some commercial vendors of TCP/IP clients are not yet
taking advantage of Winsock capabilities. There are still TCP/IP clients
that require dedicated access to the packet driver, and there are clients
that will run only with the TCP/IP protocol stack supplied by one
particular vendor. Fortunately, the trend is for all commercial vendors
to make their applications more usable and portable through the use of the
Winsock standard.
---------------------
SOFTWARE DESCRIPTIONS
Once the required networking hardware is installed and an IP address is
assigned, or once an account is obtained on a SLIP or PPP server, the user
needs to install a TCP/IP protocol stack and a selection of TCP/IP clients.
The remainder of this paper describes such software.
For each application, I briefly outline the installation procedures. I do
this primarily to illustrate the simplicity of using Windows for Internet
access. Please be sure to read any text files included with each package
in order to complete the configuration and to learn about all functions
of the software.
I have installed all the software described here for many of my colleagues
in the Virginia Tech Libraries. With some practice I have found that I can
install a complete suite of TCP/IP applications in about half an hour.
Some individuals who read the previous versions of this document were up
and running in less than an hour after obtaining the software. They
expressed their delight at the ease of networking with Windows.
**********************************
DISCLAIMERS AND LIMITED WARRANTIES
I am not an expert on anything. I am just an enthusiastic end-user of these
products in my daily work. I have used all of the client software with a
direct connection to an ethernet network using a Western Digital or SMC
ethernet card with the Trumpet Winsock shareware TCP/IP protocol stack
and WINSOCK.DLL. In addition, I have used most of the clients with FTP
Software's commercial package PC/TCP version 2.2. In the latter case I
obtained the most recent version of FTP Software's WINSOCK.DLL file by
anonymous FTP from ftp.ftp.com in directory /support/ftpsoft/winsock under
the name winsock.exe (a self-extracting ZIP file)(November 16, 1994
| 46,375 bytes). The Trumpet and FTP products both use a packet driver
interface to the network card. I have also used most of the clients on a
Windows for Workgroups network using Microsoft's add-on TCP/IP package.
This package is available by anonymous FTP from ftp.microsoft.com in the
directory /peropsys/windows/public/tcpip under the filename WFWT32.EXE
(November 29, 1994 | 680,621 bytes), a self-extracting archive file.
I also have used most of the client software through a SLIP server using
the Trumpet Winsock. Both a dialup connection to the SLIP server and a
modemless connection through an IBM/ROLM digital switch were used at
various times.
I have no experience with PPP connections.
As discussed above, the client software described here should run with any
TCP/IP protocol stack that offers Winsock support. If your PC is already
using a network operating system that does not include Winsock support,
you should check with your vendor to find out if Winsock support is
available. If Winsock support is not available from your vendor, then it
may be possible to install the Trumpet Winsock TCP/IP protocol stack over
your existing network drivers using a small program known as a packet
driver shim. Instructions for this configuration are included in the
Trumpet Winsock documentation.
In the following descriptions, information about version numbers, file
sizes, and dates was verified on December 20, 1994.
***************
TRUMPET WINSOCK (TCP/IP protocol stack and basic clients, )
(including telnet, ping, and Archie )
Comment: You need this package (or some other TCP/IP protocol stack that
supports Winsock) before you can use any of the client software described
later. Trumpet Winsock does not require any additional network software.
Its TCP/IP functions can be installed over other network software such as
Novell or Windows for Workgroups using a packet driver shim. Instructions
for such installations are included in the ZIP file.
Author: Peter Tattam, Trumpet Software International
Fee: $25 shareware fee.
Version: 2.0 Revision B
File name: twsk20b.zip (November 3, 1994 | 179,015 bytes)
(includes the TCP/IP protocol stack)
winapps2.zip (November 29, 1994 | 162,023 bytes)
(includes basic clients)
Available by anonymous FTP from:
ftp.trumpet.com.au in directory /ftp/pub/winsock
or by Gopher from
gopher.trumpet.com.au under menu item winsock.
The Australian hosts can be slow. An alternative gopher site is
biochemistry.bioc.cwru.edu under the menu item CWRU Biochemistry FTP
Archive/trumpwsk. You can also FTP to this address and access the
directory /gopher/pub/trumpwsk. However, only one anonymous FTP user is
permitted weekdays during normal working hours from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
local time. Note that this site may not contain the latest version of the
files. For example, at this writing it did not contain the most recent
winapps2.zip file.
Installation:
1.) Create directory C:\TRUMPWSK and unzip TWSK20B.ZIP and
WINAPPS2.ZIP into this directory.
2.) Install software drivers.
Ethernet network:
a.) Install packet driver for your ethernet card.
The entry in my AUTOEXEC.BAT file is:
C:\ETHERNET\8003PKDR.EXE /B:240 /R:D000 /I:10 /E:61
b.) Install WINPKT.COM virtual packet driver included in
TWSK20B.ZIP. The entry in my AUTOEXEC.BAT file is:
C:\TRUMPWSK\WINPKT.COM 0x61
SLIP or PPP:
No special drivers are needed because SLIP and PPP support
are built into the Trumpet Winsock TCPMAN.EXE program.
3.) In Program Manager, create a program group named Network.
Use File Manager to drag and drop the EXE files in
C:\TRUMPWSK into the Network program group.
4.) Edit the PATH statement in AUTOEXEC.BAT to include
C:\TRUMPWSK. This enables Winsock applications to find
WINSOCK.DLL when they are launched.
5.) Reboot the computer and start Windows.
6.) Launch TCPMAN from the Network program group.
Select Setup on the menu bar. Enter your IP address,
gateway address, and nameserver address as assigned by
your local network administrator. (Some SLIP and PPP
servers, as well as some direct network connections, do
not use permanent IP addresses. Instead, the server
assigns a temporary IP address at the start of each
session. If the server provides a bootp service, then
enter the text "bootp" (without the quotes) in place of
the IP address. On some servers it may be necessary to
enter the dummy IP address 0.0.0.0. Some servers report
the assigned IP address during session startup, requiring
the user to manually enter the assigned address in the
Setup dialog box before proceeding into SLIP mode.) If you
are using ethernet, enter the software interrupt used by
the packet driver. If you are using SLIP or PPP, check the
appropriate box and enter the appropriate COM port number
in the SLIP port box. Exit from TCPMAN. The file
TRUMPWSK.INI will be created in the C:\TRUMPWSK directory.
7.) Launch any Winsock compliant application. TCPMAN.EXE will
start automatically if it is not already running. (If you
are using SLIP or PPP, you must first connect to the
server and start a session. This can be done with the
dialing function in TCPMAN.) Several clients are included
with the Trumpet Winsock, including TRMPTEL.EXE version
0.07 for telnet, WINARCH.EXE for searching Archie
databases, and PINGW.EXE to ping another machine on the
network. PINGW provides the simplest means of verifying
that you have a network connection. Launch PINGW and enter
the name of an Internet host at the prompt. For example,
you might try to PING ftp.trumpet.com.au. If your
connection is working, and if the host is operating, you
will receive a response from the remote host.
Note: The WINSOCK.DLL file for the Trumpet Winsock remains in the
C:\TRUMPWSK directory. Some vendors may require that their WINSOCK.DLL be
copied to the C:\WINDOWS directory. If you have used Winsock software
from another vendor, but now want to try the Trumpet Winsock, be sure to
remove the other vendor's WINSOCK.DLL so that it will not interfere with
the Trumpet Winsock implementation.
Tip: The WINARCH client for Archie searching that is supplied in
WINAPPS2.ZIP defaults to searching the Archie server at archie.au. You can
access a different Archie server by using a command line argument. For
instance, to use the Archie server run by AT&T, use the command line
winarch.exe -archie=ds.internic.net.
SLIP or PPP usage: Trumpet Winsock includes a simple dialing function.
You can connect to your server by manually issuing the dialing commands.
You can also write a script that will dial and start your session
automatically.
PITFALL: After dialing with TCPMAN.EXE and establishing the SLIP or PPP
session, you must press the <ESC> key to escape from dialing mode and to
re-enable the TCP/IP mode in TCPMAN.EXE.
You may want to dial your server automatically without writing a custom
dialing script for TCPMAN.EXE. A utility named DIALER can be set up to
automatically issue the commands and passwords needed to start a session
on your server. DIALER version 2.0A is available by anonymous FTP from:
ftp.demon.co.uk
/pub/ibmpc/windows/utilities/dialexe.zip
(May 27, 1994 | 31,072 bytes)
*******
WSGOPHER (Gopher client)
Comment: A fast client with a useful system for saving bookmarks
in a subject classified arrangement and a good help system.
Author: Dave Brooks
License: Free
Version: 1.2
File name: wsg-12.exe (December 13, 1994 | 367,860 bytes)
Available by anonymous FTP from:
dewey.tis.inel.gov in directory /pub/wsgopher
Installation:
1.) Create the directory C:\WSGOPHER and copy the file
WSG-12.EXE to this directory. This file is a self-
extracting ZIP file.
2.) Execute WSG-12.EXE. The files will be extracted to the
directory.
3.) Create a new program item in the Network program group for
the program C:\WSGOPHER\WSGOPHER.EXE.
4.) Launch WSGopher and read the Help file.
5.) Select the Configuration menu and set the various
parameters and options as desired. The WSGOPHER.INI file
and bookmark files are kept in the C:\WSGOPHER directory.
*******************
TRUMPET FOR WINDOWS (Internet news reader and POP mail client)
Comment: To read Internet news, you need access to an NNTP(Network News
Transfer Protocol) server. To use the mail functions, you need an account
on a POP (Post Office Protocol) mail server. (I have not tested the mail
functions in this application because I prefer to use PC Eudora for mail.)
Author: Peter Tattam, Trumpet Software International
Fee: $40.00 shareware fee. TSI has extended the free
trial period until the final release of version
1.0B, which is in beta testing at this time.
Version: 1.0 Revision A
File name: wtwsk10a.zip (August 28, 1993 | 167,601 bytes)
Available by anonymous FTP from:
ftp.trumpet.com.au in directory /ftp/pub/wintrump
or by Gopher from gopher.trumpet.com.au under menu item wintrump.
Installation:
1.) Create the directory C:\WINTRUMP and unzip WTWSK10A.ZIP
into this directory.
2.) Create a new program item in the Network program group for
the program C:\WINTRUMP\WT_WSK.EXE.
3.) Launch the program.
4.) Supply the address and other information in the dialog
boxes for the menu selections File Setup and File Network
Setup. NEWS.PRM and other configuration files will be
created and stored in C:\WINTRUMP.
PITFALL: The list of available news groups on your news server is stored
by Trumpet in the file NEWS.GRP. At times, Trumpet fails to fully update
this file as new groups become available from the news server. You can
force Trumpet to create a new and complete list of available groups by
erasing NEWS.GRP before starting Trumpet.
******************
EUDORA FOR WINDOWS (full featured mail client)
Comment: You will need an account on a POP mail server to send and receive
mail at your PC. QUALCOMM sells a commercial version of Eudora for both
Windows and the Macintosh.
Author: Jeff Beckley, Jeff Gehlhaar, and Mark Erikson,
QUALCOMM, Inc.
License: Shareware version is free. The author, Jeff Beckley,
requests that you send him a postcard at QUALCOMM,
Inc., 6455 Lusk Blvd., San Diego, CA 92121-2779 USA
if you find the program useful. Information about
the commercial version is available through
QUALCOMM's QUEST group World Wide Web page at
http://www.qualcomm.com/quest/QuestMain.html or from
QUALCOMM's FTP server at ftp.qualcomm.com in
directory /quest/eudora/windows. Questions about
Eudora can be sent by e-mail to
eudora-sales@qualcomm.com
Version: Shareware: 1.4.4
File name: eudor144.exe (December 7, 1994 | 292,942 bytes)
(self extracting archive file)
Available by anonymous FTP from:
ftp.qualcomm.com in directory /quest/windows/eudora/1.4
Installation:
1.) Copy the file EUDOR144.EXE to the directory C:\EUDORA.
2.) Execute EUDOR144.EXE to unarchive the program files.
3.) Create a new program item in the Network program group for
the program C:\EUDORA\WEUDORA.EXE.
4.) Launch the program.
5.) Select Special Configuration from the menu bar and supply
the required information.
6.) Select Special Switches and set characteristics as
desired.
7.) Create mailboxes and nicknames to taste.
8.) The file EUDORA.INI and other configuration files will be
created in the C:\EDUORA directory.
*******
WS_FTP (FTP client)
WS_PING (ping client)
Author: John Junod
License: Free to individuals for any non-commercial use and
for any U. S. Government Organization. Others should
contact Ipswitch, Inc., 669 Main Street, Wakefield,
MA, 01880, (617)246-1150, info@ipswitch.com.
Version: 94.10.18 (WS_FTP)
94.10.20 (WS_PING)
File names: ws_ftp.zip (October 20, 1994 | 113,252 bytes)
ws_ping.zip (October 21, 1994 | 60,496 bytes)
Available by anonymous FTP from:
ftp.usma.edu in directory /pub/msdos/winsock.files
Installation:
1.) Create the directory C:\WS_.
2.) Unzip WS_FTP.ZIP into this directory.
3.) Unzip the file WS_PING.EXE from its ZIP file into this
directory also. (Full source code for WS_PING is included
in the ZIP file with the name WSPI_SRC.ZIP. Source code
for the current version of WS_FTP is not distributed.
However, source code for the 93-12-05 version of WS_FTP
can be downloaded from directory /pub/msdos/winsock.files
under the name ws_ftp_s.zip.)
4.) Create new program items in the Network program group for
the programs C:\WS_\WS_FTP.EXE and C:\WS_\WS_PING.EXE.
5.) Launch the programs.
6.) The WS_FTP.INI file remains in the C:\WS_ directory. A
file named WINSOCK.INI is created by WS_PING in the
C:\WINDOWS directory.
*****
CELLO (World Wide Web browser)
Comment: Despite its age, Cello version 1.01a performs well. It continues
to be more stable than Mosaic, and it is the best client for printing.
It includes a useful Help system. Configuration is done from within the
application, not by directly editing the CELLO.INI file. Unfortunately,
Cello does not understand forms. Users of Diamond Stealth video cards
report problems with the mouse cursor, which virtually disappears while
the mouse is moving. The listserv CELLO-L is busy with messages about
CELLO development and about shareware for creating HTML documents for use
on Web servers. Instructions for subscribing to CELLO-L are included in
the Cello Help file. Version 2.0 is now in the hands of alpha testers.
Author: Thomas R. Bruce
License: Free
Version: 1.01a
File name: cello.zip (March 17, 1994 | 328,429 bytes)
Available by anonymous FTP from:
ftp.law.cornell.edu in directory /pub/LII/Cello
Installation:
1.) Create the directory C:\CELLO and unzip CELLO.ZIP into
this directory.
2.) Create a new program item in the Network program group for
the program C:\CELLO\CELLO.EXE.
3.) Launch the program.
***********
NCSA MOSAIC for Microsoft Windows (World Wide Web browser)
Comment: Users should note the alpha version designation and use caution
about saving work in any other running applications before launching
Mosaic. As in previous versions over the past year, simply launching and
then exiting from Mosaic permanently reduces by some 3 percentage points
the Windows user.exe resources on my machine. Launching Mosaic and exiting
several times can lead to conditions that require you to restart Windows.
However, Mosaic's previous problem of overwriting text when displaying
large files seems to be fixed in this version.
Mosaic is a 32-bit application that will run under Windows NT, Microsoft's
advanced workstation operating system. Most users will be using Windows 3.1
or Windows for Workgroups, which are 16-bit applications. To use Mosaic
with these systems, you must first install Win32s version 1.20 with OLE or
later. This addition to the Windows operating system enables current
versions of Windows to run 32-bit code that is not Windows NT specific.
NCSA recommends a 33MHz 486 with 8MB of RAM for running this version.
Authors: NCSA (National Center for SuperComputing
Applications)
License: Free
Version: 2.0.0a8
File name: mos20a8.exe (December 20, 1994 | 955,546 bytes)
w32sole.exe (December 20, 1994 | 2,240,650 bytes)
Available by anonymous FTP from:
ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu in directory /Web/Mosaic/Windows
Installation:
1.) Copy W32SOLE.EXE to a temporary directory and execute the
program. This will extract the two component files
INSTALL.BAT and WIN32DSK.EXE. The latter is another self
extracting archive file.
2.) Execute INSTALL.BAT.
(This batch file issues the command
WIN32DSK.EXE -d
to extract the component files into the subdirectories
DISK1, DISK2, and DISK3. These subdirectories will be
created below the temporary directory containing
INSTALL.BAT.)
3.) Change to the DISK1 subdirectory and execute SETUP.EXE.
This will install Win32s version 1.20 with OLE. Many of
the files will be installed in the directory
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\WIN32S. If you have an older version of
WIN32S already installed, it will be removed. You should
allow installation of the game FreeCell in order to test
that Win32s is properly installed on your machine. Once
this is verified, you can erase the files and directories
in the temporary installation directory.
4.) Copy MOS20A8.EXE to the temporary installation directory.
Remember to erase any files and subdirectories left in the
temporary directory from the installation of Win32s.
5.) Execute MOS20A8.EXE to extract the component files,
including SETUP.EXE.
6.) Execute SETUP.EXE to install Mosaic version 2.0 alpha 8 in
the directory of your choice. MOSAIC.INI will be copied to
the C:\WINDOWS directory.
7.) Launch the program. Read the files README.WRI and
RELNOTES.HTM to learn how to fully configure Mosaic to
your needs.
8.) When installation is complete, you can remove the
temporary installation directory.
NOTE: You can avoid the added complexity of installing Win32s and
the substantial demands it places on your PC by using the older
Mosaic version 2.0 alpha 2 (June 27, 1994 | 243,749 bytes).
********
NETSCAPE (World Wide Web browser)
Comment: Netscape Navigator is generating enormous interest at this
writing as the logical successor to Mosaic. FTP sites designated as
sources for Netscape frequently are inaccessible.
Author: Netscape Communications Corporation
License: Free for academic or not-for-profit use. Others,
including government users, should contact Netscape
Communications Corporation.
Version: 1.0N
File name: ns16-100.exe (December 17, 1994 | 706,929 bytes)
Available by anonymous FTP from:
ftp.mcom.com in directory /netscape/windows or
ftp2.mcom.com in directory /netscape/windows.
Frequently it is impossible to connect by anonymous FTP to
servers distributing Netscape. The best mode of access is to
use a World Wide Web browser and load the URL
http://home.mcom.com/info/how-to-get-it.html.
Installation:
1.) Copy the file NW16-100.EXE to a temporary directory and
run it. This will extract the component files, including
SETUP.EXE.
2.) Run the program SETUP.EXE by selecting the file in File
Manager or by using the menu selection File Run in Program
Manager. SETUP will install Netscape in a directory of
your choice, and it will create a program icon in the
group you designate.
3.) Launch the program. Configure Options and Preferences to
taste. The file NETSCAPE.INI is kept in the Netscape
program directory.
******
WINWEB (World Wide Web browser)
Comment: A fast and easy browser from EINet.
Author: MCC-EINet (Microelectronics and Computer Technology
Corporation)
License: Free
Version: 1.0 Alpha 2.2
File name: winweb.zip (December 19, 1994 | 598,873 bytes)
Available by anonymous FTP from:
ftp.einet.net in directory /einet/pc
Installation:
1.) Create the directory C:\WINWEB and unzip WINWEB.ZIP into
this directory.
2.) Move the included file VBRUN300.DLL to the windows system
directory, usually C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM. (This file is a
runtime library for Microsoft Visual Basic. If you already
have a copy installed from some other application, you can
simply delete it from the \WINWEB directory.
2.) Create a new program item in the Network program group for
the program C:\WINWEB\WINWEB.EXE.
3.) Launch the program and configure to taste. The file
WINWEB.INI will be created in the C:\WINDOWS directory.
*****
WFTPD (FTP server)
Comment: I had not imagined I would want or need to use my PC as an FTP
server. However, I have found this product useful on a couple of occasions
to transfer files from an IBM mainframe to my PC. This is far easier than
trying to FTP to the mainframe from my PC. Note that WinQVT/Net, which is
described later, has an FTP server function also. However, the server in
WinQVT/Net would not work when I tried to use Fetch on my PowerMac to
retrieve a file from my Windows machine. WFTPD had no problems serving
files to Fetch.
Author: Alun Jones
License: $15.00. The unregistered shareware version displays
a message to anyone accessing the server that the
owner is unable or unwilling to pay the shareware
fee. The shareware version is limited to five file
transfers per session.
Version: 1.95
File name: wftpd195.zip (October 20, 1994 | 147,612 bytes)
Available by anonymous FTP from:
ftp.cica.indiana.edu in /pub/pc/win3/winsock
or by gopher from:
ftp.cica.indiana.edu under menu item PC and CICA Windows Files/
CICA Windows Files/Winsock Compliant Apps
Installation:
1.) Create the directory C:\WFTPD and unzip WFTPD195.ZIP into
this directory.
2.) Create a new program item in the Network program group for
the program C:\WFTPD\WFTPD.EXE.
3.) Launch the program.
4.) Complete the information in the Security dialog box to
establish security control using access passwords and
restricted home directories for those you authorize to
access your PC. The file WFTPD.INI will be created in the
C:\WINDOWS directory.
------
TELNET
The glaring deficiency in the Winsock pantheon of Internet clients is the
absence of a good stand-alone telnet client. Here is a brief description
of some alternatives I have tried.
**********
WinQVT/Net
Comment: WinQVT/Net is an integrated package that includes telnet, FTP,
FTP server, mail, and news reader functions. These separate client and
server functions are normally launched from a console window. The telnet
client is probably the best shareware Winsock telnet client available.
You can select terminal emulations and customize the keyboard. The
resizable telnet window includes scrollback and session logging. A
deficiency is that telnet cannot be launched independently of the console
window. However, if WinQVT/Net is already running, then an instance of the
telnet client can be launched from another application by invoking the
TNSTART.EXE program that comes with WinQVT/Net. This makes it possible to
use this telnet client as the telnet viewer or helper with Gopher or
World wide Web clients.
Author: QPC Software
License: Shareware registration is $40 ($20 for students).
There has been discussion in alt.winsock and other
news groups about the difficulty of getting any
response to e-mail and fax messages from the author
of WinQVT/Net. Paying the license fee may be
difficult as a result.
Version: 3.98
File name: qvtws398.zip (December 16, 1994 | 390,960 bytes)
Available by anonymous FTP from:
biochemistry.bioc.cwru.edu in directory /gopher/pub/qvtnet
or by Gopher from
biochemistry.cwru.edu under the menu selection
CWRU Biochemistry FTP Archive/qvtnet.
Gopher access is preferable as only one anonymous user is
permitted weekdays during normal working hours from 9:00 AM to
5:00 PM local time.
**************
TRUMPET TELNET
Comment: This simple client is my favorite for use as a telnet viewer or
helper with Gopher or World Wide Web clients. Unfortunately, it lacks
sophisticated features needed by heavy users of telnet.
Author: Peter Tattam
License: Free beta version
Version: 0.07
File name: trmptel.exe (October 13, 1994 | 71,168 bytes)
This file is included in the WINAPPS2.ZIP file distributed as part of the
Trumpet Winsock package.
****
EWAN
Comment: EWAN (Emulator Without a Good Name) is a more complete Winsock
telnet client than Trumpet Telnet. It allows printing the screen, printing
the scrollback buffer, and logging a session to a file. It can be used as
a telnet viewer with Gopher or World Wide Web clients.
Author: Peter Zander
License: Free
Version: 1.04
File name: ewan104.zip (November 23, 1994 | 221,051 bytes)
Available by anonymous FTP from:
ftp.lysator.liu.se in directory /pub/msdos/windows
*******
QWS3270
Comment: Telnet clients usually emulate a VT100 terminal or one of its
variations, the standard for connecting to a UNIX host. However,
telneting to an IBM mainframe requires emulation of an IBM 3270 terminal.
QWS3270 provides this functionality. I was especially pleased with the
easily-configured, four-color capability that makes it easier to
distinguish protected, unprotected, and highlighted text on a VM screen.
Author: Jim Rymerson
License: Free
Version: 3.2e
File name: qws3270.zip (November 14, 1994 | 73,365 bytes)
Available by anonymous FTP from:
ftp.ccs.queensu.ca in directory /pub/msdos/tcpip
-------------------------------------
OTHER SOURCES FOR WINSOCK INFORMATION
It remains true that the best guide to the Internet is the Internet itself.
The best software for navigating the Internet is freely available on the
Internet.
Considerable information about the Winsock API, along with some application
programs, is available by anonymous FTP at sunsite.unc.edu in directory
/pub/micro/pc-stuff/ms-windows/winsock.
The anonymous FTP sites that I list throughout this paper as sources for
programs are the sites designated by the software authors as their home
sites. These sites will always have the latest version of the software.
In addition, copies of the software may usually be obtained by anonymous
FTP from CICA (Center for Innovative Computer Applications) at
ftp.cica.indiana.edu in directory /pub/pc/win3/winsock. Files are also
available from this same address using a Gopher client. Gopher access is
preferable because the CICA FTP server is the main Internet site for
Windows applications. It is usually busy, and you may have difficulty
establishing an FTP connection.
It is the case that the collection at CICA will NOT always contain the
latest version of software, even if a newer version has been uploaded to
CICA by the author. CICA does not allow anonymous users to view or
download program files from the uploads directory, where the newest
version might still be in the holding pattern. Also, the versions at
CICA may not have the same file dates as those at the home sites.
There is a listserv that provides a daily listing of new uploads to CICA.
Included in the mailing are the content of any text files accompanying
those uploads and a list of files that have been moved from the uploads
directory to the public directories so as to be available for downloading.
You can subscribe to CICA-L by sending e-mail with no subject and the
message sub CICA-L Your Name to listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu.
There are several other Internet sites that provide mirror copies of the
Windows collection at CICA. These are listed in the message displayed if
you are denied access to CICA. The list of mirror sites also is included
in the file README in CICA's directory /pub/pc/win3. These mirrors can be
just as busy as CICA. As an example, the mirror at polecat.law.indiana.edu
was recently removed due to overload on the server.
When using CICA, it is helpful to download the file INDEX (ascii, about
285,000 bytes) or INDEX.ZIP (about 122,000 bytes) from the directory
/pub/pc/win3. INDEX contains one-line descriptions of each file in the
collection.
The news groups alt.winsock, and comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc carry
discussions of the Winsock specification and Winsock compliant
applications, as do the groups in the comp.os.ms-windows.networking
hierarchy. Trumpet Winsock and related clients are discussed in several
news groups in the trumpet hierarchy.
Information about specific clients may be found in groups devoted to that
class of client. For instance, WSGopher is discussed in alt.gopher and
in comp.infosystems.gopher. Cello, Mosaic, Netscape, and WinWeb are
discussed in the sections of the comp.infosystems.www hierarchy.
The BITNET listserv WIN3-L@UICVM carries discussions about all topics
relating to Windows, including Winsock applications. Some news servers
carry this listserv under the news group name bit.listserv.win3-l.
A comprehensive list of FTP'able Winsock applications is available from
Larsen Consulting and Sales, Phoenix, Arizona, USA. To get a copy of the
list, send an e-mail message to info@lcs.com with the Subject: FAQ.
Nothing else should be in the message. The list is also available on the
World Wide Web at http://www.lcs.com/.
Frequently Asked Questions about TCP/IP on PC-compatible computers are
answered in a FAQ written by Bernard D. Adoba. The text is posted monthly
on the news group comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc. A copy of the newsgroup
posting is available as three separate files from rtfm.mit.edu in the
directory /pub/usenet-by-hierarchy/comp/protocols/tcp-ip/ibmpc. The
complete text of the files dated November 3, 1994 contains over 214,000
bytes. The filenames are decidedly non-DOS, so you will want to assign
filenames if you download from this source. The FAQ is also available
as a single ZIP file named ibmtcp.zip (79,454 bytes | October 29, 1994)
from ftp.netcom.com in the directory /pub/mailcom/IBMTCP. Each of these
sites can be troublesome. They frequently are busy or unresponsive to
commands.
Finally, the FAQ, and other publications about Internet software for the
PC, can be accessed on the World Wide Web page maintained by Bernard Adoba.
The page entitled "Internaut: The PC-Internet Connection Update Page" is
located at http://www.zilker.net/users/internaut/update.html.
The Crynwr packet drivers collection is available by anonymous FTP in the
well-known Simtel20 collection, as well as through a variety of other
methods. The primary publicly available site for Simtel20 files is at
oak.oakland.edu. The packet drivers are in directory SimTel/msdos/pktdrvr
pktd11.zip (November 23, 1993 | 435420 bytes)
pktd11a.zip (November 23, 1993 | 326152 bytes)
pktd11b.zip (November 23, 1993 | 344847 bytes)
pktd11c.zip (December 14, 1993 | 81834 bytes).
An early version of this document (dated February 9, 1994) was published in
the "Toolkit" section of the March 14, 1994 issue of "Global Network News."
GNN is part of the "Global Network Navigator," a World Wide Web publication
of O'Reilly Associates. Articles in GNN are aimed at the reader with a
general interest in the Internet and networked information. You can read
GNN by pointing Mosaic or Cello at http://www.wimsey.com/gnn/gnn.html.
The most recent plain text version of "Windows and TCP/IP for Internet
access" is available by anonymous FTP from nebula.lib.vt.edu in the
directory /pub/windows/winsock under the name wtcpip**.asc. For instance,
this version has the name wtcpip06.asc. A more frequently revised hypertext
version is available at http://learning.lib.vt.edu/wintcpip/wintcpip.html.
================================================================
I thank each of you who sent me personal messages following the postings
of earlier versions of this evolving document. I have now received e-mail
about this document from individuals on seven continents. Thanks to AJO
at McMurdo Station for sending me a message from Antarctica.
I am grateful that I have been able to help many of you, and I appreciate
the suggestions and information you have sent me. My efforts in producing
this document can be only a small and indirect repayment of the debt I owe
to the developers who produce this software and to the many Internet users
who are so willing to share information and expertise.
Please send error reports to me at hmkriz@vt.edu. I would be grateful for
suggestions for improvements and additions to this document. Thanks again
to everyone who replied to my beginner's questions over the past eighteen
months. I greatly appreciate your patience, and your willingness to share
your knowledge.
--Harry
=================================================================
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 1995 07:03:19 -0600
From: Malik Al-Rashim <dfox@fc.net>
Subject: JAUC-File5
SAY WHAT? LIBEL & DEFAMATION ON THE INTERNET
By Eric Eden (r3eje@vm1.cc.uakron.edu)
On the Internet, where abnormal behavior is the status quo, tempers
can flare in the heat of debate and word wars can last for days or even
weeks. It's not uncommon for users to ridicule, harass or insult those
who disagree with them.
But if you damage someone's reputation by trying to embarrass them in
a public forum, you could be sued for libel or defamation. After all,
there's no reason to assume that the messages you send through
cyberspace are immune from lawsuits.
"The Internet culture right now is for users to refute speech with
speech," says Dave Marburger, the attorney who represented Brock
Meeks in one of the first defamation lawsuits in the United States
involving the Internet. "But as the Internet culture gets more diverse,
users will start refuting speech with lawsuits."
There have only been a handful of libel and defamation lawsuits filed
involving the Internet so far, but as the Net grows, the number of
lawsuits will probably increase. If the few court battles that have been
decided involving libel and defamation on the Net are any indication of
how the law will be applied to the Internet in the future, it's worth your
time to learn what's libelous or defamatory on the Internet and what's
not.
Other users have the right to sue you for defamation if they can prove
you damaged their reputation or good name with false information.
You can be sued for libel if another user can prove you have distributed
defamatory statements about them in a public area -- such as a news
group or mailing list.
In April of 1993 Gil Hardwick, an anthropologist in Australia, was
ordered by the Australian Supreme Court to pay David Rindos $40,000
in damages because he defamed Rindos on an international mailing list.
After Rindos lost his job at the University of West Australia, Hardwick
posted a message in a discussion group for anthropologists that suggested
Rindos was fired because he was a bully and had sexually molested a
local boy.
Rindos filed a defamation lawsuit against Hardwick because he felt the
message had hurt his chances of finding a new job. In a letter to
Rindos's attorney, Hardwick wrote "Let this matter be expedited and
done with....I can do nothing to prevent it, lacking any resources
whatsoever to defend myself." Like most people, Hardwick didn't have
the money to hire a lawyer or finance an expensive legal battle.
"He (Rindos) suffered a great deal of personal hurt because of the
message," said Supreme Court Justice David Ipp in the West
Australian. "The damages award must compensate him and vindicate
his reputation to the public."
The Internet is an informal forum and people often write personal things
about other users, but you can be held accountable in court for making
libelous or defamatory remarks in public forums just like Hardwick was.
"We know that as the Internet grows, there will be more and more
lawsuits involving libel and defamation," says attorney David H.
Donaldson, editor of Legal Bytes, an electronic magazine that
discusses legal issues involving computers and networking. "The only
question is if the number of cases will grow steadily or if there will be
an explosion of lawsuits all at once."
Anybody can sue you for libel or defamation if they think you damaged
their reputation, but if you can prove what you say is true, chances are
that you won't end up in court.
"Make it clear when you are stating your opinion," says Donaldson,
"Always state the facts that your opinions are based on just to be safe.
You probably won't lose a libel or defamation lawsuit if you can back up
what you write with solid facts."
For example, Brock Meeks, a full-time journalist who also distributes his
own electronic magazine, avoided losing a defamation lawsuit largely
because he could prove an article that he sent over the Net was true.
Meeks was sued by Suarez Corporation Industries in April of 1994 for
writing an investigative story about the company and its services in his
electronic newsletter -- the CyberWire Dispatch. Meeks had no libel
insurance, no publishing company backing him up and a lot of legal
fees to cover. (His lawyer charged him $200 an hour.) The only thing
Meeks had was his house -- and he didn't want to sell it to pay off a
lawsuit.
Meeks defended his article in numerous posts on the Net, "All of my
facts were rock solid. Although the article was delivered with a fair
amount of attitude, I don't believe that I'm in dangerous waters," he
wrote.
Benjamin Suarez, owner of Suarez Corp., filed the suit because he felt
that Meeks had damaged his reputation and hurt his business by
saying he was "infamous for his questionable direct marketing scams,"
and saying "he (Suarez) has a mean streak." To back up his opinion,
Meeks cited accusations made by the Washington state attorney
general's office concerning Suarez's direct marketing practices.
In August of 1994 Suarez Corp. made Meeks an offer he couldn't
refuse. They agreed to settle the case for $64 -- to cover
administrative court costs. The company refused to comment on why
they agreed to settle the lawsuit.
If the case had gone to trial, Meeks's lawyer thinks Meeks would have
been able to win anyway. "The defendants in libel or defamation suits
involving the Internet have enhanced First Amendment rights," says
Marburger. "The plaintiff has to prove actual malice. In other words,
the plaintiff has to show that the defendant made false statements or
was negligent." Marburger's only regret is that they didn't get to set
that precedent in court.
Although the Meeks case doesn't really mean anything in the law
books, it does show that if you're responsible and can prove what you
write on the Net is true, people will be less likely to take you to court.
If
you just make something up and your sources aren't reliable, you could
lose big like Hardwick did.
"You have to follow the same rules that journalists do if your going to
write and distribute controversial material about other people," says
Donaldson.
The increasingly common phenomenon of online forums creates the
possibility for you to reach large audiences, but it also creates the
ability for you to commit defamation or libel -- something that an
ordinary citizen didn't have to worry about in the past. before the
growth of online communication, people who didn't work in the media
usually didn't have to worry about libel or defamation. "Libel laws apply
to the Internet the same way they do to newspapers and TV stations,"
explains former Federal Communications Commissioner Nicholas
Johnson, a professor at the Iowa University school of law. "The same
technology that gives you the power to share your opinion with
thousands of people also qualifies you to be a defendant in a lawsuit."
Like a newspaper or TV station, you are responsible for making sure
the material you distribute -- or broadcast -- over the Internet is not
libelous or defamatory. Lani Teshia-Miller never meant to defame
anyone, but when she took over the distribution of a tattoo FAQ she
almost ended up in court. The rec.arts.bodyart FAQ she inherited
contained a lot of generalizations based on contributions from
unattributed sources. Although she listed her name on the FAQ, she
didn't edit out several defamatory statements. One review of a San
Francisco tattoo artist in the FAQ said, "He's getting old and having
problems with his eyesight. His quality is really bad and he hurts
people."
After the artist hired a lawyer and threatened to sue, Teshia- Miller
changed the FAQ's wording to reflect a more factually-based and
less-hysterical view. The review now says, "His eyesight is not what it
used to be."
After the FAQ was changed and Teshia-Miller apologized, the artist
dropped the lawsuit. "It turned out to be a good experience for me,"
said Teshia- Miller. "I'm a lot more careful about what I allow on the
artist list, and I now have a very long disclaimer at the beginning of the
FAQ."
Every person you write something negative about won't sue you for
defamation or libel, they might flame you or just try to set the record
straight by replying to the message. But if you post false information
about another user and disgrace them in public, they have the right to
take you to court -- and they could win a big settlement if they can
prove you were negligent.
Medphone, a Fortune 500 company that manufactures medical
instruments, has filed a $200 million lawsuit against Prodigy user Peter
DeNigis. Medphone filed a "systematic program for defamation and
trade disparagement" lawsuit against DeNigis after a stockholder
reported that he was making several negative posts about Medphone a
day on Prodigy's Money Talk Forum. DeNigis, a former Medphone
stockholder, lost more than $9,000 last year by selling off his
investment in the company. In one post DeNigis wrote, "My research
indicated the company is really having a difficult time. No case, no
sales, no profits and terrible management. This company appears to be
a fraud. Probably will cease operations soon."
Although the accusation that Medphone is a "fraud" is very serious --
and potentially defamatory -- DeNigis might be able to win the lawsuit if
he can prove what he wrote is true in court.
"The Medphone case is a clear indication that libel and defamation is
something for Internet users to think about," says Johnson.
There are court cases in progress right now that will decide if access
providers such as Prodigy, America Online and Compuserve are
responsible for defamatory remarks broadcast over their services, but
there is no legal ambiguity about whether individual users can be sued
for making defamatory or libelous statements. Individual users are
responsible for making sure the information they distribute is not
libelous or defamatory.
The Internet has made world wide, instantaneous communication easy.
The average user now has the power to be heard by hundreds or even
thousands of other users, but in terms of libel and defamation, the Net
is not a new world of freedom. The reality is that libel and defamation
laws are enforceable in the virtual world just like they are in the real
world.
# # #
You may distribute this article freely for non-profit purposes. Otherwise
contact the author (Eric Eden -- R3eje@vm1.cc.uakron.edu) for reprint
permission.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
JACKING IN FROM THE "BACK FROM THE DEAD" PORT
By Brock N. Meeks (brock@well.sf.ca.us)
CyberWire Dispatch Copyright (c) 1994
Washington, DC -- Nothing chills -- or inflames -- the Net faster than
when word of the dreaded "FCC Modem Tax" begins ooze through Cyberspace.
Well... it's back. Sort of.
Ruth Milkman, legal advisor to Federal Communications Commission Chairman
Reed Hundt, said during a recent question and answer session that the
agency might again take up the issue of the so-called modem tax.
"Some years down the road I can see access fees [for enhanced service
providers] being considered by the FCC," Milkman said during a phone
interview. "But only under the scenario when access charges are reformed."
These access charges are a kind of trip wire phrase which online activists
have dubbed a "modem tax" when applied to enhanced service providers,
which is another catch phrase meaning services like America Online and
CompuServe.
Milkman said the FCC would only consider an access charge under a very
narrow scenario which would play out only if "enhanced service providers
felt that by paying the access charges they weren't contributing to a
subsidy scheme set up for (long distance phone companies)," Milkman said.
So, what the hell is an "access charge"? Take a deep breath. Here goes:
Access charges are paid by long distance companies to local telephone
companies. Every time a company such as AT&T connects a caller in Des
Moines with Uncle Bert in New York, it has to pay Nynex, the local
telephone company, a fee for the privilege of carrying that long distance
call over their facilities, commonly known as the "local loop."
Long distance companies pay up to 40% of their entire revenues to local
telephone companies. That's billions and billions of dollars each year
that flow into the hands of the Baby Bells, just for completing the calls.
The access fees are set at artificially high rates because they contain a
mind numbing set of complex subsidies, the most obvious one is that which
underwrites the public policy known as "Universal Service."
Back in the days when the FCC only had rotary dial phones (circa 1987)
someone came up with the brilliant idea that because modem use was
increasing at such a rapid pace, that maybe services such as Sprintlink
(then known as telenet) and CompuServe should have to pay these access
charges, too.
After all, the FCC wonks postured, they carry long distance (modem)
traffic over the phone lines? It would only be fair to have these
"enhanced service providers" as they are known in FCC-speak, also help
out the impoverished long distance phone companies underwrite Universal
Service.
Bingo. The hue and cry that went up from the online community (it wasn't
yet called "the Net") was enormous. The major players -- Telenet and
CompuServe -- quickly branded the plan as a "tax" and thus the phrase
"modem tax" was born.
Dire warnings went out: If the FCC succeeded in making enhanced service
providers chip in for access fees, it would increase the cost of each hour
of online time by at least $6 per hour.
And remember, this was in the days when a 2,400-bps modem was the hottest
thing going. Six bucks an hour would have demolished the struggling
online industry.
The fallout among the nascent online community was astounding. For the
first time in history, the "net" community rose up with a single voice and
FLOODED the FCC with protests.
FCC official "filing kits" made the rounds, teaching people how to file
official comments of protest.
The ground swell of opposition worked. The FCC was buried in responses.
At the time, the FCC said it was the hottest item in its history, garnering
more response than any issue in history.
The FCC eventually backed off. The reason: It was persuaded that enhanced
service providers were still entrepreneurial companies and couldn't afford
the burden of access fees.
The proposal was officially dropped. It was the first major victory for
the Net. And it was empowering. The online community became educated and
enlightened almost over night to the ways of an arcane governmental agency.
And this community was drunk with a heady kind of power: It could
sufficiently affect the outcome of governmental regulation.
Small catch: The damn "modem tax" issue wouldn't die.
Someone with the brains of a trout began to circulate the now infamous
"modem tax" file. The file claims that Jim Eason, a San Francisco radio
talk show host had aired a segment in which he claimed to have inside
information that the FCC was about to relaunch its "modem tax" proposal.
The message was and is a HOAX.
But it also has never died. It's the Net's first "urban myth" and like
Freddie, it refuses to die, even to this day.
Milkman, who was on-board at the FCC during the 1987 modem tax firefight,
sighed when explaining the complex issue: "Part of the problem is that
nobody is exactly sure what all the subsidies are. Most people agree that
there are subsidies in the access charges, but you can't break out those
subsidies exactly."
Another factor in play: Sometimes enhanced service providers are really
just reselling long distance transport after having bought large blocks of
time from a major carrier like AT&T. Thus, to have these enhanced service
providers also pay an access fee amounts to a kind of double-dipping,
Milkman said.
As it turns out, Congress might have as much to say about a future "modem
tax" as the FCC. This twisted scenario turns on the tenuous grasp that
everyone from the Vice President to Commerce Department to the FCC has on
exactly what constitutes "Universal Service," in the era of the Information
Superhighway.
Revamping the 60 year old Communications Act of 1934 will be up to Congress
this year. And they will likely do it. But how universal service is
defined remains a big mystery. And who ends up paying for and maintaining
that public policy (which isn't about to be abolished) also remains a
mystery.
Don't be surprised if, when the legislative smoke clears, not only do
enhanced service providers -- America Online, CompuServe and Prodigy, et al
-- have to pay access fees, but also your Internet provider and your cable
company.
And who do you think will end up catching those cost increases?? Right.
Your wallet.
But for now? Rest easy, Milkman says: "I want to make this very clear:
There is NO docket [open] in which the Commission is proposing making
enhanced service providers pay access charges. And I don't anticipate it
coming up."
Meeks out...
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
ANNOUNCING SLIPKNOT: Shareware dialup Web browser for Windows
By Felix Kramer (felixk@panix.com)
Dear Electronic Journalist
How long will the World Wide Web be accessible to only a small fraction
of dial-up users?
I'm writing to tell you about a new and important application for Internet
users that's was released last week, and that I think should be of
interest to you (and perhaps to your readers.)
In one sentence, it's a graphical Windows-based browser for the World
Wide Web, for users with dial-up UNIX accounts -- but one that doesn't
require SLIP, PPP or TCP/IP access. (You'll find a longer description
below.)
It's intended to expand and democratize access to the WWW to those with
ordinary dial-up accounts -- at a time when TCP/IP access is available
only to a small fraction of the online population.
Until now, access to the hypermedia-based Web has been limited to those
with SLIP, PPP or TCP/IP access, using Mosaic and similar browsers. That's
only a small fraction of the online population--a few million at most,
worldwide. Unless they were willing to go through considerable technical
acrobatics, most people with dial-up UNIX accounts were locked out of the
Web. Many of these people are accustomed to their UNIX tools for reading
mail and news, and don't want to switch to SLIP even if their systems offer
the option. (We may be talking about something over 20 million people
worldwide, with service through their companies, schools, universities,
or Internet Service providers.)
In journalistic terms, there are several stories here:
1) As discussed above, SlipKnot will expand the population of users who
can use the Web.
2) SlipKnot is pioneering in its distribution/sale policy. SlipKnot is
restricted shareware in its first version from MicroMind, Inc. Until now,
shareware has generally been distributed with a simple request for users to
register; SlipKnot takes that one step further. It is restricted
shareware. That means it is free for evaluation but with strong
incentives to frequent users to register. After a period of frequent
reminders, the software eventually turns itself off for nonregistering
users.
3) Registration fees or on a sliding scale. For most, the cost is $29.95.
But individuals outside Northern America, Europe and Japan will pay $20 to
register. A portion of the receipts will go to support refugee
organizations (Peter Brooks, the developer, came to the U.S. as a
refugee).
4) SlipKnot is a case study in the new technology of virtual commerce. All
promotion, distribution, and registration is being done online. No physical
shrink-wrapped disk or manual is produced: users download the product with
documentation. There is no paid advertising or direct mail: potential
purchasers learn about it through online newsgroups, user groups, mailing
lists, and through the press. There is no printed and mailed press kit:
the media hears about it through electronic means -- e-mailed press
materials and announcements. Registrants send in their addresses and
payments through fax or encrypted e-mail, and their personal codes are
returned to them by e-mail. All this is rapid, efficient, and economical.
Below you'll find info on where to get it. If you want to see what others
are saying about SlipKnot, we've attached some early reactions.
**NOTE** This press kit is incomplete. To keep down the size of this
message, and ensure that you get the most recent information, AT ANY TIME,
you can automatically retrieve SlipKnot's features, list of limitations,
and technical specifications for what SlipKnot requires on the user's
computer and at the service provider, by sending a blank e-mail message to
our autoreplying infobot:
slipknot@micromind.com
I'm a consultant to institutions interested in publishing on the net, and
author of a book on electronic publishing as a business. I'm doing
promotion for the release of SlipKnot.
Feel free to forward this message to other journalists, movers and shakers
on the net.
If possible, please let me know if you're planning to run a story; if it's
in online form, I'd be very grateful to get an e-mail copy; if in printed
form, I'd appreciate getting a tear sheet mailed to me at 310 Riverside
Drive, Suite 1519, New York, NY 10025. Please contact me or Peter Brooks
(the developer, pbrooks@micromind.com) if you have any questions. In any
stories, please do not publish my phone number; you can give out my e-mail
address and fax number.
Thanks in advance--Felix Kramer
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
HOW TO GET SLIPKNOT
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
SlipKnot 1.0, the World Wide Web browser for Windows dial-up users from
MicroMind,Inc., is now available (right on schedule!) for anonymous ftp
download at:
ftp://oak.oakland.edu/SimTel/win3/internet/slnot100.zip
or, if it's not too busy, from:
ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/pbrooks/slipknot/slnot100.zip
oak.oakland.edu has numerous mirror sites, so if you have any trouble
getting it directly from there, please try the mirror sites.
One mirror site is:
ftp.uoknor.edu/mirrors/SimTel/win3/internet/slnot100.zip
In the U.K. try:
src.doc.ic.ac.uk/computing/systems/ibmpc/simtel-win3/internet/slnot100.zip
In Australia try:
ftp.bf.rmit.edu.au /pub/pc/www/slnot100.zip
(If you don't get to it for a while, please look at the distribution site
for the latest version file, that is, slnotxxx.zip -- where "xxx" indicates
the Version of SlipKnot. So, for instance, Version 1.0 is slnot100.zip,
and Version 1.35 will be slnot135.zip.)
You can also get a FAQ, focusing primarily on common installation problems,
at: ftp://interport.net/pub/pbrooks/slipknot/sntfaq1.txt
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
WHAT PEOPLE HAVE SAID ABOUT SLIPKNOT
SINCE ITS RELEASE IN LATE NOVEMBER
(INDIVIDUALS FOLLOWED BY PRESS)
(AFFILIATIONS FOR IDENTIFICATION ONLY)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
UNSOLICITED COMMENTS FROM BETA TESTERS
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"SlipKnot is a godsend for those without slip."--Walter Rice, 11th grade
student at Central High School, Philadelphia
"I have really enjoyed SlipKnot. After trying for over a year to get
Mosaic to work on my PC at home, I found SlipKnot easy to install and use.
"--Mike McKee
"This is a fun program. A LOT of magazines lately have been talking about
Internet and the world wide web - and almost all of them say something like
"To really delve into Internet - you'll need a SLIP or PPP connection."
Get the word out about SlipKnot.. cause they're dead wrong. I have a shell
account and it's got everything most people could want. I can read
newsgroups, send/receive email, use telnet/ftp, download files, and (with
SlipKnot) browse the World Wide Web! To be honest.. what else is
there?"--Steve Crawford, MIS Manager for SpectraLink, Inc., Boulder,
Colorado
"I can use it with my dial-up and the price is certainly right--so I'm no
longer lusting for a SLIP/PPP connection....If *I* can use this program so
easily, anybody can....."--Kristi Olesen, author and parent
"SlipKnot is simple to install, use and configure and wonderful in the
sense that the wonders of the Internet are now truly available to me. As
you can tell, I love this product. Thanks!"--Tami Duggan, Commonwealth
Clinical Systems, Inc., Virginia
"Keep up the good work. You've got a winner."--Steven Pitzl
"Real slick....In general, the look and feel of SlipKnot is well-integrated
& tight....Very cool setup....After looking at many web browsers, I must
say y'all have a very unique browser, with a gorgeous interface,
well-thought out and tightly integrated. And smooth. SlipKnot. I'm
certainly telling everyone I know about it...."--Mark Garland, Civil
Engineering Office, Santa Fe National Forest
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
REVIEWS FROM USENET AND MAIL TO MICROMIND
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"Excellent software got it running with almost no problems.
Congratulations."--Alan from United Kingdom
"For a first release, Slipknot is amazing. It installed easily and worked
first time."--Will from netcom
"Overall, a really cool program, and quite clever."--SteveG from neosoft
"This is exactly the program I've been searching for these past few
months....While I loved the web browsing, I found I much preferred the
Unix programs on my shell account. Now you've given me the best of both
worlds. Thank you!"--Nelia from netcom
"Solid as a rock."--Rajesh from Temple University
"A really neat program! Saves me time charges on my SLIP account."--Larry
from netcom
"--
"Great Job Mr. Brooks ! well done !"--Amir from Bremen University, Germany
"You've done an amazing job, without requiring the usual add-ons. I have
spent hours with SlipKnot in many Web adventures and love the ability to
toggle it when I want it and to use 'trn' and 'lynx' (the latter for form
searches and for fastest text-response) and pine. So I'll get a check in
the mail this week. Absolutely no GPF's, and your keyboard unfreeze
resolved my one freeze in terminal."--Andrys from netcom
">One of the most exciting software programs I have seen lately."--Harald
from Univ of Cincinnati
"A major thumbs up!"--Darren from digex
"Bravo!! What can I say? Seems to be a very stable, and actually pretty
quick little program."--Mark from Pipeline
"Wow! I've been spreading the word about Slipknot--I don't know when I've
been more impressed with software in terms of the ease of use. Thanks
again. I really think you've got a winner on your hands."--Steve from
netcom
"It worked! This is fantastic! I'm registering my copy ASAP. NOW I can see
what everyone's so excited about."--Chris from tenet.edu
"We are working on our Internet CD-ROM disc and would include your program
as the user interface."--Stefan from Germany
"Terrific work and a real contribution to the Internet community."--William
from George Washington University
"I've been using your software for the past five days and I just wanted to
say how much I enjoy using it. BTW, I sent in my
registration/check"--Warren from ncsc.mil
"I think it's terrific, especially the ability to download WWW pages and
group in folders for future reference off-line!"--Deb from digex
"I'm very happy with SlipKnot and am enjoying seeing for the first time
what all the fuss is about regarding the WWW."--Phil from panix
"I can't say whether it's better than Mozilla, TIA, etc., but it sure turns
a shell account into a multimedia banquet!"--Daniel Dern from world.std.com
"I want to roundly condemn you for making and distributing this program. It
is so simple and easy to use, has so many useful functions and works so
flawlessly that I will probably spend many more hours in front of my
computer than I should :-). Anyway, thank you for a superb web browser.
Give yourself a gold star."--Mark from netcom
"This is so cool, you could get frostbite from it."--William from Denver
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
EARLY COMMENTS IN THE PRESS
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"Pure, unadulterated magic"--Daniel Dern, noted Internet analyst and
author, "The Internet Guide For New Users" (McGraw-Hill, 1993)
"Will SlipKnot cause a Web traffic explosion? SlipKnot is a MS-Windows Web
browser that can be used with a dial-up shell account. Could this be the
answer for those without a direct or Slip/PPP connection? SlipKnot is a
very welcome addition to the Web tool box. It will make available the Web's
graphical displays to a whole new group of Internet users.--Bob Stewart,
The Virtual Mirror -- http://mirror.wwa.com/mirror/
"Its chief author, Peter Brooks...plans to sell SlipKnot as shareware. That
means you download it free from an on-line service, try it out and if you
decide to keep it, mail the programmer a check. Brooks plans to ask for
$29.95. It's a steal....At the touch of a button, SlipKnot turned into a
World Wide Web browser that in some ways worked better than Mosaic. It ran
a little slower than Mosaic, but not much. And it works without the expense
and trouble of a PPP account....SlipKnot is going to be a strong
competitor."--Hiawatha Bray, Detroit Free Press, DFP Forum on Compuserve
"Spurred by a desire to share the wonders of the Web with the vast
dial-up population, developer Peter Brooks created SlipKnot....'We have a
small lifetime worth of work in terms of features to include in the
product,' Brooks confided. 'We will continue to improve it as time goes
on.' "--Dianna Husum, WEBster, the Cyberspace Surfer
"...A major technological breakthrough. SlipKnot is, as people used to say,
'for the manor woman on the street,' and it, and its successor software,
will invite millions more people to the Web's vibrant new culture."--Joyce
Lain Kennedy, LA Times Syndicate author, in Hookup/Get Hired, forthcoming
from John Wiley & Sons in 1995
"One of the best features of this browser is its ability to retrieve
documents in the background. According to MicroMind, SlipKnot is more than
just a Web browser. This program allows for complete navigation of the Net
and promises to bring Web access to almost all Internet users."--Patrick
McKenna, Newsbytes
"...for those trapped with terminal-emulation access to the Internet and
salivating at the new stuff they hear is on the Web, this product is simply
miraculous.--Richard Seltzer, Internet-on-a-Disk
"One advantage is that whatever Web pages it gets, it keeps them until you
decide to delete them. Once you're offline, you can go back and review
pages you had browsed while online. You can keep as many pages as your
available computer memory allows. SlipKnot is amazing. When it was first
announced on Internet, I was skeptical whether such a program could work.
Now, I'm a beiever."--John Fisher, Bucks County Times Courier
SlipKnot has appeared in the National Center for Supercomputing
Applications (NCSA) "What's New Page", Computer Underground Digest, and the
Usenet moderated newsgroups comp.newprod & comp.internet.net-happenings
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
SLIPKNOT AS SHAREWARE
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
SlipKnot is published as restricted shareware, free for evaluation but with
strong incentives to frequent users to register at a cost of $29.95 to most
people. Individuals outside Northern America, Europe and Japan will be
asked to pay $20 to register. And 10% of the receipts will go to support
refugee organizations.
Our shareware evaluation policy is that users who have displayed/retrieved
over 300 documents are no longer evaluating the software (this should take
about 2 months of typical usage) and will be asked to register within 30
days -- with an additional 21-day grace period if they start the
registration process. We hope that few users will object to the policy,
given the price of the software.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
NOTE FROM PETER BROOKS, SLIPKNOT DEVELOPER
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
SlipKnot was created because there was, at that time, no other alternative
to accessing the World Wide Web graphically if you did not have SLIP or PPP
or TCP/IP access. Having analyzed Mosaic and some of its competitors, I
concluded that all of these browsers were designed for people with very
rapid communications channels into the Internet, not modem users. Even if
you have SLIP access, most of these browsers do not allow you to save
entire documents (with the included pictures), forcing you to retrieve the
documents again whenever you wish to take a full look at them --
eliminating the possibility of demonstrating WWW without being online.
It takes a while to retrieve any document by modem with any browser, and
you shouldn't have to do this more than once.
The Web is a remarkable human construct and a truly a wondrous place. I
hope that SlipKnot brings you the magic of the Web, and that you become
as astounded by it as I am.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
ABOUT MICROMIND
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
MicroMind, Inc. is a New York City-based software development company with
six major products developed and released for the international market,
including:
* RUN/C -- the world's first interpreter for the C language -- sold in the
U.S. and Japan. 20,000 copies sold at $250.
* OL2 -- a product to duplicate the functionality of Sharp Electronics'
Wizard Electronic Organizer on a desktop computer -- marketed by Sharp
worldwide. Over 150,000 copies sold at $100.
PETER BROOKS, President of MicroMind and author of SlipKnot, has over 25
years of software development experience.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
FEEDBACK
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
To facilitate communication and support, we are asking users to post
comments and responses about SlipKnot only to the following Usenet
newsgroup: comp.infosystems.www.users.
At any time, for the latest SlipKnot information and a list of features,
either point your WWW browser (lynx is fine) to:
http://www.interport.net/slipknot/slipknot.html
or send a blank e-mail message to:
slipknot@micromind.com.
Please direct any press or distribution questions to
felixk@panix.com.
vox: 212/866-4864. fax: 212/866-5527
Please direct any technical questions to: slpstaff@micromind.com
Mail to Peter Brooks can be sent to: pbrooks@micromind.com
fax: 212/864-0436
SlipKnot is Trademarked by MicroMind, Inc.
This document (c) 1994 by MicroMind, Inc.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Felix Kramer/Kramer Communications
NYC-based electronic publishing & journalism
Online promotion & marketing
e-mail: felixk@panix.com or felixkramr@aol.com
voice: 212/866-4864 fax: 212/866-5527
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 1995 01:10:45 -0600
From: Malik Al-Rashim <dfox@fc.net>
Subject: JAUC-File6
SAY WHAT? LIBEL & DEFAMATION ON THE INTERNET
By Eric Eden (r3eje@vm1.cc.uakron.edu)
On the Internet, where abnormal behavior is the status quo, tempers
can flare in the heat of debate and word wars can last for days or even
weeks. It's not uncommon for users to ridicule, harass or insult those
who disagree with them.
But if you damage someone's reputation by trying to embarrass them in
a public forum, you could be sued for libel or defamation. After all,
there's no reason to assume that the messages you send through
cyberspace are immune from lawsuits.
"The Internet culture right now is for users to refute speech with
speech," says Dave Marburger, the attorney who represented Brock
Meeks in one of the first defamation lawsuits in the United States
involving the Internet. "But as the Internet culture gets more diverse,
users will start refuting speech with lawsuits."
There have only been a handful of libel and defamation lawsuits filed
involving the Internet so far, but as the Net grows, the number of
lawsuits will probably increase. If the few court battles that have been
decided involving libel and defamation on the Net are any indication of
how the law will be applied to the Internet in the future, it's worth your
time to learn what's libelous or defamatory on the Internet and what's
not.
Other users have the right to sue you for defamation if they can prove
you damaged their reputation or good name with false information.
You can be sued for libel if another user can prove you have distributed
defamatory statements about them in a public area -- such as a news
group or mailing list.
In April of 1993 Gil Hardwick, an anthropologist in Australia, was
ordered by the Australian Supreme Court to pay David Rindos $40,000
in damages because he defamed Rindos on an international mailing list.
After Rindos lost his job at the University of West Australia, Hardwick
posted a message in a discussion group for anthropologists that suggested
Rindos was fired because he was a bully and had sexually molested a
local boy.
Rindos filed a defamation lawsuit against Hardwick because he felt the
message had hurt his chances of finding a new job. In a letter to
Rindos's attorney, Hardwick wrote "Let this matter be expedited and
done with....I can do nothing to prevent it, lacking any resources
whatsoever to defend myself." Like most people, Hardwick didn't have
the money to hire a lawyer or finance an expensive legal battle.
"He (Rindos) suffered a great deal of personal hurt because of the
message," said Supreme Court Justice David Ipp in the West
Australian. "The damages award must compensate him and vindicate
his reputation to the public."
The Internet is an informal forum and people often write personal things
about other users, but you can be held accountable in court for making
libelous or defamatory remarks in public forums just like Hardwick was.
"We know that as the Internet grows, there will be more and more
lawsuits involving libel and defamation," says attorney David H.
Donaldson, editor of Legal Bytes, an electronic magazine that
discusses legal issues involving computers and networking. "The only
question is if the number of cases will grow steadily or if there will be
an explosion of lawsuits all at once."
Anybody can sue you for libel or defamation if they think you damaged
their reputation, but if you can prove what you say is true, chances are
that you won't end up in court.
"Make it clear when you are stating your opinion," says Donaldson,
"Always state the facts that your opinions are based on just to be safe.
You probably won't lose a libel or defamation lawsuit if you can back up
what you write with solid facts."
For example, Brock Meeks, a full-time journalist who also distributes his
own electronic magazine, avoided losing a defamation lawsuit largely
because he could prove an article that he sent over the Net was true.
Meeks was sued by Suarez Corporation Industries in April of 1994 for
writing an investigative story about the company and its services in his
electronic newsletter -- the CyberWire Dispatch. Meeks had no libel
insurance, no publishing company backing him up and a lot of legal
fees to cover. (His lawyer charged him $200 an hour.) The only thing
Meeks had was his house -- and he didn't want to sell it to pay off a
lawsuit.
Meeks defended his article in numerous posts on the Net, "All of my
facts were rock solid. Although the article was delivered with a fair
amount of attitude, I don't believe that I'm in dangerous waters," he
wrote.
Benjamin Suarez, owner of Suarez Corp., filed the suit because he felt
that Meeks had damaged his reputation and hurt his business by
saying he was "infamous for his questionable direct marketing scams,"
and saying "he (Suarez) has a mean streak." To back up his opinion,
Meeks cited accusations made by the Washington state attorney
general's office concerning Suarez's direct marketing practices.
In August of 1994 Suarez Corp. made Meeks an offer he couldn't
refuse. They agreed to settle the case for $64 -- to cover
administrative court costs. The company refused to comment on why
they agreed to settle the lawsuit.
If the case had gone to trial, Meeks's lawyer thinks Meeks would have
been able to win anyway. "The defendants in libel or defamation suits
involving the Internet have enhanced First Amendment rights," says
Marburger. "The plaintiff has to prove actual malice. In other words,
the plaintiff has to show that the defendant made false statements or
was negligent." Marburger's only regret is that they didn't get to set
that precedent in court.
Although the Meeks case doesn't really mean anything in the law
books, it does show that if you're responsible and can prove what you
write on the Net is true, people will be less likely to take you to court.
If
you just make something up and your sources aren't reliable, you could
lose big like Hardwick did.
"You have to follow the same rules that journalists do if your going to
write and distribute controversial material about other people," says
Donaldson.
The increasingly common phenomenon of online forums creates the
possibility for you to reach large audiences, but it also creates the
ability for you to commit defamation or libel -- something that an
ordinary citizen didn't have to worry about in the past. before the
growth of online communication, people who didn't work in the media
usually didn't have to worry about libel or defamation. "Libel laws apply
to the Internet the same way they do to newspapers and TV stations,"
explains former Federal Communications Commissioner Nicholas
Johnson, a professor at the Iowa University school of law. "The same
technology that gives you the power to share your opinion with
thousands of people also qualifies you to be a defendant in a lawsuit."
Like a newspaper or TV station, you are responsible for making sure
the material you distribute -- or broadcast -- over the Internet is not
libelous or defamatory. Lani Teshia-Miller never meant to defame
anyone, but when she took over the distribution of a tattoo FAQ she
almost ended up in court. The rec.arts.bodyart FAQ she inherited
contained a lot of generalizations based on contributions from
unattributed sources. Although she listed her name on the FAQ, she
didn't edit out several defamatory statements. One review of a San
Francisco tattoo artist in the FAQ said, "He's getting old and having
problems with his eyesight. His quality is really bad and he hurts
people."
After the artist hired a lawyer and threatened to sue, Teshia- Miller
changed the FAQ's wording to reflect a more factually-based and
less-hysterical view. The review now says, "His eyesight is not what it
used to be."
After the FAQ was changed and Teshia-Miller apologized, the artist
dropped the lawsuit. "It turned out to be a good experience for me,"
said Teshia- Miller. "I'm a lot more careful about what I allow on the
artist list, and I now have a very long disclaimer at the beginning of the
FAQ."
Every person you write something negative about won't sue you for
defamation or libel, they might flame you or just try to set the record
straight by replying to the message. But if you post false information
about another user and disgrace them in public, they have the right to
take you to court -- and they could win a big settlement if they can
prove you were negligent.
Medphone, a Fortune 500 company that manufactures medical
instruments, has filed a $200 million lawsuit against Prodigy user Peter
DeNigis. Medphone filed a "systematic program for defamation and
trade disparagement" lawsuit against DeNigis after a stockholder
reported that he was making several negative posts about Medphone a
day on Prodigy's Money Talk Forum. DeNigis, a former Medphone
stockholder, lost more than $9,000 last year by selling off his
investment in the company. In one post DeNigis wrote, "My research
indicated the company is really having a difficult time. No case, no
sales, no profits and terrible management. This company appears to be
a fraud. Probably will cease operations soon."
Although the accusation that Medphone is a "fraud" is very serious --
and potentially defamatory -- DeNigis might be able to win the lawsuit if
he can prove what he wrote is true in court.
"The Medphone case is a clear indication that libel and defamation is
something for Internet users to think about," says Johnson.
There are court cases in progress right now that will decide if access
providers such as Prodigy, America Online and Compuserve are
responsible for defamatory remarks broadcast over their services, but
there is no legal ambiguity about whether individual users can be sued
for making defamatory or libelous statements. Individual users are
responsible for making sure the information they distribute is not
libelous or defamatory.
The Internet has made world wide, instantaneous communication easy.
The average user now has the power to be heard by hundreds or even
thousands of other users, but in terms of libel and defamation, the Net
is not a new world of freedom. The reality is that libel and defamation
laws are enforceable in the virtual world just like they are in the real
world.
# # #
You may distribute this article freely for non-profit purposes. Otherwise
contact the author (Eric Eden -- R3eje@vm1.cc.uakron.edu) for reprint
permission.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
JACKING IN FROM THE "BACK FROM THE DEAD" PORT
By Brock N. Meeks (brock@well.sf.ca.us)
CyberWire Dispatch Copyright (c) 1994
Washington, DC -- Nothing chills -- or inflames -- the Net faster than
when word of the dreaded "FCC Modem Tax" begins ooze through Cyberspace.
Well... it's back. Sort of.
Ruth Milkman, legal advisor to Federal Communications Commission Chairman
Reed Hundt, said during a recent question and answer session that the
agency might again take up the issue of the so-called modem tax.
"Some years down the road I can see access fees [for enhanced service
providers] being considered by the FCC," Milkman said during a phone
interview. "But only under the scenario when access charges are reformed."
These access charges are a kind of trip wire phrase which online activists
have dubbed a "modem tax" when applied to enhanced service providers,
which is another catch phrase meaning services like America Online and
CompuServe.
Milkman said the FCC would only consider an access charge under a very
narrow scenario which would play out only if "enhanced service providers
felt that by paying the access charges they weren't contributing to a
subsidy scheme set up for (long distance phone companies)," Milkman said.
So, what the hell is an "access charge"? Take a deep breath. Here goes:
Access charges are paid by long distance companies to local telephone
companies. Every time a company such as AT&T connects a caller in Des
Moines with Uncle Bert in New York, it has to pay Nynex, the local
telephone company, a fee for the privilege of carrying that long distance
call over their facilities, commonly known as the "local loop."
Long distance companies pay up to 40% of their entire revenues to local
telephone companies. That's billions and billions of dollars each year
that flow into the hands of the Baby Bells, just for completing the calls.
The access fees are set at artificially high rates because they contain a
mind numbing set of complex subsidies, the most obvious one is that which
underwrites the public policy known as "Universal Service."
Back in the days when the FCC only had rotary dial phones (circa 1987)
someone came up with the brilliant idea that because modem use was
increasing at such a rapid pace, that maybe services such as Sprintlink
(then known as telenet) and CompuServe should have to pay these access
charges, too.
After all, the FCC wonks postured, they carry long distance (modem)
traffic over the phone lines? It would only be fair to have these
"enhanced service providers" as they are known in FCC-speak, also help
out the impoverished long distance phone companies underwrite Universal
Service.
Bingo. The hue and cry that went up from the online community (it wasn't
yet called "the Net") was enormous. The major players -- Telenet and
CompuServe -- quickly branded the plan as a "tax" and thus the phrase
"modem tax" was born.
Dire warnings went out: If the FCC succeeded in making enhanced service
providers chip in for access fees, it would increase the cost of each hour
of online time by at least $6 per hour.
And remember, this was in the days when a 2,400-bps modem was the hottest
thing going. Six bucks an hour would have demolished the struggling
online industry.
The fallout among the nascent online community was astounding. For the
first time in history, the "net" community rose up with a single voice and
FLOODED the FCC with protests.
FCC official "filing kits" made the rounds, teaching people how to file
official comments of protest.
The ground swell of opposition worked. The FCC was buried in responses.
At the time, the FCC said it was the hottest item in its history, garnering
more response than any issue in history.
The FCC eventually backed off. The reason: It was persuaded that enhanced
service providers were still entrepreneurial companies and couldn't afford
the burden of access fees.
The proposal was officially dropped. It was the first major victory for
the Net. And it was empowering. The online community became educated and
enlightened almost over night to the ways of an arcane governmental agency.
And this community was drunk with a heady kind of power: It could
sufficiently affect the outcome of governmental regulation.
Small catch: The damn "modem tax" issue wouldn't die.
Someone with the brains of a trout began to circulate the now infamous
"modem tax" file. The file claims that Jim Eason, a San Francisco radio
talk show host had aired a segment in which he claimed to have inside
information that the FCC was about to relaunch its "modem tax" proposal.
The message was and is a HOAX.
But it also has never died. It's the Net's first "urban myth" and like
Freddie, it refuses to die, even to this day.
Milkman, who was on-board at the FCC during the 1987 modem tax firefight,
sighed when explaining the complex issue: "Part of the problem is that
nobody is exactly sure what all the subsidies are. Most people agree that
there are subsidies in the access charges, but you can't break out those
subsidies exactly."
Another factor in play: Sometimes enhanced service providers are really
just reselling long distance transport after having bought large blocks of
time from a major carrier like AT&T. Thus, to have these enhanced service
providers also pay an access fee amounts to a kind of double-dipping,
Milkman said.
As it turns out, Congress might have as much to say about a future "modem
tax" as the FCC. This twisted scenario turns on the tenuous grasp that
everyone from the Vice President to Commerce Department to the FCC has on
exactly what constitutes "Universal Service," in the era of the Information
Superhighway.
Revamping the 60 year old Communications Act of 1934 will be up to Congress
this year. And they will likely do it. But how universal service is
defined remains a big mystery. And who ends up paying for and maintaining
that public policy (which isn't about to be abolished) also remains a
mystery.
Don't be surprised if, when the legislative smoke clears, not only do
enhanced service providers -- America Online, CompuServe and Prodigy, et al
-- have to pay access fees, but also your Internet provider and your cable
company.
And who do you think will end up catching those cost increases?? Right.
Your wallet.
But for now? Rest easy, Milkman says: "I want to make this very clear:
There is NO docket [open] in which the Commission is proposing making
enhanced service providers pay access charges. And I don't anticipate it
coming up."
Meeks out...
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
ANNOUNCING SLIPKNOT: Shareware dialup Web browser for Windows
By Felix Kramer (felixk@panix.com)
Dear Electronic Journalist
How long will the World Wide Web be accessible to only a small fraction
of dial-up users?
I'm writing to tell you about a new and important application for Internet
users that's was released last week, and that I think should be of
interest to you (and perhaps to your readers.)
In one sentence, it's a graphical Windows-based browser for the World
Wide Web, for users with dial-up UNIX accounts -- but one that doesn't
require SLIP, PPP or TCP/IP access. (You'll find a longer description
below.)
It's intended to expand and democratize access to the WWW to those with
ordinary dial-up accounts -- at a time when TCP/IP access is available
only to a small fraction of the online population.
Until now, access to the hypermedia-based Web has been limited to those
with SLIP, PPP or TCP/IP access, using Mosaic and similar browsers. That's
only a small fraction of the online population--a few million at most,
worldwide. Unless they were willing to go through considerable technical
acrobatics, most people with dial-up UNIX accounts were locked out of the
Web. Many of these people are accustomed to their UNIX tools for reading
mail and news, and don't want to switch to SLIP even if their systems offer
the option. (We may be talking about something over 20 million people
worldwide, with service through their companies, schools, universities,
or Internet Service providers.)
In journalistic terms, there are several stories here:
1) As discussed above, SlipKnot will expand the population of users who
can use the Web.
2) SlipKnot is pioneering in its distribution/sale policy. SlipKnot is
restricted shareware in its first version from MicroMind, Inc. Until now,
shareware has generally been distributed with a simple request for users to
register; SlipKnot takes that one step further. It is restricted
shareware. That means it is free for evaluation but with strong
incentives to frequent users to register. After a period of frequent
reminders, the software eventually turns itself off for nonregistering
users.
3) Registration fees or on a sliding scale. For most, the cost is $29.95.
But individuals outside Northern America, Europe and Japan will pay $20 to
register. A portion of the receipts will go to support refugee
organizations (Peter Brooks, the developer, came to the U.S. as a
refugee).
4) SlipKnot is a case study in the new technology of virtual commerce. All
promotion, distribution, and registration is being done online. No physical
shrink-wrapped disk or manual is produced: users download the product with
documentation. There is no paid advertising or direct mail: potential
purchasers learn about it through online newsgroups, user groups, mailing
lists, and through the press. There is no printed and mailed press kit:
the media hears about it through electronic means -- e-mailed press
materials and announcements. Registrants send in their addresses and
payments through fax or encrypted e-mail, and their personal codes are
returned to them by e-mail. All this is rapid, efficient, and economical.
Below you'll find info on where to get it. If you want to see what others
are saying about SlipKnot, we've attached some early reactions.
**NOTE** This press kit is incomplete. To keep down the size of this
message, and ensure that you get the most recent information, AT ANY TIME,
you can automatically retrieve SlipKnot's features, list of limitations,
and technical specifications for what SlipKnot requires on the user's
computer and at the service provider, by sending a blank e-mail message to
our autoreplying infobot:
slipknot@micromind.com
I'm a consultant to institutions interested in publishing on the net, and
author of a book on electronic publishing as a business. I'm doing
promotion for the release of SlipKnot.
Feel free to forward this message to other journalists, movers and shakers
on the net.
If possible, please let me know if you're planning to run a story; if it's
in online form, I'd be very grateful to get an e-mail copy; if in printed
form, I'd appreciate getting a tear sheet mailed to me at 310 Riverside
Drive, Suite 1519, New York, NY 10025. Please contact me or Peter Brooks
(the developer, pbrooks@micromind.com) if you have any questions. In any
stories, please do not publish my phone number; you can give out my e-mail
address and fax number.
Thanks in advance--Felix Kramer
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
HOW TO GET SLIPKNOT
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
SlipKnot 1.0, the World Wide Web browser for Windows dial-up users from
MicroMind,Inc., is now available (right on schedule!) for anonymous ftp
download at:
ftp://oak.oakland.edu/SimTel/win3/internet/slnot100.zip
or, if it's not too busy, from:
ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/pbrooks/slipknot/slnot100.zip
oak.oakland.edu has numerous mirror sites, so if you have any trouble
getting it directly from there, please try the mirror sites.
One mirror site is:
ftp.uoknor.edu/mirrors/SimTel/win3/internet/slnot100.zip
In the U.K. try:
src.doc.ic.ac.uk/computing/systems/ibmpc/simtel-win3/internet/slnot100.zip
In Australia try:
ftp.bf.rmit.edu.au /pub/pc/www/slnot100.zip
(If you don't get to it for a while, please look at the distribution site
for the latest version file, that is, slnotxxx.zip -- where "xxx" indicates
the Version of SlipKnot. So, for instance, Version 1.0 is slnot100.zip,
and Version 1.35 will be slnot135.zip.)
You can also get a FAQ, focusing primarily on common installation problems,
at: ftp://interport.net/pub/pbrooks/slipknot/sntfaq1.txt
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
WHAT PEOPLE HAVE SAID ABOUT SLIPKNOT
SINCE ITS RELEASE IN LATE NOVEMBER
(INDIVIDUALS FOLLOWED BY PRESS)
(AFFILIATIONS FOR IDENTIFICATION ONLY)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
UNSOLICITED COMMENTS FROM BETA TESTERS
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"SlipKnot is a godsend for those without slip."--Walter Rice, 11th grade
student at Central High School, Philadelphia
"I have really enjoyed SlipKnot. After trying for over a year to get
Mosaic to work on my PC at home, I found SlipKnot easy to install and use.
"--Mike McKee
"This is a fun program. A LOT of magazines lately have been talking about
Internet and the world wide web - and almost all of them say something like
"To really delve into Internet - you'll need a SLIP or PPP connection."
Get the word out about SlipKnot.. cause they're dead wrong. I have a shell
account and it's got everything most people could want. I can read
newsgroups, send/receive email, use telnet/ftp, download files, and (with
SlipKnot) browse the World Wide Web! To be honest.. what else is
there?"--Steve Crawford, MIS Manager for SpectraLink, Inc., Boulder,
Colorado
"I can use it with my dial-up and the price is certainly right--so I'm no
longer lusting for a SLIP/PPP connection....If *I* can use this program so
easily, anybody can....."--Kristi Olesen, author and parent
"SlipKnot is simple to install, use and configure and wonderful in the
sense that the wonders of the Internet are now truly available to me. As
you can tell, I love this product. Thanks!"--Tami Duggan, Commonwealth
Clinical Systems, Inc., Virginia
"Keep up the good work. You've got a winner."--Steven Pitzl
"Real slick....In general, the look and feel of SlipKnot is well-integrated
& tight....Very cool setup....After looking at many web browsers, I must
say y'all have a very unique browser, with a gorgeous interface,
well-thought out and tightly integrated. And smooth. SlipKnot. I'm
certainly telling everyone I know about it...."--Mark Garland, Civil
Engineering Office, Santa Fe National Forest
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
REVIEWS FROM USENET AND MAIL TO MICROMIND
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"Excellent software got it running with almost no problems.
Congratulations."--Alan from United Kingdom
"For a first release, Slipknot is amazing. It installed easily and worked
first time."--Will from netcom
"Overall, a really cool program, and quite clever."--SteveG from neosoft
"This is exactly the program I've been searching for these past few
months....While I loved the web browsing, I found I much preferred the
Unix programs on my shell account. Now you've given me the best of both
worlds. Thank you!"--Nelia from netcom
"Solid as a rock."--Rajesh from Temple University
"A really neat program! Saves me time charges on my SLIP account."--Larry
from netcom
"--
"Great Job Mr. Brooks ! well done !"--Amir from Bremen University, Germany
"You've done an amazing job, without requiring the usual add-ons. I have
spent hours with SlipKnot in many Web adventures and love the ability to
toggle it when I want it and to use 'trn' and 'lynx' (the latter for form
searches and for fastest text-response) and pine. So I'll get a check in
the mail this week. Absolutely no GPF's, and your keyboard unfreeze
resolved my one freeze in terminal."--Andrys from netcom
">One of the most exciting software programs I have seen lately."--Harald
from Univ of Cincinnati
"A major thumbs up!"--Darren from digex
"Bravo!! What can I say? Seems to be a very stable, and actually pretty
quick little program."--Mark from Pipeline
"Wow! I've been spreading the word about Slipknot--I don't know when I've
been more impressed with software in terms of the ease of use. Thanks
again. I really think you've got a winner on your hands."--Steve from
netcom
"It worked! This is fantastic! I'm registering my copy ASAP. NOW I can see
what everyone's so excited about."--Chris from tenet.edu
"We are working on our Internet CD-ROM disc and would include your program
as the user interface."--Stefan from Germany
"Terrific work and a real contribution to the Internet community."--William
from George Washington University
"I've been using your software for the past five days and I just wanted to
say how much I enjoy using it. BTW, I sent in my
registration/check"--Warren from ncsc.mil
"I think it's terrific, especially the ability to download WWW pages and
group in folders for future reference off-line!"--Deb from digex
"I'm very happy with SlipKnot and am enjoying seeing for the first time
what all the fuss is about regarding the WWW."--Phil from panix
"I can't say whether it's better than Mozilla, TIA, etc., but it sure turns
a shell account into a multimedia banquet!"--Daniel Dern from world.std.com
"I want to roundly condemn you for making and distributing this program. It
is so simple and easy to use, has so many useful functions and works so
flawlessly that I will probably spend many more hours in front of my
computer than I should :-). Anyway, thank you for a superb web browser.
Give yourself a gold star."--Mark from netcom
"This is so cool, you could get frostbite from it."--William from Denver
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
EARLY COMMENTS IN THE PRESS
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"Pure, unadulterated magic"--Daniel Dern, noted Internet analyst and
author, "The Internet Guide For New Users" (McGraw-Hill, 1993)
"Will SlipKnot cause a Web traffic explosion? SlipKnot is a MS-Windows Web
browser that can be used with a dial-up shell account. Could this be the
answer for those without a direct or Slip/PPP connection? SlipKnot is a
very welcome addition to the Web tool box. It will make available the Web's
graphical displays to a whole new group of Internet users.--Bob Stewart,
The Virtual Mirror -- http://mirror.wwa.com/mirror/
"Its chief author, Peter Brooks...plans to sell SlipKnot as shareware. That
means you download it free from an on-line service, try it out and if you
decide to keep it, mail the programmer a check. Brooks plans to ask for
$29.95. It's a steal....At the touch of a button, SlipKnot turned into a
World Wide Web browser that in some ways worked better than Mosaic. It ran
a little slower than Mosaic, but not much. And it works without the expense
and trouble of a PPP account....SlipKnot is going to be a strong
competitor."--Hiawatha Bray, Detroit Free Press, DFP Forum on Compuserve
"Spurred by a desire to share the wonders of the Web with the vast
dial-up population, developer Peter Brooks created SlipKnot....'We have a
small lifetime worth of work in terms of features to include in the
product,' Brooks confided. 'We will continue to improve it as time goes
on.' "--Dianna Husum, WEBster, the Cyberspace Surfer
"...A major technological breakthrough. SlipKnot is, as people used to say,
'for the manor woman on the street,' and it, and its successor software,
will invite millions more people to the Web's vibrant new culture."--Joyce
Lain Kennedy, LA Times Syndicate author, in Hookup/Get Hired, forthcoming
from John Wiley & Sons in 1995
"One of the best features of this browser is its ability to retrieve
documents in the background. According to MicroMind, SlipKnot is more than
just a Web browser. This program allows for complete navigation of the Net
and promises to bring Web access to almost all Internet users."--Patrick
McKenna, Newsbytes
"...for those trapped with terminal-emulation access to the Internet and
salivating at the new stuff they hear is on the Web, this product is simply
miraculous.--Richard Seltzer, Internet-on-a-Disk
"One advantage is that whatever Web pages it gets, it keeps them until you
decide to delete them. Once you're offline, you can go back and review
pages you had browsed while online. You can keep as many pages as your
available computer memory allows. SlipKnot is amazing. When it was first
announced on Internet, I was skeptical whether such a program could work.
Now, I'm a beiever."--John Fisher, Bucks County Times Courier
SlipKnot has appeared in the National Center for Supercomputing
Applications (NCSA) "What's New Page", Computer Underground Digest, and the
Usenet moderated newsgroups comp.newprod & comp.internet.net-happenings
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
SLIPKNOT AS SHAREWARE
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
SlipKnot is published as restricted shareware, free for evaluation but with
strong incentives to frequent users to register at a cost of $29.95 to most
people. Individuals outside Northern America, Europe and Japan will be
asked to pay $20 to register. And 10% of the receipts will go to support
refugee organizations.
Our shareware evaluation policy is that users who have displayed/retrieved
over 300 documents are no longer evaluating the software (this should take
about 2 months of typical usage) and will be asked to register within 30
days -- with an additional 21-day grace period if they start the
registration process. We hope that few users will object to the policy,
given the price of the software.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
NOTE FROM PETER BROOKS, SLIPKNOT DEVELOPER
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
SlipKnot was created because there was, at that time, no other alternative
to accessing the World Wide Web graphically if you did not have SLIP or PPP
or TCP/IP access. Having analyzed Mosaic and some of its competitors, I
concluded that all of these browsers were designed for people with very
rapid communications channels into the Internet, not modem users. Even if
you have SLIP access, most of these browsers do not allow you to save
entire documents (with the included pictures), forcing you to retrieve the
documents again whenever you wish to take a full look at them --
eliminating the possibility of demonstrating WWW without being online.
It takes a while to retrieve any document by modem with any browser, and
you shouldn't have to do this more than once.
The Web is a remarkable human construct and a truly a wondrous place. I
hope that SlipKnot brings you the magic of the Web, and that you become
as astounded by it as I am.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
ABOUT MICROMIND
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
MicroMind, Inc. is a New York City-based software development company with
six major products developed and released for the international market,
including:
* RUN/C -- the world's first interpreter for the C language -- sold in the
U.S. and Japan. 20,000 copies sold at $250.
* OL2 -- a product to duplicate the functionality of Sharp Electronics'
Wizard Electronic Organizer on a desktop computer -- marketed by Sharp
worldwide. Over 150,000 copies sold at $100.
PETER BROOKS, President of MicroMind and author of SlipKnot, has over 25
years of software development experience.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
FEEDBACK
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
To facilitate communication and support, we are asking users to post
comments and responses about SlipKnot only to the following Usenet
newsgroup: comp.infosystems.www.users.
At any time, for the latest SlipKnot information and a list of features,
either point your WWW browser (lynx is fine) to:
http://www.interport.net/slipknot/slipknot.html
or send a blank e-mail message to:
slipknot@micromind.com.
Please direct any press or distribution questions to
felixk@panix.com.
vox: 212/866-4864. fax: 212/866-5527
Please direct any technical questions to: slpstaff@micromind.com
Mail to Peter Brooks can be sent to: pbrooks@micromind.com
fax: 212/864-0436
SlipKnot is Trademarked by MicroMind, Inc.
This document (c) 1994 by MicroMind, Inc.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Felix Kramer/Kramer Communications
NYC-based electronic publishing & journalism
Online promotion & marketing
e-mail: felixk@panix.com or felixkramr@aol.com
voice: 212/866-4864 fax: 212/866-5527
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 1995 01:39:03 -0600
From: Malik Al-Rashim <dfox@fc.net>
Subject: JAUC-File7
OLD FREEDOMS AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES:
The Evolution of Community Networking
By Jay Weston (jweston@ccs.carleton.ca)
This paper, with only minor variations, was delivered as a talk at the
FREE SPEECH AND PRIVACY IN THE INFORMATION AGE Symposium,
University of Waterloo, Canada, November 26, 1994.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright: This text is released to the public domain. No copyright
restrictions apply. J. Weston
----------------------------------------------------------------------
North American society has had a lot to say on the distributed public
media that we call the Internet, or simply the Net. And, in the past
year or so, we have started to have a lot to say about what we've been
saying. However, we haven't quite heard what we've been saying. We
haven't heard because we are inexperienced in listening to each other
this way. We are listening to the wrong things. Or, as Karl Popper
once put it, we have been "like my dog, staring at my finger when I
point to the door."(1) But, we can be forgiven for our misplaced
attention to the Net.
Since it was first observed that there just was not enough available
bandwidth to let everybody send smoke signals or bang drums, we've
been organizing and reorganizing to determine who would, and who would
not, get their hands on the blankets and the drums -- and the presses,
the microphones, and the cameras. As we moved through a few
millennia, successive public communication technologies either began
as, or very quickly were made to conform to, the extreme send:receive
imbalances that, somewhere along the line, we started calling the mass
media, or simply the media.
It would be pedantic in the extreme to do more than note that these
access restrictions now define all of the social relations of modern
societies. Whole disciplines are organized around the understanding
that all public and private institutions, all local and external
spaces are bent by the constricted and compressed discourses of the
mass media. Whether the analyses are celebratory or critical, whether
their mass media interdependencies are made explicit or not, all
analyses of modern society take the access constraints of the mass
media as immutable. Public access to these media is simply not
problematical. On the one hand, there are the media and, on the
other, there are their audiences, consumers, constituents, and
publics.
Until very recently, there was no reason to imagine that questions
would ever have to be asked about societies with abundant access to
the means of media production, exhibition, distribution, and
reproduction of cultural offerings. Suddenly, it is time to start
imagining the questions. That is what the Internet is about.
Some usually astute observers, among them Internet Society President
Vinton Cerf and Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, are predicting that the
twenty million now on the Net is only the beginning. Cerf predicts
100 million by 1998 (2) and Gates, in a recent interview, confided
that his big mistake so far had been in underestimating the importance
of the Internet (3). If they are right, if the hordes are going to
start beating their drums in public, absolutely everything about the
existing social order is about to be challenged. Not simply the mass
media institutions, but all institutions. Everything is at stake.
[If they are wrong, if the Internet is only the latest gizmology, then
there is nothing to get intellectually excited about. We've been
there before. For, as exciting or as terrifying as the prospect of a
tiny 500 channel universe may be, it is just mass media business as
usual, albeit new and unusual business.]
Whether or not there will be 100 million or so people on the Internet
by 1998 or so, will depend first, upon whether they want to be there
and secondly, if they do, who will likely be trying to stop them, why
will they be trying to stop them, and how will they be trying to stop
them.
As to the question of whether they will want to be, the Internet
growth figures are familiar to us all. Steeply up to the right and
getting steeper. This should be more than enough evidence that, given
a chance, people are eager to be there. Curiously, this inconceivable
growth has occurred despite the equally familiar observations that the
Internet is difficult to access, hard to use, slow to respond and,
what is mostly to be found there is banal or otherwise offensive, and
hopelessly disorganized.
This apparent contradiction of millions actively embracing cyberjunk
cannot be resolved within the vocabulary of the mass media with their
well-organized, familiar, marvellously honed content packages, that
are so quickly and effortlessly available. Dismissive statements
about the potential of the Internet that are based on the quality and
delivery of content, cannot be resolved by debates about whether such
statements are accurate or inaccurate. For some, judging the Internet
by its content, the quality of its information, and the accuracy of
its databases, is relevant and for others it is not.
For those for whom it is not, the Internet is less about information
or content, and more about relations. For the mass media, it is
always just the opposite. The mass media are almost pure content, the
relationship a rigidly frozen non-transaction, that insulates the few
content producers or information providers from their audiences. This
is how we experience and understand the mass media. If it were not
so, we would not call them the mass media. Five hundred or 5,000 more
unswitched, asymmetrical, "smart" channels will not change that.
It is, on the other hand, impossible to understand much about the
Internet's appeal by analyzing its content. The Internet is mostly
about people finding their voice, speaking for themselves in a public
way, and the content that carries this new relationship is of
separate, even secondary, importance. The Internet is about people
saying "Here I am and there you are." Even the expression of
disagreement and hostility, the "flames" as they are called, at least
says "You exist. I may disagree with you, or even dislike you, but
you do exist." Mass media do not confirm existence, and cannot.
The market audience exists, but the reader, listener or viewer does
not.(4)
This is not to argue that the content of the Internet is irrelevant.
The content defines the relationship. People not only want to
represent themselves, they ordinarily want to present themselves as
well as they can. It would be cynical in the extreme to devalue
these representations, the texts, the exhibited cultural products of
tens of millions. It is rather to argue that the relational aspects
of the transactions qualify and define the content in ways that need
to be understood if the Internet it to be comprehended.
Whatever the reason for millions speaking publicly, this condition was
not part of the mass media problematic. It is unreasonable to think
that merely tinkering with paradigms grounded in technologies of
restricted access will permit a rich interrogation of the range of
social relations provided for by technologies of unrestricted access.
This call for a vocabulary that directly addresses the centrality of
distributed public media is not a suggestion that paradigms that
centrally situate mass media are somehow of less importance than they
once were. If anything, their questions of access, production and
representation are more critical, and even more challenging, than they
were before distributed media raised the complexity of social
relations. However, an expanded universe of mass media discourse that
merely attempts to overlay distributed public networks upon the
structured relationships of a mass mediated society, will lead us to
misunderstand a society evolving with distributed public media.
It is well-understood that, all social institutions have their
relative certainties made possible by the centralizing power of the
technologies of mass communication. The relative certainties that
accompany attenuated access to the means of symbolic production is
welded into the fabric of all institutional policies and practices.
Assuming, then, that access to the means of cultural expression will
be increasingly distributed, it follows that all of the institutions
of modern society will be threatened or at least inconvenienced by
this development. While expressions like "public involvement", and
"participative democracy", are imbedded in our rhetorical traditions,
their unquestionable acceptability has always been conditional upon
their equally unquestionable non-attainability. The technologies of
mass communication always ensured that involvement and participation
would not be overdone.
When the institutions that rose to power in the wake of the industrial
revolution began to speak of the "information revolution", they only
meant to digitize the modern industrial state. This non-revolution
was Phase II of the old boys' operation, another remodeling of the
modern apparatus. The "Information Highway" is the updated codeword
for the modern retrofit. This was not supposed to be about a
technological adventure that would reconfigure social relations or
blur the well-constructed boundaries between the public and the
private ground. This was supposed to be about a five hundred, not a
one hundred million channel universe.
The becoming Internet, this decentered polity, is an accident that
happens to expand the locus of direct, self-mediated, daily political
involvement. Those who previously had to make themselves presentable
to the agencies of mass communication technologies in order to be
represented by the technologies, have begun to publicly represent
themselves. What was previously local, domestic, idiosyncratic and
private can, for the first time, become external and public. This is
an abrupt reversal of the mass media's progressive appropriation of
the idiosyncratic and private for their own institutional purposes.
Since this reversal was unimaginable, no contingency plans had been
imagined for dealing with it. But, to the extent that the expansion
of the public ground challenges become identified for any segment of
the established order, these challenges will be met. It is axiomatic
that the Internet and, by extension, public community networks can
expect massive pressure to diminish or eliminate the identified
destabalizing influences that these distributed media exert. If the
Internet, with its changed relations of production and related
exigencies, is signaling a coming Accidental Revolution, the contests
and the casualties will be enormous.
This symposium is about the skirmishes, battles and wars that have
already started. All of these encounters are around the legitimacy of
public self-expression, assembly, examination and privacy. These are
the problematic of distributed public media, not of the mass media.
Beyond our noting that they were lamentably unimportant, the concerns
relating to freedom of speech were not central to a mass mediated
society. Our familiarity with freedom of speech was almost entirely
abstracted from the mass media accounts of their own experiences and
the performances of their own legal departments. The mass media
tested the limits of those freedoms for the speechless public.
We are now in the beginning stages of defining the legitimacy of
self- expression for ourselves. This represents a new set of
concerns about the circumstance and substance of distributed media
texts in all of their modes, the bases upon how it comes to happen
that people 'speak' publicly, and what it is that they 'say'. The
idea of 'assembly' and how it will happen that groups come to
occupy territory and how they are distributed globally and locally
assumes original importance, as decisions get made about what
'virtual communities' will be, and where they will situate. The
privacy puzzles about the availability and use of all those
sophisticated watching, listening, storing, sifting and intrusive
devices are a humbling reminder of just how much our reach has
exceeded our understanding of these technologies. How these
matters are resolved will shape the distributed media and decide
their social relevance.
Community networks are contributing a broader distribution of voices
as these puzzles begin to get worked out on the distributed media
themselves, rather than only in the exclusive enclaves of special
interests. This must continue and expand or the awakening of self-
representation will be short lived. It would be wise to assume that
there are not yet any 'rights', or that the old freedoms that were
often hard won by the mass media, are now enshrined and will
automatically transfer to distributed public media.
Situating Community Networks
If, as Bruce Sterling observed in the Afterward to his earlier work
The Hacker Crackdown, "Three years in cyberspace is like thirty years
anyplace real" (5) and, as events from thirty years past are often
dimmed or forgotten, I hope you can forgive me for reminding
you this morning that way back in November, 1991 the Canadian public
had no access to the Internet. Moreover, there were no signs that the
public would have any access.
The steepness, even then, of that now overly familiar Internet growth
curve was entirely attributable to new users from within their
formal institutional settings. The universities, research institutes
of the telecommunication giants, and a few government departments had
the Internet as their private preserve and tightly controlled access
to it, often denying entry to even their own (6). This control
existed, even although the administration of these institutions were
still marvellously unaware of what was going on in their basements.
Though unintentional, the Internet was still a well-kept secret, its
threat to the status quo still largely unrecognized.
The commercial online services were busily avoiding the Internet,
still building the firewalls around their own proprietary
networks. Their fees were so high, and their services so meagre,
that they were providing little incentive for the general public
to even begin to experiment with their narrow networking
offerings.
The recurring telco dream of local metered service was a constant
reminder that the Canadian public might never experience the Internet.
Failure of poorly conceived commercial network services like Bell
Canada's "Alex" and Australia Telecom's "Discovery" had convinced the
telcos that not even the business community was ready for network
services.
The Canadian Network for the Advancement of Research, Industry and
Education (CANARIE), as its name implied, betrayed no awareness that
there might be people in this country. Even by the end of 1992 when
CANARIE released its business and marketing plans, the hundreds of
written pages devoted to its vision made almost no reference to the
Internet, and carefully avoided the 'public' as serious participants
in what the partners had in mind for the country.(7)
These are but a few isolated examples of the evidence that the
Internet had either not yet penetrated the collective institutional
consciousness or was enjoying a brief period of benign neglect. For
those who had experienced the Internet and begun to internalize even a
small amount of what was happening, the general inattention seemed
amazing, even eerie.
One thing was very clear. With no public or private restrictive
policies in place, if there was ever a brief moment when it might be
possible to unleash the Internet in Canada, to really unconditionally
distribute this distributed capability to the Canadian public, it was
1991. (The National Capital FreeNet and the Victoria Free-Net were
not actually unleashed until late 1992, but the idea was developing in
the autumn of 1991.)(8)
The full stories of how the first Canadian community networks managed
to uncage the Internet should probably be told some day. These
stories need to be told to fill in the historical record, and to
preempt any misconceptions that the development was simply blind
luck or simply technology running its inevitable course. For now, it
is enough to say that the freenet initiative in Canada was understood
and intended from the very beginning as political action. At least,
it was in the instance of the National Capital FreeNet, the community
network where I live and, about which I am best able to speak.
It was understood from the first, for instance, that the relatively
narrow and concrete act of having electronic mail and Usenet
newsgroups available, and at their real cost to the community, would
ensure widespread acceptance, and that the acceptance rate would be
stunning. It was also understood that once these were made freely
available, it would be difficult to take global electronic mail away,
or to introduce it at the leisurely rate and higher tariffs that are
customary with market driven services.
More importantly, it was understood that the inclusionary ideals and
vocabulary of the Freenet would both protect and sustain the
initiative after the private sector realized that a public market for
networked services was being created for them.
The National Capital FreeNet was an imagined public space, a dumb
platform where all individuals, groups and organizations could
represent themselves, where conflict and controversy could occur
as the manifestation of conflict and controversy already occurring
within the community. As a public space, no one, and certainly no
group or institution, would be held responsible for another's
ideology, moral standards, expectations or motivations. On the
other hand, each person or organization would be accountable for
themselves. Such a space could be constructed only by the
community acting as a community, and not by any public or private
organization acting on behalf of the community. At least that was
the idea in 1991.
Just three years later, the Net situation has changed dramatically.
Although still unreasonably expensive, commercial Internet access is
fairly readily available, and very shortly community networks like the
National Capital FreeNet will not be needed, or even wanted, as
Internet access points. FreeNets will have to become the vital, local
public spaces they originally promised to be.
Just calling the facility a community network does not make it
one. The label does not ensure an unconditional public terrain
where the whole community can celebrate its commonalities and
diversities, and work through its differences. In 1991, there was
not much urgency to focus on these ideals. Access to the existing
and emerging Internet services, and at no involuntary cost, was
enough to ensure a community network's success. It was not then
understood by the community networks that this powerful Internet
access lever would slip away so quickly.
Community networks must now understood that they must be community
networks. This means that they cannot be financed or run for the
community by one or another institution. Although networks run by
such organizations as universities, hospitals, telephone
companies, or governments, often do not charge a fee, and always
provide an array of valuable services, these are not the criteria
by which community network can be usefully defined.
Community networks run by other organizations are always
conditionally invested with the values, missions, mandates,
policies and procedures and other constraints necessarily imposed
by the host institutions and, therefore, cannot ever provide a
public terrain. No institution has a primary mandate to provide a
public space where public opinion can be under construction. When
freedom of expression is a secondary add-on, it is just that, and
will be encouraged only so long as it is not in conflict with what
the institution is primarily about.
Today's youthful community networks, are better than they have any
right to be this soon and are still our best hope, maybe our only
hope, for a more participative, more self-representative democracy.
It is too bad that they will have to mature so quickly if they are to
reach adulthood. While they are still critical Internet access
points, still the bridge between the vast diversity of the Internet
and the more homogeneous organic community, they must take that
opportunity to learn how to celebrate the vast diversity that is
also the local community. The local community is where people live
their social and political lives and that is where differences must be
publicly worked through. This is most important where the differences
are the most acute and where the latitudes of tolerance are the
narrowest. Community networks must be up to letting everyone speak,
as painful as this will be for some, some of the time.
Children, and others unequipped to make safe judgments when
encountering the most extreme clashes of values, opinions and
advocacy, must be protected from these conflicts, but the community
network cannot be their guardian. The family, the school, the place
of worship and other societal structures are their guardians.
Finally, and most importantly, the part-time, short-term stewards of
the community networks, usually called the 'board', must understand
that the public terrain is not their institution, and not their moral
preserve. The construction of Public Sphere, Inc. is a betrayal of
the promise community networks have for becoming a public terrain. As
community networks develop and mature, they are becoming more
exclusionary, more restrictive, more like any other organization.
They begin to see themselves as providing something for the community,
rather than as caretakers of a space created by the community. This
needs to be reversed. A commitment to defending and expanding this
public ground will determine whether community networks will survive
more than a few more year and, what is more, whether their survival
will be a matter of importance.
Endnotes
(1) Popper made the statement at a public lecture at Michigan State
University in the mid-sixties. Ironically, he was arguing that
the then popular social science translations of the electrical
engineering 'information theory' model were misguided attempts
to understand social communication by what he termed 'bucket
theories', where the transactions are comprehended only as buckets
of content, devoid of any human consideration.
(2) Written testimony to United States House of Representatives,
Committee on Science, Space and Technology, March 23, 1993.
When asked what he thought about the reliability of Cerf's
estimate of 100 million Internet users by 1998, Gerry Miller,
Chairman of CA*net, the non-profit company that manages and
operates the Canadian Internet backbone network, responded wryly
"Try 100 million hosts." While Miller might not have meant that
literally, it was clear that he felt Cerf's earlier estimate to
now be a significant underestimate of expected Internet growth.
Private conversation, Ottawa, November, 1994.
(3) PC Magazine, "Bill Gates Ponders the Internet" by Michael Miller,
October 11, Volume 13, Number 17, 1994 p79.
(4) An explication of framing human communication as the inevitable
interplay of content and relational components of symbolic
transaction was provided by Paul Watzlawick, Janet Beavin and Don
Jackson in PRAGMATICS OF HUMAN COMMUNICATION. This 1967 monograph
has attracted little attention from media scholars and other
social theorists, probably because the unidirectional
producer/consumer relationship between the mass media and their
audiences is fixed, thereby eliminating or greatly inhibiting the
metacommunication interplay.
(5) Bruce Sterling, "Afterwards: The Hacker Crackdown Three Years
Later", January 1, 1994. Found on the WELLgopher
URL: gopher://gopher.well.sf.ca.us:70/11/Publications/authors/
Sterling
(6) For example, undergraduate students in most programs at most
Canadian universities could not get computer accounts in 1991.
Also, many of the first cohort of National Capital FreeNet
subscribers were federal civil servants from departments and
ministries where Internet access was available, but only to a
selected few.
(7) CANARIE Associates, "CANARIE Business Plan" and "CANARIE Marketing
Plan", July 15, 1992.
(8) The National Capital FreeNet was inspired by the Cleveland
Free-Net, founded in 1986 by Tom Grundner at Case Western Reserve
University. "Free-Net" is a registered servicemark of the
National Public Telecomputing Network.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY: REALITY
By Reid Goldsborough (reidgold@netaxs.com)
Here's some information on the information superhighway you may find
interesting. These are excerpts from the first chapter of a new book I've
written, published by Macmillan Publishing/Alpha Books and titled
"Straight Talk About the Information Superhighway." The book discusses in
detail how this national network will affect all aspects of our lives,
from interpersonal relationships to jobs, from health care and education
to entertainment and shopping.
In the book I try to present both plusses and minuses, honestly and
without either hype or cynacism. In addition to covering the likely near-
and medium- term future, the book also discusses the current state of
Internet culture.
***
"Information superhighway" is really just a shorthand term for many
different networks that will be used for the delivery of information,
communications, and entertainment. Once the kinks get worked out, it's
expected -- or at least hoped -- that most of these networks will connect
with one another, leading to a seamless national, or international,
communications matrix.
--
When the movers and shakers talk of the information superhighway, most of
them think in terms of one of two visions. The first is of a cerebral
highway, where information and communications are the key commodities
transferred. The second is of an entertainment highway -- sometimes
disparagingly referred to as a "couch potato highway" -- where movies,
TV shows, interactive games, and home shopping offerings are the more
prevalent content.
Those who see the information superhighway as an extension of the Internet
see additional types of information being made available to personal
computer users -- voice, music, and full-motion video. Those who favor the
entertainment-based vision see the information superhighway as an extension
of cable TV. Only instead of waiting for movies or programs to come on,
you'd be able to watch just about anything you wanted anytime you wished.
The entertainment vision is favored by those who would profit from it --
cable TV companies and telephone companies, both of whom will be building
the broadband pipelines and delivering the multimedia content into homes
over the coming years. The information vision, on the other hand, is
favored by the computer industry and particularly by the online community,
which views the cable TV and telephone companies as threats to the low-cost
sharing of information that exists today.
--
Not everybody is enamored with the idea of the information superhighway.
The information superhighway, say critics, is a bad metaphor for a
boondoggle that big business wants to build with your tax dollars. If it's
ever finished, you'll pay big bucks for ten times more channels to watch
reruns of The Lucy Show. If it ever is finished. Critics contend the
technology won't be ready for prime time for years to come.
--
The uncertainty surrounding an undertaking as large as the information
superhighway in many ways *is* frightening. "I guess the scariest part is
that you don't know where it's going to lead," says John C. Malone,
president and CEO of Tele-Communications Inc., the country's largest cable
TV company and a major information superhighway player. "This is a
technological and business structure revolution. Nobody can sit here today
and predict where it's going and what its impact is going to be on any
particular industry, any particular company, or any particular individual."
Fortunately, fear of change isn't stopping our forward momentum. As you'll
see in the following pages, people are using communications technology
today -- and planning to use enhanced services tomorrow -- in a host of
fascinating ways. The changes happening now truly represent a revolution,
a revolution that will transform jobs, education, relationships,
entertainment, shopping, health care, and politics, a revolution in which
you can play a part.
***
If you'd like to read more, the following will help you decide if it's
worth it to you to buy the book. Please note that I mention specifics,
including price, so if you object to commercialism of any sort, don't read
the rest of this message.
In writing the book, I interviewed key industry leaders such as Bell
Atlantic Chair and CEO Ray Smith and former Apple Chair and CEO John
Sculley; top government officials such as FCC Chair Reed Hundt; industry
and government watchdogs such as Ralph Nader; social commentators such as
Dr. Joyce Brothers (on relationships and sex on the Internet today and
information superhighway tomorrow); and people like you using today's
online services.
I also relied on demonstrations of emerging information superhighway
technology; important government white papers; key speeches and
Congressional testimony by politicians, company CEOs, and community
leaders; and my own explorations of today's online and multimedia worlds.
"Straight Talk About the Information Superhighway" covers topics
relevant to online users, including:
* The top sources of online information and entertainment today
* Online shopping, advertising, and the commercialization of cyberspace
* Online job searching
* First-hand accounts of love in cyberspace and tips on how to find it
* Computer-enhanced sex
* The spiritual underpinnings of cyberspace
* The psychology of flamewars
* Computer nerd jokes
* Computer addiction
* How interactive TV will differ from today's passive offerings
* The combination PC/TVs of tomorrow
* The telephone/cable wars
* Privacy, access, and freedom of speech
* Avoiding infoglut with intelligent agents
* The future of multimedia and virtual reality
* Distance education
* Telemedicine
* Personalized news
* Direct democracy
* Grass-roots organizing over the Internet
* New trends in telecommuting
"Straight Talk About the Information Superhighway" by Reid Goldsborough
is published by Macmillan Publishing/Alpha Books (ISBN: 1-56761-513-9).
You should be able to find a copy in your local bookstore. If not, you
can ask them to order a copy or you can order the book directly from
Macmillan Publishing by phoning (800) 428-5331. The cost is $19.99.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
INTERNET TOOLS SUMMARY
By John Arthur December (decemj@jec310.its.rpi.edu)
Hello,
I've updated my list summarizing Internet tools for Network
Information Retrieval (NIR) and Computer-Mediated Communication
(CMC). This list gives definitions and references to
documentation and demonstrations of these tools.
The list is available in several formats: text, 80-column text,
compressed postscript, html, tex, or dvi.
These files are available via anonymous ftp:
Anonymous ftp host: ftp.rpi.edu
Directory: pub/communications/
Files: internet-tools {.txt .ps.Z .dvi .html}
See file: internet-tools.readme for more information.
For Web access, see the "segmented" hypertext version at:
http://www.rpi.edu/Internet/Guides/decemj/internet-tools.html
FILES
=====
Basically,
o internet-tools.ps looks best for reading on paper.
o internet-tools.txt is good if you want the 80-column constraint.
o internet-tools is great for manipulating with Unix scripts.
o internet-tools.html is useful in a WWW browser;
Connect to URL:
http://www.rpi.edu/Internet/Guides/decemj/internet-tools.html
CONTENTS:
=========
* Section -0- HOW TO USE THIS DOCUMENT
* Section -1- ABOUT THIS INFORMATION
o Notes
o Formats
* Section -2- NIR = NETWORK INFORMATION RETRIEVAL
o Utilities
- Finger
- Netfind
- Nslookup
- Ping
- Shepherd
- TIA = The Internet Adapter (tm)
- WHOIS
- X.500
o Tools
- Alibi = Adaptive Location of Internetworked Bases of Information
- Archie
- Astra
- Bitftp
- Essence
- FSP = File Service Protocol
- FTP = File Transfer Protocol
- Jughead
- Knowbot
- Maltshop
- Netserv
- Soft-Pages
- Spiders
- Telnet
- Trickle
- Veronica
o Systems
- Alex
- GN
- Gopher
- Prospero
- WAIS = Wide Area Information Server
- WWW = World Wide Web
o Interfaces
- Lists
- Biomix
- Chimera
- Cello
- Compass
- Emacs-WWW-browser
- Fred
- GINA
- Hyper-G
- Hytelnet
- Internet-in-a-box
- Minuet
- Mosaic
- Lynx
- Netscape
- Samba
- SlipKnot
- Viola
- Willow
* Section -3- CMC = COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION
o Interpersonal
- Email
- Talk
- ZTalk
o Group
- Collage
- CU-SeeMe
- Haven
- Lily
- Listproc
- LISTSERV
- Majordomo
- Maven
- MU* = Multiple-User Dialogue/Domain/Dungeon
- Procmail
- WIT = Web Interactive Talk
- WW = Web World
- Yarn
o Mass
- ICB = Internet Citizen's Band
- IW = Interactive Webbing
- IRC = Internet Relay Chat
- ITR = Internet Talk Radio
- Mbone
- Usenet
o Interfaces
- exMOO
- htMUD
* Section -4- STANDARDS
o Collections
o Internet
o Other
* Section -5- REFERENCES
* Section -6- DESCRIPTION OF ITEMS
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
LEGION OF DOOM T-SHIRTS!! Get 'em
By Chris Goggans <phrack@well.sf.ca.us>
After a complete sellout at HoHo Con 1993 in Austin, TX this past
December, the official Legion of Doom t-shirts are available
once again. Join the net luminaries world-wide in owning one of
these amazing shirts. Impress members of the opposite sex, increase
your IQ, annoy system administrators, get raided by the government and
lose your wardrobe!
Can a t-shirt really do all this? Of course it can!
"THE HACKER WAR -- LOD vs MOD"
This t-shirt chronicles the infamous "Hacker War" between rival
groups The Legion of Doom and The Masters of Destruction. The front
of the shirt displays a flight map of the various battle-sites
hit by MOD and tracked by LOD. The back of the shirt
has a detailed timeline of the key dates in the conflict, and
a rather ironic quote from an MOD member.
(For a limited time, the original is back!)
"LEGION OF DOOM -- INTERNET WORLD TOUR"
The front of this classic shirt displays "Legion of Doom Internet World
Tour" as well as a sword and telephone intersecting the planet
earth, skull-and-crossbones style. The back displays the
words "Hacking for Jesus" as well as a substantial list of "tour-stops"
(internet sites) and a quote from Aleister Crowley.
All t-shirts are sized XL, and are 100% cotton.
Cost is $15.00 (US) per shirt. International orders add $5.00 per shirt for
postage.
Send checks or money orders. Please, no credit cards, even if
it's really your card.
Name: __________________________________________________
Address: __________________________________________________
City, State, Zip: __________________________________________
I want ____ "Hacker War" shirt(s)
I want ____ "Internet World Tour" shirt(s)
Enclosed is $______ for the total cost.
Mail to: Chris Goggans
603 W. 13th #1A-278
Austin, TX 78701
These T-shirts are sold only as a novelty items, and are in no way
attempting to glorify computer crime.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 1995 02:13:10 -0600
From: Malik Al-Rashim <dfox@fc.net>
Subject: JAUC-File8
INTERVIEW WITH ERIK BLOODAXE
By Netta Gilboa
Interview with Erik Bloodaxe (GRAY AREAS REPRINT)
The following are portions of an interview with "Erik Bloodaxe" by Netta
Gilboa of Gray Areas Magazine. Gray Areas is an eclectic arts and culture
magazine that focuses on the fringes of society. It's one of the best
sources for information on rock and alternative music, controversial
social issues, computer culture, and other topics that aren't covered
elsewhere. It's a steal $18 for four issues, or $50 for three years. For
information, write:
Gray Areas
PO Box 808
Broomall, PA 19008-0808
Or, e-mail them at grayarea@well.sf.ca.us
For those new to computer culture, "erik bloodaxe" was a member of
the original "Legion of Doom," a modest media celebrity, and
more recently, the editor of Phrack)).
((Excerpts from interview with Chris Goggans at Pumpcon, 1993. From:
GRAY AREAS, Fall, 1994 (Vol 3, #2): pp 27-50))
By Netta Gilboa
Netta Gilboa: What is Phrack magazine?
Chris Goggans: Phrack is the longest running underground publication.
I don't really know how to describe Phrack. Phrack just sort of is.
Phrack is an electronic magazine that deals with topics of interest to
the computer underground; different types of operating systems,
weaknesses in system architectures; telephony; anything of any
relevance to the community in which it was intended for, that being
the computer underground. It has always tried to paint a picture of
the social aspects of the computer underground rather than focus
entirely on technical issues. So in that way it adds a lot of color to
what's going on.
GA: How did you get involved with publishing Phrack?
CG: Well, I got involved when the person who was editing it at the
time, Dispater, got into a motorcycle accident and as a result of
this, had a lot of other financial hardships, so he wasn't going to be
able to do it any longer. Its original editors, Craig Neidorf (Knight
Lightning) and Taran King, had no interest in doing it themselves any
longer for, at least in Craig's case, obvious personal reasons, and
there really was no one else who could take it over. I was of the
mind set that Phrack had been around so long that it had almost become
something of an institution. I, being so ridiculously nostalgic and
sentimental, didn't want to see it just stop, even though a lot of
people always complain about the content and say, "Oh, Phrack is lame
and this issue didn't have enough info, or Phrack was great this
month, but it really sucked last month." You know, that type of thing.
Even though some people didn't always agree with it and some people
had different viewpoints on it, I really thought someone needed to
continue it and so I kind of volunteered for it. And there was a
little bit of discussion amongst some people.
First Craig was really hesitant to say, "Yeah, well maybe you should
take it over." A lot of this was being held up by Taran King who said,
"Well, we just don't want your politics getting involved." Because,
apparently, I have some hidden political agenda that differed with
what they thought the role of Phrack should play. Eventually they
decided that there is really no one else who could do a job well
enough to continue it in the spirit in which it had been formed and I
started with issue 42. And I think that one went over very well. That
issue was pretty hilarious because it had a lot of stuff about packet
switching networks, and it was a big slap in the face to B.T. Tymnet.
I had a whole lot of fun with that issue. Since then, it's gone over
really well, at least from everyone I've talked to. Of course there'
have always been a few dissenters that say, Oh, Phrack sucks, but
these are the same people who won't tell you why. They're just saying
it to try to get a rise out of me or something, but everybody seems to
appreciate the time and effort that goes into putting this out and
especially since I'm getting nothing out of it.
There's kind of a funny side to that. After I took it over, I went
ahead and I registered it with the Library of Congress and I filed a
DBA as Phrack magazine and for the first issue I put out a license
agreement, sort of, at the beginning saying that any corporate,
government or law enforcement use or possession of this magazine
without prior registration with me was a violation of the Copyright
Law, blah, blah, blah, this and that and Phrack was free to qualified
subscribers; however, in order to qualify as a qualified subscriber,
one must be an amateur computer hobbyist with no ties to such a thing.
And this really went over like a ton of bricks with some people. A
lot of corporate people immediately sent back, "Please remove my name
from the list." I had a few other people say, well, "We're going to
pay, but don't tell anybody we're going to pay." Of course, they never
did. There was only one person who actually did pay, so, you know, I
used that as wonderful ammunition for the next issue saying that all
of them are lying, cheating scums and they have no respect for our
information so why should they think it odd that we have any respect
for theirs.
GA: And you actually named a few people.
CG: Yeah, I named several people who were not only getting the
magazine but in one case, they were spreading it around and, of
course, none of them even contacted me for registration. It was all,
I had a riot with it. It was a lot of fun. And, I'm still going to
include that in every issue because I still expect them, if they're
going to be reading my magazine, to please have some shred of decency
and pay the registration fee, since it's a lot less than any other
trade publication that they'd be buying regardless, and certainly a
lot more voluminous and contains a lot more information than they're
going to find in any other magazine dealing with computer security.
GA: Is the agenda for that decision to get publicity, to have grounds
to sue people who you don't like, or to gain financially?
CG: Well, I never expected to gain anything financially. You know, a
lot of the people who are still in the so-called "underground" are
also working in various fields which might put them in conflict with
the registration agreements, and we're very liberal about that. I
mean, if someone just because they're working at, let's say...
GA: Gray Areas, Inc.
CG: Yeah, Gray Areas, Inc. or the people who might be independent,
like LAN consultants, you know, just 'cause someone's working in the
field, I'm real flexible about that. Then if someone sends me mail,
and I get a lot like that, which says, "Well, I'm assistant
administrator here at the university and there's no way they'll pay
for it." I'm like, "Don't worry about it." You know, "We'll make an
exemption in your case." But it's the people, the Gene Stafford's of
the world, the Ed DeHart's of the world. Those are the people who
have always pointed the finger at the people who this information is
intended for and called them bad. They're the ones who don t register
their subscriptions and the people of their mind set and the people of
their ilk, I guess.
As far as publicity, it didn't gain any publicity. It wasn't any kind
of stunt. My biggest concern in doing this was to try to protect this
information and I didn't want to see it being resold. With the prior
Phracks up 'til 41, there are companies out there, for example Onion
Press who sells hard copies of Phrack, and I don't want anything that
I'm putting time and effort into being resold. I don't want it in the
CD-ROMs. There's are several CD-ROMs out right now with a bunch of
text files from the computer underground.
So, I wanted to copyright this information, put it out. It's a
magazine, I'm doing it, it's my magazine. The DBA is in my name, I
hold the copyright and no one's going to resell this. If it's going to
be presented in some other format, I want to be able to control that.
And, it's not necessarily a kind of power play. It's just I want to
protect it. I mean, I don't think you'd appreciate people all of a
sudden saying, "Now I'm going to put up the electronic version of Gray
Areas."
=======================
GA: Many years ago, Phrack had a problem with a telephone company
regarding a document that they printed, and a lot of people have said
that if it was a paper publication as opposed to an electronic
publication, that might never have happened.
CG: Yeah, well, I mean, that's obvious. You look at magazines like
2600 and just because they're black letters on a white page instead of
white letters on a black screen, they get away with a lot of stuff.
They get threatening letters from Bell Cores. They like to publish
them in their magazine, but they haven't been taken to task for any of
that. You don't see them in any sort of court for this and the mere
fact that the very document that they are saying was so proprietary
was available for $19.95 from the Bell Core order line. That sort of
stands to prove that they were just looking for a scapegoat, a
figurehead in the underground community to use as an example for the
rest of the people to say, "Well, we'll take down Phrack. That'll
show them. That'll scare them."
It's the same kind of thing that they tried to do with The Legion of
Doom. They said, "Well, we took down the Legion of Doom." I heard it
from one person, you know, you cut off the head, the body will die.
It's like, AT&T or somebody had somebody map out the computer
underground, they had Phrack magazine in the middle of a hub and the
Legion of Doom above that; arrows going and pointing out how the
computer underground networks together, and obviously, these people
think there's a little more structure to it than there is. They don't
realize that it's complete anarchy. I mean, no one's controlling
anybody else's actions. To set out one example and hope that everybody
else is going to learn from that one example is ludicrous.
GA: What sort of problems do you encounter publishing it?
CG: It takes up a lot of my time, my spare time, which is growing
incredibly smaller and, I mean, I've overextended myself on a number
of projects and since I've definitely got a commitment to Phrack, it's
one that I can certainly shirk if I decided to since I'm not indebted
to anybody to do it really. I'm not going to pass it up because I
really want to make sure it continues to be published. That's the
biggest problem I face, time. Then there are people who say, "Oh, I'm
going to send you a file on this," and they don't. You know, thanks a
lot. And I always rag on those people. In fact, in the beginning of
Phrack 44, I said, "Yeah, and for the people who said they're going to
send me a file and didn't, you know who you are, and you always have
to live with your own guilt." I mean, it's typical hacker stuff. "I'm
going to do this." And they start it and they forget about it.
GA: It's funny though because I've had incredible cooperation from
those people; more than I've had from any other community that we deal
with. Do you think it's because I'm a girl or because it's on paper?
CG: Well, it might be a little of both. The kind of files that go in
Phrack, I don't think Gray Areas is going to publish. You know, how to
use the Role 9000 CBX, or here's how to hack system 75's, or secret
sectors and units, or publish C programs. You get a different type of
thing. Maybe there are people who feel a lot more comfortable writing
cultural type pieces or special interest pieces than they would
writing technical stuff. And to try to compensate for that. I've put
in a lot more stuff in the issues that I've been dealing with, to deal
with the culture. Like I started something last issue trying to get
people from different countries to write about what it's like in that
country. And I had a file in from Ireland; I had a file in from
Germany; I had a file in from Canada. This issue I've got another one
from a different part of Canada and I've got one from Sweden and I'm
waiting on a couple of others. Because, as the computer underground
goes, it's, people like to have this idea that it's this closely knit
thing of all these hackers working together, and see how they're
trading information. But it's not. I don't know anything that's going
on in other countries except for what the few, select people from
those countries who hang out in the same areas that I do tell me. But
there's so many people and so many countries doing things.
They've got their own little pirate wares, trading scenes, they've got
their own little virus scenes, they've got their freaking things.
Stuff that works on their own system, only works in their country; and
they have their own secret ways of doing things, and their own
networks that they like to hack, and they all hang out on certain
deals and they have their own little lore about the busts, or super
hackers from their country, and that's the kind of stuff that's just
great to find out. Because, otherwise, you would never know. And it's
really, really interesting to read what these people are up to and no
one names names. They're just talking about what it's like to be a
hacker in their country, and that's the kind of cool stuff that I
want to continue to do.
=======================
GA: I suppose we should get into your background and how you became
qualified to run Phrack.
CG: I don't know if it's a qualification to run Phrack...
GA: Well, obviously, there are an awful lot of people who could have
been considered but weren't.
CG: Yeah, well, I guess so.
GA: What sort of stages did you go through? From the time that you
first discovered computers and so on until today?
CG: I kind of went through an exponential learning curve from the very
beginning and it plateaued out for a while and it's just been a steady
growth since then. At least I tried to maintain that because there's
so many new developments that come out and I try to stay abreast of
everything that's going on. I started messing around with computers a
very long time ago. For any number of reasons, I always have problems
trying to place the exact date.
GA: What sort of computers were there? That dates it a little.
CG: Well, the very first computer I did anything on with a modem was
an Apple II, and a micro modem II. It was a friend of mine's dad's.
He was a lawyer. He got it so he could get on Dialogue, because it
was like the brand new service for lawyers. They could go on and look
up legal briefs and it was all exciting. So, this friend of mine was
showing it off, I guess maybe 5th grade, 6th grade, somewhere around
there? A long time ago. And, in order to get on Dialogue, you had to
dial this special number. Well, we got on, followed the instructions,
got on Dialogue, looked at it, said, "This is really cool." And we
noticed that, "Well, gee, in order to get on Dialogue, you have to
dial this number" which was 415 something. Well, what happens if you
type in a different number? So we typed a different number somewhere
else. And, that was sort of it.
We spent the vast majority of that night trying different addresses on
Telenet and actually got into a system. And, this was the first time I
had ever been on a modem and, I mean, it was just natural. We were
like, wow! We didn't have any concept of what a network was, we
couldn't imagine what this meant. The concept of being able to call
one little number and connect to computers around the entire country
was so mind boggling, so strange to us that we were sucked into it.
As a little bit of background to this, I had already been messing
around with telephones before this and this is a ridiculous story that
a lot of people give me a lot of s--- about but, I mean, I don't
really care. A friend of mine and I had stolen a dirty magazine from a
convenience store and rifling through it, it was like a High Society
or something like that.
GA: Probably not. There were no such things then. They didn't start
until 1975-76.
CG: Well, this is back in 1980. I'm not that old. I turned 25 in May,
so it wasn't that long ago I guess in the grand scheme of things.
But, to me it was a hell of a long time ago. So anyway, we had stolen
a High Society from them and in it, it said, "Call this number right
now." It was 212-976-2626 or 212-976-2727, a brand new service. I
said, "We got to call that number. We can't call that number, that's a
long distance number, we'll get in trouble." It was like, "No, we
gotta call that." So, we went back over to his house, and his Mom
works. She was working, it's funny, she was actually working at
Datapoint. She was at work, it was the summer, so we got there and
dialed it up, listened to if for, like you know, some phone sex
recording. Wow! You're a little punk kid, of course, that's just great
to hear some crazy recording like that.
We hung up after it was over and were like, "Man, that's great. We're
going to have to call that other one. No we can't call the other
one. He says, "Well, actually maybe we can, but if we're going to
call it, we need to use this thing that my Mom's got." What thing? He
said, "Well, it's this thing that's supposed to make her phone bill
cheaper." And, it was a company that started up way back then called
LDS. It was a Watts re-seller and they had a local dial-up number, you
call up and you gave the operator who answered the phone a code, you
read it out to her and she connected the call. I think at that time it
was a four or five digit code. So we called up, gave it to her, gave
her the number, the call went through. So, next time you call her
back, give her someone else's number. Goes, "nah." So we called up,
added ten to the number we had and placed the call. It was like,
"Well, that's really cool." And it's funny that I've done that prior
to doing anything on the computer because shortly thereafter, after
being on the computer and discovering networks and after that,
discovering bulletin boards, it became readily apparent to me how the
marriage of the two was inevitable because there was no way in hell
I'd be able to call a bulletin board any place other than down the
street and not get beat to death by my parents for raking up very
large phone bills. And after that, it kind of just shot up
exponentially like I said before. From such humble beginnings.
=======================
CG: Which connected, at the time, I think now they have limits as to
how many people. At the time, it was basically unlimited. You could
take as many people as you wanted on your conference. And they had a
lot of different features that they don't have now. Like, you could
transfer control. And we used to do all sorts of ridiculous stuff.
One of my favorite tricks was to call up Directory Assistance and, at
the time, I don't think they do this any more, I haven't really
bothered to check in about five years, but at the time, Western
Digital who made all the automatic call distribution systems for
Directory Assistance since they were still the Bell system; they had a
feature in there that would send it into a test mode. If you called
up and just as the ACD system kicked in, it started to cue a call for
the next available operator if you held down a D tone. A lot of your
readers might not know this, but on a standard touch tone phone, there
are really four rows and four columns and not three rows and four
columns. There's an extra column that's left out and that's A, B, C,
and D. Well, I had a phone that had A, B, C, and D on it. There's a
number of different ways to build a tone generator, they'll do that
and a lot of modems will make those tones or what have you. But,
anyway, there was a trick at one time by holding down the D tone, if
you called Directory Assistance, it'd throw the ACD into its
maintenance mode. And, one of the features on this was to do a test of
a circuit by establishing basically a loop so, if someone would call,
hold down a D, get thrown into the maintenance mode, get the 5 key,
they'd get onto one side of the mode. Someone else could call back
in, hold down the D key, hit 6, get on the other side of loop, and
then you could talk.
Well, I used to call Directory Assistance from the conference, hold
down the D key, hit 5, add that into the conference, the loop,
transfer control to Directory Assistance and then call back in on the
other side of the loop and then take control of the conference that
way. So, if any of the test people who were working on the software
for Alliance and working on getting the bugs worked out of everything,
if any of the engineers would go back to look and see why these
circuits were active and they'd look to see who was running control of
this conference, they'd see it was Directory Assistance and it really
used to confuse the hell out of them. We got a great deal of mileage
out of that because, you know, I don't really think they knew how, but
somehow it kept going. But anyway, on these conferences, I got hooked
up with a group of really, really, really, really smart people and by
sitting and talking with these people, and learning what they knew,
because like I said before, everyone was really open and everybody
wanted everybody to learn. If more people were working on a project,
everybody had a better chance of learning and succeeding then if just
one person decided to hoard it all to themselves.
>From being on these conferences and talking about to all of these
people and sharing information with all of these people, I was
eventually asked to join a group that was being formed at that time
and it ended up being called The Legion of Doom.
GA: How did it get called Legion of Doom? Who named it?
CG: I don't know. The person whose idea it was to start the group, his
handle was Lex Luther and from the DC Comics, Lex Luther's infamous
group of anti-heroes was The Legion of Doom, so it was pretty a
natural choice. A lot of stuff has been attributed to it lately, such
as it being a sinister type name. Well, Lex Luther couldn't possibly
have called his group anything other than the Legion of Doom. Anybody
who has every read a Super Friends comic knows that's exactly what it
was called.
As The Legion of Doom continued on in its growth and its endless quest
of knowledge about different operating systems and networking
technologies and phone systems and everything else, the reps of
everybody involved in the group sort of kind of sky rocketed because
everybody by us all working together, we had a better resource of
knowledge to provide the people and by continuing to do so, everybody,
I guess, built up a sort of respect for the group and some of it has
even lasted to today, even though the group is no longer around. A lot
of things that it affected still linger on in the community.
GA: There's been a lot of debate about who was in that group. Seems
like everybody in the world wanted to be. Ha, ha. So many of the
hackers I meet say they were.
CG: There are always going to be people who want to run around and
say, "Yeah, I was in the Legion of Doom." And I know everybody who
was in it. I've got a list of everybody who was in it and written
about everybody who was in it. We all know who was in it, so it really
does not make any difference. If some joker off the street is going
to come up and say, "I was in The Legion of Doom," who really cares,
you know, what's it going to get him today? It doesn't mean anything,
because the group is not around anymore. Um, if they know something,
well, their knowledge alone should speak for itself and should not
have to relay on the name of some group that does not exist to try to
perpetrate some sort of false image to other people, so it really
doesn't happen that often. We see people like Ian Murphy, for
instance. I've still got newspaper articles with him in it saying that
he was in Legion of Doom, and in fact, he has told some people, and
some business acquaintances of mine, I guess in some desperate attempt
to generate revenue, that not only was he in Legion of Doom, but he
founded it, ha, ha, so, that's nice and he can continue to delude
himself in a lot of things. If anybody wants to live in delusion,
well that's their right, I suppose. It doesn't mean anything to me.
GA: Isn't there a new Legion of Doom now?
CG: Well, I really don't want to get into that too much. There was a
young Canadian fellow who decided that it might be a good idea to
start the new Legion of Doom and within like say an hour after that
got posted to the Net, we were on the phone with him, telling him what
a bad idea that was. It was myself and Scott Chasin who called him up
first and he said, "Well, I think The Legion of Doom was a real
important thing for the community and I just want to see it continue"
and this and that. I said, "Who are you to come out of nowhere and
think that not only do you have enough knowledge to say that you could
have been associated with The Legion of Doom, much less to usurp the
name? The name is dead, we put the group to rest and we want it to
stay that way. He said, Well I'm not going to change it and as soon as
you see the type of journal I put out, you will be really impressed."
I said, "If your magazine is good, it will stand on its own merit and
you don't need our name." He said, "Well you retired the name and that
means it's fair game for anybody else." Okay, well so there is no
talking to this guy, so I said, "Well I want to tell you this Cameron,
Scott and I are the first to call you, there will be many others. We
are the nicest. It's not going to be pretty for you and I just want
you to know that."
And let's just say there is no more New Legion of Doom. It was kind of
an interesting experience for everybody because it did get a lot of
the members back in contact with one another. A lot of us had gone our
separate ways. The members grew older. The group was founded in '84 and
here it is almost '94, I mean that's a long time for, you know, a
bunch of people to stay in contact, regardless of whether or not it
was for some silly little computer group to form a net. So it was
nice to catch back up with a lot of people. It's really refreshing to
see that damn near everybody who was ever involved in the group is
doing very well for themselves in their chosen careers or professions,
or graduating with high graduate degrees, Ph.D.s, Master Degrees, and
things; it's certainly not what one would expect from the world's most
infamous hacker group, but that certainly is what happened. But, you
know, the whole Cameron Smith New Legion of Doom thing, it didn't
accomplish anything for him, but it certainly did accomplish something
for us. It got a bunch of us back together again. I don't want to
sound grateful to him for it, but it worked out pretty well.
GA: How did The Legion of Doom originally break up?
CG: Well, The Legion of Doom kind of went through three different
waves. You can kind of chart the history of the computer underground,
it sort of runs parallel to the history of The Legion of Doom, because
you can see as the new members came in, that's when all the busts
happened. People would either get nervous about the busts and move on
and go to college and try to get a life, or they would be involved in
some of the bust and some of them would leave that way. So it kind of
went through three different membership reorganizations. You can tell
who came in where because of what was going on. It finally kind of
folded. I had talked to a bunch of members somewhat recently, within
the past three or four years and I said, "Well maybe we ought to try
to do something, we need to get some more members in and try to work
towards a different end." At the time, there was still the infant of
an idea about going into consulting by building together this last
insurgence of Legion of Doom. I talked to several people and wanted
to try to track down newer people, so I talked to the members who were
still active and asked are you still interested in doing this again,
because we've got some other things that we want to try to focus on
and as stuff starts to progress, something might come out of it. I'm
doing something with some other people, and we got people who are
experts in different types of fields, and we were talking to people
who are experts in mainframes, in telephony, in Unix, and all sorts of
different stuff and as that started to progress, we got a bunch of
people in the last new membership drive for the group, did a few
things, and as that started to go on, most of my main focus started
dealing in with a few people from the last insurgence about trying to
form this consulting company, which ended up being Comsec.
We finally decided that's what we were going to do and we were serious
about it, we said okay well then maybe we should just dissolve the
group, because if we are going to have Comsec, we don't need Legion of
Doom, 'cause this is what we want to do. Instead of spreading the
knowledge around the net in the form of text files free, we were going
to spread the knowledge around the corporate world for money. It
really was a logical progression to us, because, you are not going to
be 35 years old and still trying to break into the systems somewhere;
the thrill doesn't last that long and if it does, well, you need to
get a life or a pet or something. There is no reason why someone who
even has an inkling of maturity, not to say that I do in the least,
should be wasting away their life gathering up how many university
systems they broke into.
So after we finally made the formal decision, we talked to some people
and said well, we were just going to say goodbye to the group.
Everybody who was still active or interested from the group was like
look, you know, when this thing takes off, we want all of you to be
there. When we need more consultants, you're the best, and everyone
was all up for it. That's what happened.
GA: Let's stick with The Legion of Doom for awhile. What was the
relationship between The Legion of Doom Technical Journals and Phrack
and Phun?
CG: Well, it's kind of funny. Originally, I think this was something
that Craig and Lex had done. Originally, there was going to be a
Phrack issue that was going to be the Legion of Doom Phrack Issue. It
was going to be Phrackful, nothing would follow us but Legion of Doom
members and it went on and on and on. I guess Lex had collected
enough files, he was like, "I don't want to give these to Phrack."
So, he stuck them together in the Legion of Doom Technical Journals,
since it was all Legion of Doom stuff anyway, might as well go ahead
and put it out ourselves. And I don't know if that was something
personal against Craig, I really doubt it because Craig and Lex have
always been friendly enough. I just think that is something he decided
to do. From that there were three others published, so there was a
total of four Tech Journals. They didn't come out in any sort of
organized order, they just sort of came out when they wanted to come
out. It was like they were done when they were done and they appeared
when we were finished and that's why there were only four for a group
that was around for so long, but they were fairly timely when they
were all released and I guess everybody really appreciated the kind of
knowledge that was in them when they came out.
Looking back, I don't know how much interest someone is going to get
on how to hack Tops 20. I d like to find the Tops 20 right now. It
doesn't exist. So the knowledge that was in those things is fairly
dated, but at the time, it was very timely and people appreciated it.
=======================
GA: You were busted in 1990, right?
CG: Nope.
GA: How did that go down?
CG: On March 1 1990, I was raided by the Secret Service, but I wasn't
busted. There is a big distinction there. Just because they came in
my house and dug through my stuff, that doesn't mean anything
happened.
Let me give a little preface to that. Several months prior, I received
notification from the University of Texas that my school records
(specifically mentioning my computer accounts) were being subpoenaed
by a federal district court judge in Chicago. I knew very well that
was the district that William Cook was in, so I trotted on down to the
Dean's office at the University of Texas and said, "Hi, I understand
my records have been subpoenaed. I need a copy of that for my lawyer."
So they ran me off a copy of it and sure enough there's William Cook's
name. So, okay, I was right, and I went home and vacuumed the house
and cleaned everything up nice and neat for them, started placing
little notes in various places. I had little notes that said, "Nope,
nothing in here," put that in a drawer and a little note that said,
"Wrong, try again," put that in there and little things everyplace
that someone might look to try to find the secret hacker notes. I
printed out a copy of the 911 document, nice laser printed copy, laid
that out and fan folded it over my desk. I went down to the Federal
Building, picked up brochures on how to became an FBI agent and a
Secret Service Agent, set those out on my desk. I got a printout of
several different things, laid those out all nice and neat, had some
Phrack issues, I had some messages off of the Phoenix Project, I had
all this stuff laid out. It looked like a little alter, a shrine to
the FBI.
Well, sure enough a couple months later, there they were. And I also
put some notes on my computer account at UT. I made some really large
files, like cordons and named them dot master, dot password, dot zip,
just stupid names, you know that tack ID's, and left these sitting in
my account. All this noise. And then I made this one that said,
"Secret Info." If anybody would have bothered to read that, it was
like a 10K file of me saying, "Anybody who would take the time to
search through my files and try to find illegal information is a
complete scumbag." Sure enough when they came to visit my house that
morning, I woke up to the sound of people running up my stairs and
their screaming, "Federal Agents - warrant," then they came in my
room, "Out of the bed." Leading the pack is Special Agent Tim Foley,
and he's got his service revolver out, and he's got it pointed at me.
He's a pretty big guy and I'm me. I don't present a menacing figure to
most and especially at 6 in the morning in boxer shorts, ha, ha. It
just looked like I'm going to jump right out and start ripping
peoples' heads off, so he quickly put his gun away. Nonetheless, he
did have it drawn. I like to point that out. Hackers are a notoriously
violent group of people who are known for their physical prowess, so
guns are definitely always necessary. (said sarcastically)
So, they ordered me downstairs and held me in the kitchen. I
immediately said, "Let me call my lawyer," and they said, "You'll get
your chance." So, they started going through all my stuff. I heard
them up in my room, rifling all though my drawers and about an hour or
so later, one comes down and hands over one of the Secret Service
Brochures that I had. He says, "So, thinking about joining up?" I
said, "Well, I think I could probably do better than some people." He
didn't like that remark. He said, "Well, I think our requirements are
a little more stringent than to let in the likes of you." I said,
"Well, it shows." He didn't like that very much either. I said, "So,
what's your degree in?" He said, "Well, I'm not going to tell you."
I said "I'm just making conversation." So they continued on in the
search of my house and when they found absolutely nothing having
anything to do with computers, they started digging through other
stuff. The found a bag of cable and wire and they decided they better
take that, because I might be able to hook up my stereo, so they took
that. I have an arcade size PacMan machine, which of course, one of
the agents decided was stolen, because a lot of people slip those
into their backpacks on the way home from school. So they started
calling up all the arcade vendors around town trying to see if this
had indeed been stolen. The thought of me wheeling an arcade size
PacMan machine down the street, just didn't occur to them. So,
finally, I said "Look, I bought it, here's the guy, call him." So
they finally gave that up, so then they started harassing me about
some street signs I had in my house. I had a Stop sign. I had a No
Dumping sign over the toilet. "You need to get rid of those, it's
state property, if we come back here and you have those, we are taking
you downtown." I go like, "Okay." So then they started looking for
drugs, and one guy is digging through a big box of, like a jumbo
family size deal of Tide we bought at Sam's, it was about three feet
tall and it was one of the monster size things. This guy is just
digging through it, just scooping it out, his hands are all turning
blue and sudsy from digging through this detergent and Foley walks
over to him and says, "Well, I think we can safely assume that that's
laundry detergent."
So, Foley comes back in to where I'm sitting in the kitchen and I've
been freezing my ass off, so they had let me get a jacket, and put on
some jeans, and he says to me, "Well, I want to show you something."
He whips out some business cards that I had printed up for SummerCon a
few years ago, that said, "Erik Bloodaxe, Hacker." It had a little
treasury logo on it and he says, "Impersonating a Federal official?"
"Well, it doesn't say anywhere on there, 'Chris Goggans, Special
Agent.' It says, 'Erik Bloodaxe, Hacker.' Whoever this Erik Bloodaxe
character is. It might be me, it might not. I'm Chris Goggans and that
says, Erik Bloodaxe, Hacker. Just because the seals there, it doesn't
mean anything." He says, "Well, if you don't tell us everything that
there is to know about all your higher ups, we are going to be
pressing state, local and federal charges against you." I said, "On
what grounds?" He goes, "We want to know everything about your higher
ups." Which I'm thinking, gosh, I'm going to have to turn in the big
man, which is ludicrous, because there is no such thing as a higher
up, but apparently they thought we were a part of some big
organization. So, I said, "Well, I'm not saying anything to you, I'm
calling my lawyer." And I already had told my lawyer previously that I
would be raided shortly and that I would be needing to call him. So I
called him and said, "Hi, this is Chris and the Secret Service is here
and I'd like you to speak to the agent in charge." And he said that
my client declines any sort of interviews until such a time that I can
arrange to be there to represent him in an official capacity and I'll
need your name and I need all the information. The agent said, "We
will be in touch." And that was it. They gathered the bag of wire and
the printouts of the 911 document, how to be an FBI agent, the
printouts of the Phoenix Project messages, and they trotted on off. As
they were walking out the door, one of the guys kind of looks over at
my television set and he says, "Hey, why is that video game plugged
into the phone line?" And it was kind of like a Homer Simpson, cause
Foley trots over and I had a 300v terminal, which is what I had been
using to get on bulletin boards with. It was plugged into the phone.
It was a little membrane keyboard box. All it was was a modem. So they
bundled that up and stuck that in there, and they went on their merry
way, and I followed them out to the car, and wished them well, and
wrote down their license plate, and went back into the house, and got
into my car, and went driving around calling up everybody else around
town to see if anybody else had been raided.
GA: Had they?
CG: Yeah, at the same time as what was going on in my house, the house
of Lloyd Blankenship was being raided, The Mentor, as well as the
office place of Steve Jackson Games, where Lloyd worked, which ran
into a huge fiasco later on down the road for these hapless agents,
but that's an entirely different story.
=======================
GA: Did you ever do any malicious hacking?
CG: No. To be honest, there were a couple of times I actually
considered such a thing. At one point in time, we had access to South
African Government computers, like South African Treasury, things like
that and we were thinking, should we take it down? Nah, we better not
do that, can we just change the message of the day to something like
some anti-apartheid statement, some sort of politically correct thing.
It was all a big joke to us, we certainly weren't thinking about that,
we just figured it would really piss them off, but we never did it.
When the Russian x25 network went up, we were right there on it. They
can't bust us for hacking Russia, I mean, who would? What were they
going to say? It's like, "You should hack them, because they are our
enemies, well maybe you should hack them," so, we were just going
after the Russian network pretty hardcore.
Malicious hacking pretty much stands against everything that I adhere
to. You always hear people talking about this so called hacker ethic
and I really do believe that. I would never wipe anything out. I would
never take a system down and delete anything off of a system. Any time
I was ever in a system, I'd look around the system, I'd see how the
system was architectured, see how the directory structures differed
from different types of other operating systems, make notes about this
command being similar to that command on a different type of system,
so it made it easier for me to learn that operating system. Because
back then you couldn't just walk down the street to your University
and jump right on these different computer systems, because they
didn't have them and if they did have them only several classes would
allow you access to them. Given the fact that I was certainly not of
college age, it wasn't really an option. You didn't have public access
to systems. All you had to do was call up and ask for an account and
you'd get one. So, the whole idea of doing anything destructive or
malicious or anything even with malcontents using computer systems to
track information about people or harass people, that just goes
against the grain of anything that's me. I find it pretty repulsive
and disgusting. I am certainly not blind to the fact that there are
people out there that do it, but obviously these people have a s---ty
upbringing or they are just bad people.
=======================
GA: How about books that have come out about hackers?
CG: Well, I'll take a stab at that. The Hacker Crackdown I found to be
a very schizophrenic piece of writing. I still to this day have not
read it completely. I found it very hard to follow and I was there. It
is very hard for me to read that book and follow the chronology.
Everything is on the money and he did a very good job of making sure
the facts were correct, but it's just hard for me to read. Maybe
that's just a criticism of his writing style.
Approaching Zero, I didn't really care for that too much, more
specifically because they just basically out and out called me a
traitor and said I was keen on selling secrets to the Soviet Union.
Maybe you ought to ask the IRS about all that money I got from the
Soviet Union, because I haven't seen it, but I'm sure I'll be taxed on
that too. But I found that rather disgusting and after that book, I
actually had a conversation with one of the people who was writing the
book. A guy named Brian, actually called us up at Comsec and I talked
to him for about 30-45 minutes about things and next thing I know,
nothing we really said ended up in the book. A bunch of people were
misquoted, left and right. All the stuff about the American hacking
scenes, off the mark. People were quoted as saying stuff that they
never said, things supposedly from bulletin boards that were not on
bulletin boards. I don't know where this information came from, but
it's really just off the money. I guess if you know something so
intimately, you are always going to be critical of anything someone
says about it because they don't know it as well as you do, so you are
always going to find fault in something. So maybe I'm just being
overly critical.
=======================
GA: While on the subject of Comsec, you have said that you have gotten
bad press. From where?
CG: Well, I think an article saying that I have been arrested in the
past for breaking into Bell South, or books being published saying
myself of The Legion of Doom destroyed the 911 Network in nine states
just to see if we could do it. Things like that which are just out and
out lies. I'd say that was pretty bad press.
GA: Did Comsec fold because of personality problems, or a lack of
business?
CG: Comsec folded for a number of reasons. The press aspect weighed
heavy. We were basically blacklisted by the security community. They
wouldn't allow me a forum to publish any of my articles. It
essentially boiled down to, with the trade magazines, at least, they
were told by certain members of large accounting firms that they would
pull their advertising if they associated with us, and when you are a
trade magazine that is where all of your revenue comes from, because
no one is paying for subscriptions and they can't afford that loss.
They were more interested in making money then they were in spreading
the gospel of truth in security. But hey, it's a business, I guess you
have to take that. I had speaking engagements pulled. A head of a very
large security association promised me a speaking engagement and then
decided to cancel it and didn't bother to tell me until a month before
the conference. I talked to him and he said, "Oh, well I should have
called you." This is like one of the largest security associations in
the country and the second largest. So we had that kind of treatment.
Some of these conferences, since we were not speaking at them, we
could not really justify spending thousand of dollars to fly out there
and attend. We were cut off from a lot of things and since we did not
have a presence at these conferences, a lot of our competitors used
this to target the companies that we were marketing. You would have
these MIS directors from large oil companies out there, and you would
have other people going up to them and saying, "You're from Houston.
You are not dealing with those Comsec folks, are you? Well, you know
that they are nothing but a bunch of crooks out there." So, one very
large oil company, we had already had all of our paperwork passed
though all of their legal departments and it was just waiting to be
signed; it had already been approved and money was allocated in the
budget and we were ready to rock. This would have meant a large amount
of money over a period of several years. Well from going though all
of these friendly happy negotiations and papers ready to be signed, to
XYZ oil company does not do business with criminals, Click! Who talked
to this guy? Who feed him this nonsense?
Well, we got a lot of that, certainly that weighed heavy. The fear
that came from companies like DeLloyd Touche.I will single them out
especially because some of their larger consultants were very vocal in
speaking out against us, in the very forums they denied us. They used
the magazines as a place where one particular consultant said
something like, "Can we lie down with dogs and be surprised when we
get up with fleas?" I mean, I don't deserve that type of commentary. I
don't think anybody does. It is certainly not a mature attitude for
somebody who is supposed to be an upstanding ethical consultant to use
a trade publication to vent his frustration against his competition.
But, hey, it's a free market and if he has a forum and they gave him a
column, well I think he can write whatever the hell he wants.
Sure, I was in The Legion of Doom. I have been in everybody's system.
But I have never been arrested. I have never broken anything, I have
never done anything really, really, criminally bad. There is a
difference in doing something illegal, you like walk across the street
at the wrong place and you are committing a crime, but that does not
make you a criminal, and there is a big difference between different
types of behavior. By all these different forces saying so many
negative things about us, we had our work cut out for us.
To be honest, they had us beat. They had the deep pockets. They could
wait us out. They could keep saying bad things about us forever. They
had hundreds of millions of dollars so that even if they weren't
making money they could sit on it. We didn't. Eventually we could not
do it any more. I had overextended myself. I sold off all my stock,
all my personal stock. I had a bunch of stock in energy companies and
things like that, that was in the past supposed to be paying for my
college education, and I gambled it away on Comsec and I ran out of
money. I needed to eat, I needed to get a job, I had to move, I
couldn't afford it anymore. And everybody was basically saying the
same thing. Scott didn't have any money, Rob didn't have any money,
our sales guys were getting really antsy because they were having a
real hard time closing sales, so we just had to shut down.
=======================
GA: Any thoughts on where technology is going and how hacking might
change in the next couple of years?
CG: Well, like I said earlier, the Internet is a very scary place with
a very, very limited set of knowledge. One person could take down a
majority of the network and for so much trust and need to be placed in
a network that is so inherently unstable because of the protocol that
drives it. I mean you don't plan a trip across country in a 1957
jalopy! You go out and get a new car, or you rent a good car, you
don't put all your trust in something that ain't gonna work. And it
works well enough for a lot of things, but for people to trust their
entire enterprise network to stuff over the Internet, they are asking
for trouble. And as people become more familiar with the entire
protocol sweep, they are going to find out that there is a world of
hurt about to happen, and in the next few years, people are going to
be real surprised when stuff starts going down like crazy. That's
going to be the biggest thing to happen.
I would imagine that all the cellular problems are going to disappear
because the advent of digital caller is going to remove all this
problem. A lot of things are going to change. I imagine people,
hopefully, will once again get more and more into writing software and
doing more productive stuff. With all the wealth of knowledge that is
coming out of every community, even in the underground, because people
are exposing bugs and people are changing things, so eventually people
are going to be able to make all types of systems, robust enough to
survive different things. So out of all this turmoil, some good is
going to come. And from that, once all the problems have been
corrected, people will be able to direct their energies into a more
positive thing, like developing applications, writing software and
focusing their attention on doing neat, nifty tricks, rather than
doing neat nifty stupid tricks, ha, ha.
You are going to see some really, really cool stuff that is going to
blow your mind and you are going to be able to carry it around in your
hand. You are never going to be out of touch anywhere in the world,
so, I think that will be very cool.
=======================
GA: We should certainly tell people how to subscribe to Phrack, and
the prices on the LOD disks.
CG: Yeah, people who want information about Phrack can mail me at:
Phrack@well.sf.ca.us and for information about the BBS Archive Project
mail: LODCOM@Mindvox.Phantom.com
GA: Thanks Chris!
G: Thank you.
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 1995 04:39:00 -0600
From: Malik Al-Rashim <dfox@fc.net>
Subject: JAUC-File9
REVIEW OF SLIPKNOT 1.0
By Scott Davis, Editor (dfox@fc.net)
SLIPKNOT 1.00 By Peter Brooks.
Tested version 1.00 on a Dell 466/XPS
16 meg of RAM, Windows for Workgroups
#9 GXE 64 Pro video card (2 Meg Vram)
Boca 28.8 Vfast external modem
On December 23, 1994, I contacted Felix Kramer (felix@panix.com) to let
him know that I would be happy to run his article/promotion for the
software called 'SlipKnot'. At that time, he asked me to ftp the
software and test it out, and follow up with a review of the software
in this issue of the magazine. So, here it is...
The software was designed by Peter Brooks. SlipKnot is a graphical
World-Wide-Web browser for PC users running Windows 3.1+ or a higher level
of Windows. It is designed for modem users with ordinary dial-up UNIX
shell accounts. It does NOT require SLIP or PPP or TCP/IP services in any
form (no TIA or remosock, etc. if you are familiar with these products).
The system requirements are Windows 3.1, Windows for Workgroups or
higher, running in 386 Enhanced Mode (SlipKnot cannot be used on 286
processors). Not yet tested with Windows NT. You must have at least
4 MB of memory, recommended 8MB. We have noticed memory deficiency
errors at 4 MB. Also, at least 2 MB of available hard disk space is
required. SlipKnot itself takes approx. 1.5 MB. When working, SlipKnot's
job will be to download documents for you from the Internet, and these
may require plenty of hard disk space. Mouse or other pointing device
required (cannot control SlipKnot via only the keyboard).
Your UNIX system must have either the program "lynx" (version 2.2 or
later) or the program "www" available. If in doubt, log in to your
host, and try to execute either of these programs. You will then know
immediately whether they are available. To find the version of lynx on
your UNIX host, execute the UNIX command: "lynx -version".
Your UNIX host must have a program to send files to you via either the
Xmodem or Ymodem protocol. The actual name of the programs that perform
these file transfers changes from system to system, but try the commands
"sx" (for XModem) or "sb" (for YModem). If these fail, ask your system
administrator or some other knowledgeable person. Likewise, you will
need to know the name of the UNIX program that will receive files from
your PC using Xmodem or Ymodem. Your UNIX system must be able to display
individual file sizes using the "ls -l filename" command. If "ls" has
been renamed or works differently from normal, SlipKnot will fail.
SlipKnot was created because, at that time, there was no other alternative
to accessing the World Wide Web graphically if you did not have SLIP or
PPP or TCP/IP access. Having analyzed Mosaic and some of its competitors,
I concluded that all of these browsers were designed for people with very
rapid communications channels into the Internet, not modem users. Even if
you have SLIP access, most of these browsers do not allow you to save
entire documents (with the included pictures), forcing you to retrieve the
documents again whenever you wish to take a full look at them. It takes a
while to retrieve any document by modem with any browser, and you shouldn't
have to do this more than once.
Now the good stuff:
First of all, Slipknot is a fantastic idea. To be able to use the World
Wide Web and only requiring the end user to maintain a normal account
on his/her provider is great. This allows the user to have Web access
without paying those occasionally high rates for a SLIP or PPP connection.
I ftp'd the Slipknot software and installed it. I was very happy that
it installed without any problems.
Configuring the software was fairly painless. The biggest part was
taking the time to edit the login script for my service provider...
and that step is not even necessary since Slipknot allows you to
conduct manual logins of you so choose.
I was finally ready to dial out. Everything was working like a champ until
about 10 minutes into my session when my entire system locked up. I had
to do a complete shutdown and start over. No big deal, I thought.
I attempted again, as the 10 minutes that I did use it was a great
experience. I had never seen an application that could do WWW over a
normal user account. It connected perfectly and was working fine for
another few minutes...then it locked up again. I began to worry.
I noticed that both times it locked up I was accessing the Federal Bureau
Of Investigation home page (FBI). Maybe Slipknot was not compatible with
sites who promote the Clipper chip...Hahahaha. Not the case, unfortunately.
During the course of the day, it locked up at random. I tested my
computer hardware to see what the issue might be. There was no hardware
problem. My computer has never locked up on my under any circumstances
before.
I am not going to give this software a bad review because it locked up
on my system. I polled some users on the Internet regarding their
experiences with the software and here's what some of them said;
SLIPKNOT version 1.0 really works without a SLIP/PPP acct. In my case it
installed quite easily, with minimum tweaking (certainly less than to
install TIA). It opened the WWW to me. Next versions, should have FORMS
support. That is a must and is urgently needed, because many WWW pages
contain forms. Other than that, SLIPKNOT is highly recommended for a
low-budget approach to WWW. [one@netcom.com]
=========================================================================
I find it to be a an incredibly clever idea, and it works quite well
with direct dial. Some problems with images and sound via telnet/rlogin,
but not a big problem. The idea of being able to web-surf without SLIP
is very attractive, especially for the dial-up user as so many of us are.
With the "load images" turned off, it is much faster, and you can
selectively load them. but since it uses Lynx as its engine, why not use
Lynx for imageless surfing.
Speed: I compared it to my SLIP account with NCSA Mosaic and Netscape.
It loads images, etc. a bit slower than Mosaic and a lot slower than
Netscape.
Installation and Set up: simple, esp as compared to the fun you can have
installing say Netscape and all the winsockets stuff, and IP/DNS
configuring.
Look and Feel: I'd like a larger document window, but the pulldown menus,
etc. will make surfing easier for the newbies.
Overall - a nice, inexpensive alternative to SLIP/PPP, especially for
those fairly new to the net and like that point and click feel.
NB: another alternative for an "on the cheap" approach to the Web is The
Internet Adaptor -- I have it installed in my dial-up unix account, and it
is slick: it emulates SLIP, and works very well. I'm getting rid of my
SLIP account because I have TIA. If you have ever set up a SLIP, it is
pretty easy to install and set-up. If not, you'll spend some time. Cheap
too. - Jill Ellsworth <ellswort@tenet.edu>
=========================================================================
Very nice and easy to use developmental software. Web works well and the
terminal mode is functional and adequate for most users. everything
available from your Internet provider can be accessed, just as with a
full blown commercial package like ProCom, etc. Some limitations on
bells and whistles apply.
Inability to support ftp and gopher from within the html page is a
bother, but as development continues I hope Peter Brooks will be able to
add that capability.
Direct link to obtain upgrades and the automated upgrade installation
built into Slipknot is a neat touch.
I am currently using Version 1.00 and have sent in my registration fee
because I want to encourage continued development.
I really appreciated the opportunity to evaluate the fully functional
application. - Steve Seteroff (seteroff@kendaco.telebyte.com)
=========================================================================
You're a brave man to ask for opinions on the Internet!
I got SlipKnot right after it was released. It is a wonder. Last night I
got the latest version "g". I am so pleased. Peter Brooks and Felix
Kramer (?) have a winner on their hands. I had tried to install netscape,
tia, and winsockets about two weeks before I saw the announcement, and
failed. The only problems I had in the installation of SlipKnot were ones
anticipated in the help screens. (RTFM, dummy!) Peter Brooks was on the
newsnet answering questions almost 24 hours a day.
1. Easy to install.
2. Cheap.
3. Easy to use.
4. Fun!
And all this praise from a DOS command line freak. I told PBrooks in an
email that I hate Windoze and had been threatening my son to take it off
my computer (he uses my printer and MSWord). I complained to PBrooks that
now Brendan knew I wouldn't follow through on the threat. I have an
indispensable program that needs Windoze.
Now some cautionary notes. ... Sorry I don't have any reservations.
BTW, I am not Peter's mother, nor do I have any affiliation with anyone
associated with MicroMind (a moronic name...like, encephalitis, dude!).
If you have any particular questions, I would be glad to respond. My
guess, judging by the activity in WWW newsgroup, is that you'll have more
response than you can handle.
Good luck with the story. Happy holidays. (BTW I tipped off the LATimes
computer technology reporter and he just responded that he'd heard about
it. Here mosaic applications are bringing the Web to millions and it's
news, but a shell account enabler is ignored. Go figure.) Go SLIP not!
Mike Howard (mikeh@netcom.com)
=========================================================================
I think Peter has a good product. It is still in Beta Version. For
example I can not Down Load large files (over 19,456 Bytes). I am sure
Peter will find a fix but for now SK is for the experienced user.
John Hammond (jhammond@unicomp.net)
=========================================================================
I found it easy to install; unfortunately it crashes every time I try to
get something off the web and I must do a hard reboot - thus Dr.Watson
can save nothing, nor can slipknot's built-in debugger. I haven't yet
contacted the authors.
Bennett Price (bjprice@itsa.ucsf.edu)
=========================================================================
I have used SlipKnot for about six weeks and have come to rely on it for
an easy alternative to mistyped Unix commands. Since I work in a high
school that does not yet have Internet access, I foresee SlipKnot as a way
to hook the uninitiated into the 'Net. Teachers and administrators who are
not already convinced about the utility of the Internet would probably be
turned off by a Unix command line. Although downloading graphics through
SlipKnot is slow even at 14.4, for the inexperienced user, this wait time
is surely preferable to using a straight text-based Web browser.
While I approve of Version 1.0e as far as it goes, I can certainly suggest
a number of needed improvements:
1. gopher support
2. telnet support
3. forms support
4. better resource management (I run SlipKnot on a Pentium with 16 Mb of
RAM and yet often run low on GDI resources)
5. improved error handling when the 'Net is busy or a page cannot be found
6. automatic redial in the terminal mode (Maybe this can be done with a
script, but I could not see how.)
7. Z-modem or Y-modem batch transfer support in terminal mode.
Don't get me wrong. I like SlipKnot. Everything can be improved. I am sure
at Micromind. they are already at work (at least mentally) on these
suggestions.
Jeff Ratliff (tratliff@whale.st.usm.edu)
=========================================================================
I have found Slipknot to be a very worthwhile product. Its ease of
set-up is a definite plus. I downloaded Slipknot and had it installed
and running in a very short time. The installation instructions
addressed the few problems I had getting it running and then I was off --
surfing the Web. My main dislikes of the software are the small window
size and the ability to open only five documents at the same time. I
understand that these two complaints are being addressed by the next
version. If you don't have direct access (i.e. you connect through a
dial-up shell) and don't have a SLIP or PPP connection, Slipknot is
definitely worth it.
Kenyon Jon Michael (mkenyon@jove.acs.unt.edu)
=========================================================================
I've been using Slipknot for a while now, and I'm very glad it's
around. I think it's seriously necessary, because there are a huge
number of people who get their net.access through shell accounts, and
this allows you to get a fuller Web experience than with Lynx.
However, the program has it's problems, and there is a lot of
advancement that can be made in the future revisions. For example, forms
are not supported, so your Web use only goes one way; you can't reply
to things, write mail, make suggestions, etc., or for that matter, be
verified for logins like on HotWired. That's a huge pain.
Another problem is the inability to use gopher servers, something
that's still widely implemented and integrated with the Web. And, of
course, Slipknot is also a bit buggy; any errors, and the program quits
rather than moving on, it displays certain dialog boxes more than once in
a row, etc.
IOW, it's a good idea and good start for a much-needed program, but it
still needs work. However, with some more tweaking and advancement, it
will be a very solid program.
Bill Pena (billpena@genesis.nred.ma.us)
=========================================================================
I got (and paid) for Slipknot, and am currently running v1.0 with the
"g" patch. My host is a "pay" unix system that I call in to
get my mail on my "term" account. I am using the program on a
486 cryix 40mhz system.
The program is not perfect. It still has some bugs to work out, and
lots of features to be developed (forms, gopher, etc do not work at
this time). But!!! even with though the program is still in its early
stages of development, I find it VERY useful, and it DOES allow me
to view http documents with the graphics.
I get good 14400/v42bis connections via the automatic log-in script (that
must be user customized) and acceptable download speed of the http. With
the program running under Windows 3.1, it does take a moment to analyze
the downloaded text to "find" the embedded graphics, then download the
graphics, plot the series of files, then display the document.
With the program currently costing $30, the difference in the cost of my
term account and a slip/ppp account is a lot more than the cost of
Slipknot.
I use the internet for e-mail and netnews more than a place to surf just
to look at images. As such, my primary access to the net is via term with
a text editor for mail/news replies. When I want to check out some
http/url, I just hang up and call back via Slipknot. I don't use it all
the time, so when I need it, it is there for me.
Being shareware, it is perfect for the user to "play" with to determine
if he/she wants to continue to use it, prior to paying for the program...
and even with its limitations, it is still a deal at $30. and with the
authors still working on it, it is sure to get better and better.
Tom Stangler (stangle@infi.net)
=========================================================================
It works as advertised. Last I checked, it doesn't do forms or telnet
connection links It has trouble handling some inline images.
Just like TIA, your provider can tell if you are using SlipKnot, and if
they wanted to, could ban it's use as going beyond the services provided
with your class of account. RCI doesn't have any restrictions on TIA or
SlipKnot...
Kevin Kadow (kadokev@rci.ripco.com)
=========================================================================
(Slipknot review continued...)
As you see, we have a wide range of comments here. I believe that most
people realize that it still a very young project and has not yet
attained it's full potential. If you will note, there was one other
person who replied to my request for comments who is having the same
problem I am having with system lock ups. I mailed the author of the
program and they are getting right on the issue.
The bottom line is that Slipknot is a great idea and a nice software
package. And with end users submitting comments, complaints, and other
information directly to the author or the press, the issues will be
worked out. I suggest that you keep an eye on Slipknot. It's really
going somewhere!
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
cDc GDU #18
By Swamp Ratte (sratte@phantom.com)
_ _
((___))
[ x x ] cDc communications
\ / Global Domination Update #18
(' ') November 1st, 1994
(U)
Est. 1986
NEW gnU new GnU nEW gNu neW gnu nEw GNU releases for November, 1994:
_________________________________/Text
Files\_________________________________
281: "Official cDc Press Release Concerning President Reagan" by Reid
Fleming. The Cult influences the international political climate of
opinion! We just want what we've got coming to us, mister.
282: "Argument" by Markian Gooley. Positivity and happy sunshine and
neato stuff.
283: "Possibilities" by Obscure Images. Once again, Oi brings the
linguistics for the nine deuce deuce. This one's got crazy subliminal
tapes and a hippy chick.
284: "Sanford's Calico" by James Cazamias. It's just like Disney's
_That Darn Cat!_, but different.
285: "Concise Guide to Forgetting How Much You Suck" by Jason Farnon.
Courtesy
of the cool _I Bleed For This?_ 'zine, here we go with a cDc edit/
distribution. Lots of practical advice to improve your standard of living.
286: "The Divine Masters" by Shriek Broomstraw. Particle physics and alien
overlords and why you should be concerned with all this. You should.
Really.
287: "Shotgun" by Swamp Ratte'. Never mind _Where's Waldo?_, where's the
shotgun? Oh my. Fills out this release's angst quota.
288: "Rejection Letter Blues" by Jeff Swanson. Some people just can't
appreciate good literature. Fun-eeEe.
289: "Can There Be Artificial Intelligence?" by Tequila Willy. Another
scholarly scab for you to pick at. That Willsie, what a smart guy.
290: "Bob Takes a Trip" by Special Agent Finerty. Bob's a mechanical dog
and he's NUTS. CRAZY. Watch out. Zany hi-jinx.
__________________________________/cDc
Gnuz\__________________________________
_ _
|\ /^\ /^\
/ / / @ )^ -| @ )^ - _
/ / 666 ( \/-^-^^| /--^-^-~
\o \ \ o \ / /@ )^ - _
| o| _ - _ \ / o /| /--^-^-~
/ / / O o ^ - / ( O |/ / /\
| o \__ _/ O o O o ( o \ o \ /_/@ |
\ o o o / |__ _ \\
\ o O \ O ( o - o / . ^ \S
- - \ o ) \ ( ) /(_ / /^
| / - _ - - \ \ -_ -- -
| / \ / \ | \ \.
/ | | \ | \
/_ \ / | \ / _ \
| \ - | \ -
"This low-go you've received is the image of the be east. Whatever
you do, do not hold this image in your write hand or receive its image by
foe-ton trance Miss-shun through your I balls into your mined full crane
he um or you've received the mark of the bee east. Stung, by buy bull
revel lay shun. Keep your clothes on and don't follow the be eastly bare
whoreds."
-Philip Heggie
--x X x--
New things? Yep. There's now a Usenet newsgroup for you to discuss the
All-Powerfulness of cDc. It's "alt.fan.cult-dead-cow" and if your
newsfeed isn't getting it, mail news@yersite and say, "GET WITH THE
PROGRAM, PAL! HUP HUP!"
Tell me about the time you were in the 7th grade and had to do a #2 really
bad and those blind special ed. kids were in the bathroom swinging their
canes around and saying bad words. You were SCARED, weren't you. HA!
The world is filled with WIMPS. You go to a large public restroom, into a
stall. All the other people in the stalls, you can see their feet. They
make no noise. They sit and wait and clutch their tiny little genitals in
FEAR. But I am NOT LIKE THEM. I MAKE MY DISGUSTING NOISES AS I PLEASE.
I clean up, I exit my stall, I wash my hands and I LEAVE. I AM DONE.
I AM RELIEVED. They remain, cowering, wishing they had the GUTS to CRAP
but they do not and their bowels TREMBLE with gasses. They are but
INSECTS because they cannot CRAP FREELY. LEARN FROM MY ACTIONS and you
too can be POWERFUL.
Lady Carolin is now running the Official cDc Internet Dumpster: ftp or
gopher to cascade.net for all the cDc stuff, all the time. Cascade.net
gets 'em first and fast. The secondary site is ftp.eff.org as usual.
The other day I finally got The Beatles' _Abbey Road_ album and this
"I Want You (She's So Heavy)" song is amazing. So I'm thinking, why
should I be concerned with this week's indie-certified alterna-wonder-
weenie when I DON'T EVEN HAVE A GOOD COPY OF BARRY MANILLOW'S "MANDY"?
MY 8-TRACK SUFFERS FROM EXTREME WOW AND FLUTTER.
HOW CAN I EVEN _THINK_ ABOUT JAWBREAKER WHEN MY JACKSON 5 COLLECTION IS
SADLY INCOMPLETE!!??
If your writings have CLASS and STYLE, we want 'em. Dig the address at the
bottom of this file, daddy-o.
"What's good for cDc is good for America." - President Calvin Coolidge
S. Ratte'
cDc/Editor and P|-|Ear13zz |_3@DeRrr
"We're into t-files for the groupies and money."
Middle finger for all.
Write to: cDc communications, P.O. Box 53011, Lubbock, TX 79453.
Internet: sratte@phantom.com.
cDc Global Domination Update #18-by Swamp Ratte'-"Hyperbole is our
business" Copyright (c) 1994 cDc communications. All Rights Reserved.
ALL FILES LEECHABLE *NOW* BY WWW/GOPHER/FTP FROM CASCADE.NET: pub/cDc/New
_ _
((___))
[ x x ] cDc communications
\ / Global Domination Update #19
(' ') December 1st, 1994
(U)
Est. 1986
NEW gnU new GnU nEW gNu neW gnu nEw GNU releases for December, 1994:
_________________________________/Text
Files\_________________________________
291-299: Nine Christmas/Holiday/Cold Arctic Wasteland-related stories.
Some are funny, some are disturbing, and some will make you VERY AWARE of
every single PORE on your NOSE.
* cDc - DOWN HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS (1994). Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers,
Olivia Newton-John, Clint Black. Gather 'round the tree and enjoy a
rousing duet of Kenny and Olivia singing "Jingle Bell Rock" while Ms.
Parton gets drunk and embarrasses herself. Directed by Martin Scorsese.
(Drug Use, Adult Language, Graphic Violence, Strong Sexual Content).
__________________________________/cDc
Gnuz\__________________________________
"In their workshops, the elves toil under the oppressive eyes of the
redshirts. The Eskimos are all but extinct, and the dentists pull tooth
after whalebone tooth from the charred skulls of their remnants.
Oh, the twinkling blue Aryan eyes! There is blood on his cheeks!
He trains mighty legions in his impregnable northern fortress. The Lapps
have come to fear the sound of marching boots and jingling bells.
With his newest sleigh, he can strike any European city in under twenty
minutes.
Good children get a switch in their stocking. The bad ones disappear.
LONG LIVE THE FOURTH REICH!"
-Andrew Solberg
- x X x -
Conspicuous consumption of cDc products will fill the empty, gnawing
voids you may or may not feel in your life... which become all the more
apparent at ridiculous hours of the night as carbonated beverages
gradually wear away your stomach lining and ulcers work their own little
brand of magic.
Things to look forward to in 1995:
cDc #300 - Cow Beat #3: "Teen Idling on the Inphomashun Hi-Mom-I'm-on-TV-
way"
cDc FACK: "Frequently Anointed Cows are K-rad." Or something.
I could give you promises of Twinkies and a cool, like, Yaga t-shirt.
Will you be happy then? From here to eternity we will shop. We will shop
at The Mall and buy only the finest in fashions and Rage Against the
Toaster will provide the aural motivation. "Fuck you, Mom, I won't clean
my room like you tell me."
Go to HoHoCon and it'll be cool. Ramada Inn South. 1212 West Ben White
Blvd. Austin, Texas. Friday, December 30th through Sunday the 1st.
Shop! Shop! Do the booty hop! The leather store has a sale on biker
jackets, Harley accessories optional and in-stock. New tats shine with
gleaming disinfectant. Bright red-skinned jolly pierceings, and sparkling
sterling silver! On the tongue, through the lip. Susy's got a charming
new necklace, and Little Johnny has a delightful new nose ring! "Come over
here, Johnny, so Aunty Emma can see your newest hole."
Make new holes and fill 'em up.
As cDc stalks around, hunting the logical conclusions. Ho.
S. Ratte'
cDc/Editor and P|-|Ear13zz |_3@DeRrr
"We're into t-files for the groupies and money."
Middle finger for all.
Write to: cDc communications, P.O. Box 53011, Lubbock, TX 79453.
Internet: sratte@phantom.com.
_____________________________________________________________________________
cDc Global Domination Update #19-by Swamp Ratte'-"Hyperbole is our
business" Copyright (c) 1994 cDc communications. All Rights Reserved.
ALL FILES LEECHABLE *NOW* BY WWW/GOPHER/FTP FROM CASCADE.NET: pub/cDc/New
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
MY LETTER TO WIRED RE: WWW PAGE
[Editor's note: I mailed this to Wired...and they said that they would
print it in the February 1995 issue. We'll see]
By Scott Davis (dfox@fc.net)
Dear Wired,
I have taken it upon myself to do an informal poll regarding your
new WWW page on the Internet. I recall that not so long ago, the
Wired WWW page was a great thing. It was easy to use and contained
a wealth of information. Now, it appears that one must have some
type of psudo-government security clearance to get into this WWW page.
It is my guess that the purpose for having to enter one's name,
e-mail address, special-secret-multi-digit-code, and other requested
information is for the purpose of demographics. No matter the reason
behind all of this...IS IT WORTH IT? Please allow me to explain the
frustrations of some of the net-community.
In announcing my informal poll, I stated my opinion on the new WWW
page. It was not favorable to Wired. I asked others to mail me their
opinions also. I will edit some of these for brevity only. I assure
you that I did not receive a single good comment about the new page.
And from what I understand, it seems like that there was some debate
regarding the creation and operation of the HotWired page. One
net-denizen replied to me, "Three weeks ago Jane Metcalfe came to
UCDavis to talk about Hotwired and to give the first public demo of
it. She told us that they had debated for quite some time about how
to set it up--wanting a balance between looking 'friendly' and 'not
allowing anonymous logins'. Sounds like the balance has tipped a bit
further than she wanted, given commentary on the net."
Another frustrated user says, "I gave up after 2 go arounds with the
login problems. To bad as I liked to read the old hotwired. Oh well, at
least the magazine is still easy to open!"
Other comments from disgruntled users include "I am getting nowhere with
this new interface. Requiring usernames, passwords, verification codes,
etc, ad nauseum has not yet induced me to like this new Web page." and
"Everytime I try to send my Hotwired Account Verification, it goes into
an endless loop, with the Mosaic icon spinning endlessly. If this is a
problem with using the Windows Mosaic 2.0a7 browser, I suggest that Wired
get rid of the verification, because I'm not getting rid of Mosaic."
More graphic comments include "Looks like HotWired has become the living,
throbbing, thrashing (whatever other adverbs they like) pulse of a
self-important, jargon-speaking, head-up-someplace-where-it-is-very-dark
entity." and "...not to mention one that has security measures like NORAD!
People go to www.wired.com for one thing: BACK ISSUES OF WIRED. End of
story." And the be-all-end-all comment that fits this WWW page perfectly
came from an avid reader. He says "I'd have to say this new setup has
become TIRED before it was ever WIRED..."
In running a large operation such as Wired, you are going to get
complaints about "something" all the time. And as the best publications
of it's kind, I am sure that you address the issues as much as possible
...just as you have this one. And many of the complaints you receive
probably carry "less priority" than others. However I certainly hope
this does not fall into that category of "less priority". I could
understand if maybe 50 or 100 people complained. But over the past
several months, I have seen numerous people complain about the
procedures required to gain access to your WWW page.
When I first sent my rough draft of this article into Wired, I received
a polite response from Andrew Anker of Wired Magazine. He was very
informative and perhaps his response seemed 'typical' to me because I
failed to provide him with much of the necessary information that I had
collected in order to do this article. I certainly do appreciate his
response to our concerns. Mr. Anker replied, "...over 20,000 people have
logged into the HotWired since we launched last Thursday, so it's very
possible that the people you polled didn't read the text of the intro
pages into HotWired that explain that certain browsers don't work with
HotWired."
Giving Wired the benefit of the doubt and assuming that some browsers may
not work or could be outdated (which I now know to be true), my next step
was to get the latest copy of one of the more popular browsers and try
again. And once again, I ran into more problems. I was not about to
attempt to troubleshoot more problems with this WWW page. I had obtained
the proper hardware and software to accomplish the task. It was no longer
my problem. It's Wired's problem.
After this last-ditch attempt to prove ourselves wrong in theory and
technique, one of my close friends stated, "Why the hell are they trying
to make it so hard to get at? Are they experimenting with someone's
cockamamie scheme for the Web equivalent of pay-TV?"
It appears that many people are getting TIRED of this WWW page.
Many end users do not see the purpose of having to enter all this
information, and in the end, it causes nothing more than a headache
when it does not work. I certainly do not want people to think that
I am some 'Privacy Hound' who disagrees with the concept of entering
my personal information on some WWW page. My name, number and address
are of public record to anyone who wishes to dial 512-555-1212.
The fact is that I have spoken to several people who cannot seem
to get the interface to work. And I seriously doubt that each of them
have an ill-configured Moasic.
Of all the people and companies on the net with Web pages, I would
venture to assume that Wired, of all people would promote accessibility
and ease before subjecting it's users to a verification procedure that many
feel is lacking, to say the least. I might go so far as to suggest that
Wired might want to resort back to the good 'ole days and have a WWW page
that is easily accessible and easy to use. Including the page where you
are requesting that the user input information can still remain on the
WWW site, but make it optional, and don't make it the home page. You
can ask people to fill out the requested information. I am sure that
many, if not most would comply. And by switching back, you are opening
doors for people who may not want to update their software, or just want
access for a short time obtain specific information.
As far as updating browsing software, my theory is "if it's not broken,
don't fix it", and just because somebody can't get on Wired's page, does
not mean that their software is broken and should be updated.
I must be honest and admit that I did FINALLY gain access to HotWired.
Nut not until I had tried every "compatible" version of Mosaic and
finally was forced to upgrade to NetScape for the sole purpose of
getting on HotWired. Was all that necessary?
Please fix this problem by making Wired easier to access. We end users
have to jump through enough obstacles as it is, and there is no point
in having to do this to get our favorite magazine on our screen.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 1995 05:34:47 -0600
From: Malik Al-Rashim <dfox@fc.net>
Subject: JAUC-File10
CALLER ID FAQ
By Padgett Peterson (padgett@tccslr.dnet.mmc.com)
Frequently Asked Questions About Caller-ID v1.1 Mar. 1994
1) What is Caller-ID ?
First ask "What is ANI"
2) OK, What is ANI ?
ANI or Automatic Number Identification is a mechanism by which the
different telephone companies determine what account is to be charged for
a call, This information is passed between Telcos and was originally
for billing purposes and predated both SS7 (Signaling System 7)
and (C)LASS (Local Area Signaling Services was the original AT&T
designations, the "C" was added by Bellcore after divesture) services
which make CNID or Calling Number IDentification as Caller-ID is more
properly known, possible.
Since the Telcos had ANI, the decision was made to make it available
to authorized parties such as 911 service and law enforcement agencies.
ANI is also used to let a Telco operator know who is calling.
More recently, ANI is used to report to 800 and 900 subscribers,
who made the calls they have received, in the first case so that
the 800 subscriber knows who the charge is for, and so that 900
number subscribers know who to charge.
Thus while ANI is similar to CALLER-ID and may provide the same
information, they are actually two different services and ANI information
is not necessarily the same as what will appear on a CALLER-ID display.
3) Now (maybe) what is Caller-ID ?
Caller-ID is a Telco offering that is a byproduct of (C)LASS services.
In this case, only those numbers reported by participating exchanges are
returned, exactly which are and which are not is currently (March 1994)
at the Telco's discretion.
The Federal Government has stated that it is their intent that nationwide
CNID be available by mid-1995. The full text of this decision may be
found FCC Report No. DC-2571 issued on March 8, 1994.
The biggest effect of the ruling is to mandate transport of CPN (customer
provided number) information between interconnecting networks eliminating
the effective inter-LATA-only limitation that exists today in most areas.
Currently there are two types of Caller-ID. The first (often referred
to as "basic" service) just returns the calling number or an error
message and the date/time of the call.
The second ("enhanced" Caller-ID) also may return the directory
information about the calling number. At a minimum, the name of the
subscriber is returned (the subscriber is not the same as the caller,
the phone company has no way to determine who is actually on the line).
4) How is the Caller-ID information provided ?
As a 1200 baud, 7 data bits, 1 stop bit data stream usually transmitted
following the first and before the second ring signal on the line. Note
that this is not a standard Bell 212 or CCITT v22 data format so a
standard modem will probably not be able to receive it. Further, the
serial information exists as such only from the recipient's switch to
the callee's location. Between carriers the signal exists as data packets.
The signal is provided before the circuit is complete: picking up the
receiver before the data stream is finished will stop/corrupt the
transmission.
Currently there are two types of information returned: a "short form"
which contains the date/time (telco and not local) of the call and the
calling number or error message. The "long form" will also contain the
name and possibly the address (directory information) of the calling phone.
The "short form" stream consists of a set of null values, followed
by a two byte prefix, followed by the DATE (Month/Day), TIME (24 hour
format), and number including area code in ASCII, followed by a 2s
compliment checksum. Most modems/caller id devices will format the data
but the raw stream looks like this :
0412303232383134333434303735353537373737xx
or (prefix)02281334407555777(checksum)
A formatted output would look like this:
Date - Feb 28
Time - 1:34 pm
Number - (407)555-7777
5) Can a Caller-ID signal be forged/altered ?
Since the signal is provided by the local Telco switch and the calling
party's line is not connected until after the phone is answered, generally
the signal cannot be altered from the distant end. Manipulation would
have to take place either at the switch or on the called party's line.
However, the foregoing applies only to a properly designed CNID unit.
For instance the Motorola M145447 chip has a "power down" option that
wakes the Chip up when the phone rings for just long enough to receive,
process, and deliver the CNID signal after which it shuts down until the
next call.
Should this option be disabled, the chip will be in a "listen always"
state and it is theoretically possible to "flood" a line making a
vulnerable box record successive erroneous numbers.
I have received a report of a device called "Presto Chango" that
can transmit an extra ADSI modem tone after the call has been picked up
that will cause a susceptible box to display the later information. It
was also reported to me that CNID boxes marketed by US-West as their
brand and made by CIDCO have been used to demonstrate the "Presto Chango"
box.
6) What is "ID Blocking" ?
Most Telco's providing Caller-ID have been required to also provide the
ability for a calling party to suppress the Caller-ID signal. Generally
this is done by pressing star-six-seven before making the call. In most
cases this will block the next call only however some Telcos have decided
to implement this in a bewildering array of methods. The best answer is
to contact the service provider and get an answer in writing.
Currently this is supplied as either by-call or by-line blocking. By-Call
is preferred since the caller must consciously block the transmission
on each call. By-Line blocking as currently implemented has the
disadvantage that the caller, without having a second caller-id equipped
line to use for checking, has no way of knowing if the last star-six-seven
toggled blocking on or off.
Note that blocking is provided by a "privacy" bit that is transmitted
along with the CNID information and so is still available to the Telco
switch, just not to the subscriber as a CNID signal. Consequently related
services such as call trace, call return, & call block may still work.
7) What happens if a call is forwarded ?
Generally, the number reported is that of the last phone to forward the
call. Again there are some Telco differences so use the same precaution
as in (6). If the forwarding is done by customer owned equipment there
is no way of telling but will probably be the last calling number.
Note that as specified, CNID is *supposed* to return the number of the
originating caller but this is at the mercy of all forwarding devices,
some of which may not be compliant.
8) What happens if I have two phone lines and a black box to do
the forwarding ?
If you have two phone lines or use a PBX with outdialing features, the
reported number will be that of the last line to dial. Currently there
is no way to tell a black box from a human holding two handsets together.
9) I called somebody from a company phone (555-1234) but their Caller-ID
device reported 555-1000.
Often a company with multiple trunks from the Telco and their own
switch will report a generic number for all of the trunks.
There is a defined protocol for PBXs to pass true CNID information on
outgoing lines but it will be a long time before all existing COT
(Customer Owned Telephone) equipment is upgraded to meet this standard
unless they have a reason to do so.
10) I run a BBS. How can I use Caller-ID to authenticate/log callers ?
There are two ways. The first utilizes a separate Caller-ID box
with a serial cable or an internal card. This sends the information
back to a PC which can then decide whether to answer the phone and what
device should respond. Some of these are available which can handle
multiple phone lines per card and multiple cards per PC.
The second (and most common) is for the capability to be built in a modem
or FAX/modem. While limited to a single line per modem, the information
can be transmitted through the normal COM port to a program that again
can decide whether or not to answer the phone and how. There is a
FreeWare Caller-ID ASP script for Procomm Plus v2.x available for FTP
from the Telecom archive. Most such software packages will also log each
call as it is received and the action taken.
Of course for true wizards, there are chips available (one of the first
was the Motorola MC145447) that can recognize the CNID signal and
transform it into a proper RS-232 (serial) signal.
11) How is security enhanced by using Caller-ID over a Call-Back
service or one-time-passwords for dial-up access ?
Caller-ID has one great advantage over any other mechanism for telephone
lines. It allows the customer to decide *before* picking up the receiver,
whether to answer the call.
Consider hackers, crackers, and phreaks. Their goal in life is to forcibly
penetrate electronic systems without permission (sounds like rape doesn't
it ?). They employ demon dialers and "finger hacking" to discover
responsive numbers, often checking every number in a 10,000 number
exchange.
If they get a response such as a modem tone, they have a target and
will often spend days or weeks trying every possible combination of codes
to get in. With Caller-ID answer selection, the miscreant will never
get to the modem tone in the first place, yet for an authorized number,
the tone will appear on the second ring. Previously the best solution
for dial-ups was to set the modem to answer on the sixth ring (ats0=6).
Few hackers will wait that long but it can also irritate customers.
12) What error messages will Caller-ID return ?
a) "Out of Area" - (Telco) the call came from outside the Telco's
service area and the Telco either has no available information or
has chosen not to return what information it has.
b) "Blocked" or "Private" - (Telco) the caller either has permanent
call blocking enabled or has dialed star-six-seven for this call. You do
not have to answer either.
c) "Buffer Full" - (device manufacturer) there are many Caller-ID devices
on the market and exactly how they have chosen to implement storage is up
to the manufacturer. This probably means that the divide has a limited
buffer space and the device is either losing the earliest call records or
has stopped recording new calls.
d) "Data Error" or "Data Error #x" - (device manufacturer) signal was
received that was substandard in some way or for which the checksum did
not match the contents.
e) "No Data Sent" - (device manufacturer) Signal was received consisting
entirely of nulls or with missing information but a proper checksum.
13) Why are so many people against Caller-ID ?
FUD - Fear, Uncertainty, & Doubt or 10,000,000 lemmings can't be wrong.
There were some justifiable concerns that some people (battered wives,
undercover policemen) might be endangered or subject to harassment
(doctors, lawyers, celebrities) by Caller-ID. As mentioned above there
are several legitimate ways to either block Caller-ID or to have it return
a different number. It is up to the caller. The advantage is that with
Caller-ID, for the first time, the called party has the same "right of
refusal".
Expect yet another Telco service (at a slight additional charge) to be
offered to return an office number for calls made from home. Crisis
centers could return the number of the local police station.
Compiled by Padgett Peterson. Constructive comments to:
padgett@tccslr.dnet.mmc.com Brickbats >nul.
Thanks for additional material to:
David J. Kovan
Robert Krten
John Levine
David G. Lewis
Karl Voss
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
THE PENTIUM BUG WAR ENDS AS WE KNOW IT
By James Baar and Theodore Baar
The real long-term significance of the Great Intel Pentium Flaw
Imbroglio is the imminent demise of the current practice of public
relations and corporate and government communications as we know them.
Ironically caught unaware of the communications world it helped create,
Intel suffered a public relations near-disaster. Intel's arch competitor,
IBM, wandered bubba-like into a public relations bog the future depths
of which are still to be determined.
Clearly we soon will see on the boneyard of history such communications
artifacts as:
--The lengthy, well-spun news release or official statement
explaining what "really" happened or why a product "really" is a
breakthrough for all mankind.
--The news conference where the news is that what the media said
yesterday or last week is "really" not the news at all.
--The necessity to convince rushed and often ill-informed
journalists and beautiful and much more ill-informed TV anchors that your
truth is "really" true.
The Internet is doing to public relations what CSPAN, CNN Forums
and talk radio are doing to news coverage: When you are there, the
messenger is extraneous. And, on the Internet, you are there and you are
the messenger as well..
The Pentium Flaw War was the first major corporate war to be fought
primarily in cyberspace. The initial, very scattered shots were fired
more than five months ago on the Internet; major engagements got underway
in October; and a worldwide battle raged through November and early
December.
Little of this was noted particularly in the general or trade media
until near the end. And then it was reported as a highly technical
problem of limited general interest. Only when IBM found it convenient
to drop the equivalent of a small nuclear weapon did most of the major
national media take note that something much more than an academic,
technically obscure brawl was underway.
Only then did the WALL STREET JOURNAL shout from it's front page:
Chip Shot
Computer Giants' War
Over Flaw in Pentium
Jolts the PC Industry
And, on the same day, the NEW YORK TIMES shouted from it's front page:
I.B.M. HALTS SALES
OF IT'S COMPUTERS
WITH FLAWED CHIP
Both stories were inspired belatedly by an IBM announcement that it was
suspending sales (sort of) of any of it's personal computers that included
the Intel Pentium chip because the chip had a flaw.
Well, ho-hum: Except for the IBM announcement, this was old news along
the Information Highway. And the IBM announcement was immediately
discounted by many of the veteran cyberspace combatants of the Pentium
War as highly suspect: something similar to Parliament coming out against
slavery in America after Lexington and Concord.
Most great military engagements begin quite casually if not accidentally:
A sniper picks off a poacher stealing a chicken. A nervous platoon leader
calls in a little artillery fire on a bunker. A lost company stumbles
on a tank column.
Back in June, Intel and some of it's customers already knew about the bug
that was preventing the new Pentium microprocessors to divide accurately
out to more than nine or 10 decimal places in some cases. Intel did not
publish the information. If any messages about the bug appeared here and
there in various newsgroups on the Internet for the next few months,
they initially attracted little attention.
This was not the kind of consumer problem that causes a lot of excitement
at your neighborhood 24-hour store. But this bug was of interest -- and
in some cases importance to parts of the world technical community
engaged in major mathematical calculations: This is a community that also
appreciates that such a flaw is not the first nor will be the last in
the increasing complexity of computer components and software; exalts
technical openness; recognizes quickly when it is being stonewalled; and
has a biting specialized sense of outrage and humor.
Prof. Thomas Nicely of Lynchburg College reports that when he began
running into a potential flaw in the Pentium in June he started a three
month effort to determine whether the problem was the Pentium or something
else. For example, his own calculations; or possibly known bugs in other
hardware such as the Borland C Compiler. And in Copenhagen mathematicians
developed a T-shirt satirizing the Intel chip logo "Intel Inside" as "No
Intelligence Inside" and published memos saying "We knew about it early
in June..."
Intel managed to downplay and contain word of the bug for the most part
through the next three months. Any callers were told at first that a fix
was underway and that the bug affected only very special situations.
Then, on Oct. 30, Dr. Nicely posted a message to "whom it may concern"
on the Internet, reporting his findings and his frustrations with getting
Intel to pay serious attention to him. In the succeeding weeks, the war
between Intel and it's users exploded. Each day there were more reports
about the bug and Intel's truculence.
The number of the strings of messages on the Internet increased and grew
longer as users at universities, laboratories and corporations around the
world reported the same bug and it's potential variations; discussed
their research for possibly more bugs; and reported on their
unsatisfactory and frustrating phone calls to Intel.
And here was where the war was really fought.
Intel treated each caller as an individual, linear event to be dealt with
in isolation; turned around or at least mollified. Intel's position was
that this was a routine bug that was being taken care of and was of no
major importance to most of it's customers. The Intel position essentially
remained that there was no need for a general replacement on demand; that
the problem was relatively minor; that if a user was engaged in the kind
of heavy mathematics that could be affected by the bug then Intel, if
it agreed, would replace a Pentium.
Meantime, Intel and it's commercial allies continued to promote and sell
Pentiums. More than four million Pentiums were reported sold.
The words "greedy" and "arrogance" became popular on the Internet among
customers describing Intel's position. The Internet discussion was highly
technical and profane. It also included useful suggestions for
broadening the discussion. For example, participants were provided
with the Fax number of the New York Times. And more and more of the
callers to Intel shared their mostly frustrating experiences on the
Internet with a worldwide audience of customers. An angry mob -- slowly
recognized as a major threat by Intel -- began to assemble in cyberspace
Intel CEO Andrew Grove issued a statement on the Internet Nov. 27 seeking
to quiet the mob. Instead the roar in cyberspace increased. Intel's
Software Lab Technology Lab Director Richard Wirt on Dec. 8 issued a
statement on the Internet describing Intel plans to provide a fix for the
flaw. The roar continued and spread and Intel's weakening protests were
increasingly drowned out as the users reinforced each other with new data
and complaints around the clock around the world.
It was at this point on Dec.12 that IBM -- a reported minor player in the
sale of Pentiums, but the developer of a competitive chip, the PowerPC --
decided to announce both on the Internet and to the major national media
the halting of it's shipments of Pentium-based IBM PCs.
The war was now spread to the major national media where the problem was
easily confused with various consumer product recalls and the Internet
where IBM's move was both discounted as self-serving and used
simultaneously to pummel Intel further.
By Dec. 20 Intel had had enough. It agreed to a general recall and
apologized for not doing so sooner.
The public relations lessons are clear.
People -- particularly customers -- are no longer isolated waiting to
learn sooner or later what is happening through the third party media
screen and, in turn, relying on the third party media to screen and
sooner or later report their reaction. Even when the third party media
is accurate this process can take many days.
Through the Internet, people -- particularly customers -- can tell a
corporation or organization exactly what they think and why and share that
simultaneously and instantaneously with all concerned around the world.
The Internet returns the world to the agora where everyone hears what was
said; and everyone hears all comments and reactions; everyone knows who
is talking and can make credibility judgments.
The first Intel error was not to spot the issue stirring on the Internet
months ago when the commentary was helpful and understanding. At that
time and for several months later, Internet commentators could have been
embraced and thanked for their efforts; immediate plans for a work-around
fix could have been disclosed; and work on a permanent fix could have
been described: all in cyberspace among sophisticated customers who well
understand the complex nature of the technology.
Intel's second error was not to recognize that because of the Internet it
no longer could reason at least semi-privately with customers and advance
rational technical arguments. In pre-cyberspace days, that could be
effective: the customer is grudgingly mollified until the issue is
eventually resolved. But in this case, as it's customers shared both
their problems and experiences with each other in real time, they fed
each others frustrations; were empowered as a group to demand better
treatment; and built mutual strength with each day for new battles to
come.
Intel's third error was not to go directly on line with it's customers and
deal with the issue interactively. Instead, Intel pursued the classic
static public relations mode of issuing statements and news releases.
These were turned into blackened ruins by Internet flame messages in a
matter of hours.
Meantime, IBM by it's announcement, uncorked the Law of Unanticipated
Consequences. The Internet mob really understood the issue; the general
public for the most part did not. IBM, with motives already under
suspicion, opened the bottle labeled "Doubt about Technology" to the
overall potential future detriment of the Information Technology Industry
in general.
As more people around the world join the millions already using the
Internet for communications, corporations and government will be forced
if they wish to succeed to function within the new realities of cyberspace:
information is shared and sifted by thousands of knowledgeable people;
time is collapsed; facts are quickly checked; loss of credibility can be
instantaneous; second chances are rare and harder to effect; grandstand
plays better be perfect; and the playing off of one audience against
another is far more easily detected.
Above all else, a smattering of obscure messages or even a random one or
two can no longer be automatically disregarded as mere technical mumbling.
For example, is anyone following up on a recent Internet potential bug
message regarding AMD DX-80 chips or another regarding "something about a
conditional loop" in the Pentium?
One final cyberspace reality of note: instant corrosive humor is abundant
and effective. (If they really are laughing about you, you can't be taken
seriously anymore.) This was ably demonstrated by the Internet author
who wrote for the delectation of Intel customers and potential customers
everywhere a Star Trek parody. He called it: "BBUUGGS IINN
SSPPAACCEE!!".
(This article is from a forthcoming issue of Knowledge Tools News, an
electronic newsletter of Omegacom, Inc. James Baar (jimbar@omegacom.com)
is president/managing consultant. Theodore Baar (tedbar@omegacom.com.)
is vice president/chief technologist.)
-----------
Copyright (c) 1994 Omegacom, Inc., all rights reserved. This article may
be posted to any USENET newsgroup, on-line service, or BBS as long as it
is posted in it's entirety and includes this copyright statement. All
other rights reserved. This article may not be included in commercial
collections or compilations without express permission from Omegacom,
Inc. jimbar@omegacom.com. For all other uses you must seek permission
of Omegacom, Inc. jimbar@omegacom.com
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT OF DR. NICELY
The following message was posted to the Internet by Dr. Thomas Nicely,
discover of the Pentium Floating Point Unit Flaw. The first part deals
with a question regarding Dr. Nicely's signing of a non-disclosure
agreement with Intel.
TO: Whomever It May Concern
FROM: Dr. Thomas R. Nicely, Lynchburg College, Lynchburg, Virginia
(nicely@acavax.lynchburg.edu)
RE: Pentium Bug and Intel NDA
DATE: 94.11.25.1400 EST
This is in reply to Paul Rubin's (phr@netcom.com) inquiry of 23 November.
* I signed a temporary nondisclosure agreement with Intel on 10 November.
* There was no coercion or threat of any kind, by either party.
* The NDA was signed in the course of discussions to determine
whether or not an agreement (such as a consultancy) could be reached
which would prove beneficial in the long term to myself, to the Intel
Corporation, and to my employer, Lynchburg College.
* From 10 November until 22 November, I deflected all inquiries regarding
the Pentium FPU to Intel's representatives. This was a consequence of
my own mistaken interpretation of the NDA; I was treating it in the
manner of a security clearance; I once held a clearance for secret
restricted data in X-division (nuclear weapon design and analysis)
at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and that clearance treated most
information concerned as "born secret," even if the information was
acquired prior to the clearance and/or independently. In the same
spirit, I removed from the College's VAX anonymous FTP directory
copies of the codes used to analyze the Pentium chip for the bug.
* After receiving some complaints in this regard, Intel (on its own
initiative) informed me on 22 November that I was free to discuss
publicly the discovery and nature of the Pentium FPU bug, since this was
my own work, accomplished prior to signing the NDA and without
assistance from Intel; and that the primary purpose of the NDA was to
insure confidentiality of information exchanged in the course of any
consulting I might do for Intel in the future.
* To this date, Intel has been most cooperative in alleviating difficulties
caused for my own research (computational number theory; distribution of
twin primes and other constellations, and the sums of their reciprocals)
by the presence of the bug. They have shipped replacement chips for the
CPUs in the machines I am using, and I have verified that the new chips
are free of the bug (zero errors in > 1e15 simulated random divisions).
* I cannot speak for Intel regarding its policies on CPU replacement for
Pentium systems having the bug; that is a management decision which
obviously must take into account the constraints of supply, inventory,
logistics, expense, and public relations. To date, I believe Intel has
handled the affair in essentially the manner that could usually be
expected of most businesses operating in a highly competitive, low-margin
capitalistic economy. Any Pentium owner who feels the need for a
replacement CPU should contact Intel Customer Service and Tech
Support at 800-628-8686, or Intel representative John Thompson at
408-765-1279.
* I probably have a somewhat different perspective on the bug than most
users. It is my opinion that the current generation of microprocessors
(and possibly all of them since, say, the 8080) has become so complex
that it is no longer possible to completely debug them, or even to
determine every bug that exists in one. Thus, the discovery of this
particular bug should not be any great surprise. There have been many
well-publicized bugs in the past (e.g., the 32-bit multiply bug in the
early 80386s, the arctangent bug in the early 80486s, the stack-handling
bug in the early 8088s, and the Motorola 68K revision F bug).
Furthermore, in view of this, all mission-critical computations should
be performed multiple times, in settings as independent as possible---
preferably with different CPUs, operating systems, and software
algorithms. Where different platforms are not available, the same
computation should be performed using algorithms as independent as
possible; this was in fact how I pinpointed the Pentium bug---the
sums of the reciprocals of the twin primes were being done in both
long double floating point (64 significant bits) and in extended
precision using arrays of integers (26 decimal digits at that time,
53 decimal digits currently). Dual calculations were also being run
on 486 and Pentium systems.
* Note that the bug can be temporarily circumvented by locking out
the FPU. For most DOS applications, this can be done by means of the
DOS commands SET 87=NO (for executables created by Borland compilers)
and SET NO87=NO87 (for executables created by Microsoft compilers).
Of course, this is at best a performance-killing band-aid; some
applications require an FPU, while Windows and most DOS extenders
ignore these environmental variables. In theory, it should be
possible to write a fairly short (100 lines?) utility code which
enters protected mode (ring 0), sets up a valid global descriptor table
(and perhaps a valid interrupt descriptor table), resets the emulation
bit in the machine status word of control register 0, and then re-enters
real mode. Running such a code at boot time should lock out the FPU
even for Windows and DOS extended applications; a similar code could
reactivate the FPU at will. Unfortunately, I haven't had the time to
write the code yet!
* To date, my analysis indicates that the bug will appear in about 1 in
31 billion random divisions and 1 in 1.26 billion random reciprocals.
These figures are similar to the rate of 1 in 9.5 billion attributed to
Intel. In my own application (distribution of twin primes and the sum
of their reciprocals) no error appeared for values < 824e9. Most users
will find these values reassuring; those of us doing computational
number theory, chaos theory, or analysis of ill-conditioned matrices
may still want a new, bug-free CPU.
* To date, the worst-case error of which I am aware is an example
apparently posted by Tim Coe of Vitesse Semiconductors on 14 November,
indicating that the quotient 4195835.0/3145727.0 is returned correctly
to only 14 significant bits (5 significant decimal digits). I have not
yet had a chance to verify this example.
* Copies of some of the codes I have used to analyze the bug (updated to
reflect later developments) will be restored to the anonymous FTP
directory [anonymous.nicely.pentbug] of Lynchburg College's VAX server
(machine ID acavax.lynchburg.edu) as soon as I get time to update and
post them.
* Feel free to transmit this communication as you wish.
Sincerely,
Dr. Thomas R. Nicely
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
THE COMPUTER NEVERMORE (The Raven)
By Unknown
Once upon a midnight dreary, fingers cramped and vision bleary,
System manuals piled high and wasted paper on the floor
Longing for the warmth of bedsheets,
Still I sat there, doing spreadsheets;
Having reached the bottom line,
I took a floppy from the drawer.
Typing with a steady hand, then invoked the SAVE command
But I got a reprimand: it read 'Abort, Retry, Ignore.'
Was this some occult illusion? Some maniacal intrusion?
These were choices Solomon himself had never faced before.
Carefully, I weighed my options.
These three seemed to be the top ones.
Clearly I must now adopt one:
Choose 'Abort, Retry, Ignore.'
With my fingers pale and trembling,
Slowly toward the keyboard bending,
Longing for a happy ending, hoping all would be restored,
Praying for some guarantee
Finally I pressed a key--
But on the screen what did I see?
Again: 'Abort, Retry, Ignore.'
I tried to catch the chips off-guard--
I pressed again, but twice as hard.
Luck was just not in the cards.
I saw what I had seen before.
Now I typed in desperation
Trying random combinations
Still there came the incantation:
Choose: 'Abort, Retry, Ignore.'
There I sat, distraught exhausted, by my own machine accosted
Getting up I turned away and paced across the office floor.
And then I saw an awful sight:
A bold and blinding flash of light--
A lightning bolt had cut the night and shook me to my very core.
I saw the screen collapse and die
'Oh no--my data base,' I cried
I thought I heard a voice reply,
'You'll see your data Nevermore!'
To this day I do not know
The place to which lost data goes
I bet it goes to heaven where the angels have it stored
But as for productivity, well
I fear that IT goes straight to hell
And that Us the tale I have to tell
Your choice: 'Abort, Retry, Ignore.'
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE STAR TREK...
'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the ship
Not a circuit was buzzing, not one microchip;
The phasers were hung in the armory securely,
In hope that no alien would get up that early.
The crewmen were nestled all snug in their bunks
(Except for the few who were partying drunks);
And Picard in his nightshirt, and Bev in her lace,
Had just settled down for a neat face to face...
When out in the hall there arose such a racket,
That we leapt from our beds, pulling on pant and jacket.
Away to the lifts we all shot like a gun,
Leapt into the cars and yelled loudly "Deck One!"
The bridge red-alert lights, which flashed through the din,
Gave a lustre of Hades to objects within.
When, what on the viewscreen, our eyes should behold,
But a weird kind of sleigh, and some guy who looked old.
But the glint in his eyes was so strange and askew,
That we knew in a moment it had to be Q.
His sleigh grew much larger as closer he came.
Then he zapped on the bridge and addressed us by name:
"It's Riker, It's Data, It's Worf and Jean-Luc!
It's Geordi, And Wesley, the genetic fluke!
To the top of the bridge, to the top of the hall!
Now float away! Float away! Float away all!"
As leaves in the autumn are whisked off the street,
So the floor of the bridge came away from our feet,
And up to the ceiling, our bodies they flew,
As the captain called out, "What the Hell is this, Q?!"
The prankster just laughed and expanded his grin,
And, snapping his fingers, he vanished again.
As we took in our plight, and were looking around,
The spell was removed, and we crashed to the ground.
Then Q, dressed in fur from his head to his toe,
Appeared once again, to continue the show.
"That's enough!" cried the captain, "You'll stop this at once!"
And Riker said, "Worf, take aim at this dunce!"
"I'm deeply offended, Jean-Luc" replied Q,
"I just wanted to celebrate Christmas with you."
As we scoffed at his words, he produced a large sack.
He dumped out the contents and took a step back.
"I've brought gifts," he said, "just to show I'm sincere.
There's something delightful for everyone here."
He sat on the floor, and dug into his pile,
And handed out gifts with his most charming smile:
"For Counselor Troi, there's no need to explain.
Here's Tylenol-Beta for all of your pain.
For Worf I've some mints, as his breath's not too great,
And for Geordi LaForge, an inflatable date."
For Wesley, some hormones, and Clearasil-plus;
For Data, a joke book, For Riker a truss.
For Beverly Crusher, there's sleek lingerie,
And for Jean-Luc, the thrill of just seeing her that way."
And he sprang to his feet with that grin on his face
And, clapping his hands, disappeared into space.
But we heard him exclaim as he dwindled from sight,
"Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good flight!"
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
SANTA SOURCE CODE
By Unknown
#bash
better !pout !cry
better watchout
lpr why
santa claus <north pole >town
cat /etc/passwd >list
ncheck list
ncheck list
cat list | grep naughty >nogiftlist
cat list | grep nice >giftlist
santa claus <north pole >town
who | grep sleeping
who | grep awake
who | egrep 'bag|good'
for (goodnes sake) {
be good
}
better !pout !cry
better watchout
lpr why
santa claus <north pole >town
[original source unknown]
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 1995 05:37:20 -0600
From: Malik Al-Rashim <dfox@fc.net>
Subject: JAUC-File11
MY LIFE AS AN INTERNATIONAL ARMS COURIER
By Matt Blaze (mab@research.att.com)
Under an obscure provision of US law, devices and computer programs
that use encryption techniques to hide information from prying eyes
and ears are considered ``munitions'' and subject to the same rules
that govern the international arms trade. In particular, taking such
items out of this country requires the approval of the State
Department, which decides whether exporting something might endanger
national security. In the past, these restrictions were of little
concern to the average citizen; encryption found most of its
application in military and diplomatic communications equipment.
Today, however, growing concern over electronic fraud and privacy
means that encryption techniques are starting to find their way into
more conventional commercial products like laptop computers and
portable phones.
Mostly to find out what the process was like, I recently applied for a
temporary export license for a portable telephone encryption product
that I wanted to take with me on a business trip to England and
Belgium.
The item in question is more properly called a ``telephone security
device.'' This is a little box that scrambles telephone conversations
to protect them against eavesdroppers; this sort of protection is
sometimes important when discussing confidential business matters from
faraway places. The particular model I bought was already approved
for export; it employs a cipher algorithm that the government has
already decided is not a threat to national security even should it
fall into the hands of some rogue government. This model is aimed
primarily, I presume, at international business travelers who want to
communicate in a reasonably secure manner with their home offices in
the states. In other words, a typical user buys two of them, leaving
one at the home office and carrying the other when traveling abroad.
The options that came with my device included a James Bond-ish looking
acoustic coupler and handset to facilitate its connection to the
hardwired phones that are still common in European hotel rooms.
It turns out that there was recently some discussion in the government
about exempting products like my secure phone from the licensing
paperwork requirements. Unfortunately, however, this exemption never
actually took effect. So even though the device I had was already
approved for sale abroad, I still needed to get a temporary export
license before I could take it with me. But I was assured that ``this
is an easy, routine process''. Well, sure enough, about two weeks
before I was to leave I got back my official US State Department
``license for the temporary export of unclassified defense articles''.
So far, so good.
From what I was able to figure out by reading the license (and having
a few conversations with an export lawyer), I'm required to leave from
an international airport with a Customs agent present (no problem
there, although Customs is geared to arriving, rather than departing,
travelers). At the airport, I'm supposed to fill out a form called a
``shipper's export declaration'' (SED) on which I have to declare that
``these commodities are authorized by the US government for export
only to Belgium and the United Kingdom. They may not be resold,
transshipped, or otherwise disposed of in any country, either in their
original form or incorporated into other end-items without the prior
written approval of the US Department of State''. Then I'm to present
the SED and export license to a Customs official at the airport before
I leave. The Customs officer is supposed to take my SED and endorse
my license to show what I'm actually taking out of the country.
On the way back in, I'm supposed to ``declare'' my item at Customs
(even though it was manufactured in the US) and show them my license,
and they're supposed to endorse the license again as proof that I
have, in fact, returned the ``defense article'' to the safety of the
United States.
The first hitch I ran into was that no one could actually tell me
where I could get an SED form. But when I called Customs they assured
me that this was no big deal. ``Just come by when you get to the
airport and we stamp the license. I guess you can just fill out the
SED there,'' they said.
I made sure to get to the airport early anyway.
Although there was moderately heavy traffic near the airport, I made
it to JFK two and a half hours before my 10pm flight. I was flying
United, which has their own terminal at JFK, so Customs has an office
right there in the same building from which I was to depart (JFK is
awful to get around, so I was glad for this). I checked in for my
flight (and got upgraded to first class, which bolstered my
expectation that everything was going to be really easy from here on).
Then, luggage, license and phone in hand, I made my way downstairs to
Customs, expecting to fill out the SED form and ``just have my license
stamped'' as they had assured me earlier on the telephone. I
explained my situation to the security guard who controls entry to the
Customs area, and he led me to ``the back office'' without much
argument or delay. The head uniformed Customs guy in the back office
(which I think is same office where they take the people suspected of
being ``drug mules'' with cocaine-filled condoms in their stomaches)
looked approachable enough. He had a sort of kindly, grandfatherly
manner, and he was playing a video game on a laptop computer. I got
the impression that most of the people he encounters are suspected
drug smugglers, and he seemed pleased enough to be dealing with
something a little different from the norm. When I explained what I
was doing he looked at me as if I had just announced that I was a
citizen of Mars who hadn't even bothered to obtain a visa.
He explained, carefully, that a) I really do need the SED form; b) not
only that, I should have already filled it out, in duplicate; c) he
doesn't have blank SED forms; d) he, like everyone else in the entire
US government that I had spoken to, has no idea where one gets them
from, but people must get them from somewhere; and e) it doesn't
really matter, because I'm in the wrong place anyway.
I asked him where the right place is. ``The cargo building, of
course,'' he told me, patiently. I remembered the cargo building
because I passed it in the taxi just as the traffic jam began, about
half an hour before I got to the United terminal. The airport shuttle
bus doesn't stop there. I'd have to call a taxi. ``But I think
they're closed now, and even if they were open you'd never make it
before your flight'' he helpfully added, saving me the trip. He also
complemented me for going to the trouble to get the license.
I must have looked hurt and confused. Eventually he called in some
fellow in a suit who I presume to have been his boss.
``Are you the guy who wants to export the fancy gun?'' the fellow in
the suit asked me.
``It's not a gun, it's a telephone,'' I responded, with a straight
face.
``Why do you have a license to export a telephone?'' Good question, I
thought. I explained about the export law and showed him the thing.
He agreed that it looked pretty harmless.
The fellow in the suit reiterated points a through e almost verbatim
(do they rehearse for these things?) and explained that this isn't
really their department, since my license was issued by the State
Department, not Customs, and my situation doesn't come up very often
because exports usually go via the cargo building. He'd love to help
me, but the computer in which these things get entered is over in
Cargo. ``That's how the records get made. But you do have a valid
license, which is nice.'' He also suggested that I would have had an
easier time had I shipped the device instead of carrying it with me.
I asked what I should do, given that my plane was scheduled to leave
in less than an hour. Neither was sure, but the fellow in the suit
seemed willing leave it to the discretion of the uniformed guy. ``How
does this thing work, anyway?'' he asked. I explained as best as I
could, trying to make it sound as harmless as it is. ``You mean like
that Clipper chip?'' he asked.
At this point, given that he has a computer and knows something about
the Clipper chip, I figured that maybe there was some hope of making
my flight. Or maybe I was about to spend the night in jail. In my
mind, I put it at about a 90:10 hope:jail ratio.
Then he asked, ``Do you know about this stuff?''
So we chatted about computers and cryptography for a while. Finally,
the two of them decided that it wouldn't really hurt for them to just
sign the form as long as I promised to call my lawyer and get the SED
situation straightened out ASAP. They assured me that I won't be
arrested or have any other trouble upon my return.
I made my flight, validated license in hand.
An aside: Throughout my trip, I discovered an interesting thing about
the phone and the various options I was carrying with it. Under X-ray
examination, it looks just like some kind of bomb. (I suspect it was
the coiled handset cords). Every time I went through a security
checkpoint, I had to dig the thing out of my luggage and show it to
the guard. I almost missed the new ``Eurostar'' chunnel train (3hrs
15mins nonstop from London to Brussels, airport-style check-in and
security) as the guards were trying to figure out whether my telephone
was likely to explode.
Coming back to the US was less eventful, though it did take me an
extra hour or so to get through Customs. Expecting a bit of a hassle
I didn't check any luggage and made sure to be the first person from
my flight to reach the Customs line. The inspector was ready to
wordlessly accept my declaration form and send me on my way when I
opened my mouth and explained that I needed to get an export license
stamped. That was obviously a new one for him. He finally decided
that this had to be handled by something called the ``Ships Office''.
I was sent to an unoccupied back room (a different back room from
before) and told to wait. I thought about the recent Customs
experiences of Phil Zimmermann. (Zimmermann, the author of a popular
computer encryption program, was recently detained, questioned and
searched by Customs officials investigating whether he violated the
same regulations I was trying so hard to follow.) After about half an
hour, an officer came in and asked me what I needed. I explained
about my export license that had to be endorsed. She just shrugged
and told me that she had to ``process the flight'' first. As best as
I could tell, her job was to clear the airplane itself through
Customs, that being, technically speaking, a very expensive import.
It would take a little while. She was pleasant enough, though, and at
least didn't look at me as if she intended to send me to jail or have
me strip searched.
Finally, she finished with the plane and asked me for my form. She
studied it carefully, obviously never having seen one before, and
eventually asked me what, exactly, she was supposed to do. I
explained that I had never actually gone through this process before
but I understood that she's supposed to record the fact that I was
re-importing the device and stamp my license somewhere. She told me
that she didn't know of any place for her to record this. After some
discussion, we agreed that the best thing to do was to make a Xerox
copy of my license and arrange for it to go wherever it had to go
later. She stamped the back of the license and sent me on my way. It
was a little over an hour after I first reached the Customs desk.
My conclusion from all this is that it just isn't possible for an
individual traveler to follow all the rules. Even having gone through
the process now, I still have no idea how to obtain, let alone file,
the proper forms, even for a device that's already been determined to
be exportable. The export of export-controlled items is ordinarily
handled by cargo shipment, not by hand carrying by travelers, and the
system is simply not geared to deal with exceptions. Technically
speaking, everyone with a laptop disk encryption program who travels
abroad is in violation of the law, but since no one actually knows or
checks, no mechanism exists to deal with those who want to follow the
rules. While (fortunately) everyone I dealt with was sympathetic, no
one in the government who I spoke with was able to actually help me
follow the rules. I was permitted to leave and come back only because
everyone involved eventually recognized that my telephone was pretty
harmless, that my intentions were good, and that the best thing to do
was be flexible. If anyone had taken a hard line and tried to enforce
the letter of the law, I simply wouldn't have been able to take the
thing with me, even with my license. Had I just put my telephone in
my suitcase without telling anyone instead of calling attention to
myself by trying to follow the rules, chances are no one would have
noticed or cared.
Unfortunately, however, these absurd rules carry the full force of
law, and one ignores them only at the risk of being prosecuted for
international arms trafficking. While it may seem far-fetched to
imagine US citizens prosecuted as arms smugglers simply for carrying
ordinary business products in their luggage, the law as written allows
the government to do just that. At the same time, anyone who is aware
of and who tries to follow the regulations is made to jump through
pointless hoops that are so obscure that even the people charged with
enforcing them don't know quite what to make of them.
Copyright 1995 by Matt Blaze. All rights reserved.
Electronic redistribution permitted provided this article is reproduced
in its entirety.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
OPEN LETTER TO WIRED MAGAZINE
By Chris Goggans (phrack@well.sf.ca.us)
To Whom It May Concern:
I am writing this under the assumption that the editorial staff at
Wired will "forget" to print it in the upcoming issue, so I am
also posting it on every relevant newsgroup and online discussion forum
that I can think of.
When I first read your piece "Gang War In Cyberspace" I nearly choked on
my own stomach bile. The whole tone of this piece was so far removed
from reality that I found myself questioning what color the sky must be
in Wired's universe. Not that I've come to expect any better from Wired.
Your magazine, which could have had the potential to actually do
something, has become a parody...a politically correct art-school project
that consistently falls short of telling the whole story or making a solid
point. (Just another example of Kapor-Kash that ends up letting everyone
down.)
I did however expect more from Josh Quittner.
I find it interesting that so much emphasis can be placed on an issue of
supposed racial slurs as the focus of an imaginary "gang war," especially
so many years after the fact.
It's also interesting to me that people keep overlooking the fact that
one of the first few members of our own little Legion of Doom was black
(Paul Muad'dib.) Maybe if he had not died a few years back that wouldn't
be so quickly forgotten. (Not that it makes a BIT of difference what color
a hacker is as long as he or she has a brain and a modem, or these days
at least a modem.)
I also find it interesting that a magazine can so easily implicate someone
as the originator of the so-called "fighting words" that allegedly sparked
this online-battle, without even giving a second thought as to the damage
that this may do to the person so named. One would think that a magazine
would have more journalistic integrity than that (but then again, this IS
Wired, and political correctness sells magazines and satisfies
advertisers.) Thankfully, I'll only have to endure one month of the
"Gee Chris, did you know you were a racist redneck?" phone calls.
It's further odd that someone characterized as so sensitive to insults
allegedly uttered on a party-line could have kept the company he did.
Strangely enough, Quittner left out all mention of the MOD member who
called himself "SuperNigger." Surely, John Lee must have taken umbrage to
an upper-middle class man of Hebrew descent so shamefully mocking him and
his entire race, wouldn't he? Certainly he wouldn't associate in any way
with someone like that...especially be in the same group with, hang out
with, and work on hacking projects with, would he?
Please, of course he would, and he did. (And perhaps he still does...)
The whole "racial issue" was a NON-ISSUE. However, such things make
exciting copy and garner many column inches so keep being rehashed. In
fact, several years back when the issue first came up, the statement was
cited as being either "Hang up, you nigger," or "Hey, SuperNigger," but
no one was sure which was actually said. Funny how the wording changes
to fit the slant of the "journalist" over time, isn't it?
I wish I could say for certain which was actually spoken, but alas, I was
not privy to such things. Despite the hobby I supposedly so enjoyed
according to Quittner, "doing conference bridges," I abhorred the things.
We used to refer to them as "Multi-Loser Youps" (multi-user loops) and
called their denizens "Bridge Bunnies." The bridge referred to in the
story was popularized by the callers of the 5A BBS in Houston, Texas.
(A bulletin board, that I never even got the chance to call, as I had
recently been raided by the Secret Service and had no computer.) Many
people from Texas did call the BBS, however, and subsequently used the
bridge, but so did people from Florida, Arizona, Michigan, New York and
Louisiana. And as numbers do in the underground, word of a new place to
hang out caused it to propagate rapidly.
To make any implications that such things were strictly a New York versus
Texas issue is ludicrous, and again simply goes to show that a "journalist"
was looking for more points to add to his (or her) particular angle.
This is not to say that I did not have problems with any of the people
who were in MOD. At the time I still harbored strong feelings towards
Phiber Optik for the NYNEX-Infopath swindle, but that was about it.
And that was YEARS ago. (Even I don't harbor a grudge that long.)
Even the dozen or so annoying phone calls I received in late 1990 and
early 1991 did little to evoke "a declaration of war." Like many people,
I know how to forward my calls, or unplug the phone. Amazing how
technology works, isn't it?
Those prank calls also had about as much to do with the formation of
Comsec as bubble-gum had to do with the discovery of nuclear fission.
(I'm sure if you really put some brain power to it, and consulted Robert
Anton Wilson, you could find some relationships.) At the risk of sounding
glib, we could have cared less about hackers at Comsec. If there were no
hackers, or computer criminals, there would be no need for computer
security consultants. Besides, hackers account for so little in the real
picture of computer crime, that their existence is more annoyance than
something to actually fear.
However, when those same hackers crossed the line and began tapping our
phone lines, we were more than glad to go after them. This is one of my
only rules of action: do whatever you want to anyone else, but mess with
me and my livelihood and I will devote every ounce of my being to paying
you back. That is exactly what we did.
This is not to say that we were the only people from the computer
underground who went to various law enforcement agencies with information
about MOD and their antics. In fact, the number of hackers who did was
staggering, especially when you consider the usual anarchy of the
underground. None of these other people ever get mentioned and those of
us at Comsec always take the lead role as the "narks," but we were far
from alone. MOD managed to alienate the vast majority of the computer
underground, and people reacted.
All in all, both in this piece, and in the book itself, "MOD, The Gang That
Ruled Cyberspace," Quittner has managed to paint a far too apologetic piece
about a group of people who cared so very little about the networks they
played in and the people who live there. In the last 15 years that I've
been skulking around online, people in the community have always tended
to treat each other and the computers systems they voyeured with a great
deal of care and respect. MOD was one of the first true examples of a
groupthink exercise in hacker sociopathy. Selling long distance codes,
selling credit card numbers, destroying systems and harassing innocent
people is not acceptable behavior among ANY group, even the computer
underground.
There have always been ego flares and group rivalries in the underground,
and there always will be. The Legion of Doom itself was FOUNDED because of
a spat between its founder (Lex Luthor) and members of a group called The
Knights of Shadow. These rivalries keep things interesting, and keep the
community moving forward, always seeking the newest bit of information in
a series of healthy one-upsmanship. MOD was different. They took things
too far against everyone, not just against two people in Texas.
I certainly don't condemn everyone in the group. I don't even know
a number of them (electronically or otherwise.) I honestly believe
that Mark Abene (Phiber) and Paul Stira (Scorpion) got royally screwed
while the group's two biggest criminals, Julio Fernandez (Outlaw) and
Allen Wilson (Wing), rolled over on everyone else and walked away free
and clear. This is repulsive when you find out that Wing in particular
has gone on to be implicated in more damage to the Internet (as Posse and
ILF) than anyone in the history of the computing. This I find truly
disgusting, and hope that the Secret Service are proud of themselves.
Imagine if I wrote a piece about the terrible treatment of a poor prisoner
in Wisconsin who was bludgeoned to death by other inmates while guards
looked away. Imagine if I tried to explain the fact that poor Jeff Dahmer
was provoked to murder and cannibalism by the mocking of adolescent boys
who teased and called him a faggot. How would you feel if I tried to
convince you that we should look upon him with pity and think of him as a
misunderstood political prisoner? You would probably feel about how I do
about Quittner's story.
'Hacker' can just as easily be applied to "journalists" too, and with this
piece Quittner has joined the Hack Journalist Hall of Fame, taking his
place right next to Richard Sandza.
Quittner did get a few things right. I do have a big cat named Spud, I do
work at a computer company and I do sell fantastic t-shirts. Buy some.
With Love,
Chris Goggans
aka Erik Bloodaxe
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
WHEN BIGOTRY OUTPACES TECHNOLOGY
By Douglas Welch dewelch@pop.com
Previously published in the Los Angeles Times, Monday, December 19, 1994.
Page B15
Note: Electronic re-posting is ALLOWED but NO PAPER REPRINTS or inclusion
in online digests without written permission from the author. All postings
must retain this notice.
Copyright (c) 1994 Douglas E. Welch
dewelch@pop.com
76625,3301
* Communications: We need to attack the message, not the modem, to ensure
on-line services are free from censorship.
As each new technology marches onto the scene, there are some who instantly
blame all the ills of society on it. Groups calling for the censorship of
computer networks are forgetting that it is not the technology that is
causing the problem, but the people using the technology. Instead of
targeting the authors of hate speech on the computer networks, they are
targeting the networks themselves. This only reinforces the immediate need
for on-line computer services to be protected by the federal government
as "common carriers," like telephone utilities.
Hatemongers and bigots have always been a part of human society. Through
ignorance and bullying, they gather their flock, but it is through open
debate, education and reasoned discourse that they are best confronted.
Instead, professed anti-hate groups are attacking the providers of on-line
services in an effort to force them to remove offensive messages or prevent
their posting. Rather than using the technology to fight back and denounce
hate speech, they are seeking to remove the freedom of speech altogether.
Were the situation reversed, I am sure you would hear them decrying the
evils of censorship as loudly as they call for it now.
Telephone companies cannot be sued when offensive or illegal calls are
placed through their systems. On-line services deserve the same kind of
"common carrier" status. There is no reason on-line services should have to
be both provider and policeman. This places them in danger of being a
censor.
On-line users have several simpler options. They can merely ignore the
message with the press of a key or set their "kill file" to ignore
messages of certain content or from a certain user. Ultimately, on-line
services provide users the chance to engage these hatemongers in a forum
free of physical threat with hopes of liberating their narrow focus. The
immediacy of posting a response can only be found in the on-line world.
On-line services are no passing fad. they are rapidly gaining popularity
on par with telephone and fax service. We need to stop treating on-line
services like something new and ensure that they are free from censorship
pressures.
Censorship has always been defined as a "slipperly slope" that can easily
lead to a repression of ideas and a lower quality of life. Whether we
communicate via paper, phone lines or on-line computer services, our
freedom of speech should be protected. Hate groups should be targeted for
their messages, not how they send them.
Douglas E. Welch is a computer consultant. He can be reached at
dewelch@pop.com.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
LETTER FROM STEVE CASE; RE: CHILD PORN ON AOL
By Steve Case
Ever since we first launched America Online we've remained committed to
fostering an electronic community that provides a fun, enjoyable and
enriching experience for all members. We've asked our members to honor
the privilege of interactivity, and we've strictly enforced our Terms of
Service to help foster the kind of community of which we can all be proud.
Recently, however, some material has been brought to our attention by some
of our members which involves illegal activity -- the trading of images in
electronic mail which appear to be child pornography. Upon receiving the
material, and verifying that it was a violation of our Terms of Service,
and in all likelihood illegal, we immediately contacted the FBI and
terminated the accounts of the senders.
While we recognize that any community around the United States with more
than 1.5 million citizens will have its share of illegal activity, we were
nonetheless disheartened to find that some members are abusing the
communications features of AOL in this way. We simply will not tolerate
such illegal activity on America Online. To anyone who may be using
America Online for illegal purposes, be advised that we will terminate the
accounts of those participating and we will notify the proper authorities
of any illegal activity that is brought to our attention.
Our policy is that all private communications -- including e-mail, instant
messages, and private chat rooms -- are strictly private. We do not, will
not, and legally cannot monitor any private communications. But if we
are alerted to a potential offense and we are sent evidence, as we were
recently, we will vigorously pursue the matter. In this case, electronic
mail was forwarded to our attention by our members, and as recipients of
the mail we were able to turn the material over to the authorities.
We have over 250 people who help us provide assistance in the public areas
of the service and give guidance to members who are new or who have
questions. Of late, we've had a growing problem with member-created rooms
whose title and discussion violate our Terms of Service. Member-created
rooms have always been a unique and much-valued aspect of America Online.
Often, these rooms provide the seeds for new special interest forums that
later emerge. But as more members abuse the privilege and establish rooms
that suggest illegal activity, or detract from the enjoyment of others
with offensive titles, we are faced with looking at a higher level of
safeguards as it relates to member-created rooms. We simply cannot keep
up with the sheer volume of rooms created, and as a result, from time to
time rooms that violate TOS remain open for some period of time. We're
looking at several alternatives to improve the situation. We don't want
to see our members denied the privilege of this fun and creative
interactive environment due to the abuses of a few, but at the same time
we do feel some action is warranted to safeguard this popular
"neighborhood" in our community.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time we have encountered this
problem, nor is it unique to AOL. In 1991, we were faced with a similar
situation. At that time, we went to our members -- as we're doing now --
advised them of the situation and asked for their help. And recently,
recognizing the potential for abuses in this emerging medium, online
service providers banded together to sponsor a "child safety" brochure
that gives parents tips and guidelines to foster a productive and safe
environment for children online. A copy of this brochure can be found in
the Parents Information Center, keyword: Parents. We encourage parents
to take the time to review it. In addition we strongly encourage parents
to monitor their children's use of this medium, much as they would any
other medium such as television, magazines, etc. We've also implemented
"parental controls" which allow parents to restrict their children's
online access.
Each one of us needs to respect and honor the privileges of this
electronic community. If you haven't reviewed our Terms of Service, take
a few minutes now and do so. If you observe what you believe may be
illegal activity on AOL, bring it to our attention. The problem is not
widespread -- we believe only a mere fraction of this community is
involved. Let's work together to insure that America Online remains the
kind of community that you want your friends and family to enjoy.
Thanks for your continued support.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 1995 06:26:32 -0600
From: Malik Al-Rashim <dfox@fc.net>
Subject: JAUC-File12
LEE HARVEY OSWALD DIED FOR YOUR SINS
By Gordon Fagan, Conspiracy Editor (flyer@io.com)
With all the hubbub over the OJ Simpson trial currently getting
under way, I thought it would be a good idea to get people to rethink
their conception of what justice is about in another matter. Where there
was no trial, not even real charges - just accusations, a bullet and 30+
years of government approved postmortem derision as an insane killer.
We've all seen the movie JFK which is probably more than most of you want
to hear on the subject in the first place, so I'll just leave each of you
- in particular, those who have no interest in the JFK assassination
conspiracy but can't get enough of that OJ, with the following...
It has been said that the American people are the only jury that
Lee Harvey Oswald will ever have. It is our responsibility, then, to
examine with utmost care and objectivity the evidence for and against him,
and to reach an independent verdict - Sylvia Meagher
Jim Garrison's closing statement to the jury
State of Louisiana vs. Clay Shaw, 1969
May it please the court. Gentlemen of the jury:
I know you're very tired. You've been very patient. This final
day has been a long one, so I'll speak only a few minutes.
In his argument, Mr. Dymond posed one final issue which raises the
question of what we do when the need for justice is confronted by power.
So, let me talk to you about a question of whether or not there
was government fraud in this case. A question Mr. Dymond seems to want us
to answer.
A government is a great deal like a human being. It's not
necessarily all good, and it's not necessarily all bad. We live in a good
country. I love it and you do, too. Nevertheless, the fact remains that
we have a government which is not perfect.
There have been since November the 22nd of 1963, and that was not
the last, indications that there is an excessive power in some parts of
our government. It is plain that the people have not received all of the
truth about some of the things which have happened, about some of the
assassinations which have occurred, and more particularly about the
assassination of John Kennedy.
Going back to when we were children, I think most of us, probably
all of us in this courtroom, once thought that justice came into being of
its own accord, that that virtue was its own regard, that good would
triumph over evil. In short, that justice occurred automatically. Later,
when we found that this wasn't quite so, most of us still felt hopeful
that at least occurred frequently of its own accord.
Today, I think that almost all of us would have to agree that
there is really no machinery, not on this earth at least, which causes
justice to occur automatically. Men still have to make it occur.
Individual human beings have to make it occur. Otherwise, it doesn't come
into existence. This is not always easy. As a matter of fact, it's
always hard, because justice presents a threat to power. In order to make
justice come into being, you often have to fight power.
Mr. Dymond raised the question; "Why don't we say it's all a fraud
and charge the government with fraud, if that is the case?"
Let me be explicit, then, and make myself very clar on this point.
The goverment's handling of the investigation of John Kennedy's murder was
a fraud. It was the greatest fraud in the history of our country. It
probably was the greatest fraud ever perpetrated in the history of
humankind.
That doesn't mean that we have to accept the continued existence
of the kind of government which allows this to happen. We can do
something about it. We're not forced either to leave this country or
accept the authoritarianism that has developed. The authoritarianism that
tells us that in the year 2039 we can see the evidence about what happened
to John Kennedy.
Government does not consist only of secret police and domestic
espionage operations and generals and admirals. Government consists of
people. It also consists of juries. And in the cases of murder, whether
the poorest individual or the most distinguished citizen in the land,
should be looked at openly in a court of law, where juries can pass on
them and not be hidden, not be buried like the body of the victim beneath
concrete for countless years.
You men in recent weeks have heard witnesses that no one else in
the world has heard. You've seen the Zapruder film. You've seen what
happened to your President. I suggest to you that you know right now
that, in that area at least, a fraud has been perpetrated.
That does not mean that our government is entirely bad - and I
want to emphasize that. It does mean, however that in recent years,
through the development of excessive power because of the Cold War, forces
have developed in our government over which there is no control and these
forces have an authoritarian approach to justice; meaning, they will let
you know what justice is.
Well, my reply to them is that we already know what justice is.
It is the decision of the people passing on the evidence. It is the jury
system. In the issue which is posed by the government's conduct in
concealing the evidence in this case, in the issue of humanity as opposed
to power, I have chosen humanity, and I will do it again without
hesitation. I hope every one of you will do the same. I do this because
I love my country and because I want to communicate to the government that
we will not accept unexplained assassinations with the casual information
that if we live seventy-five years longer, we might be given more
evidence.
In this particular case, massive power was brought to bear to
prevent justice from ever coming into the courtroom. The power to make
authoritarian pronouncements, the power to manipulate the news media by
the release of false information, the power to interfere with an honest
inquiry and the power to provide an endless variety of experts to testify
in behalf of that power, repeatedly was demonstrated in this case.
The American people have yet to see the Zapruder film. Why? The
American people have yet to see and hear from real witnesses to the
assassination. Why? Because, today in America too much emphasis is given
to secrecy, with regard to the assassination of our President, and not
enough emphasis is given to the question of justice and to the question of
humanity.
These dignified deceptions will not suffice. We have had enough
of power without truth. We don't have to accept power without truth or
else leave the country. I don't accept power without truth or else leave
the country. I don't accept either of these two alternatives. I don't
intend to leave the country and I don't intend to accept power without
truth.
I intend to fight for the truth. I suggest that not only is this
not un-American, but it is the most American thing we can do, because if
truth does not endure, then our country will not endure.
In our country the worst of all crimes occurs when the government
murders truth. If it can murder truth, it can murder freedom. If it can
murder freedom it can murder your own sons, if they should dare to fight
for freedom, and then it can announce that they were killed in an
industrial accident, or shot by the "enemy" or God knows what.
In this case, finally, it has been possible to bring the truth
about the assassination into a court of law, not before a commission
composed of important and politically astute men, but before a jury of
citizens.
Now, I suggest to you that yours is a hard duty, because in a
sense what you're passing on is the equivalent to a murder case. The
difficult thing about passing on a murder case is that the victim is out
of your sight and buried a long distance away, and all you can see is the
defendant. It's very difficult to identify with someone you can't see,
and sometimes it's hard not to identify to some extent with the defendant
and his problems.
In that regard, every prosecutor who is at all humane is concious
of feeling sorry for the defendant in every case he prosecutes. But he is
not free to forget the victim who lies buried out of sight. I suggest to
you that, if you do your duty, you also are not free to forget the victim
who is buried out of sight.
Tennyson once said that "authority forgets a dying king." This
was never more true than in the murder of John Kennedy. The strange and
deceptive conduct of the government after his murder began while his body
was still warm, and has continued for five years. You have even seen in
this courtroom indications of interest of part of the government power
structure in keeping truth down, in keeping the grave closed.
We presented a number of eyewitnesses as well as an expert witness
as well as the Zapruder film, to show that the fatal wound of the
President came from the front. A plane landed from Washington and out
stepped Dr. Finck for the defense, to counter the clear and apparent
evidence of a shot from the front. I don't have to go into Dr. Finck's
testimony in detail for you to show that it simply does not correspond to
the facts. He admitted that he did not complete the autopsy because a
general told him to not complete the autopsy.
In this conflict between power and justice, to put it that way,
just where do you think Dr. Finck stands? A general who is not a
pathologist, told him not to complete the autopsy, so he didn't complete
it. This is not the way I want my country to be. When our president is
killed he deserves the kind of autopsy that the ordinary citizens get
every day in the state of Louisana. And the people deserve the facts
about it. We can't have the government power suddenly interjecting itself
and preventing the truth from coming to the people.
Yet, in this case, before the sun rose the next morning, power had
moved into the situation and the truth was being concealed. And now, five
years later in this courtroom the power of the government in concealing
the truth is continuing in the same way.
We presented eyewitnesses who told you of the shots coming from
the grassy knoll. A plane landed from Washington, and out came ballistics
expert Frazier for the defense. Mr. Frazier explanation of the sound of
the shots coming frm the front, which was heard by eyewitness after
eyewitness, was that Lee Oswald created a sonic boom in his firing. Not
only did Oswald break all of the world's records for marksmanship, but he
broke the sound barrier as well.
I suggest to you, that if any of you have shot on a firing range,
and most of you probably in the service, you were shooting rifles in which
the bullet travelled faster than the speed of sound. I ask you to recall
if you ever heard a sonic boom. If you remember when you were on the
firing line, and they would say, "ready on the left - ready on the right -
ready on the firing line - commence firing," you heard the shots coming
from the firing line, to the left of you and to the right of you. If you
had heard as a result of Mr. Frazier's fictional sonic boom, firing coming
at you from the pits, you would have had a reaction which you would still
remember.
Mr. Frazier's sonic boom simply doesn't exist. It's a part of the
fraud, a part of the continuing government fraud.
The best way to make this country the kind of country it's
supposed to be is to communicate to the government that no matter how
powerful it may be, we do not accept these frauds. We do not accept these
false announcements. We do not accept the concealment of evidence with
regard to the murder of President Kennedy.
Who is the most believable? A Richard Randolph Carr, seated here
in a wheelchair and telling you what he saw and what he heard and how he
was told to shut his mouth, or Mr. Frazier and his sonic booms?
Do we really have to actually reject Mr. Newman and Mrs. Newman
and Mr. Carr and Roger Craig and the testimony of all those honest
witnesses, reject all this and accept the fraudulent Warren Commission, or
else leave the country?
I suggest to you that there are other alternatives. Once of them
has been put in practice in the last month in the State of Louisiana, and
that is to bring out the truth in a proceeding where attorneys can
cross-examine, where the defendant can be confronted by testimony against
him, where the rules of evidence are applied and where a jury of citizens
can pass on it, and where there is no government secrecy. Above all,
where you do not have evidence concealed for seventy-five years in the
name of "national security."
All we have in this case are the facts. Facts which show that the
defendant participated in the conspiracy to kill the President and that
the President was subsequently killed in an ambush.
The reply of the defense has been the same as the early reply of
the government in the Warren Commission. It has been authority,
authority, authority. The President's seal outside of each volume of the
Warren Commission Report, made necessary because there is nothing inside
these volumes. Men of high position and prestige sitting on a board, and
announcing the results to you, but not telling you what the evidence is,
because the evidence has to be hidden for seventy-five years.
You heard in this courtroom in recent weeks, eyewitness after
eyewitness after eyewitness and, above all, you saw one eyewitness which
was indifferent to power, the Zapruder film. The lens of the camera is
totally indifferent to power and it tells what happened as it saw it
happen, and that is one of the reasons 200 million Americans have not seen
the Zapruder film. They should have seen it many times. They should know
exactly what happened. They all should know what you know now.
Why hasn't all of this come into being if there hasn't been
government fraud? Of course there has been fraud by the government.
But I'm telling you now that I think we can do something about it.
I think that there are still enough Americans left in this country to make
it continue to be America. I think that we can still fight
authoritarianism, the government's insistence on secrecy, government force
used in counterattacks against an honest inquiry, and when we do that,
we're not being un-American, we're being American. It isn't easy. You're
sticking your neck out in a rather permanent way, but it has to be done
because truth does not come into being automatically. Justice does not
happen automatically. Individual men, like the members of my staff here,
have to work and fight to make it happen, and individual men like you have
to make justice come into being because otherwise it doesn't happen.
What I'm trying to tell you is that there are forces in America
today, unfortunately, which are not in favor of the truth coming out about
John Kennedy's assassination. As long as our government continues to be
like this, as long as such forces can get away with such actions, then
this is no longer the country in which we were born.
The murder of John Kennedy was probably the most terrible moment
in the history of our country. Yet, circumstances have placed you in the
position where not only have you seen the hidden evidence but you are
actually going to have the opportunity to bring justice into the picture
for the first time.
Now, you are here sitting in judgement on Clay Shaw. Yet you, as
men, represent more than jurors in an ordinary case because the victims in
this case. You represent, in a sense, the hope of humanity against
government power. You represent humanity, which yet may triumph over
excessive government power. If you will cause it to be so, in the course
of doing your duty in this case.
I suggest that you ask not what your country can do for you but
what you can do for your country.
What can you do for your country? You can cause justice to happen
for the first time in this matter. You can help make our country better
by showing that this is still a government of the people. And if you do
that, as long as you live, nothing will ever be more important.
---------------------------
Since you read all the way through, you might be interested in
more information. You can check out alt.conspiracy.jfk at your favourite
USENET site and see the still active coverup covering up. Now including a
phoney "Oswald did it alone" FAQ posting from a .mil address. The
internet equivalent to Gerald Posner's "Case Closed." Though less well
written, it includes about the same amount of real research. There are
some good people on the newsgroup as well and they have a large and
growing body of info on display regularly. Another excellent source is
the web site for Fair Play magazine: http://www.kaiwan.com/~ljg/fp.html
-31 and counting-
.