Computer underground Digest Sun Apr 13, 1997 Volume 9 : Issue 29 ISSN 1004-042X Editor: Jim Thomas (cudigest@sun.soci.niu.edu) News Editor: Gordon Meyer (gmeyer@sun.soci.niu.edu) Archivist: Brendan Kehoe Shadow Master: Stanton McCandlish Shadow-Archivists: Dan Carosone / Paul Southworth Ralph Sims / Jyrki Kuoppala Ian Dickinson Field Agent Extraordinaire: David Smith Cu Digest Homepage: http://www.soci.niu.edu/~cudigest CONTENTS, #9.29 (Sun, Apr 13, 1997) File 1--CYBERDAWG BARKING: Freedom... File 2--"Child Safety on the Internet" by Distefano File 3--SANS Network Security Digest (excerpts--Microsoft & Solaris) File 4--WebSite & Backstage Internet Studio File 5--Cokie Roberts on How Internet Is Ruining Rep Government File 6--Responses to Cokie Roberts' column on the Net and government File 7--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 13 Dec, 1996) CuD ADMINISTRATIVE, EDITORIAL, AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION APPEARS IN THE CONCLUDING FILE AT THE END OF EACH ISSUE. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 01 Apr 1997 07:38:54 -0600 From: Jon Lebkowsky Subject: File 1--CYBERDAWG BARKING: Freedom... CYBERDAWG BARKING: Activism, Freedom, Apocalypso, and Zen One thing I can say about CFP 97: No Big News. The threat of censorship, the government's evident bad faith re. First Amendment and privacy issues, its bogus crypto policy and widespread cultural confusion about hot and cold running information age...CFP reiterated these, the usual complaints by the usual suspects, and focused additionally on virtual commerce and virtual community, but somehow forgot to address hot topics/potential threats like the potential for the death of Usenet in the wake of a successful Netpics prosecution, or the controversial Internet filtering by an increasing number of public libraries. The conference was heavy with journalists and attorneys, a few activists added for seasoning; the few hackers present had become computer professionals with corporate agendas, and nobody on or offstage seemed at all whacky: it was sane, boring, and quiet. Though Presidential aide Ira Magaziner did say the administration would back off on the issue of censorship if the CDA is defeated, but it's not clear he was speaking for his boss, who at the time was being hauled off to the hospital, his knee strained, perhaps by a confusion over which direction to jerk. For me the best part was after the conference: with old friend & bohemian prankster Bruce Grobman I headed for the hills, literally, to a verdant valley called Green Gulch in Marin County, one point of presence for the San Francisco Zen Center. We found the center silent but for a slight wind and subtle rain...it was Saturday and a big weekend sesshin (sitting quietly for hours on end) buffered sound but for a few drifting conversations, volunteers and visitors who weren't sitting, including Bruce and I with our rants, scams, and revisitations. We wandered the trail through the garden to Muir Beach and talked about our lives, loves, and commitment to family and friendship, and I was realizing that the best of CFP was in the relationships I'd been forming over the years, not so much working the hallways and the bars, though there is that, but sitting wherever and sharing not party lines and political agendas but personal visions, hopes and fears, quirks and rants, between-the-lines, the stuff of community. And as I walked the beach, watching the crashing waves and the snowy white birds as they skimmed the ether, watching lovers embrace and children cavort and a group of neon punks klutz through an ad hoc stream in the sand, as I thought about my life, my wife and children and grandchildren who are at various odd angles to this virtual world I inhabit, I realized that this virtual world we are building in cyberspace, with our passionate commitment to freedom of information and open communication, our growing sense of individual empowerment and collective disavowal of violence, hate, and oppression; is an infrastructure which, though it exists in virtual space, is a foundation for evolutionary optimism everywhere. That is, if we can survive the `good intentions' of our leaders.. Fearing an unregulated free space, politicians portray the Internet as a threat to our children, who will find pornography online, they say, and recipes for building bombs. The implication: we will lose control of our world as children learn to Take Liberties. *** So now it's Easter morning, and since I wrote the few paragraphs above the Supremes have heard CDA arguments (their questions at the time considered by many a cause for optimism), the library filtering controversy is still hotter than a bygod, recently we had a full lunar eclipes on one side of the sky while Hale-Bopp was cruising the other, and around the same time 39 bodies wearing pungent odor and clean shoes were found at Rancho Santa Fe.. The media hypesters were ready for this cult suicide: they couldn't quite make the Internet connection to Waco or Timothy McVeigh or Richard Jewell, but there was a clear link to Heaven's Gate: the cult members designed web pages every day as their source of income, they posted to usenet, they published their whacky Hale-Bopp ideology at a web site which has become a kind of digital archeological ruin for net.anthropologists to wade through. So, finally, *clear indication* of Internet danger: suicidal UFO cults live here, spreading their dangerous memes far and wide, recruiting from among the thousands of innocent children online. Never mind that none of the cult members were children, never mind that there's no evidence of successful online recruitment, never mind that there were just 39 cult members, never mind that they seemed happy as clams (ARS jammers will catch, and hopefully pardon, the pun).they clearly represent the danger posed by . . . . . . FREEDOM. The Internet is free-flowing information, and the "electronic frontier" metaphor was prophetic of a time when "settlers" would move in and seek regulation. However I never would've predicted the current level of net hysteria, fed as it is by power- grubbing politicians and security-grubbing status-quo `average citizens' and `concerned parents.' I have sympathy for the latter, those whose complicated consumer-manic lives, already out of control, are threatened by the many strange attractors operative in a chaotic free space. But my sympathy doesn't extent to legislation, and it doesn't extend to those who would use average-joe fear and loathing as justification for a legislated information anesthetic. No pain, no gain: numbness is so much like death. Months ago, before the CDA was attached to the Telecommunications Act and around the time Mike Godwin was slicing and dicing Marty Rimm's disinformation report on Internet porn, I was writing a piece, never finished, called "Bombs and Bondage." In it I asked this question: if we could move all the supposedly objectionable stuff (e.g. bomb recipes and bondage photos) off the public spaces of the net, would the call for net.regulation be dropped? The answer is clear to me now, a resounding no: the calls for regulation will come independent of any single, particular issue. Freedom is never going to be easy, and in fact it shouldn't be: consider that my freedom ends where your freedom begins, and there are 250 million of us in the U.S. alone, billions on the planet, so we should expect sometimes tough negotiations. But we should negotiate in the interest of the least restrictive, understanding that unnecessary constraints on freedom, especially in a complex cultural environment, imprison the human spirit. During the cold war era our leaders pointed to the stultifying effects of broad restriction and oppression on the Soviet Union, China, and other countries with totalitarian regimes. Are we now to adopt broad restrictions of our own? To be free is not to be totally unconstrained, but to be without undue constraint. The trick is in determining how much constraint is "due" vs. undue. Libertarians talk about the desirability of noncoercive structures, e.g. communities in which force is never necessary to compel right action. I'm not completely sure how to create such an environment, but it's a laudable goal. How much "coercive" regulation results from fear rather than from any real need to protect? jonl 3/30/97 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 Mar 1997 14:11:49 EST From: "Rob Slade, doting grandpa of Ryan & Trevor" Subject: File 2--"Child Safety on the Internet" by Distefano BKCHSFIN.RVW 961128 "Child Safety on the Internet", Vince Distefano, 1997, 0-13-569468-X, U$34.95/C$48.93 %A Vince Distefano %C One Lake St., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 %D 1997 %G 0-13-569468-X %I Prentice Hall %O U$34.95/C$48.93 +1-201-236-7139 fax: 201-236-7131 beth_hespe@prenhall.com %P 296 %S Classroom Connect %T "Child Safety on the Internet" This volume contains a helpful and generally realistic set of resources. It talks primarily about the dangers, but does note that the risks are not as bad as some of the hype. The book does, for once, look at other "dangers" besides pornography, and has a reasonable chapter on netiquette. Online service protection options, content rating systems, and protective/support groups are discussed. In addition, there are suggestions and advice for "after the fact" detecting and policing. There are some gaps in the book. The fact that there are weaknesses, inaccuracies and misleading statements in the (now infamous) Rimm study/Time special is dismissed as "not important". The subtle censorship of Internet filter software is not discussed. (One of the filter programs on the accompanying CD-ROM blocks non-pornography or violence related terms which are germane only to discussions of certain political leanings. Filter developers will not even confirm the dictionary of words used, with some slight justification.) Most filter packages do not allow parents to tune or manage the terms to be included or excluded. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKCHSFIN.RVW 961128 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 6 Apr 1997 01:55:50 -0500 (EST) From: SANS'96 Conference Office Subject: File 3--SANS Network Security Digest (excerpts--Microsoft & Solaris) ((MODERATORS' NOTE: Here are a few excerpts from a new E-pub, "SANS Network Security Digest." The first few issues have been crammed with helpful news and notes for newbies and pros alike. It's free until the end of April, but if recent issues are an indication of what's to come, it will be worth paying for)). Vol. 1, No. 3 | March 20, 1997 | Copyright, 1997. Please don't forward or copy without permission. You'll find free subscription information after item 12. Subscribe before 4/30/97. ------------------------------------------------------- 1) THREE PROBLEMS WITH MICROSOFT'S INTERNET EXPLORER Problems have been reported recently relating to security in version 3.0x of Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser. They raise concerns about Explorer's vulnerability to remote execution of programs - especially, but not exclusively, ActiveX programs. The first reported bug is that IE will execute files appearing on web pages with extensions of ".LNK" and ".URL". A good discussion of this bug can be found at: The second bug involves Version 3.0 users and the use of embedded icons on web pages, that when selected will run the associated program without warning. A discussion of this bug is available at: The third bug, found in version 3.01A, allows IE to download and execute ".isp" script files. This vulnerability is similar to the first one regarding the ".LNK" and ".URL" files. A discussion of this bug is available at: Microsoft has published patches and a FAQ regarding these vulnerabilities. For more information, see: ------------------------------------------------------------ 2) SOLARIS 2.x PASSWD BUFFER OVERRUN VULNERABILITY A buffer overflow has claimed another victim. A vulnerability has been discovered in the passwd program under Solaris 2.3, 2.4 and 2.5. Under 2.5 the yppasswd and nispasswd program are hard links to passwd. The vulnerability results from insufficient bounds checking on the input arguments. The end result is that a malicious user could force the passwd program to execute arbitrary commands. Unfortunately no vendor patch available at this time. Members of the AUSCERT team have written a wrapper program that can be used as a workaround until a patch is available from Sun. The source for the wrapper is available at: Precompiled binaries are available at: The AUSCERT Advisory, first posted on 2/26/97, is available on: ------------------------------------------------------------ 8) THE NAUGHTYROBOT HOAX REPORT Hoaxes continue to be a hot topic on the Internet. If you have received an email message with a subject of "security breached by NaughtyRobot", then you have experienced the NaughtyRobot Hoax first hand. The mail headers of the NaughtyRobot message are forged so they appear to originate from the local web server. According to CERT and CIAC, so far there have been no indications of problems created by these email messages. For more information, see the CIAC report at ---------------------------------------------------------- 9) NEW MICROSOFT WORD VIRUS - SHAREFUN.A McAfee has discovered a new Microsoft Word Macro Virus called ShareFun.A. This Virus is unique. It is the first macro virus to invoke MSMail to distribute itself. The macro virus will send messages to three people in your address book, along with a copy of the file that is infected. McAfee is providing a current beta scan tool to detect and clean the virus. More information can be found at: ----------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe, send email to sans@clark.net. In the Subject--SANS Network Security Digest, In the Body: name, title, organization, preferred email address, and, if you also want an updated network security roadmap wall poster, your surface mailing address. After April 30, subscriptions are $80 per year. Send check to SANS Network Security Digest, 4610 Tournay Road, Bethesda, MD 20816. The Digest is copyrighted and may not be retransmitted or distributed or copied without written permission. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 18:17:14 -0800 From: Ellen Elias To: cudigest@sun.soci.niu.edu Subject: File 4--WebSite & Backstage Internet Studio For Immediate Release March 12, 1997 Further Information Contact Ellen Elias (707)829-0515 ext. 322 elias@ora.com http://software.ora.com/ WEBSITE 1.1 INCLUDED WITH MACROMEDIA BACKSTAGE INTERNET STUDIO O'Reilly's Technology Increases Database Capabilities for Web Sites Sebastopol, CA--O'Reilly & Associates, a leading Internet software developer and book publisher, announced today that its award-winning WebSite 1.1(TM) software is included in Macromedia's Backstage Internet Studio, which started shipping March 7. This combination provides extensive database capabilities to commercial web sites, including Internet, intranet, and extranet (business-to-business) sites. O'Reilly's award-winning WebSite 1.1, heralded for its features, ease of use and documentation, is included in Backstage(TM) Internet Studio(TM) 2 for Windows 95 and NT. Backstage Internet Studio offers a complete visual solution for developing database-driven web sites and applications. The software eliminates the need for programming usually required to develop such sophisticated Web-based applications as customer service sites and electronic commerce solutions. WebSite and Backstage Internet Studio complement each other with their state-of-the-art tools, broadening the power of the webmaster while providing products that save hours of time. "We haven't just added O'Reilly's WebSite to the product, we've integrated it," said Steven Shannon, senior product manager for Backstage at Macromedia. "Now, Backstage is truly a complete Web site solution." Kimberly Simoni, product manager for WebSite, added, "Macromedia is a leading developer for the Web, multimedia and graphics, so it's a natural partner for O'Reilly, one of the pioneers of the Internet." O'Reilly's WebSite, winner of numerous awards including the Dvorak Award for Outstanding Server Software and Windows NT Magazine Editor's Choice, provides a full suite of web publishing and management components. A powerful 32-bit server; WebView(TM), the intuitive and graphical web management tool; WebIndex(TM) and WebFind(TM), which work together to provide full-text search capability; MapThis(TM), a tool for creating clickable image maps--these are just some of the tools which comprise WebSite 1.1. Extensive technical information about WebSite 1.1 and WebSite Professional, O'Reilly's high-security server, is also available online (http://software.ora.com/). Backstage Internet Studio is available in two editions, both of which include WebSite 1.1. The Desktop Edition works with desktop-based databases, including Microsoft Access, Excel, FoxPro, dBase and Paradox, to create database-driven web sites for small offices or workgroups within larger companies. The Enterprise Edition works with client-server databases to handle large scale enterprise applications. Both versions of Backstage Internet Studio include web page templates, clip art, and Macromedia's xRes SE, a powerful hi-res image editor optimized for developing and delivering web-based graphics. Backstage Internet Studio 2's Desktop Edition, including WebSite 1.1, has a suggested list price of $299 US, with an upgrade price of $99 available to registered owners of Backstage 1. The Enterprise edition has a suggested list price of $999, with a $499 upgrade price. ABOUT O'REILLY & ASSOCIATES O'Reilly & Associates is recognized worldwide for its definitive books on the Internet and UNIX, and for its development of online content and software. O'Reilly developed the Global Network Navigator (GNN), a pioneering web-based publication which it sold to America Online in June, 1995. In addition to WebSite 1.1, O'Reilly's software products include WebSite Professional, the second generation server product for Windows 95 and Windows NT; WebBoard, a Web-based multi-threaded conferencing system; PolyForm, a web authoring tool for forms, and Statisphere, a graphical web traffic analyzer (to be released Spring, 1997). WebSite Professional, WebSite, WebBoard, PolyForm, and Statisphere are trademarks of O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. All other names are registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective companies. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 15:03:24 -0700 (PDT) From: baby-X Subject: File 5--Cokie Roberts on How Internet Is Ruining Rep Government Source - Fight-Censorship I always thought Cokie Roberts was a dolt anyway; now I only have further proof. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From--James Love Date--Fri, 11 Apr 1997 17:48:27 -0400 (EDT) This is a real syndicated column by Cokie Roberts. It is not a spoof. Cokie interviewed me about how the Internet is changing the relationship between citizens and government agencies, after she read about the FTC's decision to take email comments on the Staples merger. She then wrote this astonishing column with her husband, Steven Roberts. At the end of Cokie's column is a letter to the editor sent by Susan Ashdown, a reader of the Salt Lake Tribune, which is one of newspapers which ran the column. Since Susan brought this to my attention, I am including her letter. Cokie and Steven Roberts column, and Susan's letter to the editor, are redistributed with permission. Jamie Love (love@tap.org, 202.387.8030 http://www.cptech.org Salt Lake Tribune, April 5, 1997, Page A-11 Internet Could Become a Threat To Representative Government Cokie Roberts and Steven Roberts United Features Cyber seduction, cult by computer, kids caught in an indecent web! The headlines have been scary of late as we learn more about the dangers of the brave new world of the Internet. To be sure, the experts keep assuring us that the World Wide Web does more good than harm-that it can help young people find facts, police officers hunt down clues, and citizens communicate with their government. "If you're on-line, you're inside the Beltway," in the opinion of Graeme Browning, author of the book Electronic Democracy, which argues that the Internet is making individuals more politically powerful. Sounds good, but is it? For many parents, the idea of yet another influence in their children's lives over which they have no control is threatening. The horrible thought that, in the privacy of your own home, your child could be the target of some sick predator was frightening enough. Now, since reading the news recently, the fear of recruitment to some kooky cult must be added to the list of computer concerns. Responding to those worries, Congress passed the Computer Decency Act, aimed at blocking pornography on the Internet. The law was immediately challenged as an unconstitutional abridgement of free speech, and last month the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the case. In their questions the justices revealed the same wide-eyed wonder we feel when hearing about the latest form of communication. What is this thing anyway? How does it work and what can it do? One thing it clearly can do is bring citizens more into the decision-making processes of government. That came home to us recently when we heard that the Federal Trade Commission was accepting electronic mail on the question of whether Office Depot stores should be allowed to merge with Staples. The FTC has so far received thousands of comments and a spokeswoman says that, although the merger decision won't be based on what the agency hears from the public, she thinks the e-mail is a good idea. The FTC decided to do it, she admitted, because of pressure from the Consumer Project on Technology. "The Internet is the best thing in my lifetime for grassroots organizing," exults the Project's director, Jamie Love. He's managed to use the system to influence various government agencies, and to educate the public. Love argues that this type of organization and communication cuts through the special interest politics that he believes rules Washington. "I think there's a general sense that people who can hire a guy and game the system have a leg up," says Love. Somewhere between 250,000 to 350,000 people check into the site dealing with congressional activities every day. And then many of these people get in touch with their representatives, by e-mail, of course. They also get in touch with each other on public policy issues. According to Love, it's like an electronic town meeting. That analogy makes our blood run cold. Remember, that was Ross Perot's big idea. Let's just all get together, via computer, and let the politicians know what we want, so then they will do it! No more pandering to the big contributors, no more deals between members, just the voice of the people will be heard! We hear that and shudder. To us it sounds like no more deliberation, no more consideration of an issue over a long period of time, no more balancing of regional and ethnic interests, no more protection of minority views. The Founders were clear in their advocacy of representative democracy as opposed to direct democracy. In The Federalist, James Madison asserted that "the public voice pronounced by the representatives of the people will be more consonant to the public good than if announced by the people themselves convened for that purpose." But representative government is under attack. "We've been electing people for years and never been in worse shape and felt more disconnected," says Barbara Vincent of the National Referendum Movement. Her organization wants to put initiatives and referenda on the ballots of every state so that the people can decide "the really important issues" while Congress can handle "everyday affairs." And Ms. Vincent has public opinion on her side. In a bipartisan poll, fully three-quarters of the people said they favored putting national issues on ballots across the country. Computers could make that possible. And, if we're not careful, they might. Jamie Love is right that people think the game is fixed, and Barbara Vincent is right that the voters feel disconnected. The best thing the lawmakers can do to fix that is to call a halt to the money chase, to show constituents that they count. If that doesn't happen, congress could eventually find its very existence threatened, thanks to the Internet. And that would make the current debate over pornography seem like small potatoes. ------------------- Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 14:31:21 -0600 From: Sue Ashdown To the Editors of the Salt Lake Tribune & United Features: Now I've heard everything. The Internet is nothing but a cyber-sewer, full of smut, cults, and now an even greater danger: easy access to government officials. Cokie Roberts and her husband say their "blood runs cold" at the idea of citizens emailing their opinions directly to the Federal Government instead of channeling them through their "representatives". They argue that it would mean the end of reasoned consideration of a variety of views, and worse, it might bring us closer to direct instead of representative democracy - not what the Founding Fathers intended. (The Founders weren't too keen on emancipation either, but never mind.) Talk about the end of reason. I fail to see how the direct expression of public opinion logically leads to the destruction of careful deliberation. Perot wasn't my choice for President, but the mere fact that "electronic town meetings" were his "big idea" does not automatically make them meritless. Personally my blood runs cold when I think of the representative democracy Cokie has in mind. Her brother, Tommy Boggs, of the Washington law firm Patton, Boggs & Blow made quite a name for himself as a lobbyist arguing strenuously on behalf of erstwhile Guatemalan dictators and death squad financiers in the 1980's and early 1990's. If as the Roberts claim, a halt to the money chase is a far better solution to voter discontent than the airing of public opinion through the Internet, then presumably this means that Tommy's firm will find better uses for its generous cash donations to candidates across the political spectrum. I can understand Cokie standing up for her brother's interests - I'd do the same for mine, who's done reasonably well as an Internet Service Provider, but at least I'd reveal my motives. Sincerely, Sue Ashdown Salt Lake City, Utah ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 12:50:29 -0700 (PDT) From: Declan McCullagh Subject: File 6--Responses to Cokie Roberts' column on the Net and government Source - fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu [Hayek has it right -- we shouldn't fetishize democracy. Democracy is at best a means to a freer society, not a guarantee of one. Under the weight of a homogenous majority, a democracy can be more oppressive than a benign dictatorship. Instead, we should pursue liberty as a goal. -Declan] ******************* Date--Fri, 11 Apr 97 20:08:00 DST From--"Halpert, James - DC" This column is remarkably unfair -- at its core an elaborate bait and switch. Petitioning the government over the Net has nothing to do with cyber-stalking or cyberporn -- and is a considerable leap away from electronic town hall referenda. Whatever the merits of instant electronic referenda, giving the public an opportunity to comment on federal agency decisions is what agency rulemaking is supposed to be all about -- only until recently, such organizing efforts have required significant resources. The Net has helped to change that. The logical extension of the Roberts' position is to call for congressional offices to disconnect their telephones so that mass call-in campaigns by the Christian Coalition, AARP and other well-funded, highly disciplined grassroots groups are not heard. Are these troops more reflective than Net users. Hardly (remember the CDA juggernaut). But the Roberts wouldn't dream of closing the doors of power to that sort of campaign. They attack the Net because it is new, scary to them and some of their readers, and therefore an easier target. -- Jim Halpert ******************* Date--Sat, 12 Apr 1997 01:47:03 -0400 From--Theodore Baar To--"'declan@well.com'" Declan - regardings Roberts whining diatribe....... I have an interesting point you might consider. The philosophical keystone of the Protestant Reformation rested on the concept that man deals directly with God and did not require a priest to stand between or mediate for him. Likewise we now have an alledgedly "representative" government that, at least according to Ms. Roberts, stands between us and governance to protect us from ourselves and teach us our "place". No doubt she includes herself in this "protector" class as a jo urnalist to help we poor peasants "understand" our appropriate relationship to governance. I suggest she brush up on democracy real soon or start reading books on Oliver Cromwell. Her points on the dangers of direct democracy are of course true with one small caveat, direct involvment is the last hope we have because their is no representative government. I have no representation in Washington. For 30 adult years I've watched the democratic led permanent government, including their journalistic water carriers, represent everyone but the people who really make this country work. Government by special inetre st and whining is not representative government, don't kid yourself. Now the, so to speak, first representative is Bill Clinton. I am quite certain he represents the the embodiment of the permanent government and every belief Cokie & her ilk hold privately dear, otherwise why would the press be so supportive. Based on that I dare say that representative government has failed miserably. If representative government is foiled by nonsense like the last two years of democratic party nonsense and direct government is then blocked (all in our best interests of course) it will then mark the end of our democracy. The remaining moderates (check out the blue dog democrats and Ben Campbell of Colorado) will be forced to extremes to seek redress, thus my reference to Cromwell. What Ms. Roberts, like so many, does not understand is that Gingrich and his people are not the rabid attack dogs of facism they alledge but in fact the last reasonable men. If things get ugly I suspect none of us will like who leads the next wave. Ted Baar ----------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.omegacom.com Omegacom, Inc. Providence, RI 02906 Boston, Providence (RI), Saco (ME) and St. Croix (USVI) ----------------------------------------------------------------- ****************** Date--Sat, 12 Apr 1997 10:18:25 -0700 (PDT) From--Anthony Jankowski To--declan@well.com thanks for sharing the Cokie and Mr. Cokie column! the whole thing is laughable, and I'm sending a note to her via All Things Considered... Cokie and her ilk, i.e. the other talking head pundits, are deathly afraid of the Net, NOT because it's "anti" democratic, but for the very reason that IT IS DEMOCRATIC AND MUCH MORE REPRESENTATIVE than those that allegedly represent us! I don't know what Internet she's using, but from my travels, I've seen everyone represented on the Net quite well, straight, queer, liberal, con- servative, radical, anarchist, skin-heads, nazi-lovers, black, white, rich, poor, etc.. the Forum is wide open, the very opposite of what goes on in the "halls of Congress". Her and hubby open the column with the standard scare tactic that phoney- baloney moralists use-- the "kids get porn on the Net" ploy... their implication that "parents have no control over what their kids are seeing" is a flat out LIE. there are now dozens of software packages available to parents that want to screen what their kids are seeing. but then they move right into their real concern--- politics, and their ability to make money off of politics. They wax eloquently about what the Founding Fathers wanted in terms of representative government. Please, let's get REAL, here! Did the Founders advocate career politicians? Did the Founders advocate a system where large corporations make campaign contributions, and get tax breaks, tax subsidies (corporate welfare) from the government in return? While the Roberts' comment on stopping the "money chase", we ALL KNOW very well that is NOT going to happen under the status quo! The People have spoken. As author and film maker Michael Moore (Downsize This) pointed out, "less than 50% of the eligible voters voting is an act of civil disobediance!" The People NO LONGER BELIEVE IN THE SYSTEM for good reason. The average person's needs are NOT being met by the current system, and under the Constitution it is our complete right to creat a new system, in fact, it is our civic duty to do so. Now we have a tool at hand which allows for every voice to be heard, the Net. Computers and the Internet were not even conceivable to the Founding Fathers, so naturally it made more sense to advocate a "representative" speaking collectively for the People. But given the proven capabilities of the Net, would they still feel that way, or would they conceive a different system? I agree totally with Ms. Vincent. Important issues should, MUST be put on national referendums. ONLY THEN will everyone have their input taken seriously. The silly notion that "all we have to do is fix the current system and all will be well" is just that: SILLY and laughable. The problems we have now have been building for the last 100 years! Our elected representatives (some of them in office for almost that long) have had every oppportunity to fix the system, and show that it is democratic. THEY HAVE MISERABLY FAILED!!!!! It's time for the corruption to END, plain and simple. The People are finally wising up, and the Net can be thanked for that. Ms. Roberts' will soon be out of a job, and that's what really concerns her... with many more Voices available on the Net, we no longer need the likes of Ms. Roberts, with her self-serving agenda. Like the dinosaurs, there kind is about to become extinct. A centralized, representative system will always be corruptible by monied interests. However, a de-centralized system, with only 85% participation, using the Net as a vote-collecting tool, would totally shift the power back to where it needs to be: The Average Citizen. The lobbyists cannot BRIBE US ALL-- it wouldn't be "cost effective". Anthony Jankowski "A conservative government is a hypocrisy." Benjamin Disraeli, former Prime Minister of England... will the U.S. ever have a Jewish president? a woman? a Black? an Oriental? Sudden Impact Graphics http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/6645 "Who cares for the Heart?" Shri P. Rajagoplachari ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Dec 1996 22:51:01 CST From: CuD Moderators Subject: File 7--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 13 Dec, 1996) Cu-Digest is a weekly electronic journal/newsletter. Subscriptions are available at no cost electronically. 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