Computer underground Digest Wed July 30, 1997 Volume 9 : Issue 60 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, #9.60 (Wed, July 30, 1997) File 1--EPIC letter to CNET.COM and the Internet Community File 2--SA on filtering software File 3--Annoy.com Parent Accuses Gov't of Violating 1A (fwd) File 4--Electronic Frontiers Australia Petition File 5--Pithy article re IGC attached below File 6--America Online Backs Off Plan (NYT Excerpt) File 7--Letter from AOL's Steve Case to Members File 8--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 7 May, 1997) CuD ADMINISTRATIVE, EDITORIAL, AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION APPEARS IN THE CONCLUDING FILE AT THE END OF EACH ISSUE. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 21:30:26 -0400 From: Marc Rotenberg Subject: File 1--EPIC letter to CNET.COM and the Internet Community To Mr. Barr of CNET.COM and the Internet Community, On July 21 Christopher Barr, editor in chief of CNET, endorsed Internet rating schemes in a column titled "Rating Online Content Can Work". http://www.cnet.com/Content/Voices/Barr/072197/index.html In this column, Mr. Barr says A number of groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Privacy Information Center, support the use of such software on principle, but they also point out that filtering software can be used to block any kind of content, not just sexually explicit material, and so it can end up restricting free speech. I want to be clear that EPIC, both a plaintiff and counsel in the challenge to the Communications Decency Act, does not support the use of blocking software in principle or practice. We do not support rating systems for the following reasons. First, we believe that the fundamental purpose of a rating system -- to allow one person to decide what information another person may receive -- is contrary to the character of the Internet and the principles of openness and individuality found in a free society. Unlike search engines that allow individuals to select information based on their preferences and desires, rating systems impose one person's or one organization's viewpoint on another. Such techniques could be used as easily by governments against citizens and employers against employees as they could by parents against children, as was made clear by one of the PICS creators in an early paper on the topic. Second, we have already seen rating systems used to block access to information that could in no reasonable way be considered indecent. Rating systems have blocked access to political organizations, medical information, and unpopular viewpoints. In public libraries and public schools such techniques violate well established First Amendment freedoms. Such products should be roundly criticized by Internet publishers, not endorsed. Third, we believe that over time rating systes are likely to make it easier -- not more difficult -- for governments around the world to enforce content-based controls on Internet content. This process is already underway in many countries which are now considering PICS-based schemes to implement national content controls. Further, our reading of the Supreme Court's opinion in Reno V. ACLU is that content based controls would be upheld in the US once rating systems and means for age verification and widely available. It was the nature of the Internet, and not the availability of rating systems, that produced the wonderful outcome in that case. But once voluntary standards are in place, statutory controls will surely follow. We recognize that the availability of material that some might consider offensive poses a difficult problem for on-line information providers. We further recognize that there is indeed some material on the Internet that is genuinely abhorrent. But we do not believe you can hide the world from your children. We should help our children to understand the world, and then help them make it better. Good parenting is not something found in a software filter; it takes time, effort, and interest. And it takes trust in young people to develop within themselves judgment and reason, and the ability to tell right from wrong. We also caution against any efforts to distinguish between bona fide news organizations and others. The framers of our First Amendment wisely drew no such distinction, and thus we have avoided the process of licensing and government approval that othe countries have pursued. News organizations that today seek to draw such a line may in the future find themselves placed on the wrong side. These are difficult issues. It is not easy today to criticize the ratings proposal which has recently received White House endorsement. This fact alone should give those who value free speech and who opposed the Communications Decency Act reason to think twice. It is also the reason that we applaud the American Library Association for its principled opposition to the use of software filters in libraries. We hope other organizations will join with EPIC, the ACLU, and the ALA and recognize that we all have a common interest in the protection of intellectual freedom and the openness of the Internet. We will continue to offer information about the PICS debate at our web site -- www.epic.org -- so that individuals and organizations that provide information online can make fully informed decisions about the desireability of rating systems. Finally, we hope CNET.COM will reconsider its position on the rating issue. In the end, it will be the decisions of individual Internet news organizations and other online publishers that will determine the openness and accessibility of the Internet for us all. We share a common interest in preserving the free flow of information across the Internet. Sincerely, Marc Rotenberg, director EPIC ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 17:46:01 GMT From: Wazoo MixMaster Subject: File 2--SA on filtering software Source - fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu _Scientific American_, August 1997, "Cyber View" "Parental Discretion Advised," by Paul Wallich What do _Baywatch_ star Pamela Anderson Lee and dead poet Robert Frost have in common? Their works both run afoul of would-be Internet censors. Lee's very name is beyond the pale for software such as CYBERsitter, designed to keep children and teenagers away from undesirable stretches of the infobahn. Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" uses the word "queer," a word proscribed right along with "fairy," "gay" and "nigger" as signals of forbidden access. ............... Although CYBERsitter, SurfWatch, Net Nanny, Cyber Patrol, Net Shepherd and other programs first sprang up in response to fears about children downloading pornography or being entrapped by child molesters, the range of topics that can be blocked is much larger. Depending on the program in question, users can restrict Web pages that feature drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, extreme bad taste, radical politics of the left and right, explosives, safe sex or the existence of homosexuality. Parents (or, in some jurisdictions, teachers and librarians) can choose which particular shibboleths they want to defend against. SafeSurf, for example, has developed a rating system that includes 10 different kinds of dangerous information (and nine levels of concern within each category). Some programs can be configured to permit access to only a small list of sites known for safe content and links. Even more thorough are those blocking-software packages that vet Web-page text, e-mail and anything else a computer receives on the basis of key words and phrases. As America Online found out last year, blocking access on the basis of keywords -- even with the best of intentions -- can lead to embarrassment. The on-line service had to rescind its proscription of breast-cancer support groups and stop barring mention of medieval liturgies (cum Spiritu Sancto). Similarly, Solid Oak Software, makers of CYBERsitter, probably never intended to censor students' reading of Frost or keep them from finding out about the company DTP Express, a small Web-site design firm owned by one P.J. Lee. The same goes for sodom.mt.cs.cmu.edu, home of a thoroughly unremarkable bilingual Web site by an Italian graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University. But when CYBERsitter's president engaged in a public flaming bout with critics last winter -- using language that cannot be reproduced here -- the software's criteria became rather more narrowly encompassing. Try accessing a Web site that incorporates the phrase "Don't buy CYBERsitter." Better yet, try "Bennett Haselton." That happens to be the name of a student who published a list of some of the words and sites the program blocks. In fact, the company threatened legal action against anyone who disclosed what sites were blocked -- even though the program logs such information in a text file for parents to monitor their children's activity. Such shenanigans are not necessarily typical of blocking-software companies, of course. Microsystems Software, makers of Cyber Patrol, offers a Web page where visitors can search to find out which URLs are blocked and which ones aren't. The company has also enlisted the help of both GLAAD (the Gay & Lesbian Alliance against Defamation) and the National Rifle Association to make sure that its ratings are as accurate as possible. Several blocking-software companies tout their commitment to free speech, and the existence of commercial blocking software was a key point in legal arguments this past spring against federal regulation of Internet content. Nevertheless, given the millions of links that constitute the Web and the dozens of megabytes of e-mail and Usenet articles that cross the Internet daily, distinguishing the good from the bad and the ugly may be an impossible task. Net watchers concerned with promotion of alcohol have tagged the Dewar's scotch Web site, for example, but not the one for Absolut vodka. And those looking out for cigarette promotion have unaccountably missed www.rjnabisco.com, even though tobacco products appear many times in its pages. (Observers rating sites for their promotion of drug use, meanwhile, snagged at least one Web site containing largely academic studies of drug policy.) Hence, it appears that blocking software neither allows people using it to reach all the information they should, given its criteria, nor does it keep them from all the information they shouldn't see. Are such shortcomings the price of not watching children's every keystroke? Some parents (and school administrators) clearly think so. Other adults may not be so happy with the idea of introducing the Internet to young people as a universal library with a police informer behind every bookcase and under every desk. And for the time being, adults at least are free to make these decisions for themselves. ------------------------------------------------------- "Don't Look" [from center of page] SafeSurf's categories of adult themes for restricting access (adapted from http://www.safesurf.com/ssplan.htm): 1. Profanity 2. Heterosexual themes without illustrations 3. Homosexual themes without illustrations 4. Nudity and consenting sex acts 5. Violent themes -- writing, devices, militia 6. Sexual and violent themes, with profanity 7. Accusations/attacks against racial or religious groups 8. Glorification of illegal drug use 9. Other adult themes A. Gambling B to Z. For future expansion of categories ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 11:42:10 -0800 From: "--Todd Lappin-->" Subject: File 3--Annoy.com Parent Accuses Gov't of Violating 1A (fwd) Source - fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu From--clinton@xq.com (Clinton Fein) Date--Wed, 23 Jul 1997 10:26:37 -0700 Clinton FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Clinton D. Fein President, ApolloMedia Corporation Telephone: 415/552-7655 clinton@annoy.com Michael Traynor Cooley Godward LLP Telephone: 415/693-2000 traynormt@cooley.com William Bennett Turner Rogers, Joseph, O'Donnell & Quinn Telephone: 415/956-2828 wturner@rjoq.com July 23, 1997, San Francisco -- Clinton D. Fein, president of the San Francisco based multimedia firm ApolloMedia Corporation, today accused the government of failing to comprehend and abide by the Supreme Court's ruling in the recently decided ACLU vs. Reno, which struck down key provisions of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), and in which the company filed an amicus curiae brief in February. The company, responding to a set of interrogatories presented to them by the government in June, also filed a supplemental brief regarding ACLU vs. Reno, as the hearing on the company's federal lawsuit approaches. Filed in January, ApolloMedia's lawsuit challenges the provision that makes it a felony to communicate anything "indecent" online "with intent to annoy" another person. ApolloMedia's "annoy.com" web site makes it possible for visitors to annoy President Clinton, Senator Jesse Helms and other public figures by sending them email and blunt electronic "postcards" on a variety of controversial subjects. ApolloMedia's suit was held by a special three-judge court pending the outcome of the CDA case in the Supreme Court. The government will now have to respond to ApolloMedia's First Amendment contentions. The Supreme Court in the ACLU case declared the CDA's prohibition of "indecent" speech on the Internet unconstitutional. The Court found that the interest in shielding children from sexual speech and images did not justify an across-the-board criminal prohibition that would tml) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 01:04:56 +0800 (WST) From: Kimberley Heitman Subject: File 4--Electronic Frontiers Australia Petition EFA has developed an online petition to oppose the government's content regulation proposals. The petition is intended to be presented to the Senate and is supported by a number of online organisations. The attached media release announces the petition and further information is available on the Campaign page at: http://www.efa.org.au/Campaigns/contreg.html The actual petition is at: http://www.efa.org.au/Campaigns/petition.html Please SIGN NOW to show your opposition to Net Censorship in Australia. Circulate this message as widely as possible. Greg Taylor EFA Board member --------------------------------------------------------------- Electronic Frontiers Australia Inc. Media Release July 26th 1997 PETITION AGAINST CENSORSHIP OF AUSTRALIAN INTERNET Electronic Frontiers Australia today launched an online petition against unnecessary censorship of the Internet. In a first for participatory democracy, users will sign electronically using a new signature verification procedure which should set a standard for future online petitions. The petition will be presented to the Senate in the next Parliamentary session. The full text of the petition follows. Details of how to sign and more information about the EFA campaign against Internet censorship are available at: http://www.efa.org.au/Campaigns/petition.html The petition has already been endorsed by ISOC-AU (the Australian chapter of the Internet Society), the West Australian Internet Association, and the South Australian Internet Association. Internationally, the EFA campaign is supported by members of the Global Internet Liberty Campaign, including the American Civil Liberties Union and French, Spanish, and British user groups. --- Petition To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in the Parliament assembled: The undersigned Petitioners respectfully request that the Senate recognises: * That, for many Australians, the Internet plays a vital role as a means of communication, a vehicle for the expression of ideas and opinions, and a source of information. * That the Internet is a complex, global environment where traditional concepts of regulation are not easily applied or enforced. * That there is a need to make a clear distinction between the responsibility of those who produce and publish content and that of intermediaries such as carriers and Internet Service Providers. * That the full potential for development of the Internet in Australia will depend on governments recognising rights to freedom of speech taken for granted by other societies. * That the emerging information industries should not be burdened with unnecessary and poorly conceived regulation. The petitioners therefore call upon the Senate to reject any attempt by the Government to impose additional censorship on the Internet. ENDS --------------------------------------------------------- Electronic Frontiers Australia Inc -- http://www.efa.org.au/ representing Internet users concerned with on-line freedoms ------------------------------------------------------- Media Contacts Kimberley Heitman Phone: +61 8 9458 2790 Email: kheitman@it.com.au Danny Yee Phone (home): +61 2 9955 9898 Phone (work): +61 2 9351 5159 Email: danny.yee@efa.org.au -------------------------------------------------------- BACKGROUND The EFA campaign http://www.efa.org.au/Campaigns/contreg.html ISOC-AU http://www.isoc-au.org.au/ West Australian Internet Association (WAIA) http://www.waia.asn.au/ South Australian Internet Association (SAIA) http://www.saia.asn.au/ Global Internet Liberty Campaign (GILC) http://www.gilc.org/ Democrats Press Release on Senate allowing electronic petitions http://www.democrats.org.au/democrats/media/1997/04/227nsd.html ------------------------------------------------------- Kimberley James Heitman http://www.multiline.com.au/~kheit/ Internet kheitman@it.com.au Fidonet 3:690/254.14 Telephone +618 9458 2790 Facsimile +618 9356 1247 ---------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 21:00:32 -0400 From: Paul Kneisel Subject: File 5--Pithy article re IGC attached below NEVER PAY PROTECT MONEY: STRATEGIC THOUGHTS ON THE IGC WEB SITE CONTROVERSY by tallpaul (Paul Kneisel) "Mailbomb, sir! Mailbomb and be damned!" -- Duke of Wellington (loosely translated) IGC, the largest Internet Service Provider providing hosting services to political leftists on the net, pays "protection money" to extortionists.[1] This occurred when IGC canceled[2] the web pages of the Euskal Herria Journal after being subjected to a particularly virulent denial of service attack by formally-unknown political forces opposing the Journal's support for Basque independence organizations. The attack threatened to overwhelm IGC's server and temporarily end services to other subscribers not involved in the controversy. Protection rackets are inconvenient for the victims. They are always meant to be. A racket without inconvenience is not a racket; it is a bad felonious joke. The question remains, however, of what future damage to clients will result from IGC's decision. For IGC announced to the world that it pays protection money. Dissatisfied with the pro-abortion clients of IGC? Mailbomb! Dislike labor unions who use IGC? Mailbomb! Do black nationalists or Irish Republicans make your gorge buoyant? Mailbomb! No matter how disastrous the past mailbombing was to IGC there is something even more disastrous. That is a lifetime of future mailbombings all produced when IGC informed the criminals that it will respond favorably to those attacks. [FOOTNOTES] [1] People often confuse "blackmail" and "extortion." The former implies wrong doing by the victim; the latter does not. "Do what I want," says the blackmailer, "or I publish the Polaroids of you and the baby elephant having a good time together." "Do what I want," says the extortionist, "or I throw a brick through your window." [2] IGC writes that it "suspended" service. Whether service was permanently or temporarily canceled is a matter determined only by future data. But today's datum is that the Journal's web page is no longer at IGC. -- tallpaul@nyct.net (Paul Kneisel) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 00:30:02 -0500 From: jthomas@SUN.SOCI.NIU.EDU(Jim Thomas) Subject: File 6--America Online Backs Off Plan (NYT Excerpt) America Online Backs Off Plan to Give Out Phone Numbers< By SETH SCHIESEL Responding Thursday to consumer outrage and mounting concerns about privacy in cyberspace, America Online, the largest online service provider, abandoned its plans to begin providing lists of its customers' telephone numbers to telemarketers and other direct-sales peddlers. The reversal came less than 24 hours after the plans became widely known through news accounts and online postings. America Online drew immediate fire from politicians and privacy-rights groups for the telemarketing venture, in part because the company for years had assured subscribers that it would not release their phone numbers and other personal information to outside parties. Because America Online's 8 million subscribers are already besieged by "junk" electronic mail, customers bemoaned the prospect of some of those same advertisers, or different ones, ringing the phone at home. Like magazines and other businesses with valuable subscription lists, America Online has already been selling lists of its subscribers' names and addresses. But those lists do not include the corresponding e-mail addresses or customer phone numbers. A few weeks ago, however, America Online quietly proposed changing its longstanding policy to begin selling its telephone lists. Privacy advocates said that adding phone numbers to the mix would allow marketers to cross-tabulate with additional sorts of information that people might not be aware they were exposing by simply signing up to an online service. America Online would not reveal how many of its members called, faxed or sent electronic mail to the company to vent their displeasure. America Online executives insisted that they did not intend to "rent" the phone numbers. Instead, they said, American Online would provide the numbers to companies only as one part of an overall marketing deal. "The only calls we intended for you to receive would have been from AOL and a limited number of quality-controlled AOL partners," said Stephen Case, the company's chief executive, in a letter to subscribers Thursday. Those partners would have included Tel-Save Inc., a discount long-distance telephone company that reached a $100 million marketing pact with America Online in February, and CUC International Inc., a telemarketing giant that made a $50 million deal with America Online last month. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 00:29:57 -0500 From: jthomas@SUN.SOCI.NIU.EDU(Jim Thomas) Subject: File 7--Letter from AOL's Steve Case to Members July 24, 1997 Dear Members, You may have heard that AOL is now selling lists of member phone numbers and e-mail addresses. This is not true. We'd like to explain what we're doing and why we're doing it. As we've said in the past, we want to make AOL membership as valuable to you as possible. One of the ways we can do that is by utlilizing the size of the AOL membership to attract special member discounts on popular products and services, and to create customized products and services just for AOL members. We recently decided to offer discount long distance telephone service to AOL members that will provide high quality service at rates that are below those you can get from other providers. We also recently decided to make discount buying clubs for popular products like cars, and services like travel, available to you, and they will incorporate special AOL-only member benefits. These new features will begin to become available to you starting this Fall. We will start notifying you about availability, and giving you an opportunity to try them, at that time. Although we haven't finalized the marketing plans, in general we'll use the AOL service itself to notify you. But we do plan to try telemarketing as well. In advance of these Fall launches, on July 1 we had posted anticipated changes to our "Terms of Service" to indicate that we might from time to time make the telephone numbers of AOL members available to AOL partners for telemarketing. This has generated all the attention, as some feel it is a mistake to permit telemarketing at all, and others think it was a mistake not to notify members more proactively about our plans. We should have been clearer about the fact that we changed the Terms of Service, and about the rationale for the change. Obviously, by not being more proactive, we've generated a lot of confusion and concern. To be clear, we never intended to make our members' telephone numbers available for rental to telemarketers. The only calls we intended for you to receive would have been from AOL and a limited number of quality-controlled AOL partners. However, upon further reflection, today we decided to change our plans. We will not provide lists of our members' telephone numbers, even to our partners whose products we still plan to offer you. The only calls you might receive will be from us. We realize that privacy is important to you, and you don't want to be inundated with marketing pitches. So let's quickly review the AOL policies in this regard. DIRECT MAIL -- As is standard industry practice, we rent addresses of members, to preselected companies. To be clear, we rent only "aggregate" lists of "AOL members" and closely monitor their use. We will, on request, specify which of our members use Windows or Macintosh computers. But we do not rent lists based on what AOL services are used, so you can be assured that your privacy is being protected. If you would like to have your name removed from the rental lists, all you have to do is go to Keyword: MARKETING PREFS. E-MAIL -- We do not rent e-mail addresses of members. There are companies that compile such lists and make them available for sale but we have no part in that, and are doing everything we can to stop it, including filing lawsuits against those companies. We realize that "junk e-mail" (also known as "spamming") is a significant inconvenience these days, and we are working hard to stop it. TELEMARKETING -- We do not rent lists of telephone numbers. As we described above, the only calls you get will be from AOL offering products or services that we genuinely believe will be of interest to you. We'll post details in the Fall about how these programs work. However, if you wish to remove your name from the list today or at any other time so you won't receive these calls, go to Keyword MARKETING PREFS. For more than a decade, we've built AOL by earning your trust. We will continue to listen to you and do everything we can to serve your needs now and in the years ahead. We hope this has helped to clarify what we're doing, and why we're doing it. Sincerely, Steve Case ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 May 1997 22:51:01 CST From: CuD Moderators Subject: File 8--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 7 May, 1997) Cu-Digest is a weekly electronic journal/newsletter. Subscriptions are available at no cost electronically. 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