Computer underground Digest Sun July 5, 1998 Volume 10 : Issue 37 ISSN 1004-042X Editor: Jim Thomas (cudigest@sun.soci.niu.edu) News Editor: Gordon Meyer (gmeyer@sun.soci.niu.edu) Archivist: Brendan Kehoe Shadow Master: Stanton McCandlish Shadow-Archivists: Dan Carosone / Paul Southworth Ralph Sims / Jyrki Kuoppala Ian Dickinson Field Agent Extraordinaire: David Smith Cu Digest Homepage: http://www.soci.niu.edu/~cudigest CONTENTS, #10.37 (Sun, July 5, 1998) File 1--Islands of the Net (Italy) Restituted! (fwd) File 2--Folklore- "Spammers Will Hurt You if You Challenge Them" File 3--Next: Pigs That Fly? (NETFUTURE #72 Reprint) File 4--The (long) NIGHT OF THE LIVING (brain) DEAD (pt 1) File 5--Imaginary Gardens. The Eyes of a Child. June 26, 1998 File 6--REVIEW: "net.wars", Wendy W. Grossman File 7--Couple of announcements from DC-ISOC File 8--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 25 Apr, 1998) CuD ADMINISTRATIVE, EDITORIAL, AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION ApPEARS IN THE CONCLUDING FILE AT THE END OF EACH ISSUE. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 3 Jul 1998 19:46:25 -0700 (PDT) From: Arturo Di Corinto Subject: File 1--Islands of the Net (Italy) Restituted! (fwd) Good news! The server of Islands in the Net has been unseized! It`s not on line yet, but so far We have: -28 Mirrors --1 Protesta(k)tion Kit --4 Interrogations to the Parliament --1 new machine --1 declaration from the Federations of the Italian Press in favour of InR --several press release indignant at the judge and the police --HUNDREDS NEW FRIENDS :) WHAT THE POLICE WANT --log-files of the so-called defamatory message (silly) WHAT The Judge Wants --understand how to "seize" a messagge without seizing the server :))) (stupid) WHAT WE WANT --TO BUILD a CROSSBORDER COOPERATION WITH SUBJECTS "LIKE" US (hopefully) Thanks to everyone who supported us! For more info, please go to: http://ecn.nodo50.org ---------------------------------------------------------- July 1, 1998 An Isole nella Rete (INR) representative and his lawyer filed a claim for the restitution of INR server to the Vicenza Prosecutor office this morning. Prosecutor Paolo Pecori said he had already ruled accordingly yesterday afternoon. The INR server will be delivered back to the Bologna provider office by the Postal Police tomorrow. This result is due to the strong and prompt reaction of the Internet community, both on the local and global level. Particularly active were the INR members and the hundreds of people and other associations which had been involved with the INR activities over the last two years. This worldwidespread network proved able to strongly voice and implement a high level of solidarity and cooperation which, in a matter of hours after the server seizure, led to the digital community spontaneaously organizing to firmly defend its rights against any legal abuse. by Bernardo Parrella ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Jul 1998 18:38:25 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@TELECOM-DIGEST.ORG Subject: File 2--Folklore- "Spammers Will Hurt You if You Challenge Them" ((MODERATORS' NOTE: For those not familiar with Pat Townson's TELECOM DIGEST, it's an exceptional resource. From the header of TcD: "TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * ======" )) ================== Source - TELECOM Digest Sat, 4 Jul 98 Volume 18 : Issue 105 From- Michael A. Covington Subject- Folklore- "Spammers Will Hurt You if You Challenge Them" Date- Fri, 3 Jul 1998 11:05:44 -0400 Recently I was warned by a well-meaning netizen that I should not challenge spammers because if challenged, they'll do all kinds of things like mail-bomb me, steal my credit card numbers (how?), turn me in to the police on false charges, etc. etc. Balderdash. That sounds like a rumor started by a spammer. In three years as computer security chairman at the University of Georgia, I've never encountered a spammer with any detectable amount of courage. If anybody actually tried to do those things, we'd gleefully catch and prosecute them. One *sure* way to turn a neighborhood over to criminals -- either in physical space or in cyberspace -- is to get everybody afraid of *imaginary* crimes that haven't happened and haven't even been threatened. Criminals love it when that happens. Let's not let it happen to the Net. Michael A. Covington / AI Center / The University of Georgia http://www.ai.uga.edu/~mc http://www.mindspring.com/~covington <>< [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Bravo! Amen! In the case of real neighborhoods and real people (as opposed to the net) those stories are often spread by the police; they do not like citizens trying to horn in on their 'law and order' monopoly. Consider how the police always like to give you the BS about 'if someone tries to rob you or hold you up (at place of business for example), never resist, always give them whatever they want; why, they might try to hurt you or they might have a gun, etc.' ... to which I always tell the cop he is full of it. If someone tries to hold me up or assualt me, my response is to try and kill them; yours should be too. Certainly I value my own life, but I am the sort of stubborn person that if some person wants to rob me of five or ten dollars, I'd just as soon see them -- if they get caught -- be tried on murder charges as well. You might try living your life in the manner Johann Sebastian Bach lived his; he was not afraid of death, in fact he welcomed it. His attitude was 'take me anytime, Lord ...'. I am neither afraid of death, nor do I 'welcome' it; but if I cannot live my life in peace and quiet and harmony with others then damned if I am going to let my assilant do it either. *Never* submit to a crime against yourself with at least making the assailant wish he had left you alone. Blind him, maim him, cripple him, whatever. That way the police can have something real to complain about instead of their all-to-frequent nonsensical belly aching. Now regards the same principle and the net: When you have some form of practical and effecient recourse against a spammer, **use it**. Stay within the law -- even in a physical assualt you should try to do only what is necessary to stop the act -- but definitly make the spammer come to grips with the realities of the net ... make certain he goes away realizing his spamming was not a smart thing to do. We often times have tell-free numbers for them; use those numbers in a way to make sure the spammer understands the vast readership on the net and how so many millions of people saw his message. . If he has a *valid* email address, I suggest punishing his ISP if the ISP otherwise won't assist. Make sure they feel the wrath. Make certain they go away wishing they had never even gotten an internet access account. As Mr. Covington points out, most of them are cowards. And if they want to steal your credit card numbers or use your address for their email, I say **good** -- great in fact. Cause now you really have a good beef with them, and a way to force the issue and see them in jail. Why settle for erasing spam all day and complaining about it when maybe you can induce one of the goofs to act out against you so you can *really* kick his ass good? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Stephen Talbott Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 13:55:36 -0400 Subject: File 3--Next: Pigs That Fly? (NETFUTURE #72 Reprint) ((MODERATORS' NOTE: It's no secret that technology, science, and information aren't neutral. But, it never hurts to remind those who think otherwise) Source: NETFUTURE (Technology & Human Responsibility) #72 Editor: Stephen L. Talbott (stevet@oreilly.com) On the Web: http://www.oreilly.com/~stevet/netfuture/ You may redistribute this newsletter for noncommercial purposes. Next: Pigs That Fly? -------------------- Andrew Kimbrell, founder of the International Center for Technology Assessment in Washington, D.C., describes one of the "classic" experiments in genetic engineering this way: Dr. Vernon Pursel inserted the human growth gene in a pig. Pursel hoped to create giant pigs that would be major meat producers. The problem was that though the human growth gene was in every cell of the pig's body it did not act in the manner the scientists expected. Instead of making the pig larger it made it squat, cross-eyed, bow- legged, smaller than an average pig, with huge bone mass, a truly wretched product of science without ethics. Pursel tried to find a silver lining in his experiment gone wrong by claiming that the pig was leaner. Pursel's argument was that people are worried about cholesterol, so maybe we can sell this as lean pig. Did he really think the public was ready for pork chops with human genes? That pig strikes me as a good metaphor for the constructions of the Information Age. The prevailing notion is that we have this massive collection of information -- exemplified by several hundred thousand snippets of human genetic code -- which we can merrily pass from one database to another, inserting this piece here and that piece there. But there is no such thing as an "objective piece of information". Like a word in a sentence, a bit of information *means* a particular thing only within a given context. Pursel's pig symbolizes the kind of result you get when you ignore context and try to build things from the bottom up -- that is, when you start with the reduced products of your sophisticated analyses, forgetting what it was you were analyzing in the first place. Context in the present case means, to begin with, the pig itself. Pursel was willing to see fragments of DNA -- and even lean pork chops -- but did not care to see the pig. Such is the technological mindset we now trust to re-engineer the human being. Exactly the same trust is at work wherever information is glorified as the decisive form of capital, the basis for problem-solving, and the fundamental ingredient of all knowledge. (Kimbrell's remark, incidentally, occurs in a remarkable new book from the Sierra Club, called *Turning Away from Technology*, edited by Stephanie Mills. I hope to review it in the near future.) ================== NETFUTURE is a newsletter and forwarding service dealing with technology and human responsibility. It is hosted by the UDT Core Programme of the International Federation of Library Associations. Postings occur roughly once every week or two. The editor is Steve Talbott, author of "The Future Does Not Compute: Transcending the Machines in Our Midst". You may redistribute this newsletter for noncommercial purposes. You may also redistribute individual articles in their entirety, provided the NETFUTURE url and this paragraph are attached. Current and past issues of NETFUTURE are available on the Web: http://www.oreilly.com/~stevet/netfuture/ http://www.ifla.org/udt/netfuture/ (mirror site) http://ifla.inist.fr/VI/5/nf/ (mirror site) To subscribe to NETFUTURE, send an email message like this: To: listserv@infoserv.nlc-bnc.ca subscribe netfuture yourfirstname yourlastname ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 Jun 1998 23:46:17 -0400 From: Tom Truex Subject: File 4--The (long) NIGHT OF THE LIVING (brain) DEAD (pt 1) SOURCE: oNline Christian eMagazine 1. Request to be put on the subscription list by sending email to sleddog@k-line.org with the Subject, "SUBSCRIBE EMAG" 2. BBS, Davie, FL, USA: 954-792-8355 3. World Wide Web: http://www.k-line.org 4. FidoNet (1:369/155), FREQ, using the magic word, "EMAG." ================================================================ EDITORIAL: THE (long) NIGHT OF THE LIVING (brain) DEAD, part 1 ================================================================ It is true that a picture paints a thousand words. Sometimes though, the words are--like the chalkboard in Bart Simpson's classroom--the same words written over and over and over. Moreover, upon close inspection, the thousand words may be "I am stupid", repeated three hundred thirty three times{1}. The term "GUI" (graphical user interface) is seldomly used. Because it is almost always assumed. There still are text based programs. Even brand new, off the shelf{2}, Windows 95 text based programs. For example, I run a computer bulletin board system (BBS) that is largely text based. The supporting programs and miscellaneous cyber-glue hacks that hold it together are largely text based. But my case is an exception to a rule that is as wide and deep as the Grand Canyon. New software--especially consumer oriented software--is almost exclusively graphical in nature. That is, lots of pretty pictures and cute icons. Which is a shame, because the GUI is largely responsible for what I view as the failure of the utility of personal computing to keep pace with the technological advances in personal computing. In former times, personal computers came in big boxes that said "IBM PC" on the outside.{3} You got a CPU with an 8088 processor, dual 5 1/4 inch floppy disk drives, and a monitor with pixels almost the size of green marbles. No hard drive. No sound card (what's a sound card?). No CD-ROM. It did however, have ROM that started PC-BASIC when you flipped up the ON switch. If you remember those early PC's--or if you have heard such tales from your grandpa, or some other cyber-codger--then you recall, or have heard of, the absolute awe with which we viewed the power of those machines. Awe because of the frame of reference. Early PC's from my perspective, were compared to typewriters. The ability to edit, copy and "word process" compared to a top of the line typewriter was breathtaking. Database management and spreadsheets were veritable miracles. The man-hour{4} savings were worth a fortune to offices like mine. Of course we no longer frame our comparisons in terms of typewriters. Indeed, most people never use a typewriter. Most kids have never seen one. Surely, typical business applications have come a long way since the first PC. But the majority of the increased hardware and software technology has been misspent on pretty pictures and cute icons. Is there any sane reason why a word processing program used to fit on one 360k floppy disk; but now requires 60 or 80 Megabytes. That's a lot of 360k floppies! Hey, I like the spell check and grammar check. The fonts can be useful on occasion. It's even nice to be able to print in colors. Those features hog a few bytes. But not two hundred times as many bytes. The CD-ROM points to another vast intellectual wasteland. Surely the CD-ROM was about the most exciting thing that I can recall about computing. I had visions of the whole public library packed into a plastic disk that I could slip into my shirt pocket.{5} Alas, there have been some noble efforts. I have a nice personal library on CD-ROMs. Of course, I didn't just stumble into the local computer store and make my selections out of the discount bin. But to be fair, my tastes in reading material are not always mainline. IMHO, the CD-ROM should have been a huge reservoir in which to store accumulated human knowledge, information and data. Instead, the CD-ROM is reduced to the launching pad for bloated programs and lots and lots and lots of pretty pictures. And sound clips and video clips. I do not care if the hordes of consumer buyers want easy to use, out of the box, plug and play products. It certainly doesn't bother me that such products are used and enjoyed. If there's a market some day for computers with pink shag carpet glued to the side, that's fine with me. If people want them, then manufacturers should make them and vendors should sell them. My complaint is that the price of superfluous products is the lost opportunity to have really good, useful applications. If the computer industry is catering to the lowest common denominator, then it is not catering to what I perceive as good and useful. Namely the perfection of products that will improve my productivity and my mind; not just catch the attention of my eyes and ears. As consumer computer products continue to converge with consumer entertainment products, the result will be not unlike an intellectual train wreck. I had to chuckle when I picked up a computer magazine the other day. There was a article about some of the electronic magazines to which I subscribe. Beside the short blurb about Computer Underground Digest (CuD){6} was a picture of the CuD web page. To tell you the truth, I was a reader of CuD for quite a while before I even knew that they had a web page. CuD is all text. When you get it via email or their newsgroup, you either view it on your computer monitor, or you print it out on your printer. No pretty pictures. Just text. Though the picture on the CuD web page has nothing to do with the publication, the computer magazine felt compelled to offer up a little graphical reinforcement. I suppose that if I understood real magazines I wouldn't question the fact that pictures are what sell magazines. As of right now, no pictures are scheduled for my publication, oNline Christian eMagazine.{7} A few weeks ago, I visited a little horror show at my daughters' elementary school that the educators titled "technology night." I suppose that I should sleep easier with the knowledge that the County School Board has mandated the use of sophisticated blocking software and "firewalls" (those terms can be used interchangeably, in case you didn't know{8}) to prevent my kids from seeing any evil sights/sites. Also to be blocked{9} are "any entertainment sites"; with the Disney web page named as an example{10}. This IS education, after all. But, again I digress. The real heart stopping, spine jolting, slap in my slackjawed, unshaven face with a cold giant squid (figuratively speaking, of course), was tucked in the back room of the "technology center." (Remember when they used to call that place a "library"?) In the aforesaid back room was percolating my worst case scenario of the abuse of the GUI. The computer program on display, we soon learned, was designed for Kindergarten students. The simultaneous "oohs" and "ahhs" of the other parents sufficiently covered my quiet gasp of blind, stark terror. The software being exhibited looked like a cheap Saturday morning cartoon{11}. The animation and sound really rivaled what you see on television. Except that the assorted barnyard cartoon figures invited the kid at the mouse to click on various images to get a favorable response.{12} Complete with the annoying sort of sound clips that used to intoxicate kids into feeding more coins into the machines at the video arcade. My daughters tell me that such programs make the learning process more interesting.{13} But I see such programs as the training grounds for future generations of computer users. Future consumers with an insatiable appetite for an ever more sophisticated parade of sound and sights gushing from their computers. Content? Well, only if necessary to either enhance the show, or to justify it's use in schools. My generation grew up watching mindless trash spewing out of the family television. Now we neither expect nor demand anything better from television. I fear that future generations will neither expect nor demand anything better from personal computers. FOOTNOTES {1}For the mathematicians, add the word "done" at the end. {2}Not the "shelf" of retail computer superstores of course. I mean off the shelf of shareware or mail order specialty software vendors. {3}I still have such a box in my attic. It's crammed full of Christmas ornaments. {4}Or woman-hours, in most cases. {5}Copyrights and royalties you ask??? Oh yeah--guess it might not have worked after all. {6}One of my personal favorite publications. {7}Except of course for the picture of my late pet chicken, Betty, on my web page. {8}Note for the humor impaired-> ;-) {9}Or "firewalled". See previous note. {10}I can think of a lot of good reasons to block the Disney web page. The fact that it contains "entertainment" isn't one of those reasons. {11}The mouths usually move when the characters are talking, but the background scenery doesn't move too much. {12}The keyboard wasn't used. {13}See Angie's article printed elsewhere in this issue of oNline Christian eMagazine. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 09:47:15 -0500 From: Richard Thieme Subject: File 5--Imaginary Gardens. The Eyes of a Child. June 26, 1998 The Eyes of a Child by Richard Thieme I used to be amused when I was an Episcopal priest that people thought of ministry as detached from "real life." The truth is, one hears just about everything, from the biting stings of an overly scrupulous conscience to obvious denial that enables people who commit murder to sleep peacefully as if they have done nothing more than swat a few flies. And yet =85 the perspective of the years sometimes vanishes and one hears with clarity the still small voice of the child inside. This morning it is Microsoft - again - on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, doing its best to destroy a bankrupt entrepreneur whose daughter has leukemia. Their brigade of lawyers - trained to delay justice and slaughter the innocent - claim that "Internet Explorer" is a generic term (you know, like windows) and that nobody can own it. Their disingenuous arguments remind me of tobacco company executives, solid citizens dressed in thousand dollar suits, lying to Congress about human beings they knowingly killed and cover-ups that testify to the depth of the river of blood through which they waded eye-deep in hell to a pusher's profits.=20 So this is the question: when those folks in the front seats at dinners in their honor tell those bold-faced lies, does that child's voice ever reach their ears? Do they even know they are lying or have they convinced themselves that the appearance of integrity is just another card to play in a crooked game?=20 Jane Wagner said, I am getting more and more cynical all the time and I still can't keep up. But cynicism is the pain of disillusioned idealists who - once in a while - see with the eyes of a child, hear that child's voice, and remember the kind of world we dreamed it could be.=20 ******************************************************************** Imaginary Gardens is a daily reflection on techno/spirituality -- the interaction between ourselves, computer technology, and the ultimate concerns of our lives. To subscribe to Imaginary Gardens, send email to rthieme@thiemeworks.com with "subscribe gardens" in the body of the message. To unsubscribe, send an email to rthieme@thiemeworks.com with the word "unsubscribe gardens" in the body of the message. Imaginary Gardens and the weekly column, Islands in the Clickstream, are archived at the ThiemeWorks web site at http://www.thiemeworks.com. Copyright 1998 Richard Thieme. All rights reserved.=20 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Jul 1998 10:32:26 -0800 From: "Rob Slade, doting grandpa of Ryan and Trevor" Subject: File 6--REVIEW: "net.wars", Wendy W. Grossman BKNETWRS.RVW 980329 "net.wars", Wendy W. Grossman, 1997, 0-8147-3103-1, U$21.95 %A Wendy W. Grossman wendyg@skeptic.demon.co.uk %C 70 Washington Square South, New York, NY 10012-1091 %D 1997 %G 0-8147-3103-1 %I New York University Press %O U$21.95 800-996-6987 fax 212-995-3833 feedback@nyupress.nyu.edu %P 236 p. %T "net.wars" I'm still not quite sure about this title. Wars there are, but mostly either fairly genteel or heavily one-sided. Most of the descriptions seem to be more about the warring camps than the wars themselves. Like a great many Internet books, this one starts with a history. But it is history with a difference. The writing is both personal *and* relevant, a combination almost impossible to achieve. Grossman has already admitted, in the introduction, that objectivity is futile, and further notes that each person comes to the net from a different perspective, and therefore experiences a different net. Yet the story of The Great Renaming and The Year September Never Ended are of much greater moment to current Internet users than DARPA's distant wonderings about nuclear war hardened communications systems. The war dealt with in chapter one is, of course, that between netizen and newbie. One important social point is not made: this battle is not new, and has been fought every year between the "occupying" forces on the net, and the equal number of newcomers (an automatic consequence of the net's doubling of size in every year since about 1980.) The material may occasionally jar those with the most esoteric technical understanding (Gilmore's censorship aphorism does also refer to the technical difficulty of impeding the net), but these isolated instances only serve to point out that the author is otherwise well familiar with the net and its myriad uses. Chapter two looks to the fight between commercial and non-commercial forces, and in particular the emergence of spam in various forms. It's America OnLine (AOL) versus the net in chapter three's thoroughly researched and documented piece. The aol.com domain was the system Internauts loved to hate for a while, although that position is rapidly being assumed by hotmail.com nowadays. Chapter four looks at the issue of encryption, and there are enough fights there for anyone. Again, the finer technical points of cryptography are questionable, but the general discussion is good. I have written before (cf BKOPGPUG.RVW) about the ironies attendant upon PGP (Pretty Good Privacy); in view of the recent change in ownership of PGP Inc. Grossman's comments about Zimmermann as the most trusted cryptographer on the net are yet one more iron in the file. The discussion continues in chapter five with more emphasis on the issue of key escrow and export controls. For those who know something of it, but are not themselves Scientologists, the shenanigans surrounding that group are completely mystifying. Grossman's account of the battles royal surrounding alt.religion.scientology, in chapter six, is fascinating, but even more intriguing are the fairly glaring holes in the story. (The material that *is* included provides a fairly obvious explanation for what is not.) Chapter seven looks at the issue of censorship and the various government measures in relation to it. As one who lives outside the confines of the United States I very much appreciated the fact that Grossman has lived abroad and therefore knows that 1) the First Amendment does not, strictly speaking, hold outside the US and 2) nobody outside the US really cares all that much about the First or the Constitution it amends. The moral dilemmas of censorship, its technical infeasibilty, and the contraindicated side effects are mostly dealt with quite well. I found it a bit of a pity that Rimm's purported "study" and the other ill-advised reactions were not discussed in more detail. This omission is fully rectified in chapter nine, although it's hard to understand why the pieces are not only separate but separated. Grossman's take on the issue of women in cyberspace makes for a very informative and useful chapter eight. Eminently fair and reasonable, the material dismisses trivialities to deal with real, and much larger, concerns. The same is true of chapter ten's view of hackers-- if you read it all together. There is a lovely irony in one individual`s comment on women that really captures the social ethic of the whole milieu. While Grossman is obviously, and openly, biased in favour of the net, she is also clearsighted about its shortcomings. One such is the fact that even in the world's least regimented society there are misfits, and a number are documented in chapter eleven. Chapter twelve is a solid overview of the difficulty of defining the net, and its demographics. (Just for the record, Netscape started using cookies in 1995, and MS's Internet Explorer uses a directory with multiple files in place of the more compact COOKIE.TXT.) The question of the net contribution to democracy is briefly reviewed in chapter thirteen. Chapter fourteen looks at the unkillable question about whether the net is dead, dying, or can die. Most of chapter fifteen appears to deal with electronic commerce. Chapter sixteen rounds off the book but I'm not sure in which direction: part of it seems to look at the actions the Internet can take in regard to politics, and part seems to examine what kind of politics might develop on the net. In choosing to present the various, sundry, and possibly warring groups involved with the Internet Grossman has done what Rheingold didn't quite accomplish in "The Virtual Community" (cf. BKVRTCOM.RVW). net.wars provides the non-netted reader with a real feel for the real Internet. For all of the author's protestations that each person approaches the net distinctly, she has certainly been able to isolate the common ground of the long time Internaut. Those who know the net will find the content familiar and enjoyable, and those who don't will definitely learn something. Would that this could be made required reading for everyone buying a new account. Or does that just make me one of the grumpy old guard from chapter one ... copyright Robert M. Slade, 1998 BKNETWRS.RVW 980329 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 01 Jul 1998 15:00:23 -0400 From: Russ Haynal Subject: File 7--Couple of announcements from DC-ISOC Hello DC-ISOC . . . Just a couple of quick announcements that might be of Interest to members in the Washington DC Metro Area. (A couple of DC-ISOC meetings will be planned for the fall months) - Russ Haynal E-Gov VOLUNTEERS The Internet Society is looking for volunteers to help staff their booth during the Next Week's E-Gov 9298. July 7 - 10 * E-GOV '98 * The National Electronic Government Conference and Exposition. Washington Convention Center, Washington, D. C., 150 nationally known experts will help you understand the transformation to Electronic Government. More than 200 leading companies will show you new technology enabling faster, better government services. The year's biggest event devoted exclusively to Electronic Government. More information is available at http://www.e-gov.com Anyone Interested in volunteering, should contact The Internet Society Headquarters: Mary Burger mburger@isoc.org 703-648-9888 Martin Burack (Executive Director of ISOC) would like to know if ther e are any ISOC members in the D.C. area who speak Spanish and might be available July 16th for a live TV broadcast (and maybe call-in questions) to Latin America. One person is already lined up to participate, but ISOC would like to have a back-up. Please contact martin at ISOC headquarters: 703 648 9888 or burack@isoc.org from Gabe Goldberg... DC computer/network users are welcome at international user group meeting in Washington in August. One of the oldest computer user groups in the world, SHARE, will meet in Washington this summer, August 16-21. Historically focused on IBM mainframe/enterprise computing, SHARE also covers network, Internet/intranet, workstation, server, and many other current topics. SHARE's "big tent" allows one-stop shopping for information and resources critical to large and complex information technology organizations. As a long-time SHARE participant, I'm enthusiastic about attending one of the rare (three times in 20 years) SHARE meetings in Washington. And I'm pleased that SHARE has agreed to let local user group members attend at the discounted SHARE member registration rate and save more than $200. I'm helping SHARE communicate with local user groups, and hope to help user group members understand what SHARE offers. Briefly quoting SHARE literature: For more than 40 years, SHARE has brought together top industry representatives for learning, networking, and advocacy purposes. SHARE's vision of the future includes providing technology, connections, and results for its members. Technology: SHARE provides comprehensive technical educational programs using the practical, hands-on knowledge of its members and leading developers and innovaters. Connections: SHARE provides peer networking to thousands of IT professionals across the country and allows members to connect with IBM and top information technology organizations. Results: The end result of the technical education and industry connections SHARE provides is the implementation of new solutions within member organizations. -- More than 40 years old, one of the first computer user groups founded -- Offers cost-effective training, hands-on class/lab experience -- Meets twice yearly around United States -- Average week-long meeting attendance over 2000 people -- Next meets in Washington, DC, August 16-21, 1998 (third visit to DC in 20 years) -- Includes 800+ technical sessions in several themed program tracks including Internet/intranets, and full-day tutorials (e.g., All You Wanted to Know About the World Wide Web and TCP/IP, But Were Afraid to Ask; Jump Start to Java Programming; Year 2000 Technologies, Methodologies, and Tools) -- Participation allows networking with colleagues. influencing vendors -- Volunteering builds organizational, presentation, management skills -- Resources enhance business solutions, technical skills, preventive maintenance, career development -- Technology exchange allows dialogue with vendors (e.g., IBM, Computer Associates, Microsoft) -- SHARE is courting/collaborating with Washington-area user groups, raffling free day registrations For more Information: Gabe Goldberg, gabe@acm.org, or ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1998 22:51:01 CST From: CuD Moderators Subject: File 8--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 25 Apr, 1998) Cu-Digest is a weekly electronic journal/newsletter. Subscriptions are available at no cost electronically. CuD is available as a Usenet newsgroup: comp.society.cu-digest Or, to subscribe, send post with this in the "Subject:: line: SUBSCRIBE CU-DIGEST Send the message to: cu-digest-request@weber.ucsd.edu DO NOT SEND SUBSCRIPTIONS TO THE MODERATORS. The editors may be contacted by voice (815-753-6436), fax (815-753-6302) or U.S. mail at: Jim Thomas, Department of Sociology, NIU, DeKalb, IL 60115, USA. 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