HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: [news.admin.policy]  Re: Jim Bowery's offensive posting
Followup-To: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,news.admin.policy
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 14:15:47 GMT

[A repost - Carl]

Newsgroups: news.admin.policy
From: dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov (Dave Hayes)
Subject:  Re: Jim Bowery's offensive posting
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 13:10:03 GMT

jgd@dixie.com (John De Armond) writes:
>Carl's appointed himself world-wide guardian of politically correct free
>speech.  Best way to handle it is to simply put him in your kill file.

Hmmm....looks like more ELITISM (post only what we think you should post)
from news admins. Way to go Mr De Armond.
-- 
Dave Hayes - Network & Communications Engineering - JPL / NASA - Pasadena CA
dave@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov       dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov         ...usc!elroy!dxh

Nobody wants constructive criticism.  It's all we can do to put up with
constructive praise.
-- 
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent any organization; this is just me.
 = kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: brad@clarinet.com (Brad Templeton)
Subject: Re: Prodigy summary, anyone?
Organization: ClariNet Communications Corp.
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 22:18:48 GMT

In article <8010@news.duke.edu> jfw@neuro.duke.edu (John F. Whitehead) writes:
>I am familiar with their policies of censoring bulletin board
>discussions and restricting email, and even tried it out for a month

I have not heard of these policies.  I know they edit and approve all BB
postings, as the New York Times edits and approves all letters to the
editor.  I have never heard the nasty word censorship applied to the process
at the NYT.

Nor have I heard that they limit E-mail.  They charge for E-mail after 30
messages.  Many other systems also charge for E-mail.

If you're going to be critical of Prodigy, do so -- but get it right.
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Sunnyvale, CA 408/296-0366
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: greeny@eff.org (J S Greenfield)
Subject: Re: Prodigy summary, anyone?
Originator: greeny@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 06:41:26 GMT

In article <1992Dec16.221848.75@clarinet.com> brad@clarinet.com (Brad Templeton) writes:

>>I am familiar with their policies of censoring bulletin board
>>discussions and restricting email, and even tried it out for a month
>
>I have not heard of these policies.  I know they edit and approve all BB
>postings, as the New York Times edits and approves all letters to the
>editor.  I have never heard the nasty word censorship applied to the process
>at the NYT.

My understanding of the policies of Prodigy (as are reflected by a few previous
posts in this thread) sounds substantially different from yours.  I don't see
an analogy between the policies of the Prodigy censors, and the presumed
policies of the NYT editorial editors.

Furthermore, I don't see a reasonable analogy between the two examples.  A
bulleting board system is decidely different from a newspaper "letters" page.
For one thing, you don't have the same kind of severe space restrictions
that a newspaper has.

Presumably, the process of picking and choosing letters to be published in a
newspaper is justified by the space limitations (and, perhaps on rare occasions
by other concerns, such as the case of material that the paper has good reason
to believe is libelous).

But this justification is inapplicable to Prodigy's policies.

If a newspaper were selecting its "letters" page material on other bases--
for example, in order to suppress letters with which they disagreed or
which contained information they didn't want disseminated, then *I* would
use that nasty term "censorship" to describe the action.  (And in fact,
I *have* used this term to describe such activities, before.)

What's more, unlike authors of letters-to-the-editor, Prodigy users *pay*
to be able to take part in a discussion.


>Nor have I heard that they limit E-mail.  They charge for E-mail after 30
>messages.  Many other systems also charge for E-mail.

I am under the impression that the Prodigy censors do randomly read email,
and delete "unacceptable" message--though I am not sure of this.  If so,
this poses a serious privacy problem, as well as a serious censorship
problem.


-- 
J. S. Greenfield                                         greeny@top.cis.syr.edu
(I like to put 'greeny' here,                            greeny@eff.org 
but my d*mn system wants a 
*real* name!)                        "What's the difference between an orange?"
From: schuyler@acf9.nyu.edu (Gabriel M. Schuyler)
Subject: Open Access Computing NOW
Originator: daemon@eff.org
Organization: EFF mail-news gateway
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 21:33:15 GMT

From my reading of the past few months of CAFnews, it has come to my
attention that we are all fighting our own separate battles with the
adminstration of academic computing facilities.  I recently transfered from
UC Santa Cruz to New York University and was appalled to see that NYU does
not have a policy of giving a full UNIX account to the students.

You can get a VAX Shell that lets you use mail and telnet, but FTP is out
of the question.  It requires a faculty sponsor to get an account, and
since I am not currently enrolled in a CS class, I had to ask the dean of
the college to sign the form that would allow me a UNIX account.

Basically, I believe that access to the internet is an information resource
like any other (e.g. the library) and that the University should allow
access to the internet to all students without question.

So, what I'd like to see is a UNIFIED front on getting complete access to
the Internet for all students.  I propose an organization of students,
faculty, sysadmins &c with a document describing an "Open Access Computing
Policy" that we could get signed by people across the country.

This way, we can have a piece of paper with endorsements from the leaders
of the industry that we can give to the computing department and the board
of directors of our colleges and propose that they adopt it, so that all
students can have access to the Internet.

I only read the caf-news, so please reply in a manner that will reach me. 
I am willing to put a lot of work into this.  If you've got ideas, or would
like to see an Open Access Computing Policy at your university, please send
me e-mail.

It's about time someone ensured Open Access for all students at all
Universities.  All aboard. . . ?

-Gabe
-----
Gabriel M. Schuyler   -  55 second ave #3    -   Macintosh Consultant
schuyler@acf9.nyu.edu -  New York, ny 10003  -   Pager: 917.879.0345

     

Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: bh516@cleveland.freenet.edu (Dave Bostrom)
Subject: (none)
Originator: daemon@eff.org
Reply-To: bh516@cleveland.freenet.edu (Dave Bostrom)
Organization: EFF mail-news gateway
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1992 15:26:04 GMT



unsub comp-academic-freedom
Xref: sparky alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk:3745 comp.org.eff.talk:7659 comp.security.misc:2239 alt.privacy:2624
From: williamt@athena.Eng.Sun.COM (Dances with Drums)
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.org.eff.talk,comp.security.misc,alt.privacy
Subject: Re: CERT and the Dept. of Justice on keystroke monitoring
Date: 14 Dec 1992 21:58:16 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems Inc., Mountain View, CA
Reply-To: williamt@athena.Eng.sun.com (Dances with Drums)
NNTP-Posting-Host: athena

In article <1992Dec11.035315.7461@mtu.edu> mrmach@mtu.edu writes:
>    Anyway, I just couldn't see what the fuss was all about, so I sent
>the following story/comments to our lab director and mentioned that he
>should just forward it to anybody else that complained.
>
>Forwarded message follows:
>>    John Q. Public was hired as the night custodian of a large office
>>building.  He was given all the keys to the building, and was told that
>>the entire building was his responsibility.  Though he had access to
>>every single room, he usually didn't go prowling around in people's
>>offices, since he thought that would be rude, and inconsiderate of
>>their privacy.
>>
>>    Time passed on, and John continued working.  Once in a while, he
>>thought he smelled smoke coming from one of the offices, or saw a
>>shadow moving around inside, so he would go inside and make sure that
>>everything was safe.
---
	Like a custodian is going to investigate a burglar.  Most companies
would fire such a custodian -- it isn't his job to police and it
is likely to get him killed if stumbled on a real burglar.

>>  Of course, he didn't think he was invading
>>anybody's privacy when he did so.  If anything, he was doing them a
>>favor by ensuring that their offices weren't burning down or being
>>burgled while they were away!  In fact, many people thanked John for
>>keeping the building running so smoothly and efficiently.
---

	A more realistic analogy would be the installation of surveilance
cameras in each office -- to watch for burglars and or hazards, or
course.

--
1935 will go down in history.  For the first time, a civilized nation has
full gun registration.  Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient,
and the world will follow our lead into the future.
                         --Adolf Hitler
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: [news.admin.policy]  Re: Jim Bowery's offensive posting
Followup-To: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,news.admin.policy
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 14:15:33 GMT

[A repost - Carl]

Newsgroups: news.admin.policy
From: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject:  Re: Jim Bowery's offensive posting
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 05:03:32 GMT

In article <Bz7AoC.HAJ@cs.uiuc.edu> kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) writes:

>CAF-News has had several articles about how much news admin should
>enforce the charters of unmoderated newsgroup. I'm enclosing
>references to those articles.

stanley@skyking.OCE.ORST.EDU (John Stanley) writes:

>Who is CAF-News, and who put them in a position of authority over all
>news admins? I.e., who cares what CAF-News thinks news admins should be
>doing?

CAF-News is just newsgroup alt.comp.acad-freedom.news. It neither has,
nor claims, authority over any news admins. Its articles, like the
articles in news.admin.policy, are just the opinion of their authors.

- Carl

ANNOTATED REFERENCES

(All these documents are available on-line. Access information follows.)

=================
caf
=================
* About the CAF mailing lists (and newsgroups)

A description of the comp-academic-freedom-talk mailing list. It is a
free-forum for the discussion of questions such as: How should general
principles of academic freedom (such as freedom of expression, freedom
to read, due process, and privacy) be applied to university computers
and networks? How are these principles actually being applied? How can
the principles of academic freedom as applied to computers and
networks be defended?

=================
=================

If you have gopher, you can browse the CAF archive with the command
   gopher gopher.eff.org

These document(s) are also available by anonymous ftp (the preferred
method) and by email. To get the file(s) via ftp, do an anonymous ftp
to ftp.eff.org (192.88.144.4), and get file(s):

  pub/academic/caf

To get the file(s) by email, send email to archive-server@eff.org.
Include the line(s) (be sure to include the space before the file
name):

send acad-freedom caf
-- 
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent any organization; this is just me.
 = kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
-- 
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent any organization; this is just me.
 = kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.org.eff.talk,comp.security.misc,alt.privacy
From: bear@tigger.cs.Colorado.EDU (Bear Giles)
Subject: Re: CERT and the Dept. of Justice on keystroke monitoring
Organization: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Adminstration / Boulder Labs
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 18:12:17 GMT

In article <1992Dec17.160222.1313@colorado.edu> bear@tigger.cs.Colorado.EDU (Bear Giles) writes:
>In article <b+arapg@dixie.com> jgd@dixie.com (John De Armond) writes:
>>The 
>>point is, it is the owner of the resource's right to set the rules
>>anyway he so chooses.  
>
>If someone contracts for use of computer resources, does not that person
>_own_ in some sense those resources?
>
>What you're saying implies that if I rent time on a system, develop
>a commercial product, then get undercut by the owner of that system
>I have no recourse because he "owns" the system I rented and everything
>on it, even if I paid hard money in return for CPU cycles and mass storage?

I was in a hurry when I posted this earlier, so let me try to put this
a little more formally.

If I lease a resource, be it computer time or an apartment, I expect the
property owner to _assign_ me most property rights.  For instance, my landlord 
may _not_ enter my apartment willy-nilly nor give permission for others, e.g.,
the police, to do so.  They must provide _at least_ 24 hours notice of when
and why they wish to enter my apartment unless there is clear evidence of
immediate danger; e.g., smoke billowing out of the windows.

They retain the right to sell the property and we agree contractually to
other limitations (e.g., no structural changes), but as a first approximation
they have temporarily surrendered their property rights to me.

Likewise, if I pay for computer access I expect the sysop to stay out of
my files and processes unless I give explicit permission, provided I stay
within my own directory tree and public spaces (e.g., /tmp), etc.  (Obviously,
if I try changing files in /bin the sysop has a legitimate need to ask what
I'm doing).

They can refuse to do so, but if so they should be absolutely explicit about
it because many people, including myself, find that untolerable.

"Property rights" are not as clear-cut as you assume.  The owner of a
computer system, like an apartment complex owner, has the right to ensure
that the physical system is protected but the data on it, like the contents
of the apartements in a complex, belong to the individuals who have leased
the use of the resources.

BTW, the University of Colorado requires a "computing fee" be paid by the
students, so the students are directly paying for the use of such resources;
it isn't simply provided out of the philanthropy.

-- 
Bear Giles
bear@fsl.noaa.gov/cs.colorado.edu
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: greeny@top.cis.syr.edu (J. S. Greenfield)
Subject: Re: Chain letters?
Organization: Syracuse University, CIS Dept.
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 92 15:46:59 EST

In article <1992Dec15.070135.13514@pegasus.com> tleylan@pegasus.com (Tom Leylan) writes:
>
>>If "chain letter" means any "letter written with an invitation to the
>>recipient to pass it on to another", then letter in question might be
>>a chain letter, but any rule that prohibits such chain letters to too
>>broad.
>
>>Finally, the uncertainty in the meaning of the word "chain letter",
>>means that the rule is too vague.
>
>Carl:  It's going to be difficult to discuss this until we get a clear
>definition of the terms "uncertainty" and "vague".  Do you mean vague
>in the sense of "vague" or simply "vague" ?

Carl's making a serious point.  I think you're just being silly...


>Perhaps it requires a metallic chain to be enclosed to qualify under
>somebody's definition... is this the one the you want to use ?

How about if I email my resume to a friend saying, "Feel free to
send a copy of my resume to anyone you know who may be interested."

Is this a chain letter?

How about one sayin, "Here's a good joke I just heard..."


I believe this demonstrates the point that Carl was trying to make.


-- 
J. S. Greenfield                                         greeny@top.cis.syr.edu
(I like to put 'greeny' here, 
but my d*mn system wants a 
*real* name!)                        "What's the difference between an orange?"
From: s_titz@ira.uka.de (Olaf Titz)
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
Subject: Re: Chain letters?
Date: 12 Dec 1992 13:55:22 GMT
Organization: Fachschaft math/inf, Uni Karlsruhe, FRG
NNTP-Posting-Host: irau30.ira.uka.de

In article <cwis.724110716@cwis> cwis@cwis.unomaha.edu (Campus Wide Information Service) writes:
>
>	Hi.  Please allow me to introduce myself:  I'm the bad guy in this
>scenario (i.e. the system administrator).  I believe strongly in rights to

From your posting, you're not a bad guy at all to me :-)

>...
>as possible.  Mailing it to recipients one or twenty at a time is far less
>efficient than posting it to a newsgroup and effecting site-wide (or possibly
>world-wide) distribution.  That is, after all, the purpose of news:  to annoy
>as many people as possible at once with one's opinions.

Hopefully you didn't want the newsgroups into *that* letter got posted
to be shut down **even if someone complains about the message**.

I agree with you almost totally. Since news is way more efficient as a
medium for wide distribution of material as anything else (mailing
lists, or something else; with chain letters at the bottom), it should
be used where possible. (Another example are the comp.
[sources,binaries]  groups - much better sending things over them than
FTPing across the Atlantic several hundred times.)

However, you must be aware that news usually is the thing affected
first when it comes to restrictions. Any single complaint may affect
the service to several hundred users, and cause even more damage
(literally - im terms of wasted resources) if users start to read news
from remote servers and posting via ucbvax.

>the same policy prohibits non-academic use of the system.  We have been very
>generous to date with our interpretation of what constitutes academic use;
>if you can explain to me the academic purpose of that letter, I would be very
>interested in hearing about it.

To all of the people who complained that the prohibition of
chain-lettering violates their academic freedom, especially in this
case: go get a life!  Although I strongly oppose any censorship or
other restrictions without technical reasons, I think that responsible
use of facilities and common sense are far more important than words
in the law books. Freedom and responsibility should be paired. If you
get a complaint by your sysadmin regarding (e.g.) mass-mailing, you
should first not complain in return, but ask yourself: 'Was that
really necessary?' 

More open-mindedness on both sides can improve the general climate
better than any strict enforcement of rules.

Olaf

-- 
| Olaf Titz - comp.sc.student  |   o     | uknf@dkauni2.bitnet | old address |
| univ. of karlsruhe - germany |  _>\ _  | s_titz@ira.uka.de   | is still    |
| +49-721-60439                | (_)<(_) | praetorius@irc      | valid       |
  "My heart is human - my blood is boiling - my brain IBM" - Mr. Roboto
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: greeny@top.cis.syr.edu (J. S. Greenfield)
Subject: Re: Jim Bowery's offensive posting
Organization: Syracuse University, CIS Dept.
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 92 11:16:48 EST

In article <1992Dec11.125001.24179@lmpsbbs.comm.mot.com> bhv@areaplg2.corp.mot.com (Bronis Vidugiris) writes:

>)
>)We have been receiving a number of requests to censure Mr. Bowery for
>)his post (F81iVB1w165w@netlink.cts.com).  
>)
>)NetLink is a public access system, and provides access for people to
>)exchange ideas and opinions -- any opinions, not just those that are
>)"politically correct."  
>)
>)However, Mr. Bowery's post was in violation of soc.motss charter and
>)was also innapropriate for the other groups as well.  He has been 
>)counseled about proper net etiquette, and had his posting access temporarily
>)suspended.
>
>I'm curious as to whether alt.acad-freedom readers think that Bowery has
>been given adequate due process here or not.

How could we know?  The sysadmin's note does not specify what process was
used to determine the presence of a violation and/or allow Mr. Bowery to
defend himself.  Without such information, we can only make guesses as
to what happened.


-- 
J. S. Greenfield                                         greeny@top.cis.syr.edu
(I like to put 'greeny' here, 
but my d*mn system wants a 
*real* name!)                        "What's the difference between an orange?"
Newsgroups: uno.cwis,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: cwis@cwis.unomaha.edu (Campus Wide Information Service)
Subject: Re: Chain letters?
Organization: University of Nebraska at Omaha
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 00:41:17 GMT

	Thank you, Wes Morgan (morgan@engr.uky.edu), for your support.  Also,
thank you Olaf Titz (s_titz@ira.uka.de), J. S. Greenfield (greeny@eff.org),
Carl Kadie (kadie@eff.org), and E. Schwartz (betsys@cs.umb.edu) for sharing
your insights and experiences.  They are certainly helpful in determining how
these actions can be and often are perceived.


	Mike
---
Michael S. McMahon, System Manager             Computing & Data Communications
cwis@unomaha.edu                               University of Nebraska at Omaha
Xref: sparky alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk:3715 sci.econ:9348 misc.jobs.misc:8228 misc.education:5194 sci.bio:4543 sci.chem:5365 sci.edu:1230 sci.math:16789 sci.physics:21008
From: paladin@west.darkside.com (Paladin)
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.org.eff.talk,comp.security.misc,alt.privacy
Subject: Re: CERT and the Dept. of Justice on keystroke monitoring
Date: 17 Dec 92 22:29:47 GMT
Organization: The Dark Side of the Moon +1 408 245 SPAM

olson@dstl86.gsfc.nasa.gov (Paul Olson) writes:

> In article <1992Dec15.002556.28396@colorado.edu>, bear@tigger.cs.Colorado.EDU
> >[stuff deleted]
> >will have a harder time making such a blanket rule.  (How would the
> >presence of barely-perceptable THC in the cashier at the local
> >McDonalds affect public safety?)
> >[stuff deleted]
> 
> Gee, maybe the person comes to work a bit stoned, doesn't wash his/her hands
> after using the restroom and touches your food (the cashiers do set up your
> fries and Coke).  You eat the food contract typhoid.  Don't believe it?  It
> happened out here a couple of years ago.  Let's face it, drugs make you stupi
> When you're stupid, you forget safety precautions, no matter what job you hav
> 
> >-- 
> >Bear Giles
> >bear@fsl.noaa.gov/cs.colorado.edu
> 
>        __  Paul J. Olson - VAX Systems Manager & Resident Amiga Addict 
>   C=  ///  Voice -     301/286-4246, 301725-5501                       
>  __  ///   DECnet-    DSTL86::OLSON                                    
>  \\\///    Internet - olson@dstl86.gsfc.nasa.gov                       
>   \XX/     Disclaimer: Statements in my messages are wholely my own.   
>   AMIGA    "[the universe originated] as a quantum fluctuation         
>             of absolutely nothing." - Guth & Steinhardt                    

wow...

Spoken like an OSHA official.
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk