HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight)
Subject: Re: EFF and its growing pains...
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 18:17:17 GMT

In article <1jqbhdINNr44@terminator.rs.itd.umich.edu> honey@citi.umich.edu writes:
>david sternlight argues that competition in the long-distance market
>leads to terrible inefficiencies and duplication, with the consumer
>paying higher bills.  this doesn't explain the fact that long-distance
>charges plummeted once the at&t long-distance monopoly was busted up.
>
>but the hell with facts, eh, david?

The facts are that there have been massive technological economies during
the deregulation period. Had AT&T not been broken up, and regulation
continued to force prices to the competitive level by regulatory simulation
(which is the way public utilities theory works in the presence of natural
monopolies), prices would have been even lower.

Further, as a part of deregulation, the subsidy of local service by long
distance was removed. This could just as well have been done without
deregulation, with even better results because of the elimination of
wasteful duplication.

>
>he goes on to claim that "competition only works when a particular set
>of circumstances is present" and appeals to the authority of "introductory 
>economics textbooks."
>
>david, you've intimated that you're pretty old, but you can't predate adam 
>smith!  where are you getting these cockeyed economic theories?!?

Picking a pretty good introductory economics textbook at random, "Economics"
by Bauhmol and Blinder, 1982 p.414:

"A market is said to operate under perfect competition when the following
four conditions are satisfied:

"1.Numerous participants"   This condition isn't met since there are only a
few major carriers, and there would be only a few substitutes for the NREN
under Godwin's proposal.

"2.Homogeniety of product" This is unlikely. Just compare commercial Net
services even today.

"3.Freedom of entry and exit." This won't happen because of massive capital
requirements and high technological skills on the entry side--and the
reluctance of stockholders to leave quickly and abandon a customer base on
the exit side. In fact, if Federal funds are involved there will be explicit
entry and exit controls.

"4.Perfect information" This will only be true if all firms advertise in a
widespread national way, and all know all about their competitors products
and prices.

Thus none of the conditions for perfect competition are met. For more
details, read any introductory text--this is not the place to teach
economics to the uninformed.

As to the rude tone of Peter's message, the less said about that the better.

David

-- 
David Sternlight
RIPEM Public Key on server  --  Consider it an envelope for your e-mail
From: wixer!cactus.org!wixer!pro-smof.cts.com!shiva@cactus.org (System Smof)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: WIRED - new magazine dealing with technology and where it's going
Date: 21 Jan 1993 02:27:09 -0600
Organization: The SMOF-BBS: Science Fiction Online Since 1985 [512-467-7317]
Distribution: inet
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

I wonder if this is a ressurection of Journal Wired?
 ____________________________________________________________________
/                                |                            |      \
|SMOF-BBS 512-467-7317 PCP=TXAUS |"The World's First Online   | __|__ |
|    Proline:  shiva@pro-smof    | Science Fiction Convention"| \_|_/ |
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\________________________________|____________________________|______/

From: David L. Sobel <dsobel@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Date: 26 Jan 93 11:54 PST
Subject: Re: New case for EFF, ACLU, and CPS
Nf-ID: #R:JMC.93Jan22123256@sail.stanford.:-1708743365:cdp:1353000010:000:1008
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!dsobel    Jan 26 11:54:00 1993



In article <1993Jan25.184159.10827@netcom.com> nagle@netcom.com 
(John Nagle) writes:

>      I'm suprised the EFF is exercised about this.  The people involved
>seemed to have been doing something legal, but stupid, in a private mall,
>and they were hassled, but not arrested or injured.  What's the big deal?
>

As previous posts suggest, it appears very likely that the mall police were
acting at the behest of the Secret Service.  If so, what occurred was a
privatized, warrantless search of personal property.  It's a little bit like
Oliver North recruiting "private" operatives to supply the contras after
Congress had explicitly prohibited U.S. government support.  If federal law
enforcement agencies start to "contract out" their investigative tasks
to private groups and individuals not constrained by Fourth Amendment
requirements, we're all in big trouble.  This is why EFF, CPSR and the ACLU
are "exercised" about the incident and intend to learn the truth about what
happened.

- David Sobel


Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
From: Matt.Midboe@f20.n373.z1.fidonet.org (Matt Midboe)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: EFF and its growing p
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 09:31:00 PDT
Organization: FidoNet node 1:373/20 - The Post Offis, Huntsville AL

JH>The Basic ISDN rate is 64,000 Kb/s (x 2 channels, but likely, one would
JH>be voice(telephone) and one would be data).

        Here you forgot to mention that you can use both channels and
increase your throughput to 128,000 Kb/s and can use as many channels as
you want to. This is from the tech guy at the ISDN demonstration that I
saw. Also if the modems need compression to get that fast, why not put
the compression into your ISDN line? It will still be faster!

JH>Add to this the number of modem mfgs which keep prices moving down and
JH>the fact that hooking a modem to a computer is a well understood and
JH>simple process (while these aspects of ISDN seem hazy to most -- this
JH>is especially true out here in the hinterlands [perhaps the perspective
JH>is markedly different on the coasts]).

         Hooking ISDN up from what I saw was not difficult at all. Just
order that ISDN line for your house. Then install the board in your
computer. Sounds vaguely like how I install an internal modem. On the
NeXT it is even easier. You hook up the Hayes Extender, externally and
you are hooked up to ISDN. ISDN is an integration of modem and phone.
This is what you seem to be missing out on.


 * SLMR 2.1a *



--  
uucp: uunet!m2xenix!puddle!373!20!Matt.Midboe
Internet: Matt.Midboe@f20.n373.z1.fidonet.org
From: jcurran@nic.near.net (John Curran)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Internet as a natural monopoly (was: Re: EFF and its growing pains...)
Date: 25 Jan 1993 14:58:44 -0500
Organization: New England Academic and Research Network
Distribution: inet
NNTP-Posting-Host: nic.near.net

In article <1993Jan25.181210.7552@netcom.com> strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight) writes:
>What I am advocating is modern public utility theory--when a natural
>monopoly exists, it should be permitted to gain the cost-side economies of
>such a natural monopoly, and regulated down to competitive pricing on the
>demand side. It should not be "broken up" on some far-fetched political
>argument about "competition" which has no theoretical economic basis
>whatsoever in the case of "natural" monopolies.
>...
>Similarly, I argue that the (call it what you will) Internet
>backbone/NREN/whatever is a natural monopoly. (For those unfamiliar with the
>term, it means that the technical characteristics of the thing mean costs
>are lower if there's one system and one provider. Regulated public utility
>companies are other examples, as I claim are both local and long distance
>phone services.) The lowest cost to the public and the economy results when
>a natural monopoly is permitted to gain monopoly economies of scale on the
>cost side, but is prevented from monopoly pricing by regulation.

Okay, David, it's agreed that a natural monopoly will achieve the lowest
cost of service to the public, given that appropriate regulation is provided.
It's also clear that unless the regulation is _very_ proactive, there will
be very little incentive for research and innovation.

At this point of time, the Internet is not running out of "wires".  The
current telecommunications infrastructure seems more than capable of 
providing access at a reasonable cost, although perhaps not the "ideal" cost.
On the other hand, we are desperately in need of new model for information
publishing, intellectual property rights resolution, authentication deployment,
and work in another dozen R&D areas.

I am sure that the current eclectic organization of the Internet will result
in these needs being met over time, but I have grave doubts about any natural
monopoly recognizing (let alone responding) to these needs.

/John
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
From: gtoal@pizzabox.demon.co.uk (Graham Toal)
Subject: Re: EFF and its growing pains...
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 15:01:42 +0000

:Since the purpose of NREN is, in part, to provide connectivity for
:universities, why not let the universities pick their own providers (like
:PSI)? And once there's enough capital floating around to create competition,
:market forces will tend to create better service offerings at lower prices
:to little guys as well as big guys.

It just doesn't work like that.  We have, as I've mentioned a couple of
times, an internet provider over here who by offering $15/mo slip/ppp
feeds has in *months* bought access to (as of yesterday) SIX HUNDRED
small users.  This was entirely their own effort, because the boss of
the company is a public-spirited guy who just wanted to do it anyway,
without any real hope of making any major profit.  (That it's starting
to turn a profit is excellent news, btw)

However, we didn't get into this situation because of pressure from the
Universities - Universities have entirely different needs to the small
guy on a 14.4K modem (or ISDN as demon will soon offer) and the market
providers for UK Universities just aren't interested in the low end
personal market.  No amount of giving Uni's the freedom to pick their
supplier will have an iota of difference to the cost of Joe Schmo in
Philadelphia getting a feed that'll let him, say, telnet to the Library
of Congress to check the wording of some ordinance that affects him
locally.  (This being the ultimate sort of access EFF is aiming for, no?)

If low-cost providers take off in the US, it'll be because they were
going to happen anyway.  I really don't think EFFs new focus (if it
is new, and simply not that we just never noticed it before because
it was played down in favour of all the good publicity lawsuit stuff)
is going to make a bit of difference, except to the big phone and
cable companies who stand to gain from changes in the regulations.

G
PS You never answered my question - are you being funded by any of
the cable or video companies too?
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
From: tony@morgan.demon.co.uk (Tony Kidson)
Subject: Re: EFF and its growing pains... 
Distribution: world
Organization: Not much.
Reply-To: tony@morgan.demon.co.uk
X-Mailer: Simple NEWS 1.90 (ka9q DIS 1.18)
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 23:57:44 +0000


In article <C17t42.wB@news.iastate.edu> john@iastate.edu writes:

>I think it's all to easy for people to forget that college graduates
>are still a smallish minority.
>

Is that any reason to only aspire to the ideals of the lumpen majority?

Of course college graduates are a minority. Does that mean that popular taste 
must decree what is possible in the world. I submit that this is populist 
democracy taken to rediculous extremes.

Tony


+-----------------+-------------------------------+--------------------------+
| Tony Kidson     |`morgan' is an 8MB  486/33 Cat-| Voice +44 81 466 5127    |
| Morgan Towers,  |Warmer with a 670 MB Hard Disk.| E-Mail                   |
| Morgan Road,    |It  resides at Morgan Towers in| tony@morgan.demon.co.uk  |
| Bromley,        |Beautiful  Down Town  Bromley. | tny@cix.compulink.co.uk  |
| England BR1 3QE |Honda ST1100  ==*==  DoD# 0801 | 100024.301@compuserve.com|
+=================+===============================+==========================+
Xref: sparky comp.org.eff.talk:9050 comp.unix.bsd:11638 comp.unix.wizards:5579 comp.org.usenix:1347
From: hm@hcshh.hcs.de (Hellmuth Michaelis)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,comp.unix.bsd,comp.unix.wizards,comp.org.usenix
Subject: Re: ENOUGH! Re: BSDI/USL Lawsuit -- More Bad News for Human Beings...
Date: 21 Jan 93 08:53:14 GMT
Followup-To: comp.org.eff.talk
Distribution: inet
Organization: HCS GmbH, Hamburg, Europe

In <1993Jan20.230616.25164@igor.tamri.com> jbass@igor.tamri.com (John Bass) writes:

>It's time we get out of the herd mentality and view the USL vs BSDI
>lawsuit as it really is ... a botched attempt by BSDI & Joltz to
>plagiarize UNIX. Let's not make folk heros of them over their petty
>actions. Lets focus instead on the other teams that are bringing us
>our future.

The 'Organisation' header said, it came from Toshiba America. Is Toshiba
now owned by USL or does Toshiba own the USL ? Or does he just want to get
a good job at Novell ?

strange,
hellmuth
-- 
hellmuth michaelis    HCS Hanseatischer Computerservice GmbH   hamburg, europe
hm@hcshh.hcs.de              tel: +49/40/55903-170         fax: +49/40/5591486
From: heller@cs.umass.edu (Robert Heller)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: New case for EFF, ACLU, and CPSR
Date: 25 Jan 93 14:47:13 GMT
Organization: COINS, UMass, Amherst

In article <1347@eplunix.UUCP>, raoul@eplunix.UUCP (Nico Garcia) writes...
>> Someone who's read an issue might volunteer more details? I don't even know
>> if it's paper or on-line.
>>  
>> 			Nico Garcia
>> 			CIRL/MEEI
>> 			eddie.mit.edu!eplunix!raoul

The magazine "2600" is on paper - because it is on actual paper, the SS and law enforcement are particularly irked by it -- that is, they can't just sieze a computer or something, but would have to get a judge to issue a court order, because printed words are protected by the 1st ammendent...  (At least there isn't any question about that.  Electronic words should also be protected, but not all the lawyers agree as to just what a BBS is exactly, and whether or not an eletronically published "magazine" is p

rotected or not...)

		Robert Heller
InterNet:	Heller@CS.UMass.EDU
BIX:		locks.hill.bbs
FidoNet:	1:321/153 (Locks Hill BBS, Wendell, MA)
CompuServe	71450,3432
From: peterme@ocf.berkeley.edu (Peter Merholz)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: EFF and its growing pains...
Date: 25 Jan 1993 21:23:14 GMT
Organization: U. C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
Distribution: inet
NNTP-Posting-Host: headcrash.berkeley.edu

>:  I think that what you are doing is only going to benefit a few
>:entrepeneurs who are planning to develop high-bandwidth services.
>:Entrepeneurs like Mitch Kapor, who says openly "I am trying to make
>:the world a better place for other Mitch Kapor's"
>
>:  It may be worth doing but it is NOT A CIVIL LIBERTIES ISSUE and you
>:all started the EFF to be a CIVIL LIBERTIES organization. You want to
>:play a new game, you really should disband EFF and start a new
>:organization.
>
>Summed up beautifully, thanks Betsy.  I'll leave the last word with you
>and shut up now unless anything is directed at me personally. I think
>I've put all my points and don't think further reiteration will help
>until EFF have a long think about their direction.
>
>G
>PS What shall we call it?  Electronic Civil Liberties Union?

I assent with Graham and Betsy. What we are seeing now is no longer EFF, or
at least the original EFF, and something must swiftly arrive to fill the
civil liberties vacuum. While EFF is continuing token concessions to civil
liberties (e.g., continued help in Steve Jackson's case), it's obvious shift
to policy/lobbying organization and closure of the Cambridge office will
obviously diminish their ability to protect rights in cyberspace. I think it
must be said that people wouldn't mind the new Washington lobbying efforts,
as long as some concerted civil liberties arm of EFF remained intact.
However, with the "renegotiations" with Mike Godwin, among other acts, we
concerned folks remain ill at ease.

I have only recently become interested in the legal issues of cyberspace,
to the extent that I am seriously considering attending law school so that I
can actually make a difference in the future. Seeing the EFF seemingly shun
it's civil liberties mission is disheartening for me. There are obviously
still many people concerned, and perhaps Graham is right, perhaps we should
have an "Electronic Civil Liberties Union."

--Peter M.

-- 
*****************************************************************************
Peter Merholz			*   MY GOD  * "Good thing we were wearing our
Research Assistant/		*    WHAT   *  extra thick socks."
  Undergraduate F*ck-up		*   HAVE I  *  -Dangermouse, after falling 
UC Berkeley			*   DONE?!  *   off a cliff.
*****************************************************************************
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
From: tony@morgan.demon.co.uk (Tony Kidson)
Subject: Re: Consumption tax...Oh no! 
Distribution: world
Organization: Not much.
Reply-To: tony@morgan.demon.co.uk
X-Mailer: Simple NEWS 1.90 (ka9q DIS 1.18)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 11:02:38 +0000


In article <1993Jan25.235024.13664@ico.isc.com> timhu@ico.isc.com writes:

>I was just listening to NPR ATC. I suppose that we're starting to look a lot
> like Canada. Not
>that Canada's bad or anything, but the VAT sure is.


Actually, if you've got to have taxes, VAT is a far better tax than income 
tax.

Tony

+-----------------+-------------------------------+--------------------------+
| Tony Kidson     |`morgan' is an 8MB  486/33 Cat-| Voice +44 81 466 5127    |
| Morgan Towers,  |Warmer with a 670 MB Hard Disk.| E-Mail                   |
| Morgan Road,    |It  resides at Morgan Towers in| tony@morgan.demon.co.uk  |
| Bromley,        |Beautiful  Down Town  Bromley. | tny@cix.compulink.co.uk  |
| England BR1 3QE |Honda ST1100  ==*==  DoD# 0801 | 100024.301@compuserve.com|
+=================+===============================+==========================+
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
From: john@iastate.edu (John Hascall)
Subject: More details on Iowa Comm. Net (was Re: What the State of Iowa ...)
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 19:28:52 GMT

callahan@vax.oxford.ac.uk writes:
}john@iastate.edu (John Hascall) writes:
}> Here is a brief sketch of what the State of Iowa is currently doing.
}> 
}> The Iowa Communications Network is a network of fiber being laid
}> to a `point of presence' in each of Iowa's 99 (rather smallish)
}> counties.  From there, connections will be made to each of the
}> 3 State Universities, the dozen or so Community colleges, and other
}> interested private colleges.  Then connections are envisioned to
}> all (~500) public school systems.  Then connections to the state's
}> public libraries (roughly another 500).  Also connecting will be
}> various state agencies and interested companies.

}Fascinating.  Could you tell us more about the technical details?
}What speed are these links, what kind of traffic do they/will they
}carry, what are they used for?

It is tree structured (with extra links at the leaves for fault tolerance).

There is roughly 2000 miles of fiber in the ground, 600 more to go.

The Core Network is to migrate from Frame Relay to SMDS (Switched
Multimegabit Data Services) to ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode).
I have heard a figure of 2+Gb/s.

Iowa Public TV is already using it to transmit signal to its outlying
repeater UHF stations.

I do not believe the state intends to make this a free-for-all -- that
is, agencies/schools/businesses will pay to use the network (I have no
idea what the charging structure will look like).

If you want to hear more from the horse's mouth:

    Department of General Services
    Communications Division
    Hoover State Office Building
    Des Moines, Iowa 50319-0102

John
-- 
John Hascall                   ``An ill-chosen word is the fool's messenger.''
Systems Software Engineer
Project Vincent
Iowa State University Computation Center  +  Ames, IA  50011  +  515/294-9551
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
From: gtoal@pizzabox.demon.co.uk (Graham Toal)
Subject: A test of the New EFF...
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 18:25:51 +0000

OK, forgetting all the past spilt milk, and taking the new EFF direction
at face value: what's the EFF's position on the current major controversy
over individual use of encryption technologies to keep their mail
private?  This is *exactly* the sort of area you seem to be talking
about, when you emphasise the independance of the big new network
from the government.  And with people's packets travelling over lots
of big corporations networks, we'll *need* to encrypt to preserve basic
industrial security of sensitive business information.

Are you willing to stand up to persuade Congress to legitimatize use
of packages like PGP and RIPEM?  (Both are currently unusable in a
global context - RIPEM is restricted to the US and PGP may be restricted
to outside the US only - the details are currently a bit confused, but
we *need* changes in US law to put it all on a solid footing.)

This is of course directly in opposition to the seedier underbelly of
the US Govt who'd prefer us to send everything in clear with a cc: to
the NSA...  is EFF up to taking on a popular (except with the govt)
cause that *isn't* sponsored by a large telecom organisation?

G
PS My opinion is that whether NREN is supported by the govt or by
private capital is irrelevant to issues like this, where the govt
will intervene no matter who runs the 'anarchy' of the wires...
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
From: jrk@sys.uea.ac.uk (Richard Kennaway)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,uk.net
Subject: Re: Anyone heard of UK proposal to licence BBSes?
Date: 22 Jan 93 19:10:39 GMT
Organization: UEA School of Information Systems, Norwich, UK.

In <6543@mccuts.uts.mcc.ac.uk> zzassgl@uts.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Lane) writes:
>Wouldn't be a lot cheaper for FAST just to dial into the known boards every
>so often and warn or prosecute those with copyright s/w on offer rather than
>spend thousands getting the law changed, licence authority set up and the
>STILL having to dial all the suspected unlicenced BBSs to see if they exist
>and then take them to court.  

The licence fee pays for it, of course.  Why spend money harassing
people when you can force them to pay for it themselves?

--                                ____
Richard Kennaway                  \ _/__    School of Information Systems
Internet:  jrk@sys.uea.ac.uk       \X  /    University of East Anglia
uucp:  ...mcsun!ukc!uea-sys!jrk      \/     Norwich NR4 7TJ, U.K.
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
From: Mitchell Kapor <mkapor@eff.org>
Subject: Re: WIRED - new magazine dealing with technology and where it's going
X-Xxmessage-Id: <A785895B820290C9@mkatra.eff.org>
X-Xxdate: Fri, 22 Jan 93 16:22:03 GMT
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation, Inc.
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d12
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 16:22:00 GMT

In article <1993Jan20.080751.2848@pro-smof.cts.com> System Smof,
wixer!cactus.org!wixer!pro-smof.cts.com!shiva@cactus.org writes:
>I wonder if this is a ressurection of Journal Wired?

I don't think so.  The principals used to put out "Electric Word".
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,uk.net