HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: U15289@UICVM.UIC.EDU
Subject: Re: Question on sexual harassment
Originator: daemon@eff.org
Organization: EFF mail-news gateway
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 17:25:17 GMT

WRT Jim Thomas' hypothetical on a fabricated pornographic GIF of an actual
woman:  it might be actionable as a reputational tort (slander, libel) or as a
privacy tort (presentation in a false light).  Both the GIF itself, and the
associated communications to the woman depicted, might or might not violate
internal regulations of the university computer center regarding prohibited
uses of the system.  (The dissemination of viruses, _per se_, would probably
constitute such a violation, as would the use of email and/or other aspects
of the net for purposes of personal harassment, assuming that the actions in
question were held to be that.)

Intuitively, however, I do not think that any of this fits the commonly used,
formal definition of sexual harassment, however offensive the woman in question
may happen to find it.  For one thing, the fact that the woman is non-universi-
ty, in itself, takes it out of the reach of university regulations on sexual
harassment; by the same token, the creator of the GIF would probably be outside
the jurisdiction of the in-house regulations of any other place where its
circulation might have the practical effect of rendering the environment host-
ile for the woman.

                                              Mitch Pravatiner
                                              U15289@uicvm.uic.edu
                                              (not licensed to practice law)
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: [aus.aarnet]  Re: Aarnet should not be pornographic!
Followup-To: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,aus.aarnet
Originator: kadie@eff.org
Organization: The Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 07:48:01 GMT

[A repost - Carl]

From: dclunie@pax.tpa.com.au (David Clunie)
Newsgroups: aus.aarnet
Subject:  Re: Aarnet should not be pornographic!
Date: 7 Jan 1993 02:32:33 GMT

In article 18232@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU, gja@mullian.ee.mu.oz.au (Grenville Armitage) writes:
>In article <1ibbrfINN2hp@flash.pax.tpa.com.au> dclunie@pax.tpa.com.au writes:
>>Can you watch a movie in this country 
>>that has not been approved by someone else ?
>>They actually take bits out and say
>>"no I don't think the likes of Grenville should see this" and you never do.
>	[..]
>>Of course I guess you are not truly censored.
>
>You've missed a perfect analogy. The govt may censor a particular "newsfeed"
>(TV, public video libraries, etc) - but I'm still able to get almost any
>movie direct from the source on tape, no? So, no I'm not really censored.

The tapes that are available in this country are not necessarily an uncensored
product. In fact in many cases they are "tame" releases that have been specially
made for consumption in countries like this. If you directly import movies that
have not been approved by the censor then you are breaching customs regulations -
just read the declaration for instance for "unaccompanied goods" of returning
travellers - it specifically mentions videotapes.

The "Uncensored Director's Cut" of many movies would not be legal to import into
this country.

Furthermore, Scandinavian-style pornography that you might choose to watch is not
legal to import, or even possess, in this country. If you have it, you must have
imported it and it is quite legal for customs agents to raid your home and seize it.

> So few people are truly censored,
>because the instances of true censorship (where _all_ possible avenues
>of access to XYZ are blocked or removed) apply to few activities in
>our society.

If you want to break the law then this is undoubtedly the case.

If you think you have had access to anything you want in this country, then you have
led a pretty sheltered existence, or have broken a lot of laws !

david

-- 
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
 =kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: U15289@UICVM.UIC.EDU
Subject: Personal Computer requirements
Originator: daemon@eff.org
Organization: EFF mail-news gateway
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 21:26:03 GMT

WRT the query last week in these pages on whether a university should require
students to buy personal computers:  it all boils down to whom the university
wants to shift many of the computing costs to, itself or its students.  By
making students shell out hundreds of bucks per capita for the hard-drive-
equipped PC's needed to run the microcomputer releases of many statistical
packages, a school saves itself the cost of maintaining as much hardware and
software on the multiuser system; but the students are therefore deprived of
the additional power and features that reside in the mainframe releases of
this software.  Overall, it is better to give students accounts on a fully
equipped system then to force them to buy and equip microcomputers of their
own.
                                              Mitch Pravatiner
                                              U15289@uicvm.uic.edu
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: [aus.aarnet]  Re: Aarnet should not be pornographic!
Followup-To: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,aus.aarnet
Originator: kadie@eff.org
Organization: The Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 07:45:28 GMT

[A repost - Carl]

Newsgroups: aus.aarnet
From: root@cltr.uq.oz.au (Hulk Hogan)
Subject:  Re: Aarnet should not be pornographic!
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 04:16:50 GMT

anthony@cs.uq.oz.au (Anthony Lee) writes:
[deleted... but in summary, he said that although there is no hard evidence
 linking porn to sexual assault, and although the majority of people can
 handle it, the fact that some people can't, and as a result commit sexual
 assaults means we should voluntarily limit it..]

People who are mentally unhinged and likely to murder/rape whatever may
well well do it after viewing porn... but may also do it after viewing 
R-rated materials, or sex scenes in M-rated movies, or reading Playboy,
or Penthouse, or People, or the bible.  If we were to ban/restrict
everything in the society that can cause people who are unstable to
commit crimes, there would be little left.  The loonies will respond to 
ANYthing and EVERYthing, because they ARE unstable.

Just because knives are sharp doesn't mean no one should have them. 
Someone said to me recently,"porn makes good poeple better, and bad
people worse". I think she was right.

Put simply, I believe it's better to remove the unstable people from the
society, than to try remove all the items from the society that can
provoke the unstable people.

/\ndy
--
Andrew M. Jones,  Systems Programmer, 	Email: {root,andy}@lingua.cltr.uq.oz.au
Centre for Lang. Teaching & Research, 	UUCP: uunet!lingua.cltr.uq.oz.au!andy
University of Queensland,  St. Lucia, 	Phone: +61  7 365 6915 (Use 07 in Oz)
Brisbane,  Qld. AUSTRALIA  4072    	Fax: +61 7 365 7077    IRC: HulkHogan

"No matter what hits the fan, it's never distributed evenly....."
-- 
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
 =kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: [aus.aarnet]  Re: Aarnet should not be pornographic!
Followup-To: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,aus.aarnet
Originator: kadie@eff.org
Organization: The Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 07:47:05 GMT

[A repost - Carl]

Newsgroups: aus.aarnet
From: ggr@koonda.acci.com.au (Greg Rose)
Subject:  Re: Aarnet should not be pornographic!
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 06:12:46 GMT

[various talk about deleting pornographic material glossed over]

>i.e. basically do they meet the AARNet guidelines for acceptable use. If
>the answer is no, then they should be eliminated.

I think it would be great to get rid of all the stuff that doesn't meet
the AARNet or NSFnet guidelines. Then there might be enough pressure
created to get the guidelines changed or removed entirely. Then we
could go back to using peer pressure to make the network run the right
way. (You didn't know about peer pressure? Post a message about
deleting pornography to, say, talk.rape, and see what happens. (No,
don't tell me that rape and pornography are not the same thing, as
that is not the point -- you can't possibly justify deleting one and
not the other -- anyway, the point is that your incoming mailbox
traffic (both for and against) (Do you like nested parentheses? (Shut
up!)) might well get your network feed stopped.))

Personally, I think that the news network is a whole new social
phenomenon, and it is way too early to start imposing older types of
constraints on it. The WHOLE DAMN THING is simply a BIG experiment,
and in my opinion meets the guidelines admirably, except that
commercial traffic is still excluded (but then, that is a problem with
the experiment, not the guidelines).
--
Greg Rose                 Australian Computing and Communications Institute
ggr@acci.com.au                                              +61 18 174 842
`Use of the standard phrase "HIJACKED" may be inadvisable' -- CAA
-- 
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
 =kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: [aus.aarnet]  Re: Aarnet should not be pornographic!
Followup-To: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,aus.aarnet
Originator: kadie@eff.org
Organization: The Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 07:50:00 GMT

[A repost - Carl]

Newsgroups: aus.aarnet
From: Quinn <quinn@cs.uwa.edu.au>
Subject:  Re: Aarnet should not be pornographic!
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 00:05:47 GMT

Oh god, the thread continues...

In article <1igqfaINNi90@flash.pax.tpa.com.au> David Clunie,
dclunie@pax.tpa.com.au writes:
>There are two groups of women involved in the pornography debate: those 
>opposed to it, and those in favour of it. Those women in favour of 
>pornography are, like the 'collaborateurs' in France during WWII, like
that 
>because they feel that the world cannot be changed (and will not be), so 
>that they may as well make the most out of their lot in the
male-dominated 
>world.

This is *totally* untrue.  A significant group of respected feminists
are in favour of pornography simply because they feel that banning it
sets a bad precedent.  Minorities (and women are most definitely
a minority in terms of power) suffer badly in a censored society.

Quinn "The Eskimo!"      <quinn@cs.uwa.edu.au>     "Support HAVOC!"
Department of Computer Science, The University of Western Australia
  -- Happy New Year!
  -- If you don't believe me take a swim in soc.feminism.
-- 
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
 =kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: [aus.aarnet]  Aarnet should not be pornographic!
Followup-To: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,aus.aarnet
Originator: kadie@eff.org
Organization: The Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 07:44:00 GMT

[A repost - Carl]

Newsgroups: aus.aarnet
Subject:  Aarnet should not be pornographic!
From: ryanph@mrluv2.dsto.oz.au
Date: 22 Dec 92 08:53:00 +1100

 

       +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
      
          Pornography available via Internet News!

       +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The Internet newsgroup, alt.binaries.pictures.erotica, is just a forum for
pornographic images to be exchanged worldwide.

Since pornography is demeaning to women, I believe the AarNet and any other
Australian network, should not be subscribing to such rubbish.

Recently, images of nude women chained up and tied up have graced the pages of
this 'news'group. This does not, in my opinion, fall within the usage
guidelines of AarNet.

There are at least three reasons to remove this newsgroup and any others which
are similarly demeaning to women:

	1) The images are pornographic, not 'erotic': consult any of your
female colleagues for their opinions

	2) The images are largely _illegally_ scanned-in images from
pornographic magazines (so that there is copyright infringement)

	3) The usage of these images is NOT one of the uses of AarNet that our
employers want to be paying for

Other reasons to remove the group (and any similar groups):

	* the scandal that would be attached to Aarnet and the Internet more
generally if this were to reach the conventional media

	* there are better things to spend multi-megabytes of storage space on

	* women are badly enough represented on computer networks without
further turning them away with the sexual harassment implicit in the
promulgation of such pornographic images.


If you are not aware of what I am talking about, take a look at the newsgroup.

If you _are_ aware of this newsgroup and agree with me, please write or email
your nearest Aarnet representative expressing your disgust at this 'news'group.

If you think that the newsgroup is 'harmless fun': see what your female
colleagues, friends, wives, secretaries think ===== particularly in light of
the fact that your employer is paying for it. Legally, it is a clear case of
sexual harassment.


Philip Ryan
DSTO Materials Researsh Laboratory
Melbourne, Australia
phone: (03) 246 8265
fax  : (03) 246 8999
email: ryanph@mrl.dsto.gov.au

nb: I am _not_ talking from a moral 'high ground'. I am _not_ a card-carrying
member of the Moral Majority. However, pornography generally is demeaning to
women, and I believe that it is particularly poor in the present context.
-- 
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
 =kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: [news.admin.policy]  Babak Sehari postings -- iastate.edu is dealing
Followup-To: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,news.admin.policy
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 14:48:49 GMT

[A repost - Carl]

From: jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens)
Newsgroups: news.admin.policy
Subject:  Babak Sehari postings -- iastate.edu is dealing
Date: 5 Jan 1993 17:06:30 GMT

The poster flooding the net with copies of the same message in every newsgroup
is being dealt with.  When I started seeing the messages, I sent mail to the
News administrator at his site asking for something to be done about it, and I
just got back this mail message (which I consider OK to post since it's a form
letter that was sent out to anyone who wrote to the news administrator of the
site about the problem):

-----

Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 10:33:06 -0600
From: skunz@news.iastate.edu (Steven L. Kunz)
To: jik@pit-manager.mit.edu
Subject: Babak Sehari postings

Network News User:

Regarding the "junk mail" type of postings that have originated from
news.iastate.edu from a user named "Babak Sehari" ...

Mr. Sehari has apparently automated his posting process and is posting his
article to a large selection of newsgroups (including ALL local and regional
ones) from a variety of systems on our campus.  This matter has been turned
over to the ISU Computation Center administrator in charge of handling
perceived abuse of computer or network facilities at Iowa State University.

Please forgive the "form letter" format of this reply.  I have received many
email complaints as Usenet News admin on this matter (as has our local
"postmaster" for this site).

---
Steven L. Kunz
Networked Applications | Usenet News Admin.
Iowa State University Computation Center, Iowa State University, Ames  IA
INET: skunz@iastate.edu     BITNET: gr.slk@isumvs.bitnet

-----

-- 
Jonathan Kamens                                         jik@MIT.Edu
Aktis, Inc.                                 Moderator, news.answers
-- 
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.admin.policy,alt.censorship,soc.college
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: [aus.aarnet]  Re: Aarnet should not be pornographic!
Followup-To: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,aus.aarnet
Originator: kadie@eff.org
Organization: The Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 07:46:01 GMT

[A repost - Carl]

From: comrade@uniwa.uwa.edu.au (Peter Cooper)
Newsgroups: aus.aarnet
Subject:  Re: Aarnet should not be pornographic!
Date: 29 Dec 1992 15:54:27 +0800

anthony@cs.uq.oz.au (Anthony Lee) writes:

>In <1992Dec28.041650.17112@cltr.uq.OZ.AU> root@cltr.uq.oz.au (Hulk Hogan) writes:

>>Just because knives are sharp doesn't mean no one should have them. 
>>Someone said to me recently,"porn makes good poeple better, and bad
>>people worse". I think she was right.

>Ok, then why do we ban things like Heroin and Crack ?  I am sure
>you and me can handle those things better so why ban them ?  

Although this is moving massively off-topic, de-criminalising such drugs
is a long-term possibility for Australia on public health and
law-enforcement grounds.  Certain other countries (the Netherlands
springs to mind) have done exactly that for Heroin and have reported
encouraging results ... they report that they have approximately 10,000
heroin addicts, and that after making it a prescription drug, that
number has not increased.  In fact, heroin-related crime appears to have
decreased, and greater longevity of addicts has resulted.  This is a
hopeful sign in the battle to recover these people into more mainstream
society.

The thing is, imposing short-sighted "solutions" often exacerbates
problems, rather than solving them.  Looking at problems with an open
mind may allow us all to develop better strategies to improve our
troubled society.  Treating everyone as children wont help us ... things
like blanket bans or censorship just hide the problems.

If you are concerned with the issues related to the horrendous rates of
physical and sexual abuse in this society (and contrary to popular
wisdom, it's not just men who are offenders, although they are far in
the majority) look for the root causes and help stamp them out, and not
impose your thinly veiled morality upon us all.

Peter

-- 
email:  comrade@uniwa.uwa.edu.au   snail:  Peter Cooper
fax:    +61 9 380 1041                     Guild of Undergraduates
phone:  +61 9 380 3929                     University of Western Australia
"It was the banana that did it!" - Julia Marley
-- 
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
 =kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
From: jrm@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
Subject: Boycotting CERT
Date: 10 Jan 93 20:34:38 -0500

Ah, typical limp-wristed liberals who fight authoritarianism with
boycotts, petitions and nasty letters ! Losers -

Solution to keystroke monitoring ... availible perp + tire iron +
kneecaps. Repeat as necessary. End of problem.

Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: [news.admin.policy, et al.]  Re: Babak Sehari postings -- iastate.edu is dealing
Followup-To: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,news.admin.policy,news.admin.misc
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 14:49:23 GMT

[A repost - Carl]

From: dpassage@soda.berkeley.edu (David G. Paschich)
Newsgroups: news.admin.policy,news.admin.misc
Subject:  Re: Babak Sehari postings -- iastate.edu is dealing
Date: 6 Jan 1993 08:22:58 GMT

In article <3F2XwB5w165w@status.gen.nz> jonc@status.gen.nz (Jon Clarke) writes:
>skunz@iastate.edu (Steven L Kunz) writes:
>
>> I promise you all it IS being handled.  He started an automatic posting
>> process for what was probably every newsgroup on the net.  He started it
>> from multiple machines and let it run.  The "postmaster" here had at least
>> 50 email messages off the net regarding this, I (as news admin) had at least
>> that many (and they are still coming in).  What a waste of a lot of people's
>> time a resources ...  
>> 
> 
> Thanks for the note. What indeed is being done to Mr Babak Sehari ?
> I trust he is being suitably dealt with?

I would think that the information about what happens to Mr. Sehari
would come under federal student privacy laws, and therefore not be
appropriate for distribution on Usenet.


-- 
David G. Paschich	Comp Sci Undergrad Association		UC Berkeley
dpassage@soda.berkeley.edu			  dpassage@ana-ng.chaos.org
"We will create a new political climate where the system does not
attract ego-driven, power-hungry people." -- Ross Perot
-- 
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent any organization; this is just me.
 = kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: [aus.aarnet]  Re: Aarnet should not be pornographic!
Followup-To: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,aus.aarnet
Originator: kadie@eff.org
Organization: The Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 07:45:13 GMT

[A repost - Carl]

From: anthony@cs.uq.oz.au (Anthony Lee)
Newsgroups: aus.aarnet
Subject:  Re: Aarnet should not be pornographic!
Date: 27 Dec 92 23:25:56 GMT

I don't understand why whenever the word "pornographic" comes up
everyone associates it with censorship and rights.  If you want
to talk about the rights of people wanting to look at
pornographic pictures then what about the rights of people who
have to suffer as a consequence of those pictures.  Some argue
the possibility is small and that there is no hard evidence
linking rapes and sexual abuses with pornographic picture.  

I want to say forget about your hard evidence and look at your
own instinct (here I am talking to males on the net).  Most
people at one time or another is bombarded with pictures of naked
females.  Even the recent Kentucky Fried Chicken ad on TV has
pictures of nearly naked females.  Now can you tell me honestly
that if you look at these pictures, you don't get turned on
(unless of course you are gay :-) ?  A majority of people can
control their sexual desires but what do we do with the minority
?  You may argue that there are already enough pornography at the
newsagent and so why limit it on the net.  Well, I ask you
shouldn't we at least try to limit the amount of exposure ?
Wouldn't it be better just to forgo something like pornography
then to know that it could lead to acts of violence against
females and even childern ?  Ok, the possiblity may be as low as
0.0001% but is cutting out pornography on the net such a great
lost ?  If you can't live with dirty pictures on your X-terminal
then why don't you just buy a copy of Penthouse and scan the
picture and have it as your background.

Please try to think of this issue as a matter of protecting the
rights of women and childern.  It is not a issue of big brother.


--
Anthony Lee (Time Lord Doctor) (These are my opinions !)
email: anthony@cs.uq.oz.au	voice:+(61)-7-3651204 FAX:+(61)-7-3651999
SNAIL: Department Computer Science, The University of Queensland, 
       St Lucia, Qld 4072, Australia
-- 
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
 =kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: [aus.aarnet]  Pornography - who enforces ban?
Followup-To: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,aus.aarnet
Originator: kadie@eff.org
Organization: The Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 16:53:09 GMT

[A repost - Carl]

From: hugh@rschp1.anu.edu.au (Hugh Fisher)
Newsgroups: aus.aarnet
Subject:  Pornography - who enforces ban?
Date: 10 Jan 1993 23:13:02 GMT


  Just who would be responsible for keeping pornography
  off AARNET anyway? You can't (as far as I know) sue
  Australia Post for shipping X rated magazines around,
  nor Telecom for those R rated 0055 phone lines. Are
  Geoff & Peter supposed to monitor the contents of
  every packet for conformance to AARNET 'acceptable use'?


	Hugh Fisher
-- 
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
 =kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk