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Subject: Computers and Academic Freedom News 02.10 (Digest)
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Computers and Academic Freedom News
Vol. 02, No. 10


----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: joslin@tso.uc.edu (Paul Joslin)
Subject: Article 0 -- Abstract of CAF-News 02.10

[Week ending March 1, 1992

========================== KEY ================================
The words after the numbers are a short PARAPHRASES of the
articles, NOT AN OBJECTIVE SUMMARY and not necessarily my opinion.
===============================================================

Note 1 concerns the limits a university may place on free speech.

1. According to a short item in the Chicago Tribune, some at the
University of Wisconsin want to draft new, narrower "hate speech" rule
to replace the rule that was struck down by the district federal
court. The author of the original restrictions says that he isn't sure
the rule is needed anymore.
    <1992Feb26.165417.12215@eff.org>

Note 2 suggests that obscenity is in the eye of the beholder.

2. (A user:) If anything is obscene, surely it is discussing new ways
of systemically killing people.  Why do people who are not troubled by
that get so upset at groups which discuss new ways of finding pleasure?
    <1992Feb26.232807.4485@nntp.hut.fi>

Note 3 discusses arguments presented to justify a Swiss Network's
decision not to carry certain newsgroups.

3. What article of law allows someone to file a lawsuit against the
network if it is carrying material they do not like?  If such a law
exists, does it apply equally to email?  If the network does censor
newsgroups, does that imply that it fully supports the information in
the remaining newsgroups?
    <1992Feb24.173533@lglsun.epfl.ch>

Note 4 discusses a student who created an "alt" newsgroup.  The news
administrator on the machine he uses claims the user forged the
message creating the group, and refuses to carry the group.

4. "Since you put your name on the post it wasn't a forgery, but your
news admin is still free to consider it an improper newgroup."
    <1992Feb28.100229.27960@ms.uky.edu>

Note 5 discusses the history of altnet, the set of "alt" groups.

5. The alt groups were created outside of the USENET guidelines and
propagated by alternate uucp links.  One force for change was an
attempt to carry a political group in a technical forum because that
forum was better distributed.  Another was that some system
administrators would not carry certain newsgroups no matter what the
name.
    <3198@ecicrl.ocunix.on.ca>

Note 6 suggests that informing anyone who will listen about the true
nature of controversial news groups may forestall future problems.

6. (An administrator:)  If a reporter or legislator asks about the
net, I tell them about the huge variety of newsgroups from the
scientific and technical to those discussing controversial issues.
"I've never had a bad reaction to this presentation..."
    <11169@ns-mx.uiowa.edu>

Note 7 reacts to a proposed policy on calculator use during exams.

7. The proposed policy raises due process concerns.  I have a simpler
solution: I do not allow the use of such devices. "The reasoning is
simple: Programmers should be proficient, personally, in computation."
    <caf.talk.2.28.92.abc@BRL.MIL>

Notes 8 and 9 concern a system administrator's policy of acting
quickly in case of rules violations.  Often a student's account is
restricted before the student is notified of the violation.

8. (A student:)  On a Friday afternoon I discovered all my accounts at
the University Of Aston in Birmingham, England had been disabled.  I
was told that something I was running was congesting the network.  To
sort things out I needed to meet with the head of the department, by
appointment, on the following Tuesday.
    <1992Feb26.192151.6435@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>

9.  This happens at Berkeley every so often.  Usually, the student can
get his account back by talking to the system administrator.  I
sympathize with the administrator, but it would not occur to the
university to lock a student out of his/her dorm without prior
warning.
    <ohbp8INNr9i@agate.berkeley.edu>

Note 10 rebuts the claim that students have little cause for complaint
if an administrator restricts a student's account for non-academic uses.

10. (A student:) I pay extra money for my account.  Suppose I rent a
car.  I take it for a ride in the country.  Does the rental company
have a right to disable the car, and leave a note saying, "Your engine
has been taken out and the locks on the doors have been changed since
you went for a ride in the country that was totally unrelated to the
business in which you rented this car."  No good comes from system
administrators being harsh to their users.
    <S8759859.92Feb29151649@titan.ucc.umass.edu>

Notes 11 and 12 discuss liability for the electronic transmittal of
information.  Specifically, abortion information may not be
distributed in Ireland.

11. (A discussion of the incident in which a pregnant 14 year-old girl
was not permitted to leave the country to seek an abortion in
England.)  "The computer/censorship issue related to the fact that
only crosspostings to the group _talk.abortion_ appear here."  If a
posting to such a group had information on how to procure an abortion,
are we any more liable than a library with an English telephone
directory which has the phone number of an abortion clinic?
    <1992Feb24.222848.12187@maths.tcd.ie>

12. In fact, you can get the banned information by calling Northern
Ireland, or Boston, Massachusetts.  Are they going to prosecute the
Irish PTT, or British Telecom, or Ma Bell?
    <1992Feb26.165136.9723@wetware.com>

- Paul]




In this issue:

Carl M. Kadie    26  "University of Wisconsin rewirtes 'hate speech' rule
Jyrki Kuoppala   23  banning sci.military
Magnus Kempe     69  Control by SWITCH
Kenneth Herron   58  >Help! "Forged" newsgroups in alt.*!
Chris Lewis      87  >History of "alt" groups
Douglas W Jones   2  >Mass media discovering nets
Brinton Cooper   36  >Proposal for policy on ca<> during exams (Bezenek 13.16)
Mark Evans       17  Sys-admins shooting first
Brian Harvey     43  >
Tig Stone        59  >Telnet Censorship.
Paul Moloney     59  REPOST: The Irish Abortion Controversy
drieux           44  >The Irish Abortion Information Question


Computers and Academic Freedom News

Managing Editor:  Carl M. Kadie (kadie@eff.org)
Administration:   William W. Arnold (caf-talk-request@eff.org, warnold@eff.org)
Associate Editor: Elizabeth M. Reid (emr@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au)
Associate Editor: Paul Joslin (joslin@tso.uc.edu)
Associate Editor: Adam C. Gross (ag3j+@andrew.cmu.edu)

To contribute to the list, send email to "caf-talk@eff.org". Your note
will appear immediately on the caf-talk mailing list and in the
alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk newsgroup.

Back issues are available via anonymous ftp to ftp.eff.org. The
directory is pub/academic/news. Abstracts of CAF-news are in file
pub/academic/abstracts. The CAF archive is also available via email.
For information, send email to archive-server@eff.org. Include the
line:
  send acad-freedom README

Disclaimer: This CAF-News abstract was compiled by a guest editor or a
regular editor (Paul Joslin, Elizabeth M. Reid, Adam C. Gross, or Carl
M. Kadie). It is not an EFF publication. The views an editor expresses
and editorial decisions he or she makes are his or her own.

The addresses for the list are:
	comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org     - for contributions to the list
		or	caf-talk@eff.org
	listserv@eff.org    - for automated additions/deletions
                (send email with the line "help" for details.)
	caf-talk-request@eff.org    - for administrivia

        Also, if you read newsgroups, look for alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
        and alt.comp.acad-freedom.news.
------------            

------------------------------

From caf-talk Caf Feb 26 00:00:00 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,alt.censorship,alt.correct
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Article 1--"University of Wisconsin rewirtes 'hate speech' rule
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1992 16:54:17 GMT

[A short item from the Chicago Tribune, Feb 25, 1992, section 1, p. 4]

MADISON - The University of Wisconsin System is resurrecting a "hate
speech" rule that was struck down as unconstitutional by a federal
judge last year. UW-Madison Law Professor Ted Finman said he has
redrafted the rule to sidestep October's court division that it was
unconstitutionally broad. The redraft says students may be punished
for using racial, sexual or age-related epithets -- defined as a word,
phrase or symbol that " would make the educational environment hostile
or threatening" and would "tend to provoke an immediate violent
response when addressed directly to a person of average sensibility."
Before the rule can be adopted, it must gain approval from the various
UW campuses and then win approval of the UW Board of Regents. Law
Prof. Gordon Baldwin, who helped draft the original hate speech rule,
said he isn't sure the rule is needed because students are more
sensitive about racial and sexual remarks. The original rule, drafted
in 1987, followed a "mock slave auction" by a campus fraternity. Its
redraft was requested by the UW-Madison faculty after the court ruling
is U.S. District Court.

-- 
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
 =kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu, or (anonymous) ap.3619@layout.berkeley.edu=


------------------------------

From caf-talk Caf Feb 27 00:00:00 1992
From: jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Article 2--banning sci.military
Date: 26 Feb 92 23:28:07 GMT

In article <bq26729@pro-smof.cts.com>, shiva@pro-smof (System Smof) writes:
>I'm kind of shocked that the Univerity of Stuttgart banned sci.military as
>offensive; being an Army Brat, I've always found that newsgroup to be
>pretty interesting. Was it because nasty things about Germany and WWII were
>said there? Nasty but true, that is?

I've never read sci.military so I can't really say what's being
discussed there but if anything at all on Usenet or human life in
general is offensive and obscene to the human spirit it must be
figuring out new ways of systematically killing people, making people
suffer and promoting the investing of valuable human resources to
planning these destructive acts.

I don't accept censorship on sci.military or any other group, but it truly
shows how sick human culture is that many people think that discussing
ways of finding pleasure as in alt.sex or alt.drugs is offensive while
at the same time they find nothing wrong with planning new and better
ways of deliberately destroying human lifes and causing suffering.

//Jyrki


------------------------------

From caf-talk Caf Feb 24 00:00:00 1992
From: magnus@lglsun.epfl.ch (Magnus Kempe)
Newsgroups: ch.general,ch.network,epfl.general,news.admin,eunet.news,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
Subject: Article 3--Control by SWITCH
Date: 24 Feb 92 16:35:33 GMT

In article <1992Feb24.085804.26201@chx400.switch.ch>,
  gilli@chx400.switch.ch (Peter Gilli) writes:
:
:    SWITCH received legal advice that, if it - just like a book shop - stores
:    and freely redistributes information, it can be pursued if somebody (a
:    journalist, a women's right organisation, etc. - not SWITCH !) does not
:    like the contents and files a lawsuit, claiming that information distri-
:    buted by SWITCH is in violation with legal regulations.

1.  Please indicate the _exact_ article of Swiss law that allows someone
    to sue a bookshop for carrying intellectual material that this someone
    "does not like".  (Note that bookshops rarely "freely redistribute
    information".)

2.  If you can answer 1., please indicate how adult discussions of
    human hetero- and homosexuality, of gun control, and newspaper news
    are open to such legal attacks.  How do you judge whether someone
    may "not like" some newsgroup?  Whose standard of morality have you
    chosen as a yardstick?  Why?

3.  SWITCH does not "freely redistribute information".  SWITCH is paid
    by the Swiss universities and technical institutes to provide them
    with network services.  No free lunch here.  Anyway maybe "free
    distribution" is not an issue in the article of law you are going
    to refer us to?

4.  If SWITCH is legally responsible (remember, you still have to prove
    1.) for the intellectual material it redistributes, please explain
    what difference there is between e-mail and news.  Do you intend to
    filter all e-mail and throw away whatever someone may "not like"?
    Again, who is going to read and judge the messages?  According to
    what standard?  Is that part of the charter for SWITCH?  Are you
    already monitoring e-mail, in anticipation of future action?  And
    how do you relate your assertions with the activities of the Postal
    Services and Telephone Companies?  Are they liable for the
    intellectual contents of the letters and phone calls they are
    "redistributing"?

5.  If SWITCH filters away some newsgroups (assuming you have shown
    these were somehow illegal), does that imply that SWITCH fully
    supports and takes responsibility for the material that appears
    in the remaining newsgroups?  Do you intend to monitor every single
    news article?  Is that part of the charter for SWITCH?

: it was not at all a tentative to exerce censorship - what a ridiculous idea!

Unless you show that your proposal is truly motivated by risks of legal
harassment, it is absolutely justified to consider that you have
merely, capriciously attempted to prevent people from reading and/or
writing on topics such as: human sexuality, guns, and newspaper news.
It is true that it is not censorship, as you are not part of the
government, although _all_ of your money comes from the state.  It is
quite unfortunate that SWITCH was set up as a foundation, as it allows
you to take actions which are constitutionally forbidden to the state.
This is a loophole; but you don't have to dive into it, do you?

:    The classification of news-groups into categories presently being dis-
:    cussed is _one_ proposal to handle this problem - there are many other
:    possibilities to handle this problem if this proposal is rejected.

What do you _mean_?  Are you going to look for other ways to control
what people may read and/or write?  E.g., are you going to track and
prevent all NNTP connections?
-- 
Magnus Kempe            "I have sworn ... eternal hostility to every form of
magnus@lglsun.epfl.ch    tyranny over the mind of man."  -- Thomas Jefferson


------------------------------

From caf-talk Caf Feb 29 00:00:00 1992
Newsgroups: alt.config,news.admin
From: kherron@ms.uky.edu (Kenneth Herron)
Subject: Article 4--Re: Help! "Forged" newsgroups in alt.*!
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1992 15:02:29 GMT

pfalstad@phoenix.princeton.edu (Paul Falstad) writes:

>My local sysadmins are all up in arms
>because I created an alt.* group, specifically "alt.folklore.college".
>As far as I can tell, it was a valid creation according to the principles
>of USENET.  

Just to pick a nit, alt isn't part of usenet, but rather a different 
hierarchy which uses the same distribution methods.  The group was created 
according to the principles of "altnet".

>It was discussed in alt.config, there were no objections, there
>were many voices calling for the group.  ...I created the group with my
>name & email address on the control message.  The group is now quite 
>active with seemingly valid discussion.  ...Spaf put it on his list.  I 
>got a total of _one_ complaint about it, from a newsadmin at another site, 
>who hadn't read alt.config lately...

>But no, apparently it was a "forgery".  My local newsadmin sent me mail
>(I won't quote it as I don't have his permission) claiming that any
>group whose control message was forged is bogus, period.  My creation
>message was forged, so the group is bogus.  Doesn't matter how many people
>like the group.  A forged control message, apparently, is any control message
>that wasn't done with inews.  Newsgroup creation, by usenet custom and
>by software design, is the job of the news administrator.  Gene may not
>have known that the group was "forged" when he put it on his list.

Forgery is a legal term with a specific meaning.  Since you put your name
on the post it wasn't a forgery, but your news admin is still free to 
consider it an improper newgroup.  It sounds like he's a bit peeved that
one of his users issued a newgroup without consulting him, but it's up to
him how news runs at your site.  There's no stigma attached to carrying
or not carrying a particular alt group, and certainly none of us are
in a position to tell him what to do.

Gene Spafford's list of alt groups should not be considered canon; I believe
it even says so.

>Basically, he won't carry "alt.folklore.college" here at Princeton, so I'll
>have to read the group at other sites.  "alt.gorets" and "alt.usenet.recovery"
>were added, no questions asked.  To me, this seems inconsistent, and
>contradictory to the spirit of Usenet.  What's the net thinking on this?

I sympathize with you, but if he doesn't want to carry the group that's
his business.  I imagine some of my users might feel the same about the
groups I've refused to carry (not that I would know about it; none of my 
users ever complain about anything.  I guess I'm doing something right :-).

Perhaps it would help if you apologized for creating the group without
telling him, and promised not to do it again?
-- 
Kenneth Herron                                       kherron@ms.uky.edu
University of Kentucky                                  +1 606 257 2975
Department of Mathematics
"You don't carve 'ARGH,' you just say it!"  "Perhaps he was dictating?"


------------------------------

From caf-talk Caf Feb 27 00:00:00 1992
From: clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Chris Lewis)
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,news.misc
Subject: Article 5--Re: History of "alt" groups
Date: 27 Feb 92 04:32:24 GMT

In article <1992Feb24.004705.10339@mtholyoke.edu> jbotz@mtholyoke.edu (Jurgen Botz) writes:
|In article <1992Feb22.214243.14848@m.cs.uiuc.edu> kadie@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) writes:
|>The Iowa State University Netnews policy asserts this bit of history:

|>'The use of Usenet to discuss a wide variety of issues has grown over
|>the years.  While the "purely technical" newsgroups still exist,
|>Usenet also includes general discussion on almost anything, including
|>such topics as aspects of sexual lifestyles, illegal drugs, and racist
|>humor.  The collective group of Usenet "news administrators" early on
|>decided to address this area by creating an "alt" group division for
|>"alternate" selections.  This group can be handled as each site
|>chooses.'

|>Was this really the original motivation of the "alt" groups? If so, is
|>this history relevent to today's use of "alt" groups (alt.censorship,
|>alt.civil-liberty, etc.)?

|Not exactly as I understand it.  The alt hierarchy was created by a couple
|of users in response to 'censorship' by the now forgotten 'backbone cabal'.

|I'm new to USENET myself, but there are some histories around... you might
|want to browse through news.answers for them.  Apparently there was a time
|where practically all news passed through a few large academic sites, which
|were considered the 'backbone'.  The administrators of these backbone sites
|thus had the power to control news flow almost entirely, and legend goes
|that it came to a show-down where they (or some of them) refused to 
|propagate certain groups (I forget which) despite the fact that they had
|passed accepted USENET group creation guidelines.  At that point some 
|people took the matter in their own hands and created the alt hierarchy,
|which then was not only an alternate hierarchy, but was also propagated
|via alternate uucp links, bypassing the backbone sites.  Later the wide
|use of NNTP and the increasing influence of UUNET caused the 'backbone'
|to fade into history, and while today UUNET _could_ be considered a kind
|of backbone all by itself, if it suddenly went away they USENET would very
|quickly be able to reconfigure and carry on without it (excepting those
|sites for whom a feed from UUNET is the only option for whatever reason).

The showdown you're referring to I think is really the thing that broke
the "backbone cabal" (more accurately, the "backbone" mailing list
subscribers, where "backbone" were those 30 or so sites with very large
impact on connectivity - not just academic).  "comp.women" passed a
vote inspite of the fact that many major SA's believed the name to be
a blatant attempt to carry a non-technical and political group in comp
simply because of increased distribution and flatly refused to carry
it.  Apparently the arguments got quite violent even within the mailing
list, and the backbone group broke up.

Though, at about that time increased connectivity was making "backbone"
more and more irrelevant.

Earlier, back in the days of the "Great Renaming", the people trying to come up
with the repartitioning of the "mod." and "net." groups into the
"big seven" hierarchies of today had a problem figuring out how to
place "news.flame" and "net.bizarre" and probably a few others.  They
were considered to be just plain garbage, and many hoped that they would
simply disappear.  Lots of grumbling and some screaming, with the
group designing the partition refusing to place these groups.  Then a few
people started complaining about how onerous the new newsgroup voting
procedures were going to be, and they decided to create their own playpen
to mess up as they please.

A mess it certainly is.

The drugs group is a special case.  Too many SA's stood up and said
that they wouldn't carry it under any name, no matter what a vote
said.  Though I think it predates the current voting procedure.

Ditto, more or less, alt.sex.

Other major kafuffles, eg: comp.protocols.tcp.pc.eniac (or whatever
it was) or sci.aquaria generated much heat, but had relatively
little long-term effect.  (Other than you don't see their proponents
around that much anymore.)

It was a long time ago.  I've blissfully forgotten most of the details.

The prevalence of such groups as "censorship", "civil-liberty",
"acad-freedom" and the like in alt is because the people who tend to
want to create such groups think that having to vote for a news
group is fascist.
-- 
Chris Lewis; clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca; Phone: Canada 613 832-0541
Psroff 3.0 info: psroff-request@ferret.ocunix.on.ca
Ferret list: ferret-request@ferret.ocunix.on.ca


------------------------------

From caf-talk Caf Feb 28 00:00:00 1992
From: jones@pyrite.cs.uiowa.edu (Douglas W. Jones,201H MLH,3193350740,3193382879)
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
Subject: Article 6--Re: Mass media discovering nets
Date: 28 Feb 92 17:44:18 GMT


------------------------------

From caf-talk Caf Feb 28 00:00:00 1992
Date:     Tue, 25 Feb 92 9:12:19 EST
From: Brinton Cooper <abc@BRL.MIL>
Subject: Article 7--Re: Proposal for policy on calculator use during exams (Bezenek 13.16)


Todd M. Bezenek KO0N <plains!bezenek@uunet.uu.net> communicates his proposed
policy regarding the use of calculators on closed note university exams.  In
brief, he would take possession of a device which he (the proctor) believes to
have been used to violate the intent of closed-note examinations.  He would
have a faculty member judge whether the calculating machine and its memory
content provided an illegal aid to the test-taking student.

I guess he never heard of "due process."  If you try that in universities
supported by public funds, you run the risk of being sued by the student.  His
procedure sets up a couple of faculty as a "kangaroo court" (what does that
mean, anyhow?) to judge whether a student cheated.

High-tech times may call for low-tech solutions.  I simply do not permit the
use of calculating devices on Computer Science examinations and quizzes.  The
reasoning is simple:

  Programmers should be proficient, personally, in computation.

  a. Having to work out a few numerical examples by hand can help budding
     programmers hone their ability to see more than one way to do a
     computation.

  b. Using this ability can provide "sanity checks" on their software.

  c. Programmers should be able to get the answer even when their batteries
     have run down.

I fear that at least some of the human-induced software faults discussed so
often in this forum can be traced to the lack of computational skill on the
part of the programmer involved.

_Brinton Cooper  abc@brl.mil  cooper@udel.edu  ab.cooper@compmail.com


------------------------------

From caf-talk Caf Feb 26 00:00:00 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: mpevans@isis.cs.du.edu (Mark Evans)
Subject: Article 8--Sys-admins shooting first
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 92 19:21:51 GMT

On Friday (21 Feb 92) afternoon I discovered that all my accounts on the
computer system of University Of Aston in Birmingham, England (aston.ac.uk
domain in internet).
Had been  disabled, on inquiring to mu departmental computer officer I was told
that someting I had been running was congesting the network.
In order to even begin sorting things out I need to see the head of dept (
appointment next tuesday, 3 March 1992)
Prior to this I received no complaints in any form, e-mail, memo, phone call,
personal complaint, fax or whatever. Despite the fact that anyone (on the 
Internet in fact) could find out these details by running  finger.
Looks like a case of paranoid people in charge! (who can't or won't talk to
their users, maybe it's quicker to login and run passwd as root than to 
pick up the phone and dial a 4 digit number)



------------------------------

From caf-talk Caf Feb 26 00:00:00 1992
From: bh@anarres.Berkeley.EDU (Brian Harvey)
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
Subject: Article 9--Re: Sys-admins shooting first
Date: 27 Feb 92 00:35:52 GMT

morgan@ms.uky.edu (Wes Morgan) writes:
>mpevans@isis.cs.du.edu (Mark Evans) writes:
>>I discovered that all my accounts ... had been  disabled, on inquiring ...
>>I was told that someting I had been running was congesting 
>>the network.
>
>An important question, which you neglected to answer:
>
>    What were you running?
>
>If I saw something that was slagging my network, I might very well take
>immediate action........

I, too, am curious about what he was running.  Still, it's one thing to
take the "immediate action" of killing the offending process; a different
thing to turn off [apparently] more than one computer account.  Surely
the latter wasn't urgent.

This sort of thing happens all the time here at Berkeley, where I teach.
Every so often a system administrator turns off some student's account
in response to a complaint, prior to any due process determination.  The
student can generally get the account turned back on by talking with the
administrator in question.

I can see the administrators' point of view.  They all have lots to do
besides trying to track down students; turning off the account (with a
login message saying where the student should go to get reinstated)
makes the student find the administrator, which is easier since the
administrator has an office and is usually in it.

And yet it would never occur to the university to, for example, lock a
student out of his/her dorm room without warning.  I suppose the difference
is that the university sees housing as a right, but computer accounts as
a privilege -- even though the student needs the account to do the work
in some course.

I suppose I should be trying to get the university to establish a formal
policy about this.  (Actually I think there *is* a formal policy that
takes effect at the next step, when the administrators have decided someone
is a Bad Guy and should lose the account permanently.  But I'm not sure.)


------------------------------

From caf-talk Caf Feb 29 00:00:00 1992
Newsgroups: alt.censorship
From: s8759859@titan.ucc.umass.edu (Tig Stone)
Subject: Article 10--Re: Telnet Censorship.
Date: Sat, 29 Feb 1992 20:16:49 GMT

In article <1992Feb29.025848.20812@anomaly.sbs.com> mpd@anomaly.sbs.com (Michael P. Deignan) writes:


>bd671@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Christopher P. Harr) writes:

>>	Recently here at the Universtiy of Cincinnati, my home University
>>we have had system administrators kill accounts of people who connected to
>>port numbers whether it be IRC, MUD's MUSHES, MUSES etc. There are also people
>>who lost their accounts for telnetting to certain foriegn hosts, even though
>>they had permission to telnet there. 

>Good for them! Its about time students realize that the computer system is
>for Academics and not for their personal leisure time. Buy an Atari 2600 if
>you want leisure material.

>MD
>-- 
>--  Michael P. Deignan                      / 
>--  Domain: mpd@anomaly.sbs.com            /   I'm not a bigot,
>--    UUCP: ...!uunet!rayssd!anomaly!mpd  /    I hate everyone.
>-- Telebit: +1 401 455 0347              / 


I pay extra money for my account here at the University of
Massachusetts.  I can make an analogy between Mr. Deignan's praise for
system administrators with the attitude "it's my system, I'll do
whatever the hell I want with users" and a car.  
	Say you have a car.  A rental car.  Now, the stipulation is
that you have this car for 6 months, and you pay some flat rate for
renting this car.  Now, since you have this car for 6 whole months,
you might put your tapes in it to listen to while you drive.  You
might even leave your briefcase in it while you're out of the car
briefly.  You take pride in "your" car, keeping the windows clean, you
bring it to the car-wash, etc.
	You decide to take the car for a ride in the country to relax
yourself.  You make sure you take this ride isn't at any time that you
would inconvenience "real" car owners.  You make sure you drive on an
out-of-the-way road.  You drive home.  The next morning, you wake up
and you find a note on your windshield: "Your engine has been taken
out and the locks on the doors have been changed since you went for a
ride in the country that was totally unrelated to the business in
which you rented this car."  Or worse yet, the car is just plain gone,
with no clue what happened.  You have to schlep down to the car rental
agency and have them tell you that they disapproved of your driving
the car in the country, so they confiscated it.
	Couldn't you liken this to some system administrator cracking
down on persons doing activities that s/he disapproves of by
vaporizing the account without any kind of warning?
	It just seems to me that nothing good ever comes out of system
administrators being so harsh to their users.  Take the difference
between the aforementioned site and MIT for instance.


--
T. Stone 
(s8759859@titan.ucc.umass.edu)


------------------------------

From caf-talk Caf Feb 24 00:00:00 1992
From: pmoloney@maths.tcd.ie (Paul Moloney)
Newsgroups: tcd.talk,soc.culture.celtic,talk.abortion,soc.women,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
Subject: Article 11--REPOST: The Irish Abortion Controversy
Date: 24 Feb 92 22:28:48 GMT

[Apologies if you've seen this already. It was cancelled at my site over the
weekend, before most people would have had a chance to read it.]

Hmm. Interesting times are here in Ireland at the moment, and an issue has
come up which may well pose a question for those interested in the issues
of censorship, and especially where in concerns the Net.

As you may know, abortion is illegal in Ireland. The Eighth Amendment to
the constitution in 1983 made it even more so, and also led the way to 
making the distribution of abortion information illegal. The Student Union
of this college, Trinity, was brought to court by the Society for the 
Protection of the Unborn Child and was prevented from distributing such
information from its welfare section to women. 

Recently, a 14 year old girl has become pregnant as the result of an alleged 
rape. Unwittingly her parents told the police that they intended to bring her 
to England for an abortion. Said police felt they had no option but to follow
up on this information, and as a result the Attorney General got an injunction 
preventing the girl from leaving country.

The case hasn't left the headlines in the past week, and has become a rallying
call for pro-choice campaigners and those concerned at the fact that this
strident interpretation of the Eighth Amendment sees Ireland on the path to
a totalitarian state. (A pointed cartoon in the _Irish Times_ depicted an
Ireland surrounded by barbed wire, in the middle of which a little girl sits.
The caption - "February 1992. Internment - for women".)

Of course, people who called for and supported the amendment in '83 are now
saying the whole thing is a set-up by liberals, that they didn't forsee this 
happening (despite repeated warnings at the time) and that "sure the mother 
should have known she shouldn't have told the police". In effect, most of 
them are now suggesting that people should break the law that they passed, 
which seems to me the worst kind of hypocrisy.

That's the abortion issue. I'd love to hear comments on any aspect.

The computer/censorship issue related to the fact that only crosspostings
to the group _talk.abortion_ (which I hope this posting is getting through
to) appear here. The relevant people are concerned that we could be breaking
the law by allowing such postings to be read here, as they may have information
in them on how to procure an abortion, e.g. a telephone number for an abortion
clinic in England.

My question is - are they leaving themselves open to prosecution? It seems to
me that they cannot be seen to be "distributing" such information _per_ _se_;
any more than libraries are by having English telephone directories, containing
the numbers of clinics.

Anyway, I'll leave the floor open. 

P.
-- 
moorcockheathersiainbankshamandcornpizzapjorourkebluesbrothersspikeleepratchett
clive P a u l  M o l o n e y "Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the  rem
james Trinity College,Dublin PMOLONEY%MATHS.TCD.IE@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU mind." vr
brownbladerunnerorsonscottcardprincewatchmenkatebushbatmanthekillingjoketolkien


------------------------------

From caf-talk Caf Feb 26 00:00:00 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,alt.censorship,talk.abortion,soc.culture.celtic
From: drieux@wetware.com (drieux, just drieux)
Subject: Article 12--Re: The Irish Abortion Information Question
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1992 16:51:36 GMT

pmoloney@maths.tcd.ie (Paul Moloney) writes:
] 
] My question is - are they leaving themselves open to prosecution? It seems to
] me that they cannot be seen to be "distributing" such information _per_ _se_;
] any more than libraries are by having English telephone directories, containing
] the numbers of clinics.

well lets see what they do with international directory assistance calls...

You do know that by dialing northern ireland you can ask for the
much BANNED INFORMATION....

Which would be a most interesting question, would they haul in
the IRISH alternative to the PTT or would they be able to go
for the DEEP POCKETs of say British Telecom, or Ma Bell... for
the one's silly enought to call boston and ask the question...

And to risk all things dark and EVIL, If you get to Fishguard,
across the water, and can not get information about decent
facilities that provide abortons, let me say that you can
find competent medical facilities in Haverfordwest, Dyfed Wales
at withybush hospital... Where I know Members of the USN have
been for such services... the USN presence in wales not being
large enough to afford to bring along all their own medical services.

Its a lovely town, and a pleasant place to spend a few days...

and given as, in the main, the Irish were kind enough to warn
our lads before bombing any pub we were in... I figure its the
least we can do in return...

Its a Shame to See Irish Law doing to fine irish lasses what you'd
have only expected the english to do....

ciao
drieux




-- 
EOT 
No More Written InPut 
Why are you Looking Here?





--
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
 =kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu, or (anonymous) ap.3619@layout.berkeley.edu=


------------------------------

End of Computers and Academic Freedom News (Digest)
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Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk