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: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 17:29:51 GMT

In article <bhayden.728044955@teal> bhayden@teal.csn.org (Bruce Hayden) writes:
>brad@clarinet.com (Brad Templeton) writes:
>
>>In article <1993Jan25.181210.7552@netcom.com> strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight) writes:
>
>>The phone company often amortized equipment over multiple decades -- a
>>joke when you look at the pace of digital telecom technology today.
>
>And that meant that the rate of change of technology was glacial. It
>had to be - Ma Bell had to protect that installed base of obsolete
>technology. 
>
>>The only real natural monopoly is the cable right of way going down the
>>street.  I admit you can't just have everybody digging up the road and
>>stringing wires on the poles.  So regulate that by having the city put
>>cable conduits in and lease the right to run cables through them.  But
>>that's about it.
>
>Well - I would disagree that even that is a "natural" monopoly. Indeed,
>one of the most insidious examples of what David's monopoly theory
>causes is the Cable TV mess. Once the cable companies get the government
>monopoly franchise, they jack rates and cut service as fast as they can.
>Hence the recent Cable TV bill passed in the last legislature. The 
>socialists' solution to rational ecomonics is to pass another law
>trying to patch the previous one, and defeat human nature along the way.


To the contrary, the Cable TV issue proves my point. It is a natural
monopoly, and through lobbying heretofore they have gotten the regulators to
accept their argument that they aren't, and thus avoid rate regulation.

Their silly claim is based on that they compete with movies, network TV,
etc. Just when is the last time you got the latest movie, or CNN, in your
home via the local Bijou or NBC?

The legislators had given them a ticket-of-leave and exempted them from
monopoly regulation. They abused the privilege by price gouging, as any good
monopoly can, and thus the public outrage and Cable Bill.

>
>>>I know some of the U.S. legislators who broke up AT&T. Most agree that
>>>it was a mistake, and that total costs to the public are higher than they
>>>would have been, but it is too late to put it back together
>
>Most of those legislators are probably closet socialists anyway. 
>Why does a legislator make a career in government if he doesn't
>believe that he can direct human behaviour better than the people
>that he is controlling? - allways for their own benefit of course.
>Hence natural selection in the legislators for activists, and 
>for liberals. Likewise some of the same natural selection behind
>the liberal biases in government bureaucrats.

This is an ad hominem which ignores my point.
-- 
David Sternlight
RIPEM Public Key on server  --  Consider it an envelope for your e-mail

Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
From: CPSR <CPSR@csli.stanford.edu>
Subject: Re: New case for EFF, ACLU, and CPSR
X-Xxmessage-Id: <A78605095401AC7E@taft.eff.org>
X-Xxdate: Fri, 22 Jan 93 01:09:45 GMT
Organization: Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, Washington Office
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d16
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 01:16:17 GMT

In article <JMC.93Jan22123256@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> John McCarthy,
jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU writes:
> Please explain what the computer enthusiasts were doing that
aroused
> the suspicions or ire of these authorities, justified or not.
> What possessions were seized?  If, as I suspect, the EFF staff
attorney
> is witholding this information for some legal tactical reason,
> you can't expect any help from an uninformed computer community.
> --


There isnt anything to withhold. They were eating food at a food
court and
sitting around talking. It appears that the SS "asked" the mall
police to
go and break up the meeting, collect names and search bags. The SS
must
have been under the mistaken belief that this was an illegal
gathering. As for
raising suspisions, the food court seats over 1000 people. 20-30
kids sitting
would never be noticed unless (a) they lit a table on fire or (b)
the cops
were told to look for them.

Possesions taken included a keyboard, some electronic equipment (not
illegal
equipment), CPSR membership brochures, copies of the Privacy Journal
and a few
promotional buttons from the movie "Sneakers." Also bags containing
school
books, homework, and manuals were taken.
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
From: strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight)
Subject: Re: More Info To Come on EFF Shortly
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Distribution: inet
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 20:28:56 GMT

In article <CKD.93Jan21114801@loiosh.eff.org> ckd@eff.org (Christopher Davis) writes:
>DS> == David Sternlight <strnlght@netcom.com>
>
> DS> First of all, current "commercial" services use partly subsidized
> DS> facilities. If the net were fully commercial, this would stop and
> DS> costs would rise. So, then, would prices.
>
>CIX-connected networks only use "subsidized facilities" if talking to
>organizations on the subsidized portions of the network.  It is quite
>possible for a CIX-connected network not to be advertised outside the CIX,
>so that they *can't* accidentally cross, say, the NSF-funded backbone.
>(Heck, just ask Barry Shein, that's the situation he was in for a long time.)
Am I going blind in my old age, or do I see a lot of electronic mail, as
well as newsgroups, that are partly handled over subsidized facilities?

David


-- 
David Sternlight
RIPEM Public Key on server  --  Consider it an envelope for your e-mail

Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: EFF and its growing pains...
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 00:01:10 GMT

In article <BETSYS.93Jan26125109@ra.cs.umb.edu> betsys@cs.umb.edu (Elizabeth Schwartz) writes:

>They CAN that's my POINT! Here in Boston, Channel One, The World, a
>new service called the Village, and I think some other BBS's are 
>providing Internet access for approximately the cost of basic cable
>television service...on a national level, Compuserve has a free-time
>flyer in every modem box I've seen in a mass-market outlet, and so on.

CompuServe doesn't provide Internet connectivity, and neither does Channel
One, last I checked. (I don't equate e-mail and Usenet with the Internet.)
The World does, of course (I have an account there myself), but it is a
mistake to generalize about the rest of the world based on what's
available in Boston.

>  Again, this is worth doing but it not a civil liberties issue. If
>the market WERE restricted, if private enterprises WERE having
>trouble, then you would have a cause.

Private providers have run into plenty of government restrictions. Ask
Alexis Rosen of Panix (alexis@panix.com), if you don't believe me.

>   It would be more accurate to say that I am an old-timer. I've been
>around on the BBS scene since 1983, when I got my Atari 800 and my
>300-baud modem.

By this standard, I suppose I qualify as an old-timer, too.

>   I agree that the bigger the platform, the better for us all, but I
>don't see that it's a civil liberties issue and I don't see that
>government intervention is necessary to help a platform which is
>already growing explosively.

Then we must agree to disagree about what can qualify as a civil-liberties
issue. As Anatole France once commented, the law in its majestic equality
forbids the rich as well as the poor from sleeping under bridges. I think
France would have agreed that access is a civil-liberties issue.

>   Without knocking either of their enthusiasms, it is too big a
>stretch for one organization. The two causes have different
>constituents and different beneficiaries.

On this too we must agree to disagree.



--Mike




-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"I'm waiting for the one-man revolution
mnemonic@eff.org| The only one that's coming."
(617) 864-0665  |                           
EFF, Cambridge  |                   --Robert Frost 
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
From: strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight)
Subject: Re: EFF and its growing pains...
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 17:20:21 GMT


There is some confusion in the sub-discussion here about government vs.
private, and direct subsidy of certain large-scale facilities (such as the
NREN) vs. distribution of the funds to individual universities, etc. for
their use in private purchases of facilities.

The point has already been made that some non-university researchers get the
benefits of the NREN, but if there were transfer payments to universities,
they'd either be cut out or have to come hat in hand to a university that
provided those facilities. Alternatively, the subsidies would also have to
go to many of such researchers, resulting in an even bigger and more
confusing bureaucracy.

More importantly, some writers seem unaware of the "lighthouse" argument of
basic economics. It is that there are certain goods which provide greater
benefits to the public than their costs, but which the private sector
unaided cannot fund because they cannot capture those benefits in order to
justify their costs. Thus the cost to the public of lost ships in the
absence of lighthouses is much greater than the cost of lighthouses, but no
individual shipowner can justify building lighthouses. Thus a role for the
government.

The lighthouse argument applies, it is believed by many, to the NREN and
even wider networks--the benefits of research and education to the nation
are greater than the costs of the networks.

If the funds were given to individual institutions, they might not be used
for the specific purposes which justified those funds in the first place,
just as if "lighthouse money" were given to individual shipowners, they
might not produce the "right" lighthouses in the "right" places, considering
the public interest at large rather than the private interests of individual
shipowners.

Thus (for example) Mike Godwin's argument to give the money to individual
universities fails.

David
-- 
David Sternlight
RIPEM Public Key on server  --  Consider it an envelope for your e-mail
From: kranitz@sol.med.ge.com (Wesley Kranitz  x7-4409)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: EFF and its growing pains...
Date: 27 Jan 93 18:53:37 GMT
Organization: Nowhere, Inc.
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]

David Douthitt (rat@ruth.UUCP) wrote:
: fig@eff.org (Cliff Figallo) writes:

: | >How do you see EFF as continuing the "dream" that the early supporters
: | >nourished?

: | I see EFF going out ahead of where things are at now, trying to clear the
: | way for information highways...

: | I think EFF must
: | prove that it is listening to the people and it must keep the people 
: | informed of its actions and its evolving goals.

: You've already DISproven that in my opinion..... most people who joined
: EFF were under the delusion that EFFs goal was to protect civil liberties
: in cyberspace and digital telephony.


Yes, and little did these people dream that big business would take it 
over and convert it into another lobbying organization.

I think what they did to the good people that were fired and to their 
membership "sucks canal water", as the expression goes. EFF's comments
that the people involved can say what they please, is balony. Who wants
to hire someone who has bad mothed their previous employer!!! No one!
So no matter how underhanded or for what reason they did it, no one is 
going to complain.

From various post from EFF, the only thing I can see they want members
for is to lobby congress for the goals of their corporate sponsers.

: | I see the people themselves
: | organizing to educate themselves and other and to claim their rights locally
: | through communities formed with the aid of electonic networking technologies.

: | EFF wants to have a working relationship with these communities, not build
: | them itself.

: So now it's official - the users are on their own.  EFF will no longer
: stand up for people to claim their rights - as you put it, "...the
: people organizing...to claim their rights locally..."


We knew this all along since they announced the change. My opinion is that
their helping out on the 2600 case is nothing more than trying to say "see,
we're still for civil liberaties!!". If it wasn't for the flap going on
here over the firings, they wouldn't have even bothered.

Wes
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,comp.unix.bsd,comp.unix.wizards,comp.org.usenix
From: lachman@netcom.com (Hans Lachman)
Subject: Re: Misc problems
Organization: Netcom
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 02:14:30 GMT

In article <C14zIy.2I5@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca> swong@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca (Stanley Wong) writes:
>
>1) I am having some problems with my ESDI disk.  I have a Western Digital
>controller WD1007 and a Maxtor XT8380E 330 meg drive.  My problems are with bad       
>blocks.  Firstly when I installed, I got a default partition setup for me
>that I don't really want, but I can live with it until the Future Domain
>SCSI driver is released.  Anyways it got disklabeled without the sf param
>and I get a bunch of read errors at various points.  Here is my disklabel:
>
># /dev/rwd0d:
>type: ESDI
>disk: 
>label: 
>flags:
>bytes/sector: 512
>sectors/track: 63
>tracks/cylinder: 16
>sectors/cylinder: 1008
>cylinders: 672
>rpm: 3600
>interleave: 1
>trackskew: 0
>cylinderskew: 0
>headswitch: 0		# milliseconds
>track-to-track seek: 0	# milliseconds
>drivedata: 0 
>
>3 partitions:
>#        size   offset    fstype   [fsize bsize   cpg]
>  a:   665280        0    4.2BSD     1024  8192    16 	# (Cyl.    0 - 659)
>  b:    10000   665868      swap                    	# (Cyl.  660*- 670*)
>  c:   676368        0    unused        0     0       	# (Cyl.    0 - 670)
>
>By doing a bad144 wd0 I get this:
>
>bad block information at sector 677313 in /dev//rwd0d:
>cartridge serial number: 0(10)
>sn=0, cn=0, tn=0, sn=0
>sn=20163, cn=20, tn=0, sn=3
>sn=81360, cn=80, tn=11, sn=27
>sn=81409, cn=80, tn=12, sn=13
>sn=661856, cn=656, tn=9, sn=41
>
>...

Don't let Apple get a hold of this post.  They already have ads about
how much better it is to use a Macintosh than to wrestle with Microsoft's
SYSTEM.INI and CONFIG.SYS files.  They would have a field day with this.

 (-: No serious flames please :-)

Hans Lachman
lachman@netcom.com
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
From: rat@ruth.UUCP (David Douthitt)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: EFF and its growing pains...
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 93 14:14:37 CST
Organization: Network XXIII - +1 608 222 9253

fig@eff.org (Cliff Figallo) writes:

| >How do you see EFF as continuing the "dream" that the early supporters
| >nourished?

| I see EFF going out ahead of where things are at now, trying to clear the
| way for information highways...

| I think EFF must
| prove that it is listening to the people and it must keep the people 
| informed of its actions and its evolving goals.

You've already DISproven that in my opinion..... most people who joined
EFF were under the delusion that EFFs goal was to protect civil liberties
in cyberspace and digital telephony.

| I see the people themselves
| organizing to educate themselves and other and to claim their rights locally
| through communities formed with the aid of electonic networking technologies.

| EFF wants to have a working relationship with these communities, not build
| them itself.

So now it's official - the users are on their own.  EFF will no longer
stand up for people to claim their rights - as you put it, "...the
people organizing...to claim their rights locally..."


--
UUCP: ....!fullfeed.com!ruth!rat        |  Network XXIII - +1 608 222 9253
InterNet: rat@ruth.UUCP                 |  80Megs+ of Usenet/Fido programs!
Fidonet: David Douthitt 1:121/23        |  ... Files via Fidonet FREQ,
"...because appealing to the masses has |  anon uucp, first time login,
 never appealed to us."                 |  mail to fileserver@ruth.uucp
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Purpose of a (benefie
From: mark.a.young@grapevine.lrk.ar.us (Mark.A Young) 
Date: 22 Jan 93 18:56:00 GMT
Reply-To: mark.a.young@grapevine.lrk.ar.us (Mark.A Young) 
Distribution: world
Organization: The GrapeVine BBS *** N. Little Rock, AR *** (501) 753-8121

.PH> Compression, which seems nice, can be trouble for people wanting to
.PH> swap files, or people trying to test full disks, or people who need
.PH> every last MIP of performance from their computer.
............................................................................
And, in the DOS platform, unexpected compression can be trouble to
programs that expect configuration data or registration information to
be imbedded in the executable file.
---
 . MegaMail 2.10 #592:Illegal to remove taglines except by consumer.
 * CAPRICORN RISING BBS (503)370-9777 Salem,OR
 * PostLink(tm) v1.04  CAPCORN (#838) : RelayNet(tm)
From: timhu@ico.isc.com (Timothy Hu)
Subject: Re: Consumption tax...Oh no! 
Organization: Interactive Systems Corp., Boulder CO
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 18:20:47 GMT

In article <728046158snz@morgan.demon.co.uk> tony@morgan.demon.co.uk writes:
>
>Actually, if you've got to have taxes, VAT is a far better tax than income 
>tax.
>

Unfortunately, our income tax *won't* go away.
-- 
Timothy Hu timhu@ico.isc.com	 | The intelligence (or lack of) expressed
Interactive Systems Corporation  | above does not necessarily reflect
Resource Solutions International | that of anyone else.
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
From: rdippold@qualcom.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold)
Subject: Re: 2nd Day Steve Jackson Games trial
Keywords: EFF Civil liberties
Organization: Qualcomm, Inc., San Diego, CA
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 20:22:40 GMT

fig@eff.org (Cliff Figallo) writes:

[ Thanks for the writeups, they're very interesting ]

>Tomorrow . . . the government begins its case.

"You honor... We don't care, we don't have to.  We're the government."
-- 
High-toned humanitarians constantly overestimate the sufferings of those they
sympathize with. -- H.L. Mencken
From: tzs@carson.u.washington.edu (Tim Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Did EFF *really* do this!?
Date: 22 Jan 1993 00:14:09 GMT
Organization: University of Washington School of Law, Class of '95
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: carson.u.washington.edu

[I've been having posting problems, and suspect this did not get out.  If
 you've seen this already, sorry!]

John Perry Barlow <barlow@icecube.pinedale.wy.us> writes:
> Had we thought that Gerard or Rita would have been willing to make the move,
> we would have offered them positions there. 

Did you really mean to say this?  This seems to imply that you just assumed
that they would not want to move, so you fired them rather than asking them.

--Tim Smith
From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: New case for EFF, ACLU, and CPSR
Date: 25 Jan 93 18:41:59 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)


      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?

					John Nagle
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: ftp site for copy of
From: bill.slattery@grapevine.lrk.ar.us (Bill Slattery) 
Date: 21 Jan 93 16:26:00 GMT
Reply-To: bill.slattery@grapevine.lrk.ar.us (Bill Slattery) 
Distribution: world
Organization: The GrapeVine BBS *** N. Little Rock, AR *** (501) 753-8121


HTR> : I'd like to know if anyone knows of an ftp site where I might obtain
   > : the full text of the Electronic Communication Privacy Act, apparently
   > : of 1991. Since it's a federal law, maybe a law archive site? any
   > : leads appreciated.

I called my congressman a year or so ago and he sent it to me.
---
 * SYL.LA.BLES - New.port, RI  (401) 848-9925
 * PostLink(tm) v1.04  SYLLABLES (#1834) : RelayNet(tm)
From: Wayne_Labat@agwbbs.new-orleans.LA.US (Wayne Labat)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: New guy Needs Help
Distribution: world
Date: 24 Jan 93 22:37:14 CST
Organization: The Amiga GateWay BBS * New Orleans, La.

 Ok, I am tres new here. I have been reading things posted here for the
past week before I began to become involved in an effort to figure out
what's happening, but I am unable to get a grasp on most of the concepts
discussed here. Many of the acronyms lose me, as well as references to
differedt systems of net access. If anyone has the time, please give me a
layman's term description of what things mean so I can lend some educated
commenting in the future.

Many thanks,

Wayne

-- Via DLG Pro v0.995

16 UUCP:Rex!agwbbs!wayne_labat
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
From: ckd@eff.org (Christopher Davis)
Subject: Re: More Info To Come on EFF Shortly
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation Tech Central
	<CKD.93Jan21114801@loiosh.eff.org> <1993Jan21.202856.12057@netcom.com>
Distribution: inet
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 22:41:53 GMT

DS> == David Sternlight <strnlght@netcom.com>

 DS> Am I going blind in my old age, or do I see a lot of electronic mail, as
 DS> well as newsgroups, that are partly handled over subsidized facilities?

Yes, to and from the "customers" of those subsidized facilities.  For
example, my mail to netcom customers crosses only AlterNet and BARRNET
facilities (and the EFF and Netcom facilities at each end, of course).

Obviously, my mail to, say, the University of Washington currently has to
cross some kind of subsidized link (since NorthWestNet is not a CIX
member).  Therefore, I (and/or my correspondents at the UW) should be aware
of any Acceptable Use Policies that may apply.

(I also note that if the nature of the subsidy changed, perhaps into a
direct grant or voucher system, potentially *all* network providers would
be "subsidized"--yet the market would still be the primary controlling
influence.)

--
 * Christopher Davis * <ckd@eff.org> * <ckd@kei.com> * [CKD1] * MIME * RIPEM *
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,comp.unix.bsd,comp.unix.wizards,comp.org.usenix
From: kris@black.toppoint.de (Kristian Koehntopp)
Subject: Re: BSDI/USL Lawsuit -- More Bad News for Human Beings...
X-Excuse: X-Copyright wegen Emma, Suedwestpresse und /C'T/DISKUSSIONEN.
Organization: Toppoint Mailbox e.V.
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 12:23:14 GMT
X-Copyright: (C) Copyright 1993 Kristian Koehntopp -- All rights reserved.
		 Reproduktion, auch auszugsweise, ausserhalb elektronischer,
		 nichtkommerzieller Datennetze nur mit ausdruecklichem,
		 schriftlichem Einverstaendnis des Autors.

In <1343@eplunix.UUCP> das@eplunix.UUCP (David Steffens) writes:
>Since you can't lock up "intellectual property", you have to place controls
>on the individuals who have access to said "property".  If you are going
>to demand protection for _your_ "property", then you had d*mn well better
>be prepared for the consequences when others come forward to demand similar
>protection for _their_ "property".

I know where this will end. Did your ever play the Science
Fantasy roleplaying game "Shadowrun"? :-)

Kristian
-- 
[ (Kristian Koehntopp) (Harmsstrasse 98) (2300 Kiel) (+49 431 676689) ]
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