HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: New case for EFF, ACLU, and CPSR
Followup-To: comp.org.eff.talk
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: 22 Jan 93 12:32:56

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.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
From: jcurran@nic.near.net (John Curran)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: What the State of Iowa is doing while EFF does the D.C. shuffle
Date: 25 Jan 1993 00:34:40 -0500
Organization: New England Academic and Research Network
Distribution: inet
NNTP-Posting-Host: nic.near.net

In article <C1E1xH.Cu@news.iastate.edu> john@iastate.edu (John Hascall) writes:
>}john@iastate.edu (John Hascall) writes:
>  [...Iowa Communications Network...]
>
>brad@clarinet.com (Brad Templeton) writes:
>}Only, I hope, as an experimental prototype project.   The vast worldnet
>}we are building will become the foundation of our society, even more so
>}than the roads or other networks.   To have it owned and controlled by
>}any one entity, particularly the government, would be highly unwise.
>
>It seems to have been not terribbly unwise to have (essentially) all the
>roads owned by the government -- what leads you to believe networks are
>different?  ...

I'll jump in here with a few comments, perhaps saving Brad the keystrokes:

The "network as a data highway" analogy provides people with very good
imagery (with interstates, state highways, local roads and dirt paths) but
fails when used a financial model.  If data transmission costs were totally
funded by the government, you can be sure that usage will increase to network
capacity.  This is because the incremental cost of using the network would 
be negligible, and rest assured that companies will jump on this free
resource.

This would leave the government as the single buyer of telecommunications
services in the country.  By coincidence, it causes many private facilities
(current purchased by major IXC carriers) to be decommissioned.  Now I'm not
fond of any of the carriers, but the current situation at least provides a
fair market for services.   Imagine trying to get a problem resolved on the
government-bought network: it's free, and hence you have no recourse but to
use it.  There is little motivation for innovation or research, since the
government becomes a captive buyer.  The possibility of switching to another
network provider after a few years would be non-existent, since the government
would have been providing free resources over the same period (hence driving
competitors out of business).

The government shouldn't be afraid of coordinating development of the NII,
including developing specifications for minimum services and support, but
actually procuring the services on behalf of everyone would make for a bad 
situation.

/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 15:35:22 +0000

:The relevance to the "computing community" is that EFF would like to 
:expand the community to include millions of people who don't necessarily
:want to think of themselves as part of a "computing community".  EFF 
:would like there to be a platform in place that will foster the creation
:of new tools that will enable everyone to have access to online information
:and to take part in electronically-facilitated community.  In that respect,
:EFF's strategy may not match yours, Graham.  Maybe you and EFF just don't
:agree on priorities.  That's certainly a possibility.

Nope, I agree with your above statement 100%!  That's why I don't
understand why you are concentrating on this Open Platform/ISDN thing.

I know the New EFF hates to get technical, and would much prefer a political
rant to get some practice in for Washington, but allow me:

A wire to the internet means nothing if there aren't services to connect
to.  A faster wire means twice as much nothing.  People can connect
to the internet *now*.  What is important to 'millions of people' is
bullet-proof, non-guru-installable, cheap software for cheap machines.

'Millions of people' will be using IBM PCs to connect.  This isn't open
to debate, unless we're talking many years in the future.  (They're
repulsive machines and I hate working on them, but I can't deny they are the
machine of the mass market)  Internet software for the PC is abysmal - I
know, I've connected to the Internet via a PC for most of last year.
The tens of thousands of dollars (maybe hundreds of thousands, who knows?)
that EFF is throwing at Washington would be *much* better spent employing
half a dozen good guys to write better software that was as easy to install
as say Windows.  (OK, OK, - it's all relative... I guess I mean 'much easier
to install than windows' but we have to be realistic...)

In fact, thinking about it, the technical problems of handling comms > 19.2K
on DOS machines are a real pain in the butt.  They *just about* keep up
with v32bis modems, with cheap technology.  The price of a decent system
for ISDN is going to be ridiculous I'll bet.  "Oh," says EFF, "but that's
why we want to get ISDN in everywhere to make economies of scale and
get the market price down low"... nope - doesn't work like that.  The
price comes down *once the market exists*.  It has to be pump-primed.
The 'networking for the masses' will only take off *on the back of* internet
for the masses via v32bis/v.fast modems.  Those users will upgrade first
and then the ISDN market will be there.  So you have to get the *services* in
place first, not the hardware.

Concentrate on the human element, EFF.

G
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,uk.net,alt.conspiracy
From: jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala)
Subject: Re: Anyone heard of UK proposal to licence BBSes?
Reply-To: jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala)
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 00:46:11 GMT

In article <jrk.727729306@zen.sys.uea.ac.uk>, jrk@sys (Richard Kennaway) writes:
>In <6543@mccuts.uts.mcc.ac.uk> zzassgl@uts.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Lane) writes:
>>This guy must have a real problem with the telephone system - imagine all
>>those crooks can actually use a phone to talk to each other and plan crimes
>>- obviously should be regulated :-)

>Have the UK security
>authorities tried to get similar statutory right of access to
>telecommunications?

Rumor on the net tells this is covered already, ie. that UK has been a
great buyer of telephone switching equipment with many more
eavesdropping lines than elsewhere.

(yes, eavesdropping is normally built into the equipment for "testing
purposes", it's just that there's normally apparently only a few lines
per exchange which wasn't enough for UK purposes)

Of course this would probably be covered by the official secrets act so
it might be a bit difficult to get information about in the UK.

But this is just rumor from alt.conspiracy I think, sorry for
circulating it.  Someone can probably tell more, I added alt.conspiracy.

//Jyrki
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
From: pbachman@scott.skidmore.edu (peter bachman)
Subject: Information Revolution?
Organization: Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs NY
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 08:45:50 GMT

I thought I heard there was an information revolution. Now I realize
it was just a misunderstanding.

Peter Bachman
Usual disclaimers apply, check product coding for freshness date.
From: rat@ruth.UUCP (David Douthitt)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: LOOK AT THIS MESS!
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 93 22:46:56 CST
Organization: Network XXIII - +1 608 222 9253

david.chessler@grapevine.lrk.ar.us (David Chessler)  writes:

| On 01-18-93 (20:40), Bob Snyder, in a message to All
| about: "Re: LOOK AT THIS MESS!", stated the following:
| 
| BS>David> Those of us who read it on BBSs would appreciate it if individual
|   >David> messages could be kept under 100 lines (that is, break up longer
|   >David> ones).  Some of the most popular software for reading messages
|   >David> offline has a 100 or 150 line limit.
| 
| BS>Then complain to the software writer and get it changed?  Offline mail
| 
| Who has stopped supporting this software.

| I constantly look into updates, but so far have not found any
| that works better for my purposes.  And the offline reader I use
| is the most popular by a long shot.  Look at the Taglines on BBS
| messages.

So what.  Network XXIII has 34 files in the Offline Reader directory,
including:
             - BlueWave
             - Jabber
             - King-QWK
             - MR/2
             - Offline
             - Offline Express (Test Drive)
             - TNT XL (Demo)
             - KWQ-Mail
             - Power-QWK
             - SpeedRead
             - Silver Xpress
             - Win-QWK

...and of course:

             - Silly Little Mail Reader

I was not aware that SLMR had a 100-line limit...

| You don't write software?  You design software for the expected
| use.

I DO write software, including two Fidonet packet tossers - and I DO *NOT*
see *ANY* reason for *ANY* message size limitation.... both of my packet
tossers will accept messages of indeterminate length.

| At the time RelayMail (one BBS network technology) had a
| 100 line limit. FIDO (the other technology) has a nominal 32K
| limit but some networking software can't actually handle messages
| that long, leaving the actual limit indeterminate.

The actual limit in Fidonet has gone as low as 8K in message
size I believe.  However, 2 wrongs (or 3 or 4 or 5) don't make
a right.

| So a bit of attention to message lengths would be no
| hardship to those of you on big iron, and a significant
| convenience to those of us on itty-bitty machines.

I am NOT on 'big iron' -- and there are a lot of people who
are in the same shoes I am.  I have no problem with the
length of messages in this area -- except trying to keep
up with all the gum-flapping :-)


--
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
From: reinitz-john@cs.yale.edu (John Reinitz)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: NYT column by J. P. Barlow
Date: 27 Jan 1993 11:44:42 -0500
Organization: Yale University Theoretical Biology Collective
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: nyaya.systemsz.cs.yale.edu
Summary: good one
Keywords: lite

On a slightly different note from the usual discussions here,
the New York Times Op-Ed page this morning had a column by John
Perry Barlow entitled "Bill o' rights lite". I rather enjoyed
it. Serious-humorous in style.

Rather than tread on any intellectual property toes, I wonder
if the author might be willing to post it here :-)

Mike, Cliff, John: keep talking. People never agree here,
of course, but the policy discussion wrt to NREN etc. is
quite interesting. For me, there is an interesting intellectual
"missing link". A lot of what I hear is apparently based on the history
of utility regulation in this country in conjuction with a politico-
economic analysis about how that might be changed to facilitate
the goals of eff. I'd love to read 3000-8000 words that essentially
presented this history and analysis to the intelligent but ignorant
reader.

John Reinitz
From: loomis@Think.COM (Kim Loomis)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Communication policies or legislation
Date: 23 Jan 1993 22:04:18 GMT
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: cookie-monster.think.com


Does anybody have a copy of the policy or legislation for the following  countries in regards to speech in and privacy of e-mail?

France,
Sweden
Germany
Australia

I'm also trying to get a copy of Australia's Telcom 2000 report.

Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Kim
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle)
Subject: Re: One good thing about the EFF mess
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 07:32:38 GMT

fig@eff.org (Cliff Figallo) writes:
>EFF's board just met this past weekend with representatives of several
>regional groups who had been considering chapter affiliation with EFF.
>Given that EFF has decided not to support a chapter structure, we met
>in Atlanta to discuss EFF, it's agenda and its role in relation to 
>grassroots groups.  Jerry chaired the meeting.  The results were that
>the grassroots representatives aligned with EFF's policy agenda, asking
>that EFF do a better job of communicating its strategy to the public
>and that EFF continue with its civil liberties agenda, which it never
>considered dropping anyway.  We found many common areas of agreement
>and intend to continue communicating through the mail list called
>thesegroups@tic.com.  News of activities of local independent groups 
>will become a regular feature of EFFector Online.  This meeting showed
>all of us that EFF and the grassroots networking community are, indeed,
>still on the same planet.
     
      It's good to see that EFF is watering its Astroturf.

					John Nagle

[The people who need to get this, will.]
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
From: bhayden@teal.csn.org (Bruce Hayden)
Subject: Re: EFF and its growing pains...
Organization: Colorado SuperNet, Inc.
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 10:42:35 GMT

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.

>>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.

Bruce E. Hayden
(303) 758-8400
bhayden@csn.org

Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
From: ckd@eff.org (Christopher Davis)
Subject: Re: New case for EFF, ACLU, and CPSR
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation Tech Central
	<1993Jan25.184159.10827@netcom.com>
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 19:58:09 GMT

JN> == John Nagle <nagle@netcom.com>

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

Items, perfectly legal items like notebooks, were confiscated.  People were
"told that if they refused to be searched, they would be arrested....One of
the attendees was detained by security who would neither arrest him nor let
him go.  After about 10 minutes, he was released...No receipts were given
and, at one point, the security guards denied having anything at all..."

More details on the meeting are available in Computer Underground Digest
4.57, 4.59, 4.60, 4.64, and 4.65.  All of these are available for anonymous
ftp: ftp.eff.org:pub/cud/cud/cud#.##.
--
 * Christopher Davis * <ckd@eff.org> * <ckd@kei.com> * [CKD1] * MIME * RIPEM *
Xref: sparky comp.org.eff.talk:9044 comp.unix.bsd:11636 comp.unix.wizards:5577 comp.org.usenix:1346
From: gwh@soda.berkeley.edu (George William Herbert)
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 1993 07:01:46 GMT
Organization: Dis-
Distribution: inet
NNTP-Posting-Host: soda.berkeley.edu
Summary: Oh Really?

If Berkeley/CSRG was the "Forces of Evil" for having "with malice
aforethought" taken AT&T's money-generating code away from them,
it's taken a long time for the "Forces of Good" to state their
position.  I find it idiotic that anyone can take USL seriously
at face value when for at least the last five years Berkeley has
been, with near universal acclaim, saying they were going to do
exactly what they are pretty close to have done; release a free
version, and all AT&T/USL did was hmm and make sure the code that
was released, as it came out, was clean...

UNIX is far from a dead end.  Indeed, the very similarity between
UNIX and that which would replace it indicates that UNIX is likely
to remain, in functon if not form.  

Free UNIX isn't a threat to commercial products.  It never has been.
Free UNIX is an invitation to the whole world to come and play
in our wonderful, feature filled world, with the hardware they
have today and little else.  Free UNIX is a tool to enable people,
not a way to bash on companies or restrict research into better
ways of doing something.  If something better comes along than
UNIX, I'll take a look.  If it's not free, but it's better enough,
I'll pay for it like I (or my company) pay for the UNIXes we use
today.  If it's free but supported, we'll smile and take it
anyway, but the money we save there isn't going to be all that
much.  But if it's free and millions more people can use the
Internet, Usenet News, email, and the rest of what comes (albeit
not exclusively) with UNIX, then it's not just software, it's
a revolution.

Small minded people at USL think that they're going to lose something
by having this happen.  They might have a legal leg to stand on
in saying it's not fair to them if the code release occurs, they might
not: until I see the disputed code, and the court decisions that myst
by necessity rule on how much different code need be to be free, I can't
judge now.  But saying that the world will be a better place if it
doesn't happen is ignoring the whole point behind PERSONAL
computing, universal network access, etc.  People with computers
are more than just people.  I want to see more of it happen.
UNIX is THE tool to make it happen, it's the standard, the
lowest fully capable denominator.  I don't give a flying fart
whether something better comes along tomorrow, I want that LCD
in as many hands today as possible.  Sitting on our hands waiting
for computers to become perfect before they start having significant
social effects is stupid.

-george william herbert
gwh@soda.berkeley.edu gwh@lurnix.com
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
From: strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight)
Subject: Re: Internet as a natural monopoly (was: Re: EFF and its growing pains...)
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Distribution: inet
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 00:51:07 GMT

In article <1k1gpk$73t@nic.near.net> jcurran@nic.near.net (John Curran) writes:

>
>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.

Agreed. I'm a Californian, where we have both a pretty innovative PUC and
where some of our utility heads such as John Bryson are constantly pushing
the envelope. It's both/and, not either/or, here.

>
>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.
>
Since we can divide the Internet conceptually and "regulatorily" into the
wires and channels, and the uses of those wires and channels, I suggest that
a single, natural-monopoly publicly funded backbone/physical network, with
economies of scale, as at present, with the current eclectic organization,
would provide the best of both worlds, as well as a possibly unique
organizational model.

In contrast, fragmentation by a voucher system, distribution among
competing commercial interests, etc. can't achieve any lower costs (if the
backbone is properly regulated as to fees), and will lose the economies of
scale. The only results can be higher prices and degraded service.

Just about the only argument I'd be sympathetic to is one which would claim
there's in-being idle capacity at least equal to the backbone, in commercial
firms, that would serve "all current airports", not just the big ones. I
have not heard anyone make that argument yet, nor discuss the undertakings
necessary by such firms to insure that national R&D and Education policy
objectives continued to be met.

David

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

Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
From: gardner@convex.com (Steve Gardner)
Subject: Re: What the State of Iowa is doing while EFF does the D.C.  shuffle
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 14:21:21 GMT
Organization: Engineering, CONVEX Computer Corp., Richardson, Tx., USA
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.

In article <C1FDMM.843@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> Joe.Francis@dartmouth.edu (Joe Francis) writes:
>In article <C1E1xH.Cu@news.iastate.edu>, john@iastate.edu (John
>Hascall) writes:
>>It seems to have been not terribbly unwise to have (essentially) all the
>>roads owned by the government -- what leads you to believe networks are
>>different?
>
>It's a difference of degree.  I believe that a government's interest in
>network traffic will be higher than its interest in highway traffic. 
>After we have a few more "Rodney Kings of the Internet", you may
>conclude that government ownership is unwise after all.
	"Rodney Kings of the Internet"?!?  This is just too precious.
	I love it when people confuse 1s and 0s with real life.
	Really!  I'll gladly take on the entire LAPD armed only with 
	my keyboard and lightning fast digits as long as any beatings
	I get have to be delivered over the internet.  

	"Rodney Kings of the Internet" indeed. Where do they get these 
	guys?  ;-)




						smg



Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk