HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: betsys@cs.umb.edu (Elizabeth Schwartz)
Newsgroups: uno.cwis,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
Subject: Re: Chain letters?
Date: 13 Dec 92 02:04:50 GMT
	<1992Dec11.180920.28593@ms.uky.edu> <1992Dec12.215820.12189@eff.org>
Organization: University of Massachusetts at Boston

I agree with Wes and Greeny. Any joke posting will die under its own
weight. "Chain Letter" laws are supposed to apply to asking for money,
and their doesn't seem to be any dispute about applying (US) mail
fraud laws to (US) email. It's kinda silly to chase jokes. 

  (I find myself chasing those stupid ANSI toy-train-Christmas-Cards
every year. They play hell with dialup lines and non-ANSI terminals,
but they come back along with ANSI .plans, which also break sessions.)

  Sexual harassment is another issue. As opposed as I am to sexual
harassment, I think that a lot of schools are going overboard in
reacting to sexism and racism, to the point of knee-jerk censorship.
Carl Kadie's suggestion would be appropriate as a C.Y.A (Cover Your
nether region) defense.

--
System Administrator                  Internet: betsys@cs.umb.edu
MACS Dept, UMass/Boston               BITNET:ESCHWARTZ%UMBSKY.DNET@NS.UMB.EDU
100 Morrissey Blvd                    Staccato signals
Boston, MA 02125-3393                      of constant information....
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,alt.censorship,alt.discrimination,alt.politics.correct
From: jpsb@gothamcity.jsc.nasa.gov (Jim Shirreffs)
Subject: Re: "Regents reject hate speech rule"
Organization: JJ Software
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 23:24:28 GMT


>>   "The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents rejected a controversial
>>UW hate speech rule Friday.
>>   The rule banned UW students from using racial epithets because they
>>created a hostile learning environment.
>>   In September, the regents suspended the rule because it was thought
>>to violate the First Amendment right of free speech. Regents voted to
>>reject the rule 9-7.[...]"

>And is this supposed to be a good thing???

Freedom of speech is a good thing. 

jim shirreffs

i speak for myself and only myself
Xref: sparky alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk:3702 comp.org.eff.talk:7594 comp.security.misc:2185 alt.privacy:2585
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.org.eff.talk,comp.security.misc,alt.privacy
Subject: Re: CERT and the Dept. of Justice on keystroke monitoring
From: oleg@gd.cs.csufresno.edu
Date: 12 Dec 92 06:45:33 PST
Organization: Computer Science Departement of California State University in Fresno

In article <e6TZ03sdc2.200@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> grjost@uts.amdahl.com (Garrett Jost) writes:
>oleg@gd.cs.csufresno.edu writes:
>
>>In article <q50qgdg@dixie.com> jgd@dixie.com (John De Armond) writes:
>>>strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight) writes:
>>>
>>>>The notion that people should be warned about monitoring, when it
>>>>is done legally, is a fundamental civil liberties notion. It is
>>>>in the same class as "fair warnings" of many other kinds.
>>>
>>>Damn straight.  If Jerk-eeee doesn't want his keystrokes monitored, his
>>>option is to own his own machine.  If he is a guest on someone else's machine
>>>or is on his employer's or institution's machine, he plays by their
>>>rules or does not play.  Nothing difficult to understand about that.
>>>
>
>>Huh? If I work for company X, X automatically has full rights to read
>>my mail or search my home? Or maybe only if it officially warns me
>>about this on it's front entrance? :). 
>
>Maybe his e-mail, but not his home.  John was saying that anything that
>you use that is owned by your company may be monitored by them.  Hey, my
>company did not say when I hired in that I can e-mail all my friends and
>expect 100% privacy.  It's their computers: they can do what they want,
>and if I don't like it, then I don't use their machines!
>
>They also have the right to search my office, since it's actually theirs!
>But they don't have the right to search my apartment: it's mine.
>

So, since mail system is owned by state, it's Ok for state to read my paper
mail without any reason as well ;-)

Oleg



Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: has8wwa@cabell.vcu.edu (William W. Arnold)
Subject: Re: CERT and the Dept. of Justice on keystroke monitoring
Originator: daemon@eff.org
Organization: EFF mail-news gateway
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 00:45:56 GMT

Steve Taylor writes ---
>Lets see... If I rent a hotel room, does the hotel owner have the right to
>spy on me? After all, it's his hotel, and I could always go and buy my own
>house.
>
If the contract you sign says he can, he can.
If the contract you sign says he can't, he can't.
If the contract says nothing, then:
	If you have "an expectation of privacy"  then he can't.
	If you don't have "an expectation of privacy"  then he can.

I'd say that you have an expectation of privacy,  but at least one of the
Times I've stayed in a hotel, the fine print on the contract gave him the
right to (Paraphrase) "do whatever monitoring of the room(s) as is
necessary to ensure health, safety, and legal conduct while on hotel
premises." (From a five year old memory..)

As far as I know he didn't have a camera in the room, but he might have.

/------------------------------\ /----------------------------------\
| William W. Arnold             | Is the universe an accident,      |
| has8wwa@cabell.vcu.edu        |    a mistake, or did someone      |
| warnold@nomad.urich.edu       |    do it to us on purpose?        |
| someone.else@someplace.else   |            --ME--                 |
\------------------------------/ \----------------------------------/
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.org.eff.talk,comp.security.misc,alt.privacy
From: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Re: CERT and the Dept. of Justice on keystroke monitoring
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 02:59:22 GMT

So when should a sys admin be authorized to "tap" a computers user? I
believe this depends on the situtation. In academia, I believe taps
should allowed only if authorized the that a telephone or room tap
would be authorized. This would be authorization by a judge (or
perhaps a high-level university official.)

- Carl

ANNOTATED REFERENCES

(All these documents are available on-line. Access information follows.)

=================
faq/email.privacy
=================
* Email -- Privacy
 
q: Can (should) my university monitor my email?
 
a: Ethically (and perhaps legally) email communications should have
...

=================
faq/email.policies
=================
* Email -- Policies
 
q: Do any universities treat email and computer files as private?
 
a: Yes, many universities treat email and computer files as private.
...

=================
statements/caf-statement
=================
* Computer and Academic Freedom Statement -- Draft

This is an attempt to codify the application of academic freedom to
academic computers. It reflects our seven months of on-line discussion
about computers and academic freedom. It covers free expression, due
process, privacy, and user participation.

Comments and suggestions are very welcome (especially when posted to
CAF-talk). All the documents referenced are available on-line.
(Critiqued).

=================
caf
=================
* About the CAF mailing lists (and newsgroups)

A description of the comp-academic-freedom-talk mailing list. It is a
free-forum for the discussion of questions such as: How should general
principles of academic freedom (such as freedom of expression, freedom
to read, due process, and privacy) be applied to university computers
and networks? How are these principles actually being applied? How can
the principles of academic freedom as applied to computers and
networks be defended?

=================
=================

If you have gopher, you can browse the CAF archive with the command
   gopher gopher.eff.org

These document(s) are also available by anonymous ftp (the preferred
method) and by email. To get the file(s) via ftp, do an anonymous ftp
to ftp.eff.org (192.88.144.4), and get file(s):

  pub/academic/faq/email.privacy
  pub/academic/faq/email.policies
  pub/academic/statements/caf-statement
  pub/academic/caf

To get the file(s) by email, send email to archive-server@eff.org.
Include the line(s) (be sure to include the space before the file
name):

send acad-freedom/faq email.privacy
send acad-freedom/faq email.policies
send acad-freedom/statements caf-statement
send acad-freedom caf

-- 
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent any organization; this is just me.
 = kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
Newsgroups: uno.cwis,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: morgan@engr.uky.edu (Wes Morgan)
Subject: Re: Chain letters?
    <1992Dec11.165515.22434@eff.org>
Organization: University of Kentucky Engineering Computing Center
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 23:09:20 GMT

kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie) wrote:
>
>I read the joke chain letter. I don't think it is a chain letter (any
>more than a toy car is car). Thus, I don't think the new prohibition
>even covers the specific material they want to ban.
>

I'd classify anything that says "send this to XX other people" as
a chain letter..........

>Here is what I think they should have done:
>
> 1) Announced that this joke letter is going around
> 2) Ask people to be considerate about what they email to others
> 2) Remind people of the University's rules about harassment

Speaking from experience, I can almost guarantee that you forgot steps 3 and 4:

  3) Watch as your email system sags under dozens or hundreds (or, in my 
     particular experience, *thousands*) of identical copies of the letter.

  4) Explain to other users why their email is being delayed for hours.
     Explain to still more users why the system is bogged down with a
     dozen copies of sendmail at the same time.  

--Wes

-- 
MORGAN@UKCC         |       Wes Morgan       |        ...!ukma!ukecc!morgan 
morgan@ms.uky.edu   | Engineering  Computing |   morgan@wuarchive.wustl.edu
morgan@engr.uky.edu | University of Kentucky | JWMorgan@dockmaster.ncsc.mil
  Mailing list for AT&T StarServer S/E  - starserver-request@engr.uky.edu
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,alt.censorship,isu.cc.general,isu.talk.usenet-policy
From: buckmr@vccnw06.its.rpi.edu (Ron Buckmire)
Subject: Re: "Regents reject hate speech rule"
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 22:43:53 GMT

kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) writes:

>According to a UPI article in clari.news.issues:

>   "The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents rejected a controversial
>UW hate speech rule Friday.
>   The rule banned UW students from using racial epithets because they
>created a hostile learning environment.
>   In September, the regents suspended the rule because it was thought
>to violate the First Amendment right of free speech. Regents voted to
>reject the rule 9-7.[...]"

And is this supposed to be a good thing???

-- 
RON BUCKMIRE, 11 Colvin Circle, Troy, NY 12180-3735.  ***Clinton-Gore '92***
uunet!rpi.edu!buckmr||buckmr@rpitsmts.bitnet||buckmr@rpi.edu||+1 518 276 8910
"In any battle for freedom of identity there can be no distinction between the
 private and the political." --David Leavitt's _Family Dancing_
Newsgroups: uno.cwis,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Re: Chain letters?
Originator: kadie@eff.org
Organization: The Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 15:43:37 GMT

s_titz@ira.uka.de (Olaf Titz) writes:

[...]
>To all of the people who complained that the prohibition of
>chain-lettering violates their academic freedom, especially in this
>case: go get a life!
[...]

I haven't claimed that that prohibition of chain letters violates
academic freedom; I've claimed that letter in question is not a chain
letter.  I'll revise that claim now:

But what is meant by the term "chain letter"?

If it means "chain letter, as prohibited by the U.S. Post Office",
then I doubt that letter in question is a chain letter. (I don't know
the USPO regulations; but I assume that illegal chain letters involve
some renumeration. In contrast, the letter in question was obviously a
joke, a no renumeration was really expected.)

If "chain letter" means any "letter written with an invitation to the
recipient to pass it on to another", then letter in question might be
a chain letter, but any rule that prohibits such chain letters to too
broad.

Finally, the uncertainty in the meaning of the word "chain letter",
means that the rule is too vague.

- Carl

-- 
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: jgd@dixie.com (John De Armond)
Subject: Re: CERT and the Dept. of Justice on keystroke monitoring
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 92 06:35:59 GMT
Organization: Dixie Communications Public Access.  The Mouth of the South.

rob@wzv.win.tue.nl (Rob J. Nauta) writes:

>C'mon ! you're saying that if Jyrki doesn't want his boss tapping
>his phone, he should bring his own PABX and phones, or avoid using
>the phone ? Get real ! The same goes for keystroke monitoring, why
>do you think phone tapping is illegal, even if you own the company's
>internal phone system ?

Not only do I think internal phone tapping is legal in most states,
I KNOW it is.  (assuming I'm the boss) The company equipment is mine
and I'll do with it what I want.  The only detail is it is a good idea
these days to have each employee sign a statement that they have
read the policy and understand it. 

If you want to use a phone at my facility and don't want it possibly
monitored, bring your own cellphone.  Not private enough for you?
Fine.  Leave the site and find a payphone.  If my company engages in
some business in which industrially or militarily sensitive information
is present, I would also ban user-owned phones from the facility.

Fortunately for us here in the US, socialism has not yet progressed
to the point where most people consider the property of others theirs.

>Pretty hypocrite of CERT since they've been providing tools for
>the select few experts, including a version of /usr/etc/in.telnetd
>that logs keystrokes since 1990. I've been surprized myself with
>a few keystroke logs and the warning that 'they' had tens of megabytes
>of logs on tape for all users (since telnetd runs before login, there
>is no way to differentiate between users).

If you don't want your keystrokes logged, don't use that resource.
Why is that so hard to understand?  Do you REALLY believe you are
entitled to use resources provided you in any manner you please?

John
-- 
John De Armond, WD4OQC               |Interested in high performance mobility?  
Performance Engineering Magazine(TM) | Interested in high tech and computers? 
Marietta, Ga                         | Send ur snail-mail address to 
jgd@dixie.com                        | perform@dixie.com for a free sample mag
Need Usenet public Access in Atlanta?  Write Me for info on Dixie.com.
Newsgroups: uno.cwis,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us (Marc Unangst)
Subject: Re: CERT and the Dept. of Justice on keystroke monitoring
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 03:08:26 GMT
Organization: The Programmer's Pit Stop, Ann Arbor MI

In article <26Cu03elc3du00@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> grjost@uts.amdahl.com (Garrett Jost) writes:
>Maybe one day it will be illegal to scan e-mail.  But for now, its not!  Just
>look at Prodigy.

I suggest you get a clue, or at least a competent lawyer, if you plan
to continue sounding like you know what you're talking about.

In the U.S., the ECPA makes it illegal for the system administrator to
read others' e-mail if the users had a reasonable expectation of privacy.  In
fact, the ECPA makes it illegal for *anyone* to read the e-mail if the
users had a reasonable expectation of privacy.  I would venture to say
that the users have a reasonable expectation of privacy on most
existing e-mail systems without specific notices to the contrary.

Prodigy is a poor example, as they have repeatedly told people that
they do *not* monitor e-mail.  Prodigy has other things to dislike,
such as the fact that they censor their public-access bulletin boards
and limit the amount of e-mail you can send, but reading your e-mail
isn't one of them.

>I'll leave on this note:  On many systems, if you mail a letter to a non-
>existent user, the message gets sent back, but a copy also goes to
>"postmaster".  So if you mistype a friend's e-mail address and write
>he/she a very personal message, it isn't very personal anymore, is it?

I would say that if a mail error occurs, the user no longer has a
reasonable expectation of privacy for their message, since it may be
read (if only accidentally) by a sysadmin trying to fix the problem.
Encrypt your mail if you don't want it read by others.

Encrypting sensitive mail is a good idea anyway.  Even if a law makes
something illegal, if the law is difficult (or impossible) to enforce
people will do it anyway.  The ECPA says it's illegal to listen to
cellphone calls, too, but lots of people do it anyway because unless
they use the information thus gained, there is no real way the law can
be enforced.

-- 
Marc Unangst, N8VRH         | "Of course, in order to understand this you
mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us   |  have to remember that the nucleus of the atom
                            |  is squishy."
                            |    -W. Scheider, from a Physics lecture
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: jgd@dixie.com (John De Armond)
Subject: Re: CERT and the Dept. of Justice on keystroke monitoring
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 92 08:56:10 GMT
Organization: Dixie Communications Public Access.  The Mouth of the South.

bear@tigger.cs.Colorado.EDU (Bear Giles) writes:

>In article <b+arapg@dixie.com> jgd@dixie.com (John De Armond) writes:
>>The point is, it is the owner of the resource's right to set the rules
>>anyway he so chooses.  

>If someone contracts for use of computer resources, does not that person
>_own_ in some sense those resources?

>What you're saying implies that if I rent time on a system, develop
>a commercial product, then get undercut by the owner of that system
>I have no recourse because he "owns" the system I rented and everything
>on it, even if I paid hard money in return for CPU cycles and mass storage?

If you want to use my resources and the only way I'll contract them to 
you is for you to sign over some part of your ownership in your 
product, you have two options.  One, do it my way or two, find another
resource.  

I repeat, it is the owner of the resource's right to set the rules
anyway he so chooses.  

John
-- 
John De Armond, WD4OQC               |Interested in high performance mobility?  
Performance Engineering Magazine(TM) | Interested in high tech and computers? 
Marietta, Ga                         | Send ur snail-mail address to 
jgd@dixie.com                        | perform@dixie.com for a free sample mag
Need Usenet public Access in Atlanta?  Write Me for info on Dixie.com.
Xref: sparky alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk:3752 comp.org.eff.talk:7666 comp.security.misc:2247 alt.privacy:2633 alt.society.civil-liberty:6902
From: jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala)
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.org.eff.talk,comp.security.misc,alt.privacy,alt.society.civil-liberty
Subject: Re: CERT and the Dept. of Justice on keystroke monitoring
Date: 14 Dec 92 21:33:52 GMT
Reply-To: jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala)
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland

In article <mt_rrwn@dixie.com>, jgd@dixie (John De Armond) writes:
>There is no "rights" issue
>involved here except property rights.

Actually, there are not property rights involved here.  The advisory
was to federal agencies, ie. public property.

The worker's privacy rights, however, are involved here.  So are the
rights of the citizens to decide how public property is taken care of
and how federal agencies are run.

//Jyrki
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.org.eff.talk,comp.security.misc,alt.privacy
Subject: Re: CERT and the Dept. of Justice on keystroke monitoring
From: glazier@isr.harvard.edu (Andrew Baker Glazier)
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 92 16:22:09 GMT
Organization: Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

>Gee, maybe the person comes to work a bit stoned, doesn't wash his/her hands
>after using the restroom and touches your food (the cashiers do set up your
>fries and Coke).  You eat the food contract typhoid.  Don't believe it?  It
>happened out here a couple of years ago.  Let's face it, drugs make you stupid.
>When you're stupid, you forget safety precautions, no matter what job you have.
>
Drugs don't make you stupid, stupid!  The most they do is decrease your
ability to disguise how stupid you already are. What *really* makes people
stupid is people like you, who use 'drugs' and 'the war on drugs' to refer
to everything from LSD to pot to cocaine to amphetamines. This creates the
impression that these are all basically similar, by fitting one label over
them. Even more dangerous is the impression that current US drug policy is
scientifically based and that the government couldn't have anything other
than public safety in mind in deciding what's legal and what's not.

Alcohol and cigarettes *each* kill more people and cause more damage than the  
'drugs' listed above. 'nuf said

WAKE UP!

-- 
"A horse! A horse! Somebody give me a horse, man, because|glazier@ 
I come to bury this dirtball, not to praise him. Whaddya |harvard.isr.edu
think I am? Whether it's nobler for the mind to make people suffer with all
these totally outrageous arrows arrows for a fortune, or what!" -- D.R.
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: newsham@wiliki.eng.hawaii.edu (Timothy Newsham)
Subject: Re: CERT and the Dept. of Justice on keystroke monitoring
Organization: University of Engineering, College of Engineering
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 08:57:34 GMT

In article <1992Dec11.164849.3491@nic.csu.net> oleg@gd.cs.csufresno.edu writes:
>In article <q50qgdg@dixie.com> jgd@dixie.com (John De Armond) writes:
>>strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight) writes:
>>
>>>The notion that people should be warned about monitoring, when it
>>>is done legally, is a fundamental civil liberties notion. It is
>>>in the same class as "fair warnings" of many other kinds.
>>
>>Damn straight.  If Jerk-eeee doesn't want his keystrokes monitored, his
ack! you are bashing one of my usenet heros!
jyrki has probably done more to secure *your* machine
than you ever have :)

>>option is to own his own machine.  If he is a guest on someone else's machine
>>or is on his employer's or institution's machine, he plays by their
>>rules or does not play.  Nothing difficult to understand about that.
>>
>
>Huh? If I work for company X, X automatically has full rights to read
>my mail or search my home? Or maybe only if it officially warns me
>about this on it's front entrance? :). 
>
>Oleg

its nice to have a fin standing up for our rights, all the americans
have grown accustom to all the attacks on our rights..


Xref: sparky alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk:3771 comp.org.eff.talk:7698 comp.security.misc:2275 alt.privacy:2648
From: jfw@neuro.duke.edu (John F. Whitehead)
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.org.eff.talk,comp.security.misc,alt.privacy
Subject: Prodigy summary, anyone?
Date: 15 Dec 92 18:20:32 GMT
Followup-To: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
Organization: Duke University; Durham, N.C.

Has anyone put together a review of Prodigy?

I am familiar with their policies of censoring bulletin board
discussions and restricting email, and even tried it out for a month
myself (for free, of course).  I want to be able to give a full response
to someone who is asking what they are about. 

I just need an overview of all the complaints with them, and thought I'd
see if anyone else has done something like this so I don't need to do it
all myself ;-). 

Thanks!  Email is fine.

-- 
 ________________________________________________________________________
|   John      jfw@neuro.duke.edu          Duke University Medical Center |
| Whitehead   jfw@well.sf.ca.us           Department of Neurobiology     |
|________________________________________ Durham, North Carolina ________|
Newsgroups: uno.cwis,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk