
Computer underground Digest    Sun  Sep 14, 1997   Volume 9 : Issue 68
                           ISSN  1004-042X

       Editor: Jim Thomas (cudigest@sun.soci.niu.edu)
       News Editor: Gordon Meyer (gmeyer@sun.soci.niu.edu)
       Archivist: Brendan Kehoe
       Shadow Master: Stanton McCandlish
       Shadow-Archivists: Dan Carosone / Paul Southworth
                          Ralph Sims / Jyrki Kuoppala
                          Ian Dickinson
       Field Agent Extraordinaire:   David Smith
       Cu Digest Homepage: http://www.soci.niu.edu/~cudigest

CONTENTS, #9.68 (Sun, Sep 14, 1997)

File 1--Mitnick Newsbytes Article (excerpt)
File 2--Cryptography Victory: Encryption Rules Unconstitutional (ACLU fwd)
File 3--Crypto Reform Bill Is Now a Changeling
File 4--USACM APPLAUDS CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE
File 5--RSA Data Security Prevails in Federal Court
File 6--The Executioner's Motto
File 7--Cyber Rights Activists Convene in Austin, Texas
File 8--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 7 May, 1997)

CuD ADMINISTRATIVE, EDITORIAL, AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION APPEARS IN
THE CONCLUDING FILE AT THE END OF EACH ISSUE.

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

Date: Tue, 09 Sep 1997 20:35:42 -0400
From: Evian Sim <evian@ESCAPE.COM>
Subject: File 1--Mitnick Newsbytes Article (excerpt)

Kevin Mitnick Appeals For Help
09/09/97 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1997 SEP 9 (NB) --
By Sami Menefee and Wendy Woods.

Notorious hacker Kevin Mitnick is still being held in a Los Angeles,
California prison, pending an early 1998 trial for 25 counts related to
alleged hacking activities. He is appealing for outside legal help to gain
additional access to the inmate law library in the prison where he has been
held since his arrest in February 1995.

<snip>

Mitnick's first prison term followed an intrusion into Digital Equipment
Corp.'s computer systems. He was accused of stealing electronically $1
million in secure software from Digital Equipment Corp., causing the
company to spend $160,000 to close up the gaps in its computer security.
Upon conviction in that case Mitnick was placed on supervisory probation in
1992. He disappeared later that year after he was charged with illegally
cracking into Pacific Bell's computers.

Between 1993 and 1995, Mitnick evaded authorities and allegedly stole
millions of dollars worth of corporate secrets, scrambled telephone
networks, and even broke into the nation's national defense warning system.
He made the FBI's Most Wanted List before he was caught, pulling off the
computer hack that finally did him in. He broke into the home computer
systems of Tsutomu Shimomutra, a leading computer security expert at the
San Diego Supercomputer Center. Shimomutra was so enraged that he helped
the FBI track Mitnick to an apartment complex in Raleigh, using a cell
phone direction finder connected to a laptop computer.

A statement forwarded to Newsbytes from Mitnick's counsel says Mitnick
needs additional legal assistance to file both a Writ of Habeas Corpus
challenging conditions of his detention, and a motion compelling federal
authorities to follow their own rules and regulations.

The attorney, Donald C. Randolph, says the firm is preparing a request for
Mitnick to be released on bail, since he has been in prison longer than his
sentence of 22 months. He has served time on two counts, probation
violation and possession of unauthorized access devices. He awaits trial on
the remaining 25 charges, the third trial in a series of separate
indictments.

 <snip>

A spokesperson for the firm told Newsbytes: "We want Kevin to have access
to the prison law library, because he is his most interested advocate. He
is very good with research and spends all the time allowed in the law
library. Kevin's is a complex case that requires specialized knowledge.
With only the regular amount of library time allowed, Kevin doesn't have
the time he needs to assist in his own defense, and this extra time is
necessary, especially in court appointed cases. Because of the complex
nature of the case, he needs more time because of the ramifications of this
case are more severe."

<snip>

According to Mitnick's counsel, "The government has hyped this prosecution
by exaggerating the value of loss in the case, seeking unreasonably stiff
sentences, and by painting a portrait of Kevin which conjures the likeness
of a cyber-boogie man," adding that the prosecution seems motivated to use
Mitnick's case to send a message to other "would-be hackers."

The firm also stated that stronger penalties and longer sentencing for
Mitnick would strike "fear into the hearts of the public over the dangers
of computer hackers." Doing so, continued the spokesperson, "the government
hopes to divert scrutiny away from its own game-plan regarding the control
and regulation of the Internet and other telecommunications systems."

Anyone wishing to, can contact Kevin at the following address: Kevin
Mitnick, Reg. No. 89950-012, P.O. Box 1500, Los Angeles, CA 90053-1500

                        ------------------
This story originally appeared at
http://www.newsbytes.com/pubNews/97/99591.html

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

Date: Tue, 2 Sep 1997 15:51:59 GMT
From: "ACLU Cyber-Liberties Update Owner"@newmedium.com
Subject: File 2--Cryptography Victory: Encryption Rules Unconstitutional (ACLU fwd)

Source - ACLU Cyber-Liberties Update, Tuesday, September 2, 1997

U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel on Thursday issued a stay
pending appeal of her August 25, 1997 ruling that new government
regulations barring the export of encryption software are an
unconstitutional violation of free speech.  Judge Patel's ruling
in Bernstein v. U.S. State Department, struck down encryption
regulations and cited the recent Supreme Court decision in ACLU v.
Reno, stating, "The Internet is subject to the same exacting level
of First Amendment scrutiny as print media."

The decision was the second ruling in favor of Daniel Bernstein,
an Illinois math professor and expert on cryptography, who
attempted to publish his encryption codes on the Internet.  Last
December, Judge Patel similarly found the government's previous
encryption export restrictions unconstitutional, but the Clinton
Administration released new rules shortly after the decision.

The Aug. 28 stay of injunctive relief is effective until September
8, at which time an injunction shall be reinstate to prevent
prosecution of Professor Bernstein.  In the meantime, the stay
eliminates the protections under Patel's ruling against government
enforcement of encryption regulations to anyone other than
Bernstein.

The ACLU supported Bernstein's position and decried Clinton's new
rules as an irreparable infringement on First Amendment rights.
In response to the release of the new government rules, the ACLU
stated, "Export restrictions on cryptography are a prior restraint
on protected speech, and are a content based gag on
Constitutionally protected speech. Prior restraints on speech and
attempts to regulate speech based on content are anathema to the
Constitution, and thus we urge the removal of encryption products
from the export restrictions altogether."

Under the government rules,  the Commerce Department was given
authority to license on a case-by-case basis the export of
encryption material over the internet.  There was no requirement
that print material about encryption be licensed, thereby treating
electronic media differently than other media.  The Court found
this distinction between electronic and print media undermined the
government's asserted need to regulate encryption export based on
national security concerns. The opinion called the rules "so
irrational and administratively unreliable that it may well serve
to only exacerbate the potential for self-censorship."

The Court also held that the government licensing procedure fails
to provide any limits on government discretion in its review of
encryption export applications.

Under Judge Patel's ruling of earlier this week, the government
would have been prohibited from using the encryption export
regulations and was warned by the court to refrain from
"threatening, detaining, prosecuting, discouraging, or otherwise
interfering with plaintiff or any other person described . . .
above in the exercise of their federal constitutional rights as
declared in this order."

According to Bernstein's attorney, Cindy Cohn, the government has
said that it may still challenge the stay of injunctive relief in
the 9th Circuit and Professor Bernstein may seek relief from the
stay as well.

Full text of this decision is available at the Electronic Frontier
Foundation site at  <http://www.eff.org> and more news about the
status of the ruling can be found at <http://www.msnbc.com>

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

Date: Fri, 12 Sep 1997 09:20:20 -0800
From: "--Todd Lappin-->" <telstar@wired.com>
Subject: File 3--Crypto Reform Bill Is Now a Changeling

Source -  fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu

From Wired News: http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/6819.html

Crypto Reform Bill Is Now a Changeling

by Rebecca Vesely

6:18pm  11.Sep.97.PDT The House Intelligence Committee
on Thursday gutted a piece of legislation that both privacy
advocates and the software industry had looked to as their
best hope of seeing the government's tight rein on
encryption policy loosened.

With a series of amendments, the panel transformed the
Security and Freedom through Encryption Act into the
opposite of what author Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia
Republican, and 252 co-sponsors intended. Where the
original HR695 sought to prohibit a national key recovery
system that might allow law enforcement quick access to
scrambled data, the amended version now requires it.
Where the original sought to promote commerce and protect
privacy by encouraging manufacture and use of strong
encryption, the new-look bill makes use of such products
nearly impossible.

The panel approved the changeling bill by a voice vote in a
closed session. Details of the amendments were made
available by a Commerce Committee staffer who spoke on
condition of anonymity. In addition to mandating a national
key recovery system in the United States and banning the
manufacture or sale of code that could not be
instantaneously decrypted by the police, the amendments
also specify fines up to US$10,000 and jail terms as long
as five years for violators.

"It's a sad day that for the first time a congressional
committee would pass legislation so damaging to civil
liberties and to industry," said Jon Englund, vice president
of the Information Technology Association of America, a
trade group representing major software manufacturers.

Industry leaders also said the Intelligence amendments plan
would effectively bring the domestic crypto-software
industry to a halt. Privacy activists say it would strip
Americans of secure communications in the digital age.

Supporters of the Goodlatte bill noted that the committee
acted after a long, aggressive lobbying effort by law
enforcement and national security agencies.

"The administration says there is a long tradition of the FBI
being able to go their own on the Hill, although I thought
those days were over," said Jerry Berman, director of the
Center for Democracy and Technology. "The committees are
voting based on national security versus civil liberties, and
national security is winning."

The bill will next go to the Commerce Committee. Two
members of that panel stood ready Thursday with an
amendment that would ban the domestic manufacture, sale,
and use of encryption that does not allow law enforcement
immediate access. The amendment was to be offered by
Representatives Michael Oxley (R-Ohio), a former FBI
agent, and Tom Manton (D-New York), a former New York
City police officer.

"Louis Freeh's my guy," Oxley told reporters at the
meeting, referring to the current FBI director. "This
amendment is technically neutral. It strikes a balance
between law enforcement and the right to privacy."

But software lobbyists said the amendment means that they
would no longer be able to manufacture encryption products
in the United States. "I don't know of one encryption product
that would give immediate law enforcement access," said
Peter Harter, global public policy counsel for Netscape.

An amendment to the Oxley/Manton amendment was to be
introduced by Representatives Rick White (R-Washington)
and Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts) calling for a study
assessing the effectiveness of mandatory key recovery
systems.

All this legislative posturing is not moot.

The Commerce Committee, in conjunction with the four
other committees that have already voted on the Goodlatte
bill plan to meet with one another and interested parties to
work out a compromise bill. It is possible that the
committees on commerce, national security, and
intelligence will formulate a united substitute bill to
replace Goodlatte's proposal. The alternative bill would be
submitted to the Rules Committee, which would decide
which piece of legislation would go to the House floor.
Although 11 of 13 Rules Committee members are
co-sponsors of Goodlatte's bill, the chairman, Gerald
Solomon (R-New York), withdrew his support in April
because of national security concerns.

"We don't want a bill to leave this committee without
addressing law enforcement concerns," said Representative
Billy Tauzin (R-Louisiana), the Telecommunications,
Trade, and Consumer Protection subcommittee chairman
and member of the Commerce Committee. He said that
although he was a cosponsor of Goodlatte's bill, he would
support the Oxley/Manton amendment. "We'd like to do it in
a fashion that satisfies all committees and we can't do that
all today."

As for Goodlatte, he says he is willing to compromise on
some counts, although mandatory key recovery is not one of
them.

"I'm pleased," he said rather half-heartedly after the
Intelligence panel vote. "We may be able to work this out."


Copyright  1993-97 Wired Ventures Inc. and affiliated
companies.
All rights reserved.

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

Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 06:02:32 -0400
From: ACM US Public Policy Office <usacm_dc@ACM.ORG>
Subject: File 4--USACM APPLAUDS CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE

PRESS RELEASE

Association for Computing
U.S. Public Policy Office

September 8, 1997

USACM APPLAUDS CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE FOR UNANIMOUSLY
ENDORSING RELAXED EXPORT CONTROLS ON ENCRYPTION


As the Congress prepares to address the issue of computer
security and privacy, the California legislature has sent
a clear message that relaxing controls on cryptography is
a critical first step.

On September 5, the California legislature passed a
resolution that calls on the California members in
Congress to support legislation that would make it easier
for US companies to develop and market strong cryptography
products. The resolution was sponsored by Representative
Vasconcellos (D. San Jose) and passed without opposition.

Dr. Barbara Simons, chair of the policy committee for
the Association for Computing (USACM), said that the
California resolution makes clear that industry and
users are united in support of good cryptography.

"We believe that Congress should support the Security
and Freedom Act, sponsored by Representative Goodlatte.
The legislation will help protect security and privacy
on the internet. It will be a serious mistake for the
administration to oppose the development of this
technology," said Dr. Simons.

On August 26, USACM Chair Barbara Simons spoke in support
of the Vasconcellos resolution before a California Senate
committee. Also participating at the Committee hearing were
Dr. Whit Diffie from Sun, Kelly Blough from PGP, Jack Wilson of
ACL Datacom, Chuck Marson representing the California Internet
Industry Alliance (Netscape, Microsoft, AOL, CompuServe and
 Netcom), and a representative of the Software Publishers
Association.  Undersecretary of Commerce Reinsch wrote a
letter opposing the resolution.

The Association for Computing (ACM) is an international non-profit
educational and scientific society with 76,000 members worldwide,
 60,000 of whom reside in the U.S.  USACM, the Association for
Computing's U.S. Public Policy Office, serves as the focal point
for ACM's interaction with U.S. government organizations,
 the computing community and the U.S. public in all matters of
U.S. public policy related to information technology. The USACM
web site is located at http://www.acm.org/usacm/

For more information, please contact USACM Chair Barbara Simons at
408/256-3661 or USACM Associate Director Lauren Gelman at 202/544-4859.

/\ /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Association for Computing,             +   http://www.acm.org/usacm/
Office of U.S. Public Policy           *   +1 202 544 4859 (tel)
666 Pennsylvania Ave., SE Suite 302 B  *   +1 202 547 5482 (fax)
Washington, DC 20003   USA             +   gelman@acm.org

To subscribe to the ACM Washington Update, send e-mail to: listserv@acm.org
with "subscribe WASHINGTON-UPDATE name" (no quotes) in the body of the
message.

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

Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 08:47:45 -0400 (EDT)
From: mds@mds.prwire.com
Subject: File 5--RSA Data Security Prevails in Federal Court


                  RSA Data Security Prevails in Federal Court

                  Schlafly Allegations Ruled `Without Merit'

    REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Sept. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- RSA Data Security, Inc., a
wholly owned subsidiary of Security Dynamics Technologies, Inc.
(Nasdaq: SDTI), today announced that it had prevailed in its defense against
all claims made by Roger Schlafly in a 1994 lawsuit.  In the ruling dated
August 29, 1997, Judge Spenser Williams of the United States District Court
for the Northern District of California found against the antitrust, business
tort, unfair business practices and non-infringement claims that had been
brought by Schlafly.  Prior Court action on August 22, had found against
Schlafly's other claim of invalidity of the MIT (RSA) patent.
    Schlafly's suit made a wide range of allegations against RSA, including
(1) the invalidity of the MIT (RSA) patent, (2) libel (3) patent non-
infringement, (4) interference with contractual relationships, (5) fraud, (6)
unfair business practices, and (7) antitrust violations.  The Court had
previously dismissed the fraud and libel claims.  The resolved issues were
linked to RSA's disputes with Cylink.  The settlement between Cylink and RSA
cleared the way for the Court to dismiss Schlafly's action.
    In the August 29th ruling on the case, Judge Williams found Schlafly's
claims as untenable in stating, "Schlafly requests that the Court ... ignore
the logical interpretation of the RSA patent."  As for antitrust, business
torts, and unfair business practices, the Court entered summary judgment in
favor of RSA on all matters.  The Court reasoned that "Schlafly relies on
conclusory allegations" and "his own estimates, arguments and guesses to
support his claims rather than providing specific facts."  As for unfair
licensing claims resulting from Schlafly's belief that he is entitled to a
free license, the Court said, "Schlafly's claims of unfair licensing policies
are also without merit."
    Earlier in the same month, the Court had disposed of two notable issues in
the case:  Schlafly's claims that the MIT patent was invalid and that RSA was
estopped from asserting the validity to the MIT patent because a former
partner, Cylink, had once challenged the validity of the patent.  In the
Court's August 22 ruling, Judge Williams granted RSA's motion for summary
adjudication on the validity of the MIT patent, finding that the MIT patent
was valid and stating, "the RSA patent is entitled to patent protection."  The
August 22 ruling also found that RSA cannot be precluded from "maintain[ing]
the position that it has held all along which is that the RSA patent is valid.
Further, Cylink's allegations are unproven" (Cylink's allegations had been
cited in part by Schlafly.)  The Court stated that to give binding effect to
unproven allegations would be "nonsensical and inequitable."

    RSA Data Security, Inc.
    RSA Data Security, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Security Dynamics
Technologies, Inc., is the world's brand name for cryptography, with more than
80 million copies of RSA encryption and authentication technologies installed
and in use worldwide.  RSA technologies are part of existing and proposed
standards for the Internet and World Wide Web, CCITT, ISO, ANSI, IEEE, and
business, financial and electronic commerce networks around the globe.  RSA
develops and markets platform-independent developer's kits and end-user
products and provides comprehensive cryptographic consulting services.
    Founded in 1982 by the inventors of the RSA Public Key Cryptosystem, the
company is headquartered in Redwood City, Calif.

SOURCE  RSA Data Security Inc.

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

Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 00:54:34 EDT
From: Steve Talbott <stevet@ora.com>
Subject: File 6--The Executioner's Motto

There's a slogan among artificial intelligence (AI) researchers
that runs this way:

   If you take care of the syntax, the meaning will take care of
itself.

Dubbed the Formalist's Motto by philosopher John Haugeland, this
turns out to be a formula for erasing the human being.

Stated simply, the idea runs something like this:  if you put the
computer through the motions of human behavior, it will in fact
mean and intend what *we* would mean and intend by such behavior.
So the AI programmer should concentrate on abstracting the formal
structure of our tasks in the world without worrying about the
inner qualities of consciousness, feeling, and will with which we
invest those tasks.  After all, our subjective illusions
notwithstanding, nothing is really "there" in either man or
machine beside formal structure, or syntax.  The meaningful, inner
content of our lives is a kind of syntactic epiphenomenon, the
mystery of which need not concern us.

On this premise the hope for true, human-like artificial
intelligence now rests.

You may never have heard of the Formalist's Motto, but I venture
to predict that it accurately circumscribes a substantial part of
your thought world, as it does the thought world of nearly
everyone in our culture.  For the motto does not apply only to AI.
Here, for example, is what you might call the Physicist's Motto:

   If you take care of the equations, their meaningful relation to
   the world will take care of itself.

One might wonder about the truth of this at a time when the
equations have become almost mystically esoteric and remote from
the world of our experience.  The wondering is justified, but we
also need to realize that the equations succeed remarkably well as
shorthand prescriptions for the effective manipulation of the
world (and especially of experimental apparatus).  The problem
lies in how easily and dangerously we forget that manipulating
things is not the same as understanding them.

Then there is the Economist's Motto, blossoming from an unshakable
faith in the power of the Invisible Hand to smooth over our own
neglect of what really matters:

   If you take care of the economic numbers, the value for society
   will take care of itself.

Or, as Adam Smith originally put it in his *Wealth of Nations*
(1776), "By pursuing his own interest [the individual] frequently
promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really
intends to promote it." And "It is not from the benevolence of the
butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but
from their regard to their own interest.  We address ourselves,
not to their humanity, but to their self-love."  So a quantitative
concern for the bottom line results automatically in a wider
social good, regardless of one's base intentions.

In this case, not only does the syntax of the formal (market)
mechanism take care of the meaning, it skillfully negates any
unsavory meanings that mere humans try to inject!

One could go on.  Probably the most fundamental version of the
motto is that of communications theory, as it has seeped into the
popular consciousness:

   If you take care of the transmission of bits, the meaning of
   the text will take care of itself.

Nearly all misconceptions about the Information Age trace back to
this formula, including what we might call the Educationist's
Motto:

   If you take care of the flow of information, the education will
   take care of itself.

What's going on here?  Clearly we're not just talking about
computers or education or information or business.  We're talking
about *us*.  What is at issue is the common style of thinking we
bring to these various areas.  The most decisive fact about the
age of the computer is a fact about our own minds:  we are,
without being fully aware of it, leaking meaning and content at an
alarming rate.  And what is replacing them?  Empty,
computationally manipulable abstractions.

Each of the mottos I have cited directs us toward a mathematical
or logical calculus that can easily be read from, or impressed
upon, a mechanism.  We may have begun with meaning -- the meaning
of a proposition, the meaning of a business activity, the meaning
of an animal's behavior -- but we are driven by our predilections
toward empty form without content -- the p's and q's of the
logician, the cost analyses of the financial officer, the DNA
structure of the geneticist.  For these can be arranged in a
sequence whose logic can drive an automaton.

Our exquisite ability to reduce content to usable abstraction is
one of our rightly prized achievements.  But we cannot abstract
from the content of a thing unless we are given the thing in the
first place -- given it, that is, in all its qualitative and
meaningful presence.  Otherwise there is simply nothing there.
You cannot arrive at the concrete object from its dimensions
alone, you cannot arrive at a product from a set of cost
specifications alone, and you cannot arrive at the organism from
its DNA alone.

We are powerfully one-directional in our intentions.  We want to
abstract the mathematical law of things, but we do not know how to
get the things back once we have found ourselves holding nothing
but a set of pure abstractions.  Once a business becomes a
smoothly humming calculator of the bottom line, its resistance as
an complex, integrated, and programmed *mechanism* to intrusive
questions like "What is the good of this product?" becomes almost
impossible to overcome.

The difference between the two directions of movement -- toward
abstraction and toward meaning -- can be painfully hard to grasp
amid the actual affairs of life.  It is the difference between a
business that uses economic controls to discipline its pursuit of
ends independently judged to be worthy -- and a business that
pursues profit for its own sake, without regard for the human
worth of its products.

It is the difference between a science that began as a passionate
insistence upon observing the actual world instead of relying upon
the subtle cerebrations of the medieval schoolmen -- and a science
whose developing abstractions have encouraged it first to ignore
and then (as an inevitable consequence of the ignoring) to ride
roughshod over the natural environment.

It is the difference between an education that enables students to
inquire, "What does this mean?" -- and an education bent upon
shoveling inert facts into cranial "databases."

It's no use talking about the risks of technology without also
talking about our styles of thinking.  If computerized technology
is pivotal for the modern era, it's not because of some wholly
inherent capacity, but rather because we have fashioned in the
computer a perfectly adapted tool for the expression of our
preferred modes of thought.  Toss the machine without altering the
thought, and not much will change.  Transform the thought, on the
other hand, and we just *might* be able to wrestle the machine
toward profoundly humane ends.

Unfortunately, there's not much in all this talk about "modes of
thought" that wired folks, including many social activists, care
to bother about.  We all too instinctively want a *program* first.
Perhaps I do not stretch the matter too far when I offer the
Involved Citizen's Motto:

   If you take care of the program of action, its meaning will
   take care of itself.

But it's not true.  Actions considered apart from their inner,
expressive gesture degenerate into empty formalisms (like
computer-orchestrated "grassroots" campaigns).  Or else they carry
meanings we are simply unaware of.

We have no constructive choice except to consider what we
ourselves will become -- which is another of saying:  except to
consider whether we will transcend our currently "executing"
syntax in a way that formal mechanisms never can.  The various
mottos I have listed, after all, capture a historical movement of
just the past few hundred years.  In becoming aware of that
movement, will we disown responsibility for it as if it were an
unalterable given, while at the same time embracing with
exhilarated anticipation the wondrous changes our *machines* are
bringing about?

In this way we would forget ourselves precisely at the moment when
the "spirit" of technology is making a nearly irresistible offer:
"You can drop out of the picture and I'll keep all the formal
mechanisms humming along just fine.  Don't worry; everything else
will take care of itself."

It's a genuine offer -- and one we look too much like accepting.

   -----------------------------------------------------------
Source: Net Future
Issue #55,  Copyright 1997 Bridge Communications -  September 9, 1997
   ----------------------------------------------------------
             Editor:  Stephen L. Talbott (stevet@oreilly.com)

    On the Web:
    http://www.oreilly.com/people/staff/stevet/netfuture/ You may
    redistribute this newsletter for noncommercial purposes.

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

Date: Sat, 13 Sep 1997 19:28:35 -0700 (PDT)
From: jonl@well.com
Subject: File 7--Cyber Rights Activists Convene in Austin, Texas

 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

     *** Cyber Rights Activists Convene in Austin, Texas ***

 Speakers from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil
 Liberties Union will join local activists and attorneys in a discussion
 of online rights.  Cyber Rights '97: The Post-CDA Landscape, will explore
 the origin of the Communications Decency Act and the implications of a
 recent Supreme Court decision declaring important points of the act
 unconstitutional.

 The free workshop will be held from 1-5PM Sunday, September 21st at the
 Joe C. Thompson Conference Center at 26th and Red River in Austin, Texas.

 Speakers:

 Ann Beeson, attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union
 Mike Godwin, attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation
 Pete Kennedy, attorney with George, Donaldson, and Ford of Austin
 Sharon Strover, director of the Texas Telecommunications Policy Institute
 Ed Cavazos, senior vice-president and counsel for Interliant, Inc.
 Gene Crick, president of the Texas Internet Service Providers' Association
 David Smith, vice-president of EFF-Austin
 Richard MacKinnon, UT researcher and moderator of the event


 Probable subjects:

 7 Internet rating and filtering systems

 7 Public library use of filtering software, including a discussion of the
 use of CyberPatrol by the Austin Public Library

 7 State regulation of the Internet

 7 _ACLU v. Reno_ (Supreme Court overturns Communications Decency Act)

 7 Children and the Internet

 7 Telecommunications infrastructure and the state's role in regulating
 telecommunications systems computers and networks in schools

 7 "Spam" (unsolicited commercial email)

 7 Encryption and communications privacy, a particularly hot topic given
 the battle currently raging over strong encryption.

 Contact:  Jon Lebkowsky, (512) 477-5566 ext 171 day or (512) 444-5175
 evening <jonl@onr.com>

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

Date: Thu, 7 May 1997 22:51:01 CST
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End of Computer Underground Digest #9.68
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