Computer underground Digest Sun Jan 19, 1997 Volume 9 : Issue 04 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 Field Agent Extraordinaire: David Smith Shadow-Archivists: Dan Carosone / Paul Southworth Ralph Sims / Jyrki Kuoppala Ian Dickinson Cu Digest Homepage: http://www.soci.niu.edu/~cudigest CONTENTS, #9.04 (Sun, Jan 19, 1997) File 1--Solid Oak Blocking Software & Ethical Spectacle File 2--IP: going to InfoWar (fwd) File 3--If Operating Systems Were Airlines (fwd) File 4--Sidgmore/PC Week (on Growth of UUNET Backbone) (fwd) File 5--Internet Forum In Italy Subjected To Censorship File 6--GovAcc97.002: 7th Conference on Computers, Freedom & Privacy File 7--ALA/ACLU file lawsuit challenging New York "CDA" law File 8--Enough is Never Enough -- pro-CDA alliances, from TNNN File 9--SUPREMES: Court Date Set, DoJ Brief Filed File 10--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 13 Dec, 1996) CuD ADMINISTRATIVE, EDITORIAL, AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION APPEARS IN THE CONCLUDING FILE AT THE END OF EACH ISSUE. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 19 Jan 1997 14:36:55 -0800 From: Jonathan Wallace Subject: 1--Solid Oak Blocking Software & Ethical Spectacle FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Jonathan Wallace jw@bway.net NEW YORK CITY, January 19, 1997--In an apparent act of retaliation against a critic of the company, Solid Oak Sofware has added The Ethical Spectacle (http://www.spectacle.org) to the list of Web sites blocked by its Cybersitter software. The Ethical Spectacle is a monthly Webzine examining the intersection of ethics, law and politics in our society, which recently urged its readers not to buy Cybersitter because of Solid Oak's unethical behavior. The Ethical Spectacle is edited by Jonathan Wallace, a New York- based software executive and attorney who is the co-author, with Mark Mangan, of Sex, Laws and Cyberspace (Henry Holt, 1996), a book on Internet censorship. "In the book," Wallace said, "we took the position-- naively, I now think--that use of blocking software by parents was a less restrictive alternative to government censorship. We never expected that publishers of blocking software would block sites for their political content alone, as Solid Oak has done." Solid Oak describes its product as blocking sites which contain obscene and indecent material, hate speech, and advocacy of violence and illegal behavior. In late 1996, computer journalists Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com) and Brock Meeks (brock@well.com) broke the story that Cybersitter blocked the National Organization for Women site (http://www.now.org) along with other political and feminist organizations. In addition, the product blocked entire domains such as well.com, maintained by the venerable Well online service. McCullagh and Meeks implied that they had received an inner look at the Cybersitter database of blocked sites from someone who had reverse engineered the software. Shortly afterwards, Solid Oak asked the FBI to begin a criminal investigation of the two journalists and accused college student Bennett Haselton (bennett@peacefire.org) of being their source. Though McCullagh, Meeks and Haselton all denied he was the source (or that anything illegal had occurred), Solid Oak president Brian Milburn called Haselton an "aspiring felon" and threatened to add his Internet service provider to the blocked list if it did not muzzle Haselton. Haselton came to Milburn's attention by founding Peacefire, a student organization opposing censorship. On his Web pages (http://www.peacefire.org), Haselton posted an essay called "Where Do We Not Want You to Go Today?" criticizing Solid Oak. The company promptly added Peacefire to its blocked list, claiming that Haselton had reverse engineered its software, an allegation for which the company has never produced any evidence. "At that point," Wallace said, "I felt Milburn was acting like the proverbial 800-pound gorilla. I added a link to the Spectacle top page called 'Don't Buy Cybersitter' (http://www.spectacle.org/alert/peace.html). Anyone clicking on the link would see a copy of Bennett's 'Where Do We Not Want You to Go' page with some added material, including my thoughts on the inappropriateness of Solid Oak's behavior. I wrote the company, informing them of my actions and telling them that they misrepresent their product when they claim it blocks only indecent material, hate speech and the like." Solid Oak has now responded by blocking The Ethical Spectacle. "I wrote to Milburn and to Solid Oak technical support demanding an explanation," Wallace said. "I pointed out that The Spectacle does not fit any of their published criteria for blocking a site. I received mail in return demanding that I cease writing to them and calling my mail 'harassment'--with a copy to the postmaster at my ISP." Wallace continued: "With other critics such as Declan, Brock and Bennett, Solid Oak has claimed reverse engineering of its software, in supposed violation of its shrink-wrapped license. I have never downloaded, purchased or used Cybersitter, nor had any access to its database. I believe that Solid Oak's sole reason for blocking my site is the 'Don't Buy Cybersitter' page, criticizing the company's bullying behavior." The Ethical Spectacle includes the internationally respected An Auschwitz Alphabet (http://www.spectacle.org/695/ausch.html), a compilation of resources pertaining to the Holocaust. "Sixty percent of the Spectacle's traffic consists of visitors to the Holocaust materials," Wallace said. "Schoolteachers have used it in their curricula, it was the subject of a lecture at a museum in Poland some weeks ago, and every month, I get letters from schoolchildren thanking me for placing it online. Now, due to Solid Oak's actions, Cybersitter's claimed 900,000 users will no longer have access to it." Solid Oak can be contacted at blocking.problems@solidoak.com, or care of its president, Brian Milburn (bmilburn@solidoak.com.) ----------------------------------------------- Jonathan Wallace The Ethical Spectacle http://www.spectacle.org Co-author, Sex, Laws and Cyberspace http://www.spectacle.org/freespch/ "We must be the change we wish to see in the world."--Gandhi ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Jan 1997 13:06:00 -0800 (PST) From: Stanton McCandlish Subject: 2--IP: going to InfoWar (fwd) These excerpts from Edupage, aside from warning of increasing US executive branch policymaking involving the Internet, likely to have some kind of negative fallout whatever good it may do, also demonstrates an increasingly frequent rhetorical device and logic flaw: The Administration's intelligence people say that the Net is the fastest growing method of economic espionage, as if this were a meaningful statement out of the context of the facts surrounding it. The Net is also the fastest growing way to make new friends, to ask and answer questions among colleagues, to play games, to get in arguments, to organize events, to... I'm strongly reminded of the contorted reasoning of many well-meaning organizations who are in a panic over online neo-nazis and pornographers. *Of course* racists, porn merchants, and spies use the Net. The also use telephones and microwave ovens just like anyone else. Why the press even bothers to listen to claims like this, much less report them as "news" is beyond me. It should be immediately apparent to any writer following such a story that the Net, like any technology, will be used by everyone with access to it, whether they be moms, rabbis, students or scam artists. It think it is sensible that NACIC is warning businesses of Net-related security risks - there are many genuine ones. It even bolsters our own position that such risks combined with the National Security Agency's anti-encryption public policy stance is ironically harming the very national security interests NSA is charged with protecting. But it cannot be sensible for NACIC to make alarmist statements like "All requests for information received via the Internet should be viewed with suspicion". Are corporate webmasters supposed to call the CIA next time someone asks them "what is your URL?" or "Where do I find more information on your products or services?" Had Edupage simply been summarizing I would not have worried much, but that "all requests" line appears to be a direct quote from NACIC's report, the full text of which I'll certainly be looking for. Dave Farber typed: > Date--Wed, 08 Jan 1997 11:17:48 -0500 > From--Dave Farber > Subject--IP--going to InfoWar > > >From Edunews: > > INTERNET IS NO.1 CHOICE FOR FOREIGN SNOOPERS > A report released by the National Counterintelligence Center (NACIC) > indicates that the Internet is the fastest growing method used by foreign > entities to gather intelligence about U.S. companies. "All requests for > information received via the Internet should be viewed with suspicion," says > the report, which urges caution in replying to requests coming from foreign > countries or foreign governments, particularly with regard to questions > about defense-related technology. NACIC works in close coordination with > the CIA, but is an autonomous agency reporting the National Security > Council. (BNA Daily Report for Executives 6 Jan 97 A15) > > DOD URGES "INFORMATION CZAR" APPOINTMENT > The U.S. Department of Defense has recommended establishing a new > "information-warfare" czar in the Defense Department and an > "information-warfare" center within U.S. intelligence agencies. A report > released by a task force appointed by the Defense Science Board calls for > spending $580 million in R&D over the coming years, mainly in the private > sector, to develop new software and hardware to provide security, such as a > system for automatically tracing cracker attacks back to their source. The > task force also recommends changing the laws so that the Pentagon can > legally pursue and repel those who attempt to hack into DoD computer > systems, injecting their computers with "a polymorphic virus that wipes out > the system, takes it down for weeks." A Defense Department spokesman notes > that the Advanced Research Projects Agency is working on an "electronic > immune system" that could detect invaders and mobilize against them. (Wall > Street Journal 6 Jan 97 B2) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Dec 1996 21:49:53 -0600 From: Avi Bass Subject: 3--If Operating Systems Were Airlines (fwd) ((MODERATORS' NOTE: Fowarded from another list; Original author unknown)) If Operating Systems Were Airlines DOS Air: Passengers walk out onto the runway, grab hold of the plane, push t until it gets in the air, hop on, then jump off when it hits the ground. They grab the plane again, push it back into the air, hop on, jump off.... Mac Airways: The cashiers, flight attendants, and pilots all look the same, talk the same, and act the same. When you ask them questions about the flight,they reply that you don't want to know, don't need to know, and would you please return to your seat and watch the movie. Windows Airlines: The terminal is net and clean, the attendants courteous, the pilots capable The fleet of Lear jets the carrier operates takes off without a hitch, pushes above the clouds and, at 20,000 feet, explodes without warning. OS/2 Skyways: The terminal is almost empty - only a few prospective passengers mill about. The announcer says that a flight has departed, although no planes appear to be on the runway. Airline personnel apologize profusely to customers in hushed voices pointing from time to time to the sleek, powerful jets outside. They tell each passenger how great the flight will be on these new jets and how much safer it will be than Windows Airlines, but they will have to wait a little longer for the technicians to finish the flight systems. Maybe until mid-1995. Maybe longer. Fly Windows NT: Passengers carry their seats out onto the tarmac and place them in the outline of a plane. They sit down, flap their arms, and make jet swooshing sounds as if they are flying. Unix Express: Passengers bring a piece of the airplane and a box of tools with them to the airport. They gather on the tarmac, arguing about what kind of plane they want to build. The passengers split into groups and build several different aircraft but give them all the same name. Only some passengers reach their destinations, but all of them believe thay arrived. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 18:35:41 -0500 (EST) From: "noah@enabled.com" Subject: 4--Sidgmore/PC Week (on Growth of UUNET Backbone) (fwd) Source -Noah ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date--Mon, 16 Dec 1996 16:26:23 -0500 (EST) From--"Scott A. Davis" To--dfoxlist@banzai-institute.org You guys want to read some frightening statistics? UUNET's backbone in three years, according to our CEO, will be 1000 times the size of today's existing internet... ------------------------------------------------------------- Great article in this weeks edition of PC Week from Johns keynote speech last Thursday at Mecklermedia's Internet World Conference in New York. It quotes most of the key elements from his speech and be found at http://www.pcweek.com/news/1209/12muu.html or is cut and pasted below. __________________________________________________ December 12, 1996 12:00 PM ET UUNet chief sees telecom/ISP mergers as the wave of the future By Margaret Kane NEW YORK -- In a speech that was part pitch and part prognostication, UUNet with communications services provider MFS Communications Co. Inc. was the right move and where he thinks the telecommunications industry will end up. In the past six months, UUNet has not only merged with MFS but also has announced a proposed merger with long-distance carrier WorldCom Inc. The joining of two telecommunications companies with an Internet company is the wave of the future, Sidgmore told an Internet World audience here this morning in a keynote address. ISPs (Internet service providers) that do not control their facilities will not survive, he predicted. Sidgmore based his pronouncement on the exploding demand for bandwidth, which brings with it exploding costs for ISPs. "UUNet alone will have an Internet [backbone] in three years that is 1,000 times the size of the whole Internet network today," he said. Because bandwidth accounts for roughly 54 percent of an ISP's total cost, the only companies that will survive will be those that are part of a core telco. "We don't see how to escape from the arithmetic here," he said. Sidgmore agreed with analysts' predictions that the number of ISPs will drop sharply in the near future, predicting that companies would split into two markets: ISPs that own their own networks, like UUNet, and ISPs that provide value-added reselling of those network services. But UUNet will not get out of the service business. Indeed, Sidgmore took time to announce the introduction of a pair of "extranet" services that will allow businesses to employ Internet protocols to share information with associates and partners. ExtraLink is a VPN (virtual private network) with full Internet connectivity based on UUNet's backbone and MFS' local access. ExtraLink Remote will allow users with a VPN to permit secure, remote dial-up access to mobile users or affinity groups. The services are slated to be available commercially in February. The demand for bandwidth will not just affect ISPs, Sidgmore continued. Telcos also will be changed by the Internet, mainly because of how cheap it is to send faxes over the Internet. Sidgmore said faxes make up 50 percent of international telecommunications traffic. That puts telcos in a vulnerable position, he said, citing the cost of a 42-page fax sent from New York to Los Angeles. By fax, it's about $10. By Internet, it's about 10 cents. "The Internet is not about being 10 percent better or 10 percent cheaper," he said. "It's about being 10 times better and 10 times cheaper." "Think about the vulnerability of the core telecom companies. What's at stake is not the $20 billion voice market, it's the $900 billion market worldwide," he said. "That's why all the telecom companies worldwide have scrambled to derive Internet strategies." Not surprisingly, Sidgmore said the one thing that could hurt the growth of the Internet is the government. "How can we screw it up? One way is to get them involved," he said, to applause from the crowd. "You could argue that they had the chance. The government had control of the Internet for 25 years, and nothing happened. We think the government should declare success, and move on to health care." ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Dec 1996 12:08:20 -0500 (EST) From: Noah Robischon Subject: 5--Internet Forum In Italy Subjected To Censorship From: http://netday.iworld.com/business/NATW.html In what is widely thought to be the first instance of Net censorship in Italy, an e-mail forum called Lisa has been removed from the computers of Bologna University. At issue were defamatory messages that were circulated among members of the list. The messages did not concern the themes of the list, but were insults directed at the members of another online group called Citt=E1 Invisible (Invisible City). "They were very serious affirmations. In another context they would have led to legal action," said Lucio Picci, president of Citt=E1 Invisible and the object of many of the insulting messages. Laura Caponi, the forum moderator, says she was not consulted before the decision was taken, adding that "pressure" was exerted on the university to close the list. The university stated that its network belongs to the ministry of education and that it is obliged to exercise some control over users' activities. (The Guardian, Britain; November 28, 1996) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Jan 1997 17:19:02 -0800 From: jwarren@WELL.COM(Jim Warren) Subject: 6--GovAcc97.002: 7th Conference on Computers, Freedom & Privacy The Consitution "guarantee" NOTHING. It merely proposes. Diligent citizen vigilence and personal activism provides the *only* guarantee -- and it's only good for as long as *we* continuously invest *our* time, energy and resources. --preacher-jim &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& The Seventh Conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy March 11-14, 1997 San Francisco Airport Hyatt Regency; Burlingame, California Date: Wed, 8 Jan 1997 18:11:09 -0800 (PST) From: Bruce R Koball CFP'97 : Commerce & Community CFP'97 will assemble experts, advocates, and interested people from a broad spectrum of disciplines and backgrounds in a balanced public forum to address the impact of new technologies on society. This year's theme addresses two of the main drivers of social and technological transformation. How is private enterprise changing cyberspace? How are traditional and virtual communities reacting? Topics in the wide-ranging main track program will include: PERSPECTIVES ON CONTROVERSIAL SPEECH THE COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE NET GOVERNMENTAL & SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF DIGITAL MONEY INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON CRYPTOGRAPHY CYPHERPUNKS & CYBERCOPS REGULATION OF ISPs SPAMMING INFOWAR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND INFO-PROPERTY THE 1996 ELECTIONS: CREATING A NEW DEMOCRACY THE COMING COLLAPSE OF THE NET CFP'97 will feature parallel-track lunchtime workshops during the main conference on topics including: THE CASE AGAINST PRIVACY HOW A SKIPTRACER OPERATES CYBERBANKING HOW THE ARCHITECTURE REGULATES RIGHTS IN AVATAR CYBERSPACE NATIONAL I.D. CARDS PUBLIC KEY INFRASTRUCTURES EUROPEAN IP LAW SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN CYBERSPACE VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES DOMAIN NAMES ARCHIVES, INDEXES & PRIVACY GOVERNMENT REGULATION OF ECASH CRYPTO AND THE 1st AMENDMENT The conference will also offer a number of in-depth tutorials on subjects including: * The Economics of the Internet * Regulation of Internet Service Providers * The Latest in Cryptography * The Constitution in Cyberspace * Info War: The Day After * Personal Information and Advertising on the Net * Transborder Data Flows and the Coming European Union * Intellectual Property Rights on the Net: A Primer INFORMATION A complete conference brochure and registration information are available on our web site at: http://www.cfp.org For an ASCII version of the conference brochure and registration information, send email to: cfpinfo@cfp.org For additional information or questions, call: 415-548-2424 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& An old languange teachers' joke: They call people who can speak three languages, "tri-lingual." They call people who can speak two languages, "bi-lingual." But the call people who can speak only one language, "American." ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Jan 1997 08:43:52 -0800 (PST) From: Declan McCullagh Subject: 7--ALA/ACLU file lawsuit challenging New York "CDA" law From - fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu [Visit netlynews.com for the rest of the story. Another reason to follow the New York case is that a successful challenge to its "harmful to minors" ban could create a useful precedent in fighting a CDA 2.0, which likely will have such language. --Declan] *********** The Netly News Network http://netlynews.com A Civil (Libertarian) War by Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com) January 14, 1997 On a frosty winter morning last February, Shabbir Safdar and a gaggle of VTW loyalists trekked to Albany, New York, to protest a state bill that would muzzle the Net. "This was our first time doing any state-level lobbying," Safdar says. "We managed to convince them to take some stuff out of the law." But his efforts didn't stop the measure from wending its way through the legislature: In September, Governor George Pataki signed it into law. Today the ACLU sued New York State in federal court, charging that the law is unconstitutional. New York now takes its place among two dozen states battling similar local legislation that would criminalize certain forms of Net speech. In Georgia, for instance, merely having an anonymous user name could be illegal. Virginia restricts state employees' rights to view sexually explicit material -- college professors who might want to use the Net in, say, an English lit class have to exercise extreme caution. Forget the Communications Decency Act: A kind of civil war is being waged across half the U.S. The ALA v. Pataki lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York, involves 14 plaintiffs including the American Library Association, the American Booksellers Association Foundation for Free Expression, Panix, Echo and the ACLU. The coalition, which is asking for a permanent injunction, maintains that the law unconstitutionally stifles online speech and unduly interferes with interstate commerce. The law amends the penal code by making it a criminal offense punishable by seven years in prison to distribute pictures or text "which (are) harmful to minors." We here at The Netly News are ardent advocates of free speech, of course -- we held a joint teach-in on the New York law in the fall. So I spoke to Ann Beeson, a staff attorney at the ACLU, who's spent the last year attacking other state laws and the CDA in court. Why should netizens care about this law if they don't live in New York? I asked her. "Because New York can extradite you," she replied. But what if it's not a crime where I live? "It doesn't make a difference," Beeson said. "There's no question that New York could try to extradite you if you put up a web site that has material harmful to minors on it." [...] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Jan 1997 18:04:35 -0800 (PST) From: Declan McCullagh Subject: 8--Enough is Never Enough -- pro-CDA alliances, from TNNN From - fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu [Attached are two excerpts from the article. For the rest, check out: http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/textonly/1,1035,549,00.html --Declan] ******** The Netly News Network http://netlynews.com/ Enough Is Never Enough By Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com) January 17, 1997 A broad coalition of conservative and anti-pornography groups and individuals will file legal briefs next Tuesday in the Supreme Court supporting the government's defense of the Communications Decency Act, The Netly News has learned. The alliance includes longtime supporters of the act, such as Enough is Enough, Focus on the Family, and the National Association of Evangelicals. Members of Congress will join a separate brief that the National Law Center for Children and Families is preparing. But a letter from the attorney representing the coalition asked the ACLU for permission to file a brief "on behalf of" 59 plaintiffs, including such unlikely participants as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, PBS, SafeSurf... and Netscape. Netscape? The company that lobbied against the CDA? A firm with a reputation of putting their balls on the chopping block when fighting for Net-issues on Capitol Hill? Netscape was as shocked as I was to learn about their participation. "It wasn't authorized by me or my office. This is flabbergasting," Peter Harter, public policy counsel for Netscape, said. "I'd be crucified if this happened." [...] In their brief, which argues sociological rather than legal points, the groups hope to highlight the "dangers" of pornography online. They plan to supply the court with "legislative facts" to support the position Congress took when crafting the bill. The document also will include statistics discussing the effects of the Internet on children and the availability of material covered by the law. (Marty Rimm, where are you now?) Donna Rice-Hughes from Enough is Enough says: "It discusses three primary areas of our concern: letting the court know the problems on the Internet. Adult pornography, indecency, and child porn as well. A section on the harms of pornography. And a section dealing with the compliance issues: Is it feasible technically to comply with the CDA?" [...] Chris Stamper and Noah Robischon contributed to this report. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 13:44:14 -0700 From: --Todd Lappin-- Subject: 9--SUPREMES: Court Date Set, DoJ Brief Filed THE CDA DISASTER NETWORK January 22, 1997 Quietly and without much fanfare, the run-up to the Supreme Court's review of the Communications Decency Act has now gotten underway. I have two major pieces of news to report: First, we now know when we'll have our day in the nation's highest court. It's official -- on Wednesday March 19, 1997 at 10 AM, the nine justices of the US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of Janet Reno, Attorney General of the United States v. American Civil Liberties Union et al. Mark your calendars and datebooks, because March 19 will be a watershed moment in the history of free speech on the Internet. In another piece of important news, on Tuesday, January 21, 1997 the US Department of Justice filed their first brief in support of the CDA before the Supreme Court. (A full text version of the DoJ brief is available at: http://www.cdt.org/ciec/SC_appeal/970121_DOJ_brief.html ) I received a copy of the DoJ brief last night, and after spending a few hours pouring through its 14,000 words, I can promise you that this document won't win any literary prizes for 1997. In truth, the thing reads with all the passion of a coroner's report. But the cold detachment does nothing to diminish the thinness of the Government's argument that the CDA is fully constitutional and that "there are no alternatives that would be equally effective in advancing the Government's interests" in shielding minors from inappropriate material. Elsewhere, Janet Reno's footsoldiers claim, "Because the CDA's restrictions are all facially constitutional, and because any infirmity in those provisions could not justify the [Philadelphia] district court's sweeping injunction, the district court's judgment should be reversed." How does the Government reach this stunning conclusion? It begins with a bizarre argument that censoring the Internet is an effective way to defend the ideals of the First Amendment. The DoJ brief says: "Parents and their children have a First Amendment right to receive information and acquire knowledge ... and the Internet has unmatched potential to facilitate that interest. Much of the Internet's potential as an educational and informational resource will be wasted, however, if people are unwilling to avail themselves of its benefits because they do not want their children harmed by exposure to patently offensive sexually explicit material. The government therefore not only has an especially strong interest in protecting children from patently offensive material on the Internet, it has an equally compelling interest in furthering the First Amendment interest of all Americans to use what has become an unparalleled educational resource." In other words, the Government's defense of Internet censorship boils down to a paternalistic, "tough love" argument that "this hurts me more than it hurts you." The DoJ then moves on to cite a 1968 case as justification for the provisions of the CDA which prohibit the sending of indecent material to children with knowledge that the recipient is under 18: "Those provisions are essentially no different from the prohibition on the sale of indecent material to minors upheld in Ginsberg v. New York. Like that prohibition, the transmission and specific child provisions [of the CDA] directly prevent the dissemination of indecent material to children without prohibiting adult access to that material." The problem here is that no viable systems currently exist that allow noncommercial Internet publishers to verify the age of individuals receiving potentially "indecent" online material. (Consider, for example, that as the publisher of this mailing list, it is impossible for me to verify how old you are as you read this message.) The DoJ glosses over this issue of age verification with a dreamy glance toward the technological future, saying: "Those who post indecent material on Web sites for commercial purposes can ensure that only adults have access to their material by requiring a credit card number or an adult ID. Similarly, operators of noncommercial Web sites can use adult verification services for that purpose. There are also ways to communicate through other Internet applications that would not expose children to indecency. And, as technology evolves, the opportunities for adult-to-adult communication of indecent material will expand even further" What will these "opportunities for adult-to-adult communication" look like? The DoJ seems to have two scenarios in mind -- both of which seem absurd when applied to the Internet. The first assumes that the Internet can be regulated much like broadcast television. Citing the 1978 Supreme Court case of FCC v. Pacifica, the brief argues: "Just as it was constitutional for the FCC to channel indecent broadcasts to times of the day when children most likely would not be exposed to them, so Congress could channel indecent communications to places on the Internet where children are unlikely to obtain them. Indeed, there is a stronger justification for the display provision than there was for the restriction approved in Pacifica. The indecency problem on the Internet is much more pronounced than it is on broadcast stations." So what is to be done? Here the DoJ moves on to make it's second assumption -- that censorship will consign all "indecent" online material to an Internet "red light district" that minors cannot enter. Again relying on earlier precedents, the DoJ puts forth the idea that: "City of Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc. (1986) and Young v. American Mini Theatres, Inc. (1976) also support the constitutionality of the [CDA's provisions which ban the display of "indecent" material in areas where they can be seen by minors]. In effect, the display provision operates as an adult "cyberzoning" restriction, very much like the adult theater zoning ordinances upheld in Renton and Young. Just as the cities of Detroit and Renton could direct adult theaters away from residential neighborhoods, so Congress could direct purveyors of indecent material away from areas of cyberspace that are easily accessible to children." Of course, the only feasible way to create such a system of "cyberzoning" would be to deploy a less restrictive system that uses filtering software to facilitate parental control and shield minors from inappropriate online material. However, citing the ostensible "wisdom" of Congress, the DoJ explicitly rejects this approach: "Congress reasonably determined that commercial software that attempts to screen out indecent information only partially addresses the problem. Such software cannot identify all existing sexually explicit sites; it cannot keep pace with the rapid emergence of numerous new sexually explicit sites; it places the entire burden on parents; and it is owned by only a small fraction of Americans." Finally, the DoJ challenges the Philadelphia court's decision that the CDA's speech restrictions are unconstitutionally vague. (The CDA, you will recall, uses criminal penalties to restrict the dissemination of material that, "in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory activities or organs.") Does that mean that the CDA's "indecency" provisions effectively ban the use of George Carlin's so-called "Seven Dirty Words" in cyberspace? Classic works of literature that contain sexual content? AIDS education information? Sure seems that way. Yet the DoJ wants the Supreme Court to pretend otherwise. They argue: "The historical meaning of the CDA's indecency definition and the CDA's legislative history indicate that the kind of graphic pictures that appear in soft-porn and hard-core porn magazines almost always would be covered, while material having scientific, educational, or news value almost always would not be covered. There may be borderline cases in which it is difficult to determine on which side of the line particular material falls. But that does not show that the CDA's definition of indecency is unconstitutionally vague." We'll see what the Supremes have to say about all this come March. And in the meantime... Work the network! --Todd Lappin--> Section Editor WIRED Magazine +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ This transmission was brought to you by.... THE CDA DISASTER NETWORK The CDA Disaster Network is a moderated distribution list providing up-to-the-minute bulletins and background on efforts to overturn the Communications Decency Act. To subscribe, send email to with "subscribe cda-bulletin" in the message body. To unsubscribe, send email to with "unsubscribe cda-bulletin" in the message body. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Dec 1996 22:51:01 CST From: CuD Moderators Subject: 10--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 13 Dec, 1996) Cu-Digest is a weekly electronic journal/newsletter. Subscriptions are available at no cost electronically. CuD is available as a Usenet newsgroup: comp.society.cu-digest Or, to subscribe, send post with this in the "Subject:: line: SUBSCRIBE CU-DIGEST Send the message to: cu-digest-request@weber.ucsd.edu DO NOT SEND SUBSCRIPTIONS TO THE MODERATORS. The editors may be contacted by voice (815-753-0303), fax (815-753-6302) or U.S. mail at: Jim Thomas, Department of Sociology, NIU, DeKalb, IL 60115, USA. 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