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Computer underground Digest Sun Oct 5, 1997 Volume 9 : Issue 72
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, #9.72 (Sun, Oct 5, 1997)
File 1--DEMOCRACY AND CYBERSPACE - parts 1-4
File 2--Islands in the Clickstream: The Illusion of Control
File 3--The X-Stop Files
File 4--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: Sat, 27 Sep 1997 21:16:58 +0100 (IST)
From: "Richard K. Moore" <rkmoore@iol.ie>
Subject: File 1--DEMOCRACY AND CYBERSPACE - parts 1-4
Thanks to CuDigest for running this series of articles. Let me
just give a brief pitch for the series if I may. Over the past
two years I founded CPSR's cyber-rights campaign/list and have
been tracking and debating the various regulatory/legal battles
which have been converging on Internet.
What I've observed is that the Internet community, generally, is
suffering from serious gaps in its understanding of the future of
the communications industry. In particular, the mass media
industry - including television, films, music, and games - is
rarely given the central attention it deserves in any rational
appraisal of what lies in store for Internet as communications
are globalized. This "perspective gap" severely constrains the
long-range effectiveness of pro-Internet lobbyists, activists,
etc.
There are three predictions which I believe are irrefutable: (1)
there will be deployed a high-bandwidth, integrated, global
communications infrastructure, (2) that network - "digital
cyberspace" - will be the the primary delivery vehicle for all
mass-media products, (3) the current global cartelization of
mass-media will continue, and will include mass-media ownership
of the telecommunications infrastructure.
This last is simply the continuation of the standard policy of
the media giants. For example GE, Disney, Time-Warner, and
Westinghouse - who dominate the U.S. news/entertainment industry
- are vertically integrated: they own cable networks, broadcast
licenses, cinema chains, satellites, video rental outlets, etc. -
the means of distribution. By owning/monopolizing the
distribution channels, and through copyright protection of
content, they manage to control and capitalize on all significant
information flows to mass audiences.
As cyberspace gets closer to deployment, the media industry will
obviously approach the digital distribution system the same way
they've approached every other distribution system (broadcast,
cable, etc) - they'll seek acquistions, mergers, and partnerships
in telecom. Meanwhile, by virtue of the WIPO strong-copyright
treaty, which I believe the U.S. has already signed, the legal
foundation is laid for cyberspace to be monopolized in the same
way television has been.
If we want to influence the future of cyberspace, and possibly
preserve something of Internet culture, we need to step back from
the trees and get a strategic perspective on the forest.
"Democracy and Cyberspace" ranges over many topics, but only
because they all bear directly on cyberspace - the nervous system
of globalization.
I'd appreciate any comments or feedback.
Richard K. Moore
Wexford, Ireland
US citizen
rkmoore@iol.ie
_______________________________________________________________
DEMOCRACY AND CYBERSPACE
Copyright 1997 by Richard K. Moore
Wexford, Ireland
rkmoore@iol.ie
http://www.iol.ie/~rkmoore/cyberjournal
Presented at International Conference
"Discourse and Decision Making in the Information Age"
University of Teesside
18 September 1997
[Revised: 24 Sep]
Digital cyberspace: a quick tour of the future
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Let's stand back for a moment from today's Internet and from the
temporary lag in deployment of state-of-the-art digital technology.
From a longer perspective, certain aspects of the future cyberspace
are plain to see.
As regards transport infrastructure - the pipes - cyberspace is
simply the natural and inevitable integration/rationalization of the
disparate, patched-together, special purpose networks that make up
the nervous system of modern societies. Besides the _public_
distribution systems such as terrestrial and satellite broadcast,
cable, and telephone (cellular and otherwise), this integration will
also extend to dedicated _private_ systems, such as handle point-of-
sale transactions, tickets and reservations, inter-bank transfers,
CCTV surveillance, stock transfers, etc.
The _cost savings_, _performance gains_, and _application
flexibility_ brought by such total integration are simply too
compelling for this integration scenario to be seriously doubted.
Just as surely as the telegraph replaced the carrier pigeon, and the
telephone replaced the telegraph, this integration is one bit of
progress that is bound to happen, one way or another, sooner or
later.
Significant technical work is still required on the infrastructure,
to provide efficiently and reliably such mandatory features as
security, guaranteed bandwidth, accountability, authentication, and
the prevention of "mail-bombs" and other Internet anomalies. But
these features don't require rocket science - they are more a matter
of selecting from proven technologies and agreeing on standards,
interconnect arrangements, and implementation schedules.
The global digital high-bandwidth network - the hardware of
cyberspace - will in fact be the ultimate distribution mechanism for
the mass-media industry: it will subsume broadcast (air and cable)
television, video-tape rentals, and perhaps even audio cd's. These
familiar niceties will go the way of vinyl records and punched cards.
Cyberspace will be the universal connection of the individual to the
world at large: "transactions on the net" will be the the way to
access funds and accounts, make purchases and reservations, pay
taxes, view media products (films, news, sports, entertainment, etc),
initiate real-time calls, send and receive messages from individuals
and groups, query traffic-congestion patterns, etc. ad infinitum.
Each transaction will have an associated price - posted to your
account - with some portion going to the ultimate vendor (eg, content
provider) and some going to the various intermediaries - just as with
credit card purchases today.
Today's Internet: democratized communications
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Today's Internet is most remarkable for its cultural aspects.
Technically, Internet is one small episode in the ever-evolving
parade of technology, and soon to be outmoded. But culturally - and
economically - Internet seems to be a phenomenon nearly unprecedented
in human history.
Internet is a non-monetized communications realm, an open global
commons, a communications marketplace with a very special economics
in both content and transport.
Each physical node (and its connecting hookups) is, in essence,
donated to the network infrastructure by its operator (government
agency, private company, university, ISP) for his own and the common
benefit - a classic case of anarchistic mutual benefit.
Similarly the content of Internet is a voluntary commons: anyone can
be a publisher or can self-publish their own work. Publications of
all levels of quality and subject matter are available, generally for
free. The only costs to a user are typically fixed and moderate -
everyone in the globe is a local call away, so to speak, and
communication with groups is as cheap and convenient as communication
with individuals.
Anyone can join the global Internet co-op for a modest fee. Internet
brings the massification of discourse; it prototypes the
democratization of media. Individuals voluntarily serve as
"intelligent agents", forwarding on items of interest to various
groups. Web sites bristle with links to related sites, and an almost
infinite world of information becomes effectively accessible even by
novices.
Netizens experience this global commons as a democratic renaissance,
a flowering of public discourse, a finding-of-voice by millions who
might otherwise have exemplified Thoreau's "lives of quiet
desperation". Like minded people can virtually gather together,
across national boundaries and without concern for time-zones.
Information, perhaps published in an obscure leaflet in an unknown
corner of the world, suddenly is brought to the attention of
thousands worldwide - based on its intrinsic interest-value.
The net is especially effective in the coordination of real-world
organizations - enhancing group communication, reducing travel and
meetings, and enabling more rapid decision making.
The real-world political impact of Internet culture, up to now, is
difficult to gauge. Interesting and powerful ideas are discussed
online - infinitely broader than what occurs in mass-media "public
discourse" - but to a large extent such ideas seem buried in the net
itself, and when the computer is turned off one wonders if it wasn't
all just a dream, confined to the ether. So far, there seems to be
minimal spillover into the real world.
Ironically, at least from my perspective, it seems to be right-wing
organizations that are making most effective political use of the net
at present - organizing write-in campaigns, mobilizing opinion around
focused issues, etc. Those of us with more liberal democratic values
seem more divided and less driven to achieving actual concrete
results. Present company excepted, of course.
One wonders, however, what might happen if a period of popular
activism were to occur, such as we saw in the 1960's, the 1930's,
1900's, 1848 , 1798, 1776, etc. If a similar episode of unrest were
to recur, the Internet might turn out to be a sleeping political
giant - coordinating protests, facilitating strategy discussions,
mobilizing massive voter turnouts, distributing reports suppressed in
the mass media, etc. The "people's" mass media could have awesome
effect on the body politic, if some motivating urgency were to
crystallize activism.
Such a scenario is not just idle imagining. Eruptions of activism do
in fact occur (there have been a few in Germany, France, and
Australia recently, for example). The net is not widespread enough
yet to have been significant in such events (as far as I know), but
we may be very close to critical mass in some Western countries, and
the power of Internet for real-world group organization has been
tested and proven.
This activist-empowerment potential of Internet is something that
many elements of society would naturally find very threatening. Some
countries, such as Iran, China, and Malaysia - where "motivating
urgency" exists in the populous - take the threat of "excess
democracy" quite seriously, and have instituted various kinds of
restrictive Internet policies.
I would presume - and this point will be developed a bit later - that
awareness (in ruling circles) of the "subversive" threat from
Internet lends considerable political support to the various net-
censorship initiatives that are underway in Western nations, and that
such awareness may largely explain the mass-media image of Internet
as a land of hackers, terrorists, and pedophiles.
Partly because of this potential activist "threat", and partly
because of economic considerations, there is considerable reason to
suspect that Internet culture will not long continue quite as we know
it. Apart from censorship itself, chilling copyright and libel laws,
and other measures, are in the works which can in various direct and
indirect ways close the damper on the open Internet. The average Joe
Citizen, spoon-fed by the mass-media, all to often holds the opinion
that Internet is a haven of perverts and terrorists, and thus
Internet restrictions are not met with the same public outcry that
would accompany, for example, newspaper censorship.
Internet offers a prototype demonstration of how cyberspace _could_
be applied to enhance the democratic process - to make it more open
and participatory. But netizens are not the only ones with their
eyes on the cyberspace prize. We next examine another potential
cyberspace client - the mass-media industry.
The mass media: monopolized communications
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Like the Internet, today's mass-media industry is also a global
communications network, and also offers access to seemingly infinite
information. Beyond these similarities, however, the two could not
be more different. While Internet exchange is non-economic, mass-
media increasingly is fully commercialized; while anyone can publish
on the net, publication access to mass-media is controlled by those
who own it; while the full spectrum of public thinking can be found
on the net, discussion in the mass-media is narrow and systematically
projects the world-view of its owners.
In the mass-media, rather than voluntary contributors, we have
"content owners" and "content producers". Instead of free mailing-
lists, web-links, and voluntary forwarding agents, we have "content
distributors" - including broadcast networks, cable operators ,
satellite operators, cinema chains, and video rental chains. And
instead of an audience of participants (netizens), we have
"consumers".
In both networks the information content reflects the interests of
the owners. With Internet this means that the content is as broad as
society itself. But with the mass-media, the narrow scope of content
reflects the fact that ownership of mass-media, on a global scale, is
increasingly coming to be concentrated in a clique of large corporate
conglomerates. The mass-media does not serve discourse, education,
or democracy particularly well - it's designed instead to distribute
corporate-approved products to "consumers", and to manage public
opinion.
The U.S. telecom and media industries have long been privatized, and
hence the corporatized version of mass media is most thoroughly
evolved in the U.S. It is the U.S. model which, for the most part,
seems destined to become the global norm - partly because the U.S.
provides a precedent microcosm of what are becoming global conditions
(a corporate dominated economy), and partly because the U.S.
effectively promulgates its pro-corporate policies in international
forums.
As state-run broadcasting systems are increasingly privatized under
globalization it is the deep-pockets corporate media operators who
are likely acquire them, thus propagating the U.S. media model
globally, although U.S. operators will by no means be the only buyers
in the market.
The U.S. model is a monopoly model - a "clique of majors" dominates
the industry, just as the Seven-Sisters clique dominates the world
oil market. "The Nation" (3 June 1996) published a remarkable road-
map of the U.S. news and entertainment industry, graphically
highlighting the collective hegemony of GE, Time-Warner, Disney-Cap-
Cities, and Westinghouse. These majors are vertically integrated -
they own not only production facilities and content, but also
distribution systems - radio and television broadcast stations,
satellites, cable systems, and cinema chains.
We might think of Time-Warner and Disney as being primarily media
companies, but for GE and Westinghouse, media is clearly a side-line
business. They are into everything from nuclear power-stations and
jet fighters, to insurance and medical equipment. Their broadcast
policies reflect not only the profit-motive of their media companies,
but equally the overall interests of the owning conglomerate. NBC is
not likely, for example, to run an expose of GE nuclear-reactor
safety problems or of corruption involving GE's government contracts.
When you consider the ownership of the mass-media, and the additional
influence of corporate advertisers, it is no surprise that the
content of mass-media - not just news but entertainment as well -
overwhelmingly projects a world view that is friendly to corporate
interests generally.
As globalization proceeds, these four conglomerates - along with
Murdoch and others - will compete to buy up distribution and
production facilities on a worldwide basis. The clear trend,
following a shakeout period, is toward a global mass-media industry
dominated by a clique of TNC (transnational corporation) "majors".
Globalization of the media industry translates ultimately into
corporate domination of global information flows, and the centralized
management of global public opinion.
Whereas the Internet precedent suggests the potential of cyberspace
to connect citizens with one another on a participatory basis, a
corporate-dominated mass-media industry sees cyberspace primarily as
a product-distribution system and a means of opinion-control. In
order to assess how cyberspace will in fact be applied, we need to
examine the political context in which cyberspace will evolve - we
need to take a closer look at this thing called "democracy".
The see-saw of democracy and the advent of globalization
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Democracy has always been a see-saw struggle for control between
citizens at large and elite economic interests. This struggle has
been perhaps more apparent in a country like Britain, where a
consciously acknowledged class system long operated. In the U.S.,
with its more egalitarian rhetoric, there has often been a tendency
to deny the existence of such struggles and to embrace the mythology
that popular sovereignty had been largely achieved in the "land of
the free".
But in fact, the tension between popular and elite interests was
anticipated by America's Founding Fathers, was articulated explicitly
by James Madison (primary architect of the U.S. Constitution), and
was institutionalized in that document by the balance between the
Senate and the House of Representatives, and by numerous other means.
Under democracy, power is officially vested in the voters, and hence
the balance of power between the elite and the people would seem to
be overwhelmingly in favor of the people. For their part, the
economic elite have considerable influence due to the investments and
credit they control - and the funds they have available to influence
the political process in various and significant ways.
Hence the balance of power is not that easy to call, and there has in
fact been a see-saw of power shifts over the past two centuries.
During the late-nineteenth century "robber baron" era, for example,
with its laissez-faire philosophy, there was a clear pre-dominance of
elite power, with monopolized markets and widespread worker
exploitation. In the reform movements of the early twentieth
century, on the other hand, with its trust-busting and regulatory
regimes, the elite found themselves on the defensive.
In today's world of neoliberal globalization, the economic elite are
again clearly in the ascendency. The vehicle of elite power and
ownership today is the modern TNC, and globalization - with its
privatization, deregulation, lower corporate taxes, and free-trade
policies - adds up to a radical shift of power and assets from the
nation state (where the democratic see-saw operates) to TNC's, over
which citizens have no significant influence - the campaigns of Ralph
Nader, Greenpeace, et al having been systematically constrained and
marginalized.
Economic policy making, which has traditionally fallen under the
jurisdiction of sovereign nation states, is being transferred
wholesale by various treaties to the the WTO (World Trade
Organization), the IMF, and other faceless commissions - all of which
are dominated overwhelmingly by the TNC community, particularly by
that clique of TNC's which are known as the "international financial
community".
This transfer of economic sovereignty is most advanced in the Third
World, where the IMF increasingly dictates economic, fiscal, and
social policies at a micro level. In India, for example, public
officials often turn directly to IMF staff for policy guidance,
leaving the Indian government out of the loop entirely.
The trends - and the binding treaty commitments - indicate that the
First World as well is destined to come under increasing domination
by this TNC-run, globalist-commission regime. Already we are
beginning to see examples of such inroads, as U.S. policy toward Cuba
is being challenged under NAFTA and EU beef-import policy is being
challenged under the WTO, along with market protections for Carribean
banana producers. These examples are only the tip of the formidable
globalist iceberg lying in the path of the once-sovereign Ship of
State.
Globalization amounts to a coup d'etat by the global economic elite.
_Temporary_ political ascendency in the West is being systematically
leveraged into _permanent_ global political ascendency,
institutionalized in the network of elite-dominated commissions and
agencies. The see-saw game has been abandoned by the elite, and the
citizenry find themselves down on their backs.
The democratic process may continue to govern the affairs of the
nation state, but the power and resources of the nation state are
being radically constrained, democracy is being rendered thereby
irrelevant, and global power is thus being shifted from democratic
institutions to elite institutions. Democracy is less and less
society's sovereign, even though public rhetoric continues as usual.
The deliberations of the commissions go largely unreported - the
globalist revolution, profound as it is, is mostly a stealth affair.
According to this analysis, democracy is in considerable trouble
indeed, and by comparison the future of cyberspace would seem to be a
secondary concern. But the plot continues to thicken, as we proceed
to an examination of propaganda and its institutionalized role in the
machinery of modern democracy.
[to be continued]
____________________________________________________________
~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~--~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~
Posted by Richard K. Moore - rkmoore@iol.ie - PO Box 26 Wexford, Ireland
http://www.iol.ie/~rkmoore/cyberjournal (USA Citizen)
* Non-commercial republication encouraged - Please include this sig *
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 1997 10:24:22
From: Richard Thieme <rthieme@thiemeworks.com>
Subject: File 2--Islands in the Clickstream: The Illusion of Control
Islands in the Clickstream:
The Illusion of Control
Microsoft did it again.
Some users of the beta version of Explorer 4.0 were surprised to
learn that, after they went to sleep, their computers were
dialing Microsoft and telling it secrets, downloading information
from Microsoft's web pages and uploading information from the
sanctity of their homes.
The San Jose Mercury News reports that Microsoft says such calls
only happen when the feature is activated, but admits that users
can activate it without understanding the consequences. Said one
beta tester who had wandered in search of a midnight snack, "I
was completely freaking out. I pulled the phone plug right out of
the wall."
Microsoft insists that the system is under the user's control,
but many users didn't know that. The users can be forgiven a
little skepticism. ("I'm getting more and more cynical all the
time," said Jane Wagner, "and I still can't keep up.") Microsoft
is widely believed to have a history of gathering data about
users secretly, but at the least, the company was indifferent to
the concerns of the human user at the end of the connection. They
did not allow the user to maintain an illusion of control.
The truth is, our computers are sending and receiving all sorts
of information back and forth automatically all the time. As
Edward Felten, head of the Secure Internet Programming Laboratory
at Princeton University, said, "I think part of the concern here
is the feeling that you've lost control of the computer when it's
doing stuff in the middle of the night. The feeling is that
you've got control of the computer if you're sitting in front of
it. The reality is that you only have the illusion of control."
Psychologists tell us that dominance and submissiveness are two
traits that we immediately recognize in others. Of course,
submissiveness is often a way of dominating others too, so its
safe to say that all human beings expend energy on dominating
others and avoiding being dominated by them.
The computer isn't a person, but we treat the computer like a
person and react to it as if it's a person. The network invites
powerful projections, some of them straight out of the
Frankenstein legend. We fear the monster we created and can not
control. The more we resist domination, the more we hate symbols
of the dominator -- Microsoft, in this case, often called "the
Borg" and the "Evil Empire," as well as all computers and
networks.
When I lived in Hawaii, I "crossed over" sufficiently into the
way that blend of Polynesian and Asian cultures sees things that
I sometimes could see "haoles" like myself -- the Hawaiian word
for ghosts or pale North Americans -- as the Hawaiians saw us.
I recall a recent arrival to the islands holding forth one day at
the tennis courts. The local people listened quietly as he
explained what needed to be done to improve the islands. He
believed their silence was agreement and kept talking until he
grew tired. Then the small crowd scattered and he went off to
look at the surfers, thinking he had accomplished something.
"Haoles" think talking is doing, that by telling others what we
think or intend to do, we have engaged in action. In fact, the
crowd was politely waiting for him to finish. They had heard it
all before and learned how to absorb the words of well-meaning
tourists as the sea absorbs our energy when we swim.
The principles of aikido, both a martial art and a spiritual
discipline, underscore that approach. There are no aggressive
moves in aikido. Instead one aligns one's energy with the energy
of an attacker, enabling them to complete a move with as little
damage to oneself as possible.
All spiritual traditions talk about real power as an alignment of
our energy with the energy that is already flowing, the "tao" or
the movement of the universe. The advice of Jesus to turn the
other cheek has been distorted to mean that people being beaten
should keep taking abuse, but that isn't what it meant. It's more
on the order of "turn to align yourself with the energy coming at
you" in order to increase, rather than decrease, your real
control of the situation.
In a workshop demonstrating the principles of gestalt psychology,
a group of us were asked to join a loose circle and let our arms
fall naturally around one another's waists. Then we were told to
"make the circle go where you want it to go." Everyone pushed in
different directions and we all fell down. It felt fragmented and
chaotic. Then we reconstituted the circle and were told to allow
the circle to move as it chose to move. We found ourselves
engaged in a natural back-and-forth rhythm, and we experienced
deep feelings of well-being as we allowed ourselves to be part of
something without having to impose our will on it.
In hierarchical structures, we learn to exercise power by
dominating and controlling. In webs or networks, we can't do
that. Our energy is diffused along the strands of the web.
The way to exercise power in a network is by contributing and
participating. That's why leadership in flattened organizations
requires people who know how to implement a vision by coaching,
rather than giving orders -- like the CEO who called the troops
together and told them, "You are all empowered," then returned to
his office, thinking as haoles do that he had accomplished
something.
Much of what we call power is the illusion of control. Whether
connected to a network, sitting in front of a computer that has
an antonymous operating system, engaging in a relationship with a
person, or trying to make the world move as we want -- it is all
an illusion of control. The only thing we can control is the
quality of our response to life. We have an innate capacity to
respond to whatever life brings with dignity, elasticity, and --
when the chips are down -- genuine heroism.
The way to rule the world, as Lao Tzu said, is by letting things
simply take their course.
**********************************************************************
Islands in the Clickstream is a weekly column written by
Richard Thieme exploring social and cultural dimensions
of computer technology. Comments are welcome.
Feel free to pass along columns for personal use, retaining this
signature file. If interested in (1) publishing columns
online or in print, (2) giving a free subscription as a gift, or
(3) distributing Islands to employees or over a network,
email for details.
To subscribe to Islands in the Clickstream, send email to
rthieme@thiemeworks.com with the words "subscribe islands" in the
body of the message. To unsubscribe, email with "unsubscribe
islands" in the body of the message.
Richard Thieme is a professional speaker, consultant, and writer
focused on the impact of computer technology on individuals and
organizations.
Islands in the Clickstream (c) Richard Thieme, 1997. All rights reserved.
ThiemeWorks on the Web: http://www.thiemeworks.com
ThiemeWorks P. O. Box 17737 Milwaukee WI 53217-0737 414.351.2321
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 07:43:18 -0400
From: jw@bway.net
Subject: File 3--The X-Stop Files
THE X-STOP FILES
Self-proclaimed library-friendly product blocks
Quakers, free speech and gay sites
By Jonathan Wallace jw@bway.net
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jonathan Wallace
Day: 212-513-7777
Evening: 718-797-9808
New York, October 5, 1997--
"You bless the lives of those you care about
when you remove temptation." LOG-ON Data Corporation,
distributors of X-Stop blocking software, have adopted
this quote, attributed to John Patterson, founder of
the National Cash Register Corporation, as a company
slogan. It appears at the top of each of the product-related
White Papers on the Anaheim, California company's web
site (http://www.xstop.com).
LOG-ON claims that its X-Stop product is superior
to other blockers on the market today,
which include Safesurf, Surfwatch,
Net Nanny, Cyberpatrol and Cybersitter.
First of all, its Mudcrawler spider is,
it claims, more effective at locating pornographic
material on the Web than the teams of college students
employed by some of its competitors. Secondly,
the company claims that its "felony load" library
version blocks only obscene material
illegal under the Supreme Court case of Miller
v. California. This, LOG-ON says, makes the
product the best option available today
for libraries, which wish to block only hardcore
materials and not deny controversial literary,
artistic or political sites to their patrons.
The privately-held, for profit company has had
some success interesting libraries in X-Stop.
Witness the dispute currently underway to Virginia's
Loudoun County, where the decision by the library trustees
to buy and install blocking software is currently being
challenged by a local organization, Mainstream Loudoun.
The group, composed of local parents and others concerned
about what they perceive as fundamentalist influence in
the county's libraries and schools, have appealed to the
library board to reconsider. Meanwhile, another
group, led by a member of the pro-censorship
group Enough is Enough, is pressing
the library to install X-Stop, based on its claim that
it blocks only obscene sites.
The American Library Association has come out against
the use of blocking software in libraries in a
statement made in July. The American Civil Liberties
Union agrees that the First Amendment bars the use of blocking
software in public libraries, and is monitoring
the situation in Loudoun County and elsewhere.
Does X-Stop promote a fundamentalist world view? The
company boasts on its web pages that
X-Stop has been endorsed by
the following organizations, all of which supported the
Communications Decency Act and have
taken pro-censorship positions in disputes
invlving offline and online speech:
the American Family Association,
Enough is Enough, Family Friendly Libraries,
Focus on the Family, Family Research Council,
and Oklahomans for Children and Families. (This
last is the organization that recently got the
film The Tin Drum seized by Oklahoma police.)
LOG-ON's claims that X-Stop is tailored for library use
have apparently been accepted by some librarians
and journalists. Boston Globe columnist Hiawatha Bray,
in a piece published on July 24, repeated LOG-ON's
claims about the effectiveness of Mudcrawler. On
August 29, Karen Jo Gounaud of the pro-censorship
group Family Friendly Libraries, posted a message
to a mailing list for librarians in which she
said, "I was witness to [a] report and information
this week that convinced me there
is no equal to the X-Stop program.
It's even better than I thought."
How do LOG-ON's claims about the scope of its software
and its appropriateness for libraries measure up?
Of great interest to free speech advocates is the
company's claim that X-Stop's "felony load" version
only blocks materials held to be legally
obscene under the rules set by the Supreme Court in
Miller. The Miller standard defines obscenity as speech which
is prurient, patently offensive and lacking in serious
scientific, literary, artistic or political value.
Here's what LOG-ON claims on its web site:
"Our 'librarian' blocked sites list is
created according to the 'Miller'
standard as defined by the Supreme
Court: blocked sites show sexual acts,
bestiality, and child pornography.
Legitimate art or education sites are not
blocked by the library edition, nor are
so-called 'soft porn' or 'R' rated sites
like lingerie, sex toys, and nudity where
no sexual act is shown."
"This is a completely absurd claim," says First Amendment
attorney James S. Tyre of Bigelow, Moore
& Tyre in Pasadena, California. "LOG-ON is setting itself
up as judge, jury and executioner when it makes
unilateral decisions about what is obscene under
the Miller standard -- and there is ample reason to
believe that the owners of the company have little
knowledge about how to apply the standard. The X-Stop
'felony load' blocks a great number of sites which no
reasonable person would consider obscene, including
websites for print publications carried by most all
public libraries."
Indeed, X-Stop blocks numerous sites that cannot possibly
be obscene under the Miller standard, because they contain
no explicit sexual material of any kind.
Here are a few examples of sites blocked by
X-Stop (from a version distributed by X-Stop at the
end of July):
-- The University of Chicago's Fileroom
project, which tracks acts of censorship around the
world (http://fileroom.aaup.uic.edu/FileRoom/documents);
--The National Journal of Sexual Orientation Law,
which describes itself as devoted to
"legal issues affecting lesbians, gay
men and bisexuals" (http://sunsite.unc.edu/gaylaw/);
--The Banned Books page at Carnegie
Mellon, which gives a historical account of the travails of books
such as Candide and Ulysses
( http://www.cs.cmu.edu/people/spok/banned-books.html);
--The American Association of University Women,
which describes itself as a national organization
that "promotes education and equity for all women and girls"
(http://www.aauw.org);
--The AIDS Quilt site, for people interested in learning
more about HIV and AIDS, with statistics on the disease
and links to other relevant sites
(http://www.aidsquilt.org/aidsinfo);
--Portions of the "AOL Sucks" site dealing with
criticism of the America OnLine terms of service
(TOS) (http://www.aolsucks.org/censor/tos);
--The Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank
whose mission is to "formulate and promote
conservative public policies
based on the principles of free enterprise, limited
government, individual freedom,
traditional American values, and a strong national
defense" (http://www.heritage.org);
--A number of political sites hosted by the progressive
ISP IGC.APC.ORG, including
the "Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting" site
(http://www.igc.apc.org/fair");
--The Religious Society of Friends, better known as
the Quakers (http://www.quaker.org);
--Quality Resources Online, a clearinghouse for books
and other materials relating to quality in business
operations (http://www.quality.org).
"They're saying that Mudcrawler can
automatically determine the merit of text and images,
that it can make a complex legal decision. That's
an utterly ridiculous and absurd claim. Just
look how people argue all the time over literature
and art," said Seth Finkelstein, a professional software
developer who maintains an on-line collection of resources
against blocking software at
http://www.mit.edu/activities/safe/labeling/summary.html.
"Instead, they seem to blacklist anything they dislike,
such as gay and lesbian material or anti-censorship
organizations, or whatever innocent sites
happen to fall victim to the scattershot rules behind
their bans."
Bennett Haselton, a college student who is founder
of the anti-censorship student organization Peacefire
(http://www.peacefire.org) agrees.
Haselton said, "Maybe X-Stop's intentions
were originally to block only 'obscenity,
bestiality and child pornography', but
positive reviews from Family Friendly
Libraries and OCAF should pertain to the
actual product, not the manufacturer's intentions.
If I can find a collection of safe sex sites
that are blocked by X-Stop just by experimenting
with the program for an hour, then the groups who
support the program either haven't looked very
hard for such examples of blocked sites, or they
think it doesn't matter."
"X-Stop is an excellent example of why public libraries
shouldn't purchase blocking software," said attorney
James Tyre. "Under the
First Amendment, librarians should be making the decisions,
not private commercial operations like LOG-ON. Like the
other products out there, this one blocks a lot
of sites no reasonable librarian would ever exclude."
------------------------------------------------------
Jonathan Wallace, jw@bway.net,
is a software executive, attorney and
free speech activist based in New York City. He is
publisher of The Ethical Spectacle, http://www.spectacle.org,
portions of which are blocked by X-Stop, and co-author
with Mark Mangan of Sex, Laws and Cyberspace
(Henry Holt 1996), a book on Internet censorship.
-END-
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