933 lines
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933 lines
45 KiB
Plaintext
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Computer underground Digest Thu Jul 13, 1995 Volume 7 : Issue 59
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ISSN 1004-042X
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Editors: Jim Thomas and Gordon Meyer (TK0JUT2@MVS.CSO.NIU.EDU
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Archivist: Brendan Kehoe
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Shadow Master: Stanton McCandlish
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Field Agent Extraordinaire: David Smith
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Shadow-Archivists: Dan Carosone / Paul Southworth
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Ralph Sims / Jyrki Kuoppala
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Ian Dickinson
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CONTENTS, #7.59 (Thu, Jul 13, 1995)
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File 1--The Carnegie Mellon "Cyberporn" Scandal Grows
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File 2--Brock Meeks on Martin Rimm & "CyberPorn"
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File 3--Open Letter to Phil Elmer-DeWitt and TIME
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File 4--Porn'd: Media Images revisited
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File 5--Brian Reid's comments on the Carnegie Mellon Study
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File 6--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 19 Apr, 1995)
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CuD ADMINISTRATIVE, EDITORIAL, AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION APPEARS IN
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THE CONCLUDING FILE AT THE END OF EACH ISSUE.
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---------------------------------------------------------------------
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Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1995 23:22:02 CDT
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From: Jim Thomas <jthomas@sun.soci.niu.edu>
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Subject: File 1--The Carnegie Mellon "Cyberporn" Scandal Grows
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The research improprieties of the Carnegie Mellon "Cyberporn" study
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are inexorably taking on the proportions of a major scandal. Not only
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was the research done in its name a classic exercise in deception and
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duplicity, but--as Brock Meeks reports in the July 13 issue of
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Cyberwire Dispatch (see following post)--evidence continues to mount
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of fraudulent data gathering procedures.
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As reported in CuD 7.58, the Carnegie Mellon study purported to be a
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study of Usenet "pornographic" images and BBS file description lists.
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The intellectual content of the study has been shattered by the
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Hoffman/Novak and other critiques (see
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http://www2000.ogsm.vanderbilt.edu), and the ethical lapses extend
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beyond minor goofs to constitute a significant breach of
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ethics (see CuD #7.58).
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In another forum, a poster contacted CMU and learned that:
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---begin quote--
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researchers are held accountable to Title 45 CFR Part 689,
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as printed in the Federal Register Vol. 52, No. 126, Wed,
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July 1, 1987, p 24468.
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I went to the USC law library and photocopied the referenced
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page in the Federal Register. It states in section 689.1
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General policies and responsibilities that:
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(a) "Misconduct" means (1) fabrication, falsification,
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plagiarism, or other serious deviation from accepted
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practices in proposing, carrying out, or reporting results
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from research; (2) material failure to comply with Federal
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requirements for protection of researchers, human subjects,
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or the public or for ensuring the welfare of laboratory
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animals; or (3) failure to meet other material legal
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requirements governing research.
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---end quote---
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A more recent version of the NSF misconduct section reads:
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45 C.F.R. s 689.1
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s 689.1 General policies and responsibilities.
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(a) "Misconduct" means
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(1) Fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, or other
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serious deviation from accepted practices in proposing,
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carrying out, or reporting results from activities funded
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by NSF; or
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(2) Retaliation of any kind against a person who reported
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or provided information about suspected or alleged
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misconduct and who has not acted in bad
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faith.
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...........
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Source: 56 FR 22287, May 14, 1991
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It doesn't take a close reading of the Georgetown Law Journal article
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in which the Carnegie Mellon study appeared to realize that procedural
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improprieties occurred. Lack of informed consent, questions about how
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system user Usenet reading habits were obtained, and other problems
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mar the study. Worse, revelations about the principle investigator,
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Martin Rimm, cast serious doubt on the credibility and integrity both
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of the study and of all those involved with it. As Brock Meeks reports
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below, it appears that Rimm acknowledges that he has self-published a
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volume entitle "The Pornographer's Handbook." It also appears that
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Rimm was less than honest with his research subjects, violating a
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cardinal research rule against deception.
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It appears that Rimm "went native," not only failing to tell Thomas
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that he, Rimm, was researching the BBS, but also trying to tell him
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how to organize his files (file organization was a key part of the
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Carnegie Mellon "analysis"): This week, Mike Godwin interviewed
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Robert Thomas, and reports that Thomas told him the following:
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That Martin Rimm was a member of the Amateur Action BBS, that he
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quarrelled publicly and privately with Robert and Carleen Thomas
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about how they ran their BBS (among other things, he wanted them
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to change the way their BBS software kept track of downloads),
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that his messages to them after they refused to comply with his
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"suggestions" grew angry and threatening, that he declared
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publicly that he would not renew his membership at Amateur
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Action, and that he *did* renew his membership in February of
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this year.
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As additional information emerges, questions about the study's
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problems increase, and evidence of misconduct and fraud grow. If the
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Carnegie Mellon study is based on systematically fraudulent
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data-gather practices, then the regrettable conclusion is that
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Carnegie Mellon has engaged in research misconduct. That CMU continues
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to stand by the study as its own further tarnished the reputation of
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all faculty and students associated with the institution. That it
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remains silent on the challenges to substantial and growing criticisms
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of the study further leads to the sad, but inescapable, conclusion
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that CMU is a research institution that feels that it is above the
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standards that the rest of us attempt to follow in human subjects
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research.
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------------------------------
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Date: Thu, 13 Jul 1995 17:11:04 -0500
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From: jthomas@SUN.SOCI.NIU.EDU(Jim Thomas)
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Subject: File 2--Brock Meeks on Martin Rimm & "CyberPorn"
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CyberWire Dispatch // Copyright (c) 1995 ///
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(July 13, 1995)
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Jacking in from the "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" Port:
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Washington, DC --If I were drunk or stoned or Hunter Thompson or a
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combination of any of those, maybe this past week would make sense.
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But there is no empty Jack Daniels bottle on the floor, there is no
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drug residue dusting the desktop and unless that wino on the street
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corner I can see from my office window, the one harassing the hooker,
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is Thompson -- and you just never know -- then I'm left all alone
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with a virtual Marty Rimm staring back at me from my Mac in the form
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of Email, inside a folder called "Rimm Job."
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You know Marty. He's the current media lightening rod. Time
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magazine recently ran a cover story -- "Cyberporn" -- based on work
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he did while an undergraduate at Carnegie Mellon university. Marty's
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taken a lot of heat for that work... he's about to take a lot more,
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owing to a little moonlighting publishing venture he had going while
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conducting the study.
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This story should write itself, but it doesn't. I've had phone
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calls, Email and more phone calls. Each of them adds another small
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piece to the "Marty and Brock Show" to which I've been an unwitting
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dupe in for the past week. A fairly simple puzzle a week ago, it has
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now becomes a 10,000 piece jigsaw of the Milky Way.
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Marty calls me "friend" for some reason and asks me questions via
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Email like "why do I like you, Brock?" Well how the hell do I know?
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And things just keep getting more and more bizarre. It's like I've
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stepped some kind of karmic black hole where a lot of good shit
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happens, but you can't tell anyone about it. At least not right
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away, because first you're bound to figure out "What it All Means."
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But I can't. Maybe I'll never figure it out. Which means this is an
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ugly story, which means I have to write it ugly or it doesn't get
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written. So here goes and god help us all...
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The same Marty that wrote the study on which Time magazine hung its
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June 26th "Cyberporn" cover story is the same Marty that wrote a
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dicey little paperback called the "Pornographer's Handbook: How to
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Exploit Women, Dupe Men and Make Lots of Money."
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Somehow, somewhere, someone named "John Russel Davis" gets ahold of
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this porn handbook and begins to upload excerpts from it to the
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Internet.
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It's 6:27 a.m. on July 11th and the only message I get from Marty is
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a one-liner: "Who is John Russel Davis?" I have no clue. This is
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the last I hear from Marty all day. He has gone into hiding,
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suddenly retreating from our Email tug-of-war.
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The Marty has "gone dark."
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Routine checks of Email reveal nothing. At 11:26 p.m. the "RimmSat"
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lights up. The Marty is back online.
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He fires off this message to me: "Look, I'm pissed off about what
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carolyn is spreading around certain Usenet newsgroups after I broke
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up with her. Someone named John Russel Davis from AOL appears to be
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helping her. If you don't know what newsgroups they are, I certainly
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am not going to be the one to tell you, but let's just say it's where
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bbs sysops hangout. Maybe then you'll know why I am so silent."
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For those playing without a scorecard, "Carolyn" is "Carolyn
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Speranza" as in the person listed in "Books In Print" as the
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illustrator for Marty's "how to" porn marketing manual. She also
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happens to be listed as an advisor for his academic paper.
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But Marty's outburst is a mystery to me. Having been wrapped in a
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regular reporting gig as Washington Bureau Chief for Interactive
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Week, I haven't been trolling the Usenet. When I tell him this, he
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gets insulting: "Brock, I thought you were more clever than this. If
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you were a bbs sysop, and you just got onto the Usenet for the first
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time... where would you go? But I've said too much, and I don't know
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what is the lesser of two evils: not to tell you (and hope it goes
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away), or you will eventually find out later anyway and be pissed off
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and nobody looks good."
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The red-flag has been waved and I call in the troops, posting a
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cryptic message on the WELL asking for assistance in tracking down
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messages from "John Russel Davis." Aaron Dickey, who toils away in
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the stock listings department for the Associated Press, takes up the
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challenge and delivers--in spades.
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Into my mailbox flow excerpts of Marty's "how to" manual. Here is a
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sample of his turgid prose, taken from the Usenet posting, from a
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chapter on Anal Sex: "When searching for the best anal sex images,
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you must take especial care to always portray the woman as smiling,
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as deriving pleasure from being penetrated by a fat penis into her
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most tender crevice. The male, before ejaculation, is remarkably
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attuned to the slightest discrepancy; he is as much focused on her
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lips as on her anus. The slightest indication of pain can make some
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men limp."
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The early returns on the excerpts are that they are a hoax. People
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castigate the anonymous "Davis" for having tried to foist such a
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laughable scam on the Net.
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But Marty knows different and when I ask if these postings are
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authentic, he writes: "The excerpts circulating around the Usenet
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were stolen from my marketing book, Brock. You are the only one I am
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telling."
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This would be the same "marketing book" that in another of these same
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Usenet excerpts says: "I spent two full years as a researcher at
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Carnegie Mellon University, where I received four grants to study
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adult materials on the Internet, Usenet, World Wide Web and Adult BBS
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from around the world. Despite countless deprivations and
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temptations, I have examined this topic with great diligence, having
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obtained nearly one million descriptions of adult images which were
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downloaded by consumers more than eight million times. I developed
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linguistic parsing software to sort these images into 63 different
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classifications from oral to anal, from lesbian to bondage, from
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watersports to bestiality."
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If that was your jaw hitting the floor, imagine what's happening at
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Carnegie Mellon about now.
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Marty, at first, seemed unruffled by all this. When I asked him what
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kind of "damage control" he might be formulating to respond to the
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news of his little self-publishing venture, which, by the way, is
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listed as having the "Carnegie" imprint and which happens to have the
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same address in Pittsburgh as someone named "Martin Rimm". Marty
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replied: "What attention? I don't see it. This is just an oddity. Do
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you have reason to suspect otherwise?"
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But by the night of July 13th, at virtually the 11th hour, he tries
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to cut a deal with me. He notes that people monitoring the Usenet
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groups think the excerpts "are a fraud." He says the only ones that
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know they are real are me and him (forgetting, I suppose, about
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Carolyn and "Davis"). He says he could essentially upload to the
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Net a kind of confession, "claiming authorship and you lose your
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scoop." In return for not blowing my scoop, he wants me to send him
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an advance copy of this article so he can review it.
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He says I'm "close" on some things, but that I have missed "too much"
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of the story. We could work together, he promises. We could
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establish a "working relationship," something we obviously don't have
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now because my earlier article on this whole wretched debacle was
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"pathetically inaccurate," he claims.
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If I comply with his deal, I would then know all, he says: "You will
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really understand what I did and did not do. If you want."
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In case you're wondering, Marty is reading this for the first time
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along with the rest of you. He has never seen a word of it, other
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than his own Email messages reproduced here.
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Not eight hours after he wanted to cut a deal, to "negotiate from the
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edge," as John Schwartz of the Washington Post characterizes such
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desperate ploys, he sends a message July 13 (Thursday) that is
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frantic and elusive: "The thing is about to blow, probably by Friday
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at noon. I am not happy about this. I don't like it. I don't want it.
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But I consider you the lesser of two evils. I am going away in about
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a half hour and will probably return next week."
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I have no idea what "the thing" is. I have no idea what the "lesser
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of two evils" is.
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Hell, right now, I'm not even sure he's telling me the truth.
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Indeed, throughout this investigation, he has led me back and forth,
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playing games, trickling out information like some damn chinese
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water torture.
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Mike Godwin, staff counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation,
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who has made the discrediting of the Time "Cyberporn" cover story and
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Marty's study something of a personal Jihad, sums up Marty like this:
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"The more you research Rimm, the more a portrait emerges of someone
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wily, subtle, glib, manipulative. Even when he tells you he's being
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totally honest, totally frank, you have this lurking feeling that
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below the surface he's calculating the precise effect his choice of
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words--both his admissions and his omissions--will have on you."
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Godwin is dead bang on.
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An old college classmate of Marty's, Bret Pettichord , surfaced
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during this whole affair. He and Marty went to the New College in
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Sarasota, Fla., in the 1984. They were philosophy majors. It was a
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small school, Petticort says, so "everyone knew everyone." Marty was
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a loner. But Marty had a peculiar quirk: He studied tapes of the
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Rev. Jerry Falwell. "Not for the message," Petticort said, "Marty
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didn't buy into that." Instead, Marty was "fascinated by how Falwell
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was able to sway people with his rhetoric... and he studied that."
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But as far as Petticort knows, Marty never practiced it while in
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college. They drifted apart, meeting briefly around 1986. When the
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"Marty as Media Lightening Rod" emerged, Petticort got back in touch.
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Marty's response: "I'm busy now."
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Before the Great Usenet Excerpt incident, Marty was already pacing
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back and forth across my computer screen.
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When the listing of his porn book from "Books In Print" hit the Net,
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it was like some one had lit Marty's fuse.
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When I asked him to explain the book, he answered with two questions:
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"[T]ell me 1) whether you actually have a copy of the Porn Handbook,
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and 2) where you got it."
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I answered that I had sources in "low places" and that I didn't
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appreciate having to "bargain" with him for information. His book
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"wasn't hard to track down," I told him.
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His secret now blown, he goes ballistic: "It looks like that *bitch*
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got a copy too," he wrote, complete with asterisks, referring to
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Vanderbilt Professor Donna Hoffman, one of his earliest critics. "To
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say I'm pissed is an understatement," he wrote in Email. "They all
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agreed not to photocopy it - I'm going to nail them for copyright
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violation." The "they" he refers to there are the adult BBS
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operators.
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I know, throughout this story you have to keep telling yourself: I
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am not in the Twilight Zone... I am *not* in the Twilight Zone. But
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I swear, I'm not making any of this up.
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How did Marty pull this off? Adult BBS operators aren't known for
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their openness and trusting attitudes, in general. When I asked
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Marty how he was able to do what had taken me years to do -- develop
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sources inside this network of adult BBS operators -- he said:
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"[Y]ou didn't have powerful software which you could use to convince
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them that you indeed had something to offer. What took you years I
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could do in anywhere from five minutes to two months. You'll have to
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figure the rest out."
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That software, of course, was the same software he mentions so
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prominently in his academic study, the one published by the
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Georgetown Law Journal, the one that starts out telling how
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pornographers have started to use "sophisticated software" to help
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them become better marketers.
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Are you catching the trend here? It's the ultimate media hack. He's
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working both sides of the fence. One one hand, Marty is helping the
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porn operators better market their wares, enabling them to place the
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stuff more strategically online. And then he writes a study with
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which he reels in an "exclusive" Time magazine "Cyberporn" cover
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story decrying the fact that, oh-my-gawd, there's an ever increasing
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amount of porn online, due in part, to better marketing tactics by
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adult BBS operators.
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I tell Marty that I think it's "brilliant" that he was able to work
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the "acquisition of data" from BBS operators so that he could use it
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for his "how to" porn marketing manual and also crank it into his
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academic study. His reply: "If I do say so myself."
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It was so brilliant, in fact, that it almost backfired on him on day
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the Time magazine story ran. You see, the BBS operators *didn't
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know* Marty was collecting their data for an academic study; they
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thought it was going to be used only by Marty, who would in turn,
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help them better market their porn.
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Now, Marty didn't tell me that, directly, he made a game of it,
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making me ask questions and pose them to him in the form of a theory.
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So, when I ran the above theory by him, the one where he dupes the
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BBS operators and uses the data for both his porn book and the study,
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he wrote: "I'm somewhat impressed that you picked this up. Yes, I
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got about a dozen surprised calls this week [when the Time cover
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story ran] from sysops, but the academic study and BBS marketing
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manual were kept entirely separate... so they (the porn BBS
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operators) took no offense."
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But the academic community has... except Carnegie Mellon University.
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To CMU Marty is the new "Media Darling."
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Meanwhile, charges of unethical research practices are being launched
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and brought to the attention of the CMU administration.
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Jim Thomas, a professor of sociology/criminal justice at Northern
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Illinois University, wrote a blistering attack challenging the ethics
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underlying Marty's study. Thomas' writing is brutal, written in the
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cold measured prose of an academic: "The most serious and explicit
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ethical violation is the deceptive nature in which Carnegie Mellon
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collected the data. Virtually every principle of informed consent
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was breached, because there is sufficient evidence to conclude that
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the research team gathered data deceptively, perhaps even
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fraudulently."
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Marty's senior advisor, CMU professor Marvin Sirbu, is nowhere to be
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found. He has refused to answer questions Emailed to him about
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whether he knew Marty was using university funds to gather data for a
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"how to" porn marketing book at the same time he was using the data
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for his academic study.
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When Marty is asked whether Sirbu knew of his actions, he writes
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only: "Ask him."
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Apparently Marty did run his methodology past George Duncan, a
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professor of statistics at the Heinz School at CMU. Marty says
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Duncan is a "privacy expert." However, Marty doesn't list Duncan
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among the many so-called advisors for his study. "In hindsight, I
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guess I should have listed him," he told me during our only phone
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interview.
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When Duncan is asked about Marty's methodology he says he sees
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nothing wrong. When I ask him if he knows the data Marty was
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collecting was being used for the "Pornographer's Handbook" he says,
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"that's totally implausible." When I tell him that Marty has
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confirmed it and that I know for sure he used the data to help write
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the porn book, Duncan, still says, "well, that's just ridiculous."
|
|
|
|
What's not ridiculous is the fallout and the "collateral damage" as
|
|
the military likes say, in which they really mean "the number of
|
|
innocent civilians that are murdered by a bomb meant only for a
|
|
strategic target."
|
|
|
|
First there is the reputation of Time magazine. This can be summed
|
|
up in one word: Toast. They will have to scramble big time to
|
|
recover from having been spun by Marty "Mr. Porn Handbook" Rimm.
|
|
|
|
Then there is CMU. Your call here is as good as mine. The
|
|
university, even as this article is grinding to a close, still refers
|
|
to Marty's study as "the CMU study." They'll have to dodge a few
|
|
bullets on this one now.
|
|
|
|
And then there is the Net itself. It will likely take some time to
|
|
heal the damage here, too. Of course there is pornography on the
|
|
Net, but it's not nearly as pervasive as recent events have made it
|
|
out to be. And what's more encouraging, is that there is "real
|
|
research," ironically enough, from Carnegie Mellon itself, that
|
|
indicates that sexually oriented material, while available on the
|
|
Net, isn't really that big a drawing point.
|
|
|
|
As CMU professor Sara Kiesler, one of the principles of a study
|
|
called "HomeNet" says: "What's important is to look at how people
|
|
use the Net and what they are actually looking at, as opposed to
|
|
looking at what is actually on the Net itself." Her study is finding
|
|
that very few people access sexually oriented material, even when
|
|
they know its readily available, she said. And when they do access
|
|
it, it's mostly out of curiosity, she says, "there's not a high
|
|
percentage of repeat access."
|
|
|
|
That should be the word that gets out; not the by now well debunked
|
|
"83.5% of the Usenet is porn" figure that sadly (thank you Time
|
|
magazine) is becoming the sound bite of the Religious Right and
|
|
certain dense Senators.
|
|
|
|
As for Marty? Well, he's been accepted by MIT's Technology and
|
|
Policy Program, where he'll go for his masters. I'm sure he'll do
|
|
just fine... after all, he does have this little publishing venture
|
|
to help him cover expenses.
|
|
|
|
Meeks out...
|
|
|
|
------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Date: Sat, 8 Jul 1995 12:24:52 -0700
|
|
From: jwarren@WELL.COM(Jim Warren)
|
|
Subject: File 3--Open Letter to Phil Elmer-DeWitt and TIME
|
|
|
|
An Open Letter to Phil Elmer-DeWitt and TIME's Responsible Editors (& T. Koppel)
|
|
|
|
Hi Phil -
|
|
|
|
It was sad and frustrating to see - and vigorously participate in - the
|
|
net's flames that poured over you after you honchoed the cyberporn
|
|
"report." I know you, and I know you are much, much better than that
|
|
illustrates.
|
|
|
|
You and Time earned the flaming that you got, because you and your editors
|
|
were the ones with the power to impact public and political opinion, and
|
|
thus the responsibility to do it *very* carefully. Even under the insane
|
|
pressure of a weekly deadline in the cutthroat newsweekly racket.
|
|
|
|
What's done's done. I'm writing about the immediate future - hopefully in
|
|
time to make a difference. I know you and Time are planning a follow-up -
|
|
which may be no more than the usual wee-tiny, "Opps, we made a few little
|
|
errors," quiblette, buried in some obscure corner of a week's prose.
|
|
|
|
I urge you: Please - don't do it that way. Such an approach - the press'
|
|
usual approach to admitting errors - is simply not acceptable. Be assured
|
|
that it will simply provoke another round of equally earned net-wide
|
|
flames.
|
|
|
|
YOU, PHIL, AND TIME *CAN* RECEIVE WELL-EARNED APPLAUSE:
|
|
|
|
1. Do a second major article on cyberporn and its much more important
|
|
issue, cybercensorship by government as opposed as to censorship via the
|
|
delete button.
|
|
|
|
2. Bluntly, fully and in detail, rip apart the Rimm study with the same
|
|
zeal that you or Time would put into a secret, unrefereed pro-cigarette
|
|
tobacco study by an undergraduate student - if it had received the
|
|
cover-story prominence and immediately been quoted on the floor of
|
|
Congress.
|
|
|
|
3. Bluntly report and criticize your and Time's failings.
|
|
|
|
4. But most of all, present the other side of the censorship case -
|
|
including emphasis on the alternatives that net-illiterate, now-frightened,
|
|
justifiably-concerned parents, teachers and librarians can use to protect
|
|
their children from doing what kids have always done ... going where
|
|
they're told not to go.
|
|
|
|
5. And have your p.r. department promote *this* - too - to Ted Koppel.
|
|
Although Nightline's set-up piece was appalling, Ted himself - operating
|
|
from unfortunate personal ignorance - *tried* to do an even-handed job of
|
|
drawing out some of the issues ... to the extent that he understood them.
|
|
I am convinced that he will do a better job, with better research
|
|
beforehand, if he takes the time to cover cybercensorship excused by the
|
|
minority of *global* cyberporn that exists.
|
|
|
|
Soon, more and more print journalists will be doing their work online. The
|
|
clear and present danger is that, by the time they and their publishers
|
|
arrive online, the government will have established a long string of
|
|
precedents for government-imposed content control.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Phil, over and over, we have seen that the net and the public have a great
|
|
capacity for forgiveness - when national leaders have screwed up and
|
|
promptly, bluntly and without excuses admitted it. Janet Reno after Waco
|
|
is an example.
|
|
|
|
If you or your barricaded editors try to gloss this over, or give excuses,
|
|
or whine forth with, "We were imperfect, but ..." scenarios, you will
|
|
guarantee extensive, continuing, *earned* criticism.
|
|
|
|
If you - yourselves - rip the hell out of your own story, and present the
|
|
other side as provocatively as you presented the Rimmtrash, (1) you will be
|
|
doing a MUCH-needed service to the nation and the political process, and
|
|
(2) you and Time will *earn* praise for correcting a mistake in an equally
|
|
prominent, *responsible* manner.
|
|
|
|
Please Phil ... do it. You are good enough and honorable enough to do so.
|
|
|
|
Your friend (believe it or not),
|
|
--jim
|
|
Jim Warren, GovAccess list-owner/editor (jwarren@well.com)
|
|
Advocate & columnist, MicroTimes, Government Technology, BoardWatch, etc.
|
|
345 Swett Rd., Woodside CA 94062; voice/415-851-7075
|
|
|
|
------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Date: Fri, 7 Jul 1995 21:10:42 -0500 (CDT)
|
|
From: Crypt Newsletter <crypt@sun.soci.niu.edu>
|
|
Subject: File 4--Porn'd: Media Images revisited
|
|
|
|
RIMM JOB: A REVISIT TO COMPUTER CULTURE AND MEDIA IMAGES
|
|
|
|
[The original "Computer Culture and Media Images" was published in
|
|
Computer underground Digest 5.65. The review was drafted after a
|
|
reporter for The Contra Costa Times in central California profiled
|
|
a series of public bulletin board systems in the San Francisco Bay
|
|
area known as the NIRVANAnet. The news piece was remarkable for its
|
|
naivete, snide insinuation that the network was involved in illegal
|
|
activity and the complete failure of the
|
|
newspaper reporter to allow the managers of the network to speak for
|
|
themselves, a paint-by-numbers approach to on-line journalism that is very
|
|
common. As time goes by, the Crypt Newsletter has noticed the more
|
|
things change, the more they stay the same. The last six
|
|
months of 1994 - no, make that the entire year - were devoted to a
|
|
grandiose computers-and-networking hype by the mainstream media
|
|
launched under the rubric of the "revolutionary age of information." The
|
|
information highway scoop, as described by the same generic reporters that
|
|
turn in stories similar in scope to The Contra Costa County
|
|
Times/NIRVANAnet fiasco, was the first half of the trip down a new
|
|
yellow brick road to the great and powerful Oz of national rebirth.
|
|
By mid-1995, the same media goofballs had cast themselves as snarling
|
|
Toto's, suddenly pulling back the curtain on a carnal on-line cheat
|
|
of monstrous proportion, quite probably capable of scarring the
|
|
children of honest Americans for life. The U.S. Congress, packed with
|
|
as excessive a population of fork-tongued hypocrites, stone fools and
|
|
pettifogging tallywhackers as can be found in western civilization, has
|
|
been quick to act to slay the twin demons of cyberspace: smut and bombs.
|
|
"Rimm Job: Computer Culture and Media Images Revisited" is a dust-off of
|
|
my original piece, updated to illustrate how predictably idiotic and
|
|
puppet-like the media has been on the story.]
|
|
|
|
In 1993, after reviewing numerous stories on computer culture dating
|
|
back to 1990, Mike Liedtke's Contra Costa Times piece on the
|
|
NIRVANAnet BBS's came off as just one more example of a stupid genre:
|
|
paint-by-numbers journalism, so predictable it's a cliche. The locales
|
|
were shifting, the names changing but the overemphasis on the menace to
|
|
society posed by superficially threatening but essentially trivial
|
|
computer file "how-to's" on bombs, drugs, hacking and non-specific
|
|
hell-raising remained the same. Unfortunately, through 1993 and
|
|
today, so has the expertise of reporters.
|
|
|
|
Locked into some kind of "ultimate computer goober" never-never
|
|
land, there has never been a lack of writers who turn in stories
|
|
which are painfully unsophisticated, plainly inadequate, sensational
|
|
or pandering for the sake of cheap, momentary outrage. It's damnable,
|
|
because the picture which emerges is one of mainstream journalists who
|
|
ought to know the lay of the land, but who either won't pick it up or are
|
|
being deliberately disingenuous in their work.
|
|
|
|
By contrast, the lack of skill didn't hinder the mainstream media,
|
|
or even slow it down, in being a conduit for countless fluffy, trend
|
|
stories on the information superhighway, all equivalent to junk mail.
|
|
The result, as it continues, is an abundance of useless information
|
|
that no one wants. And as the deluge increases it becomes harder and
|
|
harder to get anything of substance across which doesn't enrage, shock
|
|
or appeal blindly to prurient interests.
|
|
|
|
So, the users of the NIRVANAnet systems thought the news media
|
|
arrogant in 1993. And they complained about it. Loudly. The current
|
|
shaking of the cyberfists and stamping of the cyberfeet at Congress
|
|
over the Exon/Coats bill, while a pathetic spectacle on the part
|
|
of 'netizens who seemingly lack even the horse sense to realize they're
|
|
part of the problem too, was similarly not just a scream of wounded
|
|
pride or the surprised squeak of slimy characters exposed when their
|
|
rock was overturned. It was justified.
|
|
|
|
Why?
|
|
|
|
Take, for example, a news piece which appeared way back in 1990 in
|
|
The Morning Call newspaper of Allentown, PA.
|
|
|
|
The Call had discovered a now long gone "underground" bulletin board
|
|
in nearby Easton, PA. I lived in the area at the time and current
|
|
news is uncannily similar to the one Morning Call reporter Carol
|
|
Cleaveland delivered for the paper's readership. The
|
|
same ingredients were in the mix, a micro-slice of the same content
|
|
bemoaned on the Internet: adult files, plenty of text "how-to's"
|
|
on how to make bombs, a regional lawman explaining about how hard it
|
|
was to nail people for computer crime and a plainly venal and envious,
|
|
rival sysop of another local _legitimate family-oriented_ system
|
|
acting as official tut-tutter and squealer, warning concerned readers
|
|
that he sure wouldn't want such a system in his backyard, corrupting
|
|
the innocent, contributing to the overthrow of the republic,
|
|
zzzzzzzzzz . . . .
|
|
|
|
Typically, there was not a shred of comment from the sysop whose system
|
|
was being profiled. Nothing ever came of the nonsense. The system
|
|
continued on-line for a couple of more years, no criminal charges were
|
|
filed, and the local businesses appeared not to go up in flames at the
|
|
hands of unknown hackers or bomb-throwing, masked anarchists. So, this
|
|
was news?
|
|
|
|
Now, fast forward to The New York Times on January 25 of 1994. In
|
|
an 'A' section article, reporter Ralph Blumenthal profiled "Phrakr
|
|
Trakr," a federal undercover man keeping our electronic streets safe
|
|
from cybernetic hoodlums too numerous to mention singly.
|
|
|
|
A quick read shows the reporter another investigator from the
|
|
mainstream who hadn't gotten anything from underground BBS's
|
|
first-hand, relying instead on the Phrakr Trakr's tales of unnameable
|
|
computer criminals trafficking in unspecified dread: "stolen information,
|
|
poison recipes and bomb-making instructions."
|
|
|
|
Blumenthal's continued fascination with text files for
|
|
"turning household chemicals into deadly poisons, [or] how to build an
|
|
'Assassin Box' to supposedly send a lethal surge through a telephone
|
|
line" was more of the same.
|
|
|
|
Most anyone from teenagers to the college educated on-line _still_
|
|
seems to recognize these files as malevolently written crap or bowdlerized,
|
|
error-filled reprints from engineering, biology and chemistry books.
|
|
In either case, hardly noteworthy unless you're one who can't tell the
|
|
difference between comic books and real news or has no idea of what's
|
|
available at the library or well-stocked bookstore.
|
|
|
|
On top of this continuum in late June was layered the gagging
|
|
pig-stink of hardcore obscenity furnished courtesy of Carnegie-Mellon
|
|
undergraduate Marty Rimm, his study on cyberporn and TIME magazine -
|
|
which grabbed the report as a special issue exclusive and retooled it into
|
|
a voyeuristic expose of damnation and decadence on the hot rails to Hell
|
|
of techno-America.
|
|
|
|
"I think there's no almost no question that we're seeing an
|
|
unprecedented availability and demand of material like sadomasochism,
|
|
bestiality, vaginal and rectal fisting, eroticized urinating . . ."
|
|
Rimm blurted in TIME magazine.
|
|
|
|
Know this: It's copy of this nature that many genero-journalists
|
|
kill for! Even the casual reader has to admit he might jump at the
|
|
chance to be _the first_ heroic scribe to ring the alarm bells on
|
|
creeping electronic filth! Get yourself on Nightline!
|
|
|
|
Rimm's study, in addition to not being peer-reviewed, wasn't easy to
|
|
procure, leading critics to immediately accuse him, TIME magazine and a
|
|
few select journalists of colluding with the author for maximum publicity
|
|
and impact. (A visit to Rimm's World Wide Web-page a day or so ago
|
|
showed while the student _had_ found himself the time to post media
|
|
reaction to his study and the controversy embroiling it, he hadn't
|
|
actually posted the paper, just the illusion of it.)
|
|
|
|
One fragment of Rimm's paper was a mother-lode of purple prose -
|
|
not detached science - but pure media-tempered gold-plated scandal.
|
|
|
|
"Men of considerable intelligence have paid homage to Sade, admiring
|
|
his unrivaled, demented imagination. Yet for all their efforts,
|
|
Sade and his disciples pushed pornography only as far as the printed
|
|
word allowed. Two centuries of technological innovations -- the
|
|
photograph, the digital image, the scanner, computer bulletin boards,
|
|
computer networks -- passed before Robert Thomas [a BBS sysop currently
|
|
serving time in an obscenity case] would present us with Amateur
|
|
Action BBS, a high-tech rendition of 'The 120 Days of Sodom.'
|
|
|
|
"The Marquis, it seems, has finally been topped."
|
|
|
|
So our advice is "Expect the worst!" - even more media-stoked smut frenzy -
|
|
because, quite frankly, there really is no way to effectively counter the
|
|
unholy union of peeper journalism and sensationalist _studies_ like
|
|
Marty Rimm's cyberporn circus.
|
|
|
|
_George Smith is the author of "The Virus Creation Labs."_
|
|
|
|
------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Date: Thu, 6 Jul 1995 16:52:43 -0500 (CDT)
|
|
From: Czar Donic <c173769@SHOWME.MISSOURI.EDU>
|
|
Subject: File 5--Brian Reid's comments on the Carnegie Mellon Study
|
|
|
|
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
|
|
From--Brian Reid <reid@pa.dec.com>
|
|
Date--Wed, 05 Jul 95 20:30:49 -0700
|
|
|
|
I have read a preprint of the Rimm study of pornography and I am so
|
|
distressed by its lack scientific credibility that I don't even know
|
|
where to begin critiquing it. Normally when I am sent a publication for
|
|
review, if I find a flaw in it I can identify it and say "here, in this
|
|
paragraph, you are making some unwarranted assumptions". In this study
|
|
I have trouble finding measurement techniques that are *not* flawed.
|
|
The writer appears to me not to have a glimmer of an understanding even
|
|
of basic statistical measurement technique, let alone of the
|
|
application of that technique to something as elusive and ill-defined
|
|
as USENET.
|
|
|
|
I have been measuring USENET readership and analyzing USENET content,
|
|
and publishing studies of what I find since April 1986. I have spent
|
|
years refining the measurement techniques and the data processing
|
|
algorithms. Despite those 9 years of working on the problem, I still do
|
|
not believe that it is possible to get measurements whose accuracy is
|
|
within a factor of 10 of the truth. In other words, if I measure
|
|
something that seems to be 79, the truth might be 790 or 7.9 or
|
|
anywhere in between. Despite this inaccuracy, the measurements are
|
|
interesting, because whatever unknowns it is that they are measuring,
|
|
these unknowns are similar from one month to the next, so that the
|
|
study of trends is meaningful. As long as you are aware of what it is
|
|
that you are taking the ratio of, it is also meaningful to compare
|
|
USENET measurements, because whatever the errors might be, they are
|
|
often similar in two numbers from the same measurement set, and they
|
|
are multiplicative, so they tend to cancel out in quotient.
|
|
|
|
In other words, in the results that I publish, the two kinds of measurements
|
|
that are meaningful enough to pay attention to for serious scholarship
|
|
are the normalized month-to-month trends in the readership percentages
|
|
of a given newsgroup, and the within-the-same-month ratio of the
|
|
readership of one newsgroup to the readership of another. The reason
|
|
that I publish the numbers is primarily to enable trend analysis; it is
|
|
not reasonable to take a single-point measurement seriously.
|
|
|
|
No matter what the level of accuracy you are seeking, it is imperative
|
|
that you understand what it is that you are measuring. Whenever you
|
|
cannot measure an entire population, you must find and measure a
|
|
sample, and the error in your measurement will be magnified if your
|
|
sample is not a representative sample. A small error in understanding
|
|
the nature of the sample population will lead to an error like the
|
|
famous "Dewey defeats Truman" headline in the 1948 US Presidential
|
|
election. A large error in understanding the nature of the sample
|
|
population can lead to results that are completely meaningless, such as
|
|
measuring pregnancy rates in a population whose age and sex are unknown.
|
|
|
|
Rimm has made three "beginner's errors" that, in my opinion, when taken
|
|
together, render his numbers completely meaningless:
|
|
|
|
1. He has selected a very homogeneous population to measure. While
|
|
he has chosen not to identify his population, he has included
|
|
enough of his sample data to allow me to correlate his numbers
|
|
with my own numbers for the same measurement period. His data
|
|
correlate exactly with my numbers for Pittsburgh newsgroups in
|
|
that measurement period; only his own university (Carnegie-Mellon)
|
|
has widespread enough campus networking to make it possible for
|
|
him to sample that large a population. It is therefore almost
|
|
certain that he has measured his own university. I received my
|
|
Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie-Mellon University, and I
|
|
am very aware that it is dominantly male and dominantly a
|
|
technology school. The behavior of computer-using students at
|
|
a high-tech urban engineering school might not be very similar
|
|
to the behavior of other student populations, let alone
|
|
non-student populations.
|
|
|
|
2. He has measured only one time period, January 1995. Having lived
|
|
at Carnegie-Mellon University for a number of years, I know
|
|
first-hand that student interests in January are extremely
|
|
different from student interests in September or April. When
|
|
measuring human behavior about which very little is known, it is
|
|
important to take numerous measurements over time and to look for
|
|
time series. Taking the last few years worth of my data and
|
|
doing a trend analysis in the newsgroups that he has named as
|
|
pornographic shows an average 3:1 seasonal trend change between
|
|
low-readership months (November and April) and high-readership
|
|
months (September and January). But the trends are different in
|
|
different newsgroups. A single-point measurement is not nearly
|
|
as meaningful as a series of measurements.
|
|
|
|
3. He makes the assumption that by seeing a data reference to an
|
|
image or a file, it is possible to tell what the individual did
|
|
with the file. We in the network measurement business are very
|
|
careful to explain what it is that our measurements mean. Here
|
|
is the standard explanation that I publish with my monthly
|
|
measurements to talk about the number that Rimm calls "number
|
|
of downloads".
|
|
|
|
To "read" a newsgroup means to have been presented with the
|
|
opportunity to look at at least one message in it. Going
|
|
through a newsgroup with the "n" key counts as reading it.
|
|
For a news site, "user X reads group Y" means that user
|
|
X's .newsrc file has marked at least one unexpired message
|
|
in Y.
|
|
|
|
Rimm used my network measurement software tools to take his data,
|
|
and he did not anywhere in his article state that he had made changes
|
|
to them, so I must conclude that his numbers and my numbers are
|
|
derived from the same software. But the number that he is using for
|
|
"number of downloads" is the same number that I call "number of
|
|
readers" by the above definition. It has nothing to do with the
|
|
number of downloads. In fact, it is not possible for this
|
|
measurement system to tell whether or not a file has been downloaded;
|
|
it can tell whether or not a person has been presented with
|
|
the opportunity to download a file but it cannot tell whether the
|
|
user answered "yes" or "no".
|
|
|
|
In summary, I do not consider Rimm's analysis to have enough technical rigor
|
|
to be worthy of publication in a scholarly journal.
|
|
|
|
Brian Reid, Ph.D.
|
|
Director, Network Systems Laboratory
|
|
Digital Equipment Corporation
|
|
Palo Alto, California
|
|
reid@pa.dec.com
|
|
http://www.research.digital.com/nsl/people/reid/bio.html
|
|
|
|
------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1995 22:51:01 CDT
|
|
From: CuD Moderators <cudigest@sun.soci.niu.edu>
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Subject: File 6--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 19 Apr, 1995)
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Cu-Digest is a weekly electronic journal/newsletter. Subscriptions are
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available at no cost electronically.
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CuD is available as a Usenet newsgroup: comp.society.cu-digest
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Or, to subscribe, send a one-line message: SUB CUDIGEST your name
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Send it to LISTSERV@VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU
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The editors may be contacted by voice (815-753-0303), fax (815-753-6302)
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or U.S. mail at: Jim Thomas, Department of Sociology, NIU, DeKalb, IL
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60115, USA.
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To UNSUB, send a one-line message: UNSUB CUDIGEST
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Send it to LISTSERV@VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU
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(NOTE: The address you unsub must correspond to your From: line)
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Issues of CuD can also be found in the Usenet comp.society.cu-digest
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news group; on CompuServe in DL0 and DL4 of the IBMBBS SIG, DL1 of
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LAWSIG, and DL1 of TELECOM; on GEnie in the PF*NPC RT
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libraries and in the VIRUS/SECURITY library; from America Online in
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the PC Telecom forum under "computing newsletters;"
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On Delphi in the General Discussion database of the Internet SIG;
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on RIPCO BBS (312) 528-5020 (and via Ripco on internet);
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and on Rune Stone BBS (IIRGWHQ) (203) 832-8441.
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CuD is also available via Fidonet File Request from
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1:11/70; unlisted nodes and points welcome.
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EUROPE: In BELGIUM: Virtual Access BBS: +32-69-844-019 (ringdown)
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Brussels: STRATOMIC BBS +32-2-5383119 2:291/759@fidonet.org
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In ITALY: Bits against the Empire BBS: +39-464-435189
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In LUXEMBOURG: ComNet BBS: +352-466893
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UNITED STATES: etext.archive.umich.edu (192.131.22.8) in /pub/CuD/
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ftp.eff.org (192.88.144.4) in /pub/Publications/CuD/
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aql.gatech.edu (128.61.10.53) in /pub/eff/cud/
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world.std.com in /src/wuarchive/doc/EFF/Publications/CuD/
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wuarchive.wustl.edu in /doc/EFF/Publications/CuD/
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EUROPE: nic.funet.fi in pub/doc/cud/ (Finland)
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ftp.warwick.ac.uk in pub/cud/ (United Kingdom)
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JAPAN: ftp://www.rcac.tdi.co.jp/pub/mirror/CuD
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The most recent issues of CuD can be obtained from the
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Cu Digest WWW site at:
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URL: http://www.soci.niu.edu:80/~cudigest/
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COMPUTER UNDERGROUND DIGEST is an open forum dedicated to sharing
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information among computerists and to the presentation and debate of
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diverse views. CuD material may be reprinted for non-profit as long
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as the source is cited. Authors hold a presumptive copyright, and
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they should be contacted for reprint permission. It is assumed that
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non-personal mail to the moderators may be reprinted unless otherwise
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specified. Readers are encouraged to submit reasoned articles
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relating to computer culture and communication. Articles are
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preferred to short responses. Please avoid quoting previous posts
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unless absolutely necessary.
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DISCLAIMER: The views represented herein do not necessarily represent
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the views of the moderators. Digest contributors assume all
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responsibility for ensuring that articles submitted do not
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violate copyright protections.
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End of Computer Underground Digest #7.59
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************************************
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