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Computer underground Digest Sun Sep 21, 1997 Volume 9 : Issue 70
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, #9.70 (Sun, Sep 21, 1997)
File 1--Possible story--Clinton / pager interception
File 2--Anti-Spam Bills in Congress
File 3--Spammers Sued In Michigan (Chip Cryderman)
File 4--Cyber Promotions tossed offline (fwd)
File 5--ALERT: Call Congress on 9/22 to Stop Big Brother!!
File 6--Fwd: Designing Effective Action Alerts for the Internet
File 7--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, 20 Sep 1997 23:11:21 -0500
From: cudigest@SUN.SOCI.NIU.EDU (Cu Digest)
Subject: File 1--Possible story--Clinton / pager interception
((MODERATORS' NOTE: The following post, along with additional
related material, arrived a bit garbled, and the original header
and some of the content was deleted. Apologies to the original
poster)).
-------
19 September 1997
Source: David Wagner
_________________________________________________
To--jya@pipeline.com
From--David Wagner <daw@cs.berkeley.edu>
Subject--Possible story--Clinton / pager interception
Date--Fri, 19 Sep 1997 13:28:23 -0700 (PDT)
Hello-- I have a possible news story tip, and I thought you might be
interested.
A hacker today announced the interception of Pres. Clinton's pager
messages (along with pager messages destined for staff, Secret Service
agents, and other members of his entourage) during his recent trip to
Philadelphia. This is coming as an embarassment to the administration's
policy on communications privacy and encryption.
The lengthy transcript of pager messagers was published on the Internet
today to demonstrate that the pager infrastructure is highly insecure.
(Apparently the Pres.'s entourage relies a lot on pagers for
communications. There are messages from Hilary and Chelsea; a
Secret Service scare; late-breaking basketball scores for the
Pres.; staffers exchanging romantic notes; and other amusements.)
This comes at quite an embarassing time for the administration,
given their policy on encryption. Strong encryption is the one
technology that could have protected Pres. Clinton's private pager
messages, but the administration has been fighting against strong
encryption. Top FBI officials have been giving many classified
briefings to House members, asking them to ban all strong
encryption in the US. These proposals are expected to reach the
House floor soon, attached to the (originally pro-encryption) SAFE
bill.
An anonymous White House staffer was quoted as saying that it
would be "an expensive and complicated proposition" to put
encryption into pagers and cellphones. This quote is interesting,
because it's the White House's crypto policies that have made it
so complicated and expensive to add strong encryption -- the
cellphone and pager industries have wanted to add strong
encryption for privacy and security, but the administration has
forcefully dissuaded them from doing so.
Anyhow, the press release is at
http://www.inch.com/~esoteric/pam_suggestion/formal.html
The transcript of the pager messages (complete with basketball
scores for the Pres, messages to call wifey, two phone calls from
Chelsea --who got put on hold, staff romances, a Secret Service
scare, etc.) is at
http://www.inch.com/~esoteric/pam_suggestion/output.html
Feel free to get in touch by email (daw@cs.berkeley.edu) or by
phone (510-643-9435) with me if you'd like more information,
quotes, or the like.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 2 Sep 1997 15:51:59 GMT
From: "ACLU Cyber-Liberties Update Owner"@newmedium.com
Subject: File 2--Anti-Spam Bills in Congress
Source - ACLU Cyber-Liberties Update, Tuesday, September 2, 1997
Unsolicited e-mail advertisement, or "spam," has few fans on the
net. Court battles have been waged between service providers, such
as AOL and Compuserve, and spam advertisers, including Cyber
Promotions, over whether the thousands of messages sent to user
e-mails can be blocked. Congress and several state legislatures
have also stepped into the debate and have introduced some bills
fraught with First Amendment problems because they ban commercial
speech altogether or are content specific.
Traditionally, commercial speech restrictions on telemarketing
calls and unsolicited fax advertisements have passed First
Amendment challenges but direct mail and door-to-door
solicitations enjoy much greater protection. Given the Supreme
Court decision in ACLU v. Reno, on-line messages should receive
the same First Amendment protection given traditional print media,
which includes commercial mailings. Thus, while netizens may laud
efforts to curb spam, it is unclear whether some of the
unsolicited commercial e-mail bills can pass constitutional
muster.
Even more troubling are the state spam bills which create
different rules for each state that advertisers will have to
follow. Under some state bills, if a spam message is sent or made
available to a resident in one state, it could confer jurisdiction
over the sender and could subject them to liability if they are in
violation of local law. A federal judge recently ruled that state
control or regulation of Internet communications violates the
Commerce Clause of the Constitution. In the decision in ALA v.
Pataki, which involved a challenge by the ACLU to a New York
Internet decency law, federal district Judge Loretta Preska
declared that states are prohibited from regulating an interstate
communication which merely passes through their borders. Judge
Preska warned of the extreme danger that state regulation would
pose to the Internet, rejecting the state's argument that the
statute would even be effective in preventing so-called
"indecency" from reaching minors. Hence, state spam bills will
probably not withstand constitutional challenges.The decision in
ALA v. Pataki is available at
<http://www.aclu.org/court/nycdadec.html>
Below is a synopsis of the federal bills and the first state
enacted law on spam from Nevada. The ACLU objected to an earlier,
even broader version of the Nevada law before its enactment and is
considering participating in a challenge to the law. The Nevada
law, as enacted contains broad definitions of e-mail that may
include advertisements on web sites and other on-line forums. Full
text of the federal bills is available at
<http://www.jmls.edu/cyber/statutes/email/>
Netizens Protection Act of 1997, Introduced May 22,1997 (H.R.
1748):
Sponsored by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) would amend the Telephone
Consumer Protection Act of 1991, ("TCPA") which regulates
telemarketing and junk-faxes to include unsolicited e-mail
advertisements. The bill would ban unsolicited e-mail and only
permit the sending of commercial messages where there is a
pre-existing relationship between the sender and recipient, or
when the recipient has requested the information. The bill
provides for hefty penalties for violations.
Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail Choice Act of 1997, (S.
771):
Sponsored by Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-AL) the bill would require
senders to label content of a commercial e-mail message as an
"advertisement" and to honor recipient "opt-out" requests within
48 hours, and put the burden of blocking spam on ISPs. Failure by
ISPs to filter out messages would result in liability and steep
penalties for providers, not spammers.
Electronic Mailbox Protection Act of 1997, introduced June 11,1997
(S.875):
Sponsored by Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-NJ) the bill would restrict
the use of false e-mail addresses or domain names to avoid
filtering by commercial advertisers. Spammers would also be
required to honor recipient "opt-out" requests, and violators
would be hit with civil penalties up to $5,000.
Data Privacy Act of 1997, introduced July 31, 1997 (H.R. 2368):
Sponsored by Rep. Tauzin the bill would create an industry working
group to draft voluntary guidelines with incentives for
advertisers who adopt them to: limit the collection and use, for
commercial marketing purposes, of personally identifiable
information obtained from individuals through any interactive
computer service; require unsolicited e-mail advertisers to
identify the sender, including a valid reply address; disclose
when such information is gathered; provide a consumer opt-out
provision; limit the display of social security numbers and
prohibit the commercial marketing and use of medical information.
Nevada Anti-Spam Law: Senate Bill 13 , enacted July 8, 1997 and
goes into effect on July 1, 1998:
Under the law, transmitting commercial advertisements in the form
of e-mail may subject the sender to civil fines and provides that
a recipient may enjoin the sender from such future conduct and may
receive restitution. The law defines an advertisement as material
that advertises for commercial purposes the availability or the
quality of real property, goods or services; or is designed or
intended to solicit a person to purchase real property, goods or
services. The law also imposes liability upon Internet Service
Providers since it applies to any party that causes to be
transmitted commercial mail.
The exception to the law permits sending commercial e-mail where:
(a) The person has a preexisting business or personal relationship
with the recipient; (b) The recipient has expressly consented to
receive the item or (c) The advertisement is readily identifiable
as promotional, or contains a statement providing that it is an
advertisement, and clearly and conspicuously provides: (1) The
legal name, complete street address and electronic mail address of
the person transmitting the electronic mail; and (2) A notice that
the recipient may decline to receive additional electronic mail
that includes an advertisement from the person transmitting the
electronic mail and the procedures for declining such electronic
mail.
The full text of the Nevada law is available at
<http://www.leg.state.nv.us/97bills/SB/SB13_EN.HTM>
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 5 Sep 1997 09:10:19 -0400 (EDT)
From: editor@TELECOM-DIGEST.ORG
Subject: File 3--Spammers Sued In Michigan (Chip Cryderman)
Source - TELECOM Digest Volume 17 : Issue 233
(Editor: Patrick A. Townson)
((MODERATORS' NOTE: For those not familiar with Pat Townson's
TELECOM DIGEST, it's an exceptional resource. From the header
of TcD:
"TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but
not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is
circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various
telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and
networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also
gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated
newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to
qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell
us how you qualify:
* ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * ======" ))
==================
From--ccryderman@ccm.frontiercorp.com (Chip Cryderman)
Date--Thu, 04 Sep 97 17:19:23 -0500
Pat,
In today's {Detroit Free Press} there was an article about an ISP,
RustNet, based in Livonia, MI. who has filed suit in US. District
Court.
US District Court Judge Paul Borman issued a restraining order against
brothers, Benjamin & Randell Bawkon, owners of Bawkon Development
Company, forbidding them from engaging in any spamming. Their computer
records were sized by federal Marshals last Friday.
RustNet President Steve Corso claims in his suit that the brothers
sent out hundreds of thousands of e-mails in August falsely using
RustNet's return address. According to the article, RustNet has been
getting thousands of complaints and has even lost customers to these
spams.
I hope he takes them to the cleaners. I hope the case goes to court
and RustNet gets their homes and cars and anything else they may have
a value. Hell, maybe the brothers can start a tag team in prison.
Chip Cryderman
---
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That's great! It really is good news
in the fight against the insects and rodents who have infested the
net over the past couple years. I hope if they have a victory in
court it will serve as encouragement for other ISP's to use the
same tactics. PAT]
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 21 Sep 1997 15:33:58 -0500
From: jthomas@VENUS.SOCI.NIU.EDU(Jim Thomas)
Subject: File 4--Cyber Promotions tossed offline (fwd)
Source - News Com at http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,14429,00.html?owv
............
Cyber Promotions tossed offline
By Janet Kornblum
September 19, 1997, 1:25 p.m. PT
Cyber Promotions, antispammers' enemy No. 1 on the Net, has once again
been dumped by its access provider.
Backbone provider AGIS cut off Cyber Promotions Wednesday, and the
company has been scrambling for another ISP since.
It was unclear exactly why Cyber Promotions was cut off, but an
employee who answered the phone at AGIS's main switchboard declined to
comment beyond the following: "They were in violation of security, and
that's as far as I can go with it." No one else at AGIS would comment,
either, the employee added.
.................
Wallace said today that Cyber Promotions found itself cut off from
AGIS Wednesday and that it took two days to find other providers where
the company could mount portions of its service. But some of its
clients are still without service, he added.
....................
"Ping-flood attacks observed originating from the West Coast into AGIS
and directed to the Washington and Philadelphia routers severely
degraded AGIS network performance to [an] unacceptable level...AGIS
had no alternative but to shut off services to Cyber Promotions,"
reads a statement that Wallace put on his page. He alleged that the
statement came from an AGIS engineer.
....................
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1997 15:48:58 -0400
From: Jonah Seiger <cdt-editor@CDT.ORG>
Subject: File 5--ALERT: Call Congress on 9/22 to Stop Big Brother!!
Please forward where appropriate until September 28, 1997
This alert brought to you by
The Voters Telecommunications Watch, The Center for Democracy & Technology,
the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Wired Magazine,
and Americans for Tax Reform
STOP THE GOVERNMENT FROM BUILDING BIG BROTHER INTO THE INTERNET
In 1948, George Orwell described a future world in which Big Brother
peaked over the shoulder of every citizen -- watching every move and
listening to every word.
Now, in 1997, the FBI is pushing the United States Congress to pass
legislation which would make George Orwell's frightening vision a reality.
Next week the House Commerce Committee will meet to consider a
proposal that would require all Americans to provide the government
guaranteed access to their private online communications and business
transactions. Taking a page out of Orwell's 1984, the FBI-spawned
proposal would require that every part of the Internet -- from the
software on your computer to the network provider that carries your
messages around the net -- be jury-rigged to divulge your private
conversations immediately on request by the FBI (see below).
Unfortunately, this is not a work of fiction.
The amendment, to be offered by Representatives Mike Oxley (R-OH) and
Thomas Manton (D-NY), is a serious threat to your privacy and represents
the first and final step in the construction of a National Surveillance
Infrastructure.
A vote is expected on September 25. The future of privacy and security
in the information age is in the hands of the Commerce Committee, and
they need to know that folks are watching and care about the outcome.
On Monday September 22, please join thousands of Internet users all across
the country as we call on Congress to stop big brother. With your help and
support, we can ensure that George Orwell's 1984 does not become a reality.
All the information you need is attached below.
_____________________________________________________________
WHAT YOU CAN DO
1. ON MONDAY SEPTEMBER 22, pick up the phone and call as many of the four
leading members of the Commerce committee as you can:
Chairman Thomas Bliley (R-VA) (202) 225-2815
Ranking member John Dingell (D-MI) (202) 225-4071
Rep. Tauzin (R-LA) (202) 225-4031
Rep. Markey (D-MA) (202) 225-2836
2. Ask for the staffer that handles the encryption issue.
3. Say that you're calling to urge the Congressman to pass SAFE (HR695)
without amendments.
Specifically, say that you "OPPOSE THE OXLEY/MANTON BIG BROTHER AMENDMENT.
Americans should not be required to give the government keys to the front
door of their house, and they shouldn't be required to give the government
the keys to unlock their private online communications."
Other amendments may be proposed. Please urge the Congressman to pass SAFE
"as is" and oppose any amendments. Feel free to use your own words though
here are some points you might want to stress:
- Oxley/Manton is a dramatic expansion of law enforcement power. It would
give law enforcement "immediate" access to private online communications
and business transactions without any notice or knowledge to the user.
- Oxley/Manton is NOT A BALANCE BETWEEN PRIVACY INTERESTS AND LAW
ENFORCEMENT CONCERNS, as some supporters have argued. It gives the FBI
broad new power while stripping Americans of their Fourth Amendment right
to be secure from unreasonable searches and seizures.
- Oxley/Manton would give the Attorney General authority to dictate the
design of Internet services and software to suit the needs of law
enforcement.
- Oxley/Manton would not stop crime. Strong encryption without "immediate
access" features is available today at home and abroad.
- Oxley/Manton would increase opportunities for cybercrime as criminal hackers
attack vulnerabilities in the key recovery access system.
4. Let us know how it went! Go to one of the following web pages, depending
on who you called, and tell us about the conversation.
Rep. Bliley http://www.crypto.com/member/meet.cgi?membid=va07
Rep. Dingell http://www.crypto.com/member/meet.cgi?membid=mi16
Rep. Tauzin http://www.crypto.com/member/meet.cgi?membid=la03
Rep. Markey http://www.crypto.com/member/meet.cgi?membid=ma07
5. Forward this ALERT to your friends and colleagues.
6. Feel good about yourself! Know that you've stood up for privacy, and
contacting Congress is more than most people take the time to do!
____________________________________________________________
BACKGROUND
The House Commerce Committee is considering a bill known as the "Security and
Freedom through Encryption Act" (HR 695, a.k.a. SAFE). SAFE would
encourage the widespread availability of strong, easy-to-use encryption
technologies in order to protect privacy and promote electronic commerce on
the Internet. SAFE enjoys broad support from Internet users, civil
liberties advocates, and over 250 members of Congress.
Last week, the Commerce Committee delayed its vote on the SAFE bill in
order to give the Committee more time to study the implications of the
Oxley/Manton amendment, which would change SAFE to ban encryption which
does not contain features that provide law enforcement with "immediate
access" to the plain text of encrypted information, including private
communications and business transactions (visit
http://www.crypto.com/safe_bill/)
The Oxley/Manton amendment would for the first time impose sweeping
restrictions on the ability of American citizens to protect their privacy
on US soil. Specifically, the amendment would:
* PROHIBIT THE DOMESTIC MANUFACTURE AND SALE OF ENCRYPTION PRODUCTS OR
SERVICES WHICH DO NOT PROVIDE INSTANT ACCESS FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT: The
proposal would prohibit the manufacture, sale, import, or distribution
within the United States of any encryption product unless it allows
"immediate access" to the plain text of any user's messages or files
without the user's knowledge.
* GRANT BROAD NEW AUTHORITY FOR THE ATTORNEY GENERAL TO SET TECHNICAL
STANDARDS FOR ENCRYPTION PRODUCTS: The proposal allows the Attorney
General to set standards for what are and are not acceptable
encryption products. The proposal's requirement of immediate access to
plain text would seem to seriously limit the options available to
encryption manufacturers seeking approval of their products.
The amendment does not specify whether the immediate access "features"
could be activated (or not) at the option of the purchaser or end user.
Nonetheless, requiring that such a capability be installed in all domestic
communications networks and encryption products is the equivalent of
enabling a national surveillance infrastructure and asserts unprecedented
control over the design of Internet software, hardware, and services.
The amendment is analogous to the government requiring surveillance cameras
in every new house built in the United States, which could be turned on
remotely by the police if you were ever suspected of committing a crime.
Worse yet, such "key escrow" or "key recovery" technologies pose
significant risk to the security of the Internet -- providing new
points of vulnerability for hackers, terrorists, and industrial spies
to exploit. A recent study by 11 of the worlds leading cryptographers
concluded that the large scale deployment of such technologies would be
too complex and too insecure to meet the needs of an Information Age
society (see http://www.crypto.com/key_study/)
Despite widespread opposition from Internet users, civil liberties
groups, privacy advocates, and the computer and communications
industries, Oxley and Manton plan to push for this FBI spawned amendment
at the Commerce Committee vote. If it is adopted, it would
represent the first and final step in the development of a national
surveillance infrastructure.
____________________________________________________________
ABOUT THIS ALERT
This message was brought to you by the Center for Democracy and
Technology (http://www.cdt.org), the Voters Telecommunications Watch
(http://www.vtw.org/), the Electronic Frontier Foundation
(http://www.eff.org/), Wired Magazine (http://www.wired.com/), and
Americans for Tax Reform (http://www.atr.org/) who have joined together
on this alert.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 97 09:37:18 -0000
From: Gordon Meyer <grmeyer@apple.com>
Subject: File 6--Fwd: Designing Effective Action Alerts for the Internet
---------------- Begin Forwarded Message ----------------
Date-- 09/18 2:34 AM
From-- Phil Agre, pagre@weber.ucsd.edu
Reply-To-- rre-maintainers@weber.ucsd.edu
Designing Effective Action Alerts for the Internet
Phil Agre
Department of Communication
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, California 92093-0503
USA
pagre@ucsd.edu
http://communication.ucsd.edu/pagre/
Version of 17 September 1997. Copyright 1997, all rights
reserved. You are welcome to forward this article in electronic
form to anyone for any non-commercial purpose.
An action alert is a message that someone sends out to the net
asking for a specific action to be taken on a current political
issue. Well-designed action alerts are a powerful way to invite
people to participate in the processes of a democracy. Having
seen many action alerts in my twenty years on the Internet, I have
tried to abstract some guidelines for people who wish to use them.
Even if you do not plan to construct any action alerts yourself, I
do not recommend that you forward anybody else's alerts unless
they conform to at least the spirit of these guidelines. If I
sometimes seem stern or didactic in my prescriptions, please
forgive me. It's just that I've seen badly designed action alerts
do an awful lot of damage.
Although an Internet action alert should always be part of an
issue campaign with a coherent strategy and clear goals, I won't
discuss the larger strategic questions here. Instead, I will
simply divide action alerts into two categories, single messages
and structured campaigns. Single alerts are broadcast in the hope
that they will propagate to the maximum possible number of
sympathetic Internet users. Structured campaigns are typically
conducted through mailing lists specially constructed for the
purpose, and their intended audience may include either the whole
Internet universe or a narrower group of already-mobilized
partisans.
Both types of action alerts are obviously modeled on things that
have been happening on paper, through telephone trees, and lately
via fax machines, for a long time. What computer networks do is
make them a lot cheaper. A networked alert can travel far from
its origin by being forwarded from friend to friend and list to
list, without any additional cost being imposed on the original
sender. This phenomenon of chain-forwarding is important, and it
behooves the would-be author of an action alert, whether a single
message or a whole campaign, to think through its consequences:
(1) Establish authenticity. Bogus action alerts -- such as the
notorious "modem tax" alert -- travel just as fast as real ones.
Don't give alerts a bad name. Include clear information about the
sponsoring organization and provide the reader with several ways
of tracing back to you -- e-mail address, postal address, URL,
phone number, etc. Including this contact information makes sense
anyway -- you want people to join your movement, and this means
establishing contact with you. One way to establish authenticity
is by appending a digital signature, presumably using PGP. Few
people will check the signature, though, and many people will
remove the signature when they forward your message to others. So
there's no substitute for clearly explaining who you are and
giving people a way to reach you.
(2) Put a date on it. Paper mail and faxes get thrown away
quickly, but action alerts can travel through the Internet
forever. Even if an alert seems to have faded away, it can sleep
in someone's mailbox for months or years and then suddenly get a
new life as the mailbox's owner forwards it to a new set of lists.
Do not count on the message header to convey the date (or anything
else); people who forward Internet messages frequently strip off
the header. Even better, give your recommended action a clearly
stated time-out date, e.g., "Take this action until February 17,
1998". If you think there will be follow-up actions, or if you
want to convey that this is part of an ongoing campaign, say so.
That way, people will contact you or look out for your next alert.
(3) Include clear beginning and ending markers. You can't prevent
people from modifying your alert as they pass it along.
Fortunately, at least in my experience, this only happens
accidentally, as extra commentary accumulates at the top and
bottom of the message as it gets forwarded. So put a bold row of
dashes or something similar at the top and bottom so extra stuff
will look extra. That way it will be very clear what you and your
credibility are standing behind.
(4) Beware of second-hand alerts. Although it is uncommon for
someone to modify the text of your alert, sometimes people will
foolishly send out their own paraphrase of an alert, perhaps based
on something they heard verbally. These second-hand alerts
usually contain exaggerations and other factual inaccuracies, and
as a result they can easily be used to discredit your alert. If
you become aware of inaccurate variants of your alert, you should
immediately notify relevant mailing lists of the existence of
these second-hand alerts. Explain clearly what the facts are and
aren't, implore the community not to propagate the misleading
variants, and provide pointers to accurate information including a
copy of your own alert. This action has two virtues: first, it
may help to suppress the mistaken reports; and second, it
positions you (accurately, I hope) as a responsible person who
cares about the truth.
(5) Think about whether you want the alert to propagate at all.
If your alerts concern highly sensitive matters, for example the
status of specifically named political prisoners, then you will
probably want to know precisely who is getting your notices, and
how, and in what context. If so, include a prominent notice
forbidding the alert's recipients from forwarding it.
(6) Make it self-contained. Don't presuppose that your readers
will have any context beyond what they'll get on the news. Your
alert will probably be read by people who have never heard of you
or your cause. So define your terms, avoid references to previous
messages on your mailing list, and provide lots of background, or
at least some simple instructions for getting useful background
materials. In fact, you might consider making the e-mailed alert
relatively short and include the URL for a Web page that provides
the full details. Your most important audience consists of people
who are sympathetic to your cause and want to learn more about it
before they can take action. Write your alert with that type of
reader in mind, not the complete insider or the apathetic
stranger.
(7) Ask your reader to take a simple, clearly defined, rationally
chosen action. For example, you might ask people to call their
representatives and express a certain view on an issue. In this
case, you should provide a way to find that representative's name
and number, and explain how to conduct the conversation: what to
say, how to answer certain likely questions, and so on. The
purpose of such a script is not to impose your thinking but to
help people to learn a skill that might otherwise be intimidating.
Decide whether to ask for e-mail messages (which can be huge in
number but near-zero in effect), written letters (which will be
fewer but more effective), or phone calls (which fall in between).
Consider other options as well: perhaps the sole purpose of your
alert is to solicit contacts from a small number of committed
activists, or to gather information, or to start a mailing list to
organize further actions.
(8) Make it easy to understand. It is absolutely crucial to begin
with a good, clear headline that summarizes the issue and the
recommended action. Use plain language, not jargon. Check your
spelling. Use short sentences and simple grammar. Choose words
that will be understood worldwide, not just in your own country or
culture. Solicit comments on a draft before sending it out.
(9) Get your facts straight! Your message will circle the earth,
so double-check. Errors can be disastrous. Even a small mistake
can make it easy for your opponents to dismiss your alerts -- and
Internet alerts in general -- as "rumors". Once you do discover a
mistake, it will be impossible to issue a correction -- the
correction will probably not get forwarded everyplace that the
original message did.
(10) Start a movement, not a panic. Include a phrase like "post
where appropriate" toward the beginning so that people aren't
encouraged to send your alert to mailing lists where it doesn't
belong. Do not say "forward this to everyone you know". Do not
overstate. Do not plead. Do not say "Please Act NOW!!!". Do not
rant about the urgency of telling everyone in the world about your
issue. You're not trying to address "everyone"; you're trying to
address a targeted group of people who care about the issue. And
if the issue really is time-critical then just explain why, in
sober language. Do not get obsessed with the immediate situation
at hand. Your message may help avoid some short-term calamity,
but it should also contribute to a much longer-term process of
building a social movement. Maintaining a sense of that larger
context will help you and your readers from becoming dispirited in
the event that you lose the immediate battle.
(11) Tell the whole story. Most people have never heard of your
issue, and they need facts to evaluate it. Facts, facts, facts.
For example, if you think that someone has been unjustly convicted
of a crime, don't just give one or two facts to support that view;
most people will simply assume they are getting half the truth.
If your opponents have circulated their own arguments, you'll need
to rebut them, and if they have framed the facts in a misleading
way then you'll need to explain why. On the other hand, you need
to write concisely. Even if you're focused on the actions, good
explanations count more. After all, one of the benefits of your
action alert -- maybe the principal one -- is that it informs
people about the issue. Even if they don't act today, your
readers will be more aware of the issue in the future, provided
that you don't insult their intelligence today.
(12) Don't just preach to the converted. When you are very caught
up in your cause, it is easy to send out a message in the language
you use when discussing the issue with your fellow campaigners.
Often this language is a shorthand that doesn't really explain
anything to an outsider. If you really care about your issue,
you'll take the time to find language that is suitable for a much
broader audience. This can take practice.
(13) Avoid polemics. Your readers should not have to feel they
are being hectored to go along with something from the pure
righteousness of it. Some people seem to associate non-polemical
language with deference, as if they were being made to bow at the
feet of the king. This is not so. You will not succeed unless
you assume that your readers are reasonable people who are willing
to act if they are provided with good reasons.
(14) Make it easy to read. Use a simple, clear layout with lots
of white space. Break up long paragraphs and use bullets and
section headings to avoid visual monotony. If your organization
plans to send out action alerts regularly, use a distinctive
design so that everyone can recognize your "brand name" instantly.
Use only plain ASCII characters, which are the common denominator
among Internet character sets. Just to make sure, do not use a
MIME-compliant mail program to send the message; use a minimal
program such as Berkeley mail. MIME is great, but not everybody
uses it and you don't want your recipients getting distracted from
your message by weird control codes. Format the message in 72
columns or even fewer; otherwise it is likely to get wrapped
around or otherwise mutilated as people forward it around the net.
(15) DO NOT use a chain-letter petition. A chain-letter petition
is an action alert that includes a list of names at the end,
inviting people to add their own name, send in the petition if
their name is the 30th or 60th or etc, and in any case forward the
resulting alert-plus-signature-list to everyone they know. This
idea sounds great on the surface, but it really doesn't work. The
problem is that most of the signatures will never reach their
destination, since the chain will fizzle out before reaching the
next multiple of 30 (or whatever) in length. What's even worse, a
small proportion of the signatures will be received in the
legislator's office many times, thus annoying the staff and
persuading them that they're dealing with an incompetent movement
that can never hold them accountable.
(16) Urge people to inform you of their actions. If you are
calling on people to telephone a legislator's office, for example,
you should provide an e-mail address and invite them to send you a
brief message. Explain that you'll use these messages to count
the number of callers your alert has generated, and that this
information will be invaluable when you speak with the
legislator's staffers later on.
(17) Don't overdo it. Action alerts might become as unwelcome as
direct-mail advertising. Postpone that day by picking your fights
and including some useful, thought-provoking information in your
alert message. If you're running a sustained campaign, set up
your own list. Then send out a single message that calls for some
action and include an advertisement for your new list. If you
must send out multiple alerts on the same issue, make sure each
one is easily distinguishable from the others and provides fresh,
useful information.
(18) Do a post-mortem. When the campaign is over, try to derive
some lessons for others to use. Even if you're burned out, take a
minute right away while the experience is still fresh in mind.
What problems did you have? What mistakes did you make? What
unexpected connections did you make? Who did you reach and why?
Which mailing lists was your alert forwarded to, and which of
these forwardings actually caused people to take action? Good
guesses are useful too.
(19) Don't mistake e-mail for organizing. An action alert is not
an organization. If you want to build a lasting political
movement, at some point you'll have to gather people together.
The Internet is a useful tool for organizing, but it's just one
tool and one medium among many that you will need, and you should
evaluate it largely in terms of its contribution to larger
organizing goals. Do the people you reach through Internet alerts
move up into more active positions in your movement? Do you draw
them into conferences, talk to them by phone, meet them in person,
become accountable to them to provide specific information and
answer questions? If not, why do you keep reaching out to them?
(20) Encourage good practices. The Internet is a democratic
medium that provides us all with the time and space to do the
right thing. So let's use the Internet in a positive way and
encourage others to do the same. You can help by passing these
guidelines along to others who might benefit from them (including
people who have sent out badly designed alerts), and refrain from
propagating alerts that do not conform to them. Remember,
forwarding a badly designed action alert actually harms the cause
that it is supposed to support. Modeling thoughtf
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 7 May 1997 22:51:01 CST
From: CuD Moderators <cudigest@sun.soci.niu.edu>
Subject: File 7--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 7 May, 1997)
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