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Computer underground Digest Wed Feb 14, 1996 Volume 8 : Issue 15
ISSN 1004-042X
Editor: Jim Thomas (TK0JUT2@MVS.CSO.NIU.EDU)
News Editor: Gordon Meyer (gmeyer@sun.soci.niu.edu)
Archivist: Brendan Kehoe
Shadow Master: Stanton McCandlish
Field Agent Extraordinaire: David Smith
Shadow-Archivists: Dan Carosone / Paul Southworth
Ralph Sims / Jyrki Kuoppala
Ian Dickinson
Cu Digest Homepage: http://www.soci.niu.edu/~cudigest
CONTENTS, #8.15 (Wed, Feb 14, 1996)
File 1--The CDA: Has It Fallen? Can It Get Up?
File 2--EFF's open letter to Internet providers and users (2/12)
File 3--Myths about our mirrors of the Zundelsite "Censored by Germany"
File 4--The Net's Strange Day (Smolman's "24 hours in Cyberspace)
File 5--Alan Turing Home Page
File 6--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 16 Dec, 1995)
CuD ADMINISTRATIVE, EDITORIAL, AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION APPEARS IN
THE CONCLUDING FILE AT THE END OF EACH ISSUE.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 00:48:11 -0800 (PST)
From: Stanton McCandlish <mech@EFF.ORG>
Subject: File 1--The CDA: Has It Fallen? Can It Get Up?
[Redistribute at will.]
The CDA: Has It Fallen? Can It Get Up? - Stanton McCandlish, mech@eff.org
In the days after the passage of the unconstitutional "Communications
Decency Act" as part of the Telecom bill, the CDA appears to be toppling
just as it should have begun to ride high in the saddle of fundamentalist
"victory" (though the battles are hardly over yet.)
The entire Congress passed this bill (some Members knowing it was
unconstititonal, and some on the other extreme not even knowing the CDA
existed), with the exception of the following legislators who voted
against the whole Telecom Bill:
Representatives
Earl Hilliard (D-AL), Pete Stark (D-CA), Pat Schroeder (D-CO), Neil
Abercrombie (D-HI), Lane Evans (D-IL), Sidney Yates (D-IL), Barney
Frank (D-MA), John Conyers (D-MI), Collin Peterson (D-MN), Harold
Volkmer (D-MO), Pat Williams (D-MT), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Jerrold
Nadler (D-NY), Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Timothy Johnson (D-SD), Bernard
Sanders (independent-VT)
Senators
Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Paul Simon (D-IL),
Paul Wellstone (D-MN), Russ Feingold (D-WI), and John McCain (R-AZ).
(Plus a handful that did not vote.) In all, only a singe Republican, out
of both Houses of Congress, voted to preserve American freedom of
expression.[*]
The President proclaimed, in the first State of the Union Address to
mention the Internet, "When parents control what their children see,
that's not censorship. That's enabling parents to assume more
responsibility for their children. And I urge them to do it". Clinton
then, in a signing party timed to coincide with the press attention given
to the "24 Hours In Cyberspace" multimedia event, enacted a law that
strips parents of the right and responsibility to decide what is
appropriate for their own children. The CDA would not only fail to help
"parents control what their children see" - a goal long supported by
EFF, ACLU, VTW, CDT and others opposed to the "decency" bill - but actually
hinder the development of tools and services to help parents and
teachers filter children's Net access.
* Backlash
It is ironic that it took passage of this law to garner the public and
media attention it warrants.
For 48 hours after President Clinton's signing of the CDA into law,
thousands of Web users and BBS sysops world wide took part in a "Thousand
Points of Darkness" protest of the new censorship law by turning their Web
page and login screen backgrounds to black, to mourn the death of the
Internet as we know it. Some, including online magazines such as
Factsheet Five Electric and Scamizdat, blanked out their entire online
offerings, replacing everything that had been available with a
single sentence: "This is what censorship looks like".
The protest garnered major news coverage of the Net censorship debate for
the first time. Finally the debate has shifted from false "save the
children" hype to the real issue: free speech, press and association
rights in new media. The "facts", figures and motives of the
lobbyists and lawmakers behind the CDA are at last being more widely
examined.
The "black page" protest is being followed up with a long term
awareness-raising and protest effort, in which particants, already
numbering in the tens of thousands, wear blue ribbons, and place
graphics of blue ribbons on their online services and homepages.
Participants range from individual users, to online journalism
sites like HotWired, to major centers of Internet connectivity like
Netcom and Yahoo!, among others.
As with Germany and France, where attempted censorship of online
information has backfired, leading to proscribed data's immediate
global availabilty from numerous anti-censorship "mirror sites", the U.S.
government may have to learn the hard way. The online community is
determined to knock the lesson into regulators' heads. To cater to
censored U.S. users, "offshore" anonymous Internet access providers are
popping up, such as Offshore Information Services Ltd -
http://online.offshore.com.ai/ - offering $50/month privacy-protected
accounts from tax-haven island Anguilla.
In case that were not enough, an ad-hoc programmer coalition, the Decense
Project - at http://www.clark.net/pub/rjc/decense.html - has produced an
"de-censoring" solution, which like that of the Anguilla ISP, also provides
privacy protection as a bonus: Decense, "a cgi script designed to
provide a double-blind pseudonym scheme which allows a site to hide
behind a chain of http servers which 'proxy' for it. Neither the user [ID]
requesting the document, nor the ultimate address of the destination web
site is immediately available to prying government eyes."
* Action in Court and Congress
The action has spread offline as well. There has already been an public
protest rally in Washington DC on Feb. 10, and there are others in the
works. The University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia will see a
demonstration just before a scheduled speech by VP Gore. A DC "Electronic
Freedom March" is gearing up, and even high school students are donning
blue ribbons and demonstrating against reactive academic censorship
Most importantly, the new law itself is under concerted attack in
the courts and on the Hill.
EFF, with ACLU and 24 other organizations, have filed a federal lawsuit
against the Department of Justice (DoJ), in the Phildelphia court of Judge
Ronald Buckwalter, challenging the CDA on constitutional grounds. As of
Feb. 13, Judge Buckwalter has not only commended the plaintiffs on a well-
written lawsuit, but has put the case on the fast track, demanding a DoJ
response by Wed. Feb. 14. The Judge further indicated that he will
likely grant plaintiffs' motion for a temporary restraining order (TRO),
by Thu., Feb. 15 at the latest, without further hearings.
The TRO would prevent enforcement of the CDA pending a hearing before and
decision from a panel of three judges, on a motion for a longer-term
preliminary injunction that would prevent all enforcment of the
"decency" provisions until the real meat of the case is settled -
whether the CDA stands up to constitutional challenges. The hearing on
the long-term injunction should take place within the next few weeks. And
the balance of the legal "tests" the CDA must face are very much in plaintiffs'
favor.
Though the DoJ has agreed to make no arrests under the new statutes between
now and the probable issuance of a TRO this week, content and access
providers should be warned that the FBI and other Justice Dept. agents
may later decide to prosecute for CDA violations committed during this
time, if they eventually win the case - a possibility everyone should be
concerned about. And plaintiffs' attorneys warn that even the little
assurance provided by DoJ for now is rather meaningless since it has not
been put in writing.
The Justice Dept. and the Christian Coalition are expected to present, as
evidence supporting the CDA, the most vulgar content they can possibly find
online - though this tactic could backfire. After all, the CDA does not
address pornography (obscenity) at all, since it is already illegal
online or offline, but rather targets indecency, a broader category
including nudity in almost any context, or "indecent" words like those
found in any PG-rated movie.
In the mean time, the Telecom bill has been delivered a one-two-punch by
some of the legislators that voted against it the first time around.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), like Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), was a
high-profile participant in the WWW Blackout protest, and has, with
Sen. Russ Feingold, introduced a new bill (S.1567) to repeal most of the
CDA. This legislation will likely need to be re-examined and modified to
make sure it actually succeeds in the goal of removing the threat posed
by the Communications Decency Act.
* Women's Groups and Others Join the Battle
Rep. Pat Schroeder (D-CO) is attacking another dangerous provision of
the Telecom Bill - an amendment outlawing the online distribution of
certain kinds of abortion-related information. The amendment in question
was slipped into the leviathan telecommuncations "deregulation" package
by Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL), who also shepherded the final version of the CDA.
Schroeder announced that she will introduce a bill, when Congress
re-convenes on Feb. 26, to repeal this less well-known Telecom Bill
assault on free expression. (It should be noted that although Rep.
Shroeder voted against the Telecom bill in the final vote, she can be
partially blamed for the existence of the CDA in that bill - she voted
"yes" on it in committee deliberations, along with a majority of her
colleagues.)
The "abortion gag rule" in the Telecom bill is also being slammed in
in another lawsuit, Sanger v. Reno, filed in New York by the Center for
Reproductive Law and Policy, and many other plaintiffs. In this case,
U.S. Attorney Zachary Carter has (according to ACLU releases) admitted
the unconstitutionality of the CDA, and also agreed to hold off enforcing
it for a while. East District of New York Chief Judge Charles P. Sifton has
asked Chief Judge Jon O. Newman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd
Circuit to convene another 3-judge panel to decide this case.
Sifton has not granted a TRO or injuction. The Judge appears to find the
DoJ's assurances sufficient evidence that this particular provision will
not be enforced or chill free speech. His decision may also rely on the
fact that the section of the ancient Comstock censorship law modified
by the Telecom Bill to ban abortion info online, has not been enforced in
many years. However, no court has yet to rule the Comstock Act
unconstitutional, leaving some people worried for the short term, even if
they expect an eventual favorable decision from the 3-judge appellate court.
Content providers and internet users, as well as women's groups, are also
not pariticularly comforted by the platitudes of supporters of the
abortion info ban, who have disingenously claimed they simply want to
update the Comstock law for consistency reasons and to show support for
"Christian" ideals, but don't expect anyone to actually be censored
under the new revisions.
Plaintiffs' attorney Simon Heller said, "We are extremely pleased that the
Clinton Administration has recognized the invalidity of this law.
However, we believe a court ruling against the provision barring receipt
or provision of abortion information is still necessary to prevent a
future administration or radical right-wing members of Congress from
wielding it against women's health care providers and advocates."
* Shifting Lines
It is clear that the Internet and computer industries do not support the
Communications Decency Act, though most organizations in these fields did
not act, other than to support EFF and other advocacy groups, until too
late. It has shocked the commercial world as well as the general public
that Congress would actually pass a bill so terrible. The industry is,
however, increasinly participating in protest, and legal, action against
the CDA, realizing that such important decisions as what we each should
read or avoid cannot be left up to government. Even the usually
Beltway-shy Microsoft is taking a stand; in an AP interview, the company's
leader, Bill Gates, said of the Internet regulation attempt, "Unfortunately,
it means we're going to have to spend some time in Washington, DC. In
the first 15 years of Microsoft history, we never visited Washington."
And content producers of all sorts are expressing concern, even outrage,
from upstart multimedia giants, to major print publishers, all of
whom now find not only their free press rights but also their livelihoods
threatened. As journalism organizations have flocked to the pro-speech
side, only one news association, to our knowledge, has offered anything
but derision for the CDA. (Newspaper Association of America President
John Sturm expressed support for the telecom bill as a whole, citing only
disappointment at the censorship, and support of the "motives of the
conferees to protect children from obscene and indecent material". One
wonders how closely Mr. Sturm has questioned those motives.)
It is clear that the fundamentalist organizations and legislators behind
the CDA have neither an understanding of the medium and issue, nor any
particular desire to inform the public or the media. The Family Research
Council - http://www.frc.org - disinformed readers by quoting and
explaining in their newsletter the obscenity restrictions from an older
draft of the bill (which they helped replace with an unconstitutional
"indecency" version) in an attempt to imply that the FRC and their
favorite bill would prohibit online distribution of obscenity.
Religious right spokespersons, as well as CDA sponsors like Exon
and Hyde, repeatedly tell the press and tv news programs that they are
trying to "protect children from pornography" as if somehow unaware that
their bill actually makes it more difficult to prevent children from
being exposed to inappropriate materials, by removing all incentive to
continue developing services and software which genuinely perform this
needed function.
But perhaps even the moralists are having second thoughts (or trying to
save face): Confronted with World Wide Web co-creator Tim Berners-Lee's
free Net filtration software, Christian Coalition spokersperson
Heidi Strup conceded that the program "definitely would be a useful tool
for us." One must wonder how and why the CC and its allies failed to
realize this 6 months ago.
More education and outreach is clearly needed, so that legislators do not
fear the net, so that lobbyist groups do not push for unneeded and
hazardous legislation, and most importantly so that the general public
have a better understanding of their free speech rights and recognize the
early warning signs of censorship threats.
On the other side of the issue, organizations like Voters' Telecom Watch
(http://www.vtw.org), with help from local activists (see, for example
the "Tennessee Hit List" of bad legislators at
http://www.people.memphis.edu/~mddallara/hitlist.html)
vow to bring the Net constituency into its own in upcoming elections.
They are gearing up to vote out legislators and other officials at all
levels who betray the trust of their voters by pushing for censorship.
The online voting bloc will have a number of people to remove from
office, it seems, given Congresspersons like Rep. Thomas Bliley (R-VA),
chair of the House Telecom Committee, who seems to consider the CDA's
assault on the Constitution an inconsequential matter to be fixed by
"technical corrections" to the bill later in the year. And what about
Vice-President Al Gore? For all his "Information Superhighway" hype,
Gore stronly supported passage of the legislation, since, after all, the
courts can take care of the unconstitutional stuff. Sen. Carl Levin
(D-MI) echoed both sentiments, at an "ask the politicians" event in
Kalamazoo, MI, claiming that the CDA was only "one small page in a very
large bill", and stating that he knew it was unconstitutional and (you
won't believe this) that it is "always necessary to test the
Constitutionality of some legislation", ergo no service providers would
get hurt! Perhaps Sen. Levin considers this a game, but online voters
may just cure him of that notion come election day. And let's not
forget legislators from Connecticut and other states, who did not even
know the CDA was in the Telecom Bill - they passed it without reading
the bill at all, much less understanding it's impact.
* Civil Disobedience (and Decidedly Uncivil Obedience)
At present EFF cannot advise what to do and not do under the CDA.
No one can. The law is too vague and overbroad to be applied meaningfully.
Some sites are already closing, with more providers broadly self-censoring
their content. The moderator of an amateur radio discussion group
closed the forum down, saying only, "I have closed my mailing lists to
minors, not in protest but for my own protection. Since I enforce rules
of conduct for the lists, I think I'm too close to being part of content
creation to be safe should one of the subscribers post a 4-letter
word." If the judges in the cases challenging the CDA need any evidence
of the chilling effect of this legislation, this should be all they need.
Other content providers, including many who had never thought of posting
"offensive" materials at all, are engaging is widespread civil
disobedience, deliberately violating the new Act. A particularly
creative example can be found at http://coolheart.infi.net/exon/index.html
- you can send a Valentine'd Day card to Sen. Exon, reading "In honor of
Valentine's Day, I thought I would send you an example of some of the
nudity I've found on the Internet - Enjoy", and including your choice of
several classic works of art, including Michelangelo's "David" and
Boticelli's "Birth of Venus".
Yet more are being "uncivilly obedient", complying - barely - by
ROT13-encrypting "dirty words", putting "CENSORED!" banners all over
their web pages, replacing scatological terms with legislators'
surnames, and other actions of visible obedience-under-duress.
Still, helpful as these actions may - or may not - prove to be, some
protest activities are decidedly unhelpful. "Spamming" Senate and House
email addresses, particularly with indecent material is self-defeating.
Please remember that this legislation passed because legislators by and
large were too ignorant of the medium to recognize that the Net is not
really a den of pornographers and terrorists. Irresponsible and
overtly threatening gestures - especially threat letters or dirty
stories - will only prove to legislators' minds that they were right after
all.
Lastly, please keep in mind that obvious civil disobedience can be
dangerous, particularly as "Oklahomans for Children and Families" and
other local fundamentalist groups are on the prowl, vowing to report to
police any CDA violations they find. The current hold on enforcement of
these laws by the Justice Dept. does not even mean you can't be prosecuted
for violations occuring now (assuming the court cases fail, which is
probably not a good assumption, fortunately), only that you won't be
prosecuted right now.
Stanton McCandlish,
Online Activist & Webmaster
Electronic Frontier Foundation
San Francisco - Feb. 13, 1995
[* I observe that only one Republican voted against the CDA because it
is a fact. This does not constitute an endorsement of the Democractic
Party or any other kind of endorsement on my or EFF's part.]
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 12 Feb 1996 19:42:33 -0800 (PST)
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@EFF.ORG>
Subject: File 2--EFF's open letter to Internet providers and users (2/12)
Open Letter from Electronic Frontier Foundation to Internet Providers & Users
Feb. 12, 1996
The Electronic Frontier Foundation
1550 Bryant St., Suite 725
San Francisco CA 94103 USA
+1 415 436 9333 (voice)
+1 415 436 9993 (fax)
Internet: ask@eff.org
Dear U.S. members of the Internet community:
Now that the Communications Decency Act (CDA) has been signed into law, many
decision makers in business, academic, and other organizations are writing
EFF to inquire whether and how to bring their systems into compliance with
the new statute. We have received a deluge of inquiries about assessing the
risks of non-compliance, and of simply maintaining the status quo and
operating as usual.
We believe, as do many members of Congress, that this law is patently
unconstitutional. The new statute violates the First Amendment by being both
overbroad and vague. This makes it exceedingly difficult for us to advise
you in a reliable way about what you can do to avoid risks (other than the
unacceptable choice of having to shut down altogether).
During the time between filing our Feb. 8th court challenge against the CDA,
and either a preliminary injunction against enforcement or a final ruling in
the case, we have only two suggestions which we feel we can responsibly make
to you.
First, if you operate a general purpose system, our advice is to please be
patient and do not overreact to the current cries for censorship. It is
precisely because the CDA language is difficult to understand and apply,
that we cannot advise you yet what the proper procedures are. No one can,
and that is why the CDA will ultimately fail. Freedom of speech in the
electronic world is fragile --don't risk damaging it before it's clear that
you have to.
Second, if the fundamental focus of your business is distributing sexually
explicit materials, we suggest you implement a procedure to screen out
minors. Provisions in existing US law suggest that acceptable ways to
screen out minors are:
* to require credit card numbers to gain access; or
* to use a password system and verification of user identity and
age; and
* to have procedures in place which allow immediate removal of a
user if s/he is discovered to be a minor.
If you are contacted by a government authority in regard to a possible
violation of the new law, please notify us immediately. This way we can
work to address the legal issues of your specific situation and we can
keep track of how law enforcement agencies are interpreting the CDA, and
share this information with others who are trying to understand and evaluate
this law. And, with this information, we may be able to provide better
guidance in the future.
Again, we believe that the restrictions that have been included in the
legislation will be struck down in court. We have sought a temporary
restraining order (TRO), and plan to follow it with a request for a
preliminary injunction, to prevent enforcement until the court renders a
final judgment in this case. A judge is expected to hear on our request for
a TRO within a week.
In the meantime, while your are evaluating how to best manage risks, we urge
that you do not make any decisions based on hasty reasoning or fear of
liability. EFF is here to help you proceed in a reasonable and cautious
manner that emphasizes preserving the integrity of your service as well as
the First Amendment.
Sincerely,
Lori K. Fena
Executive Director
Electronic Frontier Foundation
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 09 Feb 1996 22:05:52 -0800
From: Rich Graves <rich@c2.org>
Subject: File 3--Myths about our mirrors of the Zundelsite "Censored by Germany"
Followups set.
The story thus far: Starting January 25th, at least three German ISPs
restricted access to webcom.com at least temporarily because one user's
files contained materials called "the Zundelsite" denying that Nazi
Germany murdered millions of Jews, and inciting hatred against Jews for
playing "the Holocaust Hoax" on the world. On January 27th, I read a
story about the blocking in the regional paper, talked about it a bit at
the Bay Area Cypherpunks meeting that day (part of which was taped for a
forthcoming Freedom Forum broadcast on PBS, see http://www.fac.org/) and
on January 28th sent email to Zundel's online spokesperson "Ingrid"
(Zundel himself has no public email address) requesting to mirror his
files as a demonstration of the folly and danger of Internet censorship.
At 2PM PST January 29th, Mark Lemire, the operator of a large racist BBS
with Internet access who for some strange reason had not arranged to
mirror Zundel's files himself, was authorized by Ernst Zundel to upload
the Zundelsite files to my machine. I mirrored the files, so did others,
and the rest is history. Or so some say.
Myth #1: T-Online, the largest ISP in Germany, which by some reports is
state-controlled, was forced by the German government to block access to
webcom.com.
Fact: T-Online is far from the predominant ISP in Germany. Until
recently, it was a proprietary BBS with no Internet access. T-Online is
not state-controlled. It does have a contract with the several state
governments, as has always been required by German law. This is
analogous to FCC license agreements in the US, but less restrictive. The
German authorities never actually threatened to sue T-Online; it was
mostly a private decision. Most people in Germany with Internet access
can read Zundel's drivel any time they care to. They just don't care to.
Myth #2: Some press reports had me mirroring a site originated by Declan
McCullogh, an activist at CMU.
Fact: Declan copied the files from me, and did not communicate directly
with Zundel until some time thereafter. I had anticipated that people
would link to the files, rather than copy them. Declan's redistribution
of the files was certainly a surprise, and IMHO quite unnecessary.
Myth #3: A tertiary mirror site at the University of Massachusetts (some
totally inaccurate press reports said MIT) was "CENSORED BY UMASS
AUTHORITIES" because it espoused "unpopular views."
Fact: As McCarthy has tried to get across several times, he does not
consider what his advisor and the chair of the CS Department's asking
him to remove the files from a research workstation paid for by targeted
grant funds to constitute "censorship." It certainly had nothing to do
with the content of the files, as a highly misleading and irresponsible
headline in the News & Observer, http://www.nando.net/, implied.
Myth #4: McCarthy, the operator of the "censored" UMass mirror site, has
been subjected to endless harassment by people who think he is a Nazi.
Fact: McCarthy received one such message, and never told the press about
it. Rumors of "PC" harassment of Lewis were entirely fabricated by
Zundel and his white supremacist friends. We are not at all pleased with
irresponsible media outlets like the Boston Globe, the Associated Press,
and The News & Observer which chose to fan the flames of a controversy
that did not exist.
Myth #5: Rich Graves ran the Stanford University Mirror Site, as
reported by Declan on his Web pages and in his representations to the
press.
Fact: This use of Stanford's name and reputation was never encouraged by
me, and in fact Declan was flamed rather thoroughly both privately and
publicly for refusing for some days to remove this link text.
Myth #6: Rich removed his mirror in response to controversy surrounding
the use of university resources for political purposes.
Fact: This was a complete fabrication of a writer for the Stanford Daily
student newspaper, http://www-daily.stanford.edu/, who has been flamed
and I think disciplined for same. None of her sources gave any
indication of controversy. In fact as soon as I realized that this was a
big deal, I stopped using my work address and accounts, shifting
everything to this private account, rich@c2.org. By the time the Daily
story ran, there were no files relevant to this issue on Stanford
machines. Nobody in any position of authority at Stanford has said
anything at all negative to me about my involvement in this incident.
The removal of the files was simply a personal ethical choice based on
the improper use of Stanford's name, my well-founded belief that Zundel
is a liar and a fraud, and the presence of other mirror sites and press
reports that made my original site no longer necessary.
Myth #7: Rich is a free-speech activist who has also offered to host
files from Sendero Luminoso and the Communist Party (source: Steve Pizzo
in the February 1st Web Review, http://www.gnn.com/wr/).
Fact: The email message obtained by Steve Pizzo was satire. Sendero
Luminoso was an inside joke. Steve Pizzo (and a few other irresponsible
journalists) made no attempt whatsoever to contact me to verify
statements and views that they attributed to me. While I have been a
member of EFF and the ACLU for some time, it is inaccurate to call me an
activist.
Myth #8: Even one of the mirror sites was motivated by some kind of
backlash against "Politically Correct Jewry."
Fact: This is simply untrue. In fact, throughout this process, I have
been in close contact with several friends involved in Holocaust
remembrance. I would not have acted as I did had they not at least
tacitly approved.
Myth #9: Rich has been in cahoots with the Zionist Cabal all along and
tricked Zundel into handing over his files.
Fact: BWAHAHAHA!!!
Myth #10: The "Jew Nazi Censors" at the Simon Wiesenthal Center are
responsible.
Fact: The Simon Wiesenthal Center has stated no position on the
Zundelsites, and was not involved in pressuring T-Online. See
http://www.wiesenthal.com/ for information directly from the source,
without the distortions echoing here.
Myth #11: The Simon Wiesenthal Center sent letters to the presidents of
the universities mirroring Zundel's files demanding their removal.
Fact: This report, spread in comp.org.eff.talk and some smaller press
outlets, had absolutely no basis in fact. I would very much like to
learn the source of this rumor.
Myth #11: webcom.com represented the extent of Zundel's Internet
presence, and the German censorship would have been effective had it not
been for the mirror sites.
Fact: ezundel.cts.com has address 204.212.157.52. All mail and posts
from Zundel's official spokesperson "Ingrid" originates from this IP
address. On January 24th, before any of this "censorship" happened, Joe
Bunkley, a notorious racist at Georgia State (covered in Time Magazine,
active in newsgroups and Stormfront-L) offered to host Zundel's files on
Georgia State's web server.
Myth #12: Zundel is just a historical revisionist, not a Nazi. All those
"PC Jews" are overreacting.
Fact: How about The Skeptics Society journal, which has criticized just
about every odd belief including Judaism, for a neutral source? See
http://www.skeptic.com/02.4.miele-holocaust.html for a skeptical view of
the Holocaust that accepts the legitimacy of some Holocaust revisionism,
strongly supports the right of Holocaust revisionists to speak freely,
and characterizes Zundel as an anti-Semitic Neo-Nazi, with some rather
choice direct quotes? Why don't you try calling Zundel himself? And
follow the money. Follow the money.
Myth #13: Rich regrets his role in mirroring Zundel's files.
Fact: Not at all. It needed to be done. Whether the whole thing was a
hoax perpetrated by Zundel and his racist Neo-Nazi friends is
irrelevant; had he been perceived to be effectively censored, that
perception would have set a very bad precedent for the Net. I will fight
for Zundel's right to speak freely tooth and nail. I just wish he would
speak freely, without lying all the time. For many anti-censorship
activists, "fight hate speech with more speech" seems to be just another
cliche to throw around. With issues such as these, I believe it is
vitally important that good people support both freedom *and* truth
simultaneously; for if you lose either one, the other is meaningless.
Myth #14: There is any significance to the number of myths.
-rich
Institute for Ernst Zundel Revisionism
http://36.190.0.210/~llurch/Not_By_Me_Not_My_Views/
"First, bring down Zundel's suffering in terms of numbers and
events, both real and imagined, to what it really was, not what
they say it was, what they exploit for their own political,
financial, and geopolitical purposes."
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 1996 12:30:43 -0500
From: Philip Elmer-DeWitt <ped@well.com>
Subject: File 4--The Net's Strange Day (Smolman's "24 hours in Cyberspace)
[The following is copyright material from the 2/19/96 issue of TIME (the
one with Marc Andreessen on the cover) posted by permission. For
information about reposting, e-mail ped@well.com.]
The Net's Strange Day
What was intended as a 24-hour celebration
turned out to be a time of protest in cyberspace
By Michael D. Lemonick
Rick Smolan's "24 Hours in Cyberspace" was supposed to be a
round-the-clock, planet-spanning online party, a feel-good cyberfest
celebrating the paradigm-shifting possibilities of the Internet and the
World Wide Web. Smolan, the photographer and entrepreneur behind the hugely
successful Day in the Life series of photo books that have documented
everyday life in Spain, Japan, Australia, the U.S.S.R and the U.S., hoped
to do the same for the growing world of interconnected computers.
But by coincidence--and a turn of political events--the 24 hours Smolan
chose to document turned out to be anything but a celebration. For they
fell on the very day last week that President Clinton signed a
telecommunications bill containing easily the most reviled piece of
legislation in cyberspace: the Communications Decency Act. The law imposes
stiff penalties for posting or transmitting "indecent" material online--a
provision that would strip from online communications the First Amendment
guarantees that protect the written and spoken word.
So, as Smolan's team of 150 professional photographers (and some 1,000
amateurs) fanned out around the world with digital as well as conventional
cameras trying to capture images showing how the Internet is making a
difference in people's lives, another group of Net pioneers was preparing
to save the network from what they see as an all-out government attack. And
while Smolan's editors worked feverishly to construct a colorful series of
Web pages out of the flood of photos pouring in to "Mission Control" in San
Francisco, hundreds of Internet protesters turned their Web sites black.
Civil libertarians argue that the Decency Act would, in the name of
protecting children, criminalize everything from safe-sex information to
The Catcher in the Rye. Says Shabbir Safdar, co-founder of the activist
group Voters' Telecommunications Watch: "They basically want to turn the
Internet into Barney the dinosaur." The Clinton Administration had opposed
earlier versions of the bill but refused to hold up the entire
Telecommunications Act to get rid of it. Pressed on the issue, a defensive
Al Gore told reporters, "We're obligated to administer the law, but we said
from the start this particular provision will stand or fall in court."
A preliminary decision in that regard could come as early as this week. No
sooner had Clinton signed the bill than the American Civil Liberties Union
and nearly two dozen other plaintiffs filed suit in federal court to have
the indecency clause declared unconstitutional. The Department of Justice
has a week to show cause why the judge should not impose a temporary
restraining order. Federal prosecutors, meanwhile, have agreed not to
enforce the new law for now and stipulated in court that a second
provision, criminalizing the electronic distribution of abortion
information, was a violation of free speech.
Back in Smolan's Mission Control, though, the Decency Act was mostly a side
issue. Smolan declined to drape his pages in black, although he did include
a fiercely worded attack on the legislation by Internet activist John Perry
Barlow, and he did agree late in the day to add to his "Welcome" screen a
blue ribbon signifying solidarity with the protesters. But he did not go
out of his way to cover the protest; it is mentioned only briefly in the
story that accompanies an electronic image of the Clinton signing ceremony.
Indeed, Smolan's site gave few indications that cyberspace is anything but
a realm of bliss. Among the thousands of images that streamed into San
Francisco were ghetto kids in California playing computer games, Bhuddists
monks spreading the word online and wheelchair-using students in Thailand
communicating with disabled kids all around the world.
If the project proved anything, it was that nothing leaps over national
boundaries like the Net. The photos showed that, whether American,
Vietnamese, Malaysian or Albanian, computer users hunched over their
screens all look pretty much alike. Indeed, however inadvertently, Smolan
may have advanced the cause against cybercensorship. At least some of the 1
million people estimated to have visited his Website last week saw--perhaps
for the first time--that despite what some politicians would have us
believe, the Internet carries much more than dirty pictures. --Reported by
David Bjerklie/New York and David S. Jackson/San Francisco
Copyright Time Inc. 1996
Philip Elmer-DeWitt ped@well.com
TIME Magazine philiped@aol.com
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 14:01:06
From: DBat@GNN.COM(David Batterson)
Subject: File 5--Alan Turing Home Page
The Late Great Alan Turing in New Web Site
by David Batterson
Alan Turing (1912-54, a gay computer genius among other things,
founded computer science (1936), cracked the German U-boat Enigma
cipher during World War II (1939-45) led the world in schemes for
computer software (1945-47), started the Artificial Intelligence
program (1946-50) and a non-linear dynamics program in biology
(1950-54).
Andrew Hodges, author of the biography, "Alan Turing: the Enigma,"
has created the Alan Turing Home Page on the Web. As Hodges put it,
"Alan Turing was the originator of the computer as we understand
it now. He was also an openly gay man. In 1952 he was arrested and
although unrepentant at his trial had to submit to humiliating
treatment with hormones Estrogen) to avoid going to prison. He found
himself under watch. In 1954 he ended his life. He ate an apple dipped
in cyanide."
Hodges created the Web site to increase awareness of Turing's life, and
to promote the book. The Alan Turing Home Page contains information
from the book, a chronology of events and the amazing accomplishments
in Turing's life, photos and a "scrapbook."
There will be a permanent San Francisco Mirror Site of the Alan Turing
Home Page in the near future, which duplicates the original Web site in
England. The original site is located at:
http://www.wadham.ox.ac.uk/~ahodges/Turing.html.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 16 Dec 1995 22:51:01 CDT
From: CuD Moderators <cudigest@sun.soci.niu.edu>
Subject: File 6--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 16 Dec, 1995)
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