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Computer underground Digest Sun July 6, 1997 Volume 9 : Issue 53
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, #9.53 (Sun, July 6, 1997)
File 1--Cap'n Crunch Site Now Moved
File 2--Mitnick's computer/wireless ban
File 3--DARK SIDE OF FORCE HITS USENET AS STARWARS DISCUSSION BANNED
File 4--Common Sense and Cyberspace
File 5--If Klingons Developed Software
File 6--Re: Purpose of CuD - #9.44,
File 7--Creative Writing, Brock Meeks-style
File 8--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: Sun, 29 Jun 97 14:50 CDT
From: Cu Digest <TK0JUT2@MVS.CSO.NIU.EDU>
Subject: File 1--Cap'n Crunch Site Now Moved
Source - TELECOM Digest Thu, 26 Jun 97 Volume 17 :(#164)
((MODERATORS' NOTE: For those not familiar with Pat Townson's
TELECOM DIGEST, it's a 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--John Draper <crunch@host.net>
Date--Tue, 24 Jun 1997 20:12:41 -0700
The Cap'n Crunch home page URL has been changed. The new URL is now
http://crunch.woz.org/crunch
I've made significant changes to the site, added a FAQ based on a lot
of people asking me many questions about blue boxing, legal stuff, and
hacking in general. The FAQ will be growing all the time, as I go
through all the requests for information that many people have sent.
"Email me" if you want to add more questions.
Our new server is now available to host web sites for anyone who wants
to use it for interesting projects. This is for Elite people only,
and you have to send me a proposal on what you plan to use it for.
I'm open for suggestions, and when you go up to the WebCrunchers web
site: http://crunch.woz.org
You'll get more details on that. Our server is a Mac Power PC,
running WebStar web server, connected through a T-1 link to the
backbone. I know that the Mac Webserver might be slower, but I had
security in mind when I picked it. Besides, I didn't pick it, Steve
Wozniak did... :-) So please don't flame me for using a Mac.
I know that Mac's are hated by hackers, but what the heck ... at least
we got our OWN server now.
I also removed all the blatant commercial hipe from the home page and
put it elsewhere. But what the heck ... I should disserve to make
SOME amount of money selling things like T-shirts and mix tapes.
We plan to use it for interesting projects, and I want to put up some
Audio files of Phone tones. For instance, the sound of a blue box
call going through, or some old sounds of tandom stacking. If there
are any of you old-timers out there that might have some interesting
audio clips of these sounds, please get in touch with me.
Our new Domain name registration will soon be activated, and at that
time our URL will be:
http://www.webcrunchers.com - Our Web hosting server
http://www.webcrunchers.com/crunch - Official Cap'n Crunch home page
Regards,
Cap'n Crunch
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 00:55:01 -0400
From: Evian S Sim <evian@escape.com>
Subject: File 2--Mitnick's computer/wireless ban
Calif. hacker ordered to stay away from computers
Copyright 1997 Reuter Information Service
LOS ANGELES (June 27, 1997 8:20 p.m. EDT) - A federal judge
Friday ordered convicted computer hacker Kevin Mitnick to stay
away from all computers, cell phones or software when he is
released from prison.
U.S. District Court Judge Mariana Pfaelzer said Mitnick is also
prohibited from being employed in any job that would allow him to
have access to computers without approval from a probation
department officer.
Mitnick, 33, held in custody since 1995, was sentenced last week
to 22 months in federal prison for possessing illegal cellular
phone codes and for violating his parole.
Mitnick pleaded guilty last year to one count of possession of
fraudulent cellular codes that he used to illegally access
cellular phone networks. The crime occured while Mitnick was on
supervised release for an earlier "hacker" offense.
He faces an additional 25-count indictment for alleged computer
intrusions and theft of millions of dollars of software during
the 2 1/2 year period he was a fugitive.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 18:41:35 -0400
From: Paul Kneisel <tallpaul@nyct.net>
Subject: File 3--DARK SIDE OF FORCE HITS USENET AS STARWARS DISCUSSION BANNED
DARK SIDE OF THE FORCE HITS USENET AS STAR WARS DISCUSSION IS BANNED
by tallpaul@nyct.net (Paul Kneisel)
Does the right of free speech include the right to cry "Yoda!" in
a crowded theater? Does it include the right to publish an risque
love story between Princess Leila and a wookie on a crowded
Internet?
"No," say the UseNet old boys in "group-advice" whose position on
UseNet provides them with the de-facto power to block the creation
of new news groups by denying those groups the right to formally
publish their Request For Discussion document normally needed to
create the groups.
The pre-publication censorship dispute developed out of an attempt
by people around the UseNet "Star Wars" group to reorganize. The
group, called <rec.arts.sf.starwars.*> or RASS is located in the
"Big 8" hierarchy of UseNet and has a proposed subsidiary group
called "fanfic" attached. (see Appendix A below)
Fanfic is the name given to literature created by fans and modeled
on characters, events, and locations mentioned in movies, TV, and
the like. It has been especially popular among science fiction
affectionadoes.
But the forces around UseNet "group-advice" on the global
information superhighway have decided that neither you nor anyone
else in the world will be able to read any, at least in that part
of the Big 8 hierarchy they dominate.
David C Lawrence, also known as "Tale," wrote Russ Allbery,
Lawrence's associate on "group-advice" "is the moderator of
news.announce.newgroups; if you want to create a new newsgroup in
the Big Eight, you have to go through him."[1]
Lawrence will not officially approve the RASS draft proposal for
publication, a process normally required to create the group.
"The reason why RFDs for those groups aren't posted is because
Tale feels it's in his purview to reject RFDs for groups where the
traffic itself would be illegal," Allbery explained. "...
Discussion of sex, guns, or illegal drugs is not illegal. Posting
fanfiction is."[2]
Illegal? Allbery is not a judge or even an attorney. Nor does he
appear to be someone who has devoted much time to studying the
complex series of legal issues that he and his co-thinkers are
using to block the creation of new news groups.
We're not talking here about *criminal* behavior like bombing
federal buildings, making "kiddie porn," pumping fascist
propaganda into Germany, or burning black churches in the U.S.
south.
Rather, the issue concerns the violation of *civil* law in that
class of non-criminal action called "torts."
People who violate criminal law go to prison to pay their
proverbial "debt to society;" people who commit torts go to their
bank to pay monetary damages to the individuals whose civil rights
they violated.
Allbery argues that fanfic in RASS would violate the property
rights of U.S. corporations since Yoda is a trademark of
Lucasfilms Inc. The argument follows those previously presented by
groups like the Church of Scientology against publication of their
trade secrets and copyrighted material on the net.
One central difference is that Yoda is well known while the
contents of CoS documents are not.
Another is that CofS leaders play no major role on the Internet;
Allbery and Lawrence do.
The Allbery/Lawrence ban of fanfic has an especially broad and
chilling character since it also limits publication of purely
literary criticism of other fanfic that might have been published
off the net in some private hard-copy fanzine. RASS, as the
charter indicates, would be open to such literary criticism. But
Allbery and Lawrence say "no."
It also bans -- before publication -- fanfic on the grounds that
it is (or rather would be) illegal. This is an action that even
the U.S. Supreme Court has deemed improper when performed by the
U.S. government.
The Allbery/Lawrence ban thus has a character unsupported -- and
indeed condemned -- by the highest court in the United States.
In other words, if Lucasfilms themselves went into court to get a
pre-publication injunction against RASS they would fail.
It doesn't matter.
Allbery and Lawrence say fanfic is illegal and they say it's
banned.
Torts, especially, vary as legal jurisdiction changes.
One example is the tort of libel and how different courts define
and enforce it. Many countries accept the doctrine of "group
libel" where charges that "Jews are dirty" or that "black people
smell" are libelous, therefore torts, and therefore the exact
category of civilly-"illegal" behavior that Allbery seeks to ban
(if only it concerns the alleged property rights of large
corporations instead of the breathing-rights of people previously
targeted for mass murder.)
The notion of group libel has been central to governments seeking
to ban certain material from the Internet, as when E. Zundel's
"Holocaust Revisionist" web site was shut down or when some German
state governments have sought to eliminate fascist material from
the net as a whole.
And let us not even think of writing about libel laws in Singapore
for reasons that we will not even think of writing about.
Libel can also occur when unconvicted citizens are accused of
criminal behavior like "theft," "hijacking," and "fraud" as
Allbery's other political supporters have written about critics
elsewhere in <news.group>-based discussions.
Another tort, similar to trademark violation so upsetting to
Allbery, is copyright violation. This may occur when copyrighted
material in some post to news groups is quoted in a response
without the permission of the copyright owner, as occurred when
Allbery quoted the copyrighted material by RASS-supporters.
UseNet readers also see hate-based material routinely published on
the net despite its illegal criminal nature in many parts of the
world.[3]
Cyherpunks believe that "National boundaries are just speedbumps
on the information superhighway."
That may be true for Holocaust Revisionism, calls to lynch blacks,
publish Church of Scientology documents, or "kiddie porn" from
Denmark. It might be true when the speedbumps are created by laws
in Germany, Finland, Singapore, China, Iran, or international
conventions like those that created the international war crimes
tribunals held at Nuremberg 50 years ago.
It may be true when people call for the thermonuclear destruction
of the Moon of Endor because they don't like teddy bears. It might
cover publishing articles that wookies smell bad, that you don't
want one of them to move into your virtual.neighborhood, or that
they bring down property values of adjacent ISPs.
But the opinions of two non-lawyers in <news.groups> have a
different view when the dispute is about allegedly violating
property rights with a limerick about Jedhi Knights.
Damn! And just when I was going to send off a RASS fanfic story
about how the Emperor wears no clothes!
May the Farce Be With You!
APPENDIX A:
CHARTER: rec.arts.sf.starwars.fanfic
The posting of works of fanfic and discussion of ideas,
characterisation, and works in progress. Posts indicating the
location of websites archiving fanfic would also be welcome.
Constructive criticism of the Fan-fiction posted to the group is
welcome, however personal attacks or flames of an author, for
whatever reason, will not be tolerated.
All fanfiction stories should be tagged with one or more of the
following:
[EMPIRE] Stories dealing with officers or government officials
(namely the Emperor and Darth Vader) of the Galactic Empire, or
other stories closely related to the Empire.
[NEWREP] Stories that take place after the Battle of Endor that
are not primarily about the Empire.
[OLDREP] Stories that take place before the rise of the Emperor.
[REBEL] Stories based on the officers or leaders of the Rebel
Alliance.
[ADULT] Stories that include primarily adult situations and might
be considered offensive to some people.
[author -- JamesG <jag7@ukc.ac.uk>, "PRE-RFD: RASS groups reorg,"
11 Jun 1997 18:46, post to <rec.arts.sf.starwars.misc> et al.]
END CHARTER.
FOOTNOTES
[a] Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>, "Re: PRE-RFD: RASS groups
reorg," 13 Jun 1997 17:48, post to <news.groups>.
[b] Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>, "Re: PRE-RFD: RASS groups
reorg," 12 Jun 1997 11:16, post to <news.groups>.
[3] see Associated Press, "German High Court Rules Against Jailed
American Neo-Nazi," 13 June 1997.
"KARLSRUHE, Germany (AP) - Germany's highest court ruled today
that a lower court did not violate the rights of an American
neo-Nazi by convicting him of disseminating hate propaganda and
sending him to prison for four years.
"Gary Lauck, once German neo-Nazis' main source of anti-Semitic
and xenophobic literature, was convicted by a Hamburg court last
August of inciting racial hatred and other counts.
"Lauck filed an appeal, arguing his right to free speech had been
violated.
"But the Federal Constitutional Court, Germany's equivalent of the
U.S. Supreme Court, said without comment today it has rejected the
appeal."
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 11:59:51 +0100
From: "Richard K. Moore" <rkmoore@iol.ie>
Subject: File 4--Common Sense and Cyberspace
This was written more than a year ago, but seem even more timely today, as
the consequences of the Telecom Bill have become more widely apparent.
Perhaps it would be of interest to CuDigest readers.
-rkm
________________________________________________________________
Common Sense and Cyberspace
Richard K. Moore
20 March 1996
NOTE: This piece was submitted to a U.S. Senator, at the request of a
staff member.
-rkm
Telecom backgrounder -- what preceded the "Reform" bill
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
What we had under the old Ma Bell monopoly was a vertically-
integrated marketplace, where phone-sets, local calls, long distance, and
other services, were all obtained from a single vendor. This was not an
altogether bad arrangement: under this regime the U.S. telephone system was
the envy of the world, and offered top quality product for bottom dollar,
by global standards.
But there was a problem -- advancing technology had the potential
to support new kinds of services, but the business structure of Ma Bell was
not appropriate to exploit those opportunities effectively or aggressively.
What was needed was _competition_ to stimulate new-market development. But
in order to enable competition, there needed to be an appropriate
restructuring of the communications industry -- the creation of one or more
"playing fields" in which market economics could be allowed to operate --
even while many phone services (eg. local loop) continued to be provided by
natural monopolies.
The result of this transformation was a brilliant new regime, even
though it seemed to dribble out as a series of distinct anti-trust actions.
The communications market was divided into a number of layers, with each
layer operating as a marketplace in its own right. AT&T kept the long-line
layer and the long-distance business (later shared with MCI et al), while
the Baby Bells got the regional networks and the local-call business (later
to be diluted by cellular).
But this was only the beginning. On top of these "commodity
backbone network layers" other products and services could be devised and
markets developed. Entrepreneurs could develop gadgets to add-on to the
network (eg. modems, multiplexers, and in-house switching systems), while
other entrepreneurs could resell communications bundled with "value-added"
services such as database access, timesharing services, wirephoto
distribution, or whatever. The telcos got no "cut" of these value-added
businesses, they just got their leased-line rentals: this is what's meant
by "layered markets".
Out of this entrepreneurial activity evolved the technologies which
enabled the Internet, and many other more special-purpose networks, both
public and private. Just as the Ma-Bell regime served well to build up
America's basic telephone network, so the "layered marketplace" regime has
served well to pioneer and develop digital networking.
The post-Reform-bill regime - a playground for robber barons
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
But that's all history now -- the new Reform bill has essentially
scrapped the whole layering paradigm, and thrown us back into the kind of
laissez-faire regime that spawned the Ma Bell monopoly in the first place.
Once again, we will see monopoly domination of communications, only now
there will be several Majors (as in Oil or Television), rather than one
single dominant vendor. And "communications" now includes so much more
than phone service -- it subsumes cable and satellite and will serve as the
primary distribution channel for films, live entertainment, news, and
whatever cyber-experiences Hollywood is able to fabricate.
As the Telecom bill wended its way toward enactment, merger-mania
swept the media industry as players positioned themselves to participate in
the anticipated feeding frenzy. Examples:
Westinghouse / CBS
Disney / ABC
GE / NBC
Gulf+Western / Paramount
Time-Warner / Turner
Now that the bill has passed, we're beginning to see RBOC mergers
(eg. SBC and Pacific Telesis), and we'll see many satellite, cellular, and
cable operators gobbled up by deeper pockets.
Given the Spectrum Auction, we now have a regime where monopolistic
control is possible over:
- ownership of content
(films, live sports, syndicated productions)
- access to the home
(wires, broadcast, cellular, and satellite)
- distribution facilities
(wire & satellite backbones)
The communications Majors will be integrated conglomerates, with
assets distributed between content and infrastructure, and they will fight
for market share a bit like airlines or television networks do today. This
is indeed "competition", but sterile and unproductive compared to what we
had under the layered regime.
The Cyber-Baron club -- the masters of our information future --
will be the telecom companies, the cable operators, and news &
entertainment conglomerates -- together with the more general corporate
community which will be involved through cross-ownership, interlocking
directorates, advertising, and underwriting. In other words, cyberspace
will be run by more or less the same Corporate Establishment that runs
today's news & entertainment industries, which is why I refer to that
future environment as Cyberspace Inc.
It is abundantly clear from today's television programming what the
political landscape of Cyberspace Inc will be: corporate-slanted propaganda
in place of news, skillful promotion of laissez-faire globalist agendas,
careful management of voter perceptions re/ politicians and elections, and
the use of propagandistic entertainment to instill consumerist, pro-
corporate values. In other words, Cyberspace Inc, besides delivering
monopolist profits to its operators, will accomplish the corporate elite's
goal of controlling the public mind and preventing the possibility of
genuine democracy.
The lost opportunity for democracy - the demise of Internet
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The fact is that digital networking has the potential to connect
people in new and exciting ways, and at very low cost. That's what the
lesson of Internet is all about. An underlying broadband network is
relatively cheap to provide -- modern technology makes it cheaper to
provide than was standard phone service only a couple decades ago. The
natural course of events would have been for bandwidth to become ever
cheaper, and the Internet ever more responsive. The "digital revolution"
would have blossomed forth as a flowering of independent media productions
(community theater available state-wide?), political organizations, "town-
hall" meetings, cross-national hobby groups, etc. ad infinitum.
This "people's infrastructure" -- which is what Internet has been
rapidly becoming -- will be "cleared from the land" as the cyber developers
come to town. The current Internet culture has as much relevance to the
media conglomerates as the Red Indians did to the U.S. Calvary and the
westward-moving real-estate interests. This whole public-participation
phenomenon will be bundled under the heading "public access" and will be
relegated to some peripheral, politically impotent corner, like late-night
public television is currently.
Economically, Internet culture is merely irrelevant to the soon-to-
be corporate owners of cyberspace -- they don't need it, but they could
permit it and continue to support it if they wanted to. But politically,
Internet represents a credible threat to elite corporate hegemony over the
American political process. Internet's phenomenal recent growth was
threatening to connect _most_ U.S. households and businesses to a free-for-
all communications network which could be used for who-knows-what political
organizing, mobilizing of boycotts, and for spreading who-knows-where-
obtained information about government activities, covert operations, on-
site documentary evidence of news-event cover-ups, etc.
The threat of net-enabled, PGP-endowed, militia terrorists is a
real one, although tracking such operations is not a difficult problem for
the likes of the NSA and FBI. But the threat of millions of citizens
communicating openly, sharing information, and creating new kinds of
political organizations and parties -- this is not a political landscape
that the corporate elite desires to tolerate, especially as public
dissatisfaction with the political status quo continues to grow apace.
Thus we can expect the screws to be tightened on Internet as the
commercial "alternative" is geared up to replace it. Seemingly disparate
forces are converging on the Internet from all sides. The Christian
Coalition provides the public cover for CDA censorship, while the corporate
media demonizes the net (eg. Time's Cyberporn article), the Church of
Scientology pushes the envelope of over-restrictive copyright, ACTA strikes
against the media-enhancement of Internet discourse, the FBI raids various
BBS operators, and Newt himself leads the troops for the structural Reform-
bill coup that underlies the whole nip-Internet-in-the-bud campaign.
Strategy options for politicians
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The safest course for any politician is to simply go along with the
corporate steamroller, echo the lies about the Reform bill bringing
"increased competition", and queue up to receive a share of the campaign
funds available from the industry.
Only if a politician REALLY cares about the future of democracy --
and is willing to risk ridicule by colleagues and the media -- would it
make sense for him or her to take a responsible position on the nation's
communications infrastructure.
For such a rare quixotic politician, willing to do battle for
democracy, here are my thoughts regarding a regulatory/legislative agenda:
I see the central cyber issues as:
(1) Beyond CDA: the Bill of Rights (as a whole) and
Cyberspace
(2) Cyber economics: the monopolist pirate raid on the wired
future.
re/ (1)
^^^^^^^
I believe that cyber "rights" are a consequence of how cyberspace
is "modelled". The corporatist position, which is all but a fait accompli,
is that cyberspace is an info-distribution channel like television, and
hence has no inherent rights of access, privacy, free speech, etc. --
concerns of children etc. are supposedly central (although we all know
that's BS -- what could be more harmful to children than the television
trash they're subjected to?).
I see the "battle" as making a case that we should look at First
Class Mail as the proper precedent for private email, and Public Gatherings
as the precedent for email lists & conferences, etc. In other words, we
should demand that our standard civil liberties be mapped onto cyberspace
appropriately. We're not asking for new rights, simply the proper legal
interpretation of existing rights (such as they are).
re/ (2)
^^^^^^^
I believe the so-called Reform bill is a modern Enclosures Act --
the theft of the Public Commons by greedy promoters. And this public
commons is a grand one indeed, being essentially the central nervous system
and perceptual organs of our future society.
The law doth punish man or woman
That steals the goose from off the common,
But lets the greater felon loose,
That steals the common from the goose.
Anon, 18th cent., on the enclosures.
(courtesy of John Whiting)
The main problem here is that the public at large understands
neither the wonderful potential of cyberspace for "people's networking" (to
give it an inadequate moniker), nor the true consequences of the new
telecom regime.
The public is saturated with a porn-terrorist-hacker image of
Internet -- when possibly a majority of messages sent are day-to-day
corporate and governmental inter-department mail. And the public is told
the Reform act is only to their benefit, with promises of cyber gadgets and
virtual entertainment -- with no discussion of what a digital
infrastructure _could_ make available to them if it were open and cheap
(which the technology should, by rights, provide).
It seems to me the first step here is purely educational -- until
there's more general understanding of the real issues, it would be
pointless to attempt to rouse any sizable constituency around any actions
or agenda.
We have some natural allies in this field of battle, and ones with
significant economic self-interest involved. These include all the small
independent operators in the communications, media, and publication
industries, together with everyone in public-sector-related businesses
(education, municipal governments, etc.). There are also probably some
professional associations who would have an identifiable commonality of
interests, plus consumer groups and the like.
Specific legislative agenda
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
1) Amend the Reform bill to re-instate layered markets,
most particularly isolation of the transport layer
(wires and spectrum) as a commodity infrastructure.
2) Seek constituency-support among independent operators
in the communications and media industries, public-
interest groups, and the existing online community.
3) Insure that public-interest groups, government, and
independent operators have full and equal access
to communications facilities, including the local
loop and backbone infrastructure.
4) Keep price-controls in place until and if effective,
diverse competition actually occurs in a given market layer.
5) Prohibit cross-subsidies of any kind between the transport
and value-added businesses of operators.
6) Apply the precedents of private-communications and public-
gatherings to digital communications, and insure that
the Bill of Rights is applied to cyberspace as regards
privacy, freedom of expression and assembly, and protection
against unreasonable search and seizure.
~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~--~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~
Posted by Richard K. Moore - rkmoore@iol.ie - PO Box 26 Wexford, Ireland
Cyberlib: ftp://ftp.iol.ie/users/rkmoore/cyberlib | (USA Citizen)
* Non-commercial republication encouraged - Please include this sig *
* Please Cc: rkmoore@iol.ie directly on forwards & replies *
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 12:06:50 -0700
From: Jonathan Hirshon <jh@horizonpr.com>
Subject: File 5--If Klingons Developed Software
I thought you all might appreciate this -- enjoy :)
cheers, JH
_____________
Top 10 things likely to be overheard if you
had a Klingon on your software development team:
10) "This code is a piece of crap! You
have no honor!"
9) "A TRUE Klingon warrior does not comment
his code!"
8) "By filing this bug you have questioned
my family honor. Prepare to die!"
7) "You question the worthiness of my Code?!
I should kill you where you stand!"
6) "Our competitors are without honor!"
5) "Specs are for the weak and timid!"
4) "This machine is a piece of GAGH! I need dual
Pentium processors if I am to do battle with
this code!"
3) "Perhaps it IS a good day to Die! I say
we ship it!"
2) "My program has just dumped Stova Core!"
1) "Behold, the keyboard of Kalis! The greatest
Klingon code warrior that ever lived!"
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 12:05:50 +0600
From: RHS Linux User <gander@VOYAGER.NETCOMI.COM>
Subject: File 6--Re: Purpose of CuD - #9.44,
In response to Mike Oar's recent submission as File 5 in #9.44
I'd like to respond.
Mike,
I have been reading CuD for, I don't know, at least 3 years, and
I find many of the articles I read to not be in sync with my
personal feelings or beliefs. Some of the people I don't
particularily care for and content as well. However, forgive me
for being ignorant, but in a way isn't that the point??
The Net is filled with tens of millions [think about that a
minute] of people from nearly every country and culture in the
world [this too]. I suppose from our protected and (perhaps
justifiably in rare situations) self rightious American point of
view this is both its curse, and its beauty. To believe even for
a moment that as a moderate to heavy Net users that one's fragile
sensibilities will not be offended on a regular basis in this
environment is naive.
To make my point. CuD is a E-Rag that is designed, implemented
and effected to present to an interested audience a wide range of
views on commonly contraversial issues, it can be used as a way to
gain a certian literacy about viewpoints that perhaps you don't
share, perhaps after reading some you find you should, or do, but
in a different way. To me, this entails the very essence of being
a good American, indeed, a good human. To be able to learn and
understand other viewpoints so that when we speak, or otherwise
offer our own opinions we don't regurgitate what some high school
teacher or parent, etc. taught us to say, but speak our own mind
based on our own experiences and interactions. Basically, I
guess, your note could be considered, in and of itself, to be an
affront to free speech. Not because you didn't like Meeks
statements, but because you have, in public, berated CuD for
carrying articles that you don't personally care for. Much the
same that Sen. Exon and friends don't like information being
distributed that they do not agree with, or even the US Criminal
and Spy orginizations don't like information being distributed in
an encrypted format.
In the end, nobody really feels hurt that you left the list (nor
elated for the most part). It is just another activity that took
place, but please try and consider opinions that differ from your
own, I'm not telling you to agree with them, or like them, I
don't. But as one of my music professors in university said, "I
don't care if you like a composer, performer, etc., but it is
important to APPRECIATE and KNOW each for what they are." A
statement that I try to measure my own literacy against. Thinking
about it, wasn't there a statement in the Art of War or somewhere
that made a similar remark about knowing your enemies?
Thanks,
Gerald D. Anderson
P.S. Stuff: Please don't respond to the list, as I will most likely not
respond again. Also, these of course, represent my personal opinions,
nothing else should be interpreted.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 97 01:29:18 -0400
From: Rogier van Bakel <rogier@reporters.net>
Subject: File 7--Creative Writing, Brock Meeks-style
Brock Meeks -- that take-no-prisoners cybermuckraker, that
gallbladder eruption waiting to happen -- turns out to have a
soft spot after all. The object of his affection: a censorious
intellectual dwarf from Nebraska called Jim Exon. Without
apparent irony, Meeks tells us:
> Second, love him or hate him, former Sen. Jim Exon, the father of
>the CDA, deserves to be recognized for bringing a legitimate issue to the
>national stage. He energized a host of forces, from advocates to industry,
>and in the wake of turmoil he left behind, many good things have happened
Ah! Talk about Creative Writing! Anyone else care to give Meeks'
reasoning a try? How about:
"Love 'em or hate 'em, the Ku Klux Klan deserve hugs for
bringing to the table the issue of racism and lynchings. (Not
to mention the great contribution the group made to the
South's economy by purchasing more than its reasonable share
of rope and white cotton sheets.)"
Hey, this isn't hard at all! Let's see:
"Love him or hate him, Jesse Timmendequas, Megan Kanka's
killer, made an entire nation face the threat that repeat sex
offenders pose
to our kids.
(Besides, how bad can a guy be who gave tough-on-crime
lawmakers the best approval ratings ever?) Three cheers for
Jesse!"
Perhaps Meeks would like to finish this exercise with Pol Pot and
the wonderful boost the Khmer Rouge provided to arms salesmen in
South-East Asia; or the once-in-a-lifetime job opportunities
senator Joe McCarthy created for non-blacklisted actors and
writers. The possibilities are endless.
------------------------------
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 7 May 1997 22:51:01 CST
From: CuD Moderators <cudigest@sun.soci.niu.edu>
Subject: File 8--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 7 May, 1997)
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