64 lines
3.1 KiB
Plaintext
64 lines
3.1 KiB
Plaintext
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 92 18:50:28 PST
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Reply-To: <cocot@osc.versant.com>
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Message-ID: <surfpunk-0015@SURFPUNK.Technical.Journal>
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Mime-Version: 1.0
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Content-Type: text/plain
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From: cocot@osc.versant.com (Captain COCOT)
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To: surfpunk@osc.versant.com (SURFPUNK Technical Journal)
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Subject: [surfpunk-0015] PRIVACY: Historical Note on Telecom Privacy
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Keywords: surfpunk, telegrams, wiretapping, cellular eavesdropping
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________________________________________________________________________
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________________________________________________________________________
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Date: Wed, 02 Dec 92 21:31:47 -0800
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From: haynes@cats.UCSC.EDU (Jim Haynes)
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Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
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Subject: Historical Note on Telecom Privacy
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Apropos of all the talk on FBI wiretapping, cellular eavesdropping,
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etc., I found this passage in "Old Wires and New Waves"; Alvin F.
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Harlow; 1936. He's writing about unscrupulous telegraph operators in
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the early days. They would use information in telegrams for personal
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gain, or delay messages or news for personal gain, or sell news
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reports to non-subscribers of the press association.
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"Pennsylvania passed a law in 1851, making telegrams secret,
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to prevent betrayal of private affairs by operators. When,
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therefore, an operator was called into court in Philadelphia
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a little later, and ordered to produce certain telegrams which
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would prove an act of fraud, he refused to do so, saying that
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the state law forbade it. The circuit court, shocked at this
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development, proceeded to override the law, saying:
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It must be apparent that, if we adopt this construction
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of the law, the telegraph may be used with the most
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absolute security for purposes destructive to the
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well-being of society - a state of things rendering
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its absolute usefulness at least questionable. The
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correspondence of the traitor, the murderer, the robber
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and the swindler, by means of which their crimes and
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frauds could be the more readily accomplished and
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their detection and punishment avoided, would become
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things so sacred that they never could be accessible to
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the public justice, however deep might be the public interest
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involved in their production.
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The judge therefore ordered the operator to produce the telegrams."
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________________________________________________________________________
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________________________________________________________________________
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The SURFPUNK Technical Journal is a dangerous multinational hacker zine
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originating near BARRNET in the fashionable western arm of the northern
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California matrix. Quantum Californians appear in one of two states,
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spin surf or spin punk. Undetected, we are both, or might be neither.
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________________________________________________________________________
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Send postings to <surfpunk@osc.versant.com>, subscription requests
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to <surfpunk-request@osc.versant.com>. MIME encouraged.
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Xanalogical archive access soon. 250 OK.
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________________________________________________________________________
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________________________________________________________________________
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