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Monday  March 13, 2000

And I thought I had problems:

The Zen of DSL Installation:

Here's my DSL story:

I ordered DSL from Flashcom in January. They said that I'd be contacted in 4-6 weeks to make arrangements for installation. I was indeed contacted mid February by Flashcom, telling me that Pac Bell would be at my house Friday Feb 26 to do the outside wiring. So I planned to work from home that Friday because the hookups are in the back yard and we have a dog.

Instead of Friday, Pac Bell showed up Tuesday Feb 22, catching my wife just as she was leaving for work. She couldn't stay for the 2 hours that the Pac Bell tech said it would take, so she said that he'd have to "cancel for today". That was translated to "the customer wants to cancel the order" and reported back to Flashcom.

Meanwhile, I called Flashcom to report that Pac Bell came out on the wrong day. No matter what I said, the "customer care" operator wouldn't do anything beyond verifying that I still had an appointment for Friday in their tracking system.

The next day I called again hoping to get a more helpful operator. She checked with someone else and told me that "sometimes Pac Bell goes out to a site early because they can often do the work without needing special arrangements, but if they can't complete the job, they still have to show up on the appointed day".

Still not satisfied, I called back the next day and insisted that they contact Pac Bell to verify that they are still planning to come back to my house. (by the way, every time you call Flashcom, you're on hold for typically 20 - 60 minutes) This time they said that it wouldn't do any good because they have to check with NorthPoint (the actual DSL provider) and that takes 5 working days. Different day different story...

Then I tried calling Pac Bell... Ha! Anyway, after a while, I found someone in their commercial division that knew how this all works, but she couldn't check into it for me. She said that Pac Bell contracts with Northpoint and that I'd have to work with them.

OK, fine. So I called Northpoint. They answered the phone quickly and were very nice, but stated clearly that they work through Flashcom for their customer interface. The Northpoint rep did offer that if Pac Bell failed to show up on Friday, he'd track it down for me on Monday (Dwayne, ext 356)...

It's anticlimactic at this point, but you guessed it, nobody showed up on Friday.

On Monday Feb 28, I called Northpoint but couldn't get through to Dwayne. I tried to call Flashcom, but I gave up after 5 hours on hold! Tried Flashpoint again Tuesday. This time I was on hold for 9 hours!! Nobody answered...

So I called the salesman that I originally ordered through. No problem getting through to the sales department... Anyway, I gave the salesman the whole sad saga. He "escalated" the issue for me. As it turns out, he was able to get some results. The next week (Monday, March 6th) I was informed that I would get another appointment quickly.

On Tuesday March 7th, Pac Bell shows up at my front door. No appointment was made, but happily I was there, so I stuck around while he did his thing. Progress, at least! The tech told me that I was 17,700 feet from the central office, which is on the edge, but that it should be OK for SDSL (we'll see...)

When I got to work later that day, I discovered two e-mails from Northpoint. The first one (received at 9:13 AM) stated "Congratulations... blah, blah... You have an appointment with Pac Bell to do outside wiring on March 17th". The second one, received at 9:20 AM stated "Now that your outside wiring is done, you have an appointment for a NorthPoint technician to do the inside wiring on March 11th".

...OK, more progress! Confused, hap-hazard, serendipitous progress, but progress none-the-less! Later that day, I got a voice mail from "Katie" at Flashcom stating that Pac Bell was coming out on the 17th to do outside wiring...

->Sigh<-

I called Flashcom to make sure that they knew that Pac Bell had already been there, and that Northpoint was coming out on Saturday. Turns out that they had all of the info in their system... You just have to be patient and persistent to read all of it to get the full story (kinda like this e-mail ;-) BTW, this week the average hold time for Flashcom is 15 minutes. I told them that their response time was noticeably better this week, and they said they hired 15 more people to answer phones... Hmmm... good.

I called Northpoint to double check on the appointment. According to them, all is set for Saturday March 11 between 10 and 12. Cool! While I had him on the phone, I casually asked if there was anything I needed to do, to be prepared for final installation. He mentioned that I needed a DSL modem. I said, "Uh, isn't that part of the deal? Flashcom is supposedly including hardware and installation in the deal.". To which he replied, "They will probably ship it to you". I wondered what twisted permutation of fate this new possibility represented.... Then I asked how the modem is connected to the computer. "Didn't they tell you?" (no). This is where I found out that it requires 10BaseT. I guess I knew that, but it wasn't in the front of my mind until then. OK, no problem. I can make a trip to Fry's...

The next day just before I was about to leave for work, an Airborne Express truck pulled up and delivered a 3Com DSL modem! Hurray. Sure glad I was there to sign for it!! (more serendipity)

So, I'm going to Fry's today, and getting DSL installed tomorrow (I HOPE)

I'll let you know how it turns out.

-Jay

P.S. When I spell-checked this, Outlook's spell checker wanted to replace "Flashcom" with "Fiasco"... I almost couln't resist...

Oh, and Flashcom's hold music (a kind of New Age Yanni music, except bland ;-) is starting to fade now... > -----Original Message----- > From: Hightower, Stephen > Sent: Friday, March 10, 2000 9:33 AM > To: Dejung, Steve; Bauerle, Bill G; Lemons, Gayle; Lewis, Tim; Hein, > Bob; Augspurger, Dennis; Ladow, Nine; Pippin, Dennis; Bandettini, Lee; > Weber, Diane; Fabel, Mike; Ward, Jay > Subject: RE: The Zen of DSL Service > > it's even worse than the AT&;T saga. I ordered my DSL from Flashcom on > 2/8, which they said 4-6 weeks for installation. Last week after repeated > calls and emails to them, I was told something happened with the deposit > process and I would have to start the process over again. I called > Mindspring and ordered service from them. Again 4-6 weeks quoted. > > I might have a high speed link in 2002 supplied by "Fast Eddie's DSL". > > Hurts your head. > > -----Original Message----- > From: Dejung, Steve > Sent: Thursday, March 09, 2000 6:38 AM > To: Bauerle, Bill G; Lemons, Gayle; Lewis, Tim; Hein, Bob; > Augspurger, Dennis; Ladow, Nine; Pippin, Dennis; Bandettini, Lee; Weber, > Diane; Fabel, Mike; Ward, Jay; Hightower, Stephen > Subject: FW: The Zen of DSL Service > > Sounds a bit like Hightower's efforts to get broadband service from > At&;T... > > -----Original Message----- > From: Uang, Yea > Sent: Wednesday, March 08, 2000 8:44 PM > To: Berenbaum, Jim; McLaughlin, Gary; Deeth, Dave; Richards, > David; McLaughlin, Gary; Rhodes, Herbert L; Lang, Patrick; Feitlin, Robert > S; Panetta, Ronald R > Cc: Nadel, Ron; Brown, Anthony; Dejung, Steve > Subject: The Zen of DSL Service > > > The frustrations of a DSL buyer > By FRANK DZUBECK > Network World, 03/06/00 > Industry analysts are often caught up with projecting a vision of > the future rather than the reality of the present. Take the implementation > of broadband services, for example. Digital subscriber line (DSL) was > going to be the simple solution that brought inexpensive broadband > services to the home and small business. But DSL's potential is being > impeded by service provider provisioning incompetence and politics. > My firm has experienced firsthand the complexity and frustration of > ordering and implementing DSL. We recently decided to switch one of our > offices from ISDN to symmetric DSL (SDSL) and change the provider of our > Internet access, hosting and e-mail services. After searching for SDSL > vendors in our area, we began vendor and service selection. First we went > to the Web and gathered service plan documentation. No two plans were > alike, preventing a simple apples-to-apples comparison - good marketing > differentiation, but frustrating to the buyer. > Then we began to contact the vendors' sales departments. Frustration > now began in earnest. Some vendors neither called back nor replied via > e-mail. Some lacked knowledge or understanding of their own Web-based > literature. A few were responsive and could explain and differentiate > their offerings. We solicited sample order forms from these few for final > comparison and chose an ISP. Selection was based upon vendor quality, > availability of service, monthly cost, service plan and features including > service commitment level, installation cost and sign-up incentives. > With vendor and service plan selected, what should have been an easy > install became hell. The promised due date for the service came and went; > our voice and e-mail complaints were unanswered. Finally, we were informed > that we had been assigned an account manager - a person who communicated > only via e-mail and never gave a straight answer. Our frustration was now > due to organizational incompetence. > We were then informed that the ISP had passed our order on to a > competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC), which was having scheduling > difficulties with the local exchange carrier (LEC). In addition, we were > told our order was promised for 60-day rather than 30-day delivery. The > next e-mail notified us that the LEC had missed its install date. The > rescheduled date came and went, yet still we were informed that the LEC > installation was complete. > When the CLEC installer finally arrived several weeks later, he > couldn't find the LEC termination. An hour of research revealed that the > LEC had mistakenly installed the termination in another building in the > complex. Luckily, the installer was an ex-LEC employee and able to reroute > the termination to our building. But if an operational problem occurs, it > will be a diagnostic nightmare to isolate the connection path. > With the DSL installation completed, our ISP service should have > been available. Well physically, yes, but logically, no. The ISP had > provided the CLEC with incorrect router addresses. Once we resolved the > address problem, we had DSL Internet access service on the LAN. > Next we had to move domain names from the old ISP to the new one. > Although multiple domains are standard in most ISP plans, we found out > that the one we had selected included only one domain. We went back to our > ISP sales representative, who told us that because this was an order > add-on rather than a new order, we required a new contact. After another > series of e-mails, we finally contacted an add-on sales person. > We then discovered that in order to change domain addresses, we had > to make a request to InterNIC in conjunction with the ISP. Our ISP sent > the base request to InterNIC, which sent a set of e-mails to us for > updating and confirmation. We completed these and sent them back to > InterNIC - only to be told that InterNIC could not process the request > because it "was not submitted from the appropriate e-mail address." This > problem took a while to analyze and correct because we had no idea what > "appropriate e-mail address" was originally used to order each domain > name. Then it was a simple task to update our LAN e-mail software. > Finally, we were able to cancel our old ISDN and ISP services. > The entire effort, not including vendor selection, began with an > order on Oct. 21, 1999 and ended with the canceling of prior vendor > services on Feb. 16, 2000 - almost four months of frustration for an order > that should have taken less than two weeks to fulfill. > Yes, DSL is a better, faster and less expensive way to access the > Internet. Unfortunately, it's saddled with back-office systems that belong > in the Dark Ages and politics that may require regulatory oversight. These > problems must be addressed or DSL will continue to frustrate everyone. > Dzubeck is president of Communications Network Architects, an > industry analysis firm in Washington, D.C. >


Dr. Pournelle,

Re: this in "Current Mail":
QUOTE
Jerry, I was just reading this weeks Byte column and saw that you
had problems with large downloads . You should try Go!Zilla @
http://www.gozilla.com/user/  . It will allow one to resume failed
downloads (at sites where that is allowed). D.Tanner
UNQUOTE

Please, be aware there MAY be a security issue with Go!Zilla. Suggest a
look at http://grc.com/optout.htm , which addresses the use of the Aureate system, which is used by Go!Zilla. Note that this is from the Gibson Research Corporation, the makers of SpinRite and a highly respected name in "the business."

QUOTE
As you will see below, in several cases of
installations using this system:

NO indication was provided that the Aureate system was being installed.
The Aureate system communicates in complete secrecy.
The Aureate system establishes a "server" on the user's machine then solicits connections from foreign advertising servers.
The Aureate system is running even when its hosting program is not.
The Aureate system survives the removal of its hosting program.
And even then it continues to operate secretly in the background . .
.
UNQUOTE

If used on your site, feel free to edit/trim, but *please* attribute to my
home
account: juhl@ev1.net.

Robin Juhl

Mr. Dobbins says Aureate is a hoax:

http://vil.nai.com/vil/ve98516.asp 

See also:

I noticed a message in your current mail about the Aureate system that is used in several programs to provide banner advertising. A friend of mine passed on a message to me similar to the one you received, but in more detail. Being the IT Security business, I thought I had missed something and panicked, since I new of at least two programs that I had used which had the system built-in - one of which was Go!zilla.

However, being in the IT Security business, I should also know better. I went to the Computer Virus Myths page (http://kumite.com/myths) earlier today and low and behold, there was the Aureate DLLs Trojan listed as a MYTH.

I was passed a piece of information, and I did not verify. No major damage except to my ego.

Adam Reece ahreece@zdnetonebox.com 

Precisely. I don't mind posting what may be myths here because there is a great chance that a reader will know precisely what is going on. John McCarthy has suggested a AAAS panel for next year on 'taboos in science' and I hope to be on it. My view is that the best way to deal with bad science is good science, and the best way to deal with myths is to air them along with the truth. I recall that a few years ago "plant perception" was all the rage until at a AAAS meeting a Princeton lab did a definitive experiment that showed it was nonsense. Yes, the experiment cost money; but it was good training for the students who conducted it, and the debate over "plant perception" and "plant ESP" had taken up a lot of time. After that it went away.

 

____________________________________ 

 

 

 

 

TOP

 

This week:

Monday
Tuesday
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Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

TOP

Tuesday, March 14, 2000

This showed up today.

Subject: A Nation Under God

This prayer was given in Kansas at the opening session of their Senate. It seems that prayer upsets some people. When minister Joe Wright was asked to open the new session of the Kansas Senate, everyone was expecting the usual generalities, but this is what they heard:

"Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask Your forgiveness and to seek Your guidance and direction. We know Your Word says, "Woe to those who call evil good" but that is exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values. We confess that.

We have ridiculed the absolute truth of Your word and called it Pluralism;
 We have worshipped other gods and called it multiculturalism;
 We have endorsed perversion and called it alternative lifestyle;
 We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery;
 We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare;
 We have killed our unborn and called it choice;
 We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable;
 We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem;
 We have abused power and called it politics;
 We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition;
 We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression;
 We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called in enlightenment.

 Search us, Oh, God and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Guide and bless these men and women who have been sent to direct us to the center of Your will, to openly ask it in the name of Your Son, the living Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen"

The response was immediate. A number of legislators walked out during the prayer in protest. In 6 short weeks, Central Christian Church, where Rev. Wright is pastor, logged more than 5000 phone calls with only 47 negative responses. The church is now receiving international requests for copies of this prayer from India, Africa and Korea.

Commentator, Paul Harvey aired this prayer on "The Rest of the Story" on the radio and received a larger response to this program than any other he has ever aired. With the Lord's help this prayer may sweep over our nation and wholeheartedly become our desire so that we again can be called one nation under God.

What is interesting is not what is said, but that it is now considered bold and different. This is pretty well what you heard at nearly every civic function when I was young. It's more penitential than most were, but there is little in it that would have excited much comment prior to WW II if said at the opening of a legislature. Perhaps this is as well. We don't want to offend people.

> With the Lord's help this prayer may sweep over our nation and wholeheartedly become our desire so that we again can be called one nation under God

I was rather surprised at your response. The United States never has been "one nation under God" no matter what the Pledge of Allegiance might say. The Founding Fathers, many of whom were Deists rather than Christians, were careful to take steps to prevent the establishment of a theocracy, which is what the author of this message seems to advocate. Nehemiah Scudder may yet have his day.

Robert Bruce Thompson thompson@ttgnet.com

 http://www.ttgnet.com

Let's take that in order.  First, are you saying that it was not rather usual to have statements like that at public functions when I was young? I only went to unusual ones? So did Mr. Heinlein then, since he acquired a lot of his distaste for organized religion as a result of such experiences (including chapel at Annapolis, which was compulsory, as it was at West Point). Or do you think Heinlein found Scudder a sympathetic character?

I take it I have been accused of not being politically correct.

As to the rest of what you say, the Framers left religion TO THE STATES. CONGRESS shall make no law respecting AN ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION; a curious wording, no? It was that way to prevent the Federal Government from establishing any church but also to prevent the Federal Government from disestablishing the by law established churches in seven of the thirteen Colonies that became the first 13 States of the Union. Over the course of time all those churches were disestablished by state action, and many state constitutions now forbid established religion, but to argue that the Constitution of the United States does reads more into the Fourteenth Amendment than those who wrote it, and those who ratified it, ever intended.  For good or ill, religion is a state matter, and it is only recently that we get emanations from the penumbras that make it a Federal matter.

I continue my heresy: I think most people ought to live under laws to which they have consented, and that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. (Wonder where I heard that one?) That means that many places will have laws I would not consent to; but I don't have to live there. If on balance most laws are acceptable to my neighbors they probably are to me, or I'll get new neighbors. Federalizing matters ramrods a majority view of what's right down everyone's throat; that may sometimes act to expand liberty, but mostly what it does is make those matters the business of the Federal Government, which can then reverse itself on the subject very easily. Those who think making a matter the business of the Feds a good idea because they like what the Feds will do about it this year may discover in another year that the mood has changed.

I believe in a Federal Republic. I think that if a state wants to establish a religion it is that state's business, and if a town wants to have a manger in a public square, or set a menorah up in a city park, that's up to that town; not to a Federal Court to determine if it's OK so long as they have a Santa Claus and elves nearby as well. I didn't mind when the City of Los Angeles used to leave the lights on in the City Hall Tower in a cross-shape for Christmas and Easter, nor when the City put up money for Jewish festivals and their security. I wouldn't on the other hand insist that San Francisco do the same, much less New York.

I didn't give my view of that prayer, which is that I wouldn't have walked out, but I doubt I would have voted that man to be the permanent chaplain of the legislative chamber either. (But then Henry VIII chose Cranmer to be Archbishop of Canterbury because Cranmer kept the services short....) And I repeat: what's astonishing is that anyone cares that much one way or the other.

We are a great deal more correct now. Is this good?


Dr. Pournelle:

I may well be the 3,467th person to mention this, but the .gif at geek.net~rhayden has been removed, as the AMA sent the guy a cease-and-desist.

There is no humor left in the world.

I seem to remember a pile of flak when the AMA was planning to endorse a line of consumer items in return for financial considerations.

I guess they've repealed the first amendment.

Mark Thompson

More likely they've mislaid their sense of humour. Has anyone seen it? It's not very large...

Anyone know about this:

Worth a look: http://www.e-gold.com

Impliments effective micropayments, gold backed internet currency, four or five years old, $3m in circulation.

Trivially simple setup for a "click here to send me 25 cents" type micropayments.

Oh yeah: transaction costs are 0.5% of the total, max $0.50.

Good system. Might even be worth a story.

best,

Vinay Gupta

PS: I don't work for e-gold but I do like them and their system.

I will indeed look into it. Thanks.

And once in a while I post letters like this because I like them:

Since I became intrigued by computers I was a light show artist in the late 60's and early seventies, and read

Ted Nelsons's Computer Lib Dream Machines, I was fortunate to find your no-nonsense columns on computer technology.

I believe that among the computer industry columnists your efforts are best due to the plain speaking and down to earth approach.

I have migrated in the mid eighties to computer graphics and like the bulk of my peers have found something of the new world off WWW as a place to build my families college funds.

I just wanted to drop you a note, and say as a computer user since the TRS-80s, and atari 400's and so on and so on, and so on It's been great to have your experiments and frustrations to laugh along with on this extremely bumpy ride.

I teach web construction and system analysis at our local community college in Homestead, Florida. (MDCC) And if you ever find your self down east here, I'd like to buy you a cup of coffee. And get you to address my computer students.

Richard W. Spisak Jr. rick@omalas.com 

Omalas? Wasn't that the name of the odd city in an Ursula K LeGuin story (a very disturbing story)? Or has it another significance?  Thanks for the kind words.

(Clark Myers informs me this is Salem O(regon) spelled backwards. LeGuin did use the name in one of her stories, but whether that has anything to do with the domain name is something else again.


EFFector Vol. 13, No. 2 Mar. 1, 2000 editor@eff.org

A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424

IN THE 150th ISSUE OF EFFECTOR (now with over 23,000 subscribers!):

* 10th Anniversary of USSS Raid on Steve Jackson Games &; Illuminati BBS + Intro + Background + Links to More Information * Call for Nominations: The Ninth Annual International EFF Pioneer Awards + Intro + The Year 2000 Awards + How to Nominate Someone + Past Pioneers of the Electronic Frontier + About EFF * Administrivia

For more information on EFF activities &; alerts: http://www.eff.org _____________________________________

10th Anniversary of USSS Raid on Steve Jackson Games &; Illuminati BBS

Landmark case established limits to police power in Cyberspace

Intro

On March 1, 1990, the United States Secret Service (USSS) nearly destroyed Steve Jackson Games (SJG), an award-winning publisher of roleplaying games in Austin, Texas.

Today marks ten years to the day since that fateful search and seizure operation, which led to one of the most important precedent-setting lawsuits in online history, the Electronic Frontier Foundation-backed case of Steve Jackson Games, et al. v. US Secret Service.

"I'm very glad to see that the EFF is still here with us and and fighting the good fight. Back in 1990, [EFF co-founders] Mitch Kapor and John Perry Barlow said that this new organization would be in it for the long haul. After ten years, I think we can see that this's true," remarked Steve Jackson on the anniversary of the infamous raid. "The EFF is a permanent part of the civil liberties landscape. Technology is changing faster than ever, bringing new opportunities, but new hazards to freedom and fairness as well. It's good to know the EFF will always be here when it's needed."

Background

In an early morning raid with an unlawful and unconstitutional warrant, agents of the USSS conducted a search of the SJG office. They seized and removed, all in all, 3 computers, 5 hard disks and more than 300 floppies of software and data, and a book manuscript being prepared for publication. Among this equipment was the hardware and software of the SJG-operated Illuminati BBS (bulletin board system). The BBS served as a small-scale online service for gamers to participate in online discussions and to supply customer feedback to SJG. The BBS (today, the Internet service provide Illuminati Online) was also the repository of private electronic mail belonging to several of its users. This private e-mail was seized in the raid.

Yet Jackson, his business, and his BBS's users were not only innocent of any crime, but never suspects in the first place. The raid had been staged on the unfounded (and later proven false) suspicion that somewhere in Jackson's office there "might be" a document allegedly compromising the security of the 911 telephone system.

The Secret Service did not return the equipment, though legally required to do so and requested to do so many times, until sometime in the end of June of that year. When the equipment was returned more than three months after the raid, it became clear that someone at the USSS inspecting the disks had read and DELETED all of the 162 electronic mail messages contained on the BBS at the time of the raid. Not one of the users of the BBS was even under investigation by the Secret Service, and many of the messages had never even been read by their intended recipients.

In the months that followed the raid, Jackson saw the business he had built up over many years dragged to the edge of bankruptcy. SJG was a successful and prestigious publisher of books and other materials used in adventure role-playing games. Jackson had to layoff nearly half of his work force. Publication of at least one of his gaming books was delayed, resulting in loss of revenues to the company. He was written up in Business Week magazine as being a computer criminal. Jackson decided to fight back.

On May 1, 1991, Steve Jackson, the Steve Jackson Games company, and three users of the Illuminati BBS, with the help of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, filed a civil suit against the United States Secret Service and some indivdually named agents thereof, alleging that the search warrant used during the raid was insufficient, since Steve Jackson Games was a publisher (publishers enjoy special protection under the Privacy Protection Act [PPA] of 1980), and that the protections against improper surveillance in the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) had been violated with regard to the electronic mail on the system.

ECPA consists of a series of amendments to the federal Wiretap Act. It prohibits law enforcement officers from intentionally intercepting, using and/or disclosing the contents of private electronic communications without a warrant. The statute offers similar privacy protection for communications that are stored "incidental to the electronic transmission thereof" (e.g. on the hard drive of a BBS). The users of the Illuminati board claimed that their unread e-mail required a warrant specifically describing the messages to be searched. The Secret Service claimed that no special warrant was required under ECPA - in essence asking the court for license to go on uncontrolled "fishing expeditions" through citizens' private communications, in violation of Fourth Amendment principles. The court sided with Jackson and the other plaintiffs, berating USSS Agent Tim Foley - on the witness stand - for 15 minutes straight.

According to Mike Godwin, EFF Senior Policy Fellow, "the Steve Jackson Games case was the first case to underscore the intersection between civil liberties and the Internet. Our victory in that case sent a signal to the law-enforcement community that the days of unregulated searches and seizures of computers, and shut-downs of online publishers, were over.

The judge's official decision was announced on March 12, 1993. District Judge Sam Sparks awarded more than $50,000 in damages to Steve Jackson Games, citing lost profits and violations of the PPA. In addition, the judge awarded each BBS-user plaintiff $1,000 under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act for the USSS seizure of their stored electronic mail. The judge also ruled that plaintiffs would be reimbursed for their attorneys' fees. Plaintiffs filed an appeal, seeking to hold the USSS liable for "interception" in addition to "seizure" of the e-mail, on the grounds that e-mail still "in transit" if it has not yet been received by its recipients. This clarifying appeal was not successful, as the appellate court held, on a technicality, that "in transit" essentially means only "in transit, momentarily, across communication wires", not "in transit, by whatever medium, between sender and recipient". But the case remains a victory, establishing that at the very least, "stored" e-mail cannot be seized, examined or destroyed with impunity by law enforcement officers, and affirming, by clarifying the meaning of "in transit", that e-mail cannot be eavesdropped upon by police as it is being transmitted from system to system without a proper warrant.

"It's hard to imagine, but the raid on Steve Jackson Games took place years before the World Wide Web even existed. Ten years may not seem like much, but it's an eternity in 'Internet time' The SJG case is still cited as the seminal precedent explaining the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. It was exciting being a part of it," commented Shari Steele, then Director of Legal Services at EFF when the SJG case came to its conclusion. (Steele is presently Co-Director of the allied nonproft organization Digital Bridges).

Godwin added: "The most important factors in our success in the case were Steve Jackson's courage and determination, the resolve of Mitch Kapor and other EFF backers to go the distance, and a excellent and committed legal team."

Representing the plaintiffs in this suit were Harvey A. Silverglate and Sharon L. Beckman of Silverglate &; Good (Boston, MA); Eric Lieberman and Nick Poser of Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard, Krinsky &; Lieberman (New York, NY); and James George, Jr. of Graves, Dougherty, Hearon &; Moody (Austin, TX).

Links to More Information

Steve Jackson Games: http://www.sjgames.com Illuminati Online: http://www.io.com The Electronic Frontier Foundation: http://www.eff.org EFF's SJG Case Archive: http://www.eff.org/pub/Legal/Cases/SJG US Secret Service: http://www.treas.gov/usss/

___________________________________

Administrivia

Seeking Pioneers of the Electronic Frontier

Call for Nominations: The Ninth Annual International EFF Pioneer Awards

Please redistribute this notice in appropriate fora

Intro

In every field of human endeavor, there are those dedicated to expanding knowledge, freedom, efficiency, and utility. Many of today's brightest innovators are working along the electronic frontier. To recognize these leaders, the Electronic Frontier Foundation established the Pioneer Awards for deserving individuals and organizations.

The Pioneer Awards are international and nominations are open to all. The deadline for nominations this year is March 15, 2000 (see nomination criteria and instructions below).

The Year 2000 Awards

The Ninth Annual EFF Pioneer Awards will be presented in Toronto, Canada, at the 10th Conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy (see http://www.cfp2000.org). The ceremony will be held on the evening of April 6, 2000. All nominations will be reviewed by a panel of judges chaired by Dave Farber, FCC Chief Technologist and long time EFF Boardmember, and chosen for their knowledge of the technical, legal, and social issues associated with information technology.

This year's EFF Pioneer Awards judges are: * Herb Brody (Senior Editor, Technology Review) * Dave Farber (Chief Technologist, FCC; Boardmember, EFF) * Moira Gunn (Host, "Tech Nation", NPR) * Larry Irving (CEO, UrbanMagic.com) * Tara Lemmey (Executive Director, EFF) * Peter G. Neumann (Principal Scientist, SRI Intl. Computer Science Lab; Moderator, ACM Risks Forum) * Susan H. Nycum (Partner, Baker &; McKenzie) * Drazen Pantic (NYU Center for War, Peace, &; the News Media) * Barbara Simons (President, ACM)

How to Nominate Someone

There are no specific categories for the EFF Pioneer Awards, but the following guidelines apply: 1. The nominees must have made a substantial contribution to the health, growth, accessibility, or freedom of computer-based communications. 2. The contribution may be technical, social, economic, or cultural. 3. Nominations may be of individuals, systems, or organizations in the private or public sectors. 4. Nominations are open to all, and you may nominate more than one recipient. You may nominate yourself or your organization. 5. All nominations, to be valid, must contain your reasons, however brief, for nominating the individual or organization, along with a means of contacting the nominee, and your own contact number. Anonymous nominations will be allowed, but we prefer to be able to contact the nominating parties in the event that we need further information. 6. Every person or organization, with the exception of EFF staff and board members, is eligible for an EFF Pioneer Award. 7. Persons or representatives of organizations receiving an EFF Pioneer Award will be invited to attend the ceremony at the Foundation's expense.

You may send as many nominations as you wish, but please use one e-mail per nomination. Submit all entries to: pioneer@eff.org

Just tell us: 1. The name of the nominee; 2. The phone number or e-mail address at which the nominee can be reached; and, most importantly, 3. Why you feel the nominee deserves the award;

You may attach supporting documentation in Microsoft Word or other standard binary formats.

Past Pioneers of the Electronic Frontier

1992: Douglas C. Engelbart, Robert Kahn, Jim Warren, Tom Jennings, and Andrzej Smereczynski; 1993: Paul Baran, Vinton Cerf, Ward Christensen, Dave Hughes and the USENET software developers, represented by the software's originators Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis; 1994: Ivan Sutherland, Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman, Murray Turoff and Starr Roxanne Hiltz, Lee Felsenstein, Bill Atkinson, and the WELL; 1995: Philip Zimmermann, Anita Borg, and Willis Ware; 1996: Robert Metcalfe, Peter Neumann, Shabbir Safdar and Matthew Blaze; 1997: Marc Rotenberg, Johan "Julf" Helsingius, and (special honorees) Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil; 1998: Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, and Barbara Simons; 1999: Jon Postel, Drazen Pantic, and Simon Davies.

See http://www.eff.org/awards for further information.

About EFF

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (http://www.eff.org) is a global nonprofit organization linking technical architectures with legal frameworks to support the rights of individuals in an open society. Founded in 1990, EFF actively encourages and challenges industry and government to support free expression, privacy, and openness in the information society. EFF is a member-supported organization and maintains one of the most-linked-to Web sites in the world.

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EFFector is published by:

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Editor: Stanton McCandlish, Communications Coordinator/Webmaster (editor@eff.org)

Membership &; donations: membership@eff.org General EFF, legal, policy or online resources queries: ask@eff.org

Reproduction of this publication in electronic media is encouraged. Signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of EFF. To reproduce signed articles individually, please contact the authors for their express permission. Press releases and EFF announcements may be reproduced individually at will.

To subscribe to EFFector via email, send message BODY of: subscribe effector-online to listserv@eff.org, which will add you to a subscription list for EFFector. To unsubscribe, send a similar message body, like so: unsubscribe effector-online to the same address.

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To get the latest issue, send any message to effector-reflector@eff.org (or er@eff.org), and it will be mailed to you automagically. You can also get: http://www.eff.org/pub/EFF/Newsletters/EFFector/current.html -- Stanton McCandlish mech@eff.org http://www.eff.org/~mech Program Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation voice: +1 415 436 9333 x105 fax: +1 415 436 9333 PGPfone: 204.253.162.21

 

 

 

 

 

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Wednesday, The Ides of March

Ouch! Judge Sides With Spammer URL: http://chkpt.zdnet.com/chkpt/adem2fpf/www.anchordesk.com/story/story_4564.html

 Berst Alert Jesse Berst, Editorial Director

is worth your attention. Thanks to Tracy Walters for pointing me to it.


Dear Dr. Pournelle,

Although at first glance Burning City didn't appear to be the kind of story I would normally like, I ordered a copy from Amazon ( I've liked everything else you and Mr. Niven have written). It now appears that I should have gone with my initial feelings, and held off on purchasing the book! Now I find myself having to anxiously await the publication of Burning Tower. (Whandall's daughter?) This could take some time, as you currently seem to be engaged in enough projects to keep several people busy - full time! If they are ever able to clone you, please have them make at least five Jerry Pournelle's to write fiction.

Thank you for another great book,

Claud Addicott

Thank you for the testimonial. Of course you can order The Burning City easily...


And now for the ultimate Internet Legend:

From: Edward hume <ehume@pshrink.com

Subj: The ultimate e-mail 

This must be true: I got this from a guy who works for a computer hardware manufacturer, and he should know:

I know this guy whose neighbor, a young man, was home recovering from having been served a rat in his bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. So anyway, one day he went to sleep and when he awoke he was in his bathtub and it was full of ice and he was sore all over. When he got out of the tub he realized that HIS KIDNEYS HAD BEEN STOLEN and he saw a note on his mirror that said "Call 911", but he was afraid to use his phone because it was connected to his computer, and there was a virus on his computer that would destroy his hard drive if he opened an e-mail entitled Join the Crew! He knew it wasn't a hoax because he himself was a computer programmer who was working on software to save us from Armageddon when the year 2000 rolled around. And it's a little known fact that the Y1K problem caused the Dark Ages. His program will prevent a global disaster in which all the computers get together and distribute the $250.00 Neiman-Marcus cookie recipe under the leadership of Bill Gates. (It's true-I read it all last week in a mass e-mail from BILL GATES HIMSELF, who was also promising me a free Disney World vacation and $5,000 if I would forward the e-mail to everyone I know.) Anyway, the poor man then tried to call 911 from a pay phone to report his missing kidneys, but reaching into the coin-return slot he got jabbed with an HIV-infected needle around which was wrapped around a note that said, "Welcome to the world of AIDS." Luckily he was only a few blocks from the hospital-the one where that little boy who is dying of cancer is. You know the one whose last wish is for everyone in the world to send him an e-mail and the American Cancer Society has agreed to pay him a nickel for every e-mail he receives. I sent him two e-mails and one of them was a bunch of x's and o's in the shape of an angel (if you get it and forward it to 10 people, you will have good luck but 10 people you will only have OK luck and if you send it to less than 10 people you will have BAD LUCK FOR SEVEN YEARS). So anyway the poor guy tried to drive himself to the hospital, but on the way he noticed another car driving along without its lights on. To be helpful, he flashed his lights at him and was promptly shot as part of a gang initiation.

Send THIS to all the friends who send you their junk mail and you will receive 4 green M&;Ms, but if you don't the owner of Proctor and Gamble will report you to his Satanist friends and you will have more bad luck, your wife will develop breast cancer from using the antiperspirant which clogged the pores under her arms, and the U.S. government will put a tax on your emails forever.

 

 

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Thursday, March 16, 2000

This from the GetRight people:

I'm getting a bunch of mail too...

The big thing people are concerned about is that it is "spyware" and is spying on them or their computer. That is not true. The person who did the original report has since retracted it (and much of it wasn't right, hence their items in the message you sent below about the "fix" programs deleting other, completely non-related files and breaking other programs.) Until that obscene text bit you sent, everything I've seen has been that original (wrong) report passed around.

Some good info at a "myth tracking" site: http://kumite.com/myths/myths/myth036.htm  Qoute from them: "Hysteria got in the way of the facts in this case" And even McAfee/Network Associates has also posted notices that the spy reports are a hoax: http://vil.nai.com/vil/ve98516.asp 

Aureate has gotten me a new version of that MSIPCSV.EXE file that has all the stupid and obscene text removed. I'll be including that in the next version of GetRight coming very soon.

Hopefully this won't be like the "Good Times" warning email that floats around forever...

-Michael  Burford

www.GetRight.com 

 

And if you go and look, you will find that Langa and Gibson have, alas, been bitten by the hoax although there were obscene comments in the Aureate file; they were comments only and finding them took a certain amount of digging. They wouldn't be found by a user. Gibson has, with his usual thoroughness, gone deeper and found ways to eliminate all this  if you like, but if you do, some freeware won't work and you will have to register some shareware; which is I suspect only fair.

I am no great fan of advertising programs, but this one seems no more evil than most. And that ought to be the end of this panic.


Dr. Pournelle, I have a strong background in history and poli sci but my hard science is pretty weak (calculus was an NROTC requirement NOT my preference). Can you recommend any broad reference work for an aspiring scifi writer? Thanks for your time. Very respectfully, Sean Murphy

The Borderlands of Science by Charles Sheffield  (Baen)


 

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Friday, March 17, 2000

Snakes Alive!

Dear Jerry;

Bill Joy's dire predictions are of course unanswerable -- not because there isn't an answer to the fears he vents, but because of how thoroughly and relentlessly /subjective/ is the darned piece.

It cannot have escaped you how selective are his quotations, how unidimensional his gurus, who range all the way from the nervously liberal to the apoplecticly socialist, and how no matter what the danger, the solution is always the same: smash the looms. Joy begins with the presumption that machines would evolve but not Man and ends by embracing the philosophy of the supreme fatalist of the age, the Dalai Lama. That and the conclusion of Victor Frankenstein in the Universal movie, that there are some things Man was not meant to know.

Yet this is assumption piled upon assumption, the stressed and feverish, dystopian mirror of Frank Tipler's utopic dreams in The Physics of Immortality. Joy seems to have eaten Murphy's (or Finagle's) Law whole; and like a bad piece of fish, it threatens to overwhelm his entire system unless he disgorges it upon the rest of us.

He bases much of his pessimism upon the standard catechism of the left, Nihil Obstat, that the Cold War represented Man's most horrific mistake -- instead of our most noble victory. Reading Joy, one comes away with the distinct impression that we nuked 70% of the northern hemisphere into radioactive glass sometime around 1971 -- or perhaps 1981 -- and today we all curse those myopic eggheads of the Manhattan Project, may their tribe decrease. No consideration given to the possibility that nuclear weapons prevented the rest of Europe falling under the dominion of the Evil Empire, after the disgrace at Yalta.

And by the same token, no consideration given to the possibility that "GNR" technology may well be the savior of Mankind, rather than the source of its demise. He quotes some other doomsayer to the effect that we would be presumptuous and arrogant to assume we lived in the first .0001% of the human lifespan. This point could be equally well applied to any range of +- .0001% surrounding any point... it's equally "arrogant" to assume we're exactly 50% or exactly 73.441% of the way through the lifespan, just as it's "arrogant" for any particular person buying a lottery ticket to assume that his is the winning combination; yet somebody wins darn near every week. (The chance of an infinitely sharp dart hitting a particular point on a plane is exactly zero; but it will hit /some/ point!)

And speaking now for common sense, as opposed to mathematical abstraction, isn't it also arrogant for us to assume that we're the only species ever to have evolved in the galaxy? To assume that no other species has developed GNR technology? To conclude that anybody who did either dumped it, as Joy demands we do, or became extinct? What will happen the first time we encounter a species that did not reason as Joy did and kept the old replicating genetic nanotech around for giggles and grins?

Similarly, there are any number of cosmic catastrophes that can strike at the "cosmos," the sum total of the human experience, all that is known, as opposed to the chaos outside (and in your manor); it is arrogant to assume we'll never be the unlucky recipient of such special attention from the universe as a comet or a bacterium or virus that threatens to wipe us all out.

Joy's reasoning is similar to that of the Jesuits, who argued thus: suppose the chance for a theistic God to exist is very tiny, only a millionth of a millionth of a percent; yet since the consequences of heresy in such a case -- /eternal damnation/ -- are infinite, still we /must/ so believe. What this reasoning ignores is that the consequences of, for example, heresy of a demonic sort -- flagrantly refusing to follow the Devil -- would be equally "infinite," so by their own reasoning, we must strive to be saints and sinners simultaneously.

Similarly, if we believe the structure of Joy's argument, we must simultaneously develop and suppress development of GNR technology... a neat trick, even when performed by the inventor of Java, Berkelely Unix, and good, old vi. --

Dafydd ab Hugh

Never attribute to stupidity what can satisfactorily be explained by malice. The truly powerful are rarely stupid.

Of course. The interesting thing is that someone with some technological credentials is saying all this. Thanks. Good to hear from you.


Can anyone help?:

Mr. Pournelle, I am sorry to barder you. I am looking for some information on the Northgate Omnikey DIP switches where I can remap the Caps/Ctrl and Alt keys. I have an OmniKey/PLUS and I am looking to map the keys as below: Ctrl A S Shift Z X Caps ~ Alt Space_Bar

I have look for several days on the web and looking for the old manual that I had. As you can tell I was not successful. There used to be a Northgate OmniKey Fan Club but that no long exist either.

I know you were/are a big fan of the keyboards from your BYTE magazine columns. If you have or know of where I can get this information I would be greatly appreciated. If you happened to have an old manual and can fax me the instructions here's my fax number: (941) 371-5223.

Thanks-you for you time,

Yong  [yong@csfi.com]


> my Viking ancestors used to raid Ireland for loot and slave girls.

Later evidence suggests that the Vikings were actually pretty nice folks, and that most of their bad reputation was due to the one-sided accounts written by priests. For example, archaeological digs have found quite a bit of evidence that the Vikings tended to come, stay, and settle much more commonly than they raided, raped, looted, and pillaged. And their settlements were usually on poorer land than those of the people who were already there, suggesting that Vikings were pretty peaceable folks.

I personally think that most of the bad reputation of the Vikings was due to a few teenaged Vikings who smoked, drank beer, rode Harleys, and chased Celtic girls.

I often, incidentally, describe myself as a Viking-American. I note that there was no such category on the Census form that my wife just completed. She wouldn't let me touch it, because I'd told her ahead of time that I was going to claim mixed ancestry on the theory that that's true for all of us.

Bob

Robert Bruce Thompson thompson@ttgnet.com 

 http://www.ttgnet.com 

I am afraid I have missed that later evidence. I know that in Sweden all the museums hide the Viking era stuff in the basement out of modern day political correctness, and the Anglican Litany no longer has "From the fury of the Northmen, Good Lord deliver us," but it seems a bit harder to hide the legacy of Alfred the Great. Then there was the Danelaw and the Danegeld. And the fact that Paris is where it is because it is the lowest point on the Seine where it was possible to build a fortified bridge to stop the Northmen from rowing up the river.

Or that the Esthonians, in revenge, burned the old capital of Sweden, and the Danes got their national flag during a raid on Estonia.

It is also hard to ignore the hundreds and hundreds of contemporary accounts of the terror inspired by the coming of the dragon prowed ships. Or the Eddas.. Sure, many written accounts were by clergy, because that was by far the largest source of literacy. But I would not have thought that France would give Normandy to Rollo of Skene (a distant ancestor of mine) on condition that he'd settle there. convert to Christianity, and keep his other relatives out just to avoid peaceful traders and settlers.. I'd have thought that Harold's adventures at Stamford Bridge and his experiences with Hardragger (he may have his six feet of English soil, or somewhat more since he is larger than other men) would point to a slightly different view also, even if you don't think of the Normans as Frenchified Danes. Now true enough, the Northmen did settle the Faroes and Iceland and Denmark and the Outer Islands of Scotland, but the raids on Ireland seem pretty well documented to me.

 

"And we never pay anyone Danegeld, no matter how trifling the cost,

for the end of that game is oppression and shame, and the nation that plays it is lost, lost, lost, and the nation that plays it is lost."  


Jerry,

I just spent some time wandering the web in search of an answer, and then I remembered you saying your readers collectively know everything; therefore, my question:

Most people know of the drink "Black and Tan," canonically made with Bass Ale and Guinness Stout (although I've heard of other "tan" components, including Harp and Smithwicks). I'm curious about the origin of the drink and its name. Because of the coincidence of its name with the _other_ "Black and Tan" -- the members of the Royal Irish Constabulary, who fought against the armed movement for Irish independence in '20 and '21 (they got their name, I recall, because they mixed the black uniforms of the Irish milita with the khaki of the Crown) -- and the similar national origins of the ingredients, I'd always figured that the answer is clear. This goes along with the advice of some of my inlaws (who are 100% Irish -- and they are the better authorities, since I'm only around 75% myself) not to ask for that drink up Dublin way... and also explains why it is common enough in Britain, but not Ireland (where I'm told they call it a "half-and-half".

However, when I search I find nothing substantial on this. Even the Guinness page on the topic

http://webpages.marshall.edu/~bennett7/guinness/guinfaq.htm#bnt 

(which mentions the British military Black and Tans) doesn't really offer an etymology of the term.

In the spirit of the day, then, I present this question to you and the rest of your readers.

Troy Loney

P.S.: I will freely admit that my curiosity has been recently fueled by a couple of Black and Tans. Okay, more than a couple; it's so damned hard to get the bottles to come out even, you know? The "pint" glasses really aren't a pint, and you can't just waste the dregs... you know how it goes.

 ;)

Continued below


I've seen that page http://grc.com/optout.htm  being quoted a lot...and read it several times myself. Hasn't been updated since the first reports as far as I have seen...and his bits about "Firstly -- RELAX A LOT" and other things like that are way down the page.

But I can only speak for GetRight and what I believe to be true, my comments for each of those main items:

* NO indication was provided that the Aureate system was being installed. Programs are supposed to have Aureate's license agreement in with their own, and display as part of the installer. GetRight does and always has. Some people have said they don't think this is enough notice--and say they never read those. To be on the safer side, the next version of GetRight (a beta at: www.getright.com/beta42.html) does also have a note on the first page of the installer that says there are ads in the trial version and refers them to the License agreement step of the installer. But even that doesn't guarantee people will read it and not just keep clicking for the next step in the installer.

* The Aureate system communicates in complete secrecy. True; but a web browser's actual "communication" part also isn't shown--just the results: a loaded web page. Similar for the advertising system, you just see the results of the transfer: an advertisement. Or for a download tool like GetRight, don't see the actual data being transferred either, but see the results: a downloaded file.

* The Aureate system establishes a "server" on the user's machine then solicits connections from foreign advertising servers. Not sure on this one. I did some checking using a network Socket monitoring tool, and did not seen this happen.

* The Aureate system is running even when its hosting program is not. True. As I understand it, it will run to download advertisements to its cache, then exit when the cache is full. This is so programs that are run when not connected to the Internet can show ads. I have requested that programs using the Aureate system do have some control over that--since things like GetRight are primarily used when people are connected. They haven't done it yet.

* The Aureate system survives the removal of its hosting program. It is not supposed to. It is supposed to use the "Windows Shared DLL" counters. Windows keeps a counter to track how many different programs are using a DLL; programs increase the count when installing, and decrease when uninstalling. But if some program doesn't increase or decrease them right, it throws them off for everyone else. Testing with GetRight, if the counters decrease to 0 when it uninstalls, it does remove the Aureate DLLs. But if the counters are off, it is possible they would not be uninstalled when they should, or could be uninstalled when they should not. And Windows even can likely mess it up...it gives a "This file appears to not be used by any more program..." message with Yes/No boxes for actually deleting the file. If people click No there, they could be left around too. There are something like 400 programs using their system...if one doesn't install/uninstall right, it can throw off any of the others who do it right. I do think coordination and some of the Aureate documentation for developers need work so all programs would do their uninstallers right.

* And even then [after uninstall of hosting program] it continues to operate secretly in the background I think just a side-effect of counters being off so not uninstalled and just keeps running as usual. The DLLs think there is still some program that will need them and operate as normal.

-Michael Burford www.getright.com

 

 

 

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Saturday, March 18, 2000

In reference to Troy Loney's letter:

Can you or anyone else tell me where I can get some Smithwick's in the USA?

I visited Ireland in 1981 and had a great time. What I remember most was the Guiness and Smithwick's. Guiness I can get anywhere, and have done my share to keep them in business. But all these long years have been Smithwick's free, and not happily so.

Everyone in Ireland thought I was German. I guess it was because I was an American kid who liked Guiness stout, while all my pals kept asking "Do you have Lone Star beer?" They asked this in the Guiness brewery, no foolin'.

Jim Snover

Having consumed more than my lifetime share already, I no longer drink, so I fear I don't have the incentive to collect that kind of knowledge. Perhaps a reader can help.

Jim Snover wants to find Smithwick's Ale in the U.S., and he's not alone. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be imported here:

http://yp.washingtonpost.com/E/V/WASDC/0020/22/29/3.html 

A version is available in Canada (as Smithwick's Export) and in some European countries (as Kilkenny Irish Beer), so he might have some luck if he lives in the right part of this country. He may also be lucky enough to live near the Dubliner, in DC.

My guess is that his best bet is to check microbrews for something in the Irish Ale style -- with the incredible interest in micros over the last several years, someone almost certainly has produced a good imitation of just about any famous beer; Irish pubs with their own breweries would be an especially fertile ground. He might also look for Kilkenny Irish Beer, on the off chance a little of it might have gotten in.

Troy Loney


Mr. Dobbins sends this "without comment" and I pass it along in the same condition:

> http://news.excite.com/news/r/000315/08/odd-women 


Jerry -

I checked the online Daily News; they had this article, though the URL may change after "today".... http://www.dailynews.com/extra/today/new10.asp 

I don't know if this is what you read earlier; some important points to me are:

- the actual website was hosted in Boston, so the FBI was not looking where it had no charter. (Not that you said they *were*, but it makes it more understandable why they'd be involved.) - The site had been under investigation since last Fall. - On Feb 11, the FBI searched Kreutzer's residence and took some Zip disks and other such stuff. - It wasn't until March 17 that they arrested him. This *might* mean that they took time to be more sure. - 8 of 30 images are said to depicted real children. - He was arrested on "suspicion of possessing" it. - He (or someone) did more than just log on to the site; they initiated FTP or some such. (I don't much know the technical details of how what happens.)

Though the article DID say the FBI was tracing "people who had logged on", which might mean no more than clicking a link. Maybe they're only busting those who did actually download, as opposed to images that appear on the main screen and you have no choice about "downloading" them.... But I'm sorry, this is getting too long, and I'm being unnecessarily picky. Not my job to make excuses or suppositions for the FBI. And it's such a short article; where does one go for longer, more complete stuff?...

That said, I agree that it's important to follow this case carefully, and you made good points. It's scary.

Best wishes,

Ken

p.s. I'm a long-time reader of your Byte columns and fiction. The former has been especially useful when I've had to convince people I was doing the best I could. "See, he has the same problems, and he writes for a computer magazine! It's ALL like that!" The latter has given me many hours of entertainment.

There is more detail in the on-line article than in the printed version; interesting. Thank you.

 

 

 

 

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Sunday, March 19, 2000

Another letter from the GetRight people on Aureate:

GetRight FYI: Aureate has gotten me a newer version of that file with all that stupid text removed. It is in the beta of GetRight 4.2 right now: www.getright.com/beta42.html and the 4.2 release with the updated file should be coming very soon.

And there is a patch that can update their files right now: www.headlightinc.com/patch.exe

More to throw into the mix: As far as I have found, the site with the most worrying information about all this is the one that also provides the "fix" program to remove all the advertising stuff--you can judge how impartial that makes them. And ironically for an advertising removing program, the fix does contain a bit of self-advertising to get you to join their "FREE eMail System". (And some not so subtle comments in the Help/About implying he's smarter and better than other developers: "...they lack any real understanding of the computers they are programming...")

-Michael Burford www.GetRight.com


Subject: Porn, spam, privacy.

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

Saw the bit about the teacher getting arrested (looked at all the mail, and the article as well) and it got me to thinking.

The actions of people in the porn business, and spammers in general, will, eventually, result in some kind of Federal Regulation. While this is certainly not good, it will be the inevitable result of their failure to police themselves. Hopefully it will just a requirement for valid return addresses (although the spammers managed to convince a judge in Washington that that was a violation of the Interstate Commerce Clause).

Sometimes clicking on the wrong link, or a typo in a URL, gets one into what John Dvorak calls a 'porn loop' where windows keep opening faster than you can close them, forcing a logoff. A couple of years ago, just for the heck of it, I let such a loop run and it opened so many windows that my (Windows) system overloaded and crashed. Fortunately KPPP makes it easy to log off in a hurry. My personal worry about these things is that, living in Utah as I do, I may be accidently in violation of local law. I am not sure I could prove that it was an accident! The local police are, I think, fairly clueless about these things. The ones in St. George, south of here, do have it together. They even converted their 911 system from Windows NT to Linux. Seems the 911 operators got upset at the Blue Screens when they were handling emergency calls.

I have a friend (a woman) whose hotmail account gets from 10 to 20 of these things a day. Telling the porn spammers that she is not interested doesn't work, neither do threats of going to the police, neither, I suspect, would going to the police. Why they send this to a grandmother, in her 60's, in Utah, we don't know. Of course, to get past it to the important mail, she HAS to download it. Which is, of course, illegal.

Fortunately, I do not get much spam. One or two a week. This is a result of being careful of who I give my address to, what I check off on a form, and buying online only when I can't get it locally (except for Borland and O'Reilly, who have good privacy policies). Also, as the result of a sinful youth, I can't get a checking account, and when I bought my new car the loan was at the 10% 'severe credit risk' rate rather than the 2% rate. The spammers have access to credit reports, and this probably discourages some of them. High price for privacy though. And the method I use to avoid spam (being careful, not bouncing checks), and which I recommend to all, does put a crimp in online business plans.

On spam in general. At my place of work, and others I know of, clearing the spam from the mailbox can take 5 to 10 minutes a day. Doesn't sound too bad, except that at 3 people/day 5 days/week you have 1 and a quarter hours a week, or 65 man-hours a year. Right out of the company's bottom line. And we are a small company. Multiply this across the country and you get a large figure. This doesn't include the sort of 'spam storm' that hit you a few weeks ago.

I am not fond of Federal regulation of the online world. The cure, while probably not worse than the disease, could be just as bad. Eventually the number of complaints from businesses who donate to campaigns, and from registered voters, will exceed the weight that the DMA can bring to bear and Congress will act. Of course, 'No ones life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session' (see UCITA). I don't know what we can do about this, we want to stop spam, but we don't want the government to stomp all over us in the process. But government is a broadsword, not a scalpel. It's not good at fine adjustments. Some ISPs filter spam, but the recent ruling in Washington state brings the legality of this practice into doubt.

Kit Case Cedar City, Utah kitcase@netutah.com 

Good observations. I expect we will have a lot more on this as time goes on. Thanks

March 19

Dear Jerry:

Regarding the recent arrest by the FBI of the fellow downloading child porn, a second possibility exists which is even more frightening than a "Trojan Horse" Internet site: tempest monitoring. Here's a quote from THE CODE BOOK by Simon Singh which highlights the issue:

"To defend against tempest attacks, companies are already supplying shielding material that can be used to line the walls of a room to prevent the escape of electromagnetic signals. In America, it is necessary to obtain a government license before buying such shielding material, which suggests that organizations like the FBI regularly rely on tempest surveillance."

In the post-Columbine era is it too much to wonder if the government is monitoring schools via tempest equipment? Frightening thought... but maybe the porn guy was caught incidentally as a by-product of a tempest search (or fishing expedition) for much more dangerous communications such as plans, diaries, or e-mails about potential violence at that school.

What's your take on this?

All the best--

Tim Loeb

I have no idea. I hope the government is not wasting time and money on this. Is there confirmation that one must have a license to install a Farrady cage around a computing room? I find that hard to believe, but then much of this seems hard to believe.

My wife tells me that many teachers have been arrested, and although seldom prosecuted, lose their positions as a result of downloaded material. I also recall a 60 Minutes episode in which a postal inspector mailed someone kiddie porn in order to obtain a search warrant; I was horrified at the time, but I confess I didn't follow the case to disposition. Some Iowa farmer never accused of any irregularities in his life other than downloading some pornograph (and possibly subscribing to the wrong magazine, the details are hazy).

While I concede the right of local communities to have fairly restrictive laws, this Federal power to mind everyone's business scares me.


Dear Dr. Pournelle and readers;

If a novice at this Chaos Manor correspondence may put in his oar:

The earliest reference I recall (no date, alas) to the Black and Tans is to a hunt club (horses after foxes) and refers to the livery colors. There's also a reference in Kipling's "Drums Of The Fore and Aft" about a few men "who had cleared streets in Ireland with the Black and Tans". Now, since Kipling's story was written before 1900, and lloyd George's "cadets" didn't start their work until well after Easter Week of 1916 it seems obvious the name had been around a while.

Hal Frank DI

Ha. And Drums of the Fore and Aft was the Kipling story that got me reading his other adult (as opposed to Just So and Jungle Book) stories. Her Majesty's Fore and Fit. It was read on the radio on a Saturday morning; which dates me, there being then no television and Saturday morning kid shows tended to be a bit more literary, Fore and Aft being in there with Poe and Benet and such like.


Subject: Dr. Possony and rule of law

I agree with the statement by Dr. Possony you quote in your Intellectual Capital column this week. I happen to think that rational discussion hasn't won the day, however. When I look at out political situation, your editor's introductions to the stories in Imperial Stars, There will be war, as well as several other single volume anthologies you published, the comparison is stark. We are in deep trouble!

No civilization can survive a lack of respect for the property of another, it is the foundation of the rule of law. Your experience with the Russian BBS is simply part and parcel of the current mobocracy there and is not surprising and seems to be where we are headed if things don't change soon. The mobs will form in a slightly different manner than Russia's, but the end will be no different. "Democracy" is no better.

If I were Stephen King I would never have allowed my work to be distributed electronically. It's not a disdain for technology (I've been messing with computers longer than you were writing for Byte), I'm an Engineer. It simply noils down to a matter of defense of a property right. Alas, in this sinful world, if we make it easy, or it seems that there will be no punishment for theft, it's going to be done.

Best Wishes, Richard L. Hardison, PS, PE

 

 

 

 

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