Computer underground Digest Sun Oct 5, 1997 Volume 9 : Issue 72 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, #9.72 (Sun, Oct 5, 1997) File 1--DEMOCRACY AND CYBERSPACE - parts 1-4 File 2--Islands in the Clickstream: The Illusion of Control File 3--The X-Stop Files File 4--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 7 May, 1997) CuD ADMINISTRATIVE, EDITORIAL, AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION APPEARS IN THE CONCLUDING FILE AT THE END OF EACH ISSUE. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 27 Sep 1997 21:16:58 +0100 (IST) From: "Richard K. Moore" Subject: File 1--DEMOCRACY AND CYBERSPACE - parts 1-4 Thanks to CuDigest for running this series of articles. Let me just give a brief pitch for the series if I may. Over the past two years I founded CPSR's cyber-rights campaign/list and have been tracking and debating the various regulatory/legal battles which have been converging on Internet. What I've observed is that the Internet community, generally, is suffering from serious gaps in its understanding of the future of the communications industry. In particular, the mass media industry - including television, films, music, and games - is rarely given the central attention it deserves in any rational appraisal of what lies in store for Internet as communications are globalized. This "perspective gap" severely constrains the long-range effectiveness of pro-Internet lobbyists, activists, etc. There are three predictions which I believe are irrefutable: (1) there will be deployed a high-bandwidth, integrated, global communications infrastructure, (2) that network - "digital cyberspace" - will be the the primary delivery vehicle for all mass-media products, (3) the current global cartelization of mass-media will continue, and will include mass-media ownership of the telecommunications infrastructure. This last is simply the continuation of the standard policy of the media giants. For example GE, Disney, Time-Warner, and Westinghouse - who dominate the U.S. news/entertainment industry - are vertically integrated: they own cable networks, broadcast licenses, cinema chains, satellites, video rental outlets, etc. - the means of distribution. By owning/monopolizing the distribution channels, and through copyright protection of content, they manage to control and capitalize on all significant information flows to mass audiences. As cyberspace gets closer to deployment, the media industry will obviously approach the digital distribution system the same way they've approached every other distribution system (broadcast, cable, etc) - they'll seek acquistions, mergers, and partnerships in telecom. Meanwhile, by virtue of the WIPO strong-copyright treaty, which I believe the U.S. has already signed, the legal foundation is laid for cyberspace to be monopolized in the same way television has been. If we want to influence the future of cyberspace, and possibly preserve something of Internet culture, we need to step back from the trees and get a strategic perspective on the forest. "Democracy and Cyberspace" ranges over many topics, but only because they all bear directly on cyberspace - the nervous system of globalization. I'd appreciate any comments or feedback. Richard K. Moore Wexford, Ireland US citizen rkmoore@iol.ie _______________________________________________________________ DEMOCRACY AND CYBERSPACE Copyright 1997 by Richard K. Moore Wexford, Ireland rkmoore@iol.ie http://www.iol.ie/~rkmoore/cyberjournal Presented at International Conference "Discourse and Decision Making in the Information Age" University of Teesside 18 September 1997 [Revised: 24 Sep] Digital cyberspace: a quick tour of the future ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Let's stand back for a moment from today's Internet and from the temporary lag in deployment of state-of-the-art digital technology. From a longer perspective, certain aspects of the future cyberspace are plain to see. As regards transport infrastructure - the pipes - cyberspace is simply the natural and inevitable integration/rationalization of the disparate, patched-together, special purpose networks that make up the nervous system of modern societies. Besides the _public_ distribution systems such as terrestrial and satellite broadcast, cable, and telephone (cellular and otherwise), this integration will also extend to dedicated _private_ systems, such as handle point-of- sale transactions, tickets and reservations, inter-bank transfers, CCTV surveillance, stock transfers, etc. The _cost savings_, _performance gains_, and _application flexibility_ brought by such total integration are simply too compelling for this integration scenario to be seriously doubted. Just as surely as the telegraph replaced the carrier pigeon, and the telephone replaced the telegraph, this integration is one bit of progress that is bound to happen, one way or another, sooner or later. Significant technical work is still required on the infrastructure, to provide efficiently and reliably such mandatory features as security, guaranteed bandwidth, accountability, authentication, and the prevention of "mail-bombs" and other Internet anomalies. But these features don't require rocket science - they are more a matter of selecting from proven technologies and agreeing on standards, interconnect arrangements, and implementation schedules. The global digital high-bandwidth network - the hardware of cyberspace - will in fact be the ultimate distribution mechanism for the mass-media industry: it will subsume broadcast (air and cable) television, video-tape rentals, and perhaps even audio cd's. These familiar niceties will go the way of vinyl records and punched cards. Cyberspace will be the universal connection of the individual to the world at large: "transactions on the net" will be the the way to access funds and accounts, make purchases and reservations, pay taxes, view media products (films, news, sports, entertainment, etc), initiate real-time calls, send and receive messages from individuals and groups, query traffic-congestion patterns, etc. ad infinitum. Each transaction will have an associated price - posted to your account - with some portion going to the ultimate vendor (eg, content provider) and some going to the various intermediaries - just as with credit card purchases today. Today's Internet: democratized communications ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Today's Internet is most remarkable for its cultural aspects. Technically, Internet is one small episode in the ever-evolving parade of technology, and soon to be outmoded. But culturally - and economically - Internet seems to be a phenomenon nearly unprecedented in human history. Internet is a non-monetized communications realm, an open global commons, a communications marketplace with a very special economics in both content and transport. Each physical node (and its connecting hookups) is, in essence, donated to the network infrastructure by its operator (government agency, private company, university, ISP) for his own and the common benefit - a classic case of anarchistic mutual benefit. Similarly the content of Internet is a voluntary commons: anyone can be a publisher or can self-publish their own work. Publications of all levels of quality and subject matter are available, generally for free. The only costs to a user are typically fixed and moderate - everyone in the globe is a local call away, so to speak, and communication with groups is as cheap and convenient as communication with individuals. Anyone can join the global Internet co-op for a modest fee. Internet brings the massification of discourse; it prototypes the democratization of media. Individuals voluntarily serve as "intelligent agents", forwarding on items of interest to various groups. Web sites bristle with links to related sites, and an almost infinite world of information becomes effectively accessible even by novices. Netizens experience this global commons as a democratic renaissance, a flowering of public discourse, a finding-of-voice by millions who might otherwise have exemplified Thoreau's "lives of quiet desperation". Like minded people can virtually gather together, across national boundaries and without concern for time-zones. Information, perhaps published in an obscure leaflet in an unknown corner of the world, suddenly is brought to the attention of thousands worldwide - based on its intrinsic interest-value. The net is especially effective in the coordination of real-world organizations - enhancing group communication, reducing travel and meetings, and enabling more rapid decision making. The real-world political impact of Internet culture, up to now, is difficult to gauge. Interesting and powerful ideas are discussed online - infinitely broader than what occurs in mass-media "public discourse" - but to a large extent such ideas seem buried in the net itself, and when the computer is turned off one wonders if it wasn't all just a dream, confined to the ether. So far, there seems to be minimal spillover into the real world. Ironically, at least from my perspective, it seems to be right-wing organizations that are making most effective political use of the net at present - organizing write-in campaigns, mobilizing opinion around focused issues, etc. Those of us with more liberal democratic values seem more divided and less driven to achieving actual concrete results. Present company excepted, of course. One wonders, however, what might happen if a period of popular activism were to occur, such as we saw in the 1960's, the 1930's, 1900's, 1848 , 1798, 1776, etc. If a similar episode of unrest were to recur, the Internet might turn out to be a sleeping political giant - coordinating protests, facilitating strategy discussions, mobilizing massive voter turnouts, distributing reports suppressed in the mass media, etc. The "people's" mass media could have awesome effect on the body politic, if some motivating urgency were to crystallize activism. Such a scenario is not just idle imagining. Eruptions of activism do in fact occur (there have been a few in Germany, France, and Australia recently, for example). The net is not widespread enough yet to have been significant in such events (as far as I know), but we may be very close to critical mass in some Western countries, and the power of Internet for real-world group organization has been tested and proven. This activist-empowerment potential of Internet is something that many elements of society would naturally find very threatening. Some countries, such as Iran, China, and Malaysia - where "motivating urgency" exists in the populous - take the threat of "excess democracy" quite seriously, and have instituted various kinds of restrictive Internet policies. I would presume - and this point will be developed a bit later - that awareness (in ruling circles) of the "subversive" threat from Internet lends considerable political support to the various net- censorship initiatives that are underway in Western nations, and that such awareness may largely explain the mass-media image of Internet as a land of hackers, terrorists, and pedophiles. Partly because of this potential activist "threat", and partly because of economic considerations, there is considerable reason to suspect that Internet culture will not long continue quite as we know it. Apart from censorship itself, chilling copyright and libel laws, and other measures, are in the works which can in various direct and indirect ways close the damper on the open Internet. The average Joe Citizen, spoon-fed by the mass-media, all to often holds the opinion that Internet is a haven of perverts and terrorists, and thus Internet restrictions are not met with the same public outcry that would accompany, for example, newspaper censorship. Internet offers a prototype demonstration of how cyberspace _could_ be applied to enhance the democratic process - to make it more open and participatory. But netizens are not the only ones with their eyes on the cyberspace prize. We next examine another potential cyberspace client - the mass-media industry. The mass media: monopolized communications ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Like the Internet, today's mass-media industry is also a global communications network, and also offers access to seemingly infinite information. Beyond these similarities, however, the two could not be more different. While Internet exchange is non-economic, mass- media increasingly is fully commercialized; while anyone can publish on the net, publication access to mass-media is controlled by those who own it; while the full spectrum of public thinking can be found on the net, discussion in the mass-media is narrow and systematically projects the world-view of its owners. In the mass-media, rather than voluntary contributors, we have "content owners" and "content producers". Instead of free mailing- lists, web-links, and voluntary forwarding agents, we have "content distributors" - including broadcast networks, cable operators , satellite operators, cinema chains, and video rental chains. And instead of an audience of participants (netizens), we have "consumers". In both networks the information content reflects the interests of the owners. With Internet this means that the content is as broad as society itself. But with the mass-media, the narrow scope of content reflects the fact that ownership of mass-media, on a global scale, is increasingly coming to be concentrated in a clique of large corporate conglomerates. The mass-media does not serve discourse, education, or democracy particularly well - it's designed instead to distribute corporate-approved products to "consumers", and to manage public opinion. The U.S. telecom and media industries have long been privatized, and hence the corporatized version of mass media is most thoroughly evolved in the U.S. It is the U.S. model which, for the most part, seems destined to become the global norm - partly because the U.S. provides a precedent microcosm of what are becoming global conditions (a corporate dominated economy), and partly because the U.S. effectively promulgates its pro-corporate policies in international forums. As state-run broadcasting systems are increasingly privatized under globalization it is the deep-pockets corporate media operators who are likely acquire them, thus propagating the U.S. media model globally, although U.S. operators will by no means be the only buyers in the market. The U.S. model is a monopoly model - a "clique of majors" dominates the industry, just as the Seven-Sisters clique dominates the world oil market. "The Nation" (3 June 1996) published a remarkable road- map of the U.S. news and entertainment industry, graphically highlighting the collective hegemony of GE, Time-Warner, Disney-Cap- Cities, and Westinghouse. These majors are vertically integrated - they own not only production facilities and content, but also distribution systems - radio and television broadcast stations, satellites, cable systems, and cinema chains. We might think of Time-Warner and Disney as being primarily media companies, but for GE and Westinghouse, media is clearly a side-line business. They are into everything from nuclear power-stations and jet fighters, to insurance and medical equipment. Their broadcast policies reflect not only the profit-motive of their media companies, but equally the overall interests of the owning conglomerate. NBC is not likely, for example, to run an expose of GE nuclear-reactor safety problems or of corruption involving GE's government contracts. When you consider the ownership of the mass-media, and the additional influence of corporate advertisers, it is no surprise that the content of mass-media - not just news but entertainment as well - overwhelmingly projects a world view that is friendly to corporate interests generally. As globalization proceeds, these four conglomerates - along with Murdoch and others - will compete to buy up distribution and production facilities on a worldwide basis. The clear trend, following a shakeout period, is toward a global mass-media industry dominated by a clique of TNC (transnational corporation) "majors". Globalization of the media industry translates ultimately into corporate domination of global information flows, and the centralized management of global public opinion. Whereas the Internet precedent suggests the potential of cyberspace to connect citizens with one another on a participatory basis, a corporate-dominated mass-media industry sees cyberspace primarily as a product-distribution system and a means of opinion-control. In order to assess how cyberspace will in fact be applied, we need to examine the political context in which cyberspace will evolve - we need to take a closer look at this thing called "democracy". The see-saw of democracy and the advent of globalization ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Democracy has always been a see-saw struggle for control between citizens at large and elite economic interests. This struggle has been perhaps more apparent in a country like Britain, where a consciously acknowledged class system long operated. In the U.S., with its more egalitarian rhetoric, there has often been a tendency to deny the existence of such struggles and to embrace the mythology that popular sovereignty had been largely achieved in the "land of the free". But in fact, the tension between popular and elite interests was anticipated by America's Founding Fathers, was articulated explicitly by James Madison (primary architect of the U.S. Constitution), and was institutionalized in that document by the balance between the Senate and the House of Representatives, and by numerous other means. Under democracy, power is officially vested in the voters, and hence the balance of power between the elite and the people would seem to be overwhelmingly in favor of the people. For their part, the economic elite have considerable influence due to the investments and credit they control - and the funds they have available to influence the political process in various and significant ways. Hence the balance of power is not that easy to call, and there has in fact been a see-saw of power shifts over the past two centuries. During the late-nineteenth century "robber baron" era, for example, with its laissez-faire philosophy, there was a clear pre-dominance of elite power, with monopolized markets and widespread worker exploitation. In the reform movements of the early twentieth century, on the other hand, with its trust-busting and regulatory regimes, the elite found themselves on the defensive. In today's world of neoliberal globalization, the economic elite are again clearly in the ascendency. The vehicle of elite power and ownership today is the modern TNC, and globalization - with its privatization, deregulation, lower corporate taxes, and free-trade policies - adds up to a radical shift of power and assets from the nation state (where the democratic see-saw operates) to TNC's, over which citizens have no significant influence - the campaigns of Ralph Nader, Greenpeace, et al having been systematically constrained and marginalized. Economic policy making, which has traditionally fallen under the jurisdiction of sovereign nation states, is being transferred wholesale by various treaties to the the WTO (World Trade Organization), the IMF, and other faceless commissions - all of which are dominated overwhelmingly by the TNC community, particularly by that clique of TNC's which are known as the "international financial community". This transfer of economic sovereignty is most advanced in the Third World, where the IMF increasingly dictates economic, fiscal, and social policies at a micro level. In India, for example, public officials often turn directly to IMF staff for policy guidance, leaving the Indian government out of the loop entirely. The trends - and the binding treaty commitments - indicate that the First World as well is destined to come under increasing domination by this TNC-run, globalist-commission regime. Already we are beginning to see examples of such inroads, as U.S. policy toward Cuba is being challenged under NAFTA and EU beef-import policy is being challenged under the WTO, along with market protections for Carribean banana producers. These examples are only the tip of the formidable globalist iceberg lying in the path of the once-sovereign Ship of State. Globalization amounts to a coup d'etat by the global economic elite. _Temporary_ political ascendency in the West is being systematically leveraged into _permanent_ global political ascendency, institutionalized in the network of elite-dominated commissions and agencies. The see-saw game has been abandoned by the elite, and the citizenry find themselves down on their backs. The democratic process may continue to govern the affairs of the nation state, but the power and resources of the nation state are being radically constrained, democracy is being rendered thereby irrelevant, and global power is thus being shifted from democratic institutions to elite institutions. Democracy is less and less society's sovereign, even though public rhetoric continues as usual. The deliberations of the commissions go largely unreported - the globalist revolution, profound as it is, is mostly a stealth affair. According to this analysis, democracy is in considerable trouble indeed, and by comparison the future of cyberspace would seem to be a secondary concern. But the plot continues to thicken, as we proceed to an examination of propaganda and its institutionalized role in the machinery of modern democracy. [to be continued] ____________________________________________________________ ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~--~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ Posted by Richard K. Moore - rkmoore@iol.ie - PO Box 26 Wexford, Ireland http://www.iol.ie/~rkmoore/cyberjournal (USA Citizen) * Non-commercial republication encouraged - Please include this sig * ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 03 Oct 1997 10:24:22 From: Richard Thieme Subject: File 2--Islands in the Clickstream: The Illusion of Control Islands in the Clickstream: The Illusion of Control Microsoft did it again. Some users of the beta version of Explorer 4.0 were surprised to learn that, after they went to sleep, their computers were dialing Microsoft and telling it secrets, downloading information from Microsoft's web pages and uploading information from the sanctity of their homes. The San Jose Mercury News reports that Microsoft says such calls only happen when the feature is activated, but admits that users can activate it without understanding the consequences. Said one beta tester who had wandered in search of a midnight snack, "I was completely freaking out. I pulled the phone plug right out of the wall." Microsoft insists that the system is under the user's control, but many users didn't know that. The users can be forgiven a little skepticism. ("I'm getting more and more cynical all the time," said Jane Wagner, "and I still can't keep up.") Microsoft is widely believed to have a history of gathering data about users secretly, but at the least, the company was indifferent to the concerns of the human user at the end of the connection. They did not allow the user to maintain an illusion of control. The truth is, our computers are sending and receiving all sorts of information back and forth automatically all the time. As Edward Felten, head of the Secure Internet Programming Laboratory at Princeton University, said, "I think part of the concern here is the feeling that you've lost control of the computer when it's doing stuff in the middle of the night. The feeling is that you've got control of the computer if you're sitting in front of it. The reality is that you only have the illusion of control." Psychologists tell us that dominance and submissiveness are two traits that we immediately recognize in others. Of course, submissiveness is often a way of dominating others too, so its safe to say that all human beings expend energy on dominating others and avoiding being dominated by them. The computer isn't a person, but we treat the computer like a person and react to it as if it's a person. The network invites powerful projections, some of them straight out of the Frankenstein legend. We fear the monster we created and can not control. The more we resist domination, the more we hate symbols of the dominator -- Microsoft, in this case, often called "the Borg" and the "Evil Empire," as well as all computers and networks. When I lived in Hawaii, I "crossed over" sufficiently into the way that blend of Polynesian and Asian cultures sees things that I sometimes could see "haoles" like myself -- the Hawaiian word for ghosts or pale North Americans -- as the Hawaiians saw us. I recall a recent arrival to the islands holding forth one day at the tennis courts. The local people listened quietly as he explained what needed to be done to improve the islands. He believed their silence was agreement and kept talking until he grew tired. Then the small crowd scattered and he went off to look at the surfers, thinking he had accomplished something. "Haoles" think talking is doing, that by telling others what we think or intend to do, we have engaged in action. In fact, the crowd was politely waiting for him to finish. They had heard it all before and learned how to absorb the words of well-meaning tourists as the sea absorbs our energy when we swim. The principles of aikido, both a martial art and a spiritual discipline, underscore that approach. There are no aggressive moves in aikido. Instead one aligns one's energy with the energy of an attacker, enabling them to complete a move with as little damage to oneself as possible. All spiritual traditions talk about real power as an alignment of our energy with the energy that is already flowing, the "tao" or the movement of the universe. The advice of Jesus to turn the other cheek has been distorted to mean that people being beaten should keep taking abuse, but that isn't what it meant. It's more on the order of "turn to align yourself with the energy coming at you" in order to increase, rather than decrease, your real control of the situation. In a workshop demonstrating the principles of gestalt psychology, a group of us were asked to join a loose circle and let our arms fall naturally around one another's waists. Then we were told to "make the circle go where you want it to go." Everyone pushed in different directions and we all fell down. It felt fragmented and chaotic. Then we reconstituted the circle and were told to allow the circle to move as it chose to move. We found ourselves engaged in a natural back-and-forth rhythm, and we experienced deep feelings of well-being as we allowed ourselves to be part of something without having to impose our will on it. In hierarchical structures, we learn to exercise power by dominating and controlling. In webs or networks, we can't do that. Our energy is diffused along the strands of the web. The way to exercise power in a network is by contributing and participating. That's why leadership in flattened organizations requires people who know how to implement a vision by coaching, rather than giving orders -- like the CEO who called the troops together and told them, "You are all empowered," then returned to his office, thinking as haoles do that he had accomplished something. Much of what we call power is the illusion of control. Whether connected to a network, sitting in front of a computer that has an antonymous operating system, engaging in a relationship with a person, or trying to make the world move as we want -- it is all an illusion of control. The only thing we can control is the quality of our response to life. We have an innate capacity to respond to whatever life brings with dignity, elasticity, and -- when the chips are down -- genuine heroism. The way to rule the world, as Lao Tzu said, is by letting things simply take their course. ********************************************************************** Islands in the Clickstream is a weekly column written by Richard Thieme exploring social and cultural dimensions of computer technology. Comments are welcome. Feel free to pass along columns for personal use, retaining this signature file. If interested in (1) publishing columns online or in print, (2) giving a free subscription as a gift, or (3) distributing Islands to employees or over a network, email for details. To subscribe to Islands in the Clickstream, send email to rthieme@thiemeworks.com with the words "subscribe islands" in the body of the message. To unsubscribe, email with "unsubscribe islands" in the body of the message. Richard Thieme is a professional speaker, consultant, and writer focused on the impact of computer technology on individuals and organizations. Islands in the Clickstream (c) Richard Thieme, 1997. All rights reserved. ThiemeWorks on the Web: http://www.thiemeworks.com ThiemeWorks P. O. Box 17737 Milwaukee WI 53217-0737 414.351.2321 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 07:43:18 -0400 From: jw@bway.net Subject: File 3--The X-Stop Files THE X-STOP FILES Self-proclaimed library-friendly product blocks Quakers, free speech and gay sites By Jonathan Wallace jw@bway.net FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Jonathan Wallace Day: 212-513-7777 Evening: 718-797-9808 New York, October 5, 1997-- "You bless the lives of those you care about when you remove temptation." LOG-ON Data Corporation, distributors of X-Stop blocking software, have adopted this quote, attributed to John Patterson, founder of the National Cash Register Corporation, as a company slogan. It appears at the top of each of the product-related White Papers on the Anaheim, California company's web site (http://www.xstop.com). LOG-ON claims that its X-Stop product is superior to other blockers on the market today, which include Safesurf, Surfwatch, Net Nanny, Cyberpatrol and Cybersitter. First of all, its Mudcrawler spider is, it claims, more effective at locating pornographic material on the Web than the teams of college students employed by some of its competitors. Secondly, the company claims that its "felony load" library version blocks only obscene material illegal under the Supreme Court case of Miller v. California. This, LOG-ON says, makes the product the best option available today for libraries, which wish to block only hardcore materials and not deny controversial literary, artistic or political sites to their patrons. The privately-held, for profit company has had some success interesting libraries in X-Stop. Witness the dispute currently underway to Virginia's Loudoun County, where the decision by the library trustees to buy and install blocking software is currently being challenged by a local organization, Mainstream Loudoun. The group, composed of local parents and others concerned about what they perceive as fundamentalist influence in the county's libraries and schools, have appealed to the library board to reconsider. Meanwhile, another group, led by a member of the pro-censorship group Enough is Enough, is pressing the library to install X-Stop, based on its claim that it blocks only obscene sites. The American Library Association has come out against the use of blocking software in libraries in a statement made in July. The American Civil Liberties Union agrees that the First Amendment bars the use of blocking software in public libraries, and is monitoring the situation in Loudoun County and elsewhere. Does X-Stop promote a fundamentalist world view? The company boasts on its web pages that X-Stop has been endorsed by the following organizations, all of which supported the Communications Decency Act and have taken pro-censorship positions in disputes invlving offline and online speech: the American Family Association, Enough is Enough, Family Friendly Libraries, Focus on the Family, Family Research Council, and Oklahomans for Children and Families. (This last is the organization that recently got the film The Tin Drum seized by Oklahoma police.) LOG-ON's claims that X-Stop is tailored for library use have apparently been accepted by some librarians and journalists. Boston Globe columnist Hiawatha Bray, in a piece published on July 24, repeated LOG-ON's claims about the effectiveness of Mudcrawler. On August 29, Karen Jo Gounaud of the pro-censorship group Family Friendly Libraries, posted a message to a mailing list for librarians in which she said, "I was witness to [a] report and information this week that convinced me there is no equal to the X-Stop program. It's even better than I thought." How do LOG-ON's claims about the scope of its software and its appropriateness for libraries measure up? Of great interest to free speech advocates is the company's claim that X-Stop's "felony load" version only blocks materials held to be legally obscene under the rules set by the Supreme Court in Miller. The Miller standard defines obscenity as speech which is prurient, patently offensive and lacking in serious scientific, literary, artistic or political value. Here's what LOG-ON claims on its web site: "Our 'librarian' blocked sites list is created according to the 'Miller' standard as defined by the Supreme Court: blocked sites show sexual acts, bestiality, and child pornography. Legitimate art or education sites are not blocked by the library edition, nor are so-called 'soft porn' or 'R' rated sites like lingerie, sex toys, and nudity where no sexual act is shown." "This is a completely absurd claim," says First Amendment attorney James S. Tyre of Bigelow, Moore & Tyre in Pasadena, California. "LOG-ON is setting itself up as judge, jury and executioner when it makes unilateral decisions about what is obscene under the Miller standard -- and there is ample reason to believe that the owners of the company have little knowledge about how to apply the standard. The X-Stop 'felony load' blocks a great number of sites which no reasonable person would consider obscene, including websites for print publications carried by most all public libraries." Indeed, X-Stop blocks numerous sites that cannot possibly be obscene under the Miller standard, because they contain no explicit sexual material of any kind. Here are a few examples of sites blocked by X-Stop (from a version distributed by X-Stop at the end of July): -- The University of Chicago's Fileroom project, which tracks acts of censorship around the world (http://fileroom.aaup.uic.edu/FileRoom/documents); --The National Journal of Sexual Orientation Law, which describes itself as devoted to "legal issues affecting lesbians, gay men and bisexuals" (http://sunsite.unc.edu/gaylaw/); --The Banned Books page at Carnegie Mellon, which gives a historical account of the travails of books such as Candide and Ulysses ( http://www.cs.cmu.edu/people/spok/banned-books.html); --The American Association of University Women, which describes itself as a national organization that "promotes education and equity for all women and girls" (http://www.aauw.org); --The AIDS Quilt site, for people interested in learning more about HIV and AIDS, with statistics on the disease and links to other relevant sites (http://www.aidsquilt.org/aidsinfo); --Portions of the "AOL Sucks" site dealing with criticism of the America OnLine terms of service (TOS) (http://www.aolsucks.org/censor/tos); --The Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank whose mission is to "formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense" (http://www.heritage.org); --A number of political sites hosted by the progressive ISP IGC.APC.ORG, including the "Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting" site (http://www.igc.apc.org/fair"); --The Religious Society of Friends, better known as the Quakers (http://www.quaker.org); --Quality Resources Online, a clearinghouse for books and other materials relating to quality in business operations (http://www.quality.org). "They're saying that Mudcrawler can automatically determine the merit of text and images, that it can make a complex legal decision. That's an utterly ridiculous and absurd claim. Just look how people argue all the time over literature and art," said Seth Finkelstein, a professional software developer who maintains an on-line collection of resources against blocking software at http://www.mit.edu/activities/safe/labeling/summary.html. "Instead, they seem to blacklist anything they dislike, such as gay and lesbian material or anti-censorship organizations, or whatever innocent sites happen to fall victim to the scattershot rules behind their bans." Bennett Haselton, a college student who is founder of the anti-censorship student organization Peacefire (http://www.peacefire.org) agrees. Haselton said, "Maybe X-Stop's intentions were originally to block only 'obscenity, bestiality and child pornography', but positive reviews from Family Friendly Libraries and OCAF should pertain to the actual product, not the manufacturer's intentions. If I can find a collection of safe sex sites that are blocked by X-Stop just by experimenting with the program for an hour, then the groups who support the program either haven't looked very hard for such examples of blocked sites, or they think it doesn't matter." "X-Stop is an excellent example of why public libraries shouldn't purchase blocking software," said attorney James Tyre. "Under the First Amendment, librarians should be making the decisions, not private commercial operations like LOG-ON. Like the other products out there, this one blocks a lot of sites no reasonable librarian would ever exclude." ------------------------------------------------------ Jonathan Wallace, jw@bway.net, is a software executive, attorney and free speech activist based in New York City. He is publisher of The Ethical Spectacle, http://www.spectacle.org, portions of which are blocked by X-Stop, and co-author with Mark Mangan of Sex, Laws and Cyberspace (Henry Holt 1996), a book on Internet censorship. -END- ----------------------- If you don't want to see any more of these messages, simply remove yourself from the list by visiting http://www.spectacle.org/ or by typing the following URL into a Web browser: http://www.greenspun.com/spam/remove-2.tcl?domain=specpress&email=cudigest%40sun .soci.niu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 May 1997 22:51:01 CST From: CuD Moderators Subject: File 4--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 7 May, 1997) Cu-Digest is a weekly electronic journal/newsletter. Subscriptions are available at no cost electronically. 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