October 2000 - cypherpunks-legacy

CDR: Cypherpunks, Recently Added Free Newsletters
by newsletters＠worldwidelists.com 18 Oct '00

18 Oct '00

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cypherpunks, this message is brought to you by Worldwidelists.com The E-mail Newsletter Network. We appreciate your subscription. This e-mail message is never sent unsolicited. You asked us to notify you when more Free newsletters were added to the online directory at http://www.worldwidelists.com/. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cypherpunks, the following Free newsletters were added to the Worldwidelists.com directory between September 1-15, 2000. MLMTRUTH Find Out What MLM Companies Don't Want You to know! Breaking MLM News & Learn How to Sort Through Hype and Make $$$. SAVE Money, Time and YOUR Reputation by discovering the MLMTRUTH! "I truly believe you have The Most Useful MLM Newsletter on the Internet" -- Jim Bryant. To get your hands on this revealing, politically incorrect, hard-hitting, insightful, and refreshing newsletter that has benefited MLMers since 1997, subscribe for Free now! Find it in the Internet category: http://www.worldwidelists.com/internet.html ~~~~~ YOUR INTERNET SERVICE STATION NEWS A Newsletter *Full* of resources, tips, advice, articles, business opportunities, freebies and more. All new subscribers can receive a Free Ad. Find it in the Internet category: http://www.worldwidelists.com/internet.html ~~~~~ ADVANCED RESOURCES/MARKETING NEWS Advanced Resources/Marketing News is a Free weekly Newsletter covering internet marketing ideas and sales strategies, website promotion, building your own web page and starting your own newsletter. Each issue packed with new, fresh articles and information you need to succeed. Join today! Find it in the Internet category: http://www.worldwidelists.com/internet.html ~~~~~ INFO INSIGHTS POWERZINE Internet Newcomers! Be a home based publisher. 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We'll never clutter your mailbox with hoaxes, get rich schemes, or rags to riches stories. Join now, it's free! Find it in the Jokes & Humor category: http://www.worldwidelists.com/jokes-humor.html ~~~~~ ALTACAN WEB TRIBUNE We will feature Internet marketing information such as software, tips, and tricks, that pertain to how to manage and promote a small online business successfully. Find it in the Internet category: http://www.worldwidelists.com/internet.html ~~~~~ MAKE YOUR BUSINESS A WEB MAGNET We spend hours searching for online promotion tools and tips and we bring the best to your mailbox. JOINING BONUS: 50% off coupon. Find it in the Business category: http://www.worldwidelists.com/business.html ~~~~~ DEAR ABBY America's Number One advice columnist has teamed up with MightyCool.com. Brighten your day, every day, with a tips and advice to your e-mail. Its Free! Find it in the Women category: http://www.worldwidelists.com/women.html ~~~~~ MAX'S WORLD Max's World is a hilarious daily jokelist which features much more than just jokes! You get links, cartoons and free stuff! This is suitable only for the adult mind since some jokes can be dirty! Find it in the Jokes & Humor category: http://www.worldwidelists.com/jokes-humor.html ~~~~~ VERTICAL BUZZ Vertical portals are major web sites or community destinations focused on specific topics, niches, or demographic affiliations. To keep on top of the latest news relating to vertical portals, their development, their successes and failures, and the communities they seek to connect with, try Vertical Buzz, a handy, hand-edited digest of vertical portal news. Find it in the Computers category: http://www.worldwidelists.com/computers.html P.S. 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CDR: RE: I created the "Al Gore created the Internet" story
by Trei, Peter 18 Oct '00

18 Oct '00

> ---------- > From: Matt Elliott[SMTP:melliott@ncsa.uiuc.edu] > Reply To: Matt Elliott > Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 2000 3:38 PM > To: Multiple recipients of list > Subject: Re: I created the "Al Gore created the Internet" story > > >I'm not suggesting some sort of vast conspiracy to keep the Internet > small. > >But I think it could be found that 3-4 years were effectively wasted. I > >really want to know what the impediments to the Internet were in the > >1986-1993 time frame. > > NSFnet acceptable use policy. > To expand on this, in the early years, access was only for people doing DoD funded work - either defense contractors, or universities with DoD funding. It was even argued that non work-related email was forbidden (and the SF-Lovers Digest - the first large mailing list - existed only sub-rosa for it's early years). Usenet was a bit later - early to mid-80's I think. But there were a lot of earlier problems... In those days, there were no ISPs. You got access through a university or a contractor, or not at all. Around 1990, email portals were permitted to some of the large commercial BBS systems - BIX, Delphi, Compuserve, etc - later Usenet was also gatewayed (I date the 'death of the net' to this period). At this time, the typical user used a terminal emulation program (vt100) to dial into a Unix box, and then used Unix CLI tools to access net services from that point. If you wanted to get something from the Unix box to your PC, you used sneakernet or Kermit. Finally, NSF and DARPA got out of the net, and commercial backbone providers took over. ISPs started to appear. However, the net was still hard to use, and very much a geek's toy. If you doubt this, consider that until the early 90's, all access was still via command line interfaces - rn for news, ftp for file transfer, telnet for remote access, a variety of packages for mail (all flat text). Even if you owned a PC, you still had to buy and set up a modem, buy and install a TCP stack (not included in DOS or Windows), and obtain some initial tools (ftp clients most critically - with ftp you could bootstrap yourself). It was not until the WWW that 'the lights came on' and suddenly the net was something that non-geeks could expect to use and navigate effectively. Peter Trei

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CDR: FW: I created the "Al Gore created the Internet" story
by William R Rudek 18 Oct '00

18 Oct '00

I couldn't give numbers, but it could be that the infrastructure wasn't in place at the Telco offices. Data hadn't yet been switched through their equipment in any kind of large quantity. And I imagine the thought of transmitting streaming video was only a laughable prediction. The only point of reference the phone company would have had for transmitting data was back when the signal info and the voice traffic both traveled over the the same channel on the wire. Keep in mind also that even (most) current day faxes and ATM machines still only transmit at 9600baud. So their proliferation in 1986 didn't leap them ahead any, they were transmitting at the same rate as the PC's. Jim Bell wrote: I ask this, what I believe would be an excellent idea for an article: Why didn't the Internet develop even faster than it actually did? 9600 bps modems existed in 1986, not all that far in performance behind 28Kbps units. By 1986, numerous clones of the IBM PC and AT existed. Compare this with the breakout of the fax machines in the 1985-86 timeframe. I wish I had the numbers, but it seemed like at the beginning of 1985 few companies had faxes, while by the end of that year "every" company did. By the end of 1986 that had spread to individuals, as well. I'm not suggesting some sort of vast conspiracy to keep the Internet small. But I think it could be found that 3-4 years were effectively wasted. I really want to know what the impediments to the Internet were in the 1986-1993 time frame. Jim Bell

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CDR: IPO SECrets Newsletter 10.18.00
by EDGAR Online News 18 Oct '00

18 Oct '00

EDGAR Online's IPO SECrets Newsletter Editor: Timothy Middleton, EDGAR Online Analyst mailto:editor@edgar-online.com ***INSIDE THIS ISSUE NEW & NOTEWORTHY IPO QUESTION OF THE WEEK: What is a warrant? IPO COLUMN OF THE WEEK: Leaving Money on the Table IPO COMPANY PROFILE: Watson Wyatt & Co. Holdings (WW) IPO MIDWEEK UPDATE COMPANIES MENTIONED IN THIS ISSUE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS ISSUE /---------------------ADVERTISEMENT-------------------------------\ DON'T MISS OUT ON YOUR CHANCE TO WIN AN IBM THINKPAD 600X Register now for any of ITworld.com's weekly IT email newsletters, and enter our sweepstakes for your chance to win a powerful new IBM ThinkPad 600x. CLICK HERE! http://www.itworld.com/sweeps/sweepsim.html?impsite=9235 \-----------------------------------------------------------------/ ---------------------------------------- ***NEW AND NOTEWORTHY*** ---------------------------------------- EDGAR Online Launches "Fair Disclosure Express" Site In response to the SEC's Oct. 23rd adoption of the new Fair Disclosure regulation, we have launched "FD Express" (www.FD-express.com) to keep you abreast of the sweeping changes and the influx of new filings expected as a result of the new FD rule. In addition to real-time filings of Forms 8-K and 425, the new Web site provides an analysis of the new Fair Disclosure rule by the law firm Morrison & Foerster LLP, a selection of comment letters submitted to the SEC on the rule and glossary of FD-related terms. "Savvy market players and investors will be looking at the surge of new disclosure filings made as a result of the new Fair Disclosure rule. EDGAR Online is making all these filings available in one place --- FD Express," said Jay Sears, senior vice president for EDGAR Online, Inc. The volume of 8-K filings, disclosures of unscheduled material events, is expected to double over the next 12 months due to the new Fair Disclosure rule. "Form 8-Ks are the anti-press release, now more than ever." said Sears. "Question of the Week" Archive Now Searchable In light of numerous subscriber requests to search back issues of SECrets, our "Questions of the Week" are now searchable alphabetically and chronologically. Later this year, the full newsletter archive will be searchable. Click on the "SECrets Newsletter" button under "News" on the EDGAR Online home page http://www.edgar-online.com/secrets. The default view is alphabetical search. To find questions beginning with numbers - i.e. "13-D", click on the pound sign "#". -- HB ---------------------------------------- ***IPO QUESTION OF THE WEEK*** ---------------------------------------- QUESTION: What is a warrant? ANSWER: A warrant is a right to purchase stock in the future at a pre-set (premium) price. Warrants are often issued with preferred stock, or a bond, and function as a deal "sweetener"- i.e. the underwriters of an IPO that priced at $12, could receive warrants to purchase additional shares at $15 any time over the next five years. Unlike call options which are typically "in play" for less than a year, warrants tend to be longer term in scope - one to five years and sometimes into perpetuity. Warrants are typically offered at a premium to the offering price and may account for 10% of the offering. Warrants are sometimes transferable and often trade on the major exchanges. ---------------------------------------- ***IPO COLUMN OF THE WEEK*** ---------------------------------------- Leaving Money on the Table With the IPO market cooling off, less money is being left on the table. This expression refers to the gap between the price underwriters assign to a stock, and the price the market accords it when it's released for trading. Traditionally, Wall Street prices an IPO at 10% to 15% below the price the shares are expected to fetch in the public market. Issuers get a little less, but they harvest goodwill because the deal is reckoned a success. Underwriters reap a bonanza: Quick profits for favored customers, a reputation as a money maker, and better prospects for future deals. This summer, the amount left on the table was staggering -- in some instances netting the underwriters' customers more than the issuers got themselves. In July, for example, Corvis Corp. (CORV) was priced at $36 but began trading at $74. The pricing set the company's value at $1.14 billion. The market said it was worth $2.34 billion -- a difference of more than 100%. "Those deals were done in an environment of almost a casino mentality," says Eric Miller, a portfolio manager with Heartland Advisors, a money management firm in Milwaukee, Wis. "The whole tech market was vastly overvalued, and IPOs just sort of fed that mentality." That mentality's appetite was voracious: The Corvis deal is by no means the most extreme example of riches piling up on a groaning board. In August, McDATA Corp. (MCDT) was priced at $28 but began trading at $72 - an instant bonus to IPO investors of 157%. Last month, CoSine Communications (COSN) went out at $23 and on the first trade soared to $70, an instant gain of more than 200%. Then the Nasdaq began to melt again, as it did in the spring. The total value of IPOs filed in the third quarter of 2000 shrank to $18.3 billion from $32.8 billion in the second quarter, and was about even with the third quarter of 1999. This month, IPO investors have found considerably smaller bounties being placed on their investments. When Synplicity Inc., a maker of design software for integrated circuits, went public last week at $8, it opened at $8.47, a premium of only 5.9%. Regus PLC (REGSV), a British office-services firm, was priced Monday at $18.79 and opened Tuesday at $20, up 6.4%. Endwave Corp. (ENWV), a maker of components for broadband wireless communications, was priced Monday at $14 and opened the next day at precisely that amount. "People are beginning to recognize that in this type of market you're not going to get the big pop, and you might actually have to own these things for more than 10 or 15 minutes," says Miller. "That's bringing a little more realism to this type of IPO." Users of EDGAR-Online can track pricing and other trends at our IPO Express, http://www.edgar-online.com/ipoexpressn/ by clicking on IPO Express on the left-hand menu bar. /----------ADVERTISEMENT----------------------------------------\ Purchase Business/Credit Reports from Dun & Bradstreet on over 11 million U.S. businesses. Click on the "Resources" link when you look up SEC filings for any public company, or search by company name and state at http://www.edgar.telebase.com \----------------------------------------------------------------/ ---------------------------------------- ***IPO COMPANY PROFILE*** ---------------------------------------- Watson Wyatt & Co. Holdings (WW) With unemployment at a 30-year low, human resources consulting firms have emerged from the back office into the public eye. Watson Wyatt & Co. Holdings (WW) went public last week at $12.50 a share in a deal lead by Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown. This week, Watson Wyatt shares surged 36% to $17 per share. http://www.edgar-online.com/ipoexpressn/priced.asp "We've seen e-consulting firms losing so much of their value, it's quite a surprise to see this decades-old firm coming in and doing well in its IPO," says Delicia Yard, editor of Consultants News, an industry newsletter. Boston-based Viant Corp. (VIAN), for example, is trading around one-tenth of its 52-week high. Scient Corp. (SCNT), another Internet consulting firm, is down 85% from its high. "Watson Wyatt is the antithesis of these kinds of firms," Ms. Yard says. "It doesn't have a sexy business model -- it's not helping dot-com firms with their strategies." Rather, the 54-year-old company, the nation's fifth -largest HR consulting firm, advises Fortune 500 companies such as General Electric and General Motors on recruitment, personnel policies, salaries and benefits, pension regulations, global expansion and related matters. The Bethesda, MD-based firm's revenue in the fiscal year ended June 30 was $624.6 million, and net income was $18.5 million. The company and its affiliates have 5,800 employees in 85 offices worldwide, according to its most recent annual report. http://www.edgar-online.com/secrets.asp?d=A-892968-0000912057-00-042928 Watson Wyatt is a leader in an industry that is growing in overlap as well as size. Its competitors include other HR giants like William M. Mercer and Towers Perrin, accounting firms like Pricewaterhouse Coopers, benefits consultants like Buck Consultants and information technology firms like Andersen Consulting. Historically employee-owned, like many consulting firms are, Watson Wyatt sold 5.6 million shares -- half on its own behalf and half by selling shareholders. About 83% of the company's outstanding stock remains in the hands of insiders, most of them employees. --------------------------------------- *** IPO MIDWEEK UPDATE FROM IPO EXPRESS*** ---------------------------------------- Undone Deals: Friday the 13th Takes Its Toll AMComp Inc. (-TBA-) of North Palm Beach, FL http://www.edgar-online.com/ipoexpressn/company.asp?company=2961 EDGAR INSIGHT: AMComp Inc. filed Oct. 13 to withdraw its IPO. Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette Inc. was the lead underwriter. The proposed offering was expected to raise $50 million. The company is Florida's fourth largest provider of workers' compensation insurance. The 175-employee company reported revenue of $108.6 million in 1997, and net income of $5.4 million, in an S-1 originally filed Nov. 12, 1998. Commerx Inc. (CMRX) of Chicago, IL http://www.edgar-online.com/ipoexpressn/company.asp?company=4162 EDGAR INSIGHT: Commerx Inc. filed Oct. 13 to withdraw its IPO. Goldman Sachs & Co. was the lead underwriter. The proposed offering was expected to raise $100 million. The company creates business-to-business electronic marketplaces for customers and sellers in the industrial processing industry. In the nine months ended Sept. 30, the 100-employee company had revenue of $800,000, and a loss of $8.1 million. Redone Deals MCE Companies Inc. (MCEI) of Ann Arbor, MI http://www.edgar-online.com/ipoexpressn/company.asp?company=4868 EDGAR INSIGHT: MCE Companies Inc. filed Oct. 13 to decrease its price to $11-$13 per share from $13-$15 per share, and to decrease its offering to 5.5 million shares from 8.7 million. Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown Inc. is the lead underwriter. The proposed offering is expected to raise $71.5 million. MCE sells products used in wireless broadband access, fiber optic networking, and radar and satellite applications. The company will have 26.6 million shares outstanding. The 643-employee company had revenue of $64.6 million in 1999, and a loss of $1.9 million. IPOs on Deck Peets Coffee & Tea Inc. (PEET) of Emeryville, CA http://www.edgar-online.com/ipoexpressn/company.asp?company=5092 EDGAR INSIGHT: Peets Coffee & Tea Inc. filed Oct. 13 for an IPO. WR Hambrecht & Co. is the lead underwriter. The proposed offering of 3.3 million shares is expected to raise $46.2 million. The company roasts and markets fresh whole bean coffee. The company will have 8 million post-offering shares outstanding. The 1,502-employee company had revenue of $67.8 million in 1999, with a loss of $0.1 million. /---------------------ADVERTISEMENT--------------------------\ EDGAR Online Corporate creates customized corporate applications that can be integrated seamlessly into your company's Intranet or Extranet. We meet the needs of our clients who require the business, financial, and competitive information derived from SEC filings delivered throughout their organization, tailored to their specifications. Find out more at http://www.edgar-online.com/corporate.asp \--------------------------------------------------------------/ ---------------------------------------- **COMPANIES MENTIONED IN THIS ISSUE*** ---------------------------------------- AMComp Inc Andersen Consulting Buck Consultants Commerx Inc Consultants News Corvis Corp CoSine Communications Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette Inc Endwave Corp General Electric General Motors Goldman Sachs & Co Heartland Advisors, McDATA Corp MCE Companies Inc Peets Coffee & Tea Inc Pricewaterhouse Coopers Regus PLC Synplicity Inc Towers Perrin Viant Corp Watson Wyatt & Co. Holdings William M. Mercer WR Hambrecht & Co ---------------------------------------- **PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS ISSUE*** ---------------------------------------- Miller, Eric Yard, Delicia ---------------------------------------- ABOUT THE EDITOR ---------------------------------------- IPO SECrets is edited by EDGAR Online Analyst Timothy Middleton. Timothy has covered business and financial topics for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Dow Jones News Service and Crain's New York Business. Twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in investigative journalism, his weekly business reports can be heard on WCBS Radio and Microsoft MoneyCentral Radio. For press, syndication, and advertising inquiries, contact Group Publisher Hank Berkowitz at mailto:hberkowitz@edgar-online.com ---------------------------------------- Copyright 2000, EDGAR Online, Inc. http://www.edgar-online.com ---------------------------------------- DISCLAIMER: EDGAR Online's IPO SECrets contains observations of its editor Timothy Middleton, a consultant of EDGAR Online and is for informational purposes only. These statements and expressions are the sole opinions of Mr. Middleton and EDGAR Online does not endorse nor necessarily agree on such statements and expressions. Factual statements in this report are made as of the date stated and are subject to change without notice. Nothing contained herein shall be deemed to be recommendations to buy, hold or sell securities nor shall it purport to be a complete analysis of the companies mentioned. While the information contained in this Report and the opinions contained herein are based on sources believed to be reliable, neither Mr. Middleton nor EDGAR Online have independently verified the facts, assumptions and/or estimates that may be contained in this Report. Accordingly, no representation or warranty, expressed or implied, is made as to, and no reliance should be placed on, the fairness, accuracy, completeness or correctness of the information and opinions contained in this Report. **************************************** UNSUBSCRIBE INSTRUCTIONS **************************************** You are receiving this newsletter because you are a registered user of EDGAR Online. To unsubscribe from the SECrets Newsletter, go to http://www.edgar-online.com/auth/updateinfo.asp and deselect the free newsletter option. If you need your user name or password, go to http://www.edgar-online.com/username.asp For help contact: mailto:support@edgar-online.com **************************************** Email Distribution Services for EDGAR Online provided by DoubleClick DARTmail. *#* cypherpunks(a)toad.com

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CDR: involuntary blood test Supremes ref
by anonymous＠openpgp.net 18 Oct '00

18 Oct '00

http://www.abanet.org/publiced/preview/previewglance_oct00.html What are the Limits on Warrantless Drug Testing of Pregnant Women? Ferguson v. City of Charleston Docket No. 99-936 From: The Fourth Circuit Case at a Glance This case involves a Fourth Amendment challenge to a drug-testing policy implemented at a South Carolina public hospital. Under the policy, pregnant women are tested -- without warrants or probable cause -- for cocaine use. Positive test results are shared with law-enforcement officials, and some women were arrested and threatened with prosecution if they did not complete drug treatment. Previewed by Richard W. Garnett, a professor of law at Notre Dame Law School in Notre Dame, Ind. Supreme Court Decision: Pending

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None
by DONALD J. COONES 18 Oct '00

18 Oct '00

1 0

CDR: pick up diploma
by S-Z ENGINNERING 18 Oct '00

18 Oct '00

Send me more informations regarding cost and accreditation. Reply to toulounges(a)hotmail.com

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Re: why should it be trusted?
by Jordan Dimov 18 Oct '00

18 Oct '00

>Perhaps it is you who should do so. Showing a problem to be >asymptotically Omega(N!) or Omega(N^N) (or Theta of either) is >effectively proving it to be NP-hard--that is, it grows in >non-polynomial time. Probelms are not asymptotically Omega(N!) or Omega(N^N). Solutions are. I don't believe anyone has ever proved that an NP-hard problem can not be solved in polynomial time. Not being able to solve a problem in polynomial time with current techniques does not make it unsolvable. MIT people always surprise me.

5 5

CDR: Re: give me
by Roy Silvernail 18 Oct '00

18 Oct '00

From: Bernie B. Terrado <bbt(a)fiesta.com.ph> >please give me an encrypted value > >I need one. I'll use it as a key. 033653337357 Happy to help! _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

2 1

CDR: Re: A helpful ruling on "anonymity"
by Matt Curtin 18 Oct '00

18 Oct '00

>>>>> "Tim" == Tim May <tcmay(a)got.net> writes: Tim> This is helpful because it pushed anonymity back into the Tim> technological arena, where it belongs. Indeed. With all of the people running around claiming that data which are pseudonymous are actually anonymous, it's no wonder that there's so much confusion. http://www.consumerreports.org/Special/ConsumerInterest/Reports/0005pri1.htm Trying to point out the property of pseudonymity and to highlight the differences between privacy risks inherent to pseudonymous and anonymous data is a great way to get yourself labeled a pedant, by the way. It never ceases to amaze me how some people will resist learning something, even when such learning would clearly be in their interest. -- Matt Curtin, Founder Interhack Corporation http://www.interhack.net/ "Building the Internet, Securely." research | development | consulting

4 3

None
by Yvonne Polmeer Alexander 18 Oct '00

18 Oct '00

What about freedom of speach of the public. Do you realise how huge we are? I'm on a roll. Princess calling. You will hear from me, do you know who? Y

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CDR: Re: Think Cash
by mmotyka＠lsil.com 18 Oct '00

18 Oct '00

Riddles ought to be tough for a machine to solve. Language and shades of meaning seem less easily rendered as mathematical problems than graphics. Mike

3 2

[RRE]Al Gore and the Internet
by Phil Agre 18 Oct '00

18 Oct '00

Who Invented "Invented"?: Tracing the Real Story of the "Al Gore Invented the Internet" Hoax Phil Agre http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/ 17 October 2000 An extraordinary article appears in today's Wired News. In this article, the Wired News reporter who gave rise to the flap about Al Gore and the Internet reviews the controversy. 10/17/00: <http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,39301,00.html> This article is worth reviewing in depth because of the record of distortion and falsehood that it disingenuously glosses over. The flap arose from three articles in Wired News, dated 3/11/99, 3/15/99, and 3/23/99. These articles are worth reading in their entirety: 3/11/99: <http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,18390,00.html> 3/15/99: <http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,18480,00.html> 3/23/99: <http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,18655,00.html> Gore's words in a CNN interview, as quoted by Wired News, were as follows: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." Gore meaning, obvious to anyone who knew the record, was that he did the political work and articulated the public vision that made the Internet possible. No reasonable person could conclude that Gore was claiming to have invented the Internet in any technical sense. The first half of his sentence makes this clear: he is talking about work he did in the context of his service in the Congress. The creation of the Internet was a process that had several phases and took several years, and Gore is claiming the principal credit for the political side of that effort. It is a substantial claim, but an accurate one. The 3/11/99 Wired News article, however, is overwhelmingly hostile in its tone, and seeks to refute Gore's claim through several misleading strategies: (1) It suggests, first of all, that Gore could not have been involved in creating the Internet on the grounds that ARPANET was developed several years before Gore entered Congress. This is quite beside the point, of course, given that ARPANET and the Internet are different things. (2) It criticizes Gore for a vision of the Internet based mainly on supercomputers rather than personal computers, not mentioning that this was also the vision of the Internet's technical pioneers. (3) It claims that Gore could not have been involved in the Internet's creation because he was not a leader of its privatization. This is a non sequitur. (4) It insinuates that Gore lacks technical knowledge by claiming that he mispronounced the word "routers" as root-ers, even though this is a common and accepted pronunciation of the word among Internet architects. The article attempts to diminish Gore's credit for the Internet in other misleading ways. It says, for example, that: Gore has taken credit for popularizing the term "information superhighway" and around 1991 penned related articles for publications such as Byte magazine. But the term "data highway" has been used as far back as 1975, before Gore entered Congress. The second sentence, again, is a non sequitur, given that Gore is only said to have taken credit for popularizing the term, not for coining it. That Gore popularized the term is indisputable. The 3/11/99 article did not use the word "invented". Instead it spoke of Gore as claiming to be the "father of the Internet", already a stretch. But the Wired News article of 3/23/99 then amplifies the original accusation: WASHINGTON -- Al Gore's timing was as unfortunate as his boast. Just as Republicans were beginning to eye the 2000 presidential race in earnest, the vice president offered up a whopper of a tall tale in which he claimed to have invented the Internet. Gore's claim is once again inflated, and the word "invented" appears. Much happened between 3/11/99 and 3/23/99. On the very day that the original article appeared, 3/11/99, the office of House Majority Leader Dick Armey issued a press release mocking Gore's statement. This press release read in part as follows: If the Vice President created the Internet then I created the Interstate highway system. Both were begun during the Eisenhower Administration and I think Ike actually deserves a little credit here. http://www.politechbot.com/p-00285.html The press release does not use the word "invented". That word first appears in a Nexis search in a 3/13/99 news articles by Frank Bruni of the New York Times and Michelle Mittelstadt of the Associated Press, both of whom report on a statement by Trent Lott that they both quote as follows: During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the paper clip. and Paper clips bind us together as a nation. Lott does not use the word "invented", preferring to mimic Gore's exact words, but both of the articles do use the word "invented" to paraphrase Lott's claim (not Gore's). A similar article appears in the Washington Post on 3/14/99. The first Nexis article that uses the word "invent" to paraphrase Gore is an unsigned 3/15/99 USA Today commentary entitled "Inventing the Internet". It illustrates the general trend of press reports over this period: Gore's phrase "take the initiative in creating the Internet" is paraphrased as "created the Internet" and "created" is then glossed as "invented". The 3/15/99 Wired News article closely follows the pattern of these other publications. It is worth noting that the Associated Press and Washington Post articles both falsely state that the Internet was originally called the ARPANET and date it to 1969, citing this as evidence against Gore's assertion. Dick Armey's press release had simplified the original argument in Wired News somewhat by stating, misleadingly at best, that "scientists at ... DARPA, launched what is now the Internet in 1969". The Associated Press and Washington Post at least provide the name ARPANET, but again both of them treat it as identical to the Internet. The USA Today commentary embroiders this theme even further by stating that "[t]he Internet was invented in the 1960s when Gore was barely out of college". The same false information appears as part of a passing mention of the controversy in an 3/15/99 USA Today article by Paul Leavitt, Susan Page, and Steve Komarow: "The Internet dates to 1969, eight years before Gore was first elected to Congress." A similar statement appears in a harsh editorial in the 3/16/99 Detroit News. The first press reports, then, repeated the misleading argument in Wired News that was amplified by the Armey press release. It is likely, therefore, that Wired News and Armey, or third parties whose thinking derived from them, were the main sources for the initial mainstream press reports. The first, very forceful defenses of Gore's record by the Internet's scientific leadership (specifically Steve Wolff, with additional comments by Tony Rutkowski) appear only a couple of days later, in an article in the 3/18/00 New York Times by Katie Hafner. The word "invent" does not appear in this article. That same day there also appears the first article in Nexis to falsify Gore's quote, an Arizona Republic article by Sandy Grady that states: In a weekend interview, Gore, who prides himself as cyberhip, bragged, "I created the Internet". This is also the first article to connect the Internet theme to the recurring theme of Gore's supposedly rigid personality. The theme of Gore exhibiting a "pattern" of false statements first appears in a column by Jack Germond and Jules Whitcover the next day. Their point (at least overtly) is not that Gore exhibits such a pattern, but that he faces the danger that his opponents will discern such a pattern and hold it against him. They, too, repeat the false claim that the "the Defense Department began funding the Internet in 1969, eight years before Mr. Gore was elected to Congress". Note that this is actually a corruption of earlier formulations, which at least identified 1969 as the year when ARPANET began operation (not funding). An article by John Schwartz in the 3/21/99 Washington Post provides further heated commentary in support of Gore from the Internet's technical leadership, this time Dave Farber and Vint Cerf. Cerf in particular is quoted as saying this: I think it is very fair to say that the Internet would not be where it is in the United States without the strong support given to it and related research areas by the vice president in his current role and in his earlier role as senator. On the other hand, Farber was also quoted as saying this: The guy used an inappropriate word. If he had said he was instrumental in the development of what it is now, he'd be accurate. This is the first, and to my knowledge the only, demurral from among the scientists who have expressed support for Gore's contributions. Katie Hafner of the New York Times, who cowrote a book about the history of the Internet, is also cited as an authority in support of Gore. Significantly, however, this article also provides the clearest statement to that point that Gore had claimed to be the inventor of the Internet. The statement comes from Dan Quayle: "if Gore invented the Internet, I invented spell-check". The "Internet" controversy is first connected to the then-developing "pattern" of supposed reinventions and exaggerations by Al Gore on 3/21/99. A commentary by Philip Gailey in the 3/21/99 St. Petersburg Times says this: Gore's recent statement that as a member of Congress he had taken the initiative in "creating the Internet" drew hoots of laughter, especially from Republicans. Gore has long been a promoter of the Internet, but he didn't invent it. Trying to keep a straight face, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott quickly issued a news release claiming that he invented the paper clip. This was not the first time Gore has over-reached. A year ago Gore told reporters that he and his wife, Tipper, at the time when they were college sweethearts, were the inspiration for the novel Love Story. That came as news to the befuddled author, Erich Segal. Gore's quote, having grown familiar, has now been reduced to a few words, without the context of the first half of the sentence. The phrase "took the initiative" is now outside of quote marks as well. The pattern of equating "creating" and "invent[ing]" has begun to settle in. Much more importantly, the Internet story is now coupled with another of the now-canonical "exaggeration" stories -- the "Love Story" story. The author's claim is false on two counts: Gore did not make such a claim about himself and Tipper (he only told reporters about a news article that mistakenly made such a claim), and Segal did not contradict Gore (who was in fact one of the models for the hero of Segal's book). The decontextualized and tendentiously paraphrased "Internet" story is now coupled with the multiply falsified "Love Story" story -- a pattern that will grow much more intense later on. Another example of the nascent pattern is found in a 3/21/99 article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel by Michael Ruby. This article is worth quoting at length: ... the vice president, long thought to be a bright fellow whose earnest public persona and wooden speaking style belied a private puckishness, has demonstrated in midlife a bizarre need to burnish his image. The first sign came a couple of years ago, when Gore revealed that he and wife Tipper were the star-crossed pairing Erich Segal had in mind when he wrote the 1970 weeper "Love Story". He should have wired this first with Segal, who later said it wasn't true. More recently, he placed himself up there with Edison and Bell, claiming to have invented the Internet. One small benefit of this curious fable Pentagon technocrats and university academics actually did the job three decades ago was a blizzard of one-liners from some normally unfunny guys. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, for one, weighed in that he, in fact, invented the paper clips that "bind us together as a nation", and his office hinted that their man might be the fifth Beatle. House Majority Leader Dick Armey wanted everyone to know that he invented the interstate highway system. Then, last week on a visit to Iowa, the veep revealed other unknown facets of his past. He had been a small-business man and a home builder, Gore said, and he had lived on a farm learning to slop the hogs, to plow a "steep hillside" with mules and "take up hay all day long in the hot sun". Gore, the son of a senator, grew up in Washington, D.C., attended prep school there, went to Harvard and was, briefly, in the home-building business before becoming a reporter in Nashville in 1973. He was only 28 when he was elect ed to Congress in 1976 and has been in public life ever since. The "Gore as exaggerator" pattern is fully developed in this passage. It is the first of the "Internet" stories in Nexis to use harsh language -- "bizarre" -- and to engage in psychoanalysis -- "midlife". It states clearly (and, again, falsely) that Gore claimed to have "invented the Internet", and it repeats the false information that the Internet had been invented in 1969. It then sandwiches this misleading material between two other false entries in the "Gore exaggeration" canon -- the "Love Story" myth and the equally false claim that Gore had lied when he claimed to have performed onerous chores on the family farm in Tennessee. This is ten days out from Wired News' original report. Nexis records no further development of the story before Wired News' third report, on 3/23/99. This report begins as follows: WASHINGTON -- Al Gore's timing was as unfortunate as his boast. Just as Republicans were beginning to eye the 2000 presidential race in earnest, the vice president offered up a whopper of a tall tale in which he claimed to have invented the Internet. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,18655,00.html Here Wired News, following the pattern that had emerged in the media over the previous ten days, clearly states that Al Gore "claimed to have invented the Internet", and furthermore refers to this supposed claim as "a whopper of a tall tale" -- a lie. This article repeats the false story about Gore's having claimed credit for "Love Story", citing the Washington Times. It then repeats the false story that Gore had wrongly claimed to have worked on a farm, citing the New York Post. The 3/23/99 article does not mention any of the support for Gore that had been offered by the Internet's scientific leadership; the only supporting statement that it quotes, and then refutes, is Eleanor Clift's mistaken assertion that Gore had coined (as opposed to later popularizing) the phrase "information superhighway". In fact, nothing in the article is supportive of Gore, and its tone is well captured by the following sentence: Yet the Republicans missed a perfect opportunity to respond to Gore's fabrication. Against this background it becomes possible to judge Wired News' new article of 10/17/00. The Wired News reporter lay claims to being ... the first reporter to question the vice president's improvident boast, way back when he made it in early 1999. It quotes some of the subsequent mockery at Gore's expense, and then says this: ... Are the countless jibes at Al's expense truly justified? Did he really play a key part in the development of the Net? The short answer is that while even his supporters admit the vice president has an unfortunate tendency to exaggerate, the truth is that Gore never did claim to have "invented" the Internet. This is the first time that Wired News has made such a statement. It does not mention that its article of 3/23/99 had not only stated the contrary, but had characterized Gore's supposed claim as a lie. During a March 1999 CNN interview, while trying to differentiate himself from rival Bill Bradley, Gore boasted: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." Observe that the loaded word "boast[ed]" has appeared twice. That statement was enough to convince me, with the encouragement of my then-editor James Glave, to write a brief article that questioned the vice president's claim. The original 3/11/99 article was no more brief than typical Wired News articles. In fact it provides extensive commentary on Gore's Internet record, some of which I summarized above. Republicans on Capitol Hill noticed the Wired News writeup and started faxing around tongue-in-cheek press releases -- inveterate neatnik Trent Lott claimed to have invented the paper clip -- and other journalists picked up the story too. As the record above shows, Trent Lott claimed (facetiously) to have "created" the paper clip. The word "invented" was introduced by reporters in glossing Lott's claim. Wired News thus continues to conflate "created" and "invented", even though it has just admitted the contrary. We have also seen how most of the "other journalists" repeated false and misleading information that probably came from the original Wired News article and the Republican press releases that were based on it. My article never used the word "invented", but it didn't take long for Gore's claim to morph into something he never intended. The original 3/11/99 article did not use the word "invented". That word first appeared two days later. But the Wired News article of 3/23/99, as already mentioned, did use the word. Wired News has not chosen to refute this false claim until 19 months after its original false and misleading articles, when the election is three weeks away, other commentators have come forward to refute the falsehood, and Al Gore's reputation has been nearly destroyed by the snowballing lie that Wired News -- despite what it now says -- is responsible for having set in motion. The terrible irony in this exchange is that while Gore certainly didn't create the Internet, he was one of the first politicians to realize that those bearded, bespectacled researchers were busy crafting something that could, just maybe, become pretty important. This passage is obscenely disingenuous, given that the three previous articles on the subject by this Wired News reporter are relentlessly negative and never gave Gore the slightest credit for creating the Internet. In January 1994, Gore gave a landmark speech at UCLA about the "information superhighway". The 3/11/99 and 3/23/99 articles had labored to deprive Gore of credit for this phrase. Many portions -- discussions of universal service, wiring classrooms to the Net, and antitrust actions -- are surprisingly relevant even today. ... The phrases "terrible irony", "landmark", and "surprisingly relevant" depart radically from the uniformly negative and polemical tone of the earlier articles. Despite all of this, the bulk of the 10/17/00 article is, like the earlier articles, principally concerned with criticizing Gore. Yet whereas those articles had been ferocious in denying Gore any credit on any front, the latest article ventures a much weaker thesis: But it's also difficult to argue with a straight face that the Internet we know today would not exist if Gore had decided to practice the piano instead of politics. This is not the position that Gore expressed, and Wired News does not indicate who does argue for it. It is, however, a fair gloss of the passage from Vint Cert quoted above from the 3/21/99 Washington Post: I think it is very fair to say that the Internet would not be where it is in the United States without the strong support given to it and related research areas by the vice president in his current role and in his earlier role as senator. In a sense Wired News' new, downscaled contention is trivially true: in the alternate world where Gore played piano, a doppleganger might have arisen to see the new networking technology coming, appreciate its importance, popularize a theme such as "information superhighway", do the political groundwork to fund its development, and so on. But this scenario also makes clear why Wired News' new contention is so weak: as the statements of the various Internet scientific leaders have made clear, these were indispensible functions that someone had to serve. In this particular world that person was Al Gore. Wired News' campaign of distortions effectively deprived Al Gore of the substantial credit that he deserves in creating the most important technological invention of the last twenty years. The overall assessment of Wired News' performance on this story must be negative. Its original article was harshly polemical and misleading on several counts. Its second, short article was part of the emerging and misleading media consensus. Its third, much longer article was also harshly polemical, falsely asserts that Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet, and wraps up this false assertion with two additional false assertions about Gore that it recycled from the conservative press. None of these articles was remotely balanced or fair, and none of them reported a single scrap of positive information about Gore's contribution, except to portray it in a negative light. Finally, Wired News' most recent article is misleading about the contents of the earlier articles and grossly disingenuous in the way that it supplies positive evaluations that were entirely missing from the earlier articles. Wired News' articles about Al Gore and the Internet did not simply contribute an urban myth to American culture. They were part and parcel of a hysterical campaign of character assassination against an innocent man based on lies and distortions. This campaign should bring disgrace to Wired News and all of the other media organizations that were part of it. It should also cause sober reflection on the corrupt state of public discourse in this country. end --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

1 0

[RRE]Al Gore and the Internet
by Phil Agre 18 Oct '00

18 Oct '00

Who Invented "Invented"?: Tracing the Real Story of the "Al Gore Invented the Internet" Hoax Phil Agre http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/ 17 October 2000 An extraordinary article appears in today's Wired News. In this article, the Wired News reporter who gave rise to the flap about Al Gore and the Internet reviews the controversy. 10/17/00: <http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,39301,00.html> This article is worth reviewing in depth because of the record of distortion and falsehood that it disingenuously glosses over. The flap arose from three articles in Wired News, dated 3/11/99, 3/15/99, and 3/23/99. These articles are worth reading in their entirety: 3/11/99: <http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,18390,00.html> 3/15/99: <http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,18480,00.html> 3/23/99: <http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,18655,00.html> Gore's words in a CNN interview, as quoted by Wired News, were as follows: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." Gore meaning, obvious to anyone who knew the record, was that he did the political work and articulated the public vision that made the Internet possible. No reasonable person could conclude that Gore was claiming to have invented the Internet in any technical sense. The first half of his sentence makes this clear: he is talking about work he did in the context of his service in the Congress. The creation of the Internet was a process that had several phases and took several years, and Gore is claiming the principal credit for the political side of that effort. It is a substantial claim, but an accurate one. The 3/11/99 Wired News article, however, is overwhelmingly hostile in its tone, and seeks to refute Gore's claim through several misleading strategies: (1) It suggests, first of all, that Gore could not have been involved in creating the Internet on the grounds that ARPANET was developed several years before Gore entered Congress. This is quite beside the point, of course, given that ARPANET and the Internet are different things. (2) It criticizes Gore for a vision of the Internet based mainly on supercomputers rather than personal computers, not mentioning that this was also the vision of the Internet's technical pioneers. (3) It claims that Gore could not have been involved in the Internet's creation because he was not a leader of its privatization. This is a non sequitur. (4) It insinuates that Gore lacks technical knowledge by claiming that he mispronounced the word "routers" as root-ers, even though this is a common and accepted pronunciation of the word among Internet architects. The article attempts to diminish Gore's credit for the Internet in other misleading ways. It says, for example, that: Gore has taken credit for popularizing the term "information superhighway" and around 1991 penned related articles for publications such as Byte magazine. But the term "data highway" has been used as far back as 1975, before Gore entered Congress. The second sentence, again, is a non sequitur, given that Gore is only said to have taken credit for popularizing the term, not for coining it. That Gore popularized the term is indisputable. The 3/11/99 article did not use the word "invented". Instead it spoke of Gore as claiming to be the "father of the Internet", already a stretch. But the Wired News article of 3/23/99 then amplifies the original accusation: WASHINGTON -- Al Gore's timing was as unfortunate as his boast. Just as Republicans were beginning to eye the 2000 presidential race in earnest, the vice president offered up a whopper of a tall tale in which he claimed to have invented the Internet. Gore's claim is once again inflated, and the word "invented" appears. Much happened between 3/11/99 and 3/23/99. On the very day that the original article appeared, 3/11/99, the office of House Majority Leader Dick Armey issued a press release mocking Gore's statement. This press release read in part as follows: If the Vice President created the Internet then I created the Interstate highway system. Both were begun during the Eisenhower Administration and I think Ike actually deserves a little credit here. http://www.politechbot.com/p-00285.html The press release does not use the word "invented". That word first appears in a Nexis search in a 3/13/99 news articles by Frank Bruni of the New York Times and Michelle Mittelstadt of the Associated Press, both of whom report on a statement by Trent Lott that they both quote as follows: During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the paper clip. and Paper clips bind us together as a nation. Lott does not use the word "invented", preferring to mimic Gore's exact words, but both of the articles do use the word "invented" to paraphrase Lott's claim (not Gore's). A similar article appears in the Washington Post on 3/14/99. The first Nexis article that uses the word "invent" to paraphrase Gore is an unsigned 3/15/99 USA Today commentary entitled "Inventing the Internet". It illustrates the general trend of press reports over this period: Gore's phrase "take the initiative in creating the Internet" is paraphrased as "created the Internet" and "created" is then glossed as "invented". The 3/15/99 Wired News article closely follows the pattern of these other publications. It is worth noting that the Associated Press and Washington Post articles both falsely state that the Internet was originally called the ARPANET and date it to 1969, citing this as evidence against Gore's assertion. Dick Armey's press release had simplified the original argument in Wired News somewhat by stating, misleadingly at best, that "scientists at ... DARPA, launched what is now the Internet in 1969". The Associated Press and Washington Post at least provide the name ARPANET, but again both of them treat it as identical to the Internet. The USA Today commentary embroiders this theme even further by stating that "[t]he Internet was invented in the 1960s when Gore was barely out of college". The same false information appears as part of a passing mention of the controversy in an 3/15/99 USA Today article by Paul Leavitt, Susan Page, and Steve Komarow: "The Internet dates to 1969, eight years before Gore was first elected to Congress." A similar statement appears in a harsh editorial in the 3/16/99 Detroit News. The first press reports, then, repeated the misleading argument in Wired News that was amplified by the Armey press release. It is likely, therefore, that Wired News and Armey, or third parties whose thinking derived from them, were the main sources for the initial mainstream press reports. The first, very forceful defenses of Gore's record by the Internet's scientific leadership (specifically Steve Wolff, with additional comments by Tony Rutkowski) appear only a couple of days later, in an article in the 3/18/00 New York Times by Katie Hafner. The word "invent" does not appear in this article. That same day there also appears the first article in Nexis to falsify Gore's quote, an Arizona Republic article by Sandy Grady that states: In a weekend interview, Gore, who prides himself as cyberhip, bragged, "I created the Internet". This is also the first article to connect the Internet theme to the recurring theme of Gore's supposedly rigid personality. The theme of Gore exhibiting a "pattern" of false statements first appears in a column by Jack Germond and Jules Whitcover the next day. Their point (at least overtly) is not that Gore exhibits such a pattern, but that he faces the danger that his opponents will discern such a pattern and hold it against him. They, too, repeat the false claim that the "the Defense Department began funding the Internet in 1969, eight years before Mr. Gore was elected to Congress". Note that this is actually a corruption of earlier formulations, which at least identified 1969 as the year when ARPANET began operation (not funding). An article by John Schwartz in the 3/21/99 Washington Post provides further heated commentary in support of Gore from the Internet's technical leadership, this time Dave Farber and Vint Cerf. Cerf in particular is quoted as saying this: I think it is very fair to say that the Internet would not be where it is in the United States without the strong support given to it and related research areas by the vice president in his current role and in his earlier role as senator. On the other hand, Farber was also quoted as saying this: The guy used an inappropriate word. If he had said he was instrumental in the development of what it is now, he'd be accurate. This is the first, and to my knowledge the only, demurral from among the scientists who have expressed support for Gore's contributions. Katie Hafner of the New York Times, who cowrote a book about the history of the Internet, is also cited as an authority in support of Gore. Significantly, however, this article also provides the clearest statement to that point that Gore had claimed to be the inventor of the Internet. The statement comes from Dan Quayle: "if Gore invented the Internet, I invented spell-check". The "Internet" controversy is first connected to the then-developing "pattern" of supposed reinventions and exaggerations by Al Gore on 3/21/99. A commentary by Philip Gailey in the 3/21/99 St. Petersburg Times says this: Gore's recent statement that as a member of Congress he had taken the initiative in "creating the Internet" drew hoots of laughter, especially from Republicans. Gore has long been a promoter of the Internet, but he didn't invent it. Trying to keep a straight face, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott quickly issued a news release claiming that he invented the paper clip. This was not the first time Gore has over-reached. A year ago Gore told reporters that he and his wife, Tipper, at the time when they were college sweethearts, were the inspiration for the novel Love Story. That came as news to the befuddled author, Erich Segal. Gore's quote, having grown familiar, has now been reduced to a few words, without the context of the first half of the sentence. The phrase "took the initiative" is now outside of quote marks as well. The pattern of equating "creating" and "invent[ing]" has begun to settle in. Much more importantly, the Internet story is now coupled with another of the now-canonical "exaggeration" stories -- the "Love Story" story. The author's claim is false on two counts: Gore did not make such a claim about himself and Tipper (he only told reporters about a news article that mistakenly made such a claim), and Segal did not contradict Gore (who was in fact one of the models for the hero of Segal's book). The decontextualized and tendentiously paraphrased "Internet" story is now coupled with the multiply falsified "Love Story" story -- a pattern that will grow much more intense later on. Another example of the nascent pattern is found in a 3/21/99 article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel by Michael Ruby. This article is worth quoting at length: ... the vice president, long thought to be a bright fellow whose earnest public persona and wooden speaking style belied a private puckishness, has demonstrated in midlife a bizarre need to burnish his image. The first sign came a couple of years ago, when Gore revealed that he and wife Tipper were the star-crossed pairing Erich Segal had in mind when he wrote the 1970 weeper "Love Story". He should have wired this first with Segal, who later said it wasn't true. More recently, he placed himself up there with Edison and Bell, claiming to have invented the Internet. One small benefit of this curious fable Pentagon technocrats and university academics actually did the job three decades ago was a blizzard of one-liners from some normally unfunny guys. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, for one, weighed in that he, in fact, invented the paper clips that "bind us together as a nation", and his office hinted that their man might be the fifth Beatle. House Majority Leader Dick Armey wanted everyone to know that he invented the interstate highway system. Then, last week on a visit to Iowa, the veep revealed other unknown facets of his past. He had been a small-business man and a home builder, Gore said, and he had lived on a farm learning to slop the hogs, to plow a "steep hillside" with mules and "take up hay all day long in the hot sun". Gore, the son of a senator, grew up in Washington, D.C., attended prep school there, went to Harvard and was, briefly, in the home-building business before becoming a reporter in Nashville in 1973. He was only 28 when he was elect ed to Congress in 1976 and has been in public life ever since. The "Gore as exaggerator" pattern is fully developed in this passage. It is the first of the "Internet" stories in Nexis to use harsh language -- "bizarre" -- and to engage in psychoanalysis -- "midlife". It states clearly (and, again, falsely) that Gore claimed to have "invented the Internet", and it repeats the false information that the Internet had been invented in 1969. It then sandwiches this misleading material between two other false entries in the "Gore exaggeration" canon -- the "Love Story" myth and the equally false claim that Gore had lied when he claimed to have performed onerous chores on the family farm in Tennessee. This is ten days out from Wired News' original report. Nexis records no further development of the story before Wired News' third report, on 3/23/99. This report begins as follows: WASHINGTON -- Al Gore's timing was as unfortunate as his boast. Just as Republicans were beginning to eye the 2000 presidential race in earnest, the vice president offered up a whopper of a tall tale in which he claimed to have invented the Internet. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,18655,00.html Here Wired News, following the pattern that had emerged in the media over the previous ten days, clearly states that Al Gore "claimed to have invented the Internet", and furthermore refers to this supposed claim as "a whopper of a tall tale" -- a lie. This article repeats the false story about Gore's having claimed credit for "Love Story", citing the Washington Times. It then repeats the false story that Gore had wrongly claimed to have worked on a farm, citing the New York Post. The 3/23/99 article does not mention any of the support for Gore that had been offered by the Internet's scientific leadership; the only supporting statement that it quotes, and then refutes, is Eleanor Clift's mistaken assertion that Gore had coined (as opposed to later popularizing) the phrase "information superhighway". In fact, nothing in the article is supportive of Gore, and its tone is well captured by the following sentence: Yet the Republicans missed a perfect opportunity to respond to Gore's fabrication. Against this background it becomes possible to judge Wired News' new article of 10/17/00. The Wired News reporter lay claims to being ... the first reporter to question the vice president's improvident boast, way back when he made it in early 1999. It quotes some of the subsequent mockery at Gore's expense, and then says this: ... Are the countless jibes at Al's expense truly justified? Did he really play a key part in the development of the Net? The short answer is that while even his supporters admit the vice president has an unfortunate tendency to exaggerate, the truth is that Gore never did claim to have "invented" the Internet. This is the first time that Wired News has made such a statement. It does not mention that its article of 3/23/99 had not only stated the contrary, but had characterized Gore's supposed claim as a lie. During a March 1999 CNN interview, while trying to differentiate himself from rival Bill Bradley, Gore boasted: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." Observe that the loaded word "boast[ed]" has appeared twice. That statement was enough to convince me, with the encouragement of my then-editor James Glave, to write a brief article that questioned the vice president's claim. The original 3/11/99 article was no more brief than typical Wired News articles. In fact it provides extensive commentary on Gore's Internet record, some of which I summarized above. Republicans on Capitol Hill noticed the Wired News writeup and started faxing around tongue-in-cheek press releases -- inveterate neatnik Trent Lott claimed to have invented the paper clip -- and other journalists picked up the story too. As the record above shows, Trent Lott claimed (facetiously) to have "created" the paper clip. The word "invented" was introduced by reporters in glossing Lott's claim. Wired News thus continues to conflate "created" and "invented", even though it has just admitted the contrary. We have also seen how most of the "other journalists" repeated false and misleading information that probably came from the original Wired News article and the Republican press releases that were based on it. My article never used the word "invented", but it didn't take long for Gore's claim to morph into something he never intended. The original 3/11/99 article did not use the word "invented". That word first appeared two days later. But the Wired News article of 3/23/99, as already mentioned, did use the word. Wired News has not chosen to refute this false claim until 19 months after its original false and misleading articles, when the election is three weeks away, other commentators have come forward to refute the falsehood, and Al Gore's reputation has been nearly destroyed by the snowballing lie that Wired News -- despite what it now says -- is responsible for having set in motion. The terrible irony in this exchange is that while Gore certainly didn't create the Internet, he was one of the first politicians to realize that those bearded, bespectacled researchers were busy crafting something that could, just maybe, become pretty important. This passage is obscenely disingenuous, given that the three previous articles on the subject by this Wired News reporter are relentlessly negative and never gave Gore the slightest credit for creating the Internet. In January 1994, Gore gave a landmark speech at UCLA about the "information superhighway". The 3/11/99 and 3/23/99 articles had labored to deprive Gore of credit for this phrase. Many portions -- discussions of universal service, wiring classrooms to the Net, and antitrust actions -- are surprisingly relevant even today. ... The phrases "terrible irony", "landmark", and "surprisingly relevant" depart radically from the uniformly negative and polemical tone of the earlier articles. Despite all of this, the bulk of the 10/17/00 article is, like the earlier articles, principally concerned with criticizing Gore. Yet whereas those articles had been ferocious in denying Gore any credit on any front, the latest article ventures a much weaker thesis: But it's also difficult to argue with a straight face that the Internet we know today would not exist if Gore had decided to practice the piano instead of politics. This is not the position that Gore expressed, and Wired News does not indicate who does argue for it. It is, however, a fair gloss of the passage from Vint Cert quoted above from the 3/21/99 Washington Post: I think it is very fair to say that the Internet would not be where it is in the United States without the strong support given to it and related research areas by the vice president in his current role and in his earlier role as senator. In a sense Wired News' new, downscaled contention is trivially true: in the alternate world where Gore played piano, a doppleganger might have arisen to see the new networking technology coming, appreciate its importance, popularize a theme such as "information superhighway", do the political groundwork to fund its development, and so on. But this scenario also makes clear why Wired News' new contention is so weak: as the statements of the various Internet scientific leaders have made clear, these were indispensible functions that someone had to serve. In this particular world that person was Al Gore. Wired News' campaign of distortions effectively deprived Al Gore of the substantial credit that he deserves in creating the most important technological invention of the last twenty years. The overall assessment of Wired News' performance on this story must be negative. Its original article was harshly polemical and misleading on several counts. Its second, short article was part of the emerging and misleading media consensus. Its third, much longer article was also harshly polemical, falsely asserts that Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet, and wraps up this false assertion with two additional false assertions about Gore that it recycled from the conservative press. None of these articles was remotely balanced or fair, and none of them reported a single scrap of positive information about Gore's contribution, except to portray it in a negative light. Finally, Wired News' most recent article is misleading about the contents of the earlier articles and grossly disingenuous in the way that it supplies positive evaluations that were entirely missing from the earlier articles. Wired News' articles about Al Gore and the Internet did not simply contribute an urban myth to American culture. They were part and parcel of a hysterical campaign of character assassination against an innocent man based on lies and distortions. This campaign should bring disgrace to Wired News and all of the other media organizations that were part of it. It should also cause sober reflection on the corrupt state of public discourse in this country. end --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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CDR: Re:Your New E-Commerce Site
by Dave London 18 Oct '00

18 Oct '00

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CDR: Re: why should it be trusted?
by Kerry L. Bonin 18 Oct '00

18 Oct '00

At 01:18 AM 10/17/00 -0700, Tim May wrote: >For a message encrypted (or signed, a related problem) with a PKS >cipher, recovering the plaintext involves factoring the modulus...so >far as we know. This factoring may be done with conventional >computers, special-purpose computers, or even exotic computers (tanks >of DNA computers, billions of Net-connected computers, >superconducting geodes orbiting around Neptune, quantum computers, >whatever.) [snip] >A look at the work factors (cf. Rivest's paper of circa 1993-4, or >Schneier's book, or any of several other books, or one's own >calculations) will show the pointlessness of throwing more computer >power at sufficiently large moduli. > >Absent a breakthrough in factoring (and I mean a _major_ >breakthrough, not a polynomial factor speedup), a modulus of >thousands of decimal digits will never be factored. The "RSA-129" >challenge becomes the "RSA-1000" challenge. Moore's Law won't do any >good, nor will using ASICs or gate arrays or even nanotechnology. > >A quantum computer _might_ make a difference (though this is unproven). Rivest and Schneier's work factor discussions assume brute force or streamlined brute force such as GNFS. These remain exponential in time. Now hypothesize the effect a new factoring or Feistel cipher attack would have on these tables. Too many crypto pundits spout extrapolations of exponential work factor as proof that these ciphers are unbreakable. These are merely postulates based on an assumption of a sort that has generally proven wrong throughout the history of science. "X requires Y, but Y is impossible, so X is impossible." Until Z comes along, and 20 years later its demonstrated in science or math classrooms as yet another example of bad logic. >Talking about SOS and ECL and 1 GHz and all is nonsensical. All of >those technologies are as nothing when in comes to problems with work >factors exponential in key length! > >The exact point at which brute force becomes economically infeasible >depends on technologies, improvements in algorithms, etc., but the >broad outlines remain as described. One of the points I believe is sorely missing in these discussions is how important "improvements in algorithms" can be. In the narrowest sense, I agree with your statements - but I have also seen what elegant alternative approaches can do to systems that were presumed to be vulnerable only to brute force, and I've also seen how nicely they may be placed into custom hardware. >Then I'd have to say your analytical abilities are shallow. If you >think one of these ciphers with work factors exponential in modulus >size (or "key length," approximately) will fall to custom chips, you >don't understand exponential time/space. I'm not stating that brute force silicon can be scaled to the point it can attack a 256 bit key in reasonable time today. What I do know is that alternative attacks, implemented in silicon or sapphire, are another matter. Your position is predicated on the assumption that because no such attacks are in the public domain, none must exist. I believe this is faulty logic, and advances a common, yet dangerous position. >>I don't think its unreasonable to extrapolate that a sufficiently high >>priority message can be cracked by the NSA in near realtime, regardless of >>the cipher strength used, without significant knowledge of the nature of >>the plaintext. > >And you believe this? Most people who have worked with military crypto systems do, off the record. The difference between what is public and what has been developed with decades of unlimited resources is staggering. How many cryptographers or discrete math experts work in the public domain? Now how many work for the NSA? That's how many orders of magnitude? And how many orders of magnitude difference in budgets, ect., even with bureaucratic and civil service overhead. Call it threat analysis - I think it is reasonable to assume they know a few tricks that aren't public yet. And any trick related to factoring or Feistel networks is sufficient to obsolete those "age of universe" extrapolations.

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CDR: Homeworker Needed
by drognan＠tm.net.my 18 Oct '00

18 Oct '00

Interested to earn $1200 or more? We're seeking people to assist in typing and data processing works at home. Only serious applicants need to apply. ************************************************************ This message is sent in compliance of the new e-mail bill: of S. 1618, further transmissions to you by the sender of this email may be stopped at no cost to you by sending a reply to this email address with the word "remove" in the subject line."

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CDR: Re:Your Financial Independence
by success＠em118.net 17 Oct '00

17 Oct '00

Do Your Goals Include: -Controlling Your Financial Future? -Owning Your Time? -Feeling Good About What You Do And Helping Others? Are you: -Tired Of Working For Someone Else � For What "They" Feel You Are Worth? --Tired Of The MLM Scene? -Looking For A Legitimate Home-Based Enterprise That Will Generate $10k-20k And More Per Month? THEN HERE IT IS: -Free Enterprise In It's Purest Form...Not MLM Or Franchise. -No Personal Selling. -Full Training And Support In An Environment Of Utmost Integrity. -Lead Generation System That Brings Qualified Prospects to You. -A Multiple 6-Figure Income is Realistically Attainable in 1st Year. -2 to 4 year Retirement Program...Period! -This Program Is All About Money...How To � Make It, How To Keep It, And How to Make � It Work For You. CALL: 1-800-587-9046 ext. 5500 �� (24 Hour Recorded Message) "Whatever The Mind Can Conceive And Believe, It Can Achieve." Napoleon Hill To be removed respond at takeoffplease100(a)yahoo.com

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CDR: Gore and Bush during debate: Equal-opportunity censors?
by Declan McCullagh 17 Oct '00

17 Oct '00

http://www.cluebot.com/article.pl?sid=00/10/18/042235&mode=nested Gore and Bush: Equal-Opportunity Censors? posted by cicero on Tuesday October 17, @10:58PM from the affirmative-action-for-censorhappy-politicos dept. There was something absent from this evening's presidential debate, and it wasn't Al's horn-blowing sighs or Dubya's runny-nosed sniffles. What was missing was an appreciation for the benefits of free speech, the perils of blocking software, and the hazards of blaming the world's woes on the Internet. In response to an audience question about "the morality of our country," both candidates talked up rating systems, blamed Hollywood, and recommended having the government help parents who have, allegedly, failed. Al Gore, who likes to talk about privacy, waxed downright Carnivorous over a "feature that allows parents to automatically check, with one click, what sites your kids have visited lately.. if you can check up on them, then you -- that's real power." Quoth Bush, who had similar ideas: "There ought to be filters in public libraries, and filters in public schools, so that if kids get on the Internet, there's not going to be pornography or violence coming in." Bush was talking about legislation currently before Congress that ties filtering to checks from the Feds. Relevant excerpt from transcript: http://www.cluebot.com/article.pl?sid=00/10/18/042235&mode=nested

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CDR: NSA into cyberwar soon
by anonymous＠openpgp.net 17 Oct '00

17 Oct '00

U.S. spy chief: Cyberspace a potential battlefield BALTIMORE, Maryland (Reuters) -- The head of the super-secret U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) said Monday that cyberspace had become as important a potential battlefield as any other and held out the prospect of attacking there as well as defending. "Information is now a place," Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden told a major computer security conference here. "It is a place where we must ensure American security as surely as ... and, sea, air and space." He cited moves to define the "legal structure into which we must fit" before offensive "information operations" -- cyberattacks -- were officially added to the arsenal that U.S. commanders can use against a foe. The NSA is the Defense Department arm that intercepts communications worldwide. The world of information "has taken on a dimension within which we will conduct operations to ensure American security," Hayden said, adding that the NSA had not been authorized to do "that attack thing," or go on the offensive in cyberspace. "But as the United States government begins to think about what it should or wants to do when it is under attack, it raises a really interesting question that we all have to work through in the context of our overall democracy," he said. A year ago Army Gen. Henry Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, disclosed that the United States tried to mount electronic attacks on Serbian computer networks during the NATO air campaign over the province of Kosovo. "We only used our capability to a very limited degree," Shelton told reporters at the time. Hayden said a key challenge to the NSA today was to protect U.S. telecommunications in a world where the adversaries might be "cyberterrorists, a malicious hacker or even a non-malicious hacker." "All can cause great harm" to the networked systems that tie the industrialized world together, he told the conference co-sponsored by the NSA and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, an arm of the Commerce Department. Hayden said the NSA, the Pentagons codemaking and codebreaking agency, was committed to developing its partnerships with industry to boost computer network security. "Weve done pioneering work to better protect e-commerce" as well as to develop biometrics, ways in which computers authenticate identities from unique traits such as fingerprints, iris scans and voice recognition, he said. Ultimately the NSA must become the "security statement" of the U.S. telecommunications and computer industries, just as he views the Air Force as the "military statement" of the aviation industry, he said. "How else does our society develop the tools we need to do what it is that our agency has been charged to do?" he asked. The NSA designs codes to protect the integrity of U.S. information systems and searches for weaknesses in foes systems and codes. http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/10/17/tech.internet.security.reut/in…

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CDR: Unified Cryptologic Architecture
by John Young 17 Oct '00

17 Oct '00

The bibliography of another NSA reorganization report released today lists several entries under "Unified Cryptologic Architecture" as well as a "U.S. Cryptologic Strategy - Preparing for the 21st Century." There is also a citation of "SINEWS - GCHQ Modernization and Change Program." We would appreciate leads or pointers for getting these documents. Here's the main text second report: http://cryptome.org/nsa-reorg-net.htm

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CDR: Re: thanx
by John Galt 17 Oct '00

17 Oct '00

That was not rude. This is rude: it is my fervent wish that someone as stupid as yourself under no circumstances breed. To be more exact, it is my wish that you never become a "fucker" so to speak. Since you can't look in a goddamn Loompanics catalog to get the Anarchist's Cookbook, you have no hope of ever understanding it, and it would be even MORE rude of me to actually give you a copy, since a good portion of the recipies contained therein are almost certain to cause death or grave bodily injury if followed as written. I really cannot see the down side in this, but I also do not wish to have your moronic blood on my hands, even by proxy, as I fear that idiocy such as yours might have some infectious element. I have included cypherpunks in this thread again, as I'm pretty sure that your idiocy should propagate on the off chance that somebody actually wanted to send a copy of the AC to you. On Mon, 16 Oct 2000, diego wrote: > thanx fucker > goddamn rude man > -- Galt's sci-fi paradox: Stormtroopers versus Redshirts to the death. Who is John Galt? galt(a)inconnu.isu.edu, that's who!

2 1

CDR: A famine averted...
by Jim Choate 17 Oct '00

17 Oct '00

Hi, The thesis has been made that all famines are the cause of government intervention. I was asked to provide two examples. I also thought of an example where a famine was averted due to government intervention. The current hurricane in Belize. Had the government not stepped in and 'price fixed' the stores would have been depleted and cached by the few a week ago. Why in major disasters do prices go up, when it is clear this is contrary to the best interest of the market? That without price fixing the majority of people will be left without. Why is this hands-off philosophy not held accountable for its failings? I must assume that the resultant famine due to price inflation by the individual resource owners is still a result of that government interference. ;) ____________________________________________________________________ He is able who thinks he is able. Buddha The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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CDR: RE: Re: why should it be trusted?
by Kerry L. Bonin 17 Oct '00

17 Oct '00

At 10:06 AM 10/17/00 -0500, Fisher Mark wrote: >It is just a whole lot easier to do a black-bag job on a North Korean >embassy (for example) than to directly attack their crypto. That is why >defense companies do background checks, that is why some areas of military >facilities are guarded by soldiers with guns, and that is why the NSA tried >to conceal all evidence of their existence for a while. Crypto is just one >part of a unified security policy -- sometimes not a very important part at >that. I don't dispute this, my choice of words was "Sure, they devote significant resources to exploiting weaknesses in key management." "Rubber hose" and "black bag" cryptanalysis have a long history of being far more cost effective than brute force.

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CDR: NSA Releases Reorg Reports
by John Young 17 Oct '00

17 Oct '00

NSA released today on its Web site two reports on its reorganization, one by an external team of 27 page, another of 76 pages by an internal team. Both are big PDF files. We have converted the first to HTML: http://cryptome.org/nsa-reorg-et.htm (77KB) Here is an excerpt: "We interviewed about one hundred people in the Agency, including most senior leaders, and asked very specific questions about the way people operate and the embedded culture. We learned the Agency is a very bureaucratic government organization, and that most of the behavior patterns were established during the 1970s and 1980s when there was plenty of money to execute its mission. NSA appears to operate like an entitlement program. Most people in the Agency are highly motivated and work very hard, but a portion does not. We also found a leadership culture that appears most interested in focusing on their positions and protecting their people's jobs at the expense of accomplishing the mission. Most of the people at NSA are hired night out of college and spend their entire lives in the Agency. Regardless of their work performance and their job responsibility, the Agency promotes people roughly at the same rate. The institution encouraged people to get deeply involved in the promotion process, to the point that civilian personnel wrote their own promotion reports, and supervisors endorsed the reports even if they did not agree, mostly to prevent animosity. However, the most critical aspect of the people and culture in the institution was the mindset related to lack of empowerment and accountability. NSA's present culture overemphasizes loyalty to a particular function and its associated senior leadership, instead of full and frank discussions of problems, issues and concerns. This has created a culture that discourages sending bad news up the chain of command. The staff knows NSA is falling behind and is not properly addressing the inherent problems of the emerging global network, and the present management infrastructure does not appear to be supporting the required changes. In addition, we are concerned the present mindset fostered a society where people were afraid to express their own thoughts. Even though people spoke to us with true candor, they always wanted to avoid attribution because of the perception that the information was going to be used against them." From: External Team Report: a Management Review for the Director, NSA, October 22, 2000 http://www.nsa.gov/releases/nsa_external_team_report.pdf (2.7MB) Second report: http://www.nsa.gov/releases/nsa_new_enterprise_team_recommendations.pdf (6.4MB)

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