December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Another Anti-Privacy Bigot Heard From (was: The Guilmette/Burnore deba
by owner-cypherpunks＠toad.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Joe "We are Borg" Foster <joe(a)bftsi0.UUCP> wrote: > > That was an impressive tantrum that you and Belinda just staged. I > > suppose you thought it would distract attention from the fact that > > you still refuse to reveal what your motive was for harassing Jeff > > Burchell this summer in a failed attempt to get him to turn over the > > logs containing the names and e-mail addresses of everyone who > > either sent or received an anonymous message through his remailer. > > Et tu, dumbass? Have you forgotten the existence of the "old" Deja News > database? That won't work for two reasons: First, Gary is now "cloaking" his posts with an "X-No-Archive" header to keep them from being archived by neutral parties such as DejaNews. In addition, if you do a search on his name as author in the old database, you get a bunch of matches that say "article not available", indicating that he's requested that such articles be removed from the archives. Second, how does one search for something that was never posted? The only thing I see in the Deja News archives is Jeff Burchell's explanation of Burnore's $cientology-esque attack on his remailer: -> Subject: Re: DataBasix vs. the Remailers -- Gary Burnore's -> Dirty Tricks Exposed (was: Jeff's Side of the Story.) -> From: toxic(a)hotwired.com (Jeff Burchell) -> Date: 1997/07/02 -> Message-ID: <5pc9mb$omg$1(a)re.hotwired.com> -> -> [...] -> -> : > Mr. Burnore requested a copy of my (non-existant) logs. -> : > I told him to get me something in writing, signed by his lawyer that -> : > stipulated that the logs were confidential, and not to be revealed to -> : > anyone outside of the lawyer's office. -> : -> : He requested the logs of the messages of *EVERYONE* using Huge -> : Cajones? What was his rationale for such a fishing expedition? -> : (Cases like this are a good reason for remailers to NOT keep logs.) -> -> I have no idea of his rationale. And I don't know of any remailer -> operator who keeps logs that would identify a user. I had my machine -> configured to log in a fairly standard way, but I used a different -> sendmail configuration for the remailer, that had all logging (except -> for certain error conditions) turned off. -> -> Part of me thinks he wanted the logs so he could tell if I was going -> to be able to identify him when he started his attacks. Thus far, that's the best explanation I've seen for Gary Burnore's threats and harassment. > > If posts from "anon assholes" really offend your sensitive feelings, > > then you might want to stay away from most of the NGs where you've > > been posting your blather. SUGGESTION: stick with "safe" groups > > like comp.org.cauce where anonymous posts are banned and content is > > censo^h^h^h^h^hmoderated to ensure an appropriate level of political > > correctness. > > Posts from assholes definitely offend me, whether they're anon or not! True, but the chance that somone might be offensive is not sufficient reason to censor it. (If that were true, Usenet references to Whitewater might be declared "pornographic" by the Clinton administration.) Gary Burnore keeps whining about posts from "ANON assholes" not just "assholes" in general. That definitely reveals something about him. If he were to gripe about posts from "black assholes", one might (rightly) conclude that he was a racist. If he were flaming posts from "gay assholes", you'd probably figure that he was a homophobe, right? The fact that he doesn't flame the CONTENT but some characteristic about the author marks him as a bigot. > Well, if you really think about it, just about any news post might be > "anonymous". After all, how do you know that whoever typed all this is > really named "Joe Foster"? You don't! Remember "Mahmud al-Hijazi"? You've got a point there. <g> I don't place much faith in what I see in the From: line, even if it appears to be a valid e-mail address.

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Spammernomicon
by Spam Man 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Selected passages from Spam-Bot: A Technical Manual for Independent Spammers. It is my opinion that the professional spammer fills a need in society and is, at times, the only alternative for "personal" anonymity. Moreover, if my advice and the proven methods in this book are followed, certainly no one will ever discover your identity. Almost every man harbors a fantasy of living the life of Dimitri Vulis or some other fictional hero who spams for fun and profit. They dream of living by their knee-jerk reflexes, of doing whatever is necessary without regard to moral or legal restrictions. But few have the courage or knowledge to make that dream a reality. You might be like my friends -- interested but unsure, standing on the sidelines afraid to play the game because you don't know the rules. [But] within the pages of this book you will learn one of the most successful methods of remailer operation used by an independent spam-bot operator. You will follow the procedures of a man who works alone, without backing of organized crime or on a personal vendetta. Step by step you will be taken from research to equipment selection to job preparation to successful job completion. You will learn where to find employment, how much to charge, and what you can, and cannot, do with the money you earn. But deny your urge to skip about, looking for the "good" parts. Start where any amateur who is serious about turning professional will start -- at the beginning. [And when] [y]ou've read all the suggested material, you [will have] honed your mind, body and reflexes into a precision piece of spamming machinery. You [will have] assembled the necessary tools and learned to use them efficiently. Your knowledge of dealing spam [will have] increased to the point where you have a choice of methods. [After you spammed your first victim,] you felt absolutely nothing. And you are shocked by the nothingness. You had expected this moment to be a spectacular point in your life. You had wondered if you would feel compassion for the victim, immediate guilt, or even experience direct intervention by the hand of God. But you weren't even feeling sickened by the sight of the victims pathetic reply. After you have arrived home the events that took place take on a dreamlike quality. You don't dwell on them. You don't worry. You don't have nightmares. You don't fear ghosts. When thoughts of the hit go through your mind, it's almost as though you are recalling some show you saw on television. [E]verything seems to have changed. The people around you have suddenly become so aggravatingly ordinary. You start to view them as an irritating herd of pathetic sheep, doing as they are told, doing what is expected, following someone, anyone, blindly. You can't believe how dumb your friends have become, and your respect diminishes for people you once held in awe. You too have become different. You recognize that you made some mistakes, but you know what they were, and they will never plague you again. Next time (and you know there will be a next time), there will be no hesitation, no fear. Your experience in facing anti-spammers head-on has taught you about life. You have the power and ability to stand alone. You no longer need a reason to spam.

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Stanford student "blacklisted" from jobs because of his Internet writings
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Here's a good argument for anonymity: New York Observer: November 24, 1997 Salomon Brothers Tattler Gets Famous on the Web by Tinker Spitz Tim Shields, a student at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, spent the summer working as an investment banking summer associate for Salomon Brothers. He didn't like it much. When he got back to Stanford, he wrote two articles about his experiences and published them in The Reporter, a business school publication. No harm done, right? Wrong. Now, through the magic of the Internet, all of Wall Street is aware of Mr. Shields' complaints. Overworked bankers, chained to their desks, often turn to their computers for entertainment to break up the tedium of creating shareholder profiles and whatever other dreary analyses their clients might demand of them. Lately, Mr. Shields' bitter article, making the rounds by e-mail, has been that entertainment. Mr. Shields was merciless in his depiction of Salomon Brothers and the people he encountered from other business schools. Here is a line that nicely sums up his impression of his summer: "The 38 members of my Investment Banking Summer Associate class represented a wide range of personality types, from the merely obnoxious to the moderately narcissistic to the overwhelmingly repugnant." He also makes Salomon Brothers chief executive Deryck Maughan look like either a hypocrite or a fool. In a meeting on Aug. 18 with the investment banking unit, Mr. Shields reports, Mr. Maughan said, "We have absolutely no reason to believe that we are a buyout target, nor that we will be in the near future." Only weeks later, Salomon Brothers was acquired by the Travelers Group Inc. Mr. Shields also remarked on the general climate at Salomon: He writes that a managing director at the firm told him, "Salomon Brothers is just not a culture where anyone says 'please' or 'thank you' or 'good job.'" And, according to the much e-mailed articles, one Salomon vice president told Mr. Shields, "You don't want this job. You really don't want this job. You get sucked in by the money and then find yourself trapped and miserable like I am. Don't be me." Salomon Brothers had no comment on the matter. The writer was at his most cutting in his assessment of his fellow summer associates, classifying them by school. Those from University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School were, in Mr. Shields' estimation, "boorish and dull, and interacting with them was like being locked in a room with a Bloomberg machine, except that the Bloomberg screen has two dimensions." Mr. Shields writes that he amused himself by needling the Columbia Business School students with his own feeling of Stanford superiority: "If I was in a truly nasty mood, I would follow up with a discussion hypothesizing on the quality-of-life differences between Palo Alto and Harlem. As you might guess, I wasn't too popular among the Columbia crowd." His take on those from Northwestern University's J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management? "Not the sharpest Ginsu knives in the set, they were as out of place on Wall Street as you might expect from people who'd spent the prior year intensely debating the merits of Dave Thomas appearing in person in the Wendy's commercials." About those from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management, Mr. Shields writes, "I think I found Waldo. Every stereotype you ever heard about M.I.T. is true. These guys were such incredible weenies, brilliantly managing to combine both the brainpower and social grace of an HP 19B-II." And the Harvard Business School types? "Floating through the summer like Cinderella at the ball, they expected you to accept their jargon-laced drivel with the same attitude that Moses and his stone tablets received on Sinai." Mr. Shields' articles first drew the attention of Wall Street when they appeared in the on-line version of The Reporter. Someone an incensed first-year Salomon Brothers associate, according to a source downloaded them and attached the following message: "A Stanford student who did not receive an offer from Salomon Brothers was bold enough to put his name in print with these two articles. Maybe he doesn't want a job at all ..." Then the associate started e-mailing like crazy, sending the piece to job recruiters, among others, the source said. Mr. Shields' fame on the Web could not have come at a worse time. Now in the middle of on-campus job interviews, trying to parlay his $80,000 M.B.A. degree into a full-time job, Mr. Shields' only hope is that someone who may well have attended one of the schools he slagged is willing to hire a guy who went gleefully public with a nasty description of life with a previous employer. According to a friend of Mr. Shields, the e-mail has indeed come up in his first four interviews. "They seemed as though they were giving him a chance to explain himself," said the friend, "but when I talked to him, he hadn't heard yet whether he had gotten a call back which would be the ultimate test of whether they were willing to overlook it." Stanford is most certainly not standing behind its student. "That was a real silly thing for him to do, and not in any way appropriate," said George Parker, director of Stanford's M.B.A. program. "It's just arrogant." Other business students are aghast. "No one could believe that he would write this and not realize what the ramifications or consequences might be," said one. Mr. Shields would not comment for this article. People who know him said he's a nice guy despite his sharp edges. One friend, Giles Kavanagh, a Web site producer in New York, described Mr. Shields as "very ambitious" and "extraordinarily hard-working," adding, "He disguises his ambition." The son of a New York City police detective, Mr. Shields, now in his mid-20's, attended Regis High School (a Jesuit school on the Upper West Side) and received his undergraduate degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Before going for his M.B.A. at Stanford in 1996, he spent three years in the financial division at J.P. Morgan & Company. "He's always had an interest in making money," Mr. Kavanagh said. But that may be more difficult now, since the e-mail has apparently fallen into the hands of recruiters. One anonymous friend said that, while Mr. Shields has decided that "investment banking wasn't really for him ... he still didn't mean to get himself blacklisted across Wall Street." The friend added that Mr. Shields is trying to get a job in either private client services, a field related to investment banking, or consulting. Given his bitterness, his ambition, his ability to turn a phrase, his lack of respect for authority and his willingness to squawk about people he has met, perhaps Mr. Shields should consider a career in the glorious field of journalism. ============================================================================= --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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Re: Is Tim May guilty of illegally advocating revolution?
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim May writes: > At 11:33 PM -0700 11/29/97, Bill Stewart wrote: > > >As for the case of May vs. Reno, 99 US 666 (1999) (:-), I've never > >heard Tim call for the violent overthrow of the US government. > >He's called for a far more dangerous method of getting rid of it > >(rendering it obsolete and letting the public catch on at their own speed), > >and he's also expressed the position that if a bunch of > >black-hooded thugs invade his house some night he'll defend himself > >first and not worry about checking their bodies for stinkin' badges > >or designer logos on their backs until the bullets stop flying. > > > >Not guilty. > > An almost complete summary of my stance. > > But Bill left out the third leg of my tripod, that I expect to wake up some > morning and learn that some major city, perhaps Washington, D.C. has been > nuked or bugged. You've both forgotton the fourth leg of the tripod, the one where Tim May calls for the governor of Florida to be shot (along with other officials). Governor Chiles' capital crime? He refused to allow California wine to be sold in Florida. On Fri, 9 May 1997, Tim May wrote: > Chiles and his co-conspirators should be shot for high crimes against the > Constitution. After Clinton, Freeh, Kerrey, and the other traitors. Everyone likes to overlook this, pretending that May didn't mean it. Well, he never withdrew it, did he? He never apologized for it. He's on the record as explicitly calling for the murder of high officials. And of course May further revealed his true colors with this horror, from the same message: > Every day that passes, I'm more convinced that McVeigh did the right thing. > Some innocents died, but, hey, war is hell. Broken eggs and all that. May's apologists have tried to pretend that he didn't say this, that he said that he was beginning to understand McVeigh, or something. That's not what he says here. He says he is becoming convinced that McVeigh did the right thing in murdering all those people. He callously compares the shattered bodies of the children and other innocent victims to broken eggshells. Monty Cantsin has provided us a moving description of the painful deaths of the children in Waco. Will dying of asphyxiation under pressure too great even to draw a breath be any easier? Again, you will search the archives in vain to find any apology for this, any withdrawal. May hides behind the words of others, as he does above, hoping that their softened interpretations will make people forget the plain facts about what he wrote. If Tim May does not agree with the quotes above, let him say so now.

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Censorial leftists (Was: Interesting article)
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This is nothing new. Honest (self-identified) leftists like my friend Bob Chatelle complain about the censors on the left almost as much as censors on the right. Other fave leftist censorship causes: -- MacKinnonite antiporn laws (she's a self-identified Marxist, I recall) -- "Hate speech" bans -- Sexual harassment "hostile environment" regulations (Give me a break. This is the justification for at least one library censorware installation.) -- Various FCC regulations aside from indecent stuff -- Advertising censorship (check out the Center for Media Education, a leftist group if I ever heard of one. In fact, as I pointed out in my Thanksgiving piece last week, CME's scaremongering Kids and the Net paper was cited by Enough is Enough as justification for the CDA) -- Labeling/compelled speech requirements (Jamie, are you out there?) >bottom line is that most any political orientation is likely to thrash free >speech when it appears to be a threat. Well, at least the libertarians in the audience are consistently opposed to government censorship. -Declan At 06:36 -0500 12/3/97, Jay Holovacs wrote: >Interesting article in Columbia Journalism Review, pointing out that the >political left is becoming more and more a cause censorship. I think the >bottom line is that most any political orientation is likely to thrash free >speech when it appears to be a threat. > >http://www.cjr.org/html/97-11-12-firstamend.html

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Re: Big Brother Is Watching ATMs
by Vin McLellan 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

<sigh> My apologies to Jonathan, the boyos in the Hills, and those watching for the Choppers. I wrote: |> Could you please identify this "bank card company" by name, card, nation, |>etc. ? The vendor, Sensar, Inc. <http://www.sensar.com> is planning to unveil the system at the Banking Administration Institute's conference in New Orleans the day after tomorrow. The company's version of the product and its expected use is a little less conspiratorial than Jonathan's post to C'punks -- but it more than suffices to force me to eat crow for my scepticism and unwarranted sarcasm. >> IrisIdent is a biometric identification system that uses the unique >> patterns of the human iris to verify an individual's identity. Using a >> standard video camera, the system takes a picture of an individual's iris >> and compares it with a previously stored iris image. The result is a >>rapid >> validation of the individual's identity. With an empirically determined >> crossover error rate of less than 1 error in 131,578 transactions, iris >> identification is more reliable and less intrusive than fingerprinting or >> retinal scanning. Its security cannot be bypassed or compromised. >> Pilot systems are available on a limited basis, with full production >> scheduled for later in 1997. In addition, Sensar is planning to launch >> follow-on applications for a wide range of financial applications, >>such as >> new account openings, bank wire transfers and government services. >> Smart Camera is a future offering from Sensar. It will combine the same >> technology with a stand-alone (non-PC-based) camera to verify >> customer identification at point-of-sale locations, business >>workstations, >> and home computers. |> Without some explicit cite of a commercial entity -- or a reference to some |>"strip-'em-naked-with-electrons" Police R&D group like the guys at Rome AFB -- this |>report sounds like another of those ID-Implant fantasies circulated by the guys who |>are bolting steel plate to their screen doors and programming their backyard AA to |>auto-target (a) Black Helicopters (b) which are on low-level rapid approach (c) full |>Oriental, Arab, and Hispanic troopers (c) wearing Blue Helmets. The CNN news report (only a little less worrisome than Jonathan's post) is at: http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9711/30/eyeball.id.ap/index.html |> Or, with further checking, could you confirm that is this just another spicy |> rumor crafted to keep the boyos in the hills rubbing garlic into their hollow-points |> with proper militia enthusiasm? (Not that I don't enjoy a good tale to wake up |> sleepy Computer Science undergrads, mind you...) |> Up the Revolution, |> _Vin Jonathan Wienke <JonWienk(a)ix.netcom.com> warned us all: >I just heard that a bank card company has just released a program for using >photos of the iris in people's eyes as a biometric ID to replace people's >PIN codes for ATM / credit cards. What I found really interesting is how >they plan to implement it. As people use the ATM, they are photographed. >(Every ATM has a security camera.) Over time, as people use the ATM, the >security camera images are composited to produce a high-quality image of >their irises, which is coded and placed in their account information. Once >this is accomplished, when a card is inserted into the ATM and the security >camera gets an iris image that matches the account sufficiently closely, >the user can conduct transactions without entering the PIN code. People >affected by this will merely receive a letter that under certain >circumstances, entering the PIN is no longer necessary, but this is not a >security problem. > >This scenario may not be a security problem, but it certainly poses a >privacy problem. Given the frequency that the average Joe Sixpack uses the >ATM, it is only a matter of time before the government mandates a >nationwide eyeprint ID database to catch ATM and credit card theives, money >launderers, tax cheats, and other undesirables. Perhaps the eyeprint could >even replace or supplement the SSN as the unique taxpayer ID key for tax >and other purposes. Of course, given the fact that ATMs have had cameras >from the start, this theoretical eyeprint database could already be under >construction. How's that for paranoia? >:-( > >Of course, there are a few ways to beat this, such as mirror sunglasses, >(which would only be useful while alternative credentials to eyeprint ID >are still available) and contact lenses, (which would have to be carefully >oriented so that the same side of the lens was always up, or the fact that >you are wearing contacts and are therefore a Suspicious Person would >become obvious to the system) and of course intraocular implants of various >types. Of course if the implant's power-on LED gives your eyes a constant >Satanic red glow, you may be flagged as a Suspicious Person anyway. > >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- >Version: PGP for Business Security 5.5 > Vin McLellan + The Privacy Guild + <vin(a)shore.net> 53 Nichols St., Chelsea, MA 02150 USA <617> 884-5548 -- <@><@> --

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Re: More Government Sanctioned Theft
by Igor Chudov ＠ home 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[This message has also been posted.] In ok.general, Jerry Morgan <jmorgan(a)galstar.com> wrote: * easttom(a)redriverok.com (Chuck Easttom) wrote: * > 2. What the hell legit reason is there for a man to be driving around with * >132 K in a truck?? * > * * The simple possession of any amount of money is not subject to "police * approval", unless of course we are living in a police state. * * As I understand the "story" the police stopped the guy, searched the * car, found the money, seized it and then let the guy go without * charging him with anything. A nice cool 132K profit for a few minutes * work, just like an armed robbery. It would appear that this "cops and * robbers scenario" has the cops playing both roles.S ... ... ... * tactics will have 132K for new police equipment. Too bad they won't * use it to buy copies of the U.S. Constitution for their officers to * read, but after all they wouldn't want them getting any *wrong ideas* That would be a "hate crime". According to a message in the cypherpunks mailing list (which I unfortunately deleted, with references to more details on some websites), there was a conference on "hate crimes" recently. There, they discussed "profiles" and signs of "hate crimes", and among signs there were discussions of the constitution and founding fathers. If someone has any more information on that, please let us know. -- - Igor. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- char*p="char*p=%c%s%c;main(){printf(p,34,p,34);}";main(){printf(p,34,p,34);}

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"Berman expressed frustration with the ACLU's criticisms"
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[More examples of the split within the "cyber-rights" community. --Declan] ===================== Chicago Tribue, November 30, 1997 HEADLINE: MANY VIEWS COULD SNARL 3-DAY WEB CONFERENCE; HOW TO SHIELD CHILDREN THE BIGGEST ISSUE BYLINE: By Frank James and Shirley Brice, Washington Bureau. DATELINE: WASHINGTON BODY: [...] One of the conference's main themes will be educating parents about how filtering software can help them "keep their children out of the red-light district," Berman said. The emphasis on the use of filtering software and expected talk about Internet ratings systems has prompted the American Civil Liberties Union to dub the event the "censorware summit." The ACLU, which played a major role in opposing the decency act, doesn't oppose filtering software in principle, but it asserts that parents who buy it should be able to learn exactly what sites the software blocks and what criteria were used in deciding to block those sites. [...] Barry Steinhardt, associate director of the ACLU, fears that eventually there would be "one or two centralized ratings systems that will reflect particular moral values and have the effect of limiting the breadth and variety of speech on the Internet." "The way these rating systems are going to work," he said "is that parties other than (consumers) are going to decide whether to employ the ratings systems. Sites that are rated unfavorably are going to be blocked out, rendered invisible to the average user." Berman expressed frustration with the ACLU's criticisms. "The court said there were less restrictive ways than government censorship, and they pointed at these filtering tools. It was endorsed by the Supreme Court 9-0. If you take those tools away, what do parents do?" The conference's organizers, Berman said, also want to let parents know about the efforts of companies with major Internet presences to make the Web more family-friendly. [...]

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Solveig Singleton on "Brave New Partners in Net censorship"
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 01 Dec 1997 16:26:03 -0500 From: Solveig Singleton <solveig(a)cato.org> To: declan(a)well.com Op-ed: Brave New Partners In Internet Censorship by Solveig Singleton (solveig(a)cato.org) Solveig Singleton is the director of information studies at the Cato Institute. A few short months ago, the Supreme Court declared that the First Amendment protects the Internet just as it protects booksellers, newspapers and books when it found the Communications Decency Act (CDA) unconstitutional. That critical ruling signaled censorious governments in countries like Argentina, China, Germany and Zambia that the United States would not provide a precedent for blocking undesirable Internet content. Yet now the computer industry flirts with technologies of "self-censorship" at a December Internet summit under the guiding hand of the Clinton administration. The summit, called Focus on Children, poses subtle new dangers to free speech on the Internet. The First Amendment keeps the government out of the business of controlling media content. Private citizens are free to follow their consciences in choosing their own reading material and guiding their children to seek out or avoid certain information. There's no First Amendment objection when a newspaper editor refuses to print an article or when parents take books away from their children, or use a "censorware" program like SurfWatch in their own homes. The private sector is allowed to edit, to exclude and to silence speech). The public sector is not. But the summit's organizers call for "partnership" between industry and government in keeping "inappropriate" material from children. President Clinton is expected to attend. The summit emerged from a July meeting of President Clinton, Vice President Gore and some of the groups involved in the lawsuit against the Communications Decency Act. As it blurs the line between public and private, the Focus on Children summit becomes government action disguised as parental action. Filtering software like SurfWatch and the Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS) -- a computer language standard that allows labels to be attached to Internet content -- are fine as long as they stay in the private sector, driven by customer demand and free choice. There's no need for a summit to make that happen. With nothing better to do, politicians and sensationalists are likely to use the occasion to shine a media spotlight on the dangers of the Internet. Government pressure will make it all the more likely that the computer industry will be unable to resist calls for mandatory PICS or universal filters built into the fabric of the Internet itself. Disturbingly, the summit's program suggests that free speech rights do not necessarily rank high in the sponsors' priorities. Its sponsors include, for example, the conservative group Enough is Enough; the summit's Web site links to their pro-CDA arguments but not to anti-CDA sites. While some opponents of the CDA are involved, defenders of free speech such as the American Civil Liberties Union are conspicuously absent. Documents promoting the summit describe the CDA as "well intentioned" and note that "supporters and opponents of the CDA agree that children should not have access to inappropriate material on the Internet or in any other medium. The real question is, how best to do it." The right question is whether government has any proper place at the table discussing any of these issues -- and especially in determining what is "inappropriate." The answer is a resounding no. Furthermore, government involvement is not necessary. The vendors of filtering programs have reason enough to ensure that parents are aware of their products. Government involvement promotes political, centralized solutions to what should be private problems. The V-chip is a prime example. Before lawmakers chose to mandate V-chips, entrepreneurs and private groups competed to help parents monitor their children's viewing habits, offering dozens of different blocking technologies as well as ratings and reviews of programs from diverse perspectives. Now the monopoly V-chip threatens to shoulder those offerings out of the picture. Freedom of speech on the Internet offers hope to millions of people around the world who live under political regimes that stifle their access to information. But the Internet's freedom depends on its technology. Politicians should be ashamed to set a precedent in this country by pressuring the industry to engineer this freedom out. We do not need a V-chip for the Internet any more than we need a rating system for libraries or bookstores. ### Solveig Singleton (202) 789-5274 (202) 842-3490 (fax) Director of Information Studies Cato Institute 1000 Mass. Ave. NW Washington, DC 20001

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PGP Inc Sold for $35M - News Flash
by Vin McLellan 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

<News Alert, from C/Net's News.Com> "PGP acquired by merged security software firm. "Pretty Good Privacy, an encryption company foundered by crypto pioneer Phil Zimmermann, has been acquired by Network Associates, the result of the merger of McAfee Associates and Network General, which closed today. "Network Associates will pay $35 million in cash for PGP. " -- No confirmation or further information available on the PGP, McAfee, or Network General web pages. _Vin Vin McLellan + The Privacy Guild + <vin(a)shore.net> 53 Nichols St., Chelsea, MA 02150 USA <617> 884-5548 -- <@><@> --

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