December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: (eternity) Eternity as a secure filesystem/backup medium (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 22:00:24 -0800 > From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart(a)pobox.com> > Subject: Re: (eternity) Eternity as a secure filesystem/backup medium > (fwd) > Assume the existence of a for-profit service provider. > The service provider needs to cover the costs of the service, Which in general are a flat rate. I'll try to fill in the various issues you raise with as real-world numbers as I can get. > plus enough profit to make the effort interesting. > The prices charged need to reflect the costs (or be higher) > or the service provider can't make money and goes out of business. > So what are the costs, and who can be talked into paying for them? Everyone who uses the system. The question is who do we want to define as 'using'. I believe the provider of information is not 'using' the system in the strictest sense but rather making an investment of their time and effort in somebodies elses business model and hoping that work will bring them profit. > 1) Storage of information - Storage currently costs < $1/MB for raw disk, > and getting cheaper by the minute, Assuming your 5 year plan, a 1G drive costs $100 or less. That's roughly $20/G-yr. > but sysadmins, lawyers, etc. > cost money and they're not getting cheaper as fast. Granted, but except for the sys-admin you don't need them often. In all the years I have been in business I've needed a lawyer only a couple of times. Say $1k/lawyer-year. > The costs of the equipment for permanent storage are probably about > 10-50% more than the costs for storing for 5 years; A Cyrix P200 runs about $600 for a working box (I bought one just a few weeks ago). So that gives us about $120/cpu-year. > the costs of administration (assuming inflation is limited to > some small number) can be covered by an annuity. For reliable system administartion you're looking at 5 people (3 8-hr. shifts plus weekend coverage of 2 12 hour shifts). A sys admin with the skills and maturity to work in this environment is going to run you in the neighborhood of $40-60k/yr. So this means we're looking at, on the outside, $300k/sysadmin-yr. This is the real cost of doing business. > Every technology upgrade or two you need to copy the archives to > new storage media, and data that doesn't get accessed often may > get migrated out to slower or perhaps even offline media; > storage contracts need to reflect that retrieving data that hasn't > been accessed in a while may involve some delay. Not shure what the normal ratio for online versus offline storage actualy is currently, say 10:1. > 2) Transmission of information - Roughly proportional to MB/time - This seems overly simplistic to me. The actual cost of the bandwidth is reasonably fixed for a given site. Also if we throw in the other servers this model becomes a bit more flexible. Remember, under the Eternity model we don't know *which* server is being hit for the request. This means we have to consider the actual end user costs in a much more complicated fashion. It's one of the issue I'm working on myself. It does not seem clear cut nor well researched at all. > unlike storage, this one's not predictable, unless the provider and > author agree in advance (e.g. N free accesses per year, per password.) > So the provider could charge the reader for access, I fail to see the profit in giving away plans for man portable nukes or to turn commen cooking yeast into a THC producing horde when the various groups around the world would pay so many millions (or would that be billions) for some to get it and some to keep others from getting it. The potential for a access auction hasn't been explored as far as I am aware. > or use advertising > banners to fund retrieval costs (if that remains a valid model > for financing the web over the next N years, especially if the > readers retrieve data through anonymizers.) I believe advertising would be a necessity. The question is how. Would the payoff for doing a print ad in a magazine be worth it? Should it only be advertised on the net? > 3) Legal defense - This one's harder to predict :-) If the Eternity model works the question becomes which one and where are they located? Whose legal defense? Which jurisdiction? Put up an offer for 1 weeks notice of any pending legal actions against the network and make it worth the while. Say $500M. It would of course be fully anonymous and the information would have to be testable prior to payout. Leaves two option. First, the data is verified and the source is paid. Second, the server goes down and the source isn't paid - thus ruining the reputation of a server. It isn't clear to me what the total impact would be on the network as a whole. One way to mediate this impact on a given server would be to share the cost of the payout between the various servers. It is after all in all the servers best interest to keep as many going unharrassed and as well prepared and for-warned as possible. > The current US climate is that service providers are relatively immune > as long as they cooperate with subpoenas and court orders, True, but the current model doesn't allow anonymous providers as the norm either. The users may be anonymous but the ISP isn't. > If they want their names known, they can include them in the contents > of the data that readers retrieve, independent of what the server does. Then there is no reason to use an anonymous network, simply put the data on their own webpage and sell it direct, cut out the middle-man a tried and true business tactic. > and accumulate reputation capital under those nyms. One of the assumptions is that the source, individual server, and sink are all anonymous to each other as well as Mallet. Now we're changing the rules of the game in the middle of the game. Apples and oranges. If I were actualy going to impliment something like this I wouldn't even consider it unless I had at least $500k worth of funding for each of the first 5 years. That start up cost, $2.5M, is what is going to kill it. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The most powerful passion in life is not love or hate, | | but the desire to edit somebody elses words. | | | | Sign in Ed Barsis' office | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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17 Dec '03

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Returned mail: User unknown
by Mail Delivery Subsystem 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The original message was received at Fri, 23 Jan 1998 03:24:38 -0500 (EST) from ts26-15.homenet.ohio-state.edu [140.254.114.54] ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors ----- <eureka-unsubscribe(a)eureka.abc-web.com> ----- Transcript of session follows ----- ... while talking to eureka.abc-web.com.: >>> RCPT To:<eureka-unsubscribe(a)eureka.abc-web.com> <<< 553 sorry, your envelope sender is in my badmailfrom list (#5.7.1) 550 <eureka-unsubscribe(a)eureka.abc-web.com>... User unknown Reporting-MTA: dns; chemistry.mps.ohio-state.edu Received-From-MTA: DNS; ts26-15.homenet.ohio-state.edu Arrival-Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 03:24:38 -0500 (EST) Final-Recipient: RFC822; eureka-unsubscribe(a)eureka.abc-web.com Action: failed Status: 5.1.1 Remote-MTA: DNS; eureka.abc-web.com Diagnostic-Code: SMTP; 553 sorry, your envelope sender is in my badmailfrom list (#5.7.1) Last-Attempt-Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 03:24:40 -0500 (EST) To: eureka-unsubscribe(a)eureka.abc-web.com Subject: (no subject) From: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Wed, 07 Jan 1998 00:04:05 -0800

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Financial Cryptography '98 Preliminary Program
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Resent-Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 23:41:27 -0400 X-Authentication-Warning: online.offshore.com.ai: list set sender to fc98-request(a)offshore.com.ai using -f Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 04:25:40 +0100 (MET) From: Ray Hirschfeld <R.Hirschfeld(a)cwi.nl> To: R.Hirschfeld(a)cwi.nl Subject: Financial Cryptography '98 Preliminary Program Resent-From: fc98(a)offshore.com.ai X-Mailing-List: <fc98(a)offshore.com.ai> archive/latest X-Loop: fc98(a)offshore.com.ai Precedence: list Resent-Sender: fc98-request(a)offshore.com.ai Financial Cryptography '98 Second International Conference February 23-25, 1998, Anguilla, BWI CONFERENCE PROGRAM General Information: Financial Cryptography '98 (FC98) is a conference on the security of digital financial transactions. Meetings alternate between the island of Anguilla in the British West Indies and other locations. This second meeting will be held in Anguilla on February 23-25, 1998. FC98 aims to bring together persons involved in both the financial and data security fields to foster cooperation and exchange of ideas. Original papers were solicited on all aspects of financial data security and digital commerce in general. Program Committee: Matt Blaze, AT&T Laboratories--Research, Florham Park, NJ, USA Antoon Bosselaers, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium Yves Carlier, Bank for International Settlements, Basel, Switzerland Walter Effross, Washington College of Law, American U., Washington DC, USA Matthew Franklin (Co-Chair), AT&T Laboratories--Research, Florham Park, NJ, USA Michael Froomkin, U. Miami School of Law, Coral Gables, FL, USA Rafael Hirschfeld (Chair), Unipay Technologies, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Alain Mayer, Bell Laboratories/Lucent Technologies, Murray Hill, NJ, USA Moni Naor, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel Frank Trotter, Mark Twain Ecash/Mercantile Bank, St. Louis, MO, USA Doug Tygar, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA Moti Yung, CertCo LLC (formerly: Bankers Trust E-Commerce), New York, NY, USA Conference Program for FC98: Monday 23 February 1998 800 -- 820 Breakfast 820 -- 830 Welcome 830 -- 905 Micropayments via Efficient Coin-Flipping Richard J. Lipton (Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA) Rafail Ostrovsky (Bellcore, Morristown, NJ, USA) 905 -- 940 X-Cash: Executable Digital Cash Markus Jakobsson (Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ, USA) Ari Juels (RSA Laboratories, Bedford, MA, USA) 940 -- 1015 Billing Without Paper...Or Billing Without Billers? Caveat Biller: 3rd Party Concentrators Could Come Between You and Your Customers Richard K. Crone (CyberCash, Reston, VA, USA) 1015 -- 1045 Coffee Break 1045 -- 1120 A Platform for Privately Defined Currencies, Loyalty Credits, and Play Money David P. Maher (AT&T Labs--Research, Florham Park, NJ, USA) 1120 -- 1155 Assessment of Threats for Smart Card Based Electronic Cash Kazuo J. Ezawa, Gregory Napiorkowski (Mondex International, Florham Park, NJ, USA) 1155 -- 1230 Using a High-Performance, Programmable Secure Coprocessor Sean W. Smith, Elaine R. Palmer, Steve Weingart (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY, USA) 1230 -- 1330 Lunch 1800 -- 1930 Cocktail Reception (at Mariners Hotel) Tuesday 24 February 1998 800 -- 830 Breakfast 830 -- 905 Secure Group Barter: Multi-Party Fair Exchange with Semi-Trusted Neutral Parties Matt Franklin (AT&T Labs--Research, Florham Park, NJ, USA) Gene Tsudik (USC Information Sciences Institute, Marina del Rey, CA, USA) 905 -- 940 A Payment Scheme Using Vouchers Ernest Foo, Colin Boyd (Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia) 940 -- 1015 A Formal Specification of Requirements for Payment Transactions in the SET Protocol Catherine Meadows, Paul Syverson (Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, USA) 1015 -- 1045 Coffee Break 1045 -- 1120 On Assurance Structures for WWW Commerce Markus Jakobsson (Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ, USA) Moti Yung (CertCo, New York, NY, USA) 1120 -- 1230 Panel Discussion Certificate Revocation: Mechanics and Meaning Barb Fox (Microsoft, Redmond, WA, USA), moderator Joan Feigenbaum (AT&T Labs--Research, Florham Park, NJ, USA) Paul Kocher (Valicert, Palo Alto, CA, USA) Michael Myers (Verisign, Mountain View, CA, USA) Ron Rivest (MIT Laboratory for Computer Science, Cambridge, MA, USA) 1230 -- 1330 Lunch 2000 -- 2200 Rump Session Wednesday 25 February 1998 800 -- 830 Breakfast 830 -- 930 Invited Speaker Private Signatures and E-commerce David Chaum (DigiCash, Palo Alto, CA, USA) 930 -- 1005 Group Blind Digital Signatures: A Scalable Solution to Electronic Cash Anna Lysyanskaya, Zulfikar Ramzan (MIT Laboratory for Computer Science, Cambridge, MA, USA) 1005 -- 1045 Coffee Break 1045 -- 1120 Curbing Junk E-Mail via Secure Classification Eran Gabber, Markus Jakobsson, Yossi Matias, Alain Mayer (Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ, USA) 1120 -- 1155 Publicly Verifiable Lotteries: Applications of Delaying Functions David M. Goldschlag (Divx, Herndon, VA, USA) Stuart G. Stubblebine (AT&T Labs--Research, Florham Park, NJ, USA) 1155 -- 1230 Security of Digital Watermarks Lesley R. Matheson, Stephen G. Mitchell, Talal G. Shamoon, Robert E. Tarjan, Francis X. Zane (STAR Lab, InterTrust Technologies, Sunnyvale, CA, USA) 1230 -- 1330 Lunch 1330 -- 1405 Security in the Java Electronic Commerce Framework Surya Koneru, Ted Goldstein (JavaSoft, Palo Alto, CA, USA) 1405 -- 1440 Beyond Identity: Warranty-Based Digital Signature Transactions Yair Frankel, David W. Kravitz, Charles T. Montgomery, Moti Yung (CertCo, New York, NY, USA) 1440 -- 1515 Compliance Checking in the PolicyMaker Trust Management System Matt Blaze, Joan Feigenbaum, Martin Strauss (AT&T Labs--Research, Florham Park, NJ, USA) 1515 -- 1545 Coffee Break 1545 -- 1620 An Efficient Fair Off-Line Electronic Cash System with Extensions to Checks and Wallets with Observers Aymeric de Solages, Jacque Traore (France Telecom--CNET, Caen, France) 1620 -- 1655 An Efficient Untraceable Electronic Money System Based on Partially Blind Signatures of the Discrete Logarithm Problem Shingo Mayazaki, Kouichi Sakurai (Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan) 1655 -- 1700 Closing The conference schedule and additional information is available at the URL http://www.cwi.nl/conferences/FC98/. Breakfast and lunch are provided at the conference. The conference organizers have left time open for corporate sponsored events, for networking, and for recreational activities on the resort island of Anguilla. Participants are encouraged to bring their families. Workshop: A 40-hour workshop, intended for anyone with commercial software development experience who wants hands-on familiarity with the issues and technology of financial cryptography, is planned in conjunction with FC98, to be held during the week following the conference. For more information on the workshop, please see the URL http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~iang/fc98/workshop.html. For workshop registration, see the URL http://fc98.ai/. Special Attraction: On Thursday, February 26, 1998, there will be a total eclipse of the sun. The narrow zone of 100% totality will pass just south of Anguilla. A boat excursion to the center of the eclipse zone is planned, for an optimal view of the eclipse. The excursion is included in the conference registration; additional tickets can be purchased for accompanying persons. Venue: The Inter-Island Hotel is a small 14-room guest house with a large, comfortable 150-seat conference facility and additional space for a small 10-booth exhibition. The Inter-Island is on Road Bay, near Sandy Ground Village, in the South Hill section of Anguilla. The conference, workshop, and exhibition will have TCP/IP internet access. Shuttle service to the conference will be available. Air Transportation and Hotels: Air travel to Anguilla is typically done through San Juan for US flights, or St. Maarten/Martin for flights from Europe and the US. There are also connections via Antigua. Anguillan import duties are not imposed on hardware or software which will leave the island again. There are no other taxes--or cryptography import/export restrictions--on Anguilla. Hotels range from spartan to luxurious, and more information about hotels on Anguilla can be obtained from your travel agent, or at the URL http://fc98.ai/. A block reservation has been made at Mariners, and this is the recommended hotel except for those seeking budget accomodations. General Chairs: Robert Hettinga, Shipwright, Boston, MA, USA email: rah(a)shipwright.com Vincent Cate, Offshore Information Services, Anguilla, BWI email: vince(a)offshore.com.ai Exhibits and Sponsorship Manager: Blanc Weber, Seattle, WA, USA email: blancw(a)cnw.com Workshop Leader: Ian Goldberg, Berkeley, CA, USA email: iang(a)cs.berkeley.edu Registration: You can register and pay for conference admission via the World Wide Web at the URL http://fc98.ai/. The cost of the FC98 Conference is US$1,000. There are reduced rates of US$250 and US$100 for full-time academics and students. Booths for the exhibition start at US$5,000 and include two conference tickets. For more information about exhibit space, contact Blanc Weber, blancw(a)cnw.com. Sponsorship opportunities for FC98 are still available. The cost of the workshop is US$5000, and includes meals but not lodging. You can register for the workshop, which runs the week after the conference, at the URL http://fc98.ai/. Financial Cryptography '98 is held in cooperation with the International Association for Cryptologic Research. It is sponsored by: RSA Data Security Inc. <http://www.rsa.com> C2NET, Inc. <http://www.c2.net> Hansa Bank & Trust Company Limited, Anguilla <http://www.hansa.net/> Sicherheit und Privat- International Bank <mailto:spbank@schloss.li> Offshore Information Services <http://www.offshore.com.ai/> e$ <http://www.shipwright.com> --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/ Ask me about FC98 in Anguilla!: <http://www.fc98.ai/>

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CP Bust or Buyout?
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Not much from the West Coast since the C2-CP meet on Saturday. Were they all busted, or fragged, or has the underground mole hole at last been taken? What, C2 shanghai-ed them all, with irrefusable bucks galore to securely distribute porn, NDA$ accomplishing what TLAs couldn't.

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Cybersitter censors code
by David Honig 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>--------------- Forwarded Message -------------- >From: rpj(a)ise.canberra.edu.au (Ross Johnson) > >Well, I just spent several hours tracking something down that I think >is SO braindead that it must be called evil. I hope this will save >someone else some hassle. > >There's an NT box on my desk that someone else uses every now and then. >This machine is otherwise used as my programming box and backup server. > >All of a sudden, my programming files were being corrupted in odd >places. I thought "hmm, my copy must be corrupt". So I refreshed the >files. No change. "hmm, the code depot copy must be corrupt".. Checked >from other machines. No problem there. Viewed the file from a web based >change browser in Internet Explorer. Same corruption in the file. >Telnet'd to the server machine and just cat'd the file to the terminal. >Same problem. > >What's going on? > >The lines that were corrupted were of the form >#define one 1 /* foo menu */ >#define two 2 /* bar baz */ > >What I always saw ON THIS MACHINE ONLY was: >#define one 1 /* foo */ ># fine two 2 /* bar baz */ > >Can you guess what was happening? > >Turns out, someone had inadvertly installed this piece of garbage >called CyberSitter, which purports to protect you from nasty internet >content. Turns out that it does this by patching the TCP drivers and >watching the data flow over EVERY TCP STREAM. Can you spot the offense >word in my example? It's "NUDE". Seems that cybersitter doesn't care if >there are other characters in between. So it blanks out "nu */ #de" >without blanking out the punctuation and line breaks. Very strange and >stupid. > >It also didn't like the method name "RefreshItems" in another file, >since there is obviously a swear word embedded in there. Sheesh. > >It's so bad it's almost funny. Hope this brightens your day as much as >it brighted mine :-). ------------------------------------------------------------ David Honig Orbit Technology honig(a)otc.net Intaanetto Jigyoubu ""The tragedy of Galois is that he could have contributed so much more to mathematics if he'd only spent more time on his marksmanship."

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Re: Misty???
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Adam Back wrote: > Tim May wrote: > | I wouldn't call Misty "snake oil." But it's also been thoroughly taken > | apart and shown to be weak. Importantly, it was submitted by Mitsubishi for > | peer review. > > Could you provide a pointer to the analysis paper? Adam, you should know better than to ask. Everyone knows you can't trust a bigot to do cryptography. Tim "Chop Chop" May's opinions about Misty are based not on the strength of the cipher, but on the ethnicity of the creator. On Thu, 11 Sep 1997 22:09:15, Tim May wrote: > At 9:30 PM -0700 9/11/97, Nobuki Nakatuji wrote: > >Does anybody know MITSUBISHI MISTY algorithm ? > >If you know it,Please send e-mail to me. > > > > You want me play Misty for you? You send me $2500, I play Misty. > > Like you do, I take much money, chop chop. > > (Now shut the fuck up and get the hell off our list with your demands for > money to explain your bullshit one time pad scheme.)

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politics of topology (was On the LAM--Local Area Mixes)
by Rishab Aiyer Ghosh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

m k gandhi used to say that it was good india was colonised by the _british_ - the poor fools were vulnerable to non-violent rational argument and (relatively) concerned about such oddities as human rights. one problem with tim may's idea for local area mixes is just that: relying on US stickliness on wimpy rules for search/interception is all very well, but wouldn't fly in china. i won't get into the argument over how awful the US state is here, but if all cypherpunk technology can fight is the "tyrannical" democracies of the west, it's not much good, IMNSHO. besides, if such technology becomes widespread in, say, the US, then it's inevitable that the authorities will tend towards more _real_ tyrannical behaviour, diluting search/seizure protections and taking you closer to china. a weak vaccine _strengthens_ the microbe it is supposed to kill. today your tech may let you plan stink-bomb attacks on the IRS in peace; tomorrow it may not be sufficient to let you publish articles critical of the goverment. i always thought the cypherpunk idea ("write code" etc) was to develop tech that is _independent_ of political protections. technology will not undermine the power of governments, if it is based on (incorrect) assumptions that governments will continue to restrain themselves (e.g. search & seizure) when faced by increasing use of such tech. i should think that LAMs would be excellent test-beds for larger-scale systems, but it is larger-scale systems, where you don't assume the government's _not_ snooping because it's squeamish, that matter more. best, -rishab First Monday - The Peer-Reviewed Journal on the Internet http://www.firstmonday.dk/ Munksgaard International Publishers, Copenhagen Intl & Managing Editor - Rishab Aiyer Ghosh (ghosh(a)firstmonday.dk) Mobile +91 98110 14574; Fax +91 11 2209608; Tel +91 11 2454717 A4/204 Ekta Apts., 9 Indraprastha Extn, New Delhi 110092 INDIA

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Communicator 5.0 to be GPL'ed
by Jrbl Pookah 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Here's something I came across on one of my other lists. I looked at the URL, and it looked good. Anybody able to confirm/deny? And what kind of implications do y'all think this'll have for Netscape's security? (What if improved security code comes to Netscape from bodies /outside/ the US?) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 10:33:21 -0800 (PST) From: <snip...snip> Subject: Communicator 5.0 to be GPL'ed Yes its true !! http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/980122/ca_netscap_3.html woo hoo!! Dex- ----End Forwarded Message--- -- Joseph Blaylock Castle Computers, Inc. JOAT,MODF blaylock(a)castlec.com (513)469-0888 YMMV -- "Everything is perfect, but there is a lot of room for improvement." ---Shunryu Suzuki

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Gore Commission wants to regulate the Net like broadcast
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 13:28:24 -0800 (PST) From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> To: politech(a)vorlon.mit.edu Subject: FC: Gore Commission wants to regulate the Net like broadcast ************* Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 16:20:23 -0500 From: Alan Moseley <amoseley(a)clark.net> To: declan(a)well.com Subject: the Gore Commission and digital media The Gore Commission -- the group created by Clinton to determine the future public interest obligations of digital TV broadcasters -- showed signs last week of broadening its reach to include other digital media that can deliver broadcast-like audio and video. Significantly, the group discussed the possibility of including other digital media in their recommendations after viewing a demonstration of the Internet's potential to provide audio and video. If digital TV broadcasters can be made to serve some notion of the "public interest" through government-mandated programming and restrictions on programming, is it not a short step for the government to regulate other digital content-providers? This group should be watched carefully as they discuss future regulations on digital speech. The Media Institute (http://www.mediainst.org) a First Amendment advocacy group based in Washington, has issued the following press release on this subject: --------------------- Media Institute's Public Interest Council Sees Danger in Gore Commission Suggestion Washington, Jan. 20 -- The prospect of extending government-mandated public interest obligations beyond the broadcasting industry, raised in comments by the co-chairman of the Gore Commission, illustrates both the lack of justification for and danger in these proceedings, The Media Institute's Public Interest Council said today. The Council was reacting to comments last Friday by Norman Ornstein, co-chairman of the Advisory Committee on Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters, at an open meeting of the group in Washington. Following a demonstration of "video streaming" Internet technology and a discussion of digital convergence, Ornstein noted that mandatory public interest obligations on broadcasters may not be sufficient. He suggested that the Advisory Committee (popularly known as the Gore Commission) might want to examine the public interest role of other digital media as well. Ornstein questioned "whether we should be making this really firm distinction, saddling broadcasters...with heavy public interest obligations, and letting others get off scot-free." Media Institute President Patrick D. Maines, speaking for the Institute's Public Interest Council, challenged that idea: "The mere mention of that possibility -- extending the 'public interest' rationale to other media -- should raise alarms for anyone who values our country's constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press. "We already have a presidential commission considering whether to recommend additional public interest obligations for broadcasters solely because they will be converting to digital technology. Mr. Ornstein's comments illustrate the ominous ease with which government might attempt to impose so-called public interest obligations on other types of digital media, such as on-line information services, DBS, cable, and perhaps even newspapers that are digitally transmitted to printing plants," Maines said. "The Gore Commission is correct to note that over-the-air television is far from the only medium serving today's consumer. That felicitous fact, however, ought to lead the Commission to recommend a lessening of the obligations on broadcasters, not an increase on broadcasters and everyone else." The recent experience of the Communications Decency Act demonstrates the government's willingness to control digital speech. The digital convergence argument could be a new rationale for further such interventions, Maines warned. Maines spoke on behalf of The Media Institute's Public Interest Council, a four-member group created recently to study the public interest question and to follow the work of the Gore Commission. Members include communications attorneys Robert Corn-Revere and J. Laurent Scharff, and constitutional scholars Robert M. O'Neil and Laurence H. Winer. Information about The Media Institute, its Public Interest Council, and the Gore Commission is available on-line at http://www.mediainst.org. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- the moderated mailing list of politics and technology To subscribe: send a message to majordomo(a)vorlon.mit.edu with this text: subscribe politech More information is at http://www.well.com/~declan/politech/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------

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