> > projects for the 4th Reich.
> Right on, Ian!
> I'm tired of these anonymous cowards, hiding behind a fake address
> such as dev.null, putting down those of us who recognize the need
> of petitioning our government to put an end to using the InterNet
> for purposes which are against the wishes of the majority.
> > 1. Its theft of services because its using my bandwidth to "harrass" my
> > customers.
> Exactly. I have been complaining to my ISP about their forwarding posts
> from the CypherPunks list that I disagree with. Despite my complaints,
> they allow this harrassment to continue.
December 8, 1997: Today at work, I got an email from a company selling
genital enlargers. I was shocked: how did they get my email address? I
sat there at work, reading this email. Then, as if waking from a dream,
I looked at my watch. I had wasted 5 whole minutes of my work time! I
quickly deleted the email, and went on my merry way.
December 10, 1997: It happened again. This time they wanted me to buy
Disco albums from the 70's. I was irate! Susan overheard me mumbling to
myself, and told me that just recently, she had received an email from an
unknown source that had the word 'masturbate' in it. I asked her if it
was a harrasing email, and she quickly explained that it was an email
regarding a certain medical condition, for which the emailer had a
medical cure. But still, she said. She did look pretty flustered. I
shook my head and looked at my watch. Damn!
January 23, 1998: I just learned how to install email filters. I can
now block email marked 'bulk mail' or with certain generic 'to' fields.
But it took me a goddamn day to install the damn filter. I was talking
to Joe, and he said that last week, he had to do the very same thing! It
seemed our whole company was up in arms!
January 30, 1998: Joe, Susan, some others and I met with your system
administrator today and asked him to install the filter automatically for
everyone in the office. He seemed hesitant, and even balked at doing it
until we convinced The Boss to knuckle him under until he did it. We
were all very relieved.
February 15, 1998: Stan, our system administrator, has been having a lot
of trouble meeting all of the various filtering needs of the office, and
so he said he is going to meet with our area service provider and see if
they can do something in their system that would filter out more of the
junk getting in to our office. Today, someone said they had received
email from some list of crypto punks or something like that. I asked
him, "What the hell is this world coming to? Why can't we just be free
of these goddamn punks and freaks cluttering our email with trash!" He
nodded righteously, and explained that he'd just subscribed to that
crypto punk list last week, and he couldn't believe that he had to read
such shit.
April 1, 1998: I was reading the newspaper today, and an article caught
my eye. It said that a nationwide consortium of ISPs had gotten together
and banned all email that met a certain basic description. 'Junk Mail'
they called it, and it ranged from 'unwanted' list mail to anything
'indecent' or 'obscene' or obvious 'spamming' type email. Apparently,
sophisticated lexical gates were being put in place on a huge number of
servers nationwide to help stop the spam. I was so happy I almost cried.
April 2, 1998: The United States Government passed an emergency
Communication Freedom Act, citing as a primary reason the acts of the
consortium of ISPs. The Government cited business interests as a primary
reason for instituting a change in the policies of the ISPs. The article
in today's Times said that the newly formed Bureau of Internet
Communications Privileges would meet with the consortium of ISPs, as well
as other ISPs that had not agreed to the terms of the consortium, to work
out a mandatory, fair and equitable agreement for validation of internet
materials. The Government was adamant that business related emails
should, in some form or fashion, be allowed, even as 'spam', given proper
certification. I realized that I didn't mind that email trying to sell
me a genital enlarger that much after all.
June 4, 1998: Today at work, Stan, the system admin, held a meeting for
managers. He wanted to explain to us the new Government Certification
System (TM). The Government instituted a policy and technical
implementation of it that would have the following features: (1) all
personal email would be automatically parsed for indecent content in
accordance with FCC rules, with the exception of 'adult channel' email,
which required a special fee-based service, also certified by the
Government, to be attached to one's account. (2) all business email
would be queued in a Certification Queue, and would be inspected for
content if it was registered as 'bulk mail'. Only companies who
registered and paid a nominal fee to the Government would be allowed to
use 'bulk mailing'. (3) all encryption would have to be done with a
key-escrowed encryption service. That would insure that the Government
could validate Certification on every email. Incomprehensible email or
otherwise suspicious email would be subject to instant deletion. At
work, things were going smoothly: Susan and Joe had no complaints. I was
so relieved that finally the Government had stepped in and fixed the
Internet.
December 21, 1998: Today in the Globe, there were two very interesting
articles about the new Government Certification System. The first
article claimed that the system was now completely in place, and had even
begun having noticeable effects: email and web traffic were down by .25%
over the last 21 days! Workplace reports on annoying and harrassing
email or web content were down dramatically! Businesses had jumped to
sign up for certification, and according to the report, the Government
claimed that the revenues generated were 'at least enough to fund the
project and associated costs'. What a relief for the economy! The
second article was more scandalous: apparently, 3 women had independently
reported that President Clinton had 'cybered' with them on IRC chat
channels. One woman claims that he even made 'lewd and unbecoming'
remarks. The Bureau will be required by a Federal Court to turn over the
transcripts and any necessary cryptographic keys next Monday for all
sessions over the last 4 weeks. This will help confirm or deny the
allegations being pressed against the president.
January 1, 1999: As I was walking down the Parade Route this morning,
the headline on the Times caught my eye: "Group of Cryptographers
Arrested". I walked over to the machine and put in some change. The
article reported that a group of Cryptographers from the University of
Berkeley and MIT were arrested on charges of including an unpatented and
uncertified encryption scheme in freeware products distributed by the
GNU/FSF. The four professors claimed that they had repeatedly filed for
patents but had been denied. They also explained that the software in
which the alleged 'cryptography' was bundled in was only for use in
securing personal home systems from unauthorized personal use. The
Government issued a statement to the effect that cryptography is
cryptography. I did not really understand the details of the article,
about the cryptography and the legal arguments and stuff, but I sure was
mad at those four professors!
January 8, 1999: What a scandal! The mayor of Los Angeles was arrested
today for 'the use and distribution of unauthorized pornography'. The
mayor claims that he only sent the pictures to his friend in Sacramento.
But the law is the law. The fine is supposed to be $250,000! I was very
disappointed in they mayor. Imagine: SWIMSUIT photos!
January 11, 1999: I just received my first subscription to Government
Unix Magazine today. The feature article was about Linux. Apparently,
Linux applied for Government Certification for Use of the Internet for
Commerical and Distribution Purposes, and was turned down. Government
officials said that, "Linux is not a government approved project. The
people who wrote linux were a bunch of hackers. The code is distributed
for free. That means anyone can go out there and put viruses and
encryption right in the software! How could we certify such a project?"
In other news, Microsoft, after receiving certification from the
Government, got permission to sponsor its own Automatic Updates Channel.
Anyone connected to the internet will be automatically updated with
upgrades and patches of MS Windows software. Non-windows users will be
alerted repeatedly and incessantly by email that they don't have Windows
until they finally break down and buy it.
January 28, 1999: Today, two teens were arrested and detained
indefinitely by undercover agents who claimed that they had intercepted
an encrypted transmission issuing from one of the teens' computers that
was encrypted with an unknown protocol. The transmission was headed for
Russia, and authorities suspected that the teen was sending sensitive
information illegally. When I read the report, my heart filled with
pride! Home of the Brave, Land of the Free, the *U* *S* of *A*!
