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Thomas Leavitt on why online news sites should not self-label
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

************ From: leavitt(a)webcom.com Subject: FC: CNET editor endorses self-labeling, "news site" standard (fwd) To: chris_barr(a)cnet.com Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 06:53:49 -0700 (PDT) Cc: declan Chris, What is your response to DeClan's comments? My own is that restricting use of the labeling system to "bona-fide" news sites is a self-serving action, consistent with a desire to create barriers to entry and establish restraint of trade, and would likely result in an organization co-opted by industry leaders, like other "regulatory" institutions. Furthermore, I think generic endorsement of the validity of rating systems, and of collaboration with government in encouraging them and other companies in making not having them result in invisibility (instead of merely presenting people with the option to choose filtered or unfiltered content from a search engine, perhaps based on a browser header or equivalent communication of intent/desire), is very threatening to the integrity of the 'net and free speech. In fact, the whole mania for ratings, the V-chip, tv ratings, etc. is extremely alarming to me. Look at how the Hayes' code crippled Hollywood, and the entire industry for decades. Ratings and censorship, etc., are very damaging to creativity and freedom of speech... media that endorse and accept them inevitably wind up being corrupted and failing to realize their potential. Ratings endorse (and provide a means for) the basic impulse to impose ones views about the appropriateness of content on another. Look at the nut cases parading around our local libraries, protesting that "Dangerous Addictive Materials" are being made available to children because the library refuses to install filtering software (every implementation of which I've heard about is horribly unselective and politically/culturally suspect). They reflect the same impulse that lead an elected member of Congress to state that "the Constitution is a barrier to religious freedom" (something which days later, still shocks me) since it prohibits granting religion access to state resources, in acknowledgement of the preferential treatment likely to be given to particular branches (and the inevitable conflicts that would result). Do you really want to get in bed with this kind of mentality? Is it appropriate for a journalistic institution to be making these kinds of judgements? I don't see the L.A. Times providing age and appropriate guidelines at the beginning of every story. The image of a child running down the road, skin burning with Napalm, is horrifying, and potentially traumatic, to a child. At the same time, how many careers, how many idealists and crusaders have developed as the result of seeing the unvarished truth, at a young age? Do you really want to be responsible for enabling a parent to deny their child the potential for this transformative event? Isn't there a conflict of interest here? What if you find that 40% of your content gets blocked by various filters, and the organization down the street has 5% of their content blocked, and as a result, is making more money that you are? Won't this produce a race to the bottom, a tendency towards "palatable", generically unoffensive content that is not affected by your self-imposed filters? Would a writer or editor whose interests/style/topics of choice result in 80% of his or her articles falling under broad layers of your filter have the same success as a writer/editor who wrote about nothing but happy puppy rescue stories? The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that journalists and media have no business involving themselves in any way shape or fashion with rating of content. This is a formula for pablum... network news is already bad enough. And your proposal, desire, etc., would impose this requirement on an entire industry. No "bona-fide" journalist would be free of this conflict of interest. Every article, report, photo, would be influnced by the question "how will this be affected by the filters... will I be able to sell this if it is... will I reach the audience I wish to reach with my message/story, if I present it this way". Is that what you really want? Regards, Thomas Leavitt [ Jesus, DeClan, this is far worse than I thought it would be when I started out writing this letter. ] > Since the Supreme Court said the online world should be > as free as print, and no self-labeling system exists > for magazines or newspapers, why should the Net be any > different? Why isn't the Net community opposing > "mandatory voluntary" self-labeling systems as > staunchly as newspapers and magazines would fight a > similar requirement? It's best to ask these questions > of Christopher Barr (chris_barr(a)cnet.com) editor in > chief of CNET, who endorsed such a proposal in his > column below. > > Barr says that he wants to ensure "that > only real news organizations claim [the] privilege" > of rating as news sites with RSACnews. But who decides > what's a news site? Is CNET? pathfinder.com? epic.org, > which the government treats as a news site when responding > to FOIA requests? The Drudge Report? How about the NAMBLA > News Journal? > > My report on the possible perils of such systems is at: > > http://pathfinder.com/netly/opinion/0,1042,1173,00.html > > -Declan > > **************** > > http://www.cnet.com/Content/Voices/Barr/072197/index.html -- WebCom (sm) Thomas Leavitt--leavitt(a)webcom.com Voice: (408) 457-9671 x101 Executive Vice President WebCom Home Page <URL:http://www.webcom.com/>

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RE: Entrust Technologies's Solo - free download
by Chris DiBona 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This is all nice and good, but the question is who is Chris Lewis, what is his connection to northern telecom, what the hell do you mean by forgery, are you implying the technology that entrust has in it's secure kernal is stolen? Keeping in mind that using public domain algorithms is not theft, and also keeping in mind that they have a patent license from public key partners, which allows them to use the "rsa" patents, and keeping in mind that a fully featured certificate system is much more than just a cryptography product. Is the law being broken here? Is there a breach of ethics at Entrust? To restate.....what's wrong with what entrust is doing? Everyone has had such a good time talking about spamming and cancels, but I'm really interested in how Nortel is somehow committing a forgery. Also looking around the dejanews stuff about lewis, he seems to be a spam cancel freak yes, but no pedophile. Dimitri, you seem to be a pretty smart guy...enlighten me on this whole thing. Do you mean that Nortel has a hand in the forging of spam cancels? Or do you mean that they have a hand in forging software? Chris DiBona -----Original Message----- From: Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM [SMTP:dlv@bwalk.dm.com] Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 1997 6:22 AM To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com; freedom-knights(a)jetcafe.org Subject: Re: Entrust Technologies's Solo - free download > Entrust Technologies (www.entrust.com) has made Solo available for > download, free for 30-day evaluation & edu/non-profit. For Win95/NT. > A mere $49 Cdn (~35 US) for commerical usage... > > For e-mail / file encryption, digital signature > > Solo uses 128-bit encryption, which is CAST-128, the royality-free > algorithm invented at Entrust/NorTel. It also uses 1024-bit RSA public-key > cryptography and has DES, Triple DES available. > > Also follows FIPS 140-1 validated security kernel. It is compatible with > other Solo clients (of course), Entrust/Lite and Entrust. I ask everyone on these two forums to inform Northern Telecom Forgers / Bell North Forgery Research / Entrust that we will boycott their "security" products as long they continue to employ the child-molesting pedophile Chris R. Lewis - the biggest forger on Usenet. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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anonymous informer quality up
by Cyberdog 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

U.S. News Online October 20, 1997 Sinister obstruction? Or just incompetence? ... Thompson staffers were tipped off about the tapes by an anonymous E-mail message in early September. Last Wednesday night, almost a month after the initial tip, a Clinton lawyer called Thompson's committee with a message that began, "You're not going to believe this, but . . ."

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I THINK I OWE YOU SOME MONEY!!! I WANT TO GIVE YOU SOME $$$
by 17096751＠18377.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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No restrictions. You can use this card to call New York from Seattle, or call Miami from San Diego. From a pay phone at the airport, at a friend's phone, hotel room phone or even a cell phone. You can use this card and save with the great rate of 19 cents to anywhere in the US. You don't even have to change your long distance company. You will get all this ABSOLUTELY FREE!!! To get all these great money making and money saving items. Please send your name and address, as well as $5 (five dollars) cash. You are getting everything for FREE, but the money is to help cover the cost of shipping and handling, which unfortunately isn't free. Besides, you can make the money back in less than one push of the start button of the copy machine. And the phone card itself is worth more than that, in both savings and face value. So you have NOTHING TO LOSE!!! So please send everything (You name, Address <e-mail add. 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JD Lasica on labels/censorware as threat to Net, in Salon
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

********* Subject: censorship story on salon Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 09:49:17 -0700 From: Joseph Lasica <jlasica(a)microsoft.com> To: "'declan(a)well.com'" <declan(a)well.com> Declan, Hey, thought you'd be interested in the lead story today in Salon, the one on the Ratings police. ********* [I've attached the first part of the story below. Visit the web site for the complete article; it's well worth a read. --Declan] http://www.salonmagazine.com/july97/21st/ratings970731.html RATINGS TODAY, CENSORSHIP TOMORROW The Net industry is rushing to embrace ratings systems for the Web. The technology will help parents keep their kids away from porn. It can also help anyone censor anything. BY JOSEPH D. LASICA A few years from now, when we look back at what crippled the Internet as a global forum for the free exchange of information, at least we'll know it was done with the best of intentions. Who, after all, could oppose Internet ratings if they create a "family-friendly" online world? And so, to make the Net safer for kids and to avert government regulation, the Internet brain trust has banded together to push rating, filtering and labeling technology -- a private-sector techno-fix to cleaning up the Net. President Clinton has signed on and has used his bully pulpit to jawbone companies that were wavering on the issue. And the news media have covered the president's initiative with the gusto of a pep rally. With all this firepower behind them, ratings are coming to a Web site near you -- in fact, to all Web sites, if proponents have their way. And a panoply of would-be censors -- from foreign despots to home-grown zealots and pandering politicians -- couldn't be happier. "What's happening now is a move toward the privatizing of censorship," says David Sobel, legal counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). "It's likely to destroy the Internet as it's existed up till now." There are a great many ironies here, but the greatest irony is that the censorship will be self-imposed -- we're doing it for the sake of family, parents, children. In truth, Internet ratings are being driven by the changing business interests of the major players involved. In the last go-around over muzzling the Internet, Net users, the computer industry, the media and civil liberties groups all united against the government's Communications Decency Act -- which the Supreme Court buried last month. This time around, the lineup is a lot more lopsided. On one side: the U.S. government, the high-tech industry, most major media outlets and a vocal cast of parents' organizations, child-safety advocates and anti-obscenity groups. On the other: the American Civil Liberties Union, EPIC, the American Library Association, a smattering of university scholars and that guy over there waving the "No ratings" sign. Why have the software companies and Internet firms gone over to the other side? Certainly, they're spooked by the specter of Congress passing a "son of CDA" bill. But it goes beyond that. Internet ratings dovetail nicely with big business's desire to make the Internet safe for God, apple pie and commercialism. The "dark side" of the Net -- hackers, foreigners, political extremists, geeks, "phreaks," porn purveyors, hate groups, people who SHOUT IN ALL CAPS AND USE EXCLAMATION MARKS!!! -- will largely be banished to an unrated no-man's land where browsers and search engines fear to tread. So it was no surprise that the invitation list to the Internet summit at the White House on July 16 bore names like Netscape, America Online and IBM rather than names like geekboy or cybergrrrl. At the meeting, President Clinton announced a "parental empowerment" initiative that would give parents the tools to shield children from obscenity, violence and antisocial messages on the Net. Although every idea on the table is software-based, the administration couldn't resist dubbing the plan the "E-chip," a cousin of television's V-chip, which will block unsuitable programming. [...] ------------------------- Declan McCullagh Time Inc. The Netly News Network Washington Correspondent http://netlynews.com/

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Re: Rep. White introduces Internet Protection Act (fwd)
by Peter Trei 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: Jim Choate <ravage(a)ssz.com> > Subject: Re: Rep. White introduces Internet Protection Act (fwd) > To: cypherpunks(a)ssz.com (Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer) > Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 13:39:12 -0500 (CDT) > Reply-to: Jim Choate <ravage(a)ssz.com> > Forwarded message: > Peter Trei wrote > > > Here's a fun little thought experiment: [lots of snipping on both sides] > A flawed one. > > > Considering the hairsplitting that takes place everyday > > in courtrooms these days, an arguement could be made that > > since virtually the entire net these days is optical fiber, > > there are no 'electronic' communications taking place. > > > > Does the FCC charter mention photonic communications as > > well? At what point does the charter allow them to > > interfere? Here's some steps on the way... [amusing, not too serious arguments involving mimes deleted] > Photons are the vector boson for em radiation, in a wire or in the air. > In the wire the photons go from electron and protons to other electrons and > protons. This is what makes them want to 'move'. Despite popular vision, they > don't go bumping into each other like a bunch of ping-pong balls in a pipe... > > Is this an electronic communication? > > Yes. So when I look at someone's facial expression, I'm using photons, and the FCC can regulate this activity as an 'electronic communication'? This seems to be what you are suggesting. I have this niggling memory at the back of my mind to the effect that the FCC regulates nothing above a certain frequency (somewhere in the microwave region). I don't know if this is an internal rule, or something imposed on them by charter or congress. I'm not sure what the limit is. The highest frequency I've been able to find regulations for is 105 GHz, the upper edge of a band reserved for SETI research in Britain. The highest FCC reg I've seen tops out at 77 GHz. This is all far below the frequencies of light used in fiber optic networks. Anything above about 100GHz seems to be unregulated. Peter Trei trei(a)process.com

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Denning questions/reverses her position?
by Attila T. Hun 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I'm too old for this! I never thought I would see the day that Dorothy Denning would terminate her star role as a shill for the Clinton/LEA encryption ban! from: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0%2C4%2C13000%2C00.html?nd Two supporters of Clinton administration's stance on encryption released a report today finding that encryption has not inhibited law enforcement efforts, with at least one author questioning her belief in the administration's position. The authors--Dorothy Denning, a Georgetown University computer science professor, and William Baugh Jr., vice president of Science Application International Corporation-- ______________________________________________________________________ "attila" 1024/C20B6905/23 D0 FA 7F 6A 8F 60 66 BC AF AE 56 98 C0 D7 B0 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: latin1 Comment: No safety this side of the grave. Never was; never will be iQCVAwUBM+Eh5L04kQrCC2kFAQF9wwP+INGEAnc+1akKc+dP7re8fleX4PJrmsYU UKzxgBZAsWcZC7L5WkaOygckHznOc+a37iHzDFtt3sr86DP0D/4j675qJdt/O4B+ jbxXumJ8EXmTN9bOvXK8x9JRGjR9aWzjeaJKN3X+fH4Bjbw76FR9xIFkhhNvZqnM ahBzZyL2cZ4= =MlQZ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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excerpt from William P. Crowell
by John W. Noerenberg 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Excerpt from prepared testimony of William P. Crowell deputy director, National Security Agency before the House National Security Committee Wednesday, July 29, 1997: [Intro elided] Goodlatte Bill and National Security Before I go into the details of what the nation needs in a balanced encryption policy - a policy that gets strong encryption to be used widely while at the same time protects the nation's public safety and national security - it is important to understand that the Goodlatte bill would directly threaten national security. First, the Goodlatte bill would impact our foreign intelligence mission. The analysis of foreign communications has, literally, helped shorten global wars and averted regional ones. The export control process is very important since it gives us valuable insights into what is being exported, to whom, and for what purpose. Second, the Goodlatte bill would undermine international efforts to catch terrorists, spies, and drug traffickers. Quite simply, such efforts save American lives and protect our free society. Secretary of Defense Cohen and Attorney General Reno sent letters to you last week that very clearly state their support for encryption policies that account for these national security and public safety interests. Not only would the Goodlatte bill jeopardize national security, it would do very little to achieve the goal of getting strong encryption used widely. For these reasons, it is important to understand some of the technical aspects of encryption so we can develop balanced policy solutions that are technically sound. [crypto 101 elided] The Administration's Approach To Encryption Policy Reform Is Very Different From Earlier Key Escrow Initiatives Some have argued that the Administration's recent policy initiative is the same as previous key escrow initiatives. Their argument is disingenuous and incorrect. The KMI initiative is about creating an environment in which commercial encryption can flourish. Just as significant, the Administration's proposal differs significantly from previous key escrow initiatives because: -- It eliminates the focus on bit lengths; -- The government doesn't hold the keys; -- A separate key escrow infrastructure is not required; -- Keys can be held overseas; -- It doesn't prescribe algorithms or limit them to hardware; and, -- Users' data recovery needs can be met. With these impediments addressed, industry and government can work to develop encryption products that will win acceptance in foreign markets and establish infrastructure services to support those products. Several major companies recognize these profound changes and have formed business ventures to thrive within the new climate. In October 1996 IBM formed the Key Recovery Alliance and that alliance has already grown to over 50 domestic and international companies. Alliance members include Apple, Mitsubishi, Boeing, DEC, Hewlett Packard, Motorola, Novell, SUN, America Online, Unisys, and RSA. Despite Being Available, Encryption is Not Being Widely Used Most measurements of encryption are inadequate (incomplete or inconclusive) since they do not show how many people are using encryption. Encryption can be measured in a number of ways. Depending on how it is measured, one could misconstrue the data to conclude that "the encryption genie is out of the bottle" or that the bottle is tightly plugged. The fact of the matter is that encryption is widely available (e.g., embedded in tens of millions of commercial software products) but, based on our impressions from market surveys, etc., is not widely used. Those who argue that government encryption policies are outdated because "the encryption genie is out of the bottle" (i.e., there are many products advertised to contain encryption and some of them are available from the Internet) must consider two important perspectives. First, encryption is not now being, and will not be, used to its fullest potential (with confidence by 100s of millions of people) until there is an infrastructure in place to support it. Encryption is not a genie that will magically solve the security problem. Nor is the Administration trying to 'keep the plug in the bottle'. The Administration wants to help promote a full range of trusted security services providing privacy, authentication, and data integrity while simultaneously fulfilling public safety and national security responsibilities for our government, and governments worldwide. Second, serious users of security products don't use free security products from the Internet. The president of a prominent Internet security corporation was recently asked in a magazine article on this issue: "Since encryption technology is available as freeware off the Internet, why would anyone pay a company for it?" He responded by saying: "Freeware is worth exactly what you pay for it. I'd rather not implement security systems using software for which the source code is available to any 12- yearold who thinks being a hacker is fun." In other words, when determining what encryption you use to protect valuable business secrets, you should consider who you're getting it from, how it got to you, and whether you'll receive support when you need it. U.S. Encryption Policies Are Addressing Concerns That The Rest Of The World Is Also Facing The U.S. is not the only nation which has concerns that encryption use by criminals can threaten public safety. All countries that are major producers of cryptography control its export. Some of those countries have voiced their displeasure with the U.S. decision to export 56-bit encryption. Though the U.S. does not have domestic restrictions, some countries do through import controls of encryption and its domestic use. Recently, France, Israel, and Russia imposed import and domestic use restrictions, and severe Asian, South American, and African countries have informally done so for many years. At this point, it would be over-generalizing to say that the world has agreed to an approach on key recovery, but it is accurate to say that all governments want authorized access to encrypted information. The U.S. is not the only nation that recognizes the dual-edged nature of the encryption tool. Wrap Up The Administration is basing its policies on the foundation that the need for robust commercial encryption will grow and it has proposed policy reforms to ensure that American companies and the public, can flourish in the future encryption market. The Administration 's approach is not past its time, it is just in time. The fundamental issue in play is how industry will build key management infrastructures to support mass market products with encryption. If infrastructures are built that support key recovery, then the export control debate can be concluded. Otherwise, governments worldwide are likely to resist the use of those products because of public safety concerns. Though the Administration's proposed policies will have a significant impact on NSA, I believe they are a reasonable response to a complex, interdependent set of issues. I hope that the Administration can continue to work with Congress and industry to reach a resolution of these issues. Thank you for the opportunity to address this important matter. #### john noerenberg jwn2(a)qualcomm.com pager: jwn2(a)pager.qualcomm.com -------------------------------------------------------------------- "We need not to be left alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while." -- Ray Bradbury, Farhenheit 451, 1953 --------------------------------------------------------------------

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"Telco Terrorism" -- Wired on Baby Bells v. the Net
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

******* http://www.wired.com/wired/5.06/netizen.html Wired Issue 5.06 - June 1997 Netizen Telco Terrorism By Declan McCullagh (declan(a)well.com) If the Baby Bells get their way, you'll pay by the minute and through the nose for the privilege of logging on. But the Net has an unlikely defender: the FCC. --- Ed Young, Bell Atlantic's chief lobbyist, is a busy man - so busy, he says, that he can find time to talk only between meetings in a Nynex boardroom in Washington, DC. He waves expansively at the juice bar and grins, "Take whatever you like. It's all paid for by Nynex." A moment later, Young denounces Internet users for precisely the same attitude. "There's no longer a free lunch," he complains. "Internet welfare has to stop." It's a catchy sound bite - honed through countless repetitions over the last year - and Young has spent a lot of time testing it out on Washington regulators. He says that flat-rate Internet pricing is clogging phone lines, jamming telephone switches, and, most important, costing his employer hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Last summer, Bell Atlantic teamed up with a few other Baby Bells to try to persuade the Federal Communications Commission to levy minute-by-minute access charges on Internet service providers - hefty fees that could double or triple the average monthly bill. For the telcos, securing permission to begin collecting access fees would be like hitting the jackpot; a charge of merely 3 cents a minute would bring in nearly US$6 billion in new revenue each year. But some important members of the high tech community worry that it could also trigger the death of the Net. Three-cents-a-minute access fees would boost a service provider's costs by more than $100 a month for each subscriber who logs on for two hours a day. In an era when $19.95-per month flat-rate pricing reigns supreme, the thought of shelling out per minute access charges to local phone companies has the online industry scared shitless. CompuServe, for example, estimates that its phone costs would zoom from $36 million to $367 million. The online and high tech industries have counterattacked, arguing that while more than 18 million Americans creep through cyberspace using modems that sip bandwidth through twisted-pair straws, the telcos want more money yet refuse to improve service by bringing high-speed data connections to the local loop. The stage has been set for a showdown between a telephone industry regulated since its birth and a new economy that has prospered with surprisingly little government interference. The tug-of-war pits buttoned-down monopolies against a rough-and-tumble collection of Silicon Valley bigwigs. Faced with potential disaster, the high tech coalition has had no choice but to learn the art of war as it is waged within the confines of the FCC's arcane rulemaking process. This strange form of bureaucratized combat - which operates under the guise of public policy - has plenty of precedents in the annals of American capitalism. But in this particular fight, an unusual third set of combatants has been dragged into the struggle: grassroots Internet users. Speaking with a mixture of awe and bewilderment, FCC attorney James Casserly says, "In the past, we've never seen anything like this." A case of congestion It's not that the telcos' anxieties are entirely unfounded: real problems loom on the horizon. America's local-loop architecture - in which modems use analog phone lines for digital communications - is vulnerable to network congestion, and flat-rate pricing for phone and Internet service seems destined to exacerbate the problem. This is largely because telephone networks are designed around the assumption that roughly one in every eight subscribers will try to use the phone simultaneously - which, in turn, means that if just 12 percent of an area's customers are online at once, nobody else can use the phone. In other words, America's telecommunications infrastructure, was designed to facilitate occasional analog calls, not continuous digital connections. The telcos are standing at a crossroads, stuck with a network that was designed for voice traffic but that now groans under the weight of data calls. The Baby Bells understand this, and they say they want to go digital. Which raises the questions: How will they do it, when will they do it, and, more important, who will pay? Both sides agree that the solution lies in new technology. Currently, most phone calls travel along an analog phone line to a digital switch that connects to an analog outgoing line. Find a way to bypass the analog connections with end-to-end digital networks, and the congestion problem disappears. Here's why: To transmit data, analog circuit-switched networks require a continuous open channel, which must be maintained even when it's not in use. But a digital packet-switched network, such as the Internet, breaks the data into small chunks that are sent as needed asynchronously and reassembled by the receiver. Right now, the telcos have no financial incentive to promote speedier, more efficient technologies - and when they've tried, they've blown it through a combination of high prices and notoriously bad customer service and support. Take ISDN, a digital technology that has been ready-to-arrive for 25 years but never quite did. "The problem isn't technology," according to James Love, an economist at the Ralph Nader-sponsored Consumer Project on Technology. "It's monopoly pricing by the telcos." There are even better technical solutions than ISDN, such as xDSL, about which the telcos appear ambivalent at best. They shouldn't be. The xDSL family of digital-subscriber-line technologies could provide a way out of the regulatory staredown between the telcos and the Net, supercharging ordinary copper wires to carry data at Ethernet speeds without clogging the voice network. Studying the studies For now, however, both sides are pumping most of their energy into spinning the argument. Last June and July, Bell Atlantic, U S West, PacBell, and Nynex launched the opening salvo in the access-fee battle by passing along a few studies to the FCC. The Bell Atlantic report noted that Net surfers use their phone lines to make longer calls, with an average length of 18 minutes, compared with 5 minutes for a typical voice call. Meanwhile, Bell Atlantic said it spends $75 to service and maintain each local loop that runs into an ISP line - lines that generate revenues of only $17 per month. That piddling 17 bucks, the telcos claim, barely covers the cost of keeping a dial tone humming, and isn't nearly enough to pay for the expensive upgrades needed to handle circuit-gobbling Internet providers. If more money isn't spent to upgrade the network, the scaremongers warn, traffic jams caused by gluttonous Internauts could become a public menace. The report concluded that "service interruptions of even a temporary length could affect public safety services such as 911 service, with unthinkable consequences." The telcos' solution: the FCC must let them levy per-minute access charges to raise the hundreds of millions of dollars a year needed to keep the phone system from crashing. To battle the phone companies' analytical onslaught, Intel, Compaq, IBM, America Online, CompuServe, and a handful of trade associations formed the Internet Access Coalition in the autumn of 1996 to craft a counterstudy to rebut the telcos' claims. Delivered to the FCC in January 1997, the coalition report, titled "The Effect of Internet Use on the Nation's Telephone Network," blasted telco assumptions and pointed out their hypocrisy: the Baby Bells whine that flat-rate Internet services are congesting phone lines even as many of them are peddling flat-rate Internet access themselves. Some have actually given it away - in California, PacBell offered five months of free Internet service and waived installation charges for customers who ordered a second phone line. How can a cash-strapped phone company afford this? Since many homes are already wired for two lines, second-line service has become a source of easy profits for the telcos. In 1995, for example, second lines generated six times the revenues the Baby Bells now say they need to upgrade their networks. The coalition's debunking was thorough. Even if data calls average 20 minutes - so what? One such call eats up fewer phone company resources than 20 individual one-minute voice calls. Moreover, the much-publicized "clogged network" numbers came from areas with exceptionally heavy modem use - regions that are hardly representative of the network as a whole. In other words, the telcos gave the FCC anecdotal, worst-case estimates of network-congestion difficulties and presented them as commonplace, or perhaps even dangerous. The phone companies reacted to the IAC study by retreating from their initial position. No longer will you hear their lobbyists talk of 3-cents-a minute access surcharges; since early this year the fallback stance has been to seek some charge - any charge! - as long as it's collected through a metered pricing scheme. "It doesn't have to be a large charge," Bell Atlantic's Ed Young now says. "It can be something of the magnitude of a penny a minute, or even less. But it has to be something." The friendly FCC? The Baby Bells might have assumed they had allies in the four FCC commissioners. The agency's history is replete with precedents in which decisions have shielded venerable industries from competition by upstarts. The commission delayed the introduction of FM radio to protect AM stations. It stalled cable television to benefit broadcasters. No wonder, then, that many Internet users took for granted that it would happily sacrifice the Net to spare the telcos. But, surprisingly, the FCC has often gone out of its way to protect the Net from telco onslaughts. A 1980 directive dubbed "Computer II" said the commission would regulate only "basic" telephone services, not providers of "enhanced services." That marked the Net's first reprieve, as the "enhanced service provider" category includes everything from voicemail services to alarm-monitoring firms to Internet providers. In 1984 Ma Bell splintered, and the FCC decided to tack an "access charge" of roughly 5 cents a minute onto every long distance call to compensate local phone companies for completing the local-loop connection. The Net's second reprieve came when commissioners ruled that enhanced service providers wouldn't be obliged to pay similar access charges because of the "severe rate impacts" that would result. Finally, in 1987, the telcos trotted out many of the hardship claims they still use today, saying that voice users were subsidizing the clunky online services of the time, and demanding that the FCC impose per-minute access charges on them. The nascent high tech community responded to the affront quickly. Irate BBS sysops buried the agency in faxes (a novelty at the time), while firms such as IBM, Digital, and CompuServe persuaded a few members of Congress to intervene. In the end, the commissioners ruled for the Net and against the telcos, saying that it was inappropriate to assess per-minute charges on the fledgling online industry. That ruling, which immunized ISPs and online services against access charges, is what the telcos now call obsolete. Access charges, paid mostly by long distance companies, added up to more than $23 billion in 1996. These days, however, long distance companies like MCI and AT&T are cajoling the commission to reduce access charges, and the FCC seems sympathetic to the idea. This means long distance rates may soon be dropping. But it also means the Baby Bells will pull in less cash from long distance carriers - a potential shortfall that perhaps explains why they are now so hungry to levy access charges on Internet providers. All this wonk warfare might have gone largely unnoticed on Main Street USA, were it not for an FCC Web page that solicited public input on the access-charge issue. Only a few comments trickled in during the first few weeks after the page was put up in December 1996. But as the spring comment deadline grew near, the word got out: the FCC was poised to screw the Net. Between February 1 and February 14, hundreds of thousands of irate emails flooded isp(a)fcc.gov. In message after message, Internet users pleaded, argued, and reasoned with the agency not to levy access charges. One message labeled the telcos' demands "just another scam so the greedy phone companies can separate even more money from consumers." This tidal wave of digital bile did not escape the attention of Reed Hundt, chair of the FCC. "Imposing today's interstate access charges on Internet users is the information-highway equivalent of reacting to potholes by making drivers pay for a new toll road," he says. Such comments are reassuring, but like any veteran bureaucrat, Hundt seems eager to find a middle ground between the telcos and the Net. Thus, he has also offered his own solution. Right now, residential phone lines are cheap because federal and state agencies have mandated increases in the cost of long distance calls and premium services like call waiting to subsidize basic dial-tone access for everyone. Hundt has suggested removing these subsidies from second phone lines. In the absence of local-loop competition, his proposal would potentially double the price of a second line. But it would also give the telcos less to grumble about. Hundt has only one vote on the four-member Federal Communications Commission (the fifth spot remains vacant at the time of this writing), but other commissioners seem to agree with his position. "We're going to walk very carefully so as not to impede progress or competition," insists Commissioner Susan Ness. Indeed, when the group held a preliminary vote on access charges last December, it ruled that Internet providers should not be subject to access charges of around 3 cents a minute. Since today's system is so screwed up, the agency said, "We see no reason to extend this régime to an additional class of users, especially given the potentially detrimental effects on the growth of the still-evolving information services industry." The Net had - once again - found an improbable ally in the FCC. But the lovefest may be short-lived. The ruling left the door open for the commission to impose access charges of less than 3 cents, and the telcos are now asking for a penny a minute. Inside the Beltway, the buzz is that the FCC won't impose new access fees anytime soon. But no matter what the commissioners decide, the losing side is likely to take its grievances to the Senate's Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, which oversees the agency and could overrule its decision. The Commerce Committee's new chair, Senator John McCain (R-Arizona), harbors little sympathy for the telcos - or their lobbyists. (See "The McCain Mutiny," page 122.) After presiding over a recent hearing on universal service, McCain began spreading the word that he opposes new access charges. "The claims that are being made by the telcos are somewhat exaggerated," he says. "I'm persuaded that online access isn't nearly the burden they are complaining about." McCain's assessment is not universally shared - Alaska's Senator Ted Stevens, a senior Republican on the committee, said in March that Internet services should be regulated as telephone companies, and forced to pay some form of access charge or universal service fee. The ad hoc alliance All of which means that the peculiar synergy that exists between grassroots Internet users and high tech corporations remains as important as ever. In the face of the telcos' onslaught, netizens are joining ranks with business interests to lobby the government and protect the Net. Although the flood of angry email that stuffed the FCC's in-box was a chaotic, word-of-mouth effort, it worked wonders - and effectively changed the course of the debate in DC. "I think people in Washington recognize that the 300,000-message deluge was just the tip of the iceberg," says Paul Misener, Intel's chief (and only) telecom lobbyist and coordinator of the Internet Access Coalition. Yet in a very real way, the digital nation had misidentified its foe. As a rule, Washington's bureaucrats are not power-crazed authoritarians; most are reactive creatures who simply respond to demonstrations of influence and power. Bell Atlantic, PacBell, Nynex, et alia leaned hard on the FCC for access fees, and the agency reacted in its own instinctively bureaucratic way. The high tech community responded by forming its own ad hoc coalition to pressure the FCC, and thousands of Internet users chimed in to express their collective dismay. Of course, the best way to win not just the battle but the war may be to remove the commission's power to regulate the Net altogether. Still, so far the real threat to netizens has come from complacent telcos and their legions of starched-collar lobbyists, not the FCC. The distinction is important, because the old rule of thumb still holds true: The enemy of our enemy may occasionally prove to be our friend. ----- Declan McCullagh (declan(a)well.com) is the Washington correspondent for The Netly News (http://netlynews.com/) Copyright © 1993-97 Wired Magazine Group Inc. All rights reserved. Compilation Copyright © 1994-97 Wired Digital Inc. All rights reserved. ------------------------- Declan McCullagh Time Inc. The Netly News Network Washington Correspondent http://netlynews.com/

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News: Spy Base Expanded
by pgut001＠cs.auckland.ac.nz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

CLEAR Net - News Spy Base Expanded The Government has announced a planned expansion at Blenheim's Waihopai spybase to boost New Zealand's ability to monitor satellite communications. And the Prime Minister, Jim Bolger, says a change to the Crimes Act will allow the base to monitor phone calls by foreigners, which was formerly illegal. Full story at http://www.clear.net.nz/common/news/archives/articles/00001937.html. Peter.

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