- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

076l-090597-idx.html
by Damaged Justice 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[1][LINK] _________________________________________________________________ [2]Business Section: the latest business headlines, company profiles and advice for managing your money. [3]Stocks Page: instant stock quotes, mutual fund quotes, market data and free personalized online portfolios. All Business stories and columns from [4]this morning's Washington Post and an image of the Business section front. [5][ISMAP]-[6][USEMAP] _________________________________________________________________ OTS Eyes Challenges of Rule-Making for `Virtual Banks' By Cindy Skrzycki Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, September 5, 1997; Page G01 The Washington Post The advent of virtual banking -- in which customers may deal with their banks only through computers -- has prompted federal regulators to begin revamping existing rules regarding electronic transactions. Although banks have been dabbling in home banking and automated teller machines for more than a decade, only about 4 percent of U.S. households conduct their banking transactions online, and many of those may be doing such simple tasks as checking an account balance. Since 1995, two "cyberspace" banks have come online, offering services such as the electronic transfer of funds between accounts and bill paying on the Internet. Other more traditional banks are buying the same sorts of software to offer more electronic banking services to their customers, often as an adjunct to traditional services. Banking regulators expect electronic banking -- and the forms it will take -- to grow exponentially now that millions of Americans are hooked into the Internet. "We are examining whether there is anything in our rules that impedes electronic banking and the use of technology," said Nicholas Retsinas, director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, who is heading the agency on an interim basis. The OTS regulates 1,270 federally chartered savings banks and state-chartered savings and loans. "What can we do to facilitate the use of electronic banking?" Retsinas has written frequently about the expanding role of technology in banking, pointing out the profitability of using computers: A teller transaction can cost up to $2.93; an Internet transaction, 2 cents. In April, the OTS began examining rules it has had on the books since the 1980s covering home banking, automated teller machines and data processing. "OTS is concerned that its current electronic banking regulations do not adequately address advances in technology and may impede prudent innovation by federal savings associations," the agency said, promising it will have a proposal ready next month. "We promulgated some rules where we wondered whether the language was appropriate, let alone the rule," Retinas said, referring to "data processing," a vintage term that hardly begins to capture the potential scope of electronic transactions. The agency also was confronted with an increasing number of questions by its banking constituency. Was it all right to offer Internet banking to depositors living abroad? Could savings and loans open accounts for customers or issue loans from remote electronic locations? What kinds of banking services could be offered over the Internet? These kinds of queries prompted the OTS to delve into several areas where current regulations are murky, or nonexistent. For example, the OTS is trying to figure out whether automated loan machines, which allow customers to apply and receive confirmation for a consumer loan at a site similar to an ATM, should be considered branches or something akin to an ATM -- though loans cannot now be originated at ATMs. The OTS also wonders whether its current regulation on home banking services covers transactions such as opening new accounts online or processing credit applications. The agency is considering the philosophical quandaries presented by the borderless nature of banking in cyberspace. How does a bank with no bricks and mortar define community for purposes of fulfilling mortgage-lending obligations to minority groups under federal laws such as the Community Reinvestment Act? "How does an institution demonstrate that is serving the credit needs of a widely dispersed customer base when there is little or no geographic proximity between its deposit customers and its loan customers?" the OTS asked. Then there are questions of security. The OTS wonders whether it should mandate a specific level of encryption to make transactions impenetrable or "rely on general safety and soundness principles to govern a safe system of operation?" Does it need separate regulations for various forms of electronic banking that might be done over the phone, with special software on a personal computer or on the Internet? Some of these questions the OTS has already had to answer. Since 1995, the OTS has approved two "Internet" banks -- Security First Network Bank (SFNB) in Atlanta and the Atlanta Internet Bank. Both offer an array of banking services and rates that are highly competitive with "real" banks. One of the first concerns that the OTS had was the security of systems used by the Internet banks. SFNB, for example, has about 12,000 accounts and $44 million in deposits. To satisfy regulators that Security First could protect consumers' privacy and the sanctity of transactions being done via the Internet, the OTS asked Security First to "test the penetration capabilities," of the bank, said Eric W. Hartz, president of SFNB. That's another way of saying the OTS wanted to make sure that Security First's Internet banking operations didn't become a playground for hackers. Atlanta Internet had to undergo a similar exercise to get approval from the OTS. Bankers, for the most part, think it's too early to write definitive rules for an area dominated by changing technology, although they would like some current OTS rules changed to accommodate different forms of electronic banking. They also said they hoped to see coordination between the OTS and other agencies that regulate banking, such as the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve Board. As Citibank noted in comments to the OTS, "We strongly encourage the adoption of broad enabling regulations and policy statements," but "we believe that the OTS should not at this time promulgate detailed presciptive or, worse yet, proscriptive rules affecting electronic banking activities." © Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company [7]Back to the top _________________________________________________________________ WashingtonPost.com [8][ISMAP]-[9]Navigation image map [10][LINK] References 1. http://ads.washingtonpost.com/realmedia/OAS/rm/try-it.try?www.washingtonpos… 2. http://wp2.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/front.htm 3. http://wp2.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/longterm/stocks/stocks.htm 4. http://wp2.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/m-financial.html 5. http://wp2.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/maps/navlong.map 6. 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A helluva way to run a country, er, a world (fwd)
by ichudov＠Algebra.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Prof. Sternlight, do you admit that you were wrong? Please share your thoughts with cypherpunks(a)algebra.com Thank you. igor ----- Forwarded message from Tim May ----- >From owner-cypherpunks(a)Algebra.COM Sat Sep 6 12:06:52 1997 X-Sender: tcmay(a)mail.got.net Message-Id: <v03102809b03734c24855(a)[207.167.93.63]> In-Reply-To: <970906105358_284527778(a)emout18.mail.aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sat, 6 Sep 1997 09:41:38 -0700 To: cypherpunks(a)Algebra.COM From: Tim May <tcmay(a)got.net> Subject: A helluva way to run a country, er, a world Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)algebra.com Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: cypherpunks(a)algebra.com X-List-Admin: ichudov(a)algebra.com X-Loop: cypherpunks(a)algebra.com At 7:54 AM -0700 9/6/97, Syniker(a)aol.com wrote: >In a message dated 97-09-06 07:15:18 EDT, vznuri(a)netcom.com (Vladimir Z. >Nuri) writes: > ><< maybe I'm not following closely enough, but I haven't seen a *single* > reference. that's really eerie. can't we get a *single* > senator to bring up that issue? >> > >me neither... it's fucking mind-boggling.... >and where's all the 'censorship' people???? >it's like -- no one can make the 'connection' .... >the CDA and FCA lists are dead ... not a word ... >how can we all have wet powder at the same time? I didn't see Detweiler's original message ('til just now), but I think this is wrong, the "I haven't seen a *single* reference" (to the constitutionality of mandatory key escrow). In some of the accounts of the Freeh-Feinstein-etc. colloquy, there were mentions that mandatory key escrow probably would be desirable, but probably not be possible. (I took this to mean they, including Freeh, recognized it would be unconstitutional). Of course, then the draft text of the GAK bill floated by the next day, and it of course contained no references to constitutionality (not surprisingly, as draft bills are not self-analyses). Despite my cynicism, I'd expect the courts to issue an immediate stay on enforcement on such a law, as happened with the CDA. With probably an expedited hearing before the Supreme Court. As so many have noted, it seems to be a slam dunk infringement on the right to speak freely and in whatever language one wishes. And some 4th and 5th and other involvements. It may be a stalking horse. A threat. Designed to force a compromise. "If you don't pass McCain-Kerrey, this is what you'll get." A helluva way to run a country, er, a world. But look on the bright side: the militias and other patriot groups are getting a huge bounce out of this. Stay far away from the nests of vipers. Jefferson's wisdom that we need a revolution every generation or so is apt...though it's been about 180 years too long. Now even those, like Sternlight, who claimed the government would never require key escrow, have to admit we were right all along. --Tim May There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway." ----- End of forwarded message from Tim May ----- - Igor.

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tdc0997globe.html
by Damaged Justice 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

#[1]HOME [2]COPYRIGHT [3][ISMAP]-[4][USEMAP] September _________________________________________________________________ World Wide Weight America's dominance of the Internet isn't just a cultural issue. It could pose an infrastructure nightmare. By Andreas Evagora. Andreas Evagora is international editor for tele.com. He can be reached over the Internet at [5]aevagora(a)mcgraw-hill.com. The year is 1962. At a White House conference, aides warn President John F. Kennedy that the newly emerging global phone network isn't really global at all. Kennedy is told that almost every intercontinental phone call is funneled through the United Kingdom or one of the other former colonial powers, and that those countries control the lion's share of international cables. Fearing that the United States will be powerless in the new telecom era, the Kennedy administration decides to create Intelsat, an international satellite system that would quickly end the domination of the old powers over the global telecom network. Fast forward to 1997. International service providers find that the newly emerging global Internet isn't really global at all. Reports tell them that more than half of intra-European and intra-Asian traffic is funneled through the United States. Once predictable traffic patterns are going haywire, rendering established technological and economic models irrelevant. Right now, there is no Intelsat on the horizon to save the day for telecom providers outside the United States. In fact, far from globalizing, all the signs are that Internet backbone infrastructure--and the traffic running on it--will become even more U.S.-centric over the next few years. This isn't just about U.S. domination: Non-U.S. service providers are contributing greatly to the imbalance by hatching plans to add new capacity to the States rather than to other countries in their region. Underpinning that trend is the concentration of content in America (more than eight of 10 Web sites are in English) and the continued high price, poor quality, and lack of easily available infrastructure outside the United States. The increased concentration of infrastructure and traffic into the United States not only works against the distributed philosophy of the Internet but also threatens to endanger the 'Net's international growth and overwork the U.S. backbone to the point of exhaustion. "The Internet today is a hub-and-spoke system, with the U.S. at the center of the entire world," says Neil Tagare, chairman of CTR Group Ltd. (Woodcliff Lake, N.J.), which plans to build a new global fiber cabling network linking 175 countries. "That's not right, technologically or politically." Already, service providers report that Internet links to the U.S. are straining to stand up to growing traffic volumes, while demand for other regional and intercontinental links remains tepid. Around the globe, U.S.-bound capacity is at a premium, with developing nations clinging onto the 'Net by a thread. If they are lucky, Russia's 150 million people will share 40 Mbit/s of international Internet capacity by next year. Today, India--a nation of 900 million--has just 10 Mbit/s of Internet capacity to the U.S.--about as much available on a LAN supporting a few dozen workers in the United States. "The lack of non-U.S. infrastructure is holding back real growth of the 'Net in many regions," says Petri Ojala, technical director of the Finnish Commercial Internet Exchange (Helsinki, Finland). "If a regional Internet community is short of capacity, it simply cannot develop as it wants. Less capacity means less content, less innovation." If Internet infrastructure continues to be concentrated in the United States, some fear that the whole non-U.S. high-tech sector will be in grave danger. Because the 'Net is becoming a critical tool for software development, a concentration of capacity in the States might lead to a concentration of innovation there as well. To be sure, it's difficult to see how India's enormous software development industry can prosper with 'Net access that is far inferior to that of competitors in the United States. A few 'Net watchers warn that failure to address the Internet imbalance could put some nations at a political disadvantage as well. "What if a new U.S. government wanted to leverage its control of the Internet for political ends?" asks one executive at a non-U.S. Internet service provider. "If it wanted to embargo Cuba, it could use its influence to control Internet communications there." But the outlook for regional backbones is less than bright. Such networks are all but absent in Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and Africa, while backbones in Europe, where the World Wide Web was invented, offer no more than 2 Mbit/s of bandwidth (see [6]"Un-American Activities"). Compare that with backbone construction in the United States, where today's typical 622-Mbit/s backbones are expected to double in capacity next year. Interregional Internet connections also are sorely lacking. Almost every byte of traffic between continents passes through the United States, hopping over at least two backbone links on the way. Concurrently, non-U.S. network access points (NAPs), where Internet service providers exchange traffic, are small in both number and processing capacity. "If you were to squint at a map of the global Internet infrastructure, all lines would roll into the U.S.," says Robert Hagens, director of Internet engineering at MCI. "That's not a good way to build a network." Service providers have never quite faced anything like this before. Exponential demand for traffic to the United States is soaring, but investing more in these routes doesn't add significantly to the bottom line (some phone companies that are also Internet providers offer free local calling--and therefore free local access--to the Internet but still need to add extra capacity), and it only increases the dependency on the U.S. backbone. "Carriers are in a chicken-and-egg situation," says Chris Champion, senior consultant at The Yankee Group Europe (Watford, U.K.). "They only want to invest where there is a lot of traffic, but there won't be enough traffic until they upgrade the backbones." EUNet International B.V. (Amsterdam), the European backbone operator, this month is increasing its U.S.-bound capacity by 34 Mbit/s, to 72 Mbit/s, to meet demand. But its intra-European backbone network, which comprises mainly 2-Mbit/s links, faces no capacity crunch. "We don't have any [intra-European] congestion problems whatsoever," says Wim Vink, the company's managing director. The problem is, the global Internet is running headlong into an international infrastructure regime that actually is causing congestion on intercontinental routes. Capacity planning and demand forecasts on these routes have been designed largely by monopolies around the predictable needs of a staid, 5 percent a year growth in traffic. Phone companies traditionally buy capacity on intercontintental cables 20 or 25 years ahead of time. That's not a strategy suited to the Internet; who knows what will happen when bandwidth-hungry voice and multimedia applications pile onto the 'Net, as they are expected to in coming years? Service providers already are feeling the tremors (see [7]"Borne in the U.S.A."). In the summer of last year, Internet traffic from Sweden to the United States was about half the volume of voice traffic between those two countries. By the end of 1996, data and voice traffic volumes on the Sweden- to-U.S. route were equal, and now data volume is double that of voice. Meanwhile, voice still accounts for the vast majority of traffic to neighboring Finland and Denmark. Traffic patterns between the world's two biggest economies also signal the changes that lie ahead. Kokusai Denshin Denwa Co. Ltd. (KDD, Tokyo), Japan's dominant international carrier, has 10 Mbit/s of Internet capacity to the United States and 15 Mbit/s to the rest of Asia. Yet the ratio of Internet traffic to the United States and to Asia is 8 to 1. "The situation is changing very quickly," says Hiroshi Kobayashi, the carrier's deputy director of Internet business. "Two years ago, the total ratio of traffic flow from the U.S. to Japan was 4 to 1. Now, it is only 2 to 1." That means Japan is sending proportionally more traffic to the United States--a traffic shift directly attributable to the growth of the Internet. In Australia, Telstra Corp. Ltd. (Melbourne) is dealing with a U.S./Asia Internet traffic ratio of about 6.5 to 1. "I can deal with the 1--it's the 6.5 that is the problem," jokes John Hibbard, managing director of international carrier business. Telstra now has 130 Mbit/s of Internet capacity to the United States, compared with 2 Mbit/s to the rest of Asia. Still, Hibbard says of the U.S. route, "We will see a big squeeze in 1998." As a measure of just how high demand for bandwidth to the United States has been driven, Hibbard notes that bids for the 1,000 or so 2-Mbit/s circuits on the new transpacific TPC-5 cable, due to come into service at the end of this year, were oversubscribed by nearly four times. "The Asia-Pacific region must reduce its dependency on the United States to ensure that the quality of service is not dependent on the U.S. link, which is frequently congested," Hibbard says. That overdependency is creating an economic as well as a technical fallout. Non-U.S. carriers are investing in extra capacity to the United States, without seeing returns on that investment in terms of extra revenues. As a result, many international carriers--Telstra included--complain that in paying the full cost of circuits to the States, they are effectively subsidizing the U.S. Internet community. They argue that U.S. service providers should pay for at least a portion of those circuits. In the traditional telephony world, international circuits are provided on a shared-cost basis, with each carrier meeting costs to a theoretical midpoint between two countries. Telstra and its supporters want such principles to be looked at--although not necessarily applied fully--in discussions about the Internet. This year, Telstra will lose US$10 million on providing Internet circuits to the United States. By 2000, the total spending on U.S.-bound Internet circuits from all non-U.S. service providers will reach US$2.5 billion, Hibbard notes. "We are providing resources for which we are not adequately compensated," he says. "At the same time, I am offering U.S. users access to Australian databases without getting a brass razoo." Hibbard explains that traffic from the United States to Australia gets a free ride, as U.S. service providers aren't contributing to the international connection. International service providers are lobbying U.S. regulators for compensation. "When people first started connecting to the Internet, that normally meant they were connecting to America, and as a result had to pay for the connection," says Michael Behringer, senior network engineer at Dante (Cambridge, U.K.), which operates the EuropaNet Internet backbone. Until recently almost all Internet content has resided in the United States, so it was fair for overseas providers to pay the bill for access to that content, Behringer reasons. But for Internet content to become truly global, payments should be more equitable, and non-U.S. service providers should not have to bear 100 percent of the payment burden, he says. A group of Asia-Pacific carriers, including KDD and Telstra, has already made a proposal to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission that such Internet circuit fees should at least be taken into consideration during discussions on accounting rates, the fees paid by one carrier to another for delivering an international telephone call. To give their argument on leased lines to the United States more ammunition, several Asian carriers recently agreed to share the cost of international leased circuits for Internet communications between their own countries. The matter has also been raised at meetings of the Group of Seven (G7) nations. But so far, U.S. officials have rejected the complaint, and international officials don't seem to hold out much hope of success. "The Americans are sympathetic, but I doubt if they'll do anything because they don't have to," Behringer says. Carriers that offer free local calls, such as Singapore Telecom Ltd. and Telstra, are the most eager for change as they recoup little or no revenue when users access local servers to tap the global Internet. They argue that the Internet needs to be put on a more commercial footing. In Singapore, 65 percent of all 'Net traffic passes through the United States. "Because of the high cost of international bandwidth, it actually would cost a user US$100 an hour to connect to the Internet with a 2-Mbit/s link if he was paying the real commercial rate to the U.S.," said Tan Boon Tiong, deputy director of network technology development at Singapore Telecom, speaking at the International Telecommunication Union's Asia Telecom conference in June. Service providers point to other factors holding back the globalization of Internet infrastructure, such as the high cost of maintenance, installation, and operation and a lack of human resources. But many independent Internet service providers say that old-line telecom operators are hardly covering themselves in glory as the 'Net spreads its tentacles. Independent service providers and builders of backbones say that high leased-line costs remain the single biggest factor holding back the expansion of regional backbones that could help keep more Internet communications away from the United States. Lack of competition and a scarcity of infrastructure, particularly cross-border links, continue to keep leased-line prices in Europe three to 10 times more expensive than equivalent lines in the United States. Service providers say that they must wait up to five months for a cross-border E3 (34-Mbit/s) line, where such service exists. Ironically, it's the traditional telcos, which set those high prices, that are gradually taking over the operation of pan-European Internet backbones. "European carriers are schizophrenic," concedes one official at an international carrier alliance. "They will cry about lack of liberalization in another country but do all they can to delay liberalization in their own market as long as possible. That's human nature." That human nature is only serving to encourage the flow of 'Net traffic and facilities to the United States. "Dante's backbone took 18 months to organize and two years to turn into a reality," Behringer says. "That delay was far too long and was mostly caused by arguing with telcos." It's not just high leased-line prices that anger independent ISPs. Deutsche Telekom, now Europe's largest ISP, still refuses to peer its network at Frankfurt's commercial NAP, where more than 25 independent German ISPs exchange traffic. Instead, Deutsche Telekom maintains a single peering deal with Deutsches Forschungsnetz (DFN), a scientific and academic network. That lack of domestic peering means that all communications between Deutsche Telekom and other German ISPs must be routed via the United States. "Peering via the U.S. affects Deutsche Telekom customers and our customers because of the delays on U.S. lines, which are normally saturated," says Thomas Bastian, senior technical director at CERFnet Germany Inc. (Frankfurt), the German unit of U.S. ISP TCG CERFnet (San Diego). In response, he says, all independent ISPs have announced that they will cancel any private peerings with DFN as of this coming January. "We are confident that things will change, but everything takes so long in Europe," Bastian says. "Our U.S. operation connects into NAPs at 155 Mbit/s, but here in Germany it's at 2 Mbit/s. It's very expensive just to set up a system, and those costs are inevitably passed on to users, which slows market development." Until more capacity is made available, there's not much chance that the global Internet's dependency on the United States will fade away. CTR Group's Tagare, a former executive at Nynex Network Systems (Bermuda) Ltd.--one of the founders of the FiberOptic Link Around the Globe (FLAG) project building a new global undersea cable--says that a lot of capacity remains warehoused to block competition. "Active capacity is no more than 50 to 60 percent of the bandwidth out there--the rest is warehoused," he says. "The people who need capacity desperately can't buy it because none is available, while those that have it can't use it because they don't have sufficient demand for it. That's an extremely inefficient model." WorldCom International Inc. (New York), another company planning to lay new international cabling, also places much of the blame for the current malaise at the door of incumbent telcos, in particular for failing to spot the tide of demand for data communications. WorldCom International says that voice today accounts for 80 percent of international traffic, but will make up only 20 percent by the early part of next decade. "Terabyte requirements will soon be upon us, but carriers got caught asleep making cozy, 4 percent growth demand forecasts," says Colin Williams, the company's international executive vice president. "Today, 90 percent of Internet traffic goes to the U.S., but we haven't yet scratched the surface of bandwidth requirements across the Atlantic." Translation: Don't expect a truly global Internet anytime soon. Text Menu _________________________________________________________________ [8]tele.com Home Page [9]This Month's Issue [10]The Business Angle [11]Technology Fare [12]The Supply Side [13]Soap Box [14]Getting to Know Us [15]Back Issues _________________________________________________________________ All use of this service is subject to the [16]Terms and Conditions of Use. All Rights Reserved. Copyright © 1997 tele.com, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Website designed by [17]COMPUGRAPHIA Home page designed by Dennis Ahlgrim. Last Modified: 27-Aug-97 References 1. http://www.teledotcom.com/ 2. http://www.McGraw-Hill.com/corporate/copyrttm.htm 3. http://www.teledotcom.com/images/maps/6tdcl2side.map 4. 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Re: Puppet Masters
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sunday, September 07, 1997 - 03:16:32 MET > > i am getting a very bad feeling that maybe the level of inside/outside > > censorship of the press may be a good indicator, like the Doomsday > > Clock, of how close we are to the day when the Puppet Masters finally > > step out from behind their masks. > > Puppet Masters don't step out from behind thier masks. They have > someone else step out for them. > > ~kp -Creeping encrouchment-Puppet Masters Get Increasingly Bold- With each succeeding assault on the constitutional rights of citizens the gov't both tests and increases the public's willingness to give away those rights. As we sit idly by, parlor intellectualizing, anyone who really dares to organize, gets fried, on national tv for the trouble. Make a timeline from the first live at 5 fry of the 'bad guys' in the 70s, to the present and observe the circumstances surrounding each one. When they started this- judged on television, fried on television- brainwash, they at least tried to put on a semblence of justifiability,..ie SLA," kidnappers, bankrobbers,thugs disguised as mad dog radicals"..etc and went to great lenghts to see that the point was well propagandized to the 'people' and that the 'people' accordind to neilson or gallup or somebody, were in consensus and then 'puff'', charcoaled the constitution with human kindling before EVERYBODIES eyes. A few op ed pages later, with no real political or social fallout. They decide to do it again, and then do it again, upping the ante each time.. .the Order, Mt. Carmel, Weaver, etc ...By the time they do the Davidians, they offer specious reckless charges that were never substantiated and in fact were easily discredited and 85 people burned alive on national tv. people who were never charged with any crime-when federal goons attempted to serve a specious search warrant as if they were marching into lebenon. The militias of today are saying and doing what the Panthers advocated 25 yrs ago. Though each of these groups held to radically different ideologies, the common denomionator is they took a stand against an illegal abuse of local and federal power by organising into a community of interests that was prepared to defend it's right to do so against outside intrusion, and that is whatthe puppet masters would not tolerate. They aren't going to come jackbooting into our cities and towns. They are already there, shoving plungers up our ass when they don't like the way we look. They isolate any pocket of dissension (and to dare to organize into a community is to dissent) , whether it is black, white, christian, islamic or whatever,..can you say "cypherpunk".. and burn them out of existence, putting it on tv as an object lesson for the rest of us, The local police, the military, both houses, the administration and all the various goon squads are all pigs drinking from the same trough. The presidential elections are a tv show designed to give us the illusion of a democracy. Its no accident that the houses reconvene with the new tv season. It is all for mind control nothing else. Now I am no christian fundementalist, white supremicist, black power fanatic or anything else; just an average person trying to live my life simply and freely but the only way things will change is when we the 'coach potato sheeple' including intellectual armchair quarterbacks who think they are superior and above it all because they can run a few sentences together, docmartin, airjordan, dingo, nike and ourache our way into washington with some plungers of our own and enlighten the fucking white house the same way they enlighten us. Timothy McVeigh for President Committee-

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Texas CypherPunks Take Up Arms!
by TruthMonger 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

We need to thank Jim Choate for his tireless efforts in this regard. * According to USA Today in May, a bill pending in the Texas legislature would allow anyone with a record of mental illness nonetheless to obtain a concealed weapon permit if approved by a doctor. http://www.nine.org/notw/notw.html

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Oxygen Escrow (Government Regulations soon to be announced!)
by TruthMonger 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From NotW: * Bangkok's largest English-language newspaper, The Nation, reported in February on a raging war by coffin sellers in the southern Thailand city of Nakhon Si Thammarat. Eight shops are located across the street from the city's largest hospital, and bribes of hospital personnel for clients are common. A television station reported that one shop's agent sneaked into several hospital rooms to disconnect oxygen to terminal patients whose relatives were already known to the shop and thus might have given that shop their business.

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4 Horsemen - 1 Child Citizen - 0 / (Where are Lous Freeh and Janet Reno when you really need them?)
by TruthMonger 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

WEIRDNUZ.493 (News of the Weird, July 18, 1997) by Chuck Shepherd * In May, the Minnesota Court of Appeals reversed a $1 million award by a jury that had found parishioner Dale Scheffler, 30, to have been molested at age 14 by Catholic priest Robert Kapoun, finding that Scheffler's lawsuit was barred by the statute of limitations. Two weeks later, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis announced that it had filed with the court a claim of $4,937 against Scheffler to recover part of its legal expenses since the Archdiocese is now regarded as the winning party. Father Kapoun filed for $1,081.

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Toto UnMasked!!!
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

And in June, authorities in Cincinnati, Ohio, removed three toddlers from the feces-strewn bedroom they were locked into for up to 12 hours a day; their mother, Sandra Hacker, allegedly did not want them disturbing her while she was on the Internet. News of the Weird by Chuck Shephard

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The future of Digital (Ouch!) Implants
by TruthMonger 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

NotW: * An April issue of New Scientist magazine reported that Australia's national research organization CSIRO has already made three sales of its "phalloblaster" device (at about $3,500 [U.S.]) that inflates the genitalia of dead insects to make it easier to classify them. Its official name is the "vesica everter," and it will work on genitalia as small as those of moths with wingspans of 2 millimeters.

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None
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Interesting article concerning monopoly telco's crying poor (as usual) and asking someone else, in this case citizens of the USA to help pay for our (Australia and ors) infrastructure development...unbelievable. Article by Andrea Evagora [...] > In Australia, Telstra Corp. Ltd. (Melbourne) is dealing with a [...] > This year, Telstra will lose US$10 million on providing Internet > circuits to the United States. By 2000, the total spending on > U.S.-bound Internet circuits from all non-U.S. service providers will > reach US$2.5 billion, Hibbard notes. "We are providing resources for > which we are not adequately compensated," he says. "At the same time, > I am offering U.S. users access to Australian databases without _He_ is offering??? Just when did Hibbard start putting _his_ money where his mouth is? Of course Hibbard doesnt do this he is a paid employee doing a rather poor job. Australians are paying for this through their monopoly telco Telstra. > getting a brass razoo." Hibbard explains that traffic from the United > States to Australia gets a free ride, as U.S. service providers aren't > contributing to the international connection. Of course he could always pull the plug and then we'd see just how long the Telstra monopoly would last. Naturally the americans would be so eager to connect with us they'd gladly pay for a new US-Oz cable after the free ride they've been getting till now. [...] > Carriers that offer free local calls, such as Singapore Telecom Ltd. > and Telstra, are the most eager for change as they recoup little or no Let me assure everyone that Telstra DOES NOT OFFER free local calls. Our telephony costs in Australia are amongst the highest in the world. We pay 25c for a local call plus monthly line rental, telephone rental and connection charges. Its absolute bulldust to suggest they make no money from the internet given the increase in the number of calls a user makes once connected to the net. Telstra itself is an ISP (through thier so called 'Big Pond' 'service'. Why do they bother if it loses them money I wonder. Telstra try to run the timed local calls crap every year or so as well and have managed to get enabling legislation through parliament this year. People want to connect to the US for a reason. At a rough guess perhaps it's because that's where a lot of the content is...geee rocket scientist stuff hey. The quotes from Hibbard clearly illustrate the cluelessness of Australia's monopoly telco executives and the anti-free market let someone else pay for it attitude (in this case the USA..i still can't believe the arrogance of this Hibbard freak) that pervades the organization. With twonks like this running the show no wonder he's concerned about our archaic infrastructure that is failing to meet the needs of the current age and will continue to fail due to poor forecasting and capital planning. Another good reason for Australian content developers to locate their servers overseas.

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