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IP: Internet Allows Lies to Spread Far and Wide
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Richard Sampson <rjsa(a)sprintmail.com> Subject: IP: Internet Allows Lies to Spread Far and Wide Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 09:04:48 -0500 To: "ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com" <ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com> Internet Allows Lies to Spread Far and Wide Oct. 30 (Detroit Free Press/KRTBN)--When the telephone was introduced to the American home, party lines and gossip ruled the day, as two, three or half a dozen households shared one phone line. Imagine, though, linking thousands of gossips on a party line. That's how rumors called urban legends travel the Internet. In April, the Taubman Co., the Bloomfield Hills shopping center developer, was on the receiving end of an Internet whopper about a mysterious stalker at the Mall at Tuttle Crossing in Columbus, Ohio. The bad-guy-in-the-parking-lot story spread through Columbus, reaching about 200,000 people. Within months, the same story, which originated at least a decade earlier -- no one knows where -- had been applied to malls as far as San Francisco and Seattle. Counteracting the fear sparked by such rumors takes a new approach, and a new breed of consultants such as New York's Middleberg Interactive On-Line Communications. Taubman turned to Middleberg with a $10,000 retainer to stem the damage. Amy Jackson, a consultant with Middleberg, began working on Taubman's predicament in mid-April and kept on until mid-June. "When Taubman came to us, the process had begun," Jackson said. "While they had a superior PR staff, they had no experience in addressing an Internet hoax." The Taubman legend had the marks of a classic. "No one can identify where it's sourced from; it's national," Jackson said. "It's a very serious problem. There's absolutely no truth to it, but the Internet spreads information instantly and globally." Middleberg defines urban legends as false stories with multiple variations. A story which varies in the telling is also the first red flag to investigators that it probably isn't true. Johnny Scales, general manager of the Mall at Tuttle Crossing, said he read three versions of the story before crafting a response for the Internet. "In one version it was a security guard, in another it was a well-dressed man in a dark blue suit, and in the third it was a guy in a T-shirt," Scales said. Scales investigated the rumor and consulted with police before going to the news media to refute it. This particular urban legend was spread mainly by a network of business and professional women, its membership ranging from secretaries to executives. Many received the rumor, then hit a button and E-mailed the story to friends, relatives and colleagues, without questioning its origin or validity. "There was a woman in Columbus who had hundreds of names on her list," said Chris Tennyson, Taubman's senior vice president of corporate affairs. Defusing the rumors is far more difficult than spreading them, and laws about passing on urban legends over the Internet are vague. Larry Dubin, constitutional law professor at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law, said liability for making defamatory statements could extend to the Internet, but it's difficult to prove a rumor's source. "If someone merely repeats what they've heard as a means of providing needed information to someone else," they aren't liable, Dubin said. "The question is: Does communicating through the Internet, because you are disseminating information through large numbers of people, create a duty on the part of the communicator to check sources, like a journalist would?" Dubin said. For now, the answer is no. The law figures public people and institutions have access to the media to defend themselves, says Dawn Phillips-Hertz, general counsel of the Michigan Press Association. So businesses dogged by Internet rumors must use means other than the courts to dispel them. Taubman discovered what other companies, such as Neiman Marcus, have discovered -- that the Internet has an almost magical effect on the psychology of otherwise sensible people. Neiman Marcus was the subject of a false rumor, about a dozen years old, but new to the Internet. It said a woman went into Neiman Marcus and ordered a Mrs. Field's cookie. She asked for the recipe, was given it and later got a bill for $250. The story was sent all over the Internet with a cookie recipe. Neiman Marcus spokeswoman Molly Garr said when Neiman's gets E-mail on the cookie incident, it sends customers an explanatory letter, and includes the recipe. Jerry Herron, director of the American Studies program at Wayne State University, said stories like the shopping center stalker tale give people a reason to avoid malls -- especially if they feel uncomfortable there. "The very qualities that first made malls desirable -- open spaces, consistent temperatures and lighting -- now make them spooky," Herron said. "You feel creeped out at the mall, and you think, 'What's wrong with me?' You listen to the story and you think, 'There's nothing wrong with me at all. It's the mall, not me,' " Herron said. By Molly Brauer -0- Visit the four World Wide Web sites of the Detroit Free Press. Visit Auto Authority at http://www.auto.com, the Freep at http://www.freep.com, Jobspage at http://www.freep.com/jobspage and Yaks Corner for kids at http://www.yakscorner.com (c) 1998, Detroit Free Press. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. TCO, NMG, END!A19?DE-INTERNET News provided by COMTEX. [!ENVIRONMENT] [!WALL+STREET] [BUSINESS] [CORPORATE] [E-MAIL] [INTERNET] [KRT] [MEDIA] [MICHIGAN] [NEW+YORK] [NEWS] [NEWSGRID] [OHIO] [POLICE] [TRAVEL] [USA] [WOMEN] -- ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ----------------------- **************************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address or (un)subscribe ignition-point-digest email@address **************************************************** www.telepath.com/believer ****************************************************

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IP: Cyber force behind protest
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: E Pluribus Unum <eplurib(a)infinet.com> Subject: IP: Cyber force behind protest Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 06:59:50 -0500 To: E Pluribus Unum Email Distribution Network <eplurib(a)infinet.com> Cyber force By Anne Williamson What is dismaying to Democrats is a cliche to Republicans; no one has done as much for the Republican Party over the past six years as has Bill Clinton. But Bill Clinton has succeeded in making another significant contribution to American political life. Citizenship is back with a vengeance. If you don't believe me, then just check out the hottest site on the Internet, freerepublic.com. Begun by a handful of concerned citizens who discovered their comments regarding Clinton administration corruption were being censored in an AOL political chat room, the website itself is the achievement of one man, Jim Robinson of Fresno, California. A retired software executive suffering from muscular sclerosis, Robinson marshaled his outrage and his resources to establish the website. With nearly 10,000 posters and over 120,000 daily hits, Free Republic has become a phenomenon, a community and -- most recently -- a nascent political force of mindboggling potential. Dedicated to free speech, constitutional government and the exposure of government corruption, Free Republic works on an interactive basis. The pretext for opening debate is for participants to search the Internet for pertinent news articles and post them under Free Republic's many topics to discussion boards of which "Whitewater" -- the catchall Clinton scandal header -- sizzles the loudest. And then -- like a decorative tank of pirhanas tossed a treat by a friendly barkeep -- posters move in to dissect and critique the article. What emerges by the end of the fast-moving discussion "thread" no longer bears the prejudicial marks of journalists belonging to what FR characterizes as "the lamestream media." Freepers, as Lucianne Goldberg has dubbed them, employ links to other Internet sites for unusual citations, contrary opinions and facts supportive of their various arguments. Original material found wanting is received no differently. Dubious sourcing and fuzzy thinking take a drubbing. In fact, FR's forum is rigorous enough to have helped develop several contributors' writing careers: Lawyer J. Peter Mulhern went from a lengthy call-in encounter with Rush Limbaugh to a column for The Washington Weekly after a stint as an FR regular; and David Burge, the IowaHawk, whose whimsical and hilarious "verbal cartoons" lampooning the political left make him a FR favorite, lasted just long enough to get plucked by the Conservative News Network. Since the posts and accompanying threads are indexed and archived daily, FR's history along with that of the nation is readily available. Otherwise, tinker, tailor, soldier are all to be found on the Forum -- a cornucopia of experience and knowledge -- who are joined by White House monitors, disenchanted Democrats, San Francisco "soccer moms with brains," discouraged feminists and the occasional liberal iconoclast. New players stumble onto the site usually via a link from Drudge, WorldNetDaily, Town Hall or other news site while still others are tipped to the political cyber-salon by a friend or relative. When "lurkers," who often prowl the website for months, finally emerge in discussion threads, their first comments almost always reflect the same relief, gratitude and simple awe at the human resources assembled common to most posters: "I love Free Republic!"; "I can't believe what I'm seeing, I thought I was the only person in the country concerned about this administration!"; and "Free Republic forever!"; are typical of first posts. The site's development has been fueled by the Clintons' political thuggery. En masse, freepers form one giant collective detective bent on cracking a devilishly complicated case. Relevant facts are assembled, questions asked and informed speculation engaged in daily, hour by hour. With an alert and articulate investigative team numbering in the thousands, the exercise makes for riveting entertainment. Colorful villains enliven the storyline; there's "Slick," of course, a/k/a "Bent" and "Clintoon," there's "Hitlery" a/k/a "Shrillery" and "Hildebeast," and there's "Whorealdo," "CarVILE," "Sid Bluminsky," "George Steppinalloverus" and other luminaries from the "Kneepad Democrats" branch of the DNC. But FR is not just conservative angst and sly mockery. The site was instrumental in the quick exposure of CNN's fraudulent report regarding the alleged use of nerve gas against U.S. deserters during the Vietnam War, in the overturning of Clinton's attempt to negate U.S. federalism with Executive Order 13083 (signed when he was in Birmingham, England) and in achieving a moratorium on funding for a national identification card and for re-examining the desirability of a national data bank of all citizens' private medical records. Emboldened by success, it was shortly after the CNN fraud was revealed that Free Republic evolved yet again; organized political protest was undertaken by members of the regional chapters which formed rapidly over the summer. Ever since Labor Day, Bill Clinton has had nearly every public appearance in the course of his nonstop fundraising dogged by determined freepers waving protest signs and shouting stinging chants ("He's late, he's late, he musta had a date!"). Consequently, Barbara Boxer, Carolyn "Mostly-Fraud" and other endangered Democrats have had to resort to playing hide and seek with freepers. Some freepers suspect their growing effectiveness tipped the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post to file suit several weeks ago against Jim Robinson and Free Republic for violation of their property's copyright based on freepers posting entire articles from their respective publications. FR's position is that the postings and discussion threads compare to neighbors mulling over the daily newspapers around a kitchen table and are therefore allowed under the fair use doctrine, which permits the nonprofit use of copyrighted material for purposes of public discussion. The courts must sort it out but if I were writing the script, I'd pursue Free Republic's defense on the "creation of something new" aspect of the fair use doctrine. The website is unlike any other venue in American life; the newspaper articles alone are just so much fishwrapping for tomorrow's garbage, but the archived material is the unique product of an informed community of engaged citizenry; the very purpose the founders intended free speech to serve. This week Free Republic is undergoing another evolutionary leap, an unintended consequence of intoxicated Teamsters having roughed up demonstrators earlier this month in Philadelphia. After viewing television footage of the incident, Jim Robinson determined he'd had enough. He would, he posted to the forum, travel to Washington while the weather was still warm enough for a lone man in a wheelchair to spend the day outside the White House holding aloft a protest sign. Within hours, several hundred people determined that Jim Robinson wouldn't be making that journey alone. Now the protesters number in the thousands and Free Republic's "March for Justice" has been moved on account of its growing size from Lafayette Park to the Ellipse and from there to the Washington Monument. On Saturday, literally thousands of average Americans -- people who look like your neighbors because they are your neighbors -- from across the country, many of whom never gave a thought to political protest before in their lives, will have descended on America's national home in order to participate in a six hour grassroots protest funded out-of-pocket. They will be standing with one man in support of just one idea; the idea of one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all. Eagles up, America! Anne Williamson, a WorldNetDaily contributor, has written for the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Spy magazine, Film Comment and Premiere. An expert on Soviet-Russian affairs, she is currently working on a book, "Contagion: How America Betrayed Russia," a chapter of which can be read online. -- ****************************************************************** E Pluribus Unum The Central Ohio Patriot Group P.O. Box 791 Eventline/Voicemail: (614) 823-8499 Grove City, OH 43123 Meetings: Monday Evenings, 7:30pm, Ryan's Steakhouse 3635 W. Dublin-Granville Rd. (just East of Sawmill Rd.) http://www.infinet.com/~eplurib eplurib(a)infinet.com ****************************************************************** **************************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address or (un)subscribe ignition-point-digest email@address **************************************************** www.telepath.com/believer ****************************************************

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[RRE]The Return of Antimasonism in American Political Life
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 17:59:29 -0800 (PST) From: Phil Agre <pagre(a)alpha.oac.ucla.edu> To: "Red Rock Eater News Service" <rre(a)lists.gseis.ucla.edu> Subject: [RRE]The Return of Antimasonism in American Political Life Sender: <rre(a)lists.gseis.ucla.edu> Precedence: Bulk List-Subscribe: <mailto:rre-on@lists.gseis.ucla.edu> Conspiracy and Reason: The Return of Antimasonism in American Political Life Phil Agre http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/ (I wrote this back in the spring, but it seems even more relevant now.) When going to the movies, my favorite part is afterward, walking back out into the world, seeing everything through the prism of the movie. After seeing Terry Gilliam's bizarre "12 Monkeys", for example, I drove across San Diego in the grip of a delusion that I was Bruce Willis, warning Cassandra-like about a catastophe that nobody wanted to hear about. Of course it didn't make sense. Am I really warning anyone about a catastrophe? Is nobody really listening? But that's how it felt for a good couple of hours. I got that feeling again this afternoon. For the last few months, in amongst my official duties, I have been reading the literature on apocalytic social movements. I was originally inspired in this by David Noble's book "The Religion of Technology". Noble observes, for example, that many of the important early engineers, particularly in the United States, were Masons, and he describes the development of a particular kind of millennialism -- or at least a secularized form of religious utopianism -- among engineers that became secularized and formed the outlines of technical movements such as artificial intelligence and -- he might as well have added -- cyberspace. As part of this reading campaign, earlier this week I read large parts of Robert Fuller's "Naming the Antichrist", which is a history of social movements in the United States that, from earliest colonial times to the present, have claimed to identify the Antichrist that is mentioned briefly in the visionary books of the Bible. In reading Fuller's book, all at once it occurred to me that the ongoing tidal wave of accusations and innuendoes against Bill Clinton and his entire generation resemble nothing so much as Antimasonism. The similarities are most striking: both involve attempts to foment hatred by ordinary people against their slightly better-off and more cosmopolitan fellow citizens by implicating them in an enormous Conspiracy. Even the fine details of the accusations are similar: in each case, for example, the conspirators are said to undermine religion and promote decadence through the public schools. This analogy impressed me for a while, but then I cooled down. Even when an analogy is instructive, one should determine its limits. After all, nobody is claiming that Bill Clinton is mounting his vast campaign of murder, drug dealing, treason, and bank fraud on behalf of the Illuminati, right? And with that thought I filed the whole thing in my notebook. That was Tuesday. This afternoon, Friday, I happened to pass through a Barnes and Noble in Costa Mesa, California. I was there because the bookstore has a public restroom and is on the way to the most excellent El Toro Bravo taco stand, which does not. Briefly inspecting the "New Non-Fiction Books" shelves as is my custom, I noticed a new book by Tony Brown. Its title, "Empower the People", was not so promising, given that I've already read quite a few books by conservative authors about how the free market empowers people to make choices etc etc etc. Yet something poked at me to look closer, and I saw the subtitle: "A 7-Step Plan to Overthrow the Conspiracy That Is Stealing Your Money and Freedom". I opened the book and found to my utter slack-jawed amazement that it described none other than the great Conspiracy by the Illuminati, led by Bill Clinton. I am not making this up. Now, if the author of this book were a fringe crazy then it would only be mildly odd to find the book in Barnes and Noble. Just the other day I sat on the floor in the Barnes and Noble at Pico and Westwood in Los Angeles and read large parts of a well-produced volume entitled "A Woman Rides the Beast" by Dave Hunt, which argues that the woman seen riding on the back of the Beast in the Book of Revelation is none other than the Virgin Mary as she is worshipped in the Catholic Church. (This is part of a resurgence of anti-Catholicism among some American evangelical Protestants that deserves much more attention than it has gotten -- see, for example, Michael W. Smith singing on a recent record, amidst a lamentation of various sins, of people who are "jaded by hypocrisies behind cathedral walls"). This is the sort of fringe weirdness that is easy to write off. But the author of "Empower the People", Tony Brown, is not a marginal crazy. I hate to be the one to break this to you, but the United States is now a country in which a man who believes that the President is an agent of the Illuminati has a regular program on public television. What are we to make of this? Several things. First, in the astonishing climate of political warfare now under way in the United States, when the speaker of the House insinuates in a speech at Stanford University that the President is systematically killing his enemies (NY Times 5/3/98) and nobody finds this even slightly odd, we have to confront the fact that in the late 18th century, during the formative decades of the political culture of the United States, this country was positively addled by conspiracy theories. These theories were not prominent in the writings of the educated secular elites who officially founded the country. But the rank and file of the Revolution were animated in large part (though not, of course, solely) by elaborate claims to have located the Antichrist in the crown and church of England, and in their adherents in America. Nor the American cultural inclination to conspiracy theories end with the Constitution. As the new country fought its first round of political conflicts, the theories suddenly shifted their attention -- to the Masons. This happened precisely 200 years ago, in fact, in 1798, when the first tracts appeared describing the great Conspiracy of the Illuminati, a subgroup of the Masons from Bavaria. After smouldering for several years, opposition to this Conspiracy became a substantial social movement beginning around 1830 in the "burned-over district" of upstate New York, so-called because of the waves of evangelical religious enthusiasm that had swept over the area. (Madison probably had an earlier wave of revivals, the First Great Awakening, in mind when he expressed relief in the famous tenth Federalist Paper that social movements that rise up in one part of the country, particularly religious movements that devolve into political ones, cannot easily spread to other areas.) The Antimasonic movement became a political party which contested several elections before collapsing a decade later. You will recall that many early American engineers were Masons, as were many of the Founding Fathers. But who exactly were the Masons? The Masons originated as a medieval guild, but during the period in question they were a semi-secret society of white men who constituted themselves on classical Greek and Roman models as the intellectual elites of their respective countries. In this sense, Antimasonism was very much a revolt against educated people. That it was also a revolt against the same people who founded the country was, so far as I can determine, little-noted at the time. It is often observed that cultural patterns are able to go underground for decades or centuries, only to spring fully-formed to the surface once again, as if they were brand new, when the time is right. And that, I would suggest, is what's happening now. If this were the late 18th century, white men who rose through education from relatively poor backgrounds -- men such as Bill Clinton -- would be spinning classical political philosophies and writing the Constitution, and conservative evangelical ministers would be spinning conspiracy theories and opposing the Constitution on the grounds that (quite the opposite of what many such ministers say today) it does not create a Christian nation. The vigorous but ideologically vague patriotism of the contemporary anti- government movement likewise corresponds to the equally vague ideas of the 18th century conspiracy theorists. In drawing out these parallels, I am particularly struck by the place of technology in American political culture. The early engineers -- the men who founded the country's original technological institutions -- were largely Masons, and popular reactionary movements in the United States have increasingly incorporated technological themes into their theories. Computers, for example, play an important role in conspiracy theories based on the Book of Revelation. Viewed superficially, these theories sometimes seem to resemble the much more serious ideas of privacy and civil liberties advocates. My experience, however, is that the people who spin such theories are indifferent to accurate information about the nature and use of computers, no matter how unsettling; their concern with the technology is much more symbolic. In my view, a critical turning point in American cultural constructions of information technology occurred in the 1970's, in the wake of the Vietnam war. This cultural shift has been brilliantly documented by James W. Gibson's "Warrior Dreams: Paramilitary Culture in Post-Vietnam America" (1994). The Vietnam war, Gibson observes, was organized largely by men from elite institutions who believed in formal rationality and made heavy use of mathematical decision-making models. They lost, and there arose in the aftermath of that loss an important cultural narrative that was best captured by Sylvester Stallone's "Rambo". Rambo is a lone individual who keeps fighting despite having been betrayed by decadent institutions. Cold War heroes, by contrast, may have been ambivalent about their institutions, but they were insiders -- they were part of the institution. Rambo is an outsider. He has two enemies, the "official" enemy and the institution itself. This figure of the betrayed and wounded hero fighting two enemies has become deeply engraved in American culture. Constrast, for example, the original Cold War era (1966-1969) "Mission: Impossible" television series and the 1996 movie version starring Tom Cruise. In the television version, the government is completely unquestioned, but for Tom Cruise, the CIA is the enemy as well. Rambo epitomized a new cultural construction of masculinity, set against institutions rather than identifying with them. And technology was identified with the institutions. This helps to explain why Hollywood has apparently decided that computers and rationality are feminine domains. (Think, for example, of "The X-Files".) Cultures often define men as "outside" of something and women as "inside"; what varies is the something. In this case, the something is the institutional world, technology and all. The Rambo phenomenon also helps to explain the otherwise mysterious shift that took place during the 1980's in prevailing cultural constructions of computer hackers: the original hackers were comfortably identified with military-sponsored research institutions, but then the word "hacker" suddenly shifted around to refer to men, whether bad criminals or virtuous rebels, who were outside of and opposed to institutions. This, in turn, helps explain the peculiar divide on the political right between those cultural conservatives -- the inheritors of the Antimasonites -- who persist in identifying technology with oppressive institutions and a demographically narrow but highly educated group of libertarians who have redefined technology as an instrument for the destruction of institutions. The point here is not that Rambo appeared from nowhere. Quite the contrary, "Rambo"'s construction of the Vietnam war drew upon and revalued elements of American historical memory that have been handed down, for the most part unconsciously, by all sorts of mechanisms throughout the country's history. And once it did, neoconservative intellectuals such as Irving Kristol set about reinterpreting those cultural forms in terms of their "New Class" political strategy. That phrase, "New Class", was originally applied by Milovan Djilas in his analysis of the bureaucrats who consolidated their power in the Soviet Union. True to the ideologies of Lenin and Stalin, these people were drawn primarily from the lower strata of Russian society, semi-educated and selected through the Soviet examination system (itself originally derived, via European variants, from the classical Chinese system), and installed in positions of power that they proceeded to consolidate over several decades. The neoconservatives' strategy is to portray American liberals as an analogue of the Soviet New Class and to use the money of the rich to mobilize working people against professionals and the poor. This helps to explain why conservative rhetoric virtually never discloses the existence of working-class liberals, and why the party that enjoys the overwhelming support of wealthy Americans persists in appropriating generations of left-wing rhetoric to portray liberals as a wealthy "elite". (It's bad to foment envy against the rich, apparently, but not against college professors.) This whole strategy succeeds in large part because of the whole historical inheritance of Antimasonism and its successive generations of descendents. The liberals, in short, are the new Masons. In his history of German intellectual life in the era that led up to the Nazis, Georg Lukacs spoke of a "destruction of reason" -- a step- by-step demolition of rational thought that became possible as Germans found themselves willing to project more and more and more of their own negative impulses into a vast enemy. Tony Brown's "Empower the People", it seems to me, is one very clear step in a destruction of reason that is currently far along in the United States. Antimasonism is the American equivalent of fascism, and Antimasonism is coming back. Will the relatively rational antiliberalism of neoconservative intellectuals be drowned by the unfortunate tradition of conspiratoralism upon which it draws its emotional force? That, it seems to me, is an urgent question for our country right now. end --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 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'

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Company Press Release - Oct. 29
by info＠innovativetx.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Thursday October 29, 12:55 pm Eastern Time Company Press Release SOURCE: Innovative Tracking Solutions Corp. Innovative Tracking Solutions Joins Forces With Leading Medical Experts; Private Practice Protocols to be Introduced in 4th Qtr 1998 LAGUNA HILLS, Calif., Oct. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Innovative Tracking Solutions Corp. (OTC Bulletin Board: IVTX - news) announced today that it has teamed up with three leading experts in three significant areas of expertise, Incontinence, Woundcare and Injury Prevention/Ergonomics to develop and implement three new protocols for the Private Practice(TM) Vibration Reminder System for specific applications of the product in their respective fields. The Private Practice(TM) Vibration Reminder Disk is worn on the body or in the pocket and automatically, consistently and silently vibrates at specific intervals throughout the day to prompt or remind patients to do their prescribed therapy regimen at home, work or wherever they may be. The product is currently being used in the healthcare industry for over 50 applications from post-surgical to biofeedback. ``In addition to general rehabilitation, we have isolated three of the most significant and prevalent problems and situations in which our product has the most impact,'' stated Dianna Cleveland, president and CEO of Innovative Tracking Solutions. ``We are honored to have these well-known experts spearheading the development of these new protocols which will help professionals in these fields to more quickly and effectively implement the Private Practice(TM) system with their patients and clients.'' In Incontinence Therapy: Genevieve Messick, M.D., was an integral team member in the development of a behavioral incontinence program that is delivered in over sixty clinics throughout the country. The program carries an 80 percent success rate for eliminating incontinence symptoms in properly selected patients. Dr. Messick currently has her own practice, received her B.S. from John Caroll University in Cleveland, Ohio and graduated cum laude from Ohio State University College of Medicine in Columbus, Ohio. Dr. Messick has recently received a patent for a device for the treatment of pelvic floor dysfunction and she is a member of AOA (Alpha Omega Alpha -- a national medical honor society). ``We are thrilled to have Dr. Messick's expertise and enthusiasm behind this project. She is a prominent and respected expert in her field and she clearly envisions the dramatic impact our product will have in addressing the problem of incontinence which afflicts more than 13 million Americans,'' stated Scott Postle, vice president, Healthcare Division of Innovative Tracking Solutions. ``Over 80 percent of cases of urinary incontinence can be cured or improved with proper training and compliance with Kegel exercise therapy. Private Practice(TM) is a natural extension to these therapies, including biofeedback.'' ``After finding out about the Private Practice(TM) Vibration Reminder Disk, we immediately began prescribing the device to our patients,'' said Dr. Messick. ``We have had a positive response from our patients and I am excited about working with Innovative Tracking Solutions in developing this protocol.'' In Wound Care: Evonne Fowler, RN, CNS, CWOCN (Certified Wound Ostomy Continence Nurse), is President of Dynamic New Directions, an educational and consulting company in Banning, Calif. She is a Clinical Nurse Specialist in Gerontology having graduated from the UCLA School of Nursing. Ms. Fowler is currently in practice as a Wound/Skin Care Specialist at Kaiser Permanente Hospital, Bellflower, Calif., where she manages the Chronic Wound Care Center. She serves on the Editorial Board for Ostomy/Wound Management and chairs the Annual Advanced Wound Care Symposium sponsored by Health Management Publications, Inc., and is a founding board member and President of the newly formed Association for the Advancement of Wound Care (AAWC). The AAWC is a multidisciplinary organization whose mission is to facilitate optimal care for people with wounds. She is also a past member of the National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel (NPUAP). ``Working with Evonne has been quite illuminating. Her 25 plus years in wound care nursing and vast knowledge of the challenges that exist in Ostomy/Wound Care today has been instrumental in developing our Wound Care Protocol,'' said Mr. Postle. ``I'm a true believer in that preventing pressure ulcers is much easier than treating them once they develop. It's simply a matter of frequent and consistent repositioning or 'unweighting' throughout the day,'' stated Ms. Fowler. ``This little disk is so effective in prompting bedridden or wheelchair-bound patients to do this repositioning that I expect it to save the healthcare industry tremendous dollars in wound care!'' In Work Injury Prevention and Ergonomics: Michael S. Melnik, M.S., O.T.R., owner and president of Minneapolis-based Prevention Plus, Inc., has authored and co-authored several works on Cumulative Trauma Disorder (CTD), back injury and other current ergonomic related issues. He has consulted for firms such as Fluor Daniel, Pepsi-Cola, Wal-Mart and United Airlines, to name a just a few. Mr. Melnik is an Occupational Therapist with an advanced degree in exercise physiology from the University of Illinois. His area of expertise includes Employee Education/Training, Ergonomics Programs, Job Site Stretching and Warm-Up Programs. ``Mr. Melnik's practical approach to injury prevention fits extremely well with our company philosophy. He is well respected in the industry and a very charismatic speaker which is sure to have the industry buzzing about our product,'' commented Cleveland. ``His knowledge and expertise will bring a pragmatic focus to the products' applications for all types of work environments for all types of companies.'' ``I am excited at the Private Practice(TM) product and the possibilities it holds to compliment what has been my passion for the last 10 years; inviting positive changes in behavior,'' stated Mr. Melnik. ``At Prevention Plus, we are always looking for more ways to improve the work environment and to promote safety and awareness on the job. I truly believe the Private Practice(TM) system is a cutting edge solution that makes a great deal of sense for most companies today. I am confident that many will add this simple product to their existing injury prevention and ergonomic programs and that it will give growing companies the ''jump start`` they need to finally begin a program they can afford.'' Based in Laguna Hills, CA, Innovative Tracking Solutions innovates, designs, and develops sophisticated, yet simple products that have broad ranges of applications. The rapid growth of the company's Healthcare Products Division is a result of aggressive R&D and marketing, solid relationships with companies within the healthcare infrastructure, and a consistent focus on pioneering extensions to current healthcare services with a multitude of product applications. For more information regarding IVTX or the Private Practice(TM) Vibration Reminder Disk, call 1-888-4REMEMBER (473-6362) or visit the company's website: http://www.innovativetx.com or hyperlink http://www.privatepractice.com. SOURCE: Innovative Tracking Solutions Corp.

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ACCEPT CREDIT CARDS! WATCH SALES SOAR!
by bjohnson＠deskmail.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Accept Credit Cards - Any Business - Guaranteed Approval - NO Application Fee! WATCH YOUR SALES SOAR!! 1-800-675-6573 8:30am - 6:00pm Central, live agents (1-800-466-9222 ext. 8151 24hr information) -- Low rates, great prices, FREE Check by Phone/Fax set-up with account -- Be processing in 5 business days. ABSOLUTELY NO HASSLES! -- Use PC or Mac Software, or an easy to use terminal -- SELLING ON THE WEB? Process Real-Time fully secured transactions for all major credit cards. Accept checks on-line as well. -- Use your business or personal checking account, NO site inspection. -- MLM, Home-based, Internet, Adult, Mail-Order and Retail, our specialties. -- Well Pay You $100 for each merchant account referral you provide us. Know others who need this service? Got a downline or newsletter? Selling a Biz-op? If You Dont Call Us We Both Lose Money 1-800-675-6573 8:30am - 6:00pm Central, live agents (1-800-466-9222 ext.8151 24hr information) NOTE: For those on the internet who do not want to recieve exciting messages such as this..... *We strive to comply with all state and federal laws and to send ads only to interested parties. *This ad is not intended for nor do we knowingly send to Washington State residents. * OR CLICK_HERE_TO_GOTO_REMOVE-LIST.COM (http://remove-list.com) Remove-List is a free public service offering to help the general public get removed from commercial mailings lists and has not sent this message. If you want their help please add your name to their list and we you will not receive a commercial email from us or any other member bulk emailer. * Responding to the "return address" will NOT have your name removed.

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Re: Child-Molesting Forger's Chilling Confession!!!1!
by Pramote J. 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Encrypted_Message=On 4 May 1998 02:57:07 GMT, in article <6ijaq3$bb1(a)news1.panix.com>, <The(a)NSA.sucks> Information Security (= Guy Polis <guy(a)panix.com>) wrote: # Guy Polis (guy(a)panix.com, eviljay(a)bway.net) is a pedophile child # molester who was fired from his consulting position at Salomon Brothers # after he was caught masturbating in his cubicle at the child pornography # JPEGs that he downloaded from the Internet. The poster's been awful quiet lately - did the feds arrest him? Browser=Netscape:Mozilla/3.04Gold (Win95; I) Remedy=Tell the world

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100S OF FREE PICS'N'LINKS EVERY DAY!
by STUFFED SUN NOV 1 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Usenet Under Siege
by Eric Cordian 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Interesting developments in the election year attempts by New York State Attorney General Dennis Vacco to create legal liability for ISPs over Usenet content, particularly alleged child porn. Over the past few years, a number of national news providers, under pressure from various self-declared "child advocates," have filtered out articles from their feeds whose newsgroup names suggested that depictions of the sexuality of minors were topical. Given that Usenet routes around censorship, that a "newsgroup" is not a tangible entity, but simply one line on a Usenet article which attempts to roughly categorize it, and that the Usenet newsgroup namespace is practically infinite, such attempts to curtail the topics discussed in the worldwide real-time conversation that is Usenet have been laughably unsuccessful. While uncensored Usenet feeds are still the standard most customers demand, this content-based pruning of the daily newsfeed by some ISPs has provided the opportunity for some in law enforcement to characterize uncensored news servers as some sort of outlaw minority. Law enforcement is now trying to use such representations as a pretense to erode the notion that ISPs should enjoy common carrier status for content they do not originate. It therefore came as no surprise when Dennis Vacco, the incumbent New York Attorney General, and an individual who has built his reputation with numerous publicity stunts revolving around sexual vices featuring those under the legal age of majority, seized the news servers of Dreamscape and Buffnet in a highly publicized raid, accompanied by simultaneous press releases and Web pages, announcing that he had broken up an "International Child Pornography Ring." 13 individuals in several countries were also arrested on various possession, trafficking, and promotion charges involving illegal erotica. The fallacies in Vacco's spewage were innumerably large. There was the absurd idea that a running gag in one newsgroup involving a mythical "Pedo University" indicated the existence of a "virtual academic institution devoted to the sexual abuse of children." Vacco also seemed to believe that individual Usenet newsgroups were owned and operated by specific individuals, and that certain newgroups were "providing services" to the aforementioned imaginary academic institution. In reality, no one owns or operates a Usenet newsgroup, and any individual may post anything he likes to any newsgroup at any time, either anonymously, or with identifying information attached. Dennis Vacco's clueless attack on the global Usenet may in fact backfire, as there is presently serious discussion over a possible three day protest, in which all traffic destined for the groups targetted by Vacco will be posted instead to alt.law-enforcement. Vacco's plans to undermine claims of common carrier status for ISP's can be found in his following statements. "Most Internet service providers choose not to carry news groups that cater to the interests of child porn traffickers for obvious reasons. "Those that do are well aware of their nature and purpose, possess the offensive images on their servers, and facilitate the transfer and trading of child pornography." CNET News.com provides the following article by Paul Festa giving further information on the attempts to criminally charge ISPs over Usenet content, available on their web site. ISPs may face charges over child porn By Paul Festa Staff Writer, CNET News.com October 30, 1998, 5:35 p.m. PT A few exerpts... As many as five Internet service providers may face serious legal charges for providing access to newsgroups used by child pornographers in cases that critics are calling election-eve politics. New York Attorney General Dennis Vacco won praise this week for his role in an international crackdown on an online child pornography ring. But critics have accused Vacco, up for reelection Tuesday, of breaking the law and playing politics in probing two New York state ISPs as part of the crackdown and seizing their newsgroup servers. Three more ISPs--two on the West Coast and one in the Midwest--are likely to receive search warrants in coming weeks, the attorney general's office told CNET News.com today. ... Law enforcement officials have not arrested or charged anyone affiliated with the ISPs. But the businesses, which provided access to the newsgroups, are under investigation for what Vacco's office describes as the knowing possession of criminal images. "The servers were confiscated as part of ongoing investigation," said Marc Wurzel, spokesman for the attorney general. "The ISPs were in possession of illegal images of children engaged in sex acts. In both cases, they were forewarned that they were in possession of illegal images." The notification came in the form of an email inquiry sent by an undercover agent. The agent posed as a student wanting to know whether he would run afoul of the law by downloading child pornography he had found through the newsgroups. A third New York ISP, located in Albany, responded to the undercover inquiries by suspending the newsgroups. As a result, that ISP is not under investigation, Wurzel said. ... Coincidentally, Congress recently passed the Child Protection and Sexual Predator Punishment Act, which would make ISPs responsible for turning in their customers. Under that legislation, access providers who fail to report child pornography once they are made aware of it could be fined up to $50,000 for the first violation and up to $100,000 for each subsequent time they fail to contact law enforcement authorities. ... Vacco has pulled ahead in what only a few weeks ago was a tight race for reelection. In a New York Times-CBS poll taken in the first week of October, Republican Vacco and Democratic opponent Eliot Spitzer were statistically tied in their race for the state's top law enforcement spot. According to a Times-CBS poll released this week, Vacco is now ahead, 48 percent to 36 percent, with 14 percent of the voters undecided. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"

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Re: network computers, web TV, java
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:31 AM 10/31/98 -0800, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote: >hi BLANK >a company has a *reponsibility* to its customers. perhaps >you would care to deny that?? gates has a *responsibility* >to his customers. what is that responsibility? to create >products they want. to anticipate their needs. Wrong from go. The company has a responsibility to its owners, the shareholders typically. The customers are responsible to themselves for making the best purchases. Everything falls out of these.

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Privacy International announces Big Brother awards ( forwarded via CFD V2 # 670)
by Jean-Francois Avon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 09:39:33 -0600 From: "Timothy Bloedow" <lydia(a)travel-net.com> Subject: Privacy International announces Big Brother awards BBC - October 27, 1998 Sci/Tech Watching Big Brother By Internet Correspondent Chris Nuttall The first annual awards defending the individual's right to privacy have been made at a ceremony in London. The 1998 UK Big Brother Awards were held on the 50th anniversary of the writing of George Orwell's novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. The pressure group Privacy International announced winners it judged to be the modern-day equivalents of Big Brother in the novel, as well as individuals who had fought to protect privacy, awarding them Winstons, the name of the book's hero. Privacy awards to go global The academics, writers and lawyers who make up Privacy International concentrated their first awards on the UK, but plan to extend them to other countries over the next few years. Hosting the awards, the activist comedian Mark Thomas said eight other countries were interested in holding similar ceremonies next year. The director of Privacy International, Simon Davies, said the time was now right for the awards. "Surveillance has now become an inbuilt component of every piece of information technology on the planet, we've got a long way to go to wind the clock back. I think these awards are the beginning of a movement," he said. And the winners are ... The Big Brothers were given for a number of categories: Corporation: The British firm Procurement Services International received a Big Brother award for selling surveillance equipment to Nigeria, Turkey and Indonesia, three countries whose human rights records have been severely criticised. Local government: Newham Council in London won for using its 140 street cameras and facial-recognition software to try to pick out criminals in crowds. National government: The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) was named a Big Brother over its plans for the police to have access through a third party to the keys to any information sent electronically that was locked by encryption. Product: Software by Harlequin that examines telephone records and is able to compare numbers dialled in order to group users into 'friendship networks' won this category. It avoids the legal requirements needed for phone tapping. Lifetime achievement award: Menwith Hill in Yorkshire, a listening station used by America's National Security Agency and described as the biggest US spy station in the world, won this special award. None of the winners were present to accept their awards. But a video was shown of a receptionist at Newham Council receiving a Big Brother earlier in the day and of several police dragging a Privacy International campaigner out of the DTI's headquarters after he had tried to present it. Winstons were awarded to three individuals, cited for campaigning at Menwith Hill, documenting police surveillance and pursuing a privacy case against a landlord who had installed a two-way mirror in a 19-year-old woman's flat. ? BBC ------------------------------ Jean-Francois Avon, B.Sc. Physics, Montreal, Canada DePompadour, Société d'Importation Ltée Limoges fine porcelain and french crystal JFA Technologies, R&D physicists & engineers Instrumentation & control, LabView programming PGP keys: http://bs.mit.edu:8001/pks-toplev.html PGP ID:C58ADD0D:529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891 PGP ID:5B51964D:152ACCBCD4A481B0 254011193237822C

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