On 9 Jul 96 at 18:26, E. ALLEN SMITH wrote: [..]

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Like China, various other countries are trying to get the Internet's benefits (such as technical information) without its other consequences (extension of civil liberties into countries that want to deny them). One idea that I've had for preventing such problems is to look for addresses from such countries that are posting to technical newsgroups, to technical mailing

At 05:06 10/07/96 +0000, Deranged Mutant wrote: lists,

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or that are attempting to get access to web pages on technical subjects (which access they will hopefully be denied, although an alternate possibility). Then mail information to those addresses that those countries don't want getting into their countries, such as on human rights abuses (or well-written pornography...).

Great idea. Get some (possibly) innocent techie in an oppressive country thrown in jail or executed. [..] Damn aggrevating for that user, and it could get him/her in trouble.

On a wide-scale it could provoke responses from those countries.

Damned right, and it should. Your religion teaches to "DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO YOU." Good advice for anyone on the Internet, and the last thing you want to teach newbies is to spam. Imagine if you were to send the cypherpunks list unsolicited porn, info about some prisoner in Texas who is getting the death penalty... you get the picture. If I were at the receiving end, I'd send back a polite but firm note asking you to desist, and if you didn't, complain to your sysop, or remailer operator. Which is what you would do in my shoes. But if you want to do something, I have a better idea (thanks for the willingness to help): As I see it, the Chinese communist government will not live to see more than a few years (if any) of the 21st Century. We are all aware of the devastating impact of telecommunications, TV and computers on authoritarian regimes. E.g. in the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Easterners watching West German TV was a significant contributory factor. Satellite TV is available all over China.The government may, for a while, be able to ban satellite dishes, but soon their size will reduce to that of a wok (might even double as one). The Internet will soon be widespread. The real crunch will come when Hongkong becomes part of China. Inevitably, other parts of the country will want to know why the special status of Hongkong cannot be extended to them. There is a chance that instead of China taking over Hongkong, the reverse might happen. In cyberspace, the students have the more powerful tanks. Can you imagine how different a massacre a la Tiananmen Square would look in a couple of years? Images captured on camcorders would be beamed back to the Chinese via satellite, all the information would flow both ways on the net, the Hongkong stock market would take a dive, ... I would suggest that tacitly or at least implicitly, the Chinese goverment has conceded that it will never try a major violent suppression of political unrest again. That, or it will decide that the Internet is a bad influence, and should be abolished. What that does is give us a window of opportunity. Hongkong has one remaining year of guaranteed unfettered flow of information. China still has the Internet. What can we do? 1) Collect the e-mail addresses as Allen suggested (including those in Hongkong), and send them a single, short message offering to teach them free of cost how to use pgp and all the goodies at http://www.eskimo.com/~joelm/cbsw.html 2) Encourage the production of simple, cheap devices such as a PGP phone that they can manufacture in Hongkong and other parts of China, which will allow secure communications. Basically, people without a computer, Internet connection or sufficient literacy should be able to use effective encryption. Cheap. 3) Find people who beam radio transmissions into China (Rupert Murdoch via his Star TV satellite is one ;-) and ask them to devote an "Internet hour" in which people can mail or phone in messages (via remailers and encryption too) to be broadcast. The whole thing can be automated, and *everybody* has access to radio. More on this subject later. Thoughts? Arun Mehta, B-69 Lajpat Nagar-I, New Delhi-24, India. Phone 6841172,6849103 amehta@doe.ernet.in amehta@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in amehta@cerfnet.com http://mahavir.doe.ernet.in/~pinaward/arun.htm "I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any."--Gandhi