The New York Times, April 1, 1996, p. A14. Pioneers of Cyberspace Move Into Wider Arena By Peter H. Lewis Cambridge, Mass., March 30 -- Cyberspace is dead, many of its electronic pioneers said at a conference here this week. As the Internet population has grown into the millions, what was once a small, self-regulating society of academics and computer wizards has been engulfed by mainstream culture. But in their efforts to preserve the libertarian spirit of the electronic frontier, the original members of the cyberspace community have emerged as a political and social force. "Last year, it was still possible for people to say cyberspace is a different place, subject to different laws and different rules and that there is a Net culture," said Hal Abelson, a professor of computer science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology here. "Now you have such a large percentage of the population on the Net, it just is not sensible to talk about this as some other place anymore. What you are really talking about now is the communications fabric of the country." In what was seen as a clear sign of Internet users new power, several members of Congress announced, by telephone and through the Internet, new legislation and initiatives at the gathering here, the annual Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference. The proposals include the formation of an Internet Caucus in Congress and a Senate blll to relax the Government's laws restricting the transmission of secrets over the global information network. "Washington is coming to thls conference in droves," said Daniel J. Weltzner, deputy dlrector of the Center for Democracy and Technology, one of several public-interest groups that seek to influence Government policy related to cyberspace, "and I think it's very exciting and promising. It's the coming of age of this community." The members of Congress were wooing more than 500 of the Internet's most prominent champions, who had gathered to discuss issues that were once esoteric but are now affecting millions of people worldwide: questions of privacy, electronic copyrights, computer crime, the nature of free speech, digital pornography, electronic cash and grassroots electronic democracy. The Computers, Freedom and Privacy crowd included its usual assortment of computer hackers, academics and self- described crypto-anarchists, and even one man wearing video goggles with an antenna apparently sprouting from his head. But it also included others who wanted to assess the fusion of cyberspace and real space: Federal judges, lawmakers, White House policy experts, corporate executives and law-enforcement agents. Senator Conrad Burns, a Republican from the real frontier state of Montana, chose the conference to announce, by telephone, new legislation that would remove nearly all current Government restrictions on the export of mass-market encryption software, which is used to send secret messages over computer and telephone networks. Senator Burns's legislation would also block the Administration from imposing as a Government standard any form of data encryption that would give law-enforcement agencies the ability to decode messages. The Senator's bill places him squarely at odds with the Clinton Administration and the Justice Department. But Mr. Burns said the use of robust data encryption would foster the rise of electronic commerce, distance education and digital communicatlons, which his large, rural state desperately needs in the 21st century. While the bill might have little chance of passage this year, conference participants were heartened by what appears to be growing support in Congress for a relaxation of the Government's cryptography policy. The proposal drew some opposition. "I think we'll regret it down the road," said Dorothy E. Denning, a professor of computer sciences at Georgetown University and a computer security consultant to the military. Dr. Denning and others have argued that the use of unrestricted encryption would thwart the ability of law-enforcement and intelligence agencies to conduct wiretaps on messages sent by foreign spies, terrorists, child pornographers and other criminals. On Friday, a bipartisan group of wired lawmakers addressed the conference by telephone and Internet to announce the formation of a Congressional Internet Caucus. Fewer than half of all members of Congress are now on line. Representative Rick White, Republican of Washington, said, "The idea behind the Internet Caucus is to do two things: increase members understanding of the Internet and get more members on-line so that people can contact their elected representatives on the Internet." [End]