*************************************************************** *** CuD, Issue #1.17 / File 2 of 6 / From the Mailbag *** *************************************************************** ---------------- The following was forwarded from Telecom Digest ---------------- Date: Wed, 13 Jun 90 11:03:34 CDT From: Doug Barnes Message-Id: <9006131603.AA00208@chaos.austin.ibm.com> To: @auschs.uucp:ibmchs!cs.utexas.edu!eecs.nwu.edu!telecom Although I have not been directly affected by this operation, it has loomed very large in my life. I'm an Austin, TX resident, I know many of the principals who *have* been directly affected, and I've experienced first-hand some of the chilling effects that the operation has had on freedom of expression and freedom of association among the usenet and bbs communities here in Austin. First of all, some simple math will tell you that if evidence was seized in 26 places, only a handfull of the seizures have been publicized. In two cases of people I know personally, there was no direct participation with the LoD, equipment was seized, and the equipment owners sufficiently terrified by the prospect of further victimization that they have avoided publicity. Let's face it; even if over $30,000 of equipment has been seized from someone, that's peanuts compared to court costs and possible career-damaging publicity from being connected to this mess. The next layer of damage is to operators of systems even less involved, but who want to avoid having their house broken into, their equipment seized, and their reputation besmirched. (If the SS has come to call, then surely you're guilty of *something*, right?) The solution? Restrict or eliminate public access to your system. And give me a break, Mr. Townson; if a system has any reasonable volume and the administrator has any sort of a life, then that administrator is not going to be reading people's personal mail. It's semi-reasonable to expect some monitoring of public areas, but not on a prior review basis... Then there's the hard-to-quantify suspicion that brews; if being associated with "crackers" can lead to that early morning knock, (even if that association has nothing to do with cracking, say, an employer-employee relationship), then how does that square with freedom of association? Does the operator of a usenet feed have to run an extensive security check on anyone who calls for news? How about the operator of a computer store who hires a salesman? Do any of these people deserve to have their computers, their disks, their manuals, their modems seized because they have "been associated with" a "known" cracker? Although the crackdown has not been as bad as it could have been, allowing the SS to get away with it would set a most unfortunate precedent. Douglas Barnes =========================================================================== Date: Thu, 14 Jun 90 17:08 EDT From: Stephen Tihor Subject: Outreach..advice sought To: tk0jut2 My university already has one summer program for bright high school students but I am looking to see what we can and should do to provide a legitimate opertunity for youngsters who might become crackers to learn and to help socialize their urges to explore and expand their world view without attracting electronic vandals. Although the computer center is receptive to student initiated projects and requests for talks or training on any subject few students take advantage of our offers. Some of our efforts (such as universal email only accounts on request) have been thwarted by the central administration concerns about the potentially hugh costs of the project. We have been proceding more slowly to demonstrate that most members of the university community don't care yet. I am interested in ideas with low $ and personel costs and which will avoid triggering more vandalism or even unguided explorations. Innocent mistakes made by users "sharing resources" have been almost as much trouble as the vandals so we can not simply take the Stallman approach and remove all passwords from the university. =========================================================================== Date: Thu, 14 Jun 90 11:54:57 EDT From: mis@seiden.com(Mark Seiden) re CuD 1.14: <5. What happens, as occasionally does, if an attorney asks the moderators Subject: the Jolnet/Sun Devil story Date: 21 Jun 90 15:04:13 GMT I have a reporter friend who wants to do a story on the Jolnet/Sun Devil situation. Is there anyone out there who has first hand experience. She doesn't need friend of a friend rumours but hard physical contact. Guns in faces of 12 year olds makes great copy. thanks ============================================================================= Pat @ grebyn.com | If the human mind was simple enough to understand, 301-948-8142 | We'd be too simple to understand it. -Emerson Pugh =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ + END THIS FILE + +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+===+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253 12yrs+