From douglas  Fri May  1 08:25:38 1998
From: douglas (Doug Schuler)
Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 08:25:38 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: "Democracy and Digital Media" conference (in Boston)
Message-ID: <199805011525.IAA05965@scn.org>


FYI,

Here is the abstract of a presentation I'm giving at MIT next week at
the Democracy and Digital Media conference.  Ira Magaziner from the
Clinton administration and several other digerati -- and non-digerati
-- people will also be presenting.  The web site is
http://media-in-transition.mit.edu.

-- Doug


                      Democracy and the Internet:

                 Reports of their Close Relationship
                  Appears to have been Exaggerated

                           Doug Schuler

                             Abstract

                Democracy and Digital Media Conference
                               MIT
                            May, 1998

The media that democratic societies employ have profound effects on how
democracy is conceptualized and practiced.  Furthermore, any type of
communication technology has some malleability and can be made less
democratic or more so through a variety of means.  The "digerati", on
the other hand, seem to believe that the Internet is inherently
democratic.  Sadly most signs indicate that the Internet is becoming
less -- not more -- democratic with each passing day.  As an
unrepentant meliorist I'll offer several concrete suggestions (such as
community networks) in my talk which are worth considering in the event
that we as a society decide that democracy deserves more than lip
service.


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From femme2 at scn.org  Fri May  1 18:38:41 1998
From: femme2 at scn.org (Lorraine Pozzi)
Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 18:38:41 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: CTCNet greetings & post (fwd)
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.96.980501183554.26731E-100000@scn>


A number of SCNers met Peter Miller when he was in Seattle for the
HUD Community Learning Centers project.  And, of course, many people
involved in SCN are interested in telecommunications development/
legislation.  For the rest of you, ...  it's the delete key!

Lorraine
  

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 01 May 1998 14:53:55
From: loka2 at amherst.edu
To: Recipients of conference <fastnet at igc.apc.org>
Subject: CTCNet greetings & post (fwd)


From: Peter Miller <peterm at igc.apc.org>

___________________forwarded message___________________


CTCNet Seeks Telecommunications Policy Researchers

The Community Technology Centers' Network (CTCNet) is a support project
and membership organization for more than 270 community- based
organizations developing technology education and access programs for
those ordinarily without access to these resources.  Through our Loka
Colleagues, we would like to establish relationships with researchers who
have an interest in telecommunications policy that bears upon efforts to
provide some sustainable source of support for community technology. 

Under the Telecommunications Act if 1996, there are special funds, 
discounts, and programs for schools, libraries, and health centers to 
develop their technology resources.  There are, however, no such 
provisions for 501(c)3's in general to establish these programs and 
support them in an ongoing fashion.  As of now, there are some small 
pots of public funds to help start up some of these programs, but for the 
most part, all funding and support is through special grants, public and 
private, and a range of entrepeneurial sources.  For most community 
agencies, efforts to secure financial support are nearly as extensive as 
efforts to develop the programs.  Some states and localities are 
beginning to legislate and establish regulatory guidelines that would 
provide such support, and CTCNet would like to be informed of these 
opportunities and help our affiliates make the most of them.

If you are a researcher interested in telecommunications policy and 
community technology sustainability, CTCNet would very much like 
to know of your work.  We are currently working on a number of 
scenarios for a submission to the OMB Watch Nonprofits and 
Technology grant program involving community groups in public 
policy through telecommunications (due June 1), so there is even some 
possibility of developing funding for research support in this arena.

If you would like to learn more about CTCNet, check out our web page 
at http://www.ctcnet.org.  For more on the OMB Watch grants 
program, visit http://ombwatch.org/www/ombw/npt/rfp.html.
If you're interested in working with CTCNet in this arena, contact
me at peterm at ctcnet.org.

Thanks,

Peter

===========================================================
Peter Miller, Network Director                             
Community Technology Centers' Network (CTCNet)             
Education Development Center             617/969-7100 x2736
55 Chapel St.                            Fax: 617/ 332-4318
Newton, MA 02158                          peterm at ctcnet.org
                                      http://www.ctcnet.org
===========================================================




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From jj at scn.org  Sat May  2 02:11:21 1998
From: jj at scn.org (John Johnson)
Date: Sat, 2 May 1998 02:11:21 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: "Democracy and Digital Media" conference (in Boston)
In-Reply-To: <199805011525.IAA05965@scn.org>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.96.980502013835.8646B-100000@scn>

By coincidence I overheard someone expounding today on whether our society
might become technologically two-tiered:  those with, and those without.
And it reminded me of Leon Stover's "The Cultural Ecology of Chinese
Civilization:  Peasants and Elites in the Last of the Agrarian States".
He articulates Julian Steward's thesis that classical Chinese culture was
effectively bipartitie:  the peasants were stuck in what was essentially a
neolithic society of primitive agriculture, and the elite, who in a
certain sense _were_ "culture", got everything else.

I see it developing on the Web, and even in SCN, where the elite just
can't do without full-graphics Pentium machines, 56 kbps modems, and PPP
connections.  And yet I doubt if the total residential Internet
connectivity in even this country averages out to even 2400 baud.

=== JJ =================================================================

On Fri, 1 May 1998, Doug Schuler wrote:

> Here is the abstract of a presentation I'm giving at MIT next week at
> the Democracy and Digital Media conference.  
> [....]
>                              Abstract
> 
> The media that democratic societies employ have profound effects on how
> democracy is conceptualized and practiced.  Furthermore, any type of
> communication technology has some malleability and can be made less
> democratic or more so through a variety of means.  The "digerati", on
> the other hand, seem to believe that the Internet is inherently
> democratic.  Sadly most signs indicate that the Internet is becoming
> less -- not more -- democratic with each passing day.  ....

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From kurt at grogatch.seaslug.org  Sat May  2 12:40:54 1998
From: kurt at grogatch.seaslug.org (Kurt Cockrum)
Date: Sat, 2 May 1998 12:40:54 -0700
Subject: copyright -- to obey or not to obey, that is the question [sic]
Message-ID: <199805021940.MAA07294@grogatch.seaslug.org>

>From a posting by Steve:
>[...]
>The 20-year extension (now named the Sonny Bono Copyright Term
>Extension Act) has passed the House and is awaiting action in the
>Senate.

Somebody should nominate the tree that got Bono for the Nobel Peace Prize.
I recall a legal paper a number of years back entitled "Do Trees Have
Standing?" (damn! can't remember the author!), so it ought to be possible :) .
Be a nice political statement, anyway :) .

>        When the bill was first proposed in Congress in early 1997,
>sponsors described it as a win-win situation, and proponents wondered
>who, if anyone, could oppose it. 
>
>Who? The public, in the broadest sense. We the people. 
>[...]

Oh, yeah, right.  The power of the pee-pul.  The pee-pul, be-nighted,
will never be de-feeted.

Frankly, the public is a bunch of cowardly, pusillanimous wusses.
If anything I care about is dependent on the ability of the American
public to defend it, I might as well kiss it off.  The most effectual
thing Americans are capable of is "writing their congressman", and it's
likely to be about the wrong thing, anyway.

If Americans had it within them to actually rebel against, or resist bad
laws, none of this would be a problem, because bad laws just wouldn't
get obeyed.  Those that do, can't expect much in the way of support
from the majority of their fellows; trouble is, hardly any American is
capable of thinking for themselves.  They prefer to leave the driving
to their congresscritter, being seduced by the concept of "law-abiding"
citizen, no matter how crazy or against their interests the law is.
Their support is something I wouldn't bet the farm on at all.

No wonder Paul Schell can get away with stepped-up enforcement of
the jaywalking ordinance!

The last time there was any rebellious currents was in the `60's, and
it got pretty well defused, partly because of co-optation and partly
because it ran out of steam.  And nobody learned from that how to keep
a rebellion going, either.  All it did was spawn a generation of Boomers
whose chief worry now is that their kid will call bullshit on them when
they try to tell the kid how harmful marijuana is.  The Boomers had a
fun time back then, but have been worthless in the fight to decriminalize
that harmless substance and eliminate the Draconian penalities for its
use, possession, and/or cultivation.

So you'll pardon me if I'm skeptical about the oppositional capabilities
of the American people.  If anything, they are more like the Eastern
Europeans, who seem to have an astounding capacity for oppression before
opposition surfaces.  The latter had it a *lot* worse than we *ever* did,
and it still took from 40 to 70 years for the pot to boil over.  And all
they got out of the deal was the beginning of another 40-70-year cycle,
this time from the opposite end of the political spectrum, and a crummy
T-shirt with holes in it.

But posting the NY Times stuff on this list is a step in the right
direction, and I support it for that reason (go, Steve!).  I don't like
much of anything about the RCP, so I'll end this by ripping off *their*
intellectual property: "It's Right To Rebel".
--kurt
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From douglas  Sun May  3 18:31:58 1998
From: douglas (Doug Schuler)
Date: Sun, 3 May 1998 18:31:58 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: CTCNet greetings & post (fwd)
Message-ID: <199805040131.SAA06336@scn.org>

Lorraine (and other SCN volunteers),

Thanks for the post from Peter Miller.  He mentions a pretty
good sounding grant opportunity from OMB.  Perhaps SCN could send 
one out...

"For more on the OMB Watch grants 
program, visit http://ombwatch.org/www/ombw/npt/rfp.html."

-- Doug

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From douglas  Sun May  3 18:44:24 1998
From: douglas (Doug Schuler)
Date: Sun, 3 May 1998 18:44:24 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: "Democracy and Digital Media" conference (in Boston)
Message-ID: <199805040144.SAA10100@scn.org>

JJ,

Thanks for the note.  I'm now sensing that there is an increasing
rejection of the technological utopianism and cyberlibertarian
pronouncements that seem to have held sway for so many years.
Maybe now is an even better opportunity for us than before to
be promoting SCN and other grassroots democratic technology
projects!  (hope springs eternal...)

-- Doug

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From steve at accessone.com  Mon May  4 01:42:38 1998
From: steve at accessone.com (Steve Hoffman)
Date: Mon, 4 May 1998 00:42:38 -0800
Subject: Encryption & First Amendment
Message-ID: <199805040741.AAA08551@accessone.com>

2 Encryption Cases Cast Shadow on Academia

Laurie J. Flynn 
NY Times 5/3/98


Daniel Bernstein, a math professor at the University of Illinois at
Chicago, routinely makes his course materials available for students
and researchers, both within and outside of the university. Likewise,
Peter Junger, law professor at Case Western Reserve University in
Cleveland, widely distributes the coursework to his popular class
Computers and the Law. But while one may teach math and the other
law, the two share something in common: both are prevented from
posting their course materials on the Internet. 

The reason? Profs. Bernstein and Junger's coursework includes
encryption software, computer code whose export is regulated by the
United States Department of Commerce. As a result, they share
something else: Both men are awaiting decisions in separate lawsuits
claiming that the government is violating their right to free speech
under the First Amendment. 

Separate rulings are expected any day in both cases. The outcome,
legal experts say, could have broad-reaching effects on the future of
electronic commerce as well as academic freedom.

The cases have been watched closely by legal experts and government
agencies, as well as computer industry executives who have been
lobbying furiously for the federal government to remove all
restrictions on exporting software. (A third lawsuit involving
encryption software, Karn v. the U.S. Department of State, was
expected to have broad implications as well, but that case is stalled
in the courts.) 

Just last week, the United States District Court of Eastern Ohio
heard oral arguments in the Junger case, which Junger originally
filed back in 1996 when he was told he would need an export license
before he could post his Computers and the Law class on the Web. At
last week's hearing, Junger's lawyer, Raymond Vasvari, argued, as
Bernstein's lawyers before him, that encryption software is protected
speech. The government countered that encryption is not a form of
speech, but rather a function of the software. A lawyer torney for
the Justice Department said all the government is trying to do is
regulate the function.

But after the hearing, Junger said he felt if the government were to
prevail it could apply the same logic to preventing other types of
material from being published electronically. 

"If the government can constitutionally require me to get a license,
which I probably can't get, before I publish encryption software, they
could require me to get a license before I publish any sort of
software," Junger said.

Vasvari also contends that the Commerce Department's process for
granting licenses appears flawed and muddled. Government officials, he
said, use "standardless discretion" in deciding the fate of
applications. "We don't know who decides or what criteria they use,"
he said. 

But the case has even broader implications than free speech law. The
issue of encryption regulation has been debated for years. Government
and law enforcement officials have long argued that encryption
software must be regulated to prevent it from falling into the wrong
hands: high-tech criminals and foreign governments who could use it
to cover their tracks. 

Computer industry officials and free-speech advocates, on the other
hand, say the restrictions damage the U.S. software industry and that
the export restrictions on U.S.-made encryption software is leading
to the export of programming jobs to countries without such
regulations. They also argue that encryption is already widely
available around the world.

Working for Junger is a 1996 ruling in the Bernstein case. In that
case, Judge Marilyn H. Patel ruled nearly two years ago that software
was, in essence, speech, and that the government's restrictions on
Bernstein amounted to an illegal prior restraint on speech and
therefore a violation of the First Amendment.

But the government appealed, leaving Bernstein still unable to
publish his ideas electronically while an appeals court decides the
fate of the case. Last December, a three-judge panel of the Ninth
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard the appeal and is currently
considering Patel's 1996 decision.

Bernstein's suit dates back to February 1995, when he was a graduate
student at the University of California at Berkeley. At the time,
State Department officials told him he would have to submit his ideas
about cryptography to the government for review, get a government
license and register as an arms dealer before he could publish an
electronic version of a short encryption program he had written
called Snuffle. Without such a license he could not even discuss his
ideas at conferences, which foreigners might attend, or publish them
on the Internet, where they could be viewed overseas. 

That was until last year, when the Clinton administration shifted
encryption regulation from the State Department to the Commerce
Department. With that shift, software that scrambles communications
is no longer classified as a weapon, though it is still subject to
export rules. Under current regulations, it is legal to send computer
source code overseas in printed form but not electronically.

In its appeal, the government argued that it was trying to preserve
the ability of intelligence agencies to eavesdrop on foreign
governments and citizens. In preventing Bernstein from publishing
Snuffle electronically, government lawyers argued that what was being
restricted was not speech but the medium of the Internet, which makes
it easy for foreigners to use Bernstein's source code to encrypt
data.

It's now been nearly five months since a panel of three judges heard
the government's appeal, and nobody is watching more intently than
Federal District Judge James S. Gwin, the presiding judge in the
Junger case. 

But even when the two cases are decided, it won't likely be the end
of either one. Any decision in Bernstein is almost certain to result
in an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, legal experts say. In Junger,
the case is likely to be sent to an appeals court.

Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
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From steve at accessone.com  Fri May  8 09:12:27 1998
From: steve at accessone.com (Steve Hoffman)
Date: Fri, 8 May 1998 08:12:27 -0800
Subject: Spam
Message-ID: <199805081511.IAA13424@accessone.com>

The American Way of Spam

Amy Harmon
NY Times 5/8/98


CHINO, Calif. -- The life of a spammer is no bowl of cybercherries.
Damien Melle, who makes a living sending huge amounts of e-mail
advertising over the Internet, works out of his home in this
hardscrabble Southern California suburb, in an office where the smell
of fried food lingers like, say, unwanted e-mail in your In box. 

On a recent afternoon, he fielded half a dozen hate calls. His
Internet service provider canceled his account, again. And another
Federal Express letter arrived from America Online's lawyers. They
had subpoenaed his laptop from the shop where it was in for repairs. 

On the bright side, no dog feces had come in the mail, as has
happened at least once, and the anti-spammer vigilantes who had been
tracking him seemed to have lost the scent somewhere in the ether.
There was also the tally of the previous month's profits on the white
board, the only wall covering except for a picture of the Virgin
Mary. In March, Melle said, his company, which he runs with his
brother Joe, cleared about $11,000. "I made a lot of money last
month, and I was at home," said Melle, 22, who manages, despite his
travails, to make a daily delivery of about a half-million e-mail
promotions. 

"I'll never work for a big company again. The Internet is an
opportunity for people like us. That's why the big companies are
nervous." Joe Melle, 31, who runs his part of the operation from
Norristown, Pa., said, "We're just trying to put food on the table." 

The brothers Melle are on the front lines of the spam wars,
cyberspace's first all-out internecine conflict. Depending on which
side you talk to, the stakes are, roughly, the future of capitalism,
free expression and the American Way or the future of the Internet,
individual privacy and the American Way. 

"One of us has got to go off this Net, and it ain't going to be me,"
said Ron Guilmette, a software engineer in Sacramento, Calif., who is
developing a program to block spam. 

Like many aspiring electronic entrepreneurs, the Melles started a few
years back by culling addresses by hand from the Web and e-mail
discussion groups. Now computer programs with unrepentant names like
Cyber Bomber and Stealth Mass Mailer help thousands of spammers keep
their self-appointed rounds, with relative anonymity to boot. 

As a result, it has become essentially impossible to overstate just
how much various Internet factions abhor those who send junk e-mail
(although many are happy to try). 

Internet access providers whose systems are clogged with commercial
mail blame the spammers for slowing down the whole system.
Subscribers revile them for sullying their mailboxes, and those of
their Net-loving children, with offers of free hot sex, XXX photos,
discount dental plans and tips on how they, too, might partake of the
bulk-mail bounty from outfits like Money4you at dreamscometrue.com. 

The war even has its own language. Spammers spoof headers (to hide
their real e-mail addresses), relay-rape overseas mail servers
(routing their mail through an unsuspecting computer to avoid making
their service providers suspicious) and shield their computers'
whereabouts with cloaking programs. 

Anti-spammers retaliate with mail bombs (barraging their antagonists
with a taste of their own medicine), computer code patches for
security holes and the formidable Real-Time Black Hole List, part of
a boycott campaign of providers who service known spammers. 

On the Spam-L list-serve, an online bastion of the spam-haters,
members know their quarry by name: "Alex Chiu is back," one wrote. 

"Nuke him." (In an interview, the beleaguered Chiu, 27, said he had
quit his job at a duty-free shop in San Francisco to market an
anti-aging device he had invented. Now he sends out mail for clients,
too, including sex-toy stores and individuals offering do-it-yourself
business plans. Among his reasons for turning to spam: "I'm an
environmentalist." Spam, of course, wastes no paper.) 

Another spammer, Dan Hufnal, head of the Direct E-Mail Advertisers
Association, said: "These people will go to any means to punish any
company that would advertise this way or provide the connectivity for
others who wish to do so. They're nothing short of terrorists. They
don't act any different from the I.R.A." 

Hufnal's attempts to provide Internet access for bulk e-mailers have
been thwarted by a group of network engineers who identify spammers
and shut them out of much of the Net. 

Both sides display a tendency toward hyperbole that seems endemic to
their chosen medium. But spam is a genuinely troubling flash point
for so many because it lays bare both the pros and cons of the
Internet's unique brand of democratic expression. 

The network's much-celebrated capacity to turn anyone with
$20-a-month access into a publisher or entrepreneur is also what
allows spammers to thrive. Yet anti-spam activists, or
"anti-E-commerce radicals," as Hufnal calls them, insist that it is
bulk e-mail itself that endangers electronic free speech. For proof,
they point to the spam siege of Usenet, a portion of the Internet
devoted to public bulletin boards where thousands of subjects are
discussed. 

Usenet newsgroups were the target of two notorious spam pioneers,
Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel, immigration lawyers who in 1994
posted vast numbers of messages offering assistance in entering the
green card lottery. Despite the efforts of software known as
cancelbots and human "despammers," many of the newsgroups have since
been overrun with junk messages. 

"As someone who is very concerned with free speech on the Net, it
certainly makes me anxious that this is the way the market is
developing," said Dierdre Mulligan, staff counsel for the Center for
Democracy and Technology, a public-interest group, and author of a
report by the Federal Trade Commission's working group on spam that
is scheduled for release this week. "But as someone who received
three unsolicited political e-mails and 22 commercial e-mails today, I
think the more we can let people tailor what they want to receive,
the better." 

The term spam, taken from the name of the spiced lunch meat
relentlessly doled out in Army rations, morphed into an epithet when
Internet denizens adopted it to refer to unsolicited promotional
messages. So negative is the connotation that Hormel Foods, which
holds the trademark for Spam, sent a cease-and-desist letter to one
publicity-minded spammer who held a press conference surrounded by
cans of the pink product. 

Less clear is whether spam is universally undesirable or whether, as
one spammer puts it, "one man's spam is another man's caviar." Junk
e-mail's bad rap is largely due to its tendency to promote
get-rich-quick schemes or pornographic Web sites. But there are
already laws governing e-mail that is fraudulent or obscene. Spammers
marketing legitimate products -- they prefer to be called bulk
e-mailers -- insist that there are plenty of people who welcome their
missives. Or how would they be making money? 

Joel Theodore, 31, of Long Island, who promotes his company's
computer systems via e-mail, responded to an Internet posting titled,
"Repent, sinner!" by writing: "The truth is, most businesses are not
repenting merely because of the fact that it is profitable. The
reality is we are not just irresponsible people. We have done our
best to target mail. We also have made sure no one will ever get
another one if they do not want it. We also do not use any illegal
practices. If you don't want to read it, hit delete!" 

That's easy to say, retort the anti-spammers -- they prefer to be
called pro-privacy advocates -- but consider the following: "If a
spammer sends a million pieces of e-mail out for a worthless piece of
merchandise, that means a million people are going to have to delete
the e-mail or respond to it," said Jim Nitchals, a regular on the
net-abuse.email Internet discussion group. "Add up the number of
seconds, and we're talking days and months of human suffering and
waste of energy and time." 

And cash. Since it costs spammers about the same to send 10 million
pieces of mail as it does to send 10, there is no natural barrier to
entry. And unlike junk snail mail, spam haters contend, e-mail passes
on the cost of the advertisement to the providers who transmit it and
recipients who pay for connect time to download it. America Online,
for instance, estimates that as much as 30 percent of the all the
Internet mail it processes is junk mail, at a cost that may eventually
pass on to users. 

The nation's biggest on-line service, AOL, whose subscribers suffer
the indignities of spam perhaps more than anyone else, has won
several recent court victories over junk e-mailers, prohibiting them
from sending unsolicited bulk e-mail to the service. The Melles are
next on AOL's list. In a suit filed in Federal District Court in
Alexandria, Va., AOL is seeking an injunction against the Melles'
company, TSF Marketing, which earlier this year threatened to make
public five million AOL subscriber addresses unless the company
relaxed its restrictions on bulk mailers. 

But spammers are fond of pointing out that AOL itself bombards users
with infuriating pop-up advertisements touting such offers as "easy
1-step photo scanning" every time they log on. And as mainstream
advertisers and nonprofit and political organizations contemplate
using bulk e-mail as a way to get their messages out, just what
qualifies as spam becomes increasingly murky. The Democratic Party in
California, for instance, plans to send e-mail to thousands of voters
with a slate of endorsements and information on the party's
candidates this year. 

"It's hard to get a fixed definition of spam," Mulligan said. "You
know it when you see it." 

The war on spam is making an impact. Many Internet service providers
have adopted subscriber contracts that prohibit sending bulk e-mail,
and even "bulk friendly" providers have been hounded into changing
their policies. Sanford Wallace, known as the Spam King -- at his
peak, he was sending 25 million pieces of mail a day -- said last
month that he was retiring from the trade. 

Now Congress is considering three anti-spam bills, one of which would
hold junk e-mail to the same standard as junk faxes. Courts have
found some spammers liable for trespassing, and Internet users are
adopting a host of new technological defenses. The new version of
Microsoft's e-mail software, for instance, includes a feature --
based on an analysis of 2,000 pieces of spam -- that automatically
blocks messages containing phrases like "for free!" or whose subject
line contains both an exclamation point and a question mark. 

Such measures do not impress Paul Vixie, the administrator of the
Realtime Black Hole List, into which spammers have been known to
disappear forever. Vixie, who wrote one of the programs that makes the
Internet run, remembers the days when the network was spam-free. Now
he gets spam about 100 times a day. So he is fighting back. 

With a posse of volunteers, Vixie tracks each piece of junk mail he
receives to its source -- or as close as he can get. He then informs
the spammer's service provider that it is harboring a Net
transgressor. The provider has a choice: ditch the spammer or suffer
the consequences. If a provider fails to take action, it is dropped
into the abyss of the Black Hole List, which means that none of its
subscribers can send e-mail to other providers who support Vixie's
efforts. Vixie estimates that about one-fifth of the service
providers on the Net support such e-mail boycotts. 

"See, it's raising the hair on the back of my neck," he told a
visitor recently as he hunched over his computer in his Silicon
Valley office and stalked his prey. "This is just not O.K. with me.
Fundamentally, this is an abuse of a privilege. All Internet
communications should be consensual." 

The Black Hole List maintainers realize that their tactics punish
some innocent victims. But they are adamant about their right to
refuse traffic from any Internet providers friendly to spam. 

"It's heartbreaking for me to get e-mail from somebody's mother who
can't send mail to her son at college because the school subscribes
to the Black Hole List," Vixie said. "But I write them back and say:
'I'm sorry you're being inconvenienced. But your provider is spamming
me. And they won't stop.' " 

Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company




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From ANamioka at activevoice.com  Wed May 13 14:02:10 1998
From: ANamioka at activevoice.com (Aki Namioka)
Date: Wed, 13 May 1998 14:02:10 -0700
Subject: Filtering bill
Message-ID: <3F8442FB250CD111957300A024C65C69DA0977@EXCHANGE2.activevoice.com>

I will be debating Sen. Patty Murray and Donna Rice about the filtering
bill that they have sponsored - that requires filters in schools and
libraries, this Sunday on KOMO's town meeting.  We need more free speech
supporters in the audience - please attend.  It is THIS SUNDAY, the 17th
at around 5:00 PM.  Please contact KOMO for tickets: call (206)
443-4186.  Plan to show up at 5:00 PM.  Due to construction at KOMO
there is no more parking lot.

Aki
Aki Helen Namioka
Software Engineering Manager, Voice Server Products
Active Voice Corporation
anamioka at activevoice.com
1+206-441-4700 X210
Fax:1+206-505-0210
http://www.activevoice.com

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From bb615 at scn.org  Wed May 13 09:16:37 1998
From: bb615 at scn.org (Rod Clark)
Date: Wed, 13 May 1998 16:16:37 +0000
Subject: Filtering bill
In-Reply-To: <3F8442FB250CD111957300A024C65C69DA0977@EXCHANGE2.activevoice.com>
Message-ID: <199805140125.SAA02753@scn.org>

> I will be debating Sen. Patty Murray and Donna Rice about the
> filtering bill that they have sponsored - that requires filters
> in schools and libraries, ...

Aki, 

   Would you (or anyone) like to suggest good current material 
for SCN's Internet free speech page? It hasn't been updated in 
quite a while.

        http://www.scn.org/tele95/censor.html

Rod Clark
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From bb156 at scn.org  Sat May 16 19:30:28 1998
From: bb156 at scn.org (Andrew Higgins)
Date: Sat, 16 May 1998 19:30:28 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: No subject
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.96.980516192921.8519A-100000@scn>


 ---------- Forwarded message ----------
 Date: Sat, 16 May 1998 10:27:56 -0700 (PDT)
 From: SCN User <jazzbo at scn.org>
 To: vm at scn.org
 Subject: Re: Voice mail response

HEY, THANKS!!!

You folks at SCN are indeed THE GREATEST!

I am a technophobe with little $ to spend on computer fancy stuff. 
Without SCN I wouldn't have access to email at all. The service provided 
by SNC has opened up my world.

So-THANKS AND MORE THANKS to all you dedicated volunteers at SCN who keep 
the ball rolling!

Cordially,
"Jazzbo"

P.S.

Please feel free to forward my message of gratitude to as many people in 
your organization as you'd like.
Just want you all to know that your efforts and hours of work are 
appreciated probably more than you'll ever know....






>
>Hi.
>
>I got both of your messages and I'm glad to hear that everything is
>working now, but I thought I'd let you know what the problem was before in
>case it happens again.
>
>When for one reason or another you get cutoff during the reading of mail
>and then quickly log back in you'll get the "mail is already running"
>message. So you just have to let the computer catch up and give it a
>little more time before you log back in. This should take 20 minutes at
>most.
>
>-Sheri
>
>  From the Seattle Community Network voice mail volunteers
>  Call us at 365-4528 and leave a message, or email to vm at scn.org
>
>
>
>

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From help at scn.org  Sat May 16 22:27:55 1998
From: help at scn.org (SCN help)
Date: Sat, 16 May 1998 22:27:55 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: A public apology
In-Reply-To: <199802120333.VAA09822@vision.hic.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.96.980516222435.18554B-100000@scn>

Sorry for not getting back to you sooner Reynold...we are a bit
shorthanded here.  In any case, wanted to let you know your apology
is appreciated and will be passed on to our membership as best we
can (we do not even do bulk e-mail to our own members!)

 From the SCN Help Desk: allen

On Wed, 11 Feb 1998, www.mallsurfer.com wrote:

> I don't really know how to do this except to send a message again to
> those who I have already written to.  I do not wish to be listed
> amoung the spamming community so this is my public apology for sending
> out spam, UBE, or whatever else it is called.
> 
> Thanks to those who have taken the time to correct me and thus redeem
> me from the hazards of this medium.
> 
> Reynold M. de Guzman
> deguzman at mallsurfer.com
> http://www.mallsurfer.com/deguzman
> 

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From steve at accessone.com  Sun May 17 22:24:20 1998
From: steve at accessone.com (Steve)
Date: Sun, 17 May 1998 21:24:20 -0800
Subject: Universal access
Message-ID: <199805180423.VAA05062@accessone.com>

Online Debate Includes Doubts About Getting Everyone Online

Rebecca Fairley Raney
NY Times 5/18/98


Shahidul Alam tells a story of his group's electronic post office in
Dhaka, Bangladesh, a place where people who cannot afford computers
can go to check their e-mail: 

"Our oldest user, Golam Kasem, had just turned 103 and had never
seen a computer before. I would cycle over to his house in Indira
Road with a printout of a message from his grandson in Canada and
next day peddle up to collect his reply. I remember the frail old
man, straightening up the computer printout and adjusting his thick
glasses as he held the paper by his tungsten lamp." 

The image of the centenarian, the bicycle and the printout opened
the Markle Foundation's online conference on the possibilities of
universal e-mail. The conference, which was being conducted by
e-mail, started May 4 and continued through last Friday. 

While the concept of an online conference may seem, at first glance,
an obscure event, the profile of this conference was heightened with
a post from Vice President Al Gore. In his post, Gore stressed the
need to improve public access to the Internet through libraries and
schools. 

"One of the most important goals that President Clinton and I have
set for this country," the post said, "is to give every child in
America access to high quality educational technology by the dawn of
the new century and to make sure that every person in America --
regardless of race, income or where they live -- will be able to
participate in and benefit from the Information Revolution we are
currently experiencing." 

Several days before that post, Alam's story from Bangladesh brought
down to basics a concept that has inspired gushing idealism from
people who work with computers and sharp criticism from people who
work with the poor. 

Charles Ardai, president of Juno Online Services, which provides
free e-mail accounts, set a tone with an essay that explained the
need for outreach. People need computer training, he argued, before
e-mail can become a universal medium. In addition to training,
universal access would require less expensive equipment for e-mail,
organizations willing to run huge server plants and, in the absence
of revenue, public subsidies. 

"Without this," he wrote, "the danger exists that Internet access
and e-mail could become a toy (or, worse still, a weapon) in the
hands of a wealthy, already-powerful elite. Imagine if only people
with incomes of $100,000 or above had telephones, if only people
under 35 had TVs and VCRs, if only college-educated people had
answering machines. Imagine if e-mail were the way lawyers
communicated with politicians and CEOs with investment bankers, while
the remainder of the population was left out. To a first-order
approximation, this is the case: by and large, it is the wealthier,
younger, better-educated segment of society that is using e-mail. 

"If e-mail is to be a force for good rather than ill," he concluded,
"it must not stop there." 

Naturally, the notion of public subsidies made some participants
squeamish. 

"I'm concerned about naïve enthusiasm that leads to ideas such as
creating a bureaucracy to support e-mail," wrote Bob Frankston, a
developer of computer applications who has worked for Lotus and
Microsoft. "The term 'Universal E-mail' makes me think of the
Universal Service fund, which has become an effective means of
keeping telephony a backwater of technology." 

Strong participation from people in developing countries has kept the
discussion down-to-earth. In addition to reminders that any
"universal" system should be approached with the consideration that
the world is made up of more than North America, several participants
asked how to get around the problem of lack of access to electricity.

In an essay called "E-Mail for All -- What For?" Alfonso Gumucio
Dagron of the Center for Development Communication in Guatemala City
wrote: "Yes, it will be nice that everyone has access to e-mail in
our world. But first things first, it will be even better if everyone
had access to safe water, to electricity and the luxury of telephone.
Please, get into the shoes of 90% of real people in the real world.
How many of them need e-mail today and for what?" 

Dagron questioned whether global e-mail would even be desirable.
"People want to defend their cultures, they don't want to be
submerged by 'globalization,' " he wrote. "We hope that e-mail and
Internet will not become another way to deprive people from their
culture, as it's happening with the globalization of cable and
satellite TV." 

This conference is a component of four years of efforts by the Markle
Foundation to explore the issues surrounding the concept of universal
e-mail. In a series of studies, reports and conferences, the E-Mail
For All project has pursued questions about society's need for
e-mail, the role of industry and the role of the government. 

The project began by raising questions as to whether access to e-mail
could be considered a social issue; after determining that it is a
social issue, Markle's efforts are moving toward creating a national
dialogue on public policy regarding the issue. 

The online conference, the first event in the project held
exclusively on the Internet, was organized largely by e-mail. The
event's host, Steven Clift, posted invitations to 50 e-mail
discussion lists. Two hundred participants had been expected, but by
May 8, 700 people from 30 countries had signed up. 

"We've hit a vein," said Edith Bjornson, vice president of the Markle
Foundation, who was thrilled to see the issues discussed in a forum
Vice President of the United States. That notion in itself helps make
the case for universal access, she said. 

"It so vindicates our assumptions on the power of the medium,"
Bjornson said. "There's something notable going on here and, needless
to say, we're delighted." 

Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company 






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From steve at accessone.com  Tue May 19 08:11:20 1998
From: steve at accessone.com (Steve)
Date: Tue, 19 May 1998 07:11:20 -0800
Subject: Cookies
Message-ID: <199805191410.HAA23275@accessone.com>

The Web's Cookie Monsters Don't Take No for an Answer

Gene Koprowski
Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition


How would you react if you strolled into a store on Fifth Avenue and
a salesman followed you around from aisle to aisle, taking down
notes every time you casually eyed something on the rack? You'd
probably bolt out of the store never to return again -- even if you
were told all that note-taking was intended to give you better
customer service.

Veteran Internet users say that this kind of cartoonish sales
approach is popping up on too many commercial Web sites, thanks to
the overzealous use of technology known as "cookies." And long term,
an over-reliance on this intrusive marketing tool could cause
something of a backlash against Web commerce.

"I was offered 36 cookies in the process of searching for one title"
on a well-known Internet-commerce site recently, says Ryan Wilson,
vice president of the information-technology group at Karakas,
VanSickle & Ouellette, a Portland, Ore., public-relations agency, in
a typical lament. "I sent a 'what gives' note ... and received a form
letter explaining what cookies are. Sheesh!"

But Mr. Wilson got the last laugh -- he says he rarely does business
with the offending site now.

What exactly are cookies, and how have they become such a
sometimes-unwelcome part of our on-line lives?

First off, there are a variety of evil abilities widely ascribed to
cookies that they simply don't have, such as the ability to sneak
privileged information off your hard drive or send you viruses.
Cookies are digital identification tags, small files sent to your
computer by a site's server. They're used by Web masters for a
variety of reasons, including gathering certain information about
visitors and tracking their movements. Such information is then often
used to provide customized content to visitors. (The Wall Street
Journal Interactive Edition describes its use of cookies as "an
inherent part of our production process," but offers a lengthy Cookie
Disclosure Statement for its users' perusal.)

The marketing theory behind all of this was first espoused in the
book The One-to-One Future by marketers Don Peppers and Martha
Rogers. The concept is this: Companies can better serve their
customers if they know what they want, and, by using electronic tags,
Web marketers can essentially get into the unconscious minds of their
prospects and deliver the products of their dreams to them.

"Information about your age, occupation, lifestyle, income level,
marital status, buying preferences" could be conveyed via cookies to
the marketer, says Michael Schmarak, a spokesman for GlobalLink New
Media, a developer whose clients include General Motors, Volvo and
Ford. "For example, I am a big jazz-guitar fan. I may visit a Web
site and hear jazz-guitar music in the background while the navigation
buttons all look like jazz guitars. This allows marketers to
custom-tailor their messages to individual tastes and preferences."

It's a great theory -- but in practice, cookies can be mysterious, a
bit frightening, and more than a bit annoying -- especially if you're
one of the many surfers with a browser set to warn you before
accepting a cookie. That function is built into browsers, as is the
capability to refuse cookies. But all too many of the Web's cookie
monsters have adopted a stance that amounts to force-feeding surfers
these goodies -- and lecturing those who don't have a sweet tooth.
Some surfers charge that the worst of the cookie monsters substitute
haranguing hapless visitors about how great cookies are for customer
service for actually providing such solid service.

Jane Waller, president of the IceGroup Inc., a Wakefield, Mass.,
e-commerce consultant, reserves her scorn for the household name in
software that gets "quite upset" with anyone who rejects a cookie on
their site and redirects the offender to "a 'come to cookies'
sermon."

"Interestingly, they've toned down the language recently from a 'Can
we talk?' in-your-face kind of pitch to a milk-and-honey approach,"
she says. "Now, you can almost hear the sweet music and imagine the
lights dimming as they launch into their 'why cookies are good for
you' story."

Then there are sites that take a passive-aggressive approach to
cookie refusers. Take one retailer of sporting goods and clothing
that's recently set up shop in the on-line world. Surf to its site
with the cookie function disabled on your browser and the site's
server will offer up an error message, without any hint that the
"error" was caused by your refusal to play along with its marketers.
Turn the cookies function back on and the problem goes away.

"There has to be a better way," says Mr. Wilson.

Some surfers have determined to have it both ways, seeking out
software available to arm them in what's becoming a cookie arms race.
There are programs such as Cookie Crusher that automatically accept
or reject cookies based on your preferences; as well as others that
trick sites into thinking cookies have been accepted when they
haven't, or accept them and then discard them the minute you surf
somewhere else -- the cyberspace equivalent of taking the cookie,
hiding it in your fist and crumbling it into dust under the table.

Fortunately, there is the better way that Mr. Wilson is seeking --
and marketers like Lands' End (www.landsend.com) are among the
practitioners.

The first step, says Alby Segall, president of Alby Segall &
Associates, a Denver public-relations consulting firm, is to practice
"permission marketing" with cookies.

In other words, Web sites shouldn't automatically try to milk
information from customers with cookies when they first arrive at the
site -- they should take a more gradual approach.

"Be clear and let them know exactly what you want," says Ms. Segall.

Next, if the customer refuses to provide the information, they should
still be able to see the site, and not have to suffer through
needless error messages or some other such cyber-punishment. "You have
to allow visitors, if they wish, to opt out of the cookie process,"
says Ira Victor, president of 452 Degrees, a San Francisco
interactive Web consulting group.

In addition to that, the Web site should offer the customer (or
potential customer) some real benefit for providing the information
that is requested -- not just some spin about how great everything
will be once they provide the information requested.

Some sites do take these issues seriously. Take on-line toy retailer
Holt Educational Outlet, which recently conducted focus groups to
determine if using cookies on its site (www.holtoutlet.com) was
appropriate.

"Customers were not afraid to use the cookie as long as the next time
they logged on, they were greeted with 'Hi, XYZ customer' and were
offered special pricing and discounts based upon their particular
buying habits," says Annie D. Bourgeois, a spokeswoman for Holt.

Not all -- or even most -- uses of cookies are sneaky. Some are
time-savers, like those that save your user name and password to save
you typing whenever you visit a site. Others are all but essential to
e-commerce, such as cookies that keep track of products ordered in a
virtual shopping cart and then are used to total the order when you
check out.

Long-term, on-line marketers hope that the rogues among them will
start treating cyberspace's customers the same way customers in the
bricks-and-mortar demand to be treated: with courtesy and respect.
And they note that some of the annoying technological problems with
cookies will eventually be solved.

But for the short-term, Web surfers face some disagreeable choices:
Keep opening wide to gobble down sweets from a stranger, get under
the hood of your browser to install a plug-in that lets you cheat, or
endure the technological cold shoulder given to those who dare to
turn off the cookie function.

"Data-collection folks see them as fortune cookies," says Ms. Waller,
speaking for countless other surfers. "I, personally, just toss my
cookies."

Copyright c 1998 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 


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From spban at eskimo.com  Tue May 19 09:11:50 1998
From: spban at eskimo.com (Stefani Banerian)
Date: Tue, 19 May 1998 09:11:50 -0700
Subject: Cookies
References: <199805191410.HAA23275@accessone.com>
Message-ID: <3561AF46.82F28307@eskimo.com>

Steve wrote:
> 
> The Web's Cookie Monsters Don't Take No for an Answer
> 
> Gene Koprowski
> Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition

(snip)

An anonymous cookie program can be obtained from :

http://www.luckman.com/anoncookie/index.html
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From douglas  Wed May 20 10:47:27 1998
From: douglas (Doug Schuler)
Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 10:47:27 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Evergreen Software Fair
Message-ID: <199805201747.KAA29179@scn.org>


Hello,

This could conceivably be of interest to some of you -- especially
since one of the projects is a calendar system for SCN.  I have
been working with these students since September.

-- Doug



------------------------------------------
Can be redistributed to appropriate people
------------------------------------------


YOU'RE INVITED.....

SOS Student Software Fair - June 2!!!!

			
                            SOFTWARE FAIR!
                             June 2, 1998
                               3 - 6 pm
                        Library Foyer, 3rd Floor			
                      The Evergreen State College
			      Olympia, WA
		     (driving instructions below)
 
The software fair is an opportunity for Evergreen students from the
"Student Originated Software" (SOS) program to present their
software projects at this bi-annual event.  SOS is a year-long program
dedicated toward reliable, effective team development of tomorrow's
business, science, and entrepreneurial software. This year's projects:

   * Bioinformatics Automated Research Tool
   * African Fractals Laboratory 
   * Collaboratory Group
   * Dynomatics: Real-time Audio Software
   * Business Systems Software Project
   * Distributed-Redundant Automation Toolkit
   * DSHS Accessibility and Quality Indicator (AQI)
   * Aging & Adult Services Boarding Home Database
   * The Seattle Community Network Calendar
   * The Virtual Forest -- Tree Virtual Imaging System
   * HEPCAT: Human Destruction Game 
 
For more information about the Fair, see 
http://evergreen.edu/sos
 
There will be a Reception following the fair, in Library 4300.
If you plan to attend the reception, please RSVP via email to
"sosfair at evergreen.edu".


PS.  The Graphics Imaging Lounge 1st Annual DIGITAL ART SHOW will also be
presenting their work, 12:00 PM - 7:00 PM, in the First Floor Library,
rm 1314.  The show will feature original, creative, and experimental
work from students in digital audio, photography and video; web page
design, interactive multimedia, 3d modeling, and computer animation.
For more information, see
http://192.211.16.13/curricular/digital_photo/imaging/GIL.HTM
 
PPS.  From Seattle, go south on I-5, take the 101 N exit in Olympia
and follow signs to The Evergreen State College.


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From femme2 at scn.org  Wed May 20 18:04:31 1998
From: femme2 at scn.org (Lorraine Pozzi)
Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 18:04:31 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Wallingford Web page
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.96.980520175501.932B-100000@scn>



Steve Ruden, manager of the Good Shepherd Center, told me that
there will be a meeting, probably next week, of the group setting
up a Webpage for "Weaving Wallingford."  They would like someone
from SCN to talk about "structure" in developing a Web page.
(This is interesting, because I don't believe they are putting
this Web page on SCN.)  Nevertheless, I think it might be a 
good opportunity to do some community relations/PR work.

It will probably be held mid-day, which will eliminate most
volunteers.  I am certainly not a good candidate for this talk,
but could possibly fake it with handouts on universal design,
a bit of common sense, and some advice.  But it would be much
better if we had a more competent volunteer.

If anyone is interested and could have an hour or two free 
on a week day, I'll let you know when they schedule this 
meeting.

Lorraine
femme2 at scn.org



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From anitra at speakeasy.org  Wed May 20 20:22:00 1998
From: anitra at speakeasy.org (Anitra Freeman)
Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 20:22:00 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Wallingford Web page
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.96.980520175501.932B-100000@scn>
Message-ID: <l03102801b188eb21db20@[204.202.112.37]>

At 1:04 AM -0000 5/21/98, Lorraine Pozzi wrote:
>Steve Ruden, manager of the Good Shepherd Center, told me that
>there will be a meeting, probably next week, of the group setting
>up a Webpage for "Weaving Wallingford."  They would like someone
>from SCN to talk about "structure" in developing a Web page.

Right up my alley, Lorraine. :) I even used to live in Wallingford, once.
Just let me know the time and place.  I don't have any problem making
meetings during the day, unless they are in the m******g, and that can even
be handled with coffee.


Write On!
-- Anitra
http://www.scn.org/~alf1701/ "Effective Activism on the Internet"
-- help in designing and promoting your website and
survival in the electron tunnels of email lists


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From bb615 at scn.org  Thu May 21 12:46:57 1998
From: bb615 at scn.org (Rod Clark)
Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 19:46:57 +0000
Subject: User test: Easier to make a personal Web page
Message-ID: <199805220252.TAA18114@scn.org>


   On the User Test menu, which I hope some of you can see on 
the login menus (as far as I know, anyone can volunteer for User 
Test, and the more the merrier), there's now an item marked 
"Create a Personal Web Site." 

   This same item is also on the Information Provider test menu.
Any feedback would be good, before it goes on the general user
menus for everyone to bash away at.

   This saves Web Admin from manually typing "makeweb bx999 Joe 
Q. Public" for each Web site request, which isn't quite trivial 
even though it looks like it, since this has got well up into 
the hundreds of them now. 

   The program on the menu finds your SCN account name 
automatically (for the e-mail address on your home page), so all 
you have to do is to type the name or nickname that you'd like 
to appear on your page (this is especially handy for the 
ubiquitous SCN User). You can change it later with Pico, from 
the "Work with Your Files" menu, or upload pages made with 
whatever tools you prefer to use on your PC.

Rod Clark
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From vrock at scn.org  Tue May 26 20:48:05 1998
From: vrock at scn.org (Valerie Orrock)
Date: Tue, 26 May 1998 20:48:05 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: The question of support
Message-ID: <199805270348.UAA04162@scn.org>

I've got a question for you.  Has anyone told you that the folks
that maintain this network are doing a great job and are
appreciated?  Well if they haven't, I am.  I don't have a whole
lot of money to give you, and I'm sure the volunteers on this 
project don't have an enormous amount of extra time, so  I'll
keep it short.

Maintaining this network is a beautiful on behalf of free speech
and access to information.  It's basic, it's got problems, but
I get my bloody e-mail more than not.  Thanks.

--
You've been E'd by Valerie.

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From mtsvme at scn.org  Fri May 29 21:20:05 1998
From: mtsvme at scn.org (SCN User)
Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 21:20:05 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: The question of support
In-Reply-To: <199805270348.UAA04162@scn.org>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.96.980529211832.20570C-100000@scn>

I've got subscriptions to 2 other isp's, and right now, scn is the only
one through which I can get or receive email.

In other words, add my thanx as well.

Thomas

On Tue, 26 May 1998, Valerie Orrock wrote:

> I've got a question for you.  Has anyone told you that the folks
> that maintain this network are doing a great job and are
> appreciated?  Well if they haven't, I am.  I don't have a whole
> lot of money to give you, and I'm sure the volunteers on this 
> project don't have an enormous amount of extra time, so  I'll
> keep it short.
> 
> Maintaining this network is a beautiful on behalf of free speech
> and access to information.  It's basic, it's got problems, but
> I get my bloody e-mail more than not.  Thanks.
> 
> --
> You've been E'd by Valerie.
> 
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> 

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From femme2 at scn.org  Sat May 30 22:28:26 1998
From: femme2 at scn.org (Lorraine Pozzi)
Date: Sat, 30 May 1998 22:28:26 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Microsoft Pays Professors to Advertize (fwd)
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.96.980530222753.5756B-100000@scn>



---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 29 May 1998 16:04:57
From: loscott at eden.rutgers.edu
To: Recipients of conference <fastnet at igc.apc.org>
Subject: Microsoft Pays Professors to Advertize

An excerpt from _The Chronicle of Higher Education_:  (The
complete text of the article is on the World Wide Web at:
http://chronicle.com/data/articles.dir/art-44.dir/issue-33.dir/33a03001.htm


April 24, 1998 

Microsoft Pays $200 for Mentioning Its Tools 

By LISA GUERNSEY 

     The software king has a deal for you.

     If you're a professor and you mention Microsoft programming
tools in a scholarly presentation -- in fact, even if you just
use the tools -- Microsoft will send you a check for $200.

     The company extends the offer on a World-Wide Web page for
the "Academic Cooperative," a Microsoft program for
computer-science professors. The Web site is maintained through
Idaho State University (http://academicoop.isu.edu/Colleges/
FacultySpeakersProgram.html).

     Microsoft officials say the speakers' bureau, as it is
called, is a well-intentioned effort to help faculty members
cover their conference costs. Ethics watchdogs call it an
unabashed attempt to turn professors into advertisers....


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From steve at accessone.com  Sun May 31 16:08:54 1998
From: steve at accessone.com (Steve)
Date: Sun, 31 May 1998 15:08:54 -0800
Subject: Libraries
Message-ID: <199805312207.PAA09458@accessone.com>

Los Angeles Libraries Experience Renaissance With Computer Use

Rebecca Fairley Raney
NY Times 5/31/98


LOS ANGELES -- In 1992, Elizabeth Martinez, the city librarian at
that time, held a meeting that few people on staff can forget. She
told a room of horrified librarians that by the next year, the card
catalog, with its five million cards meticulously typed and filed
over the years, would be fully automated. 

A lot of librarians decided to retire. The ones who stayed, however,
are witnessing a renaissance in the city's libraries driven by the
digitizing that frightened some members of the old guard. People are
lining up on the sidewalks in the morning, waiting for the library
to open, and when it opens, they run for the computers. They keep
more than 1,000 terminals busy every day at 38 of the city's 67
branches. Now, cards from the old card catalog decorate the walls of
the elevators in the central library downtown. 

The experience of the Los Angeles libraries is being repeated
throughout the nation. A recent study by MCI LibraryLINK, an MCI
initiative to connect libraries to the Internet, showed that the use
of a public library for Internet access has grown more than 500
percent since 1996. It showed that 16 percent of respondents
accessed the Internet from someplace other than home, work or school,
and that nearly half of that group logged on from the library. 

Those numbers translate into 5.6 million people who had accessed the
Internet from a public library in the six months before the survey.
Other results show that 46.8 million people accessed the Internet
from home, 38.3 million from work, 22.9 million from school and 12.5
million from somewhere else -- public library access accounting for
nearly 45 percent of people who logged on from "somewhere else." 

Numbers like these come as no surprise to library workers -- people
who for years have been enduring the words of doomsayers who said
computerization would eliminate the need for libraries. The
doomsayers were wrong. The crush of information has made librarians
more important than ever. 

"I've worked in public libraries for 30 years, and I see what's
happening now as the best time ever for libraries," said Susan Kent,
who is now Los Angeles's city librarian. 

She is well aware that libraries are moving closer to the public
spotlight as one way to close the gap between those who have
computers and those who do not. Kent said the Los Angeles library
system, the third largest in the nation, is ready for that
spotlight.

>From the turning-point meeting about the card catalog in 1992 to the
recent opening of the 38th "virtual library" computer center in
Chinatown, the Los Angeles Public Library has propelled its
popularity through the computer revolution. 

It's a story of disaster, hard work and a Hollywood ending. In a
very real sense, the wiring of the library rose from the ashes of the
arson fires that destroyed a wing of the central library. The first
fire, in April 1992, destroyed 375,000 books and damaged 700,000
more. The lost collection was valued at $14.2 million. In September
of that year, another arson fire destroyed 25,000 more books. 

After the first fire, Tom Bradley, who was mayor of Los Angeles at
the time, made a phone call to Lodwrick M. Cook, the chief executive
officer of Arco, stationed in the Arco Towers across Flower Street
from the burned-out library. The mayor asked for help. He got it.
Soon corporations and foundations were scrambling to assist. 

Born from the disaster was the Los Angeles Library Foundation, which
has raised $16 million since incorporating in 1992. The foundation,
bolstered with steady support from dozens of entities including the
Getty Foundation, the Gluck Foundation, the Goldwyn Foundation,
Microsoft and Wells Fargo, has supported the sophisticated
computerization of the library system. The city budget for libraries
has increased steadily in the last decade as well: in 1990, the
library budget was $38 million and this year, it has reached $45
million. The city has paid for virtual libraries in 10 branches
since 1996. 

Now, at computer terminals at the library, people have Internet
access. They have the card catalog. They have word processing
programs and printers. They have access to 1,000 periodicals. They
can call up information from more than 500 high-priced commercial
databases, information stored on CDs such as the full text of
newspapers, full-text reports on corporations by financial analysts,
encyclopedias and detailed health data. Access to the CDs is smooth
and seamless from library terminals with a response time of two or
three seconds -- a technological feat that the librarians were told,
a few years back, couldn't be done. 

"There's more demand than supply," said Joan Bartel, director of
information technologies and collections. "We could probably double
the numbers [of computers] and still not have enough." 

The digital thinking has extended to the library system's Web site.
>From their homes, people can search for books, place them on hold
and even specify where they want to pick them up. Soon, Bartel said,
the system will allow people who reserve books online to receive an
automatic phone call when the book is available. 

The Web site is designed to reach people who haven't had occasion to
visit libraries -- another case of computers bringing people in.
Meanwhile, the computers in the libraries continue to drive up the
traffic. 

Sylvia Galan, librarian of the city's Echo Park branch, reported
that for the first time in her career, she's so busy she occasionally
loses phone calls that have been placed on hold. Her branch, on a
Wednesday afternoon, was filled with a demographic librarians have
rarely seen: teen-age boys, lining up at the computer terminals.
They leave the library with books, too. 

Located a mile west of downtown, Echo Park is a point of entry for
immigrants, most of whom come from Mexico and El Salvador. The
library offers Internet access and special CDs geared to help people
on the waiting list for amnesty programs improve their English. The
most popular books at the branch have been children's picture books
in Spanish. 

In addition to the crowd of male teen-agers who haunt the libraries
these days, Rosa Rojas, who calls herself "a humble Colombian old
lady," logs on at Echo Park every day to read the news from Bogota
and to see the "beautiful pictures" of the Vatican.
Thirteen-year-old Yanell Nava searches Yahoo for information about
Michelangelo to study for finals. She has no computer at home and
said the students never use the computers at school. 

Galan, the librarian, watched the crowd with delight. 

"Virtualizing the library for a community like this is so profound,"
she said. "We are it. For people to be dying to get into the library
-- that's our dream come true. I never dreamed we would have the
gang kids in here. But we do." 

And they behave. In a community where city council members hold
forums to address violence, Galan is watching even the gang members'
interest in learning piqued by the availability of computers. It
builds pride, she said. 

More and more, Peter Persic, director of public information for the
library, is hearing people in the city talk about the potential of
computers for "moral salvation." Every time a new branch is wired, he
sees a frenzy of excitement and gratitude in the community in which
the branch is located. 

At the recent opening of the virtual library in Chinatown, children
came out by the dozens, and they had a question for every man who
showed up in a suit: "Are you Mr. Zee? Are you Mr. Zee?" 

"Mr. Zee" is Tien P. Zee, chairman and president of the Intex Corp.
and benefactor of the virtual library in Chinatown. When he appeared,
the children kept shouting "Thank you!" They wanted his autograph. 

Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company 





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From jo at seattleu.edu  Sun May 24 15:14:13 1998
From: jo at seattleu.edu (Josephine Hirschman)
Date: Sun, 24 May 1998 15:14:13 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: No Carrier?
Message-ID: <mailman.5.1569885971.18021.scn@scn.org>

Dear Bud,

	Yes I would totally believe your trouble at getting this message
out.  I have had lots of trouble this afternoon too.  I think it is a high
traffic time.  Keep those messages coming and maybe next time it will be
easier.  Thanks for the coke and the corn.  I will cook the latter for
dinner this evening which I am assuming you will come and eat.

Jo


On Sat, 23 May 1998, Charles Hirschman Sr. wrote:

> 																			 ouwould'nt :d'nt believce what I've gone thru
> to Jo & charles; you would'nt believe what I've gone thru to write this
> message.  ^X
> <jo at seattleuedu>
> ^C
> 
> 
> 	 
> NO CARRIER
> 
> 
> 


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