Newsgroups: comp.society.cu-digest Message-ID: Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 22:13:04 GMT From: tk0jut2@mvs.cso.niu.edu (Cu Digest) Subject: Cu Digest, #9.56, Sun 13 Jul 97 Organization: the Computer underground Digest gateway Computer underground Digest Sun July 13, 1997 Volume 9 : Issue 56 ISSN 1004-042X [...] CONTENTS, #9.56 (Sun, July 13, 1997) File 1--Cyber Patrol Bans Crpyt Newsletter File 2--ALA Council Resolution on the Use of Filtering Software [...] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 Jun 97 01:53:31 EDT From: "George Smith [CRYPTN]" <70743.1711@CompuServe.COM> Subject: File 1--Cyber Patrol Bans Crpyt Newsletter ((CuD MODERATORS' COMMENT: George Smith learned the danger of blocking software. As he explains, the homepage of Crypt Newsletter was blocked. Why? Because another homepage on the server, the American Society of Criminology's Critical Criminology Division homepage at http://www.soci.niu.edu/~critcrim, includes a copy of the Unabomer Manifesto. The Crit Crim page is a well-established and busy resource, especially for criminologists, and the Unabomer Manifesto is relevant to the research resources the page provides. Unfortunately, all homepages on the system beginning with ~cr were blocked. Although the problem apparently has been resolved for now, risks of future blocking remain. Because libraries and schools use Cyber Patrol, the consequence of the blocking may be to exclude students from the ability to access a valuable homepage for assigments)). Banned by Cyber Patrol June 19, 1997 Hey, buddy, did you know I'm a militant extremist? Cyber Patrol, the Net filtering software designed to protect your children from cyberfilth, says so. Toss me in with those who sleep with a copy of "The Turner Diaries" under their pillows and those who file nuisance liens against officials of the IRS. Seems my Web site is dangerous viewing. I discovered I was a putative militant extremist while reading a story on Net censorship posted on Bennett Haselton's PeaceFire Web site. Haselton is strongly critical of Net filtering software and he's had his share of dustups with vendors like Cyber Patrol, who intermittently ban his site for having the temerity to be a naysayer. [MIT SAFE editorial note - he mixed up Cyber*Sitter* with Cyber*Patrol* here] Haselton's page included some links so readers could determine what other Web pages were banned by various Net filters. On a lark, I typed in the URL of the Crypt Newsletter, the publication I edit. Much to my surprise, I had been banned by Cyber Patrol. The charge? Militant extremism. Cyber Patrol also has its own facility for checking if a site is banned, called the CyberNOT list. Just to be sure, I double-checked. Sure enough, I was a CyberNOT. Now you can call me Ray or you can call me Joe, but don't ever call me a militant extremist! I've never even seen one black helicopter transporting U.N. troops to annex a national park. However, nothing is ever quite as it seems on the Web and before I went into high dudgeon over political censorship--the Crypt Newsletter has been accused of being "leftist" for exposing various government, academic, and software industry charlatans--I told some of my readership. Some of them wrote polite--well, almost polite--letters to Debra Greaves, Cyber Patrol's head of Internet research. And Greaves wrote back almost immediately, indicating it had all been a mistake. My Web site was blocked as a byproduct of a ban on another page on the same server. "We do have a [blocked] site off of that server with a similar directory. I have modified the site on our list to be more unique so as to not affect [your site] any longer," she wrote. Perhaps I should have been reassured that Cyber Patrol wasn't banning sites for simply ridiculing authority figures, a favorite American past time. But if anything, I was even more astonished to discover th company's scattershot approach to blocking. It doesn't include precise URLs in its database. Instead, it prefers incomplete addresses that block everything near the offending page. The one that struck down Crypt News was "soci.niu.edu/~cr," a truncated version of my complete URL. In other words: any page on the machine that fell under "~cr" was toast. Jim Thomas, a sociology professor at Northern Illinois University, runs this particular server, and it was hard to imagine what would be militantly extreme on it. Nevertheless, I ran the news by Thomas. It turns out that the official home page of the American Society of Criminology's Critical Criminology Division, an academic resource, was the target. It features articles from a scholarly criminology journal and has the hubris to be on record as opposing the death penalty but didn't appear to have anything that would link it with bomb-throwing anarchists, pedophiles, and pornographers. There was, however, a copy of the Unabomber Manifesto on the page. I told Thomas I was willing to bet $1,000 cash money that Ted Kaczynski's rant was at the root of Cyber Patrol's block. Thomas confirmed it, but I can't tell you his exact words. It might get this page blocked, too. What this boils down to is that Cyber Patrol is banning writing on the Web that's been previously published in a daily newspaper: The Washington Post. It can also be said the Unabomber Manifesto already has been delivered to every corner of American society. If the ludicrous quality of this situation isn't glaring enough, consider that one of Cyber Patrol's partners, CompuServe, promoted the acquisition of electronic copies of the Unabomber Manifesto after it published by the Post. And these copies weren't subject to any restrictions that would hinder children from reading them. In fact, I've never met anyone from middle-class America who said, "Darn those irresponsible fiends at the Post! Now my children will be inspired to retreat to the woods, write cryptic essays attacking techno-society, and send exploding parcels to complete strangers." Have you? So, will somebody explain to me how banning the Unabomber Manifesto, the ASC's Critical Criminology home page, and Crypt Newsletter protects children from smut and indecency? That's a rhetorical question. Cyber Patrol is strongly marketed to public libraries, and has been acquired by some, in the name of protecting children from Net depravity. Funny, I thought a public library would be one of the places you'd be more likely to find a copy of the Unabomber Manifesto. _George Smith is the author of The Virus Creation Labs, a book about computer virus writers and the antivirus industry._ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 10:28:11 -0800 From: "--Todd Lappin-->" Subject: File 2--ALA Council Resolution on the Use of Filtering Software Source - fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu From: "Craig A. Johnson" AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION This resolution was adopted by ALA Council at the annual conference. RESOLUTION ON THE USE OF FILTERING SOFTWARE IN LIBRARIES WHEREAS, On June 23, 1997, the United States Supreme court issued a sweeping re-affirmation of core First Amendment principles and held that communications over the Internet deserve the highest level of Constitutional protection; and WHEREAS, The Court's most fundamental holding is that communications on the Internet deserve the same level of Constitional protection as books, magazines, newspapers, and speakers on a street corner soapbox. The Court found that the *Internet constitutes a vast platfrom from which to address and hear from a world-wide audience of millions of readers, viewers, researchers, and buyers,* and that *any person with a phone line can become a town crier with a voice that resonates farther than it could from any soapbox*; and WHEREAS, For libraries, the most critical holding of the Supreme Court is that libraries that make content available on the Internet can continue to do so with the same Constitutional protections tha apply to the books on libraries' shelves; and WHEREAS, The Court's conclusion *that the vast democratic fora of the Internet* merit full constitutional protection will also serve to protect libraries that provide their patrons with access to the Internet; and WHEREAS, The Court recognized the importance of enabling individuals to receive speech from the entire world and to speak to the entire world. Libraries provide these opportunities to many who would not otherwise have them; and WHEREAS, The Supreme Court's decision will protect that access; and WHEREAS, The use in libraries of software filters which block Constitutionally protected speech is inconsistent with the United States Constitution and federal law and may lead to legal exposure for the library and its governing authorities; now, therefore, be it RESOLVED, That the American Library Association affirms that the use of filtering software by libaries to block access to constitutionally protected speech violates the Library Bill of Rights. Adopted by the ALA Council, July 2, 1997 ------------------------------ [...] Date: Thu, 7 May 1997 22:51:01 CST From: CuD Moderators Subject: File 10--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 7 May, 1997) Cu-Digest is a weekly electronic journal/newsletter. Subscriptions are available at no cost electronically. 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