From caf-talk Caf Mar 31 23:39:49 1994 Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.news From: kadie@hal.cs.uiuc.edu (Fwd:) Subject: [_Gateway_] "Someone [at UNOmaha] may be reading your [e]mail" Message-ID: Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 20:36:11 GMT [A repost - Carl] [paraphrase: [A newspaper story from the U. of Nebraska at Omaha _Gateway_] "Several [Computing and Data Communications Department] employees have accused top-level management in the department of unethical and potentially unlawful privacy breeches, including accessing and reading users' private e-mail and releasing personal student information in violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act."] Newsgroups: comp.admin.policy,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk From: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M Kadie) Subject: [_Gateway_] "Someone [at UNOmaha] may be reading your [e]mail" Message-ID: Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 20:01:01 GMT [This is an article from the U. of Nebraska at Omaha _Gatway_. It is posted with the author's permission. Thanks to jailbait@fudpucker.uucp for putting it on-line. [] brackets indicate unclear text in the copy. - Carl] ============================================================== UNO _Gateway_, Vol. 93 No. 50, March 29, 1994 SOMEONE MAY BE READING YOUR E-MAIL CDC Employees Make Allegations. by Katharine Stoltzfus ============================================================= "Lloyd Hasche requested that I or Mike McMahon open and print a user's e-mail. He did this without a warrant or the user's consent." -- Matt Heys, CDC Specialist ============================================================= Top administrators in UNO's Computing and Data Communications Department (CDC) have been reading students' electronic mail messages on UNO's Campus Wide Information System (CWIS), say sources within the department. Several CDC employees have accused top-level management in the department of unethical and potentially unlawful privacy breeches, including accessing and reading users' private e-mail and releasing personal student information in violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. CDC Director Richard Snowden vehemently denied that his department is involved in any wrongdoing, but at least one current employee disagreed. "Lloyd Hasche (assistant director of academic computing) requested that I or Mike McMahon open and print a user's e-mail," said Matt Heys, a technical specialist at CDC. "He did this without a warrant or the user's prior consent. McMahon said Hasche suspected that a high school student had obtained the CWIS password of a friend or sibling at UNO and was sending sexually harassing mail to other students. In late 1992, Hasche asked them to access the student's e-mail to determine whether his suspicions were correct. "We refused," Heys said. "I told him I'd consider it if he had a warrant in his pocket and a badge in his hand." Both Heys and McMahon said they felt the request was a violation of the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act which extended Fourth Amendment protection to electronic communications. Hasche did not specifically recall the incident, but said CDC sometimes works with Campus Security and other law enforcement officials to investigate harassment complaints. Hasche said that although he was not sure whether law enforcement was involved in every case where e-mail was read, CDC has always acted in compliance of the law. "We've had cases in the past where security or law enforcement has come and asked us in the course of their investigation if there was any documentation or mail messages that could help them in a harassment charge or something like that," Hasche said. "It has been specific incidents where we've ben asked by law enforcement to take a look at something that has occurred." Sgt. William Muldoon, spokesperson for the Omaha police department, said he didn't know of any cases where police investigators have asked the CDC to provide e-mail documentation. Campus Security Manager Charles S[] said it was possible that CDC has helped with harassment cases in the past, but could not recall any instances where it had actually happened. Snowden said he was comfortable that administrators had stayed within the law when conducing e-mail searches and stressed, "We don't initiate actions on our own, we do it through security." Snowden said CDC has worked closely with Rick Hancock of Campus Security, however when Hancock was contacted, he said he did not remember any instance where student e-mail was requested in harassment complaints. Snowden said a Nebraska law (Chapter 86-703) requiring an application be made in district court "for an order authorizing or approving the interception" of electronic communications did not apply to suspected cases of harassment at UNO. "We're not bringing them to trial. We're not doing anything to them. We're just trying to stop them from harassing people or providing other people with unkind or critical comments over the network we are supposed to be managing," he said. For non-criminal complaints, Snowden said that rather than obtaining a court order, it was appropriate that Campus Security and Educational and Student Services should determine what constitutes harassment. "We absolutely respect privacy," Hasche said, adding, "There are a few former employees who are still looking for reasons to discredit the organization." Heys is currently UNO's Student Employer of the Year and is employed by CDC. McMahon no longer works for the department. McMahon and Heys are responsible for creating and developing CWIS, which they co-managed until last spring when both resigned from the CWIS project, citing philosophical differences with CDC administrative policy. "Top Administrators Involved" Other sources within the department have provided information suggesting there have been other incidents in which e-mail has been read without the user's permission. Of eight current and former CDC employees contacted, four alleged that they had either witnessed administrators reading e- mail or had been asked to read e-mail messages and report the results. Two employees said they had second-hand knowledge of such activity and only two said they knew of no incidents where private e-mail was read. "It has been done by administrators themselves," said one source connected with CDC. "I don't know of any cases where students were asked to do it, but I do know that administrators, top administrators themselves, have actually read students' e-mail. "It's evergoing and it will never end." In all, this source claims to have witnessed three separate incidents where student e-mail was searched and read. The source would not name any CDC administrators specifically, but said they were management on the highest level. The reasons for the searches varied, the source said. "In some cases there were harassment questions. In others, I don't know what the reasons would be." Snowden said he found it hard to believe that administrators would search e-mail for no particular reasons. "I just don't believe that these kinds of things are being done, but if they are, I'll surely [?] to dig into it and find out what's happening," he said. The fact that several of the alleged incidents involved suspected harassment does not give administrators the right to search e-mail, said Mike Godwin, legal services counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a WAshington, D.C. based organization devoted to protecting the civil liberties of the online community. "Harassment No Excuse" This sounds like a violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) to me," Godwin said. The ECPA provides in part that "any person who intentionally intercepts, endeavors to intercept, or procures any other person to endeavor to intercept any wire, oral or electronic communication" shall be fined or imprisoned. Nebraska has a similar law in the books, Chapter 28-1343 of the Statutes of the State of Nebraska. The law is cited in CDC's code of conduct statement. Omaha attorney Mike Riddle said it is still unclear whether the ECPA applies to university computing networks, since there have been few, if any, court cases dealing with that question. "But, if I were their counsel, I'd advise them not to do it," Riddle said. "If it's inadvertent, that's one thing. If they're making a habit of it, that's another. "Since a public university is funded by the government, students are probably covered by the Fourth Amendment and comparable Nebraska laws against unreasonable search and seizure." Other Privacy Violations In another incident related to student privacy, Snowden was found guilty earlier this month by UNO's Professional Conduct Committee of violating the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), more commonly known as the Buckley Amendment. The Buckley Amendment prohibits public universities from releasing personal student information, including grades, without authorization. Universities that fail to comply with the Buckley Amendment risk losing federal funding. The complaint was filed by McMahon who said Snowden obtained his grades from Career Planning and Placement Services and shared the information with several department members. "I readily admit that I discussed Michael S. McMahon's (grades) with Warren Benson (associate director), Lloyd Hasche, and Steve Lendt (data communications manager)," Snowden stated at a Professional Conduct Committee hearing held Feb. 20. Snowden said he discussed McMahon's grades out of concern that McMahon was working too many hours. He added that he does not feel he put the university in jeopardy since the law requires that an educational institution display a policy of routine disregard for student privacy before funding would be withheld. The committee's March 3 report found that Snowden had violated the Buckley Amendment, concluding that, "Richard M. Snowden individually and in his role as an upper-level administrator, did commit an act of professional misconduct by releasing confidential information about Michael S. McMahon's grades, without written authorization from Mr. McMahon." The committee recommended that a letter of reprimand be placed in Snowden's personnel file. Snowden declined to comment on whether he felt the committee's findings were appropriate. "That's not for me or you to decide," he said. "As for the e-mail, we do not violate the privacy rights of people here for any reason." ========== End of article by Katharine Stoltzfus ============ -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent any organization; this is just me. = kadie@cs.uiuc.edu = -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent any organization; this is just me. = kadie@cs.uiuc.edu = From caf-talk Caf Mar 28 09:51:12 1994 Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.news From: kadie@hal.cs.uiuc.edu (Fwd:) Subject: Re: WiReD Magazine - Banned in Canada Message-ID: Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 14:31:07 GMT [A repost - Carl] [paraphrase: The U. of Waterloo (in Canada) is reading (and censoring?) all newsgroups for information that it thinks may violate the Homolka ban.] Newsgroups: alt.wired,can.legal,can.general,alt.pub-ban.homolka,alt.fan.karla-homolka,alt.censorship,soc.culture.canada,comp.org.eff.talk From: root@sizone.pci.on.ca (Sickly Boat Harm) Subject: Re: WiReD Magazine - Banned in Canada Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 00:34:04 GMT Message-ID: <1994Mar28.003404.10514@sizone.pci.on.ca> Snowhare (snowhare@netcom.com) wrote: : Of course - being a US citizen posting from a US system via a US : network the phrase 'She pleaded guilty' is no more banned than the : phrase 'John likes beagles'. : Get a clue. The vast majority of people reading these groups are NOT : Canandian nor are they subject to the Canandian court order. : 'She pleaded guilty' : 'She pleaded guilty' : 'She pleaded guilty' : 'She pleaded guilty' Yer so fucking cuel. (Damnit I said I wouldnt write anymore. I lied.) The whole ISSUE here is NOT wether people can READ the information, but about people PUBLISHING the information. Please, lets all, as net.citizens all get of the mind that posting to the usenet is NOT publishing something. Its the publification of something. The courts here have yet to decide wether this is true or not. Like I said, U or Waterloo thinks it is (they've taken on the responsibility of reading the 7000+ newsgroups for information which breaks the law... I spose they have a huge room of speed reading censors or something... wonder who funds this). But its not that, not yet. Writing stuff on the net hasnt been proven to be publishing, even if it is done in Ontario for ontarians. A couple other things everyone keeps forgetting: a) the ban is in ontario b) the ban covers PUBLICATION of the information thats covered under the ban. The varg publishing info on how to get the banned info violates the SPIRIT of the ban, but it would have to be taken to court and beat at very hard to prove that it is an actual violation of the ban, in fact, it would have to be stated that: Instructing people on how to, as private citizens, get information from an information service or server in another country (which cannot be covered by the ban) IS in fact tantamount to directly and purposely publishing the facts covered by the ban. I dont think that this is going to happen. So, you in-your-face americans who keep on thinking that you're breaking the ban in some way by writing stuff on the usenet that we Canadians (rather, ONTARIANS!) can read is WRONG. You're not, and in fact, when I state: "Karla Homolka pleaded ***** at her trial" ^^ insert guess here no one actually knows if *I* am actually breaking the ban either. This would all have to go through court a bunch before someone determined wether the net is the same as publishing something. I say not. Ruth Grier, who doesnt seem to be doing her job too well, says "No Comment." on this exact issue. Basically there are NO laws regarding this. The only reason the headlines from papers on my door read "NETWORKS BREAK BAN" or equivalent is cause they're sensational. I'll say it once more: No one has legally substantiated wether writing something on the usenet is the same as publishing information. This will have to be decided. As well, who takes on the role as "publisher" will have to be decided. Or, our (and the US, note) legal systems could get with it and figure out that there's been nothing like the Usenet before in legal history and some NEW laws and NEW ideas will be needed to handle these issues. I hope someone with alot of money will be nabbed first so they can do a good job of it. Or the EFF clone in Canada gets their shit together in time to help someone out who gets into court over this. This is going to be an amazingly important decision. University of Waterloo already missed out, and they have money. Hell, they even, as supposed bastions of free speech and thought (they're a university, right?), are morally REQUIRED to. But they didnt. /kc -- Ken P. Chasse -- Sysadmin, Sonic Interzone "Life is what happens when Public Access email/Usenet -- 416-968-7292 you're waiting for the tube." spooge@sizone.pci.on.ca -- Toronto CANADA - Karen Shook, CND expatriate -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent any organization; this is just me. = kadie@cs.uiuc.edu = From caf-talk Caf Mar 28 09:51:17 1994 Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.news From: kadie@hal.cs.uiuc.edu (Fwd:) Subject: Re: WiReD Magazine - Banned in Canada Message-ID: Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 14:34:39 GMT [A repost - Carl] [paraphrase: As far as I know, the U. of Guelph (in Canada) is still scanning (and censoring?) email for notes that mention Karla Homolka.] Newsgroups: alt.wired,can.legal,can.general,alt.pub-ban.homolka,alt.fan.karla-homolka,alt.censorship,soc.culture.canada,comp.org.eff.talk From: root@sizone.pci.on.ca (Sickly Boat Harm) Subject: Re: WiReD Magazine - Banned in Canada Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 02:28:29 GMT Message-ID: <1994Mar28.022829.11322@sizone.pci.on.ca> Snowhare (snowhare@netcom.com) wrote: : : the fact that the ban does not effect you where you are sitting, doesn't mean : : that your keystrikes won't cause grief for people in Canada. : Perhaps. You are seriously tempting me to follow through and actually do : that cross-post. It would likely cost me this account, but it would : almost be worth it to force the sysadmins in Canada to face up to the : impossibility of banning information distributed electronically. What is I think that for alot of sysadmins that they are aware of the reality, whereas the administration and management above them (and the law, obviously) does NOT realise. And they think that "banning a few newsgroups will shut it down cold". Not. Let them think that it does tho, cause it leaves us to share the information without them hassling us. Thats how it was at UfT - shut down the feed to a few major systems from the official NNTP gateway and the admin thinks they're cut off. Far from it. Thats the nature of the net. I dont even think that most of the admins had to touch a thing - the news came in from other servers almost automagically. What a joke. : next? Searches of snail mail to be sure no illicit information comes from : the US mail? Satellite jammers to be sure no one picks up a stray news This has happened already at UofGuelph, which is why I almost agree with that nearly "racist" anti-Guelph post - admins at uoGoo as far as I know are still scanning mail for mentions of the ban. (not information thats banned, but just mentioning KARLA HOMOLKA... duh.) : program that is not inside Canada's absurd restrictions? Uh oh - better : not tell those guys proving FULL feeds via satellite... Dont mention it, and then nothing will happen. simple. Now that you mentioned it, I can see why Anik suddenly went spiralling out of control... :) Conspiracy theories abounding! WOOHOO! (Ever since that, my cable has been really fuzzy too. Damn.) : How many levels of indirection do I have to lay on before I am not : breaking the ban? Can I tell people when they can go to get information Um. How about 0? You're not breaking the ban right now, for sure, anyway. In the immortal words of Marlin Hoek, "Nobody knows". Not even Ruth Grier. : Can I say telnet to Umich and read it for yourself? This has already all been PUBLISHED on paper - how to get NNTP feeds of news, etc. : want. It is no further away than a phone call. Or is Canada going to : disconnect all its international phone links too? Obviously not, but the authorities and the law has to come to the realisation of this and enact suitable laws. Tell me, are American laws already all up to snuff regarding networks and information flow and legalities? Oh yes, what am I saying, of course they are, thats why things like Clipper are in existance. Slap you back in the face (but only half way, cause Canada will probably have something like Clipper soon...). : : the breaking of the holmonka ban has resulted in the closure of many : : non-holmonka related groups. : Death of Internet predicted. There will be NO film at eleven. Ha, ya right. Well, the internet might go down, but UUCP wont. That would be alot harder, unless all the phone lines went out as well. That would cause some serious shit around here, requiring the army to come out to control things. Doubt it would happen. : And an obligation to fight with every resource any attempt to block the : free flow of information. It is OBLIGATORY to scream fire *when there is : a fire*. There is a definite smell of smoke in Canada. The smoke of rights : being burned by judicial fiat. I'm glad all this happened, really, its caused some people to start thinking at a time when its important. We must guide this issue carefully, however, or we'll be in the wrong spot at the right time for the govt to enact some scary laws. /kc -- Ken P. Chasse -- Sysadmin, Sonic Interzone "Life is what happens when Public Access email/Usenet -- 416-968-7292 you're waiting for the tube." spooge@sizone.pci.on.ca -- Toronto CANADA - Karen Shook, CND expatriate -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent any organization; this is just me. = kadie@cs.uiuc.edu = From caf-talk Caf Mar 29 10:29:16 1994 From: kadie@eff.org (Fwd:) Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.news Subject: Re: Policy on Chain Letters Date: 29 Mar 1994 10:28:50 -0500 Message-ID: <2n9hfi$824@eff.org> [A repost - Carl] [paraphrase [the manager of system adminstration at Bradley U. (Peoria, IL):] Chainletters can be very disruptive. Waiting weeks for a hearing would be ineffective, "but word spreads quickly when the guy down the hall looses his login, and the chain letters die." "The published policy states that a first offense of this causes loss of login for two weeks (longer on subsequent offenses), and that [my] actions may be appealed to the Student Judicial System." I do have authority to summarily expel a professor or student from the computer as punishment, but "I must be able to demonstrate that he has done something that violates the published policy." The policy is approved at a higher level.] From: jeff@bradley.bradley.edu (Jeff Hibbard) Newsgroups: news.admin.policy,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk Subject: Re: Policy on Chain Letters Date: 28 Mar 1994 19:13:45 -0600 Message-ID: <2n7vc9$1t3@bradley.bradley.edu> kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M Kadie) writes: > pwh@bradley.bradley.edu (Pete Hartman) writes: > >Our policy is that anyone who sends a chain letter loses their > >account. >>The period of time depends on how many other problems the > >student in question has caused. > This sounds as though your users get no due process. Carl, it sounds as if you've never actually administered a real computer system and don't understand some of the real-life practical problems. The system that is primarily used by students in the dorms around here for mail, news and generally non-academic pursuits has about 3000 users and a finite-sized partition to hold all of their mail. Although there's far more than enough space for periods when there are no chain letters circulating, it's doesn't take long for thousands of students each sending 20 copies of every copy of a chain letter they receive (along with typically a few hundreds headers) to completely run the mail partition out of space. Then NOBODY can receive mail. In fact, people trying to rewrite their mailboxes tend to loose most of the messages they've already received and wanted to save. Should I allow this condition to exists for weeks at a time while we schedule hearings and try to work out your idea of "due process?" If we don't take relatively swift action when a chain letter breaks out, the system becomes unusable. But word spreads quickly when the guy down the hall looses his login, and the chain letters die. Pete makes it sound a bit worse that it is. The published policy states that a first offense of this causes loss of login for two weeks (longer on subsequent offenses), and that our actions may be appealed to the Student Judicial System. In actual practice, we don't go scanning people's mailboxes for chain letters (or anything else). NOTHING happens until a recipient complains about receiving such a letter. On the first complaint, I post a message that everyone can see when they log on reminding them of the policy against chain letters and that violating it will lead to loss of their logins. I take no action at all against someone sending a chain letter from a session starting before the most recent warning was posted (even though the letter probably won't come to my attention until much later). So, the only people loosing their logins: 1) sent a chain letter to someone who filed a complaint about it (many people do so because they find chain letters to be quite annoying); 2) sent a chain letter after being explicitly warned not to do so when logging on. I also confirm all complaints by going through sendmail logs, to prevent people from filing false complaints by forging headers from someone they don't like. What, exactly, do you think I should do before taking action? How subjective can the answer to "Did this person send 20 copies of this chain letter?" be? > Is their guilt and punishment (if any) determined by a neutral body or > by the same organization that accuses them? Initially, it's determined by me. If you have a problem with that, then don't get a login on any system I administer, because that isn't going to change. > Do you respect their right > (and inform them of their right) to a formal hearing or appeal? The policy, including their right to appeal, is published, both on paper and on-line. I usually remember to tell them, but may not always remember. I presume college students to be literate enough to read the policy for themselves. Despite the published appeal route, many students also start by appealing to my boss (the Director of Computing Services), who always listens to them, and can obviously override my actions. > Can a professor at Bradley summarily expel a student from a class as > punishment? (At most schools, the answer is no.) Actually, at most schools, the answer is that the professor can make a student's life sufficiently miserable in his class that your question is moot, but that's irrelevant to our main topic. > Can a computer > staffer summarily expel a professor or student from the computer as > punishment? Not just any staffer, only me. Pete (who reports to me) can do so in emergencies when I'm not around and someone is causing ongoing problems that significantly interfere with general use of a computer system. Generally, he just reports problems he finds to me for me to take action. I can't remove somebody just because I don't like him or what he's doing. I must be able to demonstrate that he has done something that violates the published policy. Although I had significant input into the policy, it was written by someone above me, and approved at a level even higher, by a group which included the head of the Student Judicial System. -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me. =kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu = From caf-talk Caf Mar 29 10:30:15 1994 From: kadie@eff.org (Fwd:) Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.news Subject: Re: Rumor or truth? CUNY, U. of Waterloo, & U. of Guelph Date: 29 Mar 1994 10:29:49 -0500 Message-ID: <2n9hhd$84b@eff.org> [A repost - Carl] [paraphrase: Both the Canadian rumors seem to be false.] From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk Subject: Re: Rumor or truth? CUNY, U. of Waterloo, & U. of Guelph Date: 28 Mar 1994 13:56:33 -0500 Message-ID: <2n7991$btr@eff.org> kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie) writes: >Can anyone confirm or deny these recent assertions in Netnews? >================= >root@sizone.pci.on.ca (Sickly Boat Harm) writes: >>Like I said, U or Waterloo thinks it is (they've taken on the >>responsibility of reading the 7000+ newsgroups for information which >>breaks the law... I spose they have a huge room of speed reading >>censors or something... wonder who funds this). I have it on pretty good authority that this is NOT true. >root@sizone.pci.on.ca (Sickly Boat Harm) writes: >>This has happened already at UofGuelph, [...] admins at uoGoo as far >>as I know are still scanning mail for mentions of the ban. (not >>information thats banned, but just mentioning KARLA HOMOLKA... duh.) I have it on pretty good authority that this is NOT true. - Carl -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me. =kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu = -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me. =kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu = From caf-talk Caf Mar 29 10:31:10 1994 From: kadie@eff.org (Fwd:) Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.news Subject: U. of Waterloo "Ethics" committee to get librarian Date: 29 Mar 1994 10:30:44 -0500 Message-ID: <2n9hj4$85a@eff.org> [A repost - Carl] [paraphrase: According to an email correspondent at U. of Waterloo, a librarian is going to be added to the committee there that decides which newsgroups to ban.] From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie) Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk Subject: U. of Waterloo "Ethics" committee to get librarian Date: 28 Mar 1994 15:35:18 -0500 Message-ID: <2n7f26$eqd@eff.org> Recall that [paraphrase: The U. of Waterloo Ethics Committee banned alt.tasteless, alt.sex.stories, and alt.sex.stories.d even though the university legal counsel did NOT recommend removal of these newsgroup. 'The Committee apparently decided on these ban because it felt that these three groups "may from time to time contain `obscene' material".'] ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/CAF/news/feb_20_1994 According to an email correspondent at U. of Waterloo, a librarian is going to be added to the committee. - Carl -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me. =kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu = -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me. =kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu = From caf-talk Caf Mar 29 19:06:26 1994 Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.news From: kadie@hal.cs.uiuc.edu (Fwd:) Subject: [news.admin.policy, et al.] Re: Policy on Chain Letters Message-ID: Date: Tue, 29 Mar 1994 23:55:23 GMT [A repost - Carl] [paraphrase: Just as some critics on the net may not know as much as they should about system administration, some sys admins to not know as much as they should about university discipline. What I know about university discipline suggests that interim suspensions (pending due process) should only be imposed in special circumstances by a high university official.] Date: Tue, 29 Mar 1994 16:01:46 EST From: Bruce Umbaugh Message-ID: <94088.160146BDU100F@ODUVM.BITNET> Newsgroups: news.admin.policy,comp.admin.policy Subject: Re: Policy on Chain Letters In article , kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M Kadie) says: > >jeff@bradley.bradley.edu (Jeff Hibbard) writes: > >[...] >>Carl, it sounds as if you've never actually administered a real computer >>system and don't understand some of the real-life practical problems. Query: Have you ever administered a disciplinary system? Do you have any special training that would assist you in that regard? [snip] >I personally dislike computer explusions as a form of punishment >because they affect different students quite differently. I think the >more usual university punishments (informal warnings, formal >reprimands, formal suspensions for a few days, etc) are generally >better. > >[...] >>The published policy states [...] our actions may be appealed to the >>Student Judicial System. [snip] >If a student (or professor) wants a formal hearing, you should not >impose any punish until and unless the judicial system asks you do. If >you think the student or professor is creditable threat to the system >pending the hearing, you should get approval of a Dean for an interim >emergency suspension. This was the policy at the University of Maryland, College Park, when I worked for the Office of Judicial Programs there. The Maryland _Code of Student Conduct_ is regarded by many as a model. Its principal author, Gary Pavela, is a widely respected authority on student discipline in higher education and editor of Synthesis: Law and Policy in Higher Education. The Maryland Code has been adopted at a number of other schools with little modification. Compare, for instance, the Codes at George Washington and Tulane. UM's Code provides for suspension from the University on an interim basis "pending disciplinary proceedings or medical evaluation" in cases where "there is evidence that the continued presence of the student on the University campus poses a substantial threat to him or herself or to others or to the stability and continuance of normal University functions." It provides that such a decision be made with Vice Presidential authority (by the VP (Dean) for Student Affairs or designee); that the student have an opportunity to appear before the VP in person to discuss (a) "the reliability of the information concerning the student's conduct, including the matter of his or her identity" and (b) whether the situation really is one of posing the requisite threat of harm. The procedures for interim suspension do not take the place of the regular mechanisms for processing disciplinary charges. I think that there are similar procedures for removal from student housing. I don't see why similar procedures should not be employed in a case in which abuse of a computer system is alleged. As Carl notes, suspension from an account, even for a brief period (let alone two weeks!), would have widely varying consequences for different students. (Who among us would wish to be *personally* liable for a student's missing a deadline required for graduation on account of action we took on our *own* accord and without regard for institutionally approved procedures?) If there is not sufficient reason to believe the account holder did the deed, or if there is no reason to believe the account holder will do it again, then the conditions needed for pre-emptory revocation of the account simply are not met. If the action is to be punitive, rather than preventive, then the charge should work its way through the ordinary judicial process of the institution. If it isn't a big enough deal to process as a disciplinary allegation, then why pull the account? As for the claim of efficiency, let's just hope that more than considerations of efficiency is involved in disciplinary matters--even on that score, pulling the account would not be rationalized where the tests for interim suspension were not met. My dos centavos. [munch] --Bruce -- Bruce Umbaugh bdu100f@oduvm.cc.odu.edu Dept. of Philosophy | Humanize the Internet: Ethernet Old Dominion University | the Arts faculty. Norfolk, Virginia 23529 USA | -- Peter Danielson -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent any organization; this is just me. = kadie@cs.uiuc.edu = From caf-talk Caf Mar 31 21:29:42 1994 From: kadie@eff.org (Fwd:) Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.news Subject: Re: Policy on Chain Letters Date: 31 Mar 1994 21:29:38 -0500 Message-ID: <2ng0ui$ko3@eff.org> [A repost - Carl] [paraphrase: [a sys admin] I learned at a NEARnet meeting that up to eight students at an New England site lost their accounts for posting a joke/parody chain letter (with no multiple copies or attached names). I find this shocking.] From: betsys@cs.umb.edu (Elizabeth Schwartz) Newsgroups: news.admin.policy,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk Subject: Re: Policy on Chain Letters Date: 29 Mar 1994 00:57:39 GMT Message-ID: I was really shocked to discover, at a NEARnet meeting, that *many* system administrators will kill a student's account for posting even a "joke" chain letter. I'm not talking about "make money fast" or anything that smacks of mail fraud. There's a joke chain letter that's been slowly circulating for years. It promises the reader success in love and sex if the letter is continued, and all sorts of disasters otherwise. I think it's pretty funny, personally. It's not a real chain letter: it has no names at the bottom and does not spread exponentially. It's just a takeoff of a chain letter. Anyway, a student at one New England site tried to send this in e-mail to another student. He screwed up the address, and sent it to a professor. The professor went ballistic; the end result was that people at both ends lost accounts (I heard as many as eight) The part that bothers me the most was that I was in a discussion group with a bunch of system administrators who were all discussing ways to get rid of all this awful activity. Ever since, I've been warning students *here* that they need to be really careful so that they don't get their friends at other schools in trouble. I have trouble getting them to beleive it sometimes. If you don't have a sense of humor and perspective, this is a damn tough job. Whatever happened to *teaching* people? I can't remember the names but this did happen. Policy group disclaimer: This posting represents my personal opinion at the time of posting. I am using the net as a personal learning tool: nothing I write is official policy unless explicitly labelled as "official" policy. Please do not repost or anthologize this post without my permission. thanks, Betsy. -- System Administrator Internet: betsys@cs.umb.edu MACS Dept, UMass/Boston Phone : 617-287-6448 100 Morrissey Blvd Staccato signals Boston, MA 02125-3393 of constant information.... -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me. =kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu = From caf-talk Caf Mar 31 21:38:08 1994 From: kadie@eff.org (Fwd:) Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.news Subject: Re: Policy on Chain Letters Date: 31 Mar 1994 21:38:07 -0500 Message-ID: <2ng1ef$kss@eff.org> [A repost - Carl] [paraphrase: [A sys admin at Bradley writing for himself] My experience is that a two-week computer suspension is not necessary to stop chain letters, but some immediate, temporary action (like a suspension until I can give the sender a verbal warning) is necessary. Under the current policy, however, I do not have authority to temporary suspend accounts, so there are more two-week suspensions than there used to be.] From: jeff@bradley.bradley.edu (Jeff Hibbard) Newsgroups: news.admin.policy,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk Subject: Re: Policy on Chain Letters Date: 30 Mar 1994 03:34:06 -0600 Message-ID: <2nbh2e$nlc@bradley.bradley.edu> Important note: what I am about to write certainly does not match the opinion of anyone at Bradley who's officially allowed to have opinions. kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M Kadie) writes: > Is a two-week, immediate computer expulsion necessary to keep chain > letters from exploding on a large (>1000 users) system? Personally, I think the "immediate" part is necessary, but keeping them off for two weeks is way too long. I've administered all of the academic and most of the administrative systems on campus since 1975, back when most interaction with the computers involved punched cards and chain letters weren't a big problem. :-) For most of that period, I was pretty much free to set such policies myself. When I was, I considered temporarily disabling a student's login for sending a chain letter to be a means of getting his attention, rather than a form of punishment. Remember from my previous post that I only do this for people who continue to send chain letters after being explicitly warned at login not to do so. When a student contacted me about his disabled login, I turned it back on immediately, after giving him a 30-second lecture about the finite nature of the mail partition and the importance of not filling it up completely. Many were restored within an hour or two; seldom were they off for more than a day. Then a few years ago we got a new Director of Computing Services who didn't think I could be trusted to make such policy, so he prepared his own, which I am obliged to follow. His does not explicitly mention chain letters. The only general category of offense into which I can make a reasonable case that chain letters fall involves the 2-week account suspension. Therefore, my only two choices are to do nothing but give never-backed-up warnings, which I know from experience leads to the mail partition filling up, causing tremendous grief for all users, or to go for the two weeks on a handful of students who blatantly ignore the warning at login. This is not a perfect world. A third, less drastic option would be nice, but of the two available to me, I feel I have chosen correctly. Carl seems concerned that I don't inform students of their right to appeal. In some cases, I actually encourage them to appeal, and I personally tell the Student Judicial people that I think the student's penalty should be drastically reduced (a request they generally honor). Just last Friday I disabled someone's login for some hacking. The policy required me to leave his login disabled for the rest of the semester, which I thought was unreasonable given the particular circumstances, but I don't have the authority to waive the policy myself. I told him where to appeal, and am happy that he will now be getting his login back very soon. So, please be careful just exactly how you direct your flames. I don't think I'm really a bad guy; I'm just sometimes required by policy to play one at work. Incidentally, in practice the two weeks only applies to logins on the primarily non-academic system most students use for mail, news, IRC, FTPing gifs, etc. A student who looses his login on one of the departmental systems used for more academic pursuits can get it back right away by having his instructor tell me that the login is necessary for the student's course work. Besides, it's rare for students to screw around on the more academic systems and loose their logins there in the first place. There's really only one "party" system on campus. -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me. =kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu = From caf-talk Caf Mar 31 21:45:13 1994 From: kadie@eff.org (Fwd:) Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.news Subject: Re: Policy on Chain Letters Date: 31 Mar 1994 21:45:08 -0500 Message-ID: <2ng1rk$l04@eff.org> [A repost - Carl] [paraphrase: [a sys admin] Enclosed is my philosophy of working with users. Part of it is that everyone is allowed (within limits) "one strike". I've been applying it for almost 5 years and the results have been very good.] From: morgan@engr.uky.edu (Wes Morgan) Newsgroups: news.admin.policy,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk Subject: Re: Policy on Chain Letters Date: 30 Mar 1994 18:00:23 GMT Message-ID: <2ncenn$3l2@s.ms.uky.edu> Elizabeth Schwartz wrote: >I was really shocked to discover, at a NEARnet meeting, that *many* >system administrators will kill a student's account for posting even >a "joke" chain letter. I'm not talking about "make money fast" or >anything that smacks of mail fraud. Yup - there are some *really* twitchy trigger fingers out there. > There's a joke chain letter that's been slowly circulating for years. >It promises the reader success in love and sex if the letter is >continued, and all sorts of disasters otherwise. I think it's pretty >funny, personally. I received that one about an hour or so after I learned that my wife is expecting twins. Needless to say, my response was quick and to the point - "We're expecting twins - I don't need no steeking chain letter!" 8) > The part that bothers me the most was that I was in a discussion group >with a bunch of system administrators who were all discussing ways to >get rid of all this awful activity. Ever since, I've been warning students >*here* that they need to be really careful so that they don't get their >friends at other schools in trouble. I have trouble getting them to >beleive it sometimes. > If you don't have a sense of humor and perspective, this is a damn >tough job. Whatever happened to *teaching* people? Well, it's tough not to be caught in the middle. On the one hand, there are those who suggest that no admin can make a comment or sug- gestion to a user without the presence of an implied threat and its partner, the 'chilling effect.' School administrators, on the other hand, often expect the admin to deal with things on their own (to a certain extent - that extent is actually the crux of many of our dis- cussions in this forum), since student disciplinary action should al- ways be a last resort. How, then, can we teach in such an environment? Well, there are a few points that I make in *every* lecture/seminar: - Our systems are in place for *your* use. Within limits, you are free to explore. - There are many *neat* things you can do on our systems; however, some of them have a real impact on the work of other users. If you have *ANY* questions about the im- pact of your actions/work, *please* feel free to ask us about it; if you need it, we'll find some mutually accep- table way to get it done. - You don't have to worry about problems caused by inno- cent mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes (myself inclu- ded), and there's reason to punish an innocent mistake. - If you *clearly* violate policy or cause problems, I'll let most things slide - once. Everyone gets one strike, in all but the most serious areas. - I don't decide punishments - I'm no judge. Any sanctions will be determined by the Dean of Students. Now that I've been doing this for almost 5 years, I've seen a few noticeable effects on our user population. We have *very* few security incidents at this site. The worst things I've dealt with on these systems are things like sharing passwords and the occasional "hey, wow, I can forge email" trickster... I'm starting to see questions from users such as "My program is really burning up the time; is there any way to lessen its impact?" and "I need to put some *really* big files online for a few days - where can I put them without causing problems for other users?" Needless to say, I'm more than happy to explain the options (and teach about nice, renice, backgrounding, /tmp and /var/tmp, et cetera - *that's* where I squeeze in the 'teaching' you mentioned). The second effect is a *sharp* rise in user cooperation. My users know not to panic if they get a message from me saying "drop by my office when you get a chance." As a result, I have *very* few hassles in solving problems. I urge admins to adopt (within limits) the "everyone gets one strike" policy. With the sheer number of mistakes made through inexperience and honest error (not to mention the fact that few people actually read through the entire computing policy), it's kind of silly to wave a Big Stick (tm) over their heads. --Wes -- Wes Morgan ----- University of Kentucky ----- morgan@engr.uky.edu Mailing list for AT&T StarServer E/S admins - starserver-request@engr.uky.edu GAT d(--) -p+ c++(++++) !l u++ e+ m* s++/++ !n h* f* !g w++ t+(++) r y+ And here's to you, Vicki Robinson; Usenet loves you more than you will know. -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me. =kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu = From caf-talk Caf Mar 31 21:46:10 1994 From: kadie@eff.org (Fwd:) Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.news Subject: re: UVic alt.* ban, comp. policies, etc. - request comments Date: 31 Mar 1994 21:46:08 -0500 Message-ID: <2ng1tg$l0i@eff.org> [A repost - Carl] [paraphrase: "According to an email correspondent, the official word, after deliberation by a closed committee, is that ALL of the newsgroups ]at the U. of Victoria (Canada)] will be reinstated on May 1, 1994."] From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,uvic,general Subject: re: UVic alt.* ban, comp. policies, etc. - request comments Date: 30 Mar 1994 12:13:50 -0500 Message-ID: <2ncc0e$92m@eff.org> According to an email correspondent, the official word, after deliberation by a closed committee, is that ALL of the newsgroups will be reinstated on May 1, 1994. - Carl ANNOTATED REFERENCES (All these documents are available on-line. Access information follows.) ================= news/nov_14_1993 ================= [uvic.general, et al.] UVic alt.* ban, comp. policies, etc. - request comments [Paraphrase: All alt.* newsgroups (including alt.censorship and alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk) have been restricted at the U. of Victoria in Canada. *Apperently* because someone was offended by the display of a GIF image.] ================= ================= If you have gopher, you can browse the CAF archive with the command gopher gopher.eff.org These document(s) are also available by anonymous ftp (the preferred method) and by email. To get the file(s) via ftp, do an anonymous ftp to ftp.eff.org (192.77.172.4), and then: cd /pub/CAF/news get nov_14_1993 To get the file(s) by email, send email to ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com Include the line(s): connect ftp.eff.org cd /pub/CAF/news get nov_14_1993 -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me. =kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu = -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me. =kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu = From caf-talk Caf Mar 31 21:50:11 1994 From: kadie@eff.org (Fwd:) Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.news Subject: Re: [news.admin.policy, et al.] Re: Policy on Chain Letters Date: 31 Mar 1994 21:50:09 -0500 Message-ID: <2ng251$l2i@eff.org> [A repost - Carl] [paraphrase: "I was sentenced to 8 hours community service, one year probation, and was required to write a paper on computer ethics" by the U. of Maryland student judicial system. It started with me wanting to use a PC for more than the 1-hour time limited and escalated from there.] From: russotto@eng.umd.edu (Matthew T. Russotto) Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,news.admin.policy,comp.admin.policy Subject: Re: [news.admin.policy, et al.] Re: Policy on Chain Letters Date: 30 Mar 1994 15:09:11 GMT Message-ID: <2nc4mn$s6f@mojo.eng.umd.edu> In article kadie@hal.cs.uiuc.edu (Fwd:) writes: }[A repost - Carl] } }Date: Tue, 29 Mar 1994 16:01:46 EST }From: Bruce Umbaugh }Message-ID: <94088.160146BDU100F@ODUVM.BITNET> }Newsgroups: news.admin.policy,comp.admin.policy }Subject: Re: Policy on Chain Letters } }In article , kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M Kadie) says: }> }>jeff@bradley.bradley.edu (Jeff Hibbard) writes: }> }>[...] }>>Carl, it sounds as if you've never actually administered a real computer }>>system and don't understand some of the real-life practical problems. } } Query: Have you ever administered a disciplinary system? Do you }have any special training that would assist you in that regard? } }[snip] } }>I personally dislike computer explusions as a form of punishment }>because they affect different students quite differently. I think the }>more usual university punishments (informal warnings, formal }>reprimands, formal suspensions for a few days, etc) are generally }>better. }> }>[...] }>>The published policy states [...] our actions may be appealed to the }>>Student Judicial System. } }[snip] } }>If a student (or professor) wants a formal hearing, you should not }>impose any punish until and unless the judicial system asks you do. If }>you think the student or professor is creditable threat to the system }>pending the hearing, you should get approval of a Dean for an interim }>emergency suspension. } }This was the policy at the University of Maryland, College Park, when }I worked for the Office of Judicial Programs there. The Maryland _Code }of Student Conduct_ is regarded by many as a model. Its principal }author, Gary Pavela, is a widely respected authority on student discipline }in higher education and editor of Synthesis: Law and Policy in Higher }Education. The Maryland Code has been adopted at a number of other }schools with little modification. Compare, for instance, the Codes at }George Washington and Tulane. With all due respect, I'd say this is a lot of crap. I've seen Maryland's code from the wrong side, and this is NOT how things work, at least with respect to computers. My account was suspended on the Workstations at Maryland systems summarily, by the System Adminstrator. A message which appeared when I logged in told me to contact the Accounts Administrator. I contacted him, and he told me to go to the System Administrator, whose office was inaccessible. When I finally got him on the phone, he told me to talk to tha Accounts Administrator. I gave up and applied for another account-- back then, they didn't do any checking. Eventually, of course, they suspended that one, so I applied for a bunch more, and managed to run around a few more times between the accounts administrator and the system administrator-- finally, I did get my original account back, but along the way I had arbitrary restrictions applied to me by the SA, I was physically attacked by one of his student assistants, and threatened by another, I was threatened with blacklisting by the SAs boss and an intimidating-looking person who happened to be the head of network infrastructure. Finally, they brought me up on judicial charges over all these incidents. I was convicted on several counts, including theft of services (for having the multiple accounts, even though these accounts were free), the catchall "disrupting university activities" (for the original offense--- not respecting a 1 hour time limit on the use of the PCs. My program was due the next day and was still running, but the lab admins wouldn't be reasonable-- instead, they had me escorted out of the building by the campus cops. I went to another lab and ran it to completion. My account was suspended the next day, even though use of the PCs had nothing to do with my UNIX account. The admin later claimed that I was putting up X-windows on other people's display at 1am that morning. Unfortunately for that claim, at the time, all the labs were CLOSED at 1am), and the catchall "failure to follow the directions of a university official", for the same offense. At the hearing, BTW, there were essentially two prosecutors-- the Computer Science Center people, and the administrative representative on the judicial committee. Though a student was theoretically in charge, the administrator was obviously running things. He attempted to deny me representation at the hearing, apparently feeling that it wasn't a fair hearing unless there were several university officials, including one with legal training, working on only one student, rather than working on that student and his representative. It didn't end there, though. I was sentenced to 8 hours community service, one year probation, and was required to write a paper on computer ethics. When the letter came officially stating my penalty, punishments had been added--- the paper had to be handwritten, and several additional terms were added to the probation, after consultation with my accusors! And, they attempted to accuse me of not submitting the paper, later on-- fortunately, I had expected such nonsense and mailed it via certified mail, return receipt requested. > (Who among us would wish to be *personally* liable for a student's > missing a deadline required for graduation on account of action we > took on our *own* accord and without regard for institutionally approved > procedures?) Do you want a name? I could give you one. -- Matthew T. Russotto russotto@eng.umd.edu Some news readers expect "Disclaimer:" here. Just say NO to police searches and seizures. Make them use force. (not responsible for bodily harm resulting from following above advice) -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me. =kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu = From caf-talk Caf Mar 31 22:01:11 1994 Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.news From: kadie@hal.cs.uiuc.edu (Fwd:) Subject: [comp.org.eff.talk] Alice's NNTP Server Message-ID: Date: Fri, 1 Apr 1994 02:52:26 GMT [A repost - Carl] Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk From: kadie@hal.cs.uiuc.edu (Fwd:) Subject: [comp.org.eff.talk] Alice's NNTP Server Message-ID: Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 16:24:48 GMT [A repost - Carl] Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk From: snowhare@netcom.com (Snowhare) Subject: Alice's NNTP Server Message-ID: Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 07:27:17 GMT Sorry. Just had to do it to make me feel better after my university admin squawked for the fourth time in eight months for my violating his unwritten, unpublished and apparently made up on the spur of the moment acceptable use policies. He doesn't like me telneting to my netcom account this time. I can telnet all over the place - but he doesn't like it when I connect to a commercial service provider, while dialed up from home, between the hours of 1pm and midnight... And no - I didn't write it. I don't know who did. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Alice's NNTP Server -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- - With apologies to Arlo Guthrie, and with great thanks to previous "Alice's Restaurant" filk authors Jon Kamens, Chris Stacy, Alan Wechsler, Noel Chiappa, and Larry Allen, who provided the inspiration. - No thanks or apologies to those who made the original decision which prompted this piece, but heartfelt thanks to those around me who also spoke out in opposition. This one's for you, gang. -- Nil Illegitimo Carborundum, Sometime-in-1993 This song is called "Alice's NNTP Server" and it's about Alice, and the NNTP server, but "Alice's NNTP Server" is not the name of the NNTP server, it's the name of the song, and that's why I called this song "Alice's NNTP Server". You can get anything you want on Alice's NNTP. You can get anything you want on Alice's NNTP. Telnet over, it's a simple hack. Port one-nineteen is where it's at. and you can get anything you want on Alice's NNTP. Now it all started two semesters ago, it's on two semesters ago when my about-to-graduate friend and I went up to read some news at Alice's server, 'cause the news didn't live on our server, it lived on Alice's server, with lots of forged messages and newgroups and rmgroups, and of course the news articles themselves. Anyways, it was a nice system, and the University's network connection was wide, and Alice had the bandwidth and the diskspace and they figured they didn't have to worry about expiring their news articles for a long time. We got up there, found all the articles, and we figured it'd be a friendly gesture for us to take the articles and distribute 'em around to our other friends at the University that also didn't get a full feed, 'cause that's what Usenet was supposed to be all about in the first place, right? So we took about half a gig of diskspace and stuck it on a spare workstation which we were gonna make into our own news server, and we got ourselves educated on NNTP. We took spool directories, server software, a compiler, an editor, and other implements of destruction and headed on back to our new server. Well, we got there and there was a big chain across the machine room door and a mail message in our mailbox saying "Closed for end-of-semester". We'd never heard of a machine room that was closed at the end of the semester before, and with tears in our eyes we drove off into the sunset, looking to find another place to stash the news. We didn't find one until we came to our own home machines, and off the side of the /usr/spool partition, we noticed there were some old news articles. And we figured that one big pile of news is better than two little piles, and rather than copy that one to the free disk, we decided to just install our half-gig disk on the home machine and create a link from the new partition to /usr/spool. That's what we did, and NNTP'ed back to Alice's, had an end-of-semester newsfest that couldn't be beat, went to sleep and didn't get up until next morning, when we got a phone call from the University Director of Computer Security. Said "Kid, someone found your user-id on a post to an unauthorized newsgroup, in the bottom of a subdirectory full of messages from unauthorized sources, on a disk partition that wasn't there the night before, on a hard drive that wasn't there the night before, and I just wanted to know if you had any information 'bout it..." I said "Yes sir, Mister Director, I cannot tell a lie, I put that hard drive on the machine and imported those news articles". After speaking to the Director for about forty-five minutes on the telephone we finally came to the truth of the matter and he said that we had to go down and remove the drive, and also had to go down and speak to him at the Undergraduate Office, and bring all our spool directories, server software, compilers, editors, and other implements of destruction with us, and so we did. Now friends, there was only one or two things the University Director of Computer Security coulda' done at the Undergraduate Office and the first was he could have given us a medal for being so brave and honest on the telephone, which wasn't very likely, and we didn't expect it, and the other thing he could have done was bawled us out and told us never to be seen transportin' news and installing hardware about the vicinity again, which is what we expected, but when we got to the Undergraduate Office there was a third possibility that we hadn't counted upon, and we was both immediately arrested and handcuffed, and I said "Hey, Director, I don't think I can remove the hard drive with these handcuffs on", and he said "Shaddap kid, and follow me". And that's what we did, walked right behind him and walked to the quote 'Scene-of-the-Crime' unquote. I want to tell you about this here University where this is all happening here. They got a T1 line here, so there's no stop signs on the network, but they got one System Administrator, and of course, the Director of Computer Security, but when we got to the 'Scene-of-the-Crime' there was the System Administrator, five Special Interest Group Representatives with five lawyers each, and three TAs acting as Assistant System Administrators, this being the biggest crime of the last five years, and everybody wanted to get in the newspaper report on it because it had something to do with computers and politically-incorrect content and all the artsies knew that all the had to do was spell "computer" correctly in order to get a cushy job writing anti-technology columns for the local paper. And they was makin' the System Administrator use up all kinds of net.cop equipment they had hanging around the machine rooms. They was greppin' mail, tracin' Path-IDs, following FTP and telnet logs, and they eventually came up with twenty seven mail messages, and they printed each one of 'em out and put circles and arrows and highlights on 'em and a paragraph on the back of each printout explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. They took archives of the approach, the getaway, the activity in our home directories and /tmp, and the spool directories, and I already mentioned the mail grepping. After the ordeal, we went back to our residences. The Director of Student Security said he was going to keep us under supervision and said "Kid, I'm going to take away your root access, but you can have your regular account back if you'll give me the userid and password for it first". I said "Director, I can understand you wanting my root access and my regular userid so's you can put me in the list of users denied access to FTP and telnet, but why do you want my password?" And he said "Kid, we don't want you reading /etc/passwd and running crack on it". And I said "Director, did you think I was going to read /etc/passwd and run crack on it just to read Usenet News?" The Director said he was making sure, and friends, the Director was, 'cause he changed my numeric user-ID so I couldn't chmod my old files, and he chmod'ed all my files and directories to 000 so's I couldn't use any information contained in 'em to build something with the setuid bit set and put it under someone else's directory under the name "ls" and use the fact that the default system environment had the user's current working directory appearing in the PATH before /bin, and he even changed my shell to "rsh", just in case. The Director was making sure, and it was about four or five hours later that Alice (remember Alice? This is a song about Alice), Alice came by and with a few nasty words to the Director, bailed us out of our rsh accounts, had another session of newsreading that couldn't be beat, and didn't get up until the next morning, when we all had to go to the Student Disciplinary Tribunal. We walked in, sat down, and the Director of Computer Security came in with the twenty seven mail message printouts with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, sat down. Man came in said "all rise". We stood up, and the Director stood up with the twenty seven mail message printouts and the judge walked in, sat down in front of a manual typewriter, and he sat down, and we sat down. The Director looked at the manual typewriter, and and then at the twenty seven mail messages with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, and looked at the manual typewriter. And then at the twenty seven mail message printouts with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one and began to cry, 'cause the Director had come to the realization that this was a typical case of minds from the 1950s trying to deal with the technology of the 1990s, and there wasn't nothing he could do about it, and the judge wasn't going to look at the twenty seven mail message printouts with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. And we was given a few lines on our transcripts and had to take the hard drive out of the machine the next morning, but that's not what I came to tell you about. Came to talk about censorship. We got a place up here, which I won't name publically, and among other things, one of the things they do is take a big newsfeed from the wide world of the Internet and select it, inspect it, detect it, infect it, neglect it, and then inject it into the news directories. I went down and got my job application papers, and I walked in wearing a suit-and-tie so I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning. 'Cause I wanted to look like the all-politically-correct kid from university, man I wanted to feel like the all-politically-correct kid from university, man I wanted to *BE* the all-politically-correct kid from university, and I walked in and I was hung down, brung down, hung up, and all kinds of mean nasty ugly things. And I walked in and sat down and they gave me a piece of paper, said "Kid, do the oral personality profile test with the shrink in Room 101". I went up there and said "Shrink, I want to be a productive employee. I wanna, I wanna, I wanna PRODUCE. PRO-DEWCE! I wanna work harder than the lowest grunt at Microsoft, I wanna be an efficient user of the NSFnet backbone for our corporate agenda, I wanna PRODUCE! I don't never wanna read any newsgroups other than those concerning the quarterly reports and company product announcements! Sure this is a Unix site, but I don't mind the castrated newsfeed and the mail greppers, 'cause it'll all help me to PRODUCE! I wanna see the stock of this company split ten times over the next year, I wanna make the Board of Directors so filthy rich, man, I tell you I wanna PRODUCE, PRODUCE, PRODUCE!", and I started jumpin' up and down, yellin' "PRODUCE, PRODUCE, PRODUCE!", and the shrink started jumpin' up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down yelling "PRODUCE, PRODUCE, PRODUCE!", and the manager came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said "you're our boy". Didn't feel too good about it. Proceeded on down the hall gettin' all sorts of political injections, inspections, detections, neglections and all kinds of stuff that they was doin' to me at the thing there, and I was interviewed two hours, three hours, four hours. I was there for a long time going through all kinds of mean nasty ugly things and I was just having a tough time there and they was inspecting and injecting every single part of my political mindset, and they was leaving no part untouched. Proceeded through. And when I finally came to see the last man, the Commissar of Information Access, I walked in, walked in, sat down after a whole big thing there, looked at the big framed print he had behind him, (a signed original by Richard E. Depew!) and said "what do you want?" "Kid, we only got one question. Have you ever read anything in the alt.* hierarchy from anywhere other than your local news spool?" And I proceeded to tell him the story of the Alice's NNTP Server Censorship, with full orchestration and five-part harmony and stuff like that and suddenly he stopped me right there and said "Kid, did you ever have that written up on your transcript?" I proceeded to tell him the story of the twenty seven archived mail messages with the circles and arrows and the paragraph on the back of each one, and he stopped me right there and said "Kid, I want you to go and sit down on that bench that says group H ... NOW, KID!" And I walked over to the bench there, and there's group H, which is where they put you if you may not be *moral* enough to join the company after committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly-looking people on the bench there. News forgers. Porno FTP site admins. Anon-server users! Promiscuous NNTP site admins. News administrators running promiscuous NNTP sites, with full feeds no less! Sitting right there on the bench next to me! And there was other mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the bench next to me. And the meanest, nastiest, ugliest one of the bunch, he had probably offended more people through his postings than the world's top ten sickest, most twisted fucks combined, he was coming over to me and he was coming over to me and he was mean 'n' nasty 'n' ugly 'n' horrible and all kinds of things and he sat down next to me and said "Kid, what'd ya get?" I said "I didn't get nothing, they put a line on my transcript and made me remove the hard drive". He said "What were you busted for?", and I said "unauthorized hardware modifications". And they all moved away from me on the bench there, and a hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, 'till I said "to set up an NNTP server which could bring potentially-offensive newsgroups censored at my local site and grant full news access to my friends". They all came back, shook my hand, talkin' 'bout crime, underground FTP sites, promiscuous NNTP servers, what to do about Barney the Dinosaur, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the bench. And everything was fine, we was trading wares and all kinds of things, until the Commissar of Information Access came over, had some paper in his hand, and said... "Kids, this-online-survey's-got-47-words-37-sentences-58-lines-we- wanna-know-details-of-the-crime-time-of-the-crime-all-the-things- you-gotta-say-things-about-the-crime-what-newsgroups-you-was-reading- at-the-time-the-contents-of-your-current-.newsrc-file-and-all-the- things-you-gotta-say", and talked for forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said, but we had fun filling out the form and making cool sounds with the relay keyswitches on the IBM 3101 terminals on the bench there, and I filled out the details of the Alice's NNTP Server Censorship and the hard drive with the four part harmony, wrote it down there, just like it was, and I pressed ENTER, and the screen cleared, and I saw the rest of the form. In the middle of the screen. Away from everything else on the screen. In parentheses. Capital letters. Quotated. Read the following words: "Kid, have you rehabilitated yourself?" I went over to the Commissar, said "Commissar, you got a lotta damn gall to ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I'm just sittin' here, sittin' on the group H bench 'cause you want to know if I'm *moral* enough to join a Company to grep mail, burn electronic books, and censor feeds after bein' an NNTP hacker." He looked at me, said "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send your .newsrc down to California..." And friends, somewhere in California, enshrined in some little directory, is a study in ones and zeroes of my .newsrc. And the only reason I'm singin' you this song is 'cause you may know somebody in a similar situation, or *YOU* may be in a similar situation, and if you're in a situation like that, there's only one thing you can do and that's post a message to your company's internal newsgroup, saying "Commissar, you can get anything you want on Alice's NNTP server." And log off. You know, if one person, just one person does it, they may think he's really sick and won't fire him just yet, just send him down to a Training Session until his brains are jellied up. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're starting a cascade and will only fire one of 'em to establish a precedent and put the fear-o-God in the rest of their workers. And three people, three, can you imagine, three people logging on, posting a message containing a bar of Alice's NNTP Server and walking out, they may think it's an organization. And can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day logging on, postin' a bar of "Alice's NNTP Server" and logging off. And friends, they may think it's a movement. And that's what it is, the Alice's NNTP Server Anti-Censorship Movement, and all you got to do to join is quote it the next time it comes around on the screen. With feeling. So we'll wait for it to come around on the screen here, and follow-up with a quotation when it does. Here it comes... You can get anything you want on Alice's NNTP. You can get anything you want on Alice's NNTP. Telnet over, it's a simple hack. Port one-nineteen is where it's at. and you can get anything you want on Alice's NNTP. That was horrible. If you want to end censorship and stuff you got to post loud... I've been writin' this song now for twenty-five minutes and over three hundred and twenty lines of text. I could write it for another twenty- five minutes and another three hundred and twenty lines -- I'm not proud... ...or tired. So we'll wait till it comes around again, and this time with four part harmony and feeling. We're just waitin' for it to come around is what we're doing. All right now... You can get anything you want on Alice's NNTP. (even .GIFs of Alice!) You can get anything you want on Alice's NNTP. Telnet over, it's a simple hack. Port one-nineteen is where it's at. and you can get anything you want on Alice's NNTP. You can get anything you want on Alice's NNTP. You can get anything you want on Alice's NNTP. Telnet over, it's a simple hack, And they can have the shirts right off our backs, but we'll still read anything we want on Alice's NNTP... -- Benjamin Franz -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent any organization; this is just me. = kadie@cs.uiuc.edu = -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent any organization; this is just me. = kadie@cs.uiuc.edu = From caf-talk Caf Apr 1 02:32:13 1994 From: kadie@eff.org (Fwd:) Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.news Subject: Re: Policy on Chain Letters Date: 31 Mar 1994 21:29:38 -0500 Message-ID: <2ng0ui$ko3@eff.org> [A repost - Carl] [paraphrase: [a sys admin] I learned at a NEARnet meeting that up to eight students at an New England site lost their accounts for posting a joke/parody chain letter (with no multiple copies or attached names). I find this shocking.] From: betsys@cs.umb.edu (Elizabeth Schwartz) Newsgroups: news.admin.policy,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk Subject: Re: Policy on Chain Letters Date: 29 Mar 1994 00:57:39 GMT Message-ID: I was really shocked to discover, at a NEARnet meeting, that *many* system administrators will kill a student's account for posting even a "joke" chain letter. I'm not talking about "make money fast" or anything that smacks of mail fraud. There's a joke chain letter that's been slowly circulating for years. It promises the reader success in love and sex if the letter is continued, and all sorts of disasters otherwise. I think it's pretty funny, personally. It's not a real chain letter: it has no names at the bottom and does not spread exponentially. It's just a takeoff of a chain letter. Anyway, a student at one New England site tried to send this in e-mail to another student. He screwed up the address, and sent it to a professor. The professor went ballistic; the end result was that people at both ends lost accounts (I heard as many as eight) The part that bothers me the most was that I was in a discussion group with a bunch of system administrators who were all discussing ways to get rid of all this awful activity. Ever since, I've been warning students *here* that they need to be really careful so that they don't get their friends at other schools in trouble. I have trouble getting them to beleive it sometimes. If you don't have a sense of humor and perspective, this is a damn tough job. Whatever happened to *teaching* people? I can't remember the names but this did happen. Policy group disclaimer: This posting represents my personal opinion at the time of posting. I am using the net as a personal learning tool: nothing I write is official policy unless explicitly labelled as "official" policy. Please do not repost or anthologize this post without my permission. thanks, Betsy. -- System Administrator Internet: betsys@cs.umb.edu MACS Dept, UMass/Boston Phone : 617-287-6448 100 Morrissey Blvd Staccato signals Boston, MA 02125-3393 of constant information.... -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me. =kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu = From caf-talk Caf Apr 1 02:34:10 1994 From: kadie@eff.org (Fwd:) Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.news Subject: Re: Policy on Chain Letters Date: 31 Mar 1994 21:38:07 -0500 Message-ID: <2ng1ef$kss@eff.org> [A repost - Carl] [paraphrase: [A sys admin at Bradley writing for himself] My experience is that a two-week computer suspension is not necessary to stop chain letters, but some immediate, temporary action (like a suspension until I can give the sender a verbal warning) is necessary. Under the current policy, however, I do not have authority to temporary suspend accounts, so there are more two-week suspensions than there used to be.] From: jeff@bradley.bradley.edu (Jeff Hibbard) Newsgroups: news.admin.policy,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk Subject: Re: Policy on Chain Letters Date: 30 Mar 1994 03:34:06 -0600 Message-ID: <2nbh2e$nlc@bradley.bradley.edu> Important note: what I am about to write certainly does not match the opinion of anyone at Bradley who's officially allowed to have opinions. kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M Kadie) writes: > Is a two-week, immediate computer expulsion necessary to keep chain > letters from exploding on a large (>1000 users) system? Personally, I think the "immediate" part is necessary, but keeping them off for two weeks is way too long. I've administered all of the academic and most of the administrative systems on campus since 1975, back when most interaction with the computers involved punched cards and chain letters weren't a big problem. :-) For most of that period, I was pretty much free to set such policies myself. When I was, I considered temporarily disabling a student's login for sending a chain letter to be a means of getting his attention, rather than a form of punishment. Remember from my previous post that I only do this for people who continue to send chain letters after being explicitly warned at login not to do so. When a student contacted me about his disabled login, I turned it back on immediately, after giving him a 30-second lecture about the finite nature of the mail partition and the importance of not filling it up completely. Many were restored within an hour or two; seldom were they off for more than a day. Then a few years ago we got a new Director of Computing Services who didn't think I could be trusted to make such policy, so he prepared his own, which I am obliged to follow. His does not explicitly mention chain letters. The only general category of offense into which I can make a reasonable case that chain letters fall involves the 2-week account suspension. Therefore, my only two choices are to do nothing but give never-backed-up warnings, which I know from experience leads to the mail partition filling up, causing tremendous grief for all users, or to go for the two weeks on a handful of students who blatantly ignore the warning at login. This is not a perfect world. A third, less drastic option would be nice, but of the two available to me, I feel I have chosen correctly. Carl seems concerned that I don't inform students of their right to appeal. In some cases, I actually encourage them to appeal, and I personally tell the Student Judicial people that I think the student's penalty should be drastically reduced (a request they generally honor). Just last Friday I disabled someone's login for some hacking. The policy required me to leave his login disabled for the rest of the semester, which I thought was unreasonable given the particular circumstances, but I don't have the authority to waive the policy myself. I told him where to appeal, and am happy that he will now be getting his login back very soon. So, please be careful just exactly how you direct your flames. I don't think I'm really a bad guy; I'm just sometimes required by policy to play one at work. Incidentally, in practice the two weeks only applies to logins on the primarily non-academic system most students use for mail, news, IRC, FTPing gifs, etc. A student who looses his login on one of the departmental systems used for more academic pursuits can get it back right away by having his instructor tell me that the login is necessary for the student's course work. Besides, it's rare for students to screw around on the more academic systems and loose their logins there in the first place. There's really only one "party" system on campus. -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me. =kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu = From caf-talk Caf Apr 1 11:37:20 1994 Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.news From: kadie@hal.cs.uiuc.edu (Fwd:) Subject: [soc.culture.vietnamese] Re: "Mail Bomb" Issue Message-ID: Date: Fri, 1 Apr 1994 16:29:36 GMT [A repost - Carl] Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk From: kadie@hal.cs.uiuc.edu (Fwd:) Subject: [soc.culture.vietnamese] Re: "Mail Bomb" Issue Message-ID: Date: Fri, 1 Apr 1994 16:02:28 GMT [A repost - Carl] From: vtran@mac.cc.macalstr.edu Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese Subject: Re: "Mail Bomb" Issue Date: 31 Mar 94 11:02:02 -0600 Message-ID: <1994Mar31.110202.1@mac.cc.macalstr.edu> In article , wcassidy@netcom.com (Linh Tu Nguyen) writes: > I talked with the security director at my service provider reference the > continuing problem with Dave Kohr. I was informed that if Mr. Kohr's > system administrator failed to give satisfaction, they would contact > higher authority and further, that they would press the issue until it > was resolved. Suppress bad speech with better speech. If you think Mr. Kohr's politics is offensive, then ignore him, or counter his arguments. This is a lame attempt at cencorship. The SCV--a place where human rights and democracy are being tauted everday-- are full of people who only preach what they don't believe. > As SCV is a public forum, Mr. Kohr is certainly entitled to post his > opinion without censorship. Conversely, others are certainly entitled to > request that Mr. Kohr no longer afflict the forum with his opinions. > The secondary issue is Mr. Kohr's use of University facilities to post > material having a particular political content. If Mr. Kohr wants to go > out and pay his own money to access SCV, that is one thing. But why to > the taxpayers in Illinois have to pay for his mischief? Everthing we post is political. Don't deny it. I'm sure Mr. Kohr is doling out some money for grad. school as we speak. The taxpayers in Ill. has better things to do than suppress speech. > The final issue is to draw a distinction between "opinion" and > "propaganda." It is clear that Mr. Kohr is not posting opinion...he is > broadcasting propaganda, using "divide and conquer" tactics to inflame > the Vietnamese community. He has enlisted a handful of well-known > malcontents to "support" him, so that he can say he has "support." How > any of this relates to his graduate work at the Computer Sciences > department of his school is beyond me. We don't want the SCV to be a place where everyone agrees with one another do we ? What do you call "Vietnam Insight," and "Vietnam Democracy ?" How do you separate opinion and propoganda ? I support Kohr's right to speak. I'm far from being malcontented with my politics. Only people who are insecure about their political views resort to cencorship. -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent any organization; this is just me. = kadie@cs.uiuc.edu = -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent any organization; this is just me. = kadie@cs.uiuc.edu = From caf-talk Caf Apr 1 11:43:20 1994 Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.news From: kadie@hal.cs.uiuc.edu (Fwd:) Subject: [soc.culture.vietnamese] Re: "Mail Bomb" Issue Message-ID: Date: Fri, 1 Apr 1994 16:35:57 GMT [A repost - Carl] [summary: A user on netcom.com is upset because a student at the U. of Illinois (C-U) is posting "political" material and "propaganda" to newsgroup soc.culture.vietnamese. The netcom user says that the Netcom security director has assured him that Netcom would contact higher and higher authories at U. of Illinois until the issue was resolved. A user at Macalester College (MN, USA) replies that bad speech should be countered with good speech, not with censorship.] From: vtran@mac.cc.macalstr.edu Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese Subject: Re: "Mail Bomb" Issue Date: 31 Mar 94 11:02:02 -0600 Message-ID: <1994Mar31.110202.1@mac.cc.macalstr.edu> In article , wcassidy@netcom.com (Linh Tu Nguyen) writes: > I talked with the security director at my service provider reference the > continuing problem with Dave Kohr. I was informed that if Mr. Kohr's > system administrator failed to give satisfaction, they would contact > higher authority and further, that they would press the issue until it > was resolved. Suppress bad speech with better speech. If you think Mr. Kohr's politics is offensive, then ignore him, or counter his arguments. This is a lame attempt at cencorship. The SCV--a place where human rights and democracy are being tauted everday-- are full of people who only preach what they don't believe. > As SCV is a public forum, Mr. Kohr is certainly entitled to post his > opinion without censorship. Conversely, others are certainly entitled to > request that Mr. Kohr no longer afflict the forum with his opinions. > The secondary issue is Mr. Kohr's use of University facilities to post > material having a particular political content. If Mr. Kohr wants to go > out and pay his own money to access SCV, that is one thing. But why to > the taxpayers in Illinois have to pay for his mischief? Everthing we post is political. Don't deny it. I'm sure Mr. Kohr is doling out some money for grad. school as we speak. The taxpayers in Ill. has better things to do than suppress speech. > The final issue is to draw a distinction between "opinion" and > "propaganda." It is clear that Mr. Kohr is not posting opinion...he is > broadcasting propaganda, using "divide and conquer" tactics to inflame > the Vietnamese community. He has enlisted a handful of well-known > malcontents to "support" him, so that he can say he has "support." How > any of this relates to his graduate work at the Computer Sciences > department of his school is beyond me. We don't want the SCV to be a place where everyone agrees with one another do we ? What do you call "Vietnam Insight," and "Vietnam Democracy ?" How do you separate opinion and propoganda ? I support Kohr's right to speak. I'm far from being malcontented with my politics. Only people who are insecure about their political views resort to cencorship. -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent any organization; this is just me. = kadie@cs.uiuc.edu = From caf-talk Caf Apr 1 11:44:23 1994 Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.news From: kadie@hal.cs.uiuc.edu (Fwd:) Subject: [soc.culture.vietnamese] Re: Vote On Kohr Message-ID: Date: Fri, 1 Apr 1994 16:42:53 GMT [A repost - Carl] [paraphrase: [A user on cerf.net (the California Educational and Research Federation Net)]: "Our repeated complaint messages to professors and deans will bring attention to system administrators. I am sure if we do it right, UIUC CS department has to take care of Mr. Dave Kohr's incident. If we fail to do so...at least we will try keeping record and send the result to his prospective employers." "[N]o one should or will get away from abusing and ridiculing a group of people." Mr. Kohr's average traffic of 5.5 messages a day over the last 3 months is strong evidence that he is disturbing the newsgroup.] From: nbt@vungtau.cerf.net (Binh T. Nguyen) Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese Subject: Re: Vote On Kohr Date: 1 Apr 1994 02:30:35 GMT Message-ID: <2ng10b$4gj@news.cerf.net> To SCVers, Mr. Kohr's is playing the cencorship game. Please ignore his message but remember to count them. Remember, when you send a complaint message to deans or professors please remember to choose careful language. I've just learned that Mr. Kohr's just convinced one of the system administrator in CS department about how unfairly SCVers have treated him. Our repeated complaint messages to professors and deans will bring attention to system administrators. I am sure if we do it right, UIUC CS department has to take care of Mr. Dave Kohr's incident. If we fail to do so...at least we will try keeping record and send the result to his prospective employers. I would like to emphasize on the point that no one should or will get away from abusing and ridiculing a group of people. Mr. Dave Kohr have caused enough disturbance on SCV; and that's the ground of our complaints. (over 500 messages on less than 3 months would that be suffice for evidence). Yours, Nguyen Thanh Binh -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent any organization; this is just me. = kadie@cs.uiuc.edu = From caf-talk Caf Apr 1 11:56:20 1994 Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.news From: kadie@hal.cs.uiuc.edu (Fwd:) Subject: [soc.culture.vietnamese] Re: Why "Mail Bombs" are a Bad Thing (was Re: To All Viet Netters) Message-ID: Date: Fri, 1 Apr 1994 16:54:06 GMT [A repost - Carl] [paraphrase: [A user at the U. of Hawaii] The U. of Illinois student "has shown much insensivity towards the [Vietnamese] community." I think that if 1000 of us send complaints to his sys admin "they will have a talk with him or possibly pull the plug on his account.".] Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese From: jherman@uhunix3.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Jeffrey Herman) Subject: Re: Why "Mail Bombs" are a Bad Thing (was Re: To All Viet Netters) Message-ID: Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 19:59:28 GMT In article drk@melodian.cs.uiuc.edu (Dave Kohr) writes: >In article jherman@uhunix3.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu >(Jeffrey Herman) writes: >>I believe that Kohr has shown much insensivitiy towards the VNese >>community on SCV. > >I have posted no racial or other slurs against any group. You will have a >hard time convincing anyone that I have offended "the VNese community", >especially in light of all the supportive e-mail I receive. The most you >can say is that I have taken a stand regarded as controversial by *some* >members of the overseas Vietnamese community. > >>My suggestion would be to not email complaints to Kohr but rather to his >>postmaster or sysadmin; if they receive enough complaints they will have a >>talk with him or possibly pull the plug on his account. > >Certain people on SCV already tried to do this, and our systems people just >laughed it off as an attempt at censorship. > >On the other hand, repeated annoying false cries of "Wolf!" of this sort >may cause revocation of the account of the person doing the complaining. >And I would not have to even lift a finger, our Postmaster might just do it >on her own out of disgust. False threat. If your postmaster recieves 1000 complaints each from 1000 different people, I don't think she would be laughing any longer. And how is she going to cancel the complainers' accounts if each has sent only one complaint? > >>Generally I would not advocate such an action, for, to some, it >>is a form of censorship > >Yes, that is what it is. Not necessarily; just as we have a right to free speech, there are laws against noise pollution and disturbing the peace. > >>but Kohr's constant mean and insensitive remarks call for this action to >>be taken. > >So Jeffrey, can you point out *even one* "mean and insensitive remark"? The sum of months of your posts equals `mean and insensitive remarks'. Jeffrey. -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent any organization; this is just me. = kadie@cs.uiuc.edu = From caf-talk Caf Apr 1 13:30:39 1994 Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.news From: kadie@hal.cs.uiuc.edu (Fwd:) Subject: Makarov brass ad rejected Message-ID: Date: Fri, 1 Apr 1994 18:24:15 GMT [A repost - Carl] [paraphrase: Following a complaint, the Director of the Lehigh Univeristy Computer Center has banned all gun ads in Lehigh's local forsale newsgroup.] From: kfb1@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (KARL FRIEDRICH BLOSS) Newsgroups: rec.guns Subject: Makarov brass ad rejected Date: 31 Mar 1994 16:05:46 -0500 Message-ID: <199403311855.AA80962@ns2.CC.Lehigh.EDU> [MODERATOR: This may or may not be within charter, but I think its useful for members here to have the information that LEHIGH UNIVERSITY apparantly censures gun-related material on local bulletin boards. Please note, I confirmed with Karl that he is not referring to a rec.guns post, but another "sale" group local to LEHIGH UNIVERSITY. Subsequent discussion about merits of administrators removing gun-related posts from allegedly open forums are more appropriately debated elsewhere, and I am setting followup to t.p.g. accordingly. But I'd like to publically invite Karl to resubmit his 4sale offer on Makarov brass here, where I will be pleased to post it. If anyone else out there knows of members of the LEHIGH UNIVERSITY community who would like to get back in touch with the open electronic community of free people in order to discuss technical issues of firearms, then you might please send them to me for the digest and also posting methods. And please, boys and girls, don't flame the administrators at LEHIGH UNIVERISTY, let us respect Karl's request.] I guess I shouldn't be surprised that universities are on the "guns are bad" bandwagon, but this really irked me: I posted an ad for Makarov brass on Lehigh's computer and it was declined with the message below. Please don't flame them...it's my only USENET link. I already wrote a complaint letter, but I also have to understand that since it's a private system, there's nothing I can do. -Karl -------------------------------------------- Karl, I'm afraid that I won't be posting the "Marakov Brass" ad you "submitted". Ever since the Director of LUCC got complaints about a gun ad we posted (it was subsequently removed), I now give him the opportunity to decide whether or not an ad for "gun-related articles" should be posted. To your ad, he said "No"... Monica Booth, LUCC -- -Karl +============================================================================+ | Karl F. Bloss, Systems Engineer |"Science, like nature, must also be tamed| | Air Products & Chemicals, Inc. | with a view towards its preservation. | | Telephone: (610) 481-5386 | Given the same state of integrity, it | -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent any organization; this is just me. = kadie@cs.uiuc.edu = From caf-talk Caf Apr 3 20:28:21 1994 From: kadie@eff.org (Fwd:) Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.news Subject: [soc.culture.vietnamese] Re: Vote On Kohr (Final) Date: 3 Apr 1994 20:28:19 -0400 Message-ID: <2nnmv3$2av@eff.org> [A repost - Carl] [paraphrase: [the user on cerf.net] "[O]ur quest in asking Mr. Kohr be more kind to SCVers (and other newsgroups) has been answered (please see attachments)." One attachment is email from the Associate Head of the CS department at the U. of Illinois he says: "I have spoken with Mr. Khor and he is agreeable to staying away [f]rom this subject and concentrating on finishing his theses if you all are agreeable to leaving him alone. [...] I want you to know that we HAVE looked at what Mr. Kohr has been doing in the news group and it appears that he has done nothing wrong, legally or techically." Another attachment is email from a user on Netcom. He says: "I would like to inform you that in the past 24 hours, I have received something like 700 e-mail messages" and that he has reasons to believe they come from the U. of Illinois.] From: nbt@vungtau.cerf.net (Binh T. Nguyen) Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese Subject: Re: Vote On Kohr (Final) Date: 2 Apr 1994 21:45:51 GMT Message-ID: <2nkp2f$n2i@news.cerf.net> To SCVers, I wish all of us should be aware that Mr. Kohr has not violated any law. And our quest in asking Mr. Kohr be more kind to SCVers (and other newsgroups) has been answered (please see attachments). I hope you all respected Mr. Kohr's wishes as he will respect ours. I hope we will all work together with understanding and respect. I believe Mr. Kohr and all of us have been sufferred enough. Let focus to more constructive issues...make SCV a better medium to share joys and exchange constructive ideas. Yours, Binh Thanh Nguyen ==================================================================== >From kubitz@cs.uiuc.edu Fri Apr 1 13:01:59 1994 Flags: 000000000001 Received: by kubitz.cs.uiuc.edu id AA17440 (5.65c/IDA-1.3.4 for jherman@uhunix3.uhcc.hawaii.edu); Fri, 1 Apr 1994 17:10:45 -0600 Date: Fri, 1 Apr 1994 17:10:45 -0600 From: Bill Kubitz Message-Id: <199404012310.AA17440@kubitz.cs.uiuc.edu> To: jherman@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu, ntb@vungtau.cerf.net, pnguyen@vnet.ibm.com, tan@netcom.com, wcassidy@netcom.com Subject: Your concerns regarding Mr. Khor's participation in the *.Vietnamese Cc: aydt@cs.uiuc.edu, kohr@cs.uiuc.edu, kubitz@cs.uiuc.edu, lawrie@cs.uiuc.edu, maiken@swan.admin.uiuc.edu, noe@cs.uiuc.edu, pomes@cso.uiuc.edu, reed@cs.uiuc.edu, schurg@cs.uiuc.edu News Group Let me first explain that I am the Associate Head of Computer Science here at Illinois and am responsible for our computer suystems, amongst other things. My suggestion about all this is that we all call a truce and get back to work doing more constructive things. Those of you who have sent mail and encouraged others to do so have succeeded in getting the attention of many (too many) people here. I propose a simple truce since I can see no simple or logical end to this. I have spoken with Mr. Khor and he is agreeable to staying away >From this subject and concentrating on finishing his theses if you all are agreeable to leaving him alone. That seems like a reasonable and constructive arrangement to me. I want you to know that we HAVE looked at what Mr. Kohr has been doing in the news group and it appears that he has done nothing wrong, legally or techically. This should not be taken in any way to mean that anyone here endorses anything anyone of any persuasion, Mr. Kohr or otherwise, has posted to the news group. From our perspective you all have the right to state your opinions as well as the right to be upset about any or all of what is said there. That is what free speech is all about. If you do have real evidence that Mr. Kohr has in some way violated the law, as opposed to offending people's feelings, sensibilties, or simply disagreeing with them, I would appreciate it if you would send it to me. Otherwise, we must continue to view all this as simply a matter of differing points of view, however onerous and oppressive they may be, to some readers of the group. Again, I ask for a truce, and hope you will all agree. Thank you. >From wcassidy@netcom.com Fri Apr 1 13:33:10 1994 Flags: 000000000001 Received: from localhost by mail.netcom.com (8.6.4/SMI-4.1/Netcom) id PAA03610; Fri, 1 Apr 1994 15:41:22 -0800 Date: Fri, 1 Apr 1994 15:24:58 -0800 (PST) From: Linh Tu Nguyen Subject: Re: Your concerns regarding Mr. Khor's participation in the *.Vietnamese To: Bill Kubitz Cc: jherman@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu, ntb@vungtau.cerf.net, pnguyen@vnet.ibm.com, tan@netcom.com, aydt@cs.uiuc.edu, kohr@cs.uiuc.edu, kubitz@cs.uiuc.edu, lawrie@cs.uiuc.edu, maiken@swan.admin.uiuc.edu, noe@cs.uiuc.edu, pomes@cso.uiuc.edu, reed@cs.uiuc.edu, schurg@cs.uiuc.edu In-Reply-To: <199404012310.AA17440@kubitz.cs.uiuc.edu> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII My legal representative has just concluded a telephone conversation with a member of Chancellor Aiken's staff and has informed me of the content. Further, I have just provided counsel with a copy of Mr. Kubitz's communication as set forth below. I would like to inform you that in the past 24 hours, I have received something like 700 e-mail messages. These are all duplicates of messages >From SCV/VIETNET; they are highly selective in character, relating to the Kohr matter; they are not "forwards" or "kick-backs," and appear as "originals;" I am informed by friends on SCV/VIETNET that they have experienced no such problem; I have further reason to believe that this mischief may originate at the University of Illinois, and the details of this belief will be made clear to you by legal staff. I will further inform you that I have sent several "dummy" messages by various means in order to test their vulnerability to interdiction. Certain of these messages made it to the net---and certain of them did not---again on a suspiciously selective basis, and again with special sensitivity to the Kohr matter. In the case of duplicate "originals," as noted above, you should know that in several cases I have received from six to twelve "originals" of the same, identical message. In the period of time it has taken me to compose and type this message to you, 75 messages have reached my "in-box" and I see from the headers that these are yet more duplicates of the same messages. I have never experienced a problem of this type before. I have made no changes to my own system. This problem began when I dared to stand up to Mr. Kohr, and I hope I can rely on your assurances that this problem might now conveniently disappear. Motive? Yes..... Opportunity? Yes.... Means? Yes.... On Fri, 1 Apr 1994, Bill Kubitz wrote: > News Group > Let me first explain that I am the Associate Head of Computer Science here > at Illinois and am responsible for our computer suystems, amongst other things. > My suggestion about all this is that we all call a truce and get back to work > doing more constructive things. Those of you who have sent mail and encouraged > others to do so have succeeded in getting the attention of many (too many) > people here. I propose a simple truce since I can see no simple or logical > end to this. I have spoken with Mr. Khor and he is agreeable to staying away > from this subject and concentrating on finishing his theses if you all are > agreeable to leaving him alone. That seems like a reasonable and constructive > arrangement to me. > I want you to know that we HAVE looked at what Mr. Kohr has been doing in > the news group and it appears that he has done nothing wrong, legally or > techically. This should not be taken in any way to mean that anyone here > endorses anything anyone of any persuasion, Mr. Kohr or otherwise, has posted > to the news group. From our perspective you all have the right to state your > opinions as well as the right to be upset about any or all of what is said > there. That is what free speech is all about. > If you do have real evidence that Mr. Kohr has in some way violated the law, > as opposed to offending people's feelings, sensibilties, or simply disagreeing > with them, I would appreciate it if you would send it to me. Otherwise, we > must continue to view all this as simply a matter of differing points of view, > however onerous and oppressive they may be, to some readers of the group. > Again, I ask for a truce, and hope you will all agree. > Thank you. > > -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me. =kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu = From caf-talk Caf Apr 4 10:54:01 1994 Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.news From: kadie@hal.cs.uiuc.edu (Fwd:) Subject: UIUC CS Dept. Votes "NO" On Censorship (was Re: Vote On Kohr Message-ID: Date: Mon, 4 Apr 1994 14:47:44 GMT [A repost - Carl] [paraphrase: [David Kohr, student at U. of Illinois-UC] "What I have done is to unilaterally volunteer (for the benefit of Prof. Kubitz and others in my department, NOT you and the other censors) to refrain from posting on this newsgroup for some time, so that people on the pro-censorship side calm down and stop bombarding systems people and others here at Illinois with bogus non-complaints."] Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese Message-ID: <9404022318.AA07738@melodian.cs.uiuc.edu> Date: Sat, 2 Apr 1994 17:18:54 CST From: Dave Kohr Subject: UIUC CS Dept. Votes "NO" On Censorship (was Re: Vote On Kohr Let me state at the outset that this is the only posting I intend to make to SCV for some time to come. I am prompted to post this message because Binh Nguyen is grossly misrepresenting the "agreement" reached to end his and others' attempts at censorship of my messages. In article <2nkp2f$n2i@news.cerf.net> nbt@vungtau.cerf.net (Binh T. Nguyen) writes: > our quest in asking Mr. Kohr be more kind to SCVers (and other > newsgroups) has been answered (please see attachments). No Binh, you are wrong. > I hope you all respected Mr. Kohr's wishes as he will respect ours. No, I am "not respecting your wishes" at all, because they are totally unreasonable in the first place. You are asking me to modify the contents of my messages, simply because you do not like them. I have no intention whatsoever of doing so, because what you ask is outright censorship of free speech. What I have done is to unilaterally volunteer (for the benefit of Prof. Kubitz and others in my department, NOT you and the other censors) to refrain from posting on this newsgroup for some time, so that people on the pro-censorship side calm down and stop bombarding systems people and others here at Illinois with bogus non-complaints. I also have a lot of work to do, and do not want to waste further time exposing your silly witch-hunt for what it is. Let me repeat the relevant portion of Prof. Kubitz' message: > From kubitz@cs.uiuc.edu Fri Apr 1 13:01:59 1994 > > I want you to know that we HAVE looked at what Mr. Kohr has been doing in > the news group and it appears that he has done nothing wrong, legally or > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > techically. And I have to wonder, did Binh Nguyen obtain the explicit permission of Prof. Kubitz to post this message? If not, this posting is itself a violation of USENET etiquette, by someone who *ought* to know better. Dave Kohr CS Graduate Student Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Work: 3244 DCL, (217)333-6561 Home: (217)337-1643 E-mail: drk@cs.uiuc.edu World Wide Web: http://www-picasso.cs.uiuc.edu/People/kohr -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent any organization; this is just me. = kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =