Computers and Academic Freedom News Vol. 01, No. 43 [Week ending Dec 15, 1991 Sorry, this is so late. Editing help on future issues of CAF-News (as a guest or associate editor) would be greatly appreciated. For more info, send me email (kadie@eff.org). ========================== KEY ================================ The words after the numbers are a short PARAPHRASES of the articles, NOT AN OBJECTIVE SUMMARY and not necessarily my opinion. =============================================================== Notes 1-5 are about Iowa State University's restrictions on who can see newsgroups such as alt.sex. 1. [Student at Iowa State U.:] "[T]he university just recently unveiled a policy designed to censor the following groups from virtually every student and most faculty." <1991Dec15.164750@IASTATE.EDU> 2. [Student at Iowa State U.:] The Computation Center justifies its ban of certain topics by saying that it is protecting itself legally. Yet the University Library has books (apparently legally) on exactly the same topics. Enclosed is a list of such books including _The sex atlas : a new illustrated guide_. <1991Dec14.060314.21529@news.iastate.edu> 3. [Iowa State U. student] The policy is bad because it assumes that readers are irresponsible, it effects students more than faculty, and it invades the privacy of readers by requiring them to go on record as wanting to read 'dirty' newsgroups. <1991Dec14.230519@IASTATE.EDU> 4. [Member of the ISU Computation Advisory Committee] The Director of the Computation Center told me that the purpose of the policy is to transfer all responsibility to the reader. With some extra effort (getting an account on Wylbur and signing the release form), students can still access all the newsgroups. 5. The policy was imposed by the Computation Center over the objections of the Computer Center Newsgroup committee and University Computation Center Advisory Sub-Committee. <1991Dec15.163311.4917@news.iastate.edu> Notes 6-7 are a pornography-on-usenet article that appeared in the German publication EMMA. 6. Contrary to what the EMMA article says, Usenet is not used mainly for transmission of pornographic material. Less that 7% of Usenet traffic is even related to sex. 7. In the aftermath of the EMMA article the University of Stuttgart has banned newsgroups alt.sex and sci.military on the grounds that they are offensive. <1991Dec11.011316.7019@wega.rz.uni-ulm.de> Articles 8-10 are about managing the resource use of recreational programs like IRC and MUDs. 8. Recreational computer use can be managed if there is mutual respect between user and sys admin and reasonable priorities are set. <1991Dec8.155639.5510@uoft02.utoledo.edu> 9. I've measured network traffic at my site. During hours when MUDs are prohibited, they are 6% of network traffic. During hours when they are allowed they are 30% of traffic. "[W]hile MUD playing here isn't a problem for our T1 connection, it could be troublesome to a site with a 56KB connection." 10. If university computers charged uses at cost, priority system and restrictions on game-playing would be unnecessary. <1991Dec10.144304.2037@mailer.cc.fsu.edu> Note 11 is about directory information. 11. Different people consider different information private. Information should only be released with the consent of the person it is about. <1991Dec10.125232.28052@mailer.cc.fsu.edu> - Carl] In this issue: Michael L Begley 47 New news censorship policy at Iowa State University Mark D. Smucker 75 >New Usenet Policy on 1/6/92 - Standard List Definition Michael L Begle 201 The new netnews policy Shivanand Shenoy 25 >New Usenet News Policy on 1/6/92 John Hascall 55 What to do about the new <>group Censorship Policy at ISU Lars P. Fischer 61 >The USENET pornographic network Christa Keil 24 >The USENET pornographic network (rough translation) Jason Steiner 31 >Gaming Brick Verser 28 Network utilization by MUD players (was Re: Gaming) John G. Otto 42 >[comp.admin.policy, et al.] Re: Gaming John G. Otto 41 >[comp.org.eff.talk] Re: Finger & Liberty Computers and Academic Freedom News Managing Editor: Carl M. Kadie (kadie@eff.org) Administration: William W. Arnold (caf-talk-request@eff.org, warnold@eff.org) Associate Editor: Elizabeth M. Reid (emr@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au) Associate Editor: Paul Joslin (joslin@tso.uc.edu) To contribute to the list, send email to "caf-talk@eff.org". Your note will appear immediately on the caf-talk mailing list and in the alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk newsgroup. Back issues are available via anonymous ftp to ftp.eff.org. The directory is pub/academic/news. Abstracts of CAF-news are in file pub/academic/abstracts. The CAF archive is also available via email. For information, send email to archive-server@eff.org. Include the line: send acad-freedom README Disclaimer: This CAF-News abstract was compiled by a guest editor or a regular editor (Paul Joslin, Elizabeth M. Reid, or Carl M. Kadie). It is not an EFF publication. The views an editor expresses and editorial decisions he or she makes are his or her own. The addresses for the list are: comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org - for contributions to the list or caf-talk@eff.org listserv@eff.org - for automated additions/deletions (send email with the line "help" for details.) caf-talk-request@eff.org - for administrivia Also, if you read newsgroups, look for alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk and alt.comp.acad-freedom.news. ------------ From dec_15_1991 Sun Feb 23 11:51:04 1992 From cafnews Fri Dec 13 16:15:02 1991 From: spam@IASTATE.EDU (Michael L Begley) Subject: New news censorship policy at Iowa State University Message-ID: <1991Dec15.164750@IASTATE.EDU> Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1991 22:47:50 GMT Hi. I'm a staudent at Iowa State University, and the university just recently unveiled a policy designed to censor the following groups from virtually every student and most faculty. The groups specificly being censored are: alt.personals.bondage alt.drugs alt.psychoactives alt.sex alt.sex.bestiality alt.sex.bondage alt.sex.motss alt.sex.pictures alt.sex.pictures.d ISU has a new athena-like distributed system. Most of the machines are not owned by the computation center itself, by by specific campus departments and are under the administration of professors in these departments. Nearly all of these machines are not accessable by the general student body. These exist a small (20 or so) number publicly available machines. The above groups will not be accessible from any of these public machines. The groups will be accessible to the department-owned machines, if the system administrator fills out a form of some sort. Then only those people with access to that machine will be able to receive the full feed. This policy leaves the above groups out of reach of nearly all the students and most of the faculty, for only those users with access to a machine with a 'full feed' will be able to read them. There's now some pretty fierce opposition to this on the local news groups regarding this censorship, and I tried to wade through some of the legal issues and laws documented via ftp at eff.com. Could someone with more experience with this issue please point me to some of the most relevent information regarding htis issue on eff.com and any other source? Thanks. -mike begley spam@iastate.edu -- mike begley "I will not waste network bandwidth" spam@iastate.edu "I will not waste network bandwidth" hz101@ccvax.iastate.edu "I will not waste network bandwidth" ------------------- From d15.2 Sun Feb 23 14:28:51 1992 From dec_15_1991 Sun Feb 23 11:45:13 1992 From cafnews Fri Dec 13 16:15:02 1991 From: mds@iastate.edu (Mark D. Smucker) Subject: Re: New Usenet Policy on 1/6/92 - Standard List Definition Message-ID: <1991Dec14.060314.21529@news.iastate.edu> Sender: news@news.iastate.edu (USENET News System) References: <1991Dec13.223123.9705@news.iastate.edu> Distribution: isu Date: Sat, 14 Dec 1991 06:03:14 GMT This new policy on the newsgroups is blatant censorship. Any nonsense about ``protecting ourselves legally'' should be tossed on the dung heap where it belongs. Do people really believe that groups that are internationally transmitted aren't within legal guidelines? Just for the sake of argument, I decided to look in the library for some interesting books on the subjects of the banned groups. Maybe someone will want to get a big fire burning for them -- not. [Note: For all practical purposes the groups have been banned from the average student. Or maybe the Comp Center wants this to be the motive force in getting students using WYLBUR. ] In the alt.sex.bondage group, _Sex slavery: a documentary report on the international scene today._ By Barlay, Stephen. In the alt.psychoactives group, _Psychoactive drugs and sex_, by Abel, Ernest L. In the alt.sex.pictures group, _Degas, the nudes_, by Thomson, Richard. or on a lighter note, _The sex atlas : a new illustrated guide_ by Erwin J. Haeberle ;photography by Laird Sutton. In the alt.sex.bestiality group, _Deviant life-styles_, edited by James M. Henslin. (should find stuff about it in some book like this.) For alt.drugs fans, If you want to know which ones.... _Drugs of abuse._ Publisher: Washington, D.C. : U.S. Dept. of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration : For sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. G.P.O., 1985. Or let's say you wanted specific information, _Marijuana_, by Mark S. Gold. For an anxious alt.sex reader, _The female orgasm; psychology, physiology, fantasy._ By, Fisher, Seymour. As they say, ``You can find it all at your library.'' Why should the Computation Center follow any different rules? It is the posters(authors) themselves that are legally held responsible for what they write or distribute. The U.S. Postal Service is not sued for letting people send obscene materials across state lines. The violators of the Comstock laws are the ones that get prosecuted. This policy is not acceptable. Mark D. Smucker --- mds@iastate.edu Article 106 of isu.talk.misc: From d15.2 Sun Feb 23 14:28:51 1992 From dec_15_1991 Sun Feb 23 11:51:04 1992 From cafnews Fri Dec 13 16:15:02 1991 From: spam@IASTATE.EDU (Michael L Begley) Subject: The new netnews policy Message-ID: <1991Dec14.230519@IASTATE.EDU> Sender: news@news.iastate.edu (USENET News System) Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1991 05:05:19 GMT this is long, but please read it all, carefully. The new ISU Usenet news policy is completely unacceptable, because it assumes the irresponsibility of the reader before they prove to be unable to handle the content of the groups. Furthermore, it imposes censorship on all persons not fortunate enough to have their own 'privately owned' machine on the ISU network. Finally, it requires that anyone who does want to read these groups must sign a form that will be filed away by the university, which is an obscene invasion of privacy. The policy claims to not be censorous, yet it excludes virtually the entire student body. This is the worst sort of censorship, the sort that claims to provide free access and yet excludes access to nearly everyone in question. The publicly accessable machines, if any, must receive a full feed because they are public. Otherwise the restrictions become modern-day Jim Crow laws, restricting freedoms to the few who have the resources or status. As has been stated ad-infinitum, no one is forced to read news. No one who reads news is forced to read alt.sex. However, I'm quite certain these groups contain valuable information to the general student body. With few exceptions, students 'experiment' with sex and drugs in college. Hell, I did. By providing a forum for students to discuss their beliefs, fears, and questions, oftentimes anonymously, alt.sex & alt.drugs may be the best way to learn the 'truth' about these topics. Instead, ISU plans to sweep these ideas under the carpet, and hope no one raises a ruckass. How many students are going to discover on their own that cocaine use is a bad idea, because they didn't know where to ask for information? This is how censorship occurs. It's not some sweeping government decree. It's not thought police watching your every move. It's when the vocal minorities, in voicing their discontent with others, influence publishers into not publishing questionable works. It's when people tell you that some ideas are 'bad' and not to think about them. It's when the people in charge cave in to outside pressures instead of fighting for their beliefs. And it's when the general public sits back and accepts the censorship, or even praises it. To quote Ray Bradbury in Fahrenheit 451: "Now let's take up the minorities in our civilization, shall we? Bigger the population, the more minorities Don't step on the toes of the dog-lovers, the cat-lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The people in this book, this play, TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters cartographers, mechanics anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, rem- ember that! All the minor minor minorities with their ears to be kept clean. Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock your typewriters. They did. Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca. Books, so the snobbish critics said, were dishwater. Now wonder books stopped selling, the critics said. [...] There you have it, Montag. It didn't come from the Gov- ernment down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no cansorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploi- laton, and minority pressure carried the trick. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or journals." [...] ...We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man's mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? Me? I won't stomach them for a minute. And so when houses were finally fire- proofed completely, all over the world (you were correct your assumption the other night) there was no longer of firemen for the old purposes. They were given the job, as custodians of our peace of mind, the focus of our understandable dread of being inferior; official censors, judges, and executors. [...] "Colored people don't like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people do't feel good about Uncle Tom's Cabin. Burn it. Someone's written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book. Serenity, Montog. Peace, Montag. Censorship creeps up on you. Some 'obviously objectionable' material here, something questionable stuff there, and eventually netnews becomes a nice blend of vanilla tapioca, worthless to the general public. This decade, sex and drugs are the 'taboo' topics. So they get squashed. Next decade it'll be Communism and Cyberpunk. So those get squashed. Eventually everyone gets used to the idea of challenging information getting squashed. Or perhaps we've already reached that state. Technically, I don't see the rationalle behind restricting news on a machine basis. I don't know the internals of news service software, but it *must* know, somehow, what user on what machine is receiving the articles. At the very least, the computer could finger the 'offending' computer to check the user. If the user is on a list of "people who want a restricted feed" then they should be refused access. This sort of system would work on nearly every machine, because, with the exception of vincent1 and other publicly telnettable machines, there is almost always only the one user one a workstation. The news software merely has to finger this machine to see who's on. For the publicly telnettable machines, it should be a full feed until the Center can overcome the technical difficulties of letting people censor themselves. The policy claims to follow the Parks Library policy on dispensing material. I don't agree. First, as has been already pointed out, the Parks library has *many* books in general distribution covering all of the topics currently being banned (yes! banned!) from the net. Second, if it refers to the periodicals section (the only place I can think of that has stuff 'behind the counter' at the library) than the new Usenet policy doesn't follow what I view as the 'spirit' of the library's policy. The periodicals section holds certain material behind the desk not because it's objectionable, but actually to promote free access. If Playboy, for example, were out among the general periodicals, it would quickly be cut up and turned into wallhangings or whatnot, if it even remained in the library at all! By keeping Playboy behind the counter, along with other often stolen or vandalized magazines, including Computer Shopper, Time and Sports Illustrated, they're raising the likelihood that they will remain available & unmutilated for all. But you don't need to carry that attitude to Usenet News. Someone can't cut a picture out of alt.sex.pictures and destroy an article in rec.boating on the next page. Someone can't steal a months postings to alt.drugs and thereby deny everyone from reading alt.personals. Netnews isn't printed material and needn't be treated as such, although it must be protected just as vehemently. And it must be distributed with as much privacy to the reader as is possible. The idea of 'filling out a form to gain full access' frightens me. Does this mean the university is maintaining a file of 'drug abusing perverts'? How McCarthyist! No, I don't believe the university can absolutely guarantee complete privacy of such files. Whenever information is collected, there is the danger of it being misused.To predict the most absurd case, imagine if, someday, a graduate of ISU is up for a high-level government position. For example, as a Supreme Court Justice... ..."Sir, We have evidence that you, while a sophmore in college, read alt.sex.anal.unlubricated. Do you deny this?" ..." uhhhhhhhh..........." That could be a lot more damaging than a pubic hair on a can of coke, and probably just as irrelevant. But seriously, this sort of information can be subpoened, illicitly given to potential employers, or otherwise distributed. The policy needs to be reassessed. The Computation Center, as a university organization, must follow a policy of universal access. Instead of subjecting everyone to censorship because of a few people's discontent, everyone should get full access unless they decide otherwise. The policy should be similar to the following: o All users may read a full feed from the server. o Those who feel they don't want the offensive groups should fill out a form that will set them up for the 'standard feed'. o employers reserve the right to set up the focused feed for their employees on their machines. (after all, the employers are paying their employees to work, not read news...) The students and faculty affected need to fight against this censorship. Perhaps someone could set up an alternate newsfeed, on the campus network but outside of the jurisdiction of the computation center. Anyone willing with a snappy enough unix box, and 300 meg hard drive, and an on campus address (ie ethernet) could do this easily enough. I have these resources myself, and I may take on this responsibility if I have the time and backing. Perhaps someone should start an organization called the Association Letting The Students Experience X (X=Anything) [or ALTSEX for short], that would work to promote free and private electronic discourse for all students. Otherwise, someone could take it upon him/herself to consistantly repost all the articles on the 'forbidden groups' to another group, like isu.talk.computer-fee, or alt.censorship with an ISU-only distributution. Or to encourage all posters to the 'forbidden groups' to crosspost to isu.test Some people might say that this is against the ISU Code of Computer Ethics (a rather unenforcably vague document). But, as Martin Luther King jr. wrote: ... there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all." Otherwise, if the students and faculty just sit back and allow peer groups to pressure the university into surpressing information, than the slide into censorship will continue. What's after alt.sex & alt.drugs? alt.rock-n-roll? alt.beer? alt.atheism? comp.org.eff.talk? At what point will netnews become useless fluff, an electronic People Magazine? We've all grown up and it's time to challenge the beliefs of our mother, father and Big Brother. Does ISU trust itself and its students so little that it can't bring itself to promote free and private expression? A netnews-like system promises to become the information sourse ot the next generation. We teeter on the brink of the information age. ISU, don't stain it with the filth of censorship. Don't become the guradians of my morality, for the bandits of free-thought have already taken up residence and there's nothing left to guard. Article 638 of isu.cc.general: From d15.2 Sun Feb 23 14:29:00 1992 From dec_15_1991 Sun Feb 23 11:45:13 1992 From cafnews Fri Dec 13 16:15:02 1991 From: shenoy@iastate.edu (Shivanand Shenoy) Subject: Re: New Usenet News Policy on 1/6/92 Message-ID: Sender: news@news.iastate.edu (USENET News System) References: <1991Dec14.011244.14246@news.iastate.edu> <1991Dec14.231933.10786@news.iastate.edu> Distribution: isu Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1991 03:58:11 GMT In viking@iastate.edu (Daniel R Sorenson) writes: > Idea #2 consists of merely asking if there is a less restrictive >way to do this. For example, the proposition looks to be one that >is machine-specific. Is there any easy way to make it account-specific? Unfortunately the Comp. Center does not have the technology to do this at present. If you would volunteer to produce software to make this possible, I am sure they would be more than glad to accomodate you. The only reason (logical?) this is being done is to transfer the responsibility ( of all kinds) from the provider to the reader. Maybe this was not made clear in the postings, but it was clearly mentioned to me by the Director of the Comp. Center. This does not necessarily mean I agree with it, but it does make sense. Since this is possible on Wylbur, (you can get a account) I don't see how rights are infringed. You just have to go through some extra trouble. Shiva Shenoy (GSS representative to the Comp. Adv. Committee) -- Shiva Shenoy | e-mail: shenoy@iastate.edu 2066 Black, | Office: (515)-294-0082 Dept. of Aero. Engg. & Engg. Mechanics | Home : (515)-296-7640 Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50010 | Article 636 of isu.cc.general: From d15.2 Sun Feb 23 14:29:00 1992 From dec_15_1991 Sun Feb 23 11:51:04 1992 From cafnews Fri Dec 13 16:15:02 1991 From: john@iastate.edu (John Hascall) Subject: What to do about the new Newsgroup Censorship Policy at ISU Message-ID: <1991Dec15.163311.4917@news.iastate.edu> Originator: john@vincent1.iastate.edu Sender: news@news.iastate.edu (USENET News System) Distribution: na Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1991 16:33:11 GMT DISCLAIMER: This posting is from John Hascall, private citizen, and any opinions contained within are solely those of the author and are not the official position of his employer or any committee on which he serves. If you have a opinion on the new policy, speak up! Encourage others to speak up! The policy definitely will not change if you sit there like sheep. Here are some facts not mentioned in the posting about the policy. 1) The policy was not developed by the Comp Ctr committee which developed the original "open learning environment" policy. 2) The policy was brought to the Comp Ctr Newsgroup committee who did not approve it. 3) The policy was brought to the University Computation Advisory Committee (Computation Center Advisory Sub-Committee) who did not approve it. In addition to posting news, here are some people to write to express your opinion on this matter. Richard Seagrave Acting Director, Comp Ctr 291 Durham Ctr George Covert Associate Director, Comp Ctr 291 Durham Ctr David Hopper Chair, University Computation Advisory Cmte Vet Diag Lab, 1541 Vet Med Bob Boston Chair, UCAC (Comp Ctr Advisory Sub-Cmte) English, 353 Ross Patrica Swan Interim Provost 107 Beardshear John Hascall -------------------- -- Helen C. O'Boyle | Co-moderator, Computers and Academic Freedom list helen@eff.org | << insert usual disclaimer here... my opinions isy5hob@cabell.vcu.edu | are mine alone, not EFF's or VCU's, etc. >> From d15.2 Sun Feb 23 14:29:08 1992 From del3.3 Sun Feb 23 12:00:38 1992 From cafnews Fri Dec 13 16:15:02 1991 From: fischer@iesd.auc.dk (Lars P. Fischer) Subject: Re: The USENET pornographic network Message-ID: Date: 10 Dec 91 15:45:55 GMT >>>>> "Eric" == J Eric Townsend (jet@karazm.math.uh.edu) >> The german version of EMMA has published in its current issue >> an article about the USENET, an academic network used mainly >> for transmission of pornographic material. Eric> Go look at the stats in the news.* groups. alt.sex.* is up at the top. Eric> Yes Virginia, a big chunk of USENET's users read the alt.sex.* hierarchy. Eric> That's a simple fact, not a moral judgement. group readers % of all newsreaders ------------------------------------------------------------------------ alt.sex 210000 12.7% rec.arts.erotica 140000 8.7% alt.sex.bondage 99000 6.1% alt.sex.pictures 93000 5.7% alt.binaries.pictures.erotica 72000 4.4% alt.sex.movies 61000 3.8% alt.sex.pictures.d 53000 3.2% alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.d 51000 3.1% alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.female 42000 2.6% alt.sex.pictures.female 33000 2.0% alt.sex.motss 31000 1.9% alt.sex.masturbation 11000 0.7% alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.male 11000 0.7% alt.sex.wanted 8200 0.5% Yes, Eric, that's a lot of people, but it hardly justifies saying that USENET is "used mainly for transmission of pornographic material". Well, we might look at volume instead. Totalling the traffic for the above groups (ignoring crossposting for now), we get 51031.4 kbyte/month. Doing the same for all groups, we get 747191 kbyte/month, i.e. the sex groups constitutes 6.83% of the traffic. So, we ignored crossposting above. According to the UUNET traffic totals, there is currently (Nov) 22330.362 kbytes/day or 669910.86 kbytes/month, i.e. we overestimated the traffic by 11% by ignoring crossposting. For the sex groups, crossposting varies, with alt.sex.bondage at 1%, alt.binaries.pictures.erotica at 12%, alt.sex at 23% and alt.sex.pictures at a whopping 54%. This means that we lack precision, but not fatally so. Lots of boring numbers, right? The point is, I guess, that, yes, there *is* pornographic material on the USENET, and, yes, some USENET readers follow these groups, but, no, it is *not* the majority that follow these groups, and, no, it is not the major part of the traffic. Now back to out usual flaming. I hope a few facts didn't ruin your day. /Lars -- Lars Fischer, fischer@iesd.auc.dk | It takes an uncommon mind to think of CS Dept., Univ. of Aalborg, DENMARK. | these things. -- Calvin ------------------- From d15.2 Sun Feb 23 14:29:08 1992 From dec_15_1991 Sun Feb 23 11:19:26 1992 From cafnews Fri Dec 13 16:15:02 1991 From: CCC_KEIL@rzmain.rz.uni-ulm.de (Christa Keil) Subject: Re: The USENET pornographic network (rough translation) Message-ID: <1991Dec11.011316.7019@wega.rz.uni-ulm.de> Date: 11 Dec 91 01:13:16 GMT Article-I.D.: wega.1991Dec11.011316.7019 References: <1991Dec06.082334.28184@tpki.toppoint.de> <1991Dec10.161446.15693@ms.uky.edu> Sender: news@wega.rz.uni-ulm.de (News Net) In-Reply-To: morgan@ms.uky.edu's message of 10 Dec 91 16:14:46 GMT X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.12 In <1991Dec10.161446.15693@ms.uky.edu> morgan@ms.uky.edu writes: > urlichs@smurf.sub.org (Matthias Urlichs) writes: > >Reactions so far: One TV network showed interest. One university has turned > >off alt.sex.* as well as some other "offensive" newsgroups, like sci.military. > > I can understand some offense being taken at alt.sex.*, but sci.military? Hmm, I would understand it, if someone would take offense against alt.sex.pictures.* or alt.binaries.pictures.*, but it is absolut nonsence to try to forbidde people to talk about sex and sexuality. And I am pretty sure, that the newsadmin at the University of Stuttgart did not read a single word in sci.military, otherwise, she had not turned off this group. That happend just because she 'tried' to think, but obvisualy she was VERY wrong. -- Christa Keil--Umv001@Dbnmeb1.bitnet--zotty@dobag.in-berlin.de--zotty@guug.de ------------------- From d15.2 Sun Feb 23 14:29:17 1992 From cafnews Fri Dec 13 16:15:02 1991 From: steiner@uoftcse.cse.utoledo.edu (Jason Steiner) Message-ID: <1991Dec8.155639.5510@uoft02.utoledo.edu> Subject: Re: Gaming Date: 8 Dec 91 15:56:39 EST it's really not that difficult to handle mudding/irc/gaming in university computer labs. i'm an avid mudder & a computer consultant here at u of toledo & we have very few problems with it. first - the administration generally takes a kindly (or at least tolerant view of gamers. one of the profs has even taken the time to install some games (nethack, hunt, etc) on his own hd space. second - we've got priorities: games are generally allowed unless there are more important uses for the machines, i.e. papers. third - things are even better in my case 'cause i have my own computer & phone line which i use for data exclusively. basically it comes down to mutual respect: if the admins actually support gaming the gamers will understand that when they are asked to get f it's not just because some ogre wants to spoil their fun & comply. likewise, if gamers respect academic uses of computer systems the admin is much more likely to leave them be when resources -are- available. and you can avoid this almost completely (except for the issue of nettraffic) by staying out of the labs altogether. intolerance in general is just -no fun- & causes a lot more problems than just leaving things be. being a dictator or a rebel takes too much work. it certainly isn't constructive. just my $2.00, van ------------------- From d15.2 Sun Feb 23 14:29:17 1992 From dec_15_1991 Sun Feb 23 10:59:27 1992 From cafnews Fri Dec 13 16:15:02 1991 From: bav@hobbes.ksu.ksu.edu (Brick Verser) Subject: Network utilization by MUD players (was Re: Gaming) Date: 9 Dec 91 09:41:57 GMT Message-ID: In article <1991Dec06.180003.10985@groucho> djanson@doc.ee.uidaho.edu (David Janson) writes: >If anyone has any hard figures on this subject, I'd appreciate looking at them. I ran NNSTAT here on Thursday, Nov 21, 6am to 6pm. We have a policy which supposedly prohibits MUD playing between 8am and midnight on school days, so there shouldn't have been too much MUD activity. But MUD turned out to be the number 4 application behind BITNET, NETNEWS, and FTP. It outpaced ordinary TELNET and SMTP that day (dunno how representative that Thursday was). MUD ports represented about 6% of the total traffic, or about 32 megabytes in those 12 hours (740 bytes/sec). I did the same test running from Friday night about 10pm to Monday about 3am (3171 minutes) and MUD was the single biggest application. MUD was about 30% of our total while FTP, NETNEWS, and BITNET were each about 15%. The total MUD traffic was about 460 megabytes (in 190K seconds is 2400 bytes per second). 30 minutes peaks were much higher than average, but still only a tiny bump for a T1 connection. We have no servers here, so all of the MUD traffic represents our folks playing the game on distant machines. So, while MUD playing here isn't a problem for our T1 connection, it could be troublesome to a site with a 56KB connection. Indeed, before we upgraded our Internet link about a year ago, the MUD players were requesting we enhance the 56KB connection we had at the time; seems interactive response time wasn't really good enough for real-time MUD battles. --Brick ------------------- From d15.2 Sun Feb 23 14:29:17 1992 From dec_15_1991 Sun Feb 23 10:59:27 1992 From cafnews Fri Dec 13 16:15:02 1991 From: otto@fsu1.cc.fsu.edu (John G. Otto) Subject: Re: [comp.admin.policy, et al.] Re: Gaming Message-ID: <1991Dec10.144304.2037@mailer.cc.fsu.edu> Date: 10 Dec 91 19:43:04 GMT References: <9112081803.AA26294@m.cs.uiuc.edu> Sender: otto@fsu1.cc.fsu.edu News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.3-4 > In article <9112081803.AA26294@m.cs.uiuc.edu>, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) writes... > From: garvey@skybridge.SCL.CWRU.Edu (Heather Garvey) > Newsgroups: comp.admin.policy,rec.games.mud > Subject: Re: Gaming > Message-ID: <1991Dec8.044336.18614@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> > Date: 8 Dec 1991 04:43:36 GMT >> kadie@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) writes: >> As a counterexample, a tennis class cannot kick a recreational player >> off the courts at IMPE, the intermural physical education building. > Wow. Here you can. There is a priority list on the fence stating > the order of precedence. Starting with Varsity (during practice times), > classes (during class times), on down to people-not-even-connected-with- > the-Univ. > The general rule at labs here seems to be: You can do anything you > want, even to the point of just sitting there and watching the screen > saver make pretty designs *as*long*as*no*one*is*waiting*for*a*machine. > You have obviously never had to get a paper typed up for a class in an > hour only to find the lab packed, a huge line, and your paper will be late > because some person is playing a game. Would you allow someone to just sit > there and stare at the screen saver with a huge line waitng? Under your > "we must have freedom absolutely" attitude, you would have to let them > sit there, taking up a machine. They have a valid purpose in starting at > it, just as I would have a valid purpose in playing a MUD. The question is > whether or not printing/writing a paper for a class is more important when > it comes to "I'd-sell-my-grandmother-for-a-machine" capacity in a Univ. > computing lab. Hey! I've got this great idea! There's a scheme that's worked out well for millennia. When you've got a scarce resource, develop a system for assigning property rights and allow free trade. In other words, put a slot for quarters (or FeRNs or credit cards) next to the micro or terminal and start charging people directly for access time. If someone wants to spend megabucks to play a MUD then, it's no problem. Take the money he pays and use it to expand the facilities, providing more terminals and micros for academics and gamers alike. So, tell me. What condition is this "grandmother" in? Hmmm? B-)}...jgo John G. Otto otto@fsu1.cc.fsu.edu ------------------- From d15.2 Sun Feb 23 14:29:26 1992 From dec_15_1991 Sun Feb 23 10:59:27 1992 From cafnews Fri Dec 13 16:15:02 1991 From: otto@fsu1.cc.fsu.edu (John G. Otto) Subject: Re: [comp.org.eff.talk] Re: Finger & Liberty Message-ID: <1991Dec10.125232.28052@mailer.cc.fsu.edu> Date: 10 Dec 91 17:52:32 GMT References: <9112061626.AA31346@m.cs.uiuc.edu> Followup-To: alt.privacy News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.3-4 > In article <9112061626.AA31346@m.cs.uiuc.edu>, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) writes... > From: tk0jut1@mp.cs.niu.edu (jim thomas) > Date: Fri, 6 Dec 1991 04:11:10 GMT >> In article <199112040654.AA19419@eff.org> IZZYCY1@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU (The Jester) writes: >> The bottom line is that privacy is a right, not a privledge.> >> The Jester > Yes, there should be limits what information is involuntarily released. Right! None. > But why should such basic information as address and name and office > number of a university-owned account be concealed? Would you also > say that one's office phone and room number be removed from a first-floor > building directory? Because of disagreement about what is "basic [therefore exempt from decorum] information". Yes. One should be asked for one's preference. > Revelation of basic information does not necessarily violate privacy. > Concealing *all* information pushes us into paranoid secrecy. > Jim Thomas Revelation of any information without the originator/owner's permission is a violation of his privacy. Revealing information without such permission pushes us into tyranny (not to mention psychotic exhibitionism Yes! Right here! Welcome to Ad Hominem's Psycho-Babble Wars! B-). Talk to ten people about this and you'll not get ten answers the same regarding what is the default, what one should be able to expect. One person may think it's fine to have a complete bio with his last 5 publications on that directory, pictures of the family, home address, phone number, beeper number, etc. Another will prefer not to have random passersby know so much as his name. Both are reasonable people, displaying the variety of values people have because we are all the same... in that we are all different. Those who make assumptions about what others should prefer are the ones in error...jgo John G. Otto otto@fsu1.cc.fsu.edu -------------------