Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.news Subject: Computers and Academic Freedom News 02.10 (Digest) Approved: kadie@eff.org Computers and Academic Freedom News Vol. 02, No. 10 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: joslin@tso.uc.edu (Paul Joslin) Subject: Article 0 -- Abstract of CAF-News 02.10 [Week ending March 1, 1992 ========================== KEY ================================ The words after the numbers are a short PARAPHRASES of the articles, NOT AN OBJECTIVE SUMMARY and not necessarily my opinion. =============================================================== Note 1 concerns the limits a university may place on free speech. 1. According to a short item in the Chicago Tribune, some at the University of Wisconsin want to draft new, narrower "hate speech" rule to replace the rule that was struck down by the district federal court. The author of the original restrictions says that he isn't sure the rule is needed anymore. <1992Feb26.165417.12215@eff.org> Note 2 suggests that obscenity is in the eye of the beholder. 2. (A user:) If anything is obscene, surely it is discussing new ways of systemically killing people. Why do people who are not troubled by that get so upset at groups which discuss new ways of finding pleasure? <1992Feb26.232807.4485@nntp.hut.fi> Note 3 discusses arguments presented to justify a Swiss Network's decision not to carry certain newsgroups. 3. What article of law allows someone to file a lawsuit against the network if it is carrying material they do not like? If such a law exists, does it apply equally to email? If the network does censor newsgroups, does that imply that it fully supports the information in the remaining newsgroups? <1992Feb24.173533@lglsun.epfl.ch> Note 4 discusses a student who created an "alt" newsgroup. The news administrator on the machine he uses claims the user forged the message creating the group, and refuses to carry the group. 4. "Since you put your name on the post it wasn't a forgery, but your news admin is still free to consider it an improper newgroup." <1992Feb28.100229.27960@ms.uky.edu> Note 5 discusses the history of altnet, the set of "alt" groups. 5. The alt groups were created outside of the USENET guidelines and propagated by alternate uucp links. One force for change was an attempt to carry a political group in a technical forum because that forum was better distributed. Another was that some system administrators would not carry certain newsgroups no matter what the name. <3198@ecicrl.ocunix.on.ca> Note 6 suggests that informing anyone who will listen about the true nature of controversial news groups may forestall future problems. 6. (An administrator:) If a reporter or legislator asks about the net, I tell them about the huge variety of newsgroups from the scientific and technical to those discussing controversial issues. "I've never had a bad reaction to this presentation..." <11169@ns-mx.uiowa.edu> Note 7 reacts to a proposed policy on calculator use during exams. 7. The proposed policy raises due process concerns. I have a simpler solution: I do not allow the use of such devices. "The reasoning is simple: Programmers should be proficient, personally, in computation." Notes 8 and 9 concern a system administrator's policy of acting quickly in case of rules violations. Often a student's account is restricted before the student is notified of the violation. 8. (A student:) On a Friday afternoon I discovered all my accounts at the University Of Aston in Birmingham, England had been disabled. I was told that something I was running was congesting the network. To sort things out I needed to meet with the head of the department, by appointment, on the following Tuesday. <1992Feb26.192151.6435@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> 9. This happens at Berkeley every so often. Usually, the student can get his account back by talking to the system administrator. I sympathize with the administrator, but it would not occur to the university to lock a student out of his/her dorm without prior warning. Note 10 rebuts the claim that students have little cause for complaint if an administrator restricts a student's account for non-academic uses. 10. (A student:) I pay extra money for my account. Suppose I rent a car. I take it for a ride in the country. Does the rental company have a right to disable the car, and leave a note saying, "Your engine has been taken out and the locks on the doors have been changed since you went for a ride in the country that was totally unrelated to the business in which you rented this car." No good comes from system administrators being harsh to their users. Notes 11 and 12 discuss liability for the electronic transmittal of information. Specifically, abortion information may not be distributed in Ireland. 11. (A discussion of the incident in which a pregnant 14 year-old girl was not permitted to leave the country to seek an abortion in England.) "The computer/censorship issue related to the fact that only crosspostings to the group _talk.abortion_ appear here." If a posting to such a group had information on how to procure an abortion, are we any more liable than a library with an English telephone directory which has the phone number of an abortion clinic? <1992Feb24.222848.12187@maths.tcd.ie> 12. In fact, you can get the banned information by calling Northern Ireland, or Boston, Massachusetts. Are they going to prosecute the Irish PTT, or British Telecom, or Ma Bell? <1992Feb26.165136.9723@wetware.com> - Paul] In this issue: Carl M. Kadie 26 "University of Wisconsin rewirtes 'hate speech' rule Jyrki Kuoppala 23 banning sci.military Magnus Kempe 69 Control by SWITCH Kenneth Herron 58 >Help! "Forged" newsgroups in alt.*! Chris Lewis 87 >History of "alt" groups Douglas W Jones 2 >Mass media discovering nets Brinton Cooper 36 >Proposal for policy on ca<> during exams (Bezenek 13.16) Mark Evans 17 Sys-admins shooting first Brian Harvey 43 > Tig Stone 59 >Telnet Censorship. Paul Moloney 59 REPOST: The Irish Abortion Controversy drieux 44 >The Irish Abortion Information Question 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) Associate Editor: Adam C. Gross (ag3j+@andrew.cmu.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, Adam C. Gross, 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 caf-talk Caf Feb 26 00:00:00 1992 Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,alt.censorship,alt.correct From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie) Subject: Article 1--"University of Wisconsin rewirtes 'hate speech' rule Message-ID: <1992Feb26.165417.12215@eff.org> Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1992 16:54:17 GMT [A short item from the Chicago Tribune, Feb 25, 1992, section 1, p. 4] MADISON - The University of Wisconsin System is resurrecting a "hate speech" rule that was struck down as unconstitutional by a federal judge last year. UW-Madison Law Professor Ted Finman said he has redrafted the rule to sidestep October's court division that it was unconstitutionally broad. The redraft says students may be punished for using racial, sexual or age-related epithets -- defined as a word, phrase or symbol that " would make the educational environment hostile or threatening" and would "tend to provoke an immediate violent response when addressed directly to a person of average sensibility." Before the rule can be adopted, it must gain approval from the various UW campuses and then win approval of the UW Board of Regents. Law Prof. Gordon Baldwin, who helped draft the original hate speech rule, said he isn't sure the rule is needed because students are more sensitive about racial and sexual remarks. The original rule, drafted in 1987, followed a "mock slave auction" by a campus fraternity. Its redraft was requested by the UW-Madison faculty after the court ruling is U.S. District Court. -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me. =kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu, or (anonymous) ap.3619@layout.berkeley.edu= ------------------------------ From caf-talk Caf Feb 27 00:00:00 1992 From: jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Article 2--banning sci.military Message-ID: <1992Feb26.232807.4485@nntp.hut.fi> Date: 26 Feb 92 23:28:07 GMT In article , shiva@pro-smof (System Smof) writes: >I'm kind of shocked that the Univerity of Stuttgart banned sci.military as >offensive; being an Army Brat, I've always found that newsgroup to be >pretty interesting. Was it because nasty things about Germany and WWII were >said there? Nasty but true, that is? I've never read sci.military so I can't really say what's being discussed there but if anything at all on Usenet or human life in general is offensive and obscene to the human spirit it must be figuring out new ways of systematically killing people, making people suffer and promoting the investing of valuable human resources to planning these destructive acts. I don't accept censorship on sci.military or any other group, but it truly shows how sick human culture is that many people think that discussing ways of finding pleasure as in alt.sex or alt.drugs is offensive while at the same time they find nothing wrong with planning new and better ways of deliberately destroying human lifes and causing suffering. //Jyrki ------------------------------ From caf-talk Caf Feb 24 00:00:00 1992 From: magnus@lglsun.epfl.ch (Magnus Kempe) Newsgroups: ch.general,ch.network,epfl.general,news.admin,eunet.news,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk Subject: Article 3--Control by SWITCH Message-ID: <1992Feb24.173533@lglsun.epfl.ch> Date: 24 Feb 92 16:35:33 GMT In article <1992Feb24.085804.26201@chx400.switch.ch>, gilli@chx400.switch.ch (Peter Gilli) writes: : : SWITCH received legal advice that, if it - just like a book shop - stores : and freely redistributes information, it can be pursued if somebody (a : journalist, a women's right organisation, etc. - not SWITCH !) does not : like the contents and files a lawsuit, claiming that information distri- : buted by SWITCH is in violation with legal regulations. 1. Please indicate the _exact_ article of Swiss law that allows someone to sue a bookshop for carrying intellectual material that this someone "does not like". (Note that bookshops rarely "freely redistribute information".) 2. If you can answer 1., please indicate how adult discussions of human hetero- and homosexuality, of gun control, and newspaper news are open to such legal attacks. How do you judge whether someone may "not like" some newsgroup? Whose standard of morality have you chosen as a yardstick? Why? 3. SWITCH does not "freely redistribute information". SWITCH is paid by the Swiss universities and technical institutes to provide them with network services. No free lunch here. Anyway maybe "free distribution" is not an issue in the article of law you are going to refer us to? 4. If SWITCH is legally responsible (remember, you still have to prove 1.) for the intellectual material it redistributes, please explain what difference there is between e-mail and news. Do you intend to filter all e-mail and throw away whatever someone may "not like"? Again, who is going to read and judge the messages? According to what standard? Is that part of the charter for SWITCH? Are you already monitoring e-mail, in anticipation of future action? And how do you relate your assertions with the activities of the Postal Services and Telephone Companies? Are they liable for the intellectual contents of the letters and phone calls they are "redistributing"? 5. If SWITCH filters away some newsgroups (assuming you have shown these were somehow illegal), does that imply that SWITCH fully supports and takes responsibility for the material that appears in the remaining newsgroups? Do you intend to monitor every single news article? Is that part of the charter for SWITCH? : it was not at all a tentative to exerce censorship - what a ridiculous idea! Unless you show that your proposal is truly motivated by risks of legal harassment, it is absolutely justified to consider that you have merely, capriciously attempted to prevent people from reading and/or writing on topics such as: human sexuality, guns, and newspaper news. It is true that it is not censorship, as you are not part of the government, although _all_ of your money comes from the state. It is quite unfortunate that SWITCH was set up as a foundation, as it allows you to take actions which are constitutionally forbidden to the state. This is a loophole; but you don't have to dive into it, do you? : The classification of news-groups into categories presently being dis- : cussed is _one_ proposal to handle this problem - there are many other : possibilities to handle this problem if this proposal is rejected. What do you _mean_? Are you going to look for other ways to control what people may read and/or write? E.g., are you going to track and prevent all NNTP connections? -- Magnus Kempe "I have sworn ... eternal hostility to every form of magnus@lglsun.epfl.ch tyranny over the mind of man." -- Thomas Jefferson ------------------------------ From caf-talk Caf Feb 29 00:00:00 1992 Newsgroups: alt.config,news.admin From: kherron@ms.uky.edu (Kenneth Herron) Subject: Article 4--Re: Help! "Forged" newsgroups in alt.*! Message-ID: <1992Feb28.100229.27960@ms.uky.edu> Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1992 15:02:29 GMT pfalstad@phoenix.princeton.edu (Paul Falstad) writes: >My local sysadmins are all up in arms >because I created an alt.* group, specifically "alt.folklore.college". >As far as I can tell, it was a valid creation according to the principles >of USENET. Just to pick a nit, alt isn't part of usenet, but rather a different hierarchy which uses the same distribution methods. The group was created according to the principles of "altnet". >It was discussed in alt.config, there were no objections, there >were many voices calling for the group. ...I created the group with my >name & email address on the control message. The group is now quite >active with seemingly valid discussion. ...Spaf put it on his list. I >got a total of _one_ complaint about it, from a newsadmin at another site, >who hadn't read alt.config lately... >But no, apparently it was a "forgery". My local newsadmin sent me mail >(I won't quote it as I don't have his permission) claiming that any >group whose control message was forged is bogus, period. My creation >message was forged, so the group is bogus. Doesn't matter how many people >like the group. A forged control message, apparently, is any control message >that wasn't done with inews. Newsgroup creation, by usenet custom and >by software design, is the job of the news administrator. Gene may not >have known that the group was "forged" when he put it on his list. Forgery is a legal term with a specific meaning. Since you put your name on the post it wasn't a forgery, but your news admin is still free to consider it an improper newgroup. It sounds like he's a bit peeved that one of his users issued a newgroup without consulting him, but it's up to him how news runs at your site. There's no stigma attached to carrying or not carrying a particular alt group, and certainly none of us are in a position to tell him what to do. Gene Spafford's list of alt groups should not be considered canon; I believe it even says so. >Basically, he won't carry "alt.folklore.college" here at Princeton, so I'll >have to read the group at other sites. "alt.gorets" and "alt.usenet.recovery" >were added, no questions asked. To me, this seems inconsistent, and >contradictory to the spirit of Usenet. What's the net thinking on this? I sympathize with you, but if he doesn't want to carry the group that's his business. I imagine some of my users might feel the same about the groups I've refused to carry (not that I would know about it; none of my users ever complain about anything. I guess I'm doing something right :-). Perhaps it would help if you apologized for creating the group without telling him, and promised not to do it again? -- Kenneth Herron kherron@ms.uky.edu University of Kentucky +1 606 257 2975 Department of Mathematics "You don't carve 'ARGH,' you just say it!" "Perhaps he was dictating?" ------------------------------ From caf-talk Caf Feb 27 00:00:00 1992 From: clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Chris Lewis) Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,news.misc Subject: Article 5--Re: History of "alt" groups Message-ID: <3198@ecicrl.ocunix.on.ca> Date: 27 Feb 92 04:32:24 GMT In article <1992Feb24.004705.10339@mtholyoke.edu> jbotz@mtholyoke.edu (Jurgen Botz) writes: |In article <1992Feb22.214243.14848@m.cs.uiuc.edu> kadie@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) writes: |>The Iowa State University Netnews policy asserts this bit of history: |>'The use of Usenet to discuss a wide variety of issues has grown over |>the years. While the "purely technical" newsgroups still exist, |>Usenet also includes general discussion on almost anything, including |>such topics as aspects of sexual lifestyles, illegal drugs, and racist |>humor. The collective group of Usenet "news administrators" early on |>decided to address this area by creating an "alt" group division for |>"alternate" selections. This group can be handled as each site |>chooses.' |>Was this really the original motivation of the "alt" groups? If so, is |>this history relevent to today's use of "alt" groups (alt.censorship, |>alt.civil-liberty, etc.)? |Not exactly as I understand it. The alt hierarchy was created by a couple |of users in response to 'censorship' by the now forgotten 'backbone cabal'. |I'm new to USENET myself, but there are some histories around... you might |want to browse through news.answers for them. Apparently there was a time |where practically all news passed through a few large academic sites, which |were considered the 'backbone'. The administrators of these backbone sites |thus had the power to control news flow almost entirely, and legend goes |that it came to a show-down where they (or some of them) refused to |propagate certain groups (I forget which) despite the fact that they had |passed accepted USENET group creation guidelines. At that point some |people took the matter in their own hands and created the alt hierarchy, |which then was not only an alternate hierarchy, but was also propagated |via alternate uucp links, bypassing the backbone sites. Later the wide |use of NNTP and the increasing influence of UUNET caused the 'backbone' |to fade into history, and while today UUNET _could_ be considered a kind |of backbone all by itself, if it suddenly went away they USENET would very |quickly be able to reconfigure and carry on without it (excepting those |sites for whom a feed from UUNET is the only option for whatever reason). The showdown you're referring to I think is really the thing that broke the "backbone cabal" (more accurately, the "backbone" mailing list subscribers, where "backbone" were those 30 or so sites with very large impact on connectivity - not just academic). "comp.women" passed a vote inspite of the fact that many major SA's believed the name to be a blatant attempt to carry a non-technical and political group in comp simply because of increased distribution and flatly refused to carry it. Apparently the arguments got quite violent even within the mailing list, and the backbone group broke up. Though, at about that time increased connectivity was making "backbone" more and more irrelevant. Earlier, back in the days of the "Great Renaming", the people trying to come up with the repartitioning of the "mod." and "net." groups into the "big seven" hierarchies of today had a problem figuring out how to place "news.flame" and "net.bizarre" and probably a few others. They were considered to be just plain garbage, and many hoped that they would simply disappear. Lots of grumbling and some screaming, with the group designing the partition refusing to place these groups. Then a few people started complaining about how onerous the new newsgroup voting procedures were going to be, and they decided to create their own playpen to mess up as they please. A mess it certainly is. The drugs group is a special case. Too many SA's stood up and said that they wouldn't carry it under any name, no matter what a vote said. Though I think it predates the current voting procedure. Ditto, more or less, alt.sex. Other major kafuffles, eg: comp.protocols.tcp.pc.eniac (or whatever it was) or sci.aquaria generated much heat, but had relatively little long-term effect. (Other than you don't see their proponents around that much anymore.) It was a long time ago. I've blissfully forgotten most of the details. The prevalence of such groups as "censorship", "civil-liberty", "acad-freedom" and the like in alt is because the people who tend to want to create such groups think that having to vote for a news group is fascist. -- Chris Lewis; clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca; Phone: Canada 613 832-0541 Psroff 3.0 info: psroff-request@ferret.ocunix.on.ca Ferret list: ferret-request@ferret.ocunix.on.ca ------------------------------ From caf-talk Caf Feb 28 00:00:00 1992 From: jones@pyrite.cs.uiowa.edu (Douglas W. Jones,201H MLH,3193350740,3193382879) Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk Subject: Article 6--Re: Mass media discovering nets Message-ID: <11169@ns-mx.uiowa.edu> Date: 28 Feb 92 17:44:18 GMT ------------------------------ From caf-talk Caf Feb 28 00:00:00 1992 Date: Tue, 25 Feb 92 9:12:19 EST From: Brinton Cooper Subject: Article 7--Re: Proposal for policy on calculator use during exams (Bezenek 13.16) Message-ID: Todd M. Bezenek KO0N communicates his proposed policy regarding the use of calculators on closed note university exams. In brief, he would take possession of a device which he (the proctor) believes to have been used to violate the intent of closed-note examinations. He would have a faculty member judge whether the calculating machine and its memory content provided an illegal aid to the test-taking student. I guess he never heard of "due process." If you try that in universities supported by public funds, you run the risk of being sued by the student. His procedure sets up a couple of faculty as a "kangaroo court" (what does that mean, anyhow?) to judge whether a student cheated. High-tech times may call for low-tech solutions. I simply do not permit the use of calculating devices on Computer Science examinations and quizzes. The reasoning is simple: Programmers should be proficient, personally, in computation. a. Having to work out a few numerical examples by hand can help budding programmers hone their ability to see more than one way to do a computation. b. Using this ability can provide "sanity checks" on their software. c. Programmers should be able to get the answer even when their batteries have run down. I fear that at least some of the human-induced software faults discussed so often in this forum can be traced to the lack of computational skill on the part of the programmer involved. _Brinton Cooper abc@brl.mil cooper@udel.edu ab.cooper@compmail.com ------------------------------ From caf-talk Caf Feb 26 00:00:00 1992 Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk From: mpevans@isis.cs.du.edu (Mark Evans) Subject: Article 8--Sys-admins shooting first Message-ID: <1992Feb26.192151.6435@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> Date: Wed, 26 Feb 92 19:21:51 GMT On Friday (21 Feb 92) afternoon I discovered that all my accounts on the computer system of University Of Aston in Birmingham, England (aston.ac.uk domain in internet). Had been disabled, on inquiring to mu departmental computer officer I was told that someting I had been running was congesting the network. In order to even begin sorting things out I need to see the head of dept ( appointment next tuesday, 3 March 1992) Prior to this I received no complaints in any form, e-mail, memo, phone call, personal complaint, fax or whatever. Despite the fact that anyone (on the Internet in fact) could find out these details by running finger. Looks like a case of paranoid people in charge! (who can't or won't talk to their users, maybe it's quicker to login and run passwd as root than to pick up the phone and dial a 4 digit number) ------------------------------ From caf-talk Caf Feb 26 00:00:00 1992 From: bh@anarres.Berkeley.EDU (Brian Harvey) Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk Subject: Article 9--Re: Sys-admins shooting first Message-ID: Date: 27 Feb 92 00:35:52 GMT morgan@ms.uky.edu (Wes Morgan) writes: >mpevans@isis.cs.du.edu (Mark Evans) writes: >>I discovered that all my accounts ... had been disabled, on inquiring ... >>I was told that someting I had been running was congesting >>the network. > >An important question, which you neglected to answer: > > What were you running? > >If I saw something that was slagging my network, I might very well take >immediate action........ I, too, am curious about what he was running. Still, it's one thing to take the "immediate action" of killing the offending process; a different thing to turn off [apparently] more than one computer account. Surely the latter wasn't urgent. This sort of thing happens all the time here at Berkeley, where I teach. Every so often a system administrator turns off some student's account in response to a complaint, prior to any due process determination. The student can generally get the account turned back on by talking with the administrator in question. I can see the administrators' point of view. They all have lots to do besides trying to track down students; turning off the account (with a login message saying where the student should go to get reinstated) makes the student find the administrator, which is easier since the administrator has an office and is usually in it. And yet it would never occur to the university to, for example, lock a student out of his/her dorm room without warning. I suppose the difference is that the university sees housing as a right, but computer accounts as a privilege -- even though the student needs the account to do the work in some course. I suppose I should be trying to get the university to establish a formal policy about this. (Actually I think there *is* a formal policy that takes effect at the next step, when the administrators have decided someone is a Bad Guy and should lose the account permanently. But I'm not sure.) ------------------------------ From caf-talk Caf Feb 29 00:00:00 1992 Newsgroups: alt.censorship From: s8759859@titan.ucc.umass.edu (Tig Stone) Subject: Article 10--Re: Telnet Censorship. Message-ID: Date: Sat, 29 Feb 1992 20:16:49 GMT In article <1992Feb29.025848.20812@anomaly.sbs.com> mpd@anomaly.sbs.com (Michael P. Deignan) writes: >bd671@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Christopher P. Harr) writes: >> Recently here at the Universtiy of Cincinnati, my home University >>we have had system administrators kill accounts of people who connected to >>port numbers whether it be IRC, MUD's MUSHES, MUSES etc. There are also people >>who lost their accounts for telnetting to certain foriegn hosts, even though >>they had permission to telnet there. >Good for them! Its about time students realize that the computer system is >for Academics and not for their personal leisure time. Buy an Atari 2600 if >you want leisure material. >MD >-- >-- Michael P. Deignan / >-- Domain: mpd@anomaly.sbs.com / I'm not a bigot, >-- UUCP: ...!uunet!rayssd!anomaly!mpd / I hate everyone. >-- Telebit: +1 401 455 0347 / I pay extra money for my account here at the University of Massachusetts. I can make an analogy between Mr. Deignan's praise for system administrators with the attitude "it's my system, I'll do whatever the hell I want with users" and a car. Say you have a car. A rental car. Now, the stipulation is that you have this car for 6 months, and you pay some flat rate for renting this car. Now, since you have this car for 6 whole months, you might put your tapes in it to listen to while you drive. You might even leave your briefcase in it while you're out of the car briefly. You take pride in "your" car, keeping the windows clean, you bring it to the car-wash, etc. You decide to take the car for a ride in the country to relax yourself. You make sure you take this ride isn't at any time that you would inconvenience "real" car owners. You make sure you drive on an out-of-the-way road. You drive home. The next morning, you wake up and you find a note on your windshield: "Your engine has been taken out and the locks on the doors have been changed since you went for a ride in the country that was totally unrelated to the business in which you rented this car." Or worse yet, the car is just plain gone, with no clue what happened. You have to schlep down to the car rental agency and have them tell you that they disapproved of your driving the car in the country, so they confiscated it. Couldn't you liken this to some system administrator cracking down on persons doing activities that s/he disapproves of by vaporizing the account without any kind of warning? It just seems to me that nothing good ever comes out of system administrators being so harsh to their users. Take the difference between the aforementioned site and MIT for instance. -- T. Stone (s8759859@titan.ucc.umass.edu) ------------------------------ From caf-talk Caf Feb 24 00:00:00 1992 From: pmoloney@maths.tcd.ie (Paul Moloney) Newsgroups: tcd.talk,soc.culture.celtic,talk.abortion,soc.women,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk Subject: Article 11--REPOST: The Irish Abortion Controversy Message-ID: <1992Feb24.222848.12187@maths.tcd.ie> Date: 24 Feb 92 22:28:48 GMT [Apologies if you've seen this already. It was cancelled at my site over the weekend, before most people would have had a chance to read it.] Hmm. Interesting times are here in Ireland at the moment, and an issue has come up which may well pose a question for those interested in the issues of censorship, and especially where in concerns the Net. As you may know, abortion is illegal in Ireland. The Eighth Amendment to the constitution in 1983 made it even more so, and also led the way to making the distribution of abortion information illegal. The Student Union of this college, Trinity, was brought to court by the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child and was prevented from distributing such information from its welfare section to women. Recently, a 14 year old girl has become pregnant as the result of an alleged rape. Unwittingly her parents told the police that they intended to bring her to England for an abortion. Said police felt they had no option but to follow up on this information, and as a result the Attorney General got an injunction preventing the girl from leaving country. The case hasn't left the headlines in the past week, and has become a rallying call for pro-choice campaigners and those concerned at the fact that this strident interpretation of the Eighth Amendment sees Ireland on the path to a totalitarian state. (A pointed cartoon in the _Irish Times_ depicted an Ireland surrounded by barbed wire, in the middle of which a little girl sits. The caption - "February 1992. Internment - for women".) Of course, people who called for and supported the amendment in '83 are now saying the whole thing is a set-up by liberals, that they didn't forsee this happening (despite repeated warnings at the time) and that "sure the mother should have known she shouldn't have told the police". In effect, most of them are now suggesting that people should break the law that they passed, which seems to me the worst kind of hypocrisy. That's the abortion issue. I'd love to hear comments on any aspect. The computer/censorship issue related to the fact that only crosspostings to the group _talk.abortion_ (which I hope this posting is getting through to) appear here. The relevant people are concerned that we could be breaking the law by allowing such postings to be read here, as they may have information in them on how to procure an abortion, e.g. a telephone number for an abortion clinic in England. My question is - are they leaving themselves open to prosecution? It seems to me that they cannot be seen to be "distributing" such information _per_ _se_; any more than libraries are by having English telephone directories, containing the numbers of clinics. Anyway, I'll leave the floor open. P. -- moorcockheathersiainbankshamandcornpizzapjorourkebluesbrothersspikeleepratchett clive P a u l M o l o n e y "Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the rem james Trinity College,Dublin PMOLONEY%MATHS.TCD.IE@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU mind." vr brownbladerunnerorsonscottcardprincewatchmenkatebushbatmanthekillingjoketolkien ------------------------------ From caf-talk Caf Feb 26 00:00:00 1992 Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,alt.censorship,talk.abortion,soc.culture.celtic From: drieux@wetware.com (drieux, just drieux) Subject: Article 12--Re: The Irish Abortion Information Question Message-ID: <1992Feb26.165136.9723@wetware.com> Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1992 16:51:36 GMT pmoloney@maths.tcd.ie (Paul Moloney) writes: ] ] My question is - are they leaving themselves open to prosecution? It seems to ] me that they cannot be seen to be "distributing" such information _per_ _se_; ] any more than libraries are by having English telephone directories, containing ] the numbers of clinics. well lets see what they do with international directory assistance calls... You do know that by dialing northern ireland you can ask for the much BANNED INFORMATION.... Which would be a most interesting question, would they haul in the IRISH alternative to the PTT or would they be able to go for the DEEP POCKETs of say British Telecom, or Ma Bell... for the one's silly enought to call boston and ask the question... And to risk all things dark and EVIL, If you get to Fishguard, across the water, and can not get information about decent facilities that provide abortons, let me say that you can find competent medical facilities in Haverfordwest, Dyfed Wales at withybush hospital... Where I know Members of the USN have been for such services... the USN presence in wales not being large enough to afford to bring along all their own medical services. Its a lovely town, and a pleasant place to spend a few days... and given as, in the main, the Irish were kind enough to warn our lads before bombing any pub we were in... I figure its the least we can do in return... Its a Shame to See Irish Law doing to fine irish lasses what you'd have only expected the english to do.... ciao drieux -- EOT No More Written InPut Why are you Looking Here? ------------------------------ End of Computers and Academic Freedom News (Digest) ************************************