Subject: Mats Wiklund -- a Reasonable Guy after all

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 15 Aug 95 0:36:29 EDT

Some weeks ago, when Marty Rimm's LTTE appeared in the Sunday P-G, I
polled fight-censorship to learn more about an earlier cyberporn study
by Swedish researcher Mats Wiklund.  Subscribers responded with dark
conjectures of conspiracy between Wiklund and the CoS.

Someone in a.r.s. finally managed to contact Wiklund, and posted their
exchanged messages.  Having read the appended transcript, I'd say
those base suspicions are groundless.  Further, Wiklund seems not to
have a censorious bone to pick with anyone.

 ----------
 From: [email-masked] (Tilman Hausherr)
 Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology,alt.privacy.anon-server
 Subject: e-mail with Mats Wiklund
 Date: Wed, 09 Aug 1995 05:28:44 GMT
 Organization: Xenu's Ranch

 A few days ago, a web address was posted, which contained the e-mail
 address of Mats Wiklund, which you may remember as the guy who made a
 "study" about porn on the net well before the Rimm job. At that time, I
 suspected him of working for the scientologists and also said so on the
 net. Since I got his address, I thought it would be just fair to get his
 opinion. Based on the exchange, I rather think that it was a coincidence
 - although one favorable for the scientologists. Also notice that he was
 quite nice, although my first e-mail was rather aggressive.

 The e-mail exchange is published with permission, as you'll see much
 later.

 -----

 Mats,

 You surely know that your "study" - what a coincidence - came up just
 when the cult of scientology had its problems with anon.penet.fi.

 So I ask you:
  - Are you a scientologist ?
  - Do you use techniques or methods developped by L. Ron Hubbard ?

 Who payed you for your "study"  ?

 Many people want to know.

 Tilman

 -----------

 Date: Mon, 7 Aug 95 16:38:07 MET DST
 From: Mats Wiklund <[email-masked]>
 To: [email-masked] (Tilman Hausherr)
 Subject: Re: you and the co$

 Hi!

 1) No, I am NOT a scientologist.

 2) I have no idea what techniques/methods L. Ron Hubbard has developed.
    I use no other techniques/methods than those of recognized science.

 3) I recieved no funding whatsoever for my study. I work as a lecturer
    here at the university of Stockholm, and work on my PhD on the side.

 I would like to add that I find the actions taken by the scientologists
 that forced the owner of a Finnish anonymity server to reveal the
 identity
 of a person who had critisized them (the scientologists) to be extremely
 wrong. The are trying to stop people from critisizing them - by not
 accepting a free debate they are in practice trying to stop free speech.
 I have nothing to do with these people.

 Kind regards

 Mats

 ------------

 >Hi!
 >
 >1) No, I am NOT a scientologist.
 >
 >2) I have no idea what techniques/methods L. Ron Hubbard has developed.
 >   I use no other techniques/methods than those of recognized science.

 Thanks for responding. The (2) is a trick question, because
 scientologists lie on (1), but never on (2).

 >
 >3) I recieved no funding whatsoever for my study. I work as a lecturer
 >   here at the university of Stockholm, and work on my PhD on the side.
 >
 >I would like to add that I find the actions taken by the scientologists
 >that forced the owner of a Finnish anonymity server to reveal the identity
 >of a person who had critisized them (the scientologists) to be extremely
 >wrong. The are trying to stop people from critisizing them - by not
 >accepting a free debate they are in practice trying to stop free speech.
 >I have nothing to do with these people.

 OK, glad to hear that. One more question, and after that, I'll try to
 leave you alone.

 The co$ is sometimes known to use a "double-blind" system, i.e. attack
 an ennemy thru a third person, who doesn't know about the scientologist
 connection. This third person (you) gets approached by someone who isn't
 a member, but who is hired to "do a job", and who choses the 3rd person
 himself. This way, there is no visible link. Do you think that might be
 such a possibility, I mean were you "approached" to specifically
 investigate anon.penet.fi, or was your study something that you had
 planned to do anyway ?

 BTW, am I allowed to use publish your e-mail replies, or do you prefer
 not ? I won't do it without your authorization.

 Tilman

 ---------

 Date: Mon, 7 Aug 95 22:11:44 MET DST
 From: Mats Wiklund <[email-masked]>
 To: [email-masked] (Tilman Hausherr)
 Subject: Re: you and the co$

 Hi, again!

  - some stuff deleted -
 > 
 > The co$ is sometimes known to use a "double-blind" system, i.e. attack an
 > ennemy thru a third person, who doesn't know about the scientologist
 > connection. This third person (you) gets approached by someone who isn't a
 > member, but who is hired to "do a job", and who choses the 3rd person
 > himself. This way, there is no visible link. Do you think that might be such
 > a possibility, I mean were you "approached" to specifically investigate
 > anon.penet.fi, or was your study something that you had planned to
 do anyway ?

 Ok, I see. No I was not approached by anyone, the idea to do the study
 was my own. I was checking out the binaries newsgroups just by
 curiosity and was suprised to find a picture of a nude 10-year old
 girl among the hard core in alt.binaries.pictures.erotica. This
 was pure chance, and no one had suggested i should look there. Of
 course, I can not completely rule out the possibility that someone or
 some organisation that wanted to harm the internet in general or
 anonymity servers in particular posted this material and just hoped
 that someone might find it, but I was not influenced in any way to
 do this study (or even to check out the binaries groups at all).

 I would also like to point out that my study is not on anon.penet.fi,
 as you say in your question, but on usenet news. But on some of the
 pictures I found were texts saying that more pictures of nude children
 could be obtained if someone was contacted via email through
 anon.penet.fi, and also some of the "from-" fields in the postings
 headers was having anon.penet.fi adresses. This may be fake though, as
 I pointed out to the journalists, but that was obviously not something
 there were enough room fore in the articles in the tabloid papers...

 However i do think that these pictures presence on the net is
 something that should be discussed, as these children may be
 hurt (emotionally) by these pictures beeing spread. I have also found
 hard core child pornography on the net, but it is too early to say
 anything on this matter at this time. These children are being
 molested, and that is totally unacceptable.

 Absolute certainty about who posted these pictures is not possible
 to acheive, but personaly, I find it likelier that the posters are
 pedophiles, not the scientologists. This does not mean that i defend
 the scientologists, on the contrary, my opinion is that their actions 
 are unacceptable and should be stopped. 
 > 
 > BTW, am I allowed to use publish your e-mail replies, or do you prefer not ?
 > I won't do it without your authorization.
 > 
 You are welcome to share my replies with others. I am not sure if you
 mean quoting me when discussing these issues with the people on the
 net, or if you mean writing an article in a paper or something like
 that? If you are writing an article or something like that I would
 wery much like a copy of the article.

 Kind Regards

 Mats

 ------------

 >
 >Absolute certainty about who posted these pictures is not possible
 >to acheive, but personaly, I find it likelier that the posters are
 >pedophiles, not the scientologists. This does not mean that i defend
 >the scientologists, on the contrary, my opinion is that their actions 
 >are unacceptable and should be stopped. 

 Yeah, I also doubt that the scientologists would *post* such photos.

 >> 
 >> BTW, am I allowed to use publish your e-mail replies, or do you prefer not ?
 >> I won't do it without your authorization.
 >> 
 >You are welcome to share my replies with others. I am not sure if you
 >mean quoting me when discussing these issues with the people on the
 >net, or if you mean writing an article in a paper or something like
 >that? If you are writing an article or something like that I would
 >wery much like a copy of the article.

 No, I'm on my own. Months ago, I was one of those who supported the
 theory that there was a link. I would just post the exchange on
 alt.religion.scientology and alt.privacy.anon-server (tomorrow). I would
 have asked my questions months ago, but I happened to get your account#
 only yesterday.

 >Kind Regards
 >Mats

 Thanks for answering me !

 Tilman

 [That was my last e-mail to him. I had written that last one yesterday
 just to make sure I didn't misunderstand him. Since he didn't respond, I
 posted the exchange]

 --- Tilman Hausherr       [KoX; awards: DB, SP decl. by Koos]
 biz:  <[email-masked]>           <URL:http://www.sietec.de/> (company page)
 home: <[email-masked]>     <URL:http://www.snafu.de/~tilman/>

   Praise Xenu, Mozilla and "Bob"!  (and say "Hi" to Warren McShane !)