~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ eye WEEKLY August 18 1994 Toronto's arts newspaper .....free every Thursday ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ EYENET EYENET PARKDALE NOT QUITE A GLOBAL COMMUNITY by K.K. CAMPBELL On June 16, eye Net reported how UUNet Canada donated a free UUCP account to Bob Allisat (allisat@pcs.org) to improve Parkdale Community Server and help Toronto's most unique community connect. Bets immediately circulated on how long this marriage- made-in-hell would last. But most wagered it would last longer than two months. Yes -- Parkdale lost its free account last Monday (Aug. 15). Allisat tells eye UUNet Canada cancelled his freebie deal due to "bad publicity." Asked to define "bad publicity," he says anonymous posts to Usenet newsgroups like ont.general did Parkdale in. Regular readers of ont.general and tor.general (who haven't put the word "Parkdale" in killfiles) might recall these rants -- like the allegations against a Toronto priest, of "thieving, Nazism, child molesting", standard net slander. "Freedom of expression is freedom of expression," Allisat says. "There's no qualification, information is like water, it doesn't matter what's in the water. If they're going to start telling everyone what they can or cannot post, then they're going to have to start getting into the censoring business." In Allisat's world, there's no such thing as defamation. At all. Wouldn't that be nice? Certainly would make the journalism game a tad easier. Forthwith, eye endorses Bob as Our Man In Parliament -- move over Jesse Flis (L - Parkdale-High Park). "UUNet doesn't censor," responds Kane Hunter, a UUNet spokesperson. "This was the case of a donation. All these posts about penis foreskins and whatnot seemed to be condoned by UUNet. We know it's hard to get government funding and wanted to help. However, the stuff posted through it was not what we expected. So we sent him internal mail saying that if he became a paying customer, we'd be happy to keep him and he can write whatever he wants." Which is what he's doing, temporarily. Since he has to pay, Bob's dropping can.general, ont.general and tor.general . Allisat is fixated on attacks on the Toronto FreeNet and The Canadian Internet Handbook co-author Jim Carroll (jcarroll@jacc.com). But, ever the internationalist, Allisat made enemies all over Usenet. At the end of July, John Martinko (martinko@netcom.com) began passing Allisat material to the newsgroup alt.usenet.kooks . Jim Mercer (jim@reptiles.org), administrator of ultra-sexy Reptilian Research, noted: "Another way to look at this is to say that UUNet Canada is encouraging pcs.org to become a more community-oriented service, rather than a private podium for Bob to rant about the Toronto FreeNet." Meantime, Allisat's asking for someone to give him another free account. Please form an orderly line. TASTES JUST LIKE CHICKEN!!! On July 21, we found this email awaiting us: "Hello, I found the address I'm using to send you this message [i.e., eye@io.org] on one of your postings in rec.arts.books . In a recent book, E-mail Addresses Of The Rich And Famous, by Seth Godin (Addison-Wesley, 1994) eye is listed as eye@chicken.planet.org (page 75). Strangely, almost every Canadian address in the book ends with @chicken.planet.org, including Jean Chr€tien's, and those of many other govt officials and departments. I have a strong suspicion that this is a hoax. Do you know who might have perpetrated it?" Indeed, in the same month, New York Times Magazine was compelled to ask: "Why do the email addresses of so many Canadian government officials end in @chicken.planet.org ?" Here's the story: chicken.planet.org was a "fax gateway," known as Digital Chicken. Run by Toronto's Rob Riley (riley@gold.interlog.com), it died last May. Riley distributed a list of maybe 100 people/organizations reachable through Digital Chicken. By writing email to, say, ontatg@chicken.planet.org , a fax would be sent to Ontario Attorney-General Marion Boyd. The list of chicken.planet.org addresses "is all over the place, I still get mail about it," says Riley in a phone interview. "I've put out posts saying the service is no longer operating, but it's apparently not getting spread as rapidly as the original list." Godin thought it was a list of email addresses and included them in the book without verifying the list by contacting Riley or Digital Chicken. !*@# YOU TOO Our mellifluous kin at Exclaim! (a.k.a. !*@#) magazine are online. !*@# is sometimes called Fuck or Cuss magazine -- or any other four-letter expletive-deleted you'd can imagine ... wellll ... sort of ... then again, maybe not. With its focus on underground music and culture, it's a welcome addition to Toronto's blossoming Internet arts community. For their multimedia web page, check out http://www.io.org/~pwcasual/exclaim.html . Email address: exclaim@io.org . Speaking of Toronto arts and the net: please contribute to Usenet newsgroup tor.arts, created for eye by Ken Chasse (root@sizone.pci.on.ca). The hope is to attract the city's arts crowd and balance out (dilute?) the dominance of computer-science types. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Retransmit freely in cyberspace Author holds standard copyright Full issue of eye available in archive ==> gopher.io.org or ftp.io.org Mailing list available http://www.io.org/eye eye@io.org "Break the Gutenberg Lock..." 416-971-8421