Computer underground Digest Sun Oct 13, 1996 Volume 8 : Issue 73
ISSN 1004-042X
Editor: Jim Thomas (cudigest@sun.soci.niu.edu)
News Editor: Gordon Meyer (gmeyer@sun.soci.niu.edu)
Archivist: Brendan Kehoe
Shadow Master: Stanton McCandlish
Field Agent Extraordinaire: David Smith
Shadow-Archivists: Dan Carosone / Paul Southworth
Ralph Sims / Jyrki Kuoppala
Ian Dickinson
Cu Digest Homepage: http://www.soci.niu.edu/~cudigest
CONTENTS, #8.73 (Sun, Oct 13, 1996)
File 1--Selling OverSeas Encryption (fwd)
File 2--AA BBS (Robert Thomas) Appeal Turned Away
File 3--A cypherpunk responds to Time
File 4--Re: White House Clipper 3.1.1 plan unveiled
File 5--Private censorship vs. free speech, from 10/96 IU
File 6--Scam spam?
File 7--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 7 Apr, 1996)
CuD ADMINISTRATIVE, EDITORIAL, AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION ApPEARS IN
THE CONCLUDING FILE AT THE END OF EACH ISSUE.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 22:19:59 -0400 (EDT)
From: Noah <noah@enabled.com>
Subject: File 1--Selling OverSeas Encryption (fwd)
From -Noah
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date--Wed, 2 Oct 1996 12:38:47 -0400 (EDT)
From--Anthony Williams <alby@UU.NET>
Administration to ease export of encryption software
October 1, 1996
Posted at: 3:15 p.m. EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Clinton administration intends to break a
deadlock between law enforcement and the U.S. computer industry with a
plan announced Tuesday to make it easier for companies to sell powerful
data-scrambling software abroad.
Companies could export such technology as long as they have a system in
place that would allow U.S. law enforcement officials -- after getting
a court order -- to break the code in order to intercept
communications.
President Clinton will sign an executive order instituting the plan in
the middle of October, said Greg Simon, Vice President Al Gore's
domestic policy adviser.
The plan "will make it easier for Americans to use stronger encryption
products -- whether at home or aboard -- to protect their privacy,
intellectual property and other valuable information," Gore said in a
statement.
"It will support the growth of electronic commerce, increase the
security of the global information and sustain the economic
competitiveness of U.S. encryption product manufacturers," he added.
The plan changes U.S. export policy and affirms current U.S. import
policy, which places no restrictions on the sale of encryption devices
within the U.S.
The plan mirrors a proposal by the administration this summer. That
proposal, considered more acceptable to industry, has been criticized
by a number of computer trade groups and computer user groups.
At issue is sophisticated software that allows users to scramble
telephone and computer messages that move across computer networks and
the Internet. Users, particularly businesses, want to keep their data
private while law enforcement officials argue they need the power to
unscramble the messages to investigate crime.
"Law enforcement has been arguing that this is critical to their
continued operations. But virtually everyone else, from industry to the
civil liberties community, has opposed these proposals," said Marc
Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
While the technology is sold domestically, the U.S. State Department
has blocked efforts to export it, although foreign firms sell their
software around the world.
Under the most recent White House plan, U.S. companies could export the
software that scrambles -- or encrypts -- data using codes that are up
to 56 bits long, Rotenberg said. As it stands, codes may only be 40
bits long in exported software. Bits are the electronic pulses that
make up the data being transmitted.
In return, U.S. companies would have to design a system that would
allow intelligence officials to get the code if they obtain a court
warrant. The plan also would transfer authority over encryption export
from the State Department to the Commerce Department, but it would give
the FBI power to review export plans.
This plan replaces the "clipper chip" the Clinton administration
proposed in 1994. That would have allowed computer or telephone
communications to be scrambled while giving the government a set of
decoding keys to allow for court-approved electronic surveillance.
The latest plan is different than the clipper chip because it would
make it more difficult for government to unscramble messages,
government officials say. The keys could be held by third parties and
their components would be spread across several companies.
The administration believes it will take some time for the United
States to persuade other countries to adopt the same systems, allowing
governments to work together.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 19:10:31 -0700
From: "baby-X @ cyberPOLIS" <baby-x@cyberpolis.org
Subject: File 2--AA BBS (Robert Thomas) Appeal Turned Away
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,4200,00.html
Porn appeal rejected
By Reuters
October 7, 1996, 5 p.m. PT
The Supreme Court today opened its new session by rejecting an appeal
by a California couple involving the first conviction under federal
law for transmitting obscene materials by computer.
Robert and Carleen Thomas of Milpitas, California, were convicted in
1994 in Memphis for sending illegal, sexually explicit files from the
Amateur Action Computer Bulletin Board System they operated from their
home for several years. The system included email, chat lines, public
messages, and about 14,000 files that members could transfer and
download to their own computers and printers.
..........
Thomas received a 37-month prison term, while his wife got 30 months.
The government also seized their computer system.
The couple's attorneys asked the Supreme Court to hear the case. "This
prosecution represents the first attempt of the federal government to
apply content-based regulation to the emerging computer-based
technologies," they said.
The attorneys argued that the federal obscenity law, as previously
written, did not apply to the files, which were transmitted by
computer and thus were not tangible objects subject to the law. They
acknowledged that Congress, in passing the Telecommunications Act this
year, amended the law to specifically include computer transmissions
of obscene material.
The Supreme Court turned down the appeal without comment.
Story Copyright =A9 1996 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 09:17:21 -0400
From: Jim Ray <liberty@gate.net>
Subject: File 3--A cypherpunk responds to Time
(Fwd from: fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu
Recently Time, which from what I've read had a role in founding this list,
printed an article about the cypherpunks. I had some comments, which I have
inserted. You may forward this [unmodified, please & within the bounds of
good netiquet] to other appropriate fora if you like. I have not sent it to
cypherpunks because it is obvious to them, but this article cried out for
rebuttal, otherwise, combined with cypherpunk's somewhat perjorative suffix,
it could produce unwarranted post election nastiness.
JMR
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Time, October 14, 1996, p. 78.
The Netly News
Joshua Quittner
Big Brother vs. Cypherpunks
Well, at least they got the headline right.
For more than three years, the White House and the U.S.
computer industry have sat locked, eyeball to eyeball, in
a seemingly intractable face-off over who will control
the secret codes that protect our most sensitive
communications. The government claimed to be working to
protect us from nuke-carrying terrorists; the computer
industry said it was championing the individual's right
to privacy. Neither was telling the whole truth.
[As if Time (!) were somehow an arbiter of the truth.]
Last week, in a concession to Silicon Valley, the
Administration blinked -- or perhaps it merely winked.
Fittingly, in the arcane world of code making and
breaking, it's difficult to ferret out who's doing what
to whom. And why.
Translation: "It requires journalism." Someone else commented: "Oh my, you
mean different sides of a controversial topic are saying different things?
What's a po reporter to do?"
A few things are incontrovertible. Vice President Al Gore
announced the new encryption initiative at midweek, timed
to coincide with support from an alliance of high-tech
businesses that included such hardware heavyweights as
IBM, Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard. However, most
of the big software makers -- and every civil liberties
group -- still opposed it.
Gosh, what a surprise. Some individuals out there don't trust the government
with an ability to decrypt our private communications in almost-realtime.
Why would people _ever_ feel that way?
At the core of the initiative is a new code-making scheme
known as "key recovery." Here at last, the government and
its supporters claimed, was a way to get around the more
noxious aspects of the reviled Clipper chip, the
Administration's first doomed attempt to balance the
industry's call for stronger encryption with law
enforcement's need to surveil our shadier citizens.
According to Vice President Gore's announcement, this "key recovery" was an
export-only proposal, and supposedly U.S. citizens are still to be free to
use any encryption algorithm they wish, just as we are now. Therefore, I
fail to see what, if anything, it could have to do with the U.S. surveiling
the communications of "our shadier citizens." Unless, of course, the
government was lying about their Key Recovery Assurance Program [K.R.A.P.]
which they are pushing to replace their now-discredited Newspeak of "key
'escrow'" GAK [Government Access to Keys] program.
I can see it now: "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you recover
your key." HINT: If you want to be able to recover your key after your hard
drive crashes, copy it onto a floppy disk and write-protect it.
Clipper, as proposed, would use a powerful encryption
[Wrong, unless "Powerful" now means "compromised long-ago by Matt Blaze."]
formula to encode communications sent over telephones and
computer networks but would require that a "back door"
key be built into each chip that would give police --
where warranted, of course -- a means to eavesdrop.
Oh, "of course." We all know how much cops and judges respect the warrant
process and the 4th amendment these days. Drugwar Uber Alles, after all.
Nobody -- especially foreign companies -- liked the idea
of the U.S. and its agents holding those keys. The new
key-recovery proposal tries to get around that objection
by chopping the keys into several pieces and storing them
with "trusted agents" of the user's choosing. Some nice
Swiss banks, perhaps.
Time knows that "nice Swiss banks" are unlikely to get a license to be the
trusted agents of users' choosing. Time also knows that few terrorists --
dumb as terrorists often are -- will actually be stupid enough to leave a
copy of their crypto-key with the FBI. What Time knows and what Time will
admit are, of course, two entirely different things.
But the Administration's plan still falls short of what
civil libertarians, and especially a vocal group of
cryptoextremists who call themselves cypherpunks, say
I suppose it is a distressing sign of the absolute pervasiveness of
media-bias that I am now beginning to get used to various whining liars
calling me an "extremist." <sigh> It used to upset me, but now I call them
"whining liars" and they call me an extremist.
I have yet to hear an answer from the whining liars to my question: "What's
so extreme about wanting a return to respect for the principles outlined in
the United States Constitution?" ... I'm not holding my breath...
they need: encryption powerful enough to give back to the
citizenry the right to absolute privacy, which we have
lost in the information age. According to the
cypherpunks, the so-called 56-bit code the Administration
has okayed for export can be cracked by the National
Security Agency's supercomputers in a matter of hours.
Wrong again, Josh. It may seem an awful lot like work or journalism or
something, but perhaps next time before writing about the cypherpunks you
might want to actually interview one or two of us. The "matter of hours" you
refer to is almost certainly either a matter of "minutes" or "seconds"
regarding 56-bit single DES (understandably, the NSA does not publicly
disclose their exact capabilities with regard to cryptography).
Are they right? It's hard to know whom to believe in this
cloak-and-dagger debate. Civil libertarians tend to gloss
over the fact that the world is full of bad people with
crimes to hide.
Nope, we constantly are made aware of this reality by folks who disagree
with us. Cypherpunks just maintain that the world is increasingly full of
*governments*, which also have "bad people with crimes to hide" (believe it
or not, Josh) and therefore we don't trust governments with our secrets.
The software industry -- which makes 48%
of its profit overseas --
Obvious evidence of software industry evil here, at least if you listen to
Pat Buchanan and Ro$$ Perot. Imagine, they make overseas profits -- how
*dastardly* of that slimy software industry.
is clearly less concerned with
privacy than with losing foreign sales.
Well, arguably the individuals running those companies embracing KRAP feel
that way, but trying to characterize an entire industry full of individuals
as all thinking in one way says more about Time's prejudices than I ever
could.
And it may be no
accident that the Administration chose to start making
concessions the same week an influential software CEO --
Netscape's Jim Barksdale -- excoriated Clinton's
cryptopolicy and endorsed Bob Dole.
56-bit GAK is not a very much of a "concession," and this is not the first
time Netscape has made statements against the idiotic U.S. export laws. Mr.
Barksdale may, however, be buying a pig in a poke by endorsing Mr. Dole, who
has yet to be pinned down by the media covering him on exactly how he feels
about GAK. His campaign statements are contradictory on the subject of
cryptography and privacy vs "the legitimate needs of law enforcement," and
he's going to lose the election in a landslide if the English odds are to be
believed, but I can predict how he would behave if he won -- Yep, just like
Clinton.
The issue is too complex -- and too important -- for
political gamesmanship.
Evidently, the issue is too complex for some reporters and editors, too.
It will never get sorted out
until somebody starts playing it straight.
Might I suggest that Time begin?
-----
Read the Netly News daily at netlynews.com on the World
Wide Web
[End]
Sift through cypherpunks at toad.com -- if you can withstand the deluge.
[Filtering software suggested.]
Thanks to JQ.
& thanks also to JYA :)
JMR
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 01:11:29 -0700
From: Michael Kwun <kwun@uclink4.berkeley.edu>
Subject: File 4--Re: White House Clipper 3.1.1 plan unveiled
(I feel like, out of habit, that I'm required to quote part of Richard's
email, so I'm quoting L, M and N--the conclusions--below)
Tech wars: first of all, the police are going to need to build quite an
outrageous battering ram to beat down, say, PGP. This is inherent in the
asymmetric nature of multiplication/factoring technology. Absent a nicely
fundamental discovery in mathematics (which probably will come sometime,
but it's a tough problem), building a stronger house (ie doing more
multiplication) is substantially simpler than building a bigger battering
ram (ie doing more factoring). That is, PGP stacks the tech wars decidedly
in favor of the cypherpunks.
Those Amendments: they only protect us insofar as we are able to identify
when they are broken. If the feds spy on groups and decide which ones to
harass (oops, conduct further surveillance on) based on illegal seized
information due to their ability to crack Clipper, that's often going to be
difficult to identify. (and actually protection under the 4th Amendment is
getting weaker with each passing year anyway--I see no reason to weaken the
protections the 4th Amendment was intended to protect, IMHO, any further
with Clipper and the like).
Anonymity: The right to anonymity is fairly well enshrined in First
Amendment jurisprudence. The Clipper system, while it may not directly
impinge on that right in many circumstances, arguably chills it
considerably. (That's a pretty weak argument, as is, but I think it is the
kernal of a pretty strong argument, at least if you agree with standard
First Amendment jurisprudence.)
An analogy: would we be comfortable, if the technology existed, if
mind-reading taps were surgically implanted in all people under U.S.
jurisdiction if (1) someone with the right secret code could access a
person's thoughts without them knowing it; and (2) a Clipper-esque escrow
system were set up to keep the secret codes from being misused? (use of
these taps, under the right circumstances, could provide incontrovertible
evidence as to whether or not criminal intent existed--crucial to sucessful
prosecution of most criminal charges.) This system could be supported, it
seems to me, using Richard's analysis of Clipper.
A different sort of hypothetical: consider a proposal that if the police,
in the investigation of a possible crime, come across an encoded message
(on paper, not electronic). They are able to show (1) probably cause the
the unencoded contents would lead to evidence proving D committed the
crime; and (2) that D can decode the message. If D refuses to decode it,
why not allow that to be considered evidence of D's guilt? I think the
policy reasons for this sort of legal doctrine are pretty much the same as
the ones Richard brings up.
Michael
At 12:45 PM -0500 10/8/96, Richard MacKinnon wrote:
>L. Tech wars. Okay, let's postpone J and K for a moment. Let's say that
>we have gotten to the point that we all need to build big, strong houses to
>protect us from each other and the police (sheesh--what kind of mess have we
>gotten ourselves into!!?). The police are a well-funded institution.
>Eventually, they will build a big-enough battering ram and you're gonna help
>pay for it. Maybe you'll do it because you're not closely following the
>morass of legislation. Maybe you'll do it because someone stole your stuff
>and you'll want it back. But now that the police have a big-enough
>battering ram, the rest of us are gonna want to build even bigger and
>stronger houses. It's an escalating war of technology, and frankly, I don't
>think we can win. In fact, I don't think we should even get into it. Let's
>go back to J.
>
>M (the letter formerly known as J). This distrust of the police concerns
>me. On this point, Mike Godwin shouted at me at the former High Times
>restaraunt and smart drink bar in Austin. He said that I was naive. I told
>him that I used to be a cop. He told me that I should know better. He
>pressed me to reveal if I had known any crooked cops. Sigh. I know what
>he's getting at. Of course, I'm concerned with bad law enforcement and bad
>jurisprudence. But I still value the social contract which means using
>police to help me protect myself from you. I simply don't have the time to
>protect myself from the police as well. In fact, I don't want to protect
>myself from the police. I don't even want to encourage that line of thinking.
>
>N. I don't think we should build police-proof houses. We should build
>houses which assist the police in their lawful duties. If there's a problem
>with police carrying out their lawful duties then we should deal with THAT
>problem directly. Why not use our money and resources to monitor *them*
>rather than build fancy toys which prevents them from monitoring us? The
>maintenance of a professional, dedicated, and trustworthy police force is
>essential to the execution of our social contract. Conceding that the
>police that police do not possess these characteristics and operating with
>that mindset is a doomed cause for our civilization. Allowing such a police
>force to continue is a nightmare. Crypto-tech vis a vis the police is a red
>herring. If the problem is letter J, then we have bigger fish to fry.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 8 Oct 1996 18:09:29 -0500
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject: File 5--Private censorship vs. free speech, from 10/96 IU
(Fwd from: fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu
Solveig Bernstein from the Cato Institute and I have opposing pieces
on "private censorship" in the October issue of _Internet
Underground_ magazine, in their Flamethrower column.
(http://www.underground-online.com/) And, as a bit of a plug, the
magazine's cover story for this month is an exclusive interview with
John Draper of Cap'n Crunch fame -- who now is a sad and pitiful
figure.
-Declan
*********
INTERNET UNDERGROUND
October 1996
http://www.underground-online.com/
---
FLAMETHROWER
Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com)
Far from being the saviors of the Net, corporations may be the ruin of
cyberspace.
Let's be clear: governments have done plenty to harm the Net. By
passing the Communications Decency Act (CDA), the U.S. Congress
extended television-style censorship to the Net. Other countries are
close behind.
But governments aren't the worst of the cybercensors -- the CDA has
been declared unconstitutional and netizens are organizing
internationally. Private businesses pose the more sinister threat to
free expression online.
Take America Online (AOL), which now boasts over six million members.
In a move akin to the paranoid antics of a kindergarten schoolmarm,
AOL this summer started deleting messages posted in Spanish and
Portuguese since its monitors can't understand them. Undercover AOL
cops continue to yank accounts of mothers who talk about breast
feeding and mention the word "nipple." The company's gapingly broad
"terms of service" agreement allows it to boot anyone, anytime, for
any reason.
Or consider private universities. Carnegie Mellon University bans
sexually-explicit Usenet newsgroups -- including innocuous ones
devoted to Japanese anime -- and "offensive" comments posted online.
Cornell University forced students who offended campus feminists with
an email satire to plea-bargain to "voluntary" punishment. Brigham
Young University disciplines students for downloading porn.
Don't forget net-filtering software. While busily touting itself as
anti-censorship, CyberSitter quietly blocks the National Organization
of Women and Queer Resources Directory web sites. CyberPatrol prevents
teen pornhounds from investigating animal and gun rights pages -- and,
inexplicably, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's censorship archive.
NetNanny cuts off AIDS resources including the sci.med.aids and
clari.tw.health.aids newsgroups. SurfWatch bans domestic partner web
pages and Columbia University's award-winning "Health Education and
Wellness" site.
Now, I don't dispute that state censorship is more heinous. The
government has guns, police, and gallows to back up its laws. Anyone
caught violating the CDA gets slammed with a $250,000 fine and two
years in Club Fed.
But to focus exclusively on the evils of government censorship is
myopic. Private censorship also shrinks the marketplace of ideas, a
concept California recognized when it passed a law striking down
private speech codes at universities.
That's why considering only the "speech rights" of businesses without
looking at the effects the *exercise* of the rights have is bonkers.
It ignores the very real effects of private censorship online -- which
is more insidious and harder to combat. And perhaps getting worse.
PUBLIC SQUARES IN CYBERSPACE
People claim the street as theirs on two occasions: to protest and to
celebrate.
Throughout the history of the United States, there always have been
readily available public spaces where people can assemble freely. In
lawyerspeak, these spaces are "public forums" and aren't subject to
content-based censorship. The only restrictions the state may impose,
such as a requirement for a permit, must be unrelated to the
protesters' message. People can scream "U.S. out of Vietnam,"
"legalize child pornography," or any politically explosive message
they choose.
Where will the public squares exist in 21st century cyberspace?
Nowhere. Cyberspace is and likely will continue to be controlled by
corporations. Unlike in meatspace, there is no public forum for
controversial expression that offends the multinationals that jointly
own the Net.
Sure, it's trivial to shift your embattled web site from one Internet
service provider to another. Right now, at least. In Canada, Marc
Lemire didn't find it so easy when his "White Nationalist" site was
kicked off of a number of ISPs in quick succession. (The Simon
Wiesenthal Center has been busy firing off terse letters to Lemire's
ISPs -- and clamoring for government crackdowns as well.) USENET
flamer and outspoken homophobe Fred Cherry keeps losing email
accounts.
This problem will become acute if the small number of Internet
backbone providers like MCI and Sprint -- which number only in the
single digits -- buckle to public pressure from groups like the
Wiesenthalers and refuse to provide connections to ISPs that host
controversial web sites.
If that happens, netizens will find their rosy vision of the Net as
the birthplace of a new form of democracy overwhelmed by the sad
reality of a new media oligarchy aborning.
*******************
FLAMETHROWER
By Solveig Bernstein (sberns@cato.org)
The decision to remain silent is an act of conscience, just like the
decision to speak. So the view that acts of "private censorship"
violate rights of free speech is incoherent. If an online service
provider ousts a Web site that posts explicit messages about sex, in
violation of the terms of their service contract, or a non-profit
organization persuades some Internet Service Providers to refuse to
host "Holocaust Revisionist" web sites, these decisions do not violate
rights of free speech.
Indeed, such private content selection decisions are themselves acts
of free speech. They are just like a newspaper editor's decision not
to run a certain letter to the editor, or a publisher's decision not
to publish a certain book. The editor and publisher have created a
means of distributing speech. The outlet they have created is their
property, and they have the right to decide what to do with it. Other
private companies in the speech distribution business are no
different.
Private content selection has the superficial feel of government
censorship. But it's dangerous to confuse the two. To see what can
happen, let's accept the premise that a private company that refuses
to provide a forum for speech violates the would-be speaker's free
speech rights. This is a very serious charge. Assuming government
exists for some legitimate purpose, it surely exists to protect our
rights. If the ISP or OSP mentioned above is violating someone's
rights, it logically follows that the government should take action
against them.
First, this means that the government would become responsible for
overseeing the distribution of computer network content. Clearly,
this is not a very good idea. Second, fortunately, it's fundamentally
incompatible with the First Amendment. The Supreme Court recognizes
that "[t]he right of freedom of thought protected by the First
Amendment against state action includes both the right to speak freely
and the right to refrain from speaking at all." And the right to
refrain from speaking includes the right not to provide a forum for
other speakers (a misguided case or two to the contrary
notwithstanding).
Any premise that lead us towards more government control over computer
networks should be questioned. Where does the notion that private
content selection violates free speech rights come from? Often, it
stems from the view that we have rights to speech because "more speech
is good." On this view, free speech rights float out in the ether,
with no connection any other aspect of our world, and come into play
whenever we need "more speech." But free speech rights are nothing
like that. They're just another aspect of property rights, and only
extend as far as property rights. Free speech doesn't mean I have the
right to walk into my neighbor's house to make a speech, or write an
essay, however enlightened, on the wall of an office building.
Another fallacy behind the premise is the view that free speech rights
come into play against anyone who has a lot of power over anyone else.
And, the theory goes, ISPs and OSPs just have too much power. They
might, in some very hypothetical unlikely future, turn into
monopolists.
This argument also goes too far, too fast, in the wrong direction.
ISPs and OSPs don't have any more power over authors than the New York
Times, or any big publishing house. Most parents have even more power
over their children. These kind of power relationships are a
necessary and natural part of life; anyone who has something we want
or need will have power over us. This doesn't mean that if someone is
exercising that power, he or she is violating our rights. A theory of
rights that aims to do away with these power relationships is
fundamentally unrealistic; it's ultimate aim would have to be to
abolish reality itself. By contrast, it is both necessary and proper
to expect rights to provide a line of defense against the kind of
power uniquely exercised by government -- the power of soldiers and
police.
So, we might criticize private content selection decisions as
intolerant. We could point out that suppressing "revisionist" nonsense
about the Holocaust might backfire, and that the truth should be
brought out in open discussion. We might point out that overly
restrictive ISPs and OSPs will lose customers. But none of this has
anything to do with rights of "free speech" protected against true
censorship by the First Amendment.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 12:55:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: "I G (Slim) Simpson" <ssimpson@cnwl.igs.net>
Subject: File 6--Scam spam?
I don't know if this information is CUD material, but I thought I
smelled a scam and decided to send this in.
On Monday, 30 September I received some spam advertising a 'we'll
scan your picture for you (only US$8.95)' from CB256@aol.com. The
only headers were From:; Subject:; and Date:. The only contact
information was a snail mail address to receive your money and the
address of the company's web page
(www.jet.laker.net/fastfoto). I don't like spam so I sent a I HATE
SPAM message to CB256@aol.com. It got bounced; no such address!
Ho Ho, says I. I went into the web site and found the same stuff as
had been in the e-mail message; but no e-mail address, no phone
number, no fax number,
just the same surface mail address to send your money to.
To be kind, maybe the folks at Fastfoto of Pomano Beach, Florida,
are just very poor business people. Maybe they just forgot to
include electronic contact information. May the shortened header
was an attempt to save bandwidth. I didn't send any money.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 22:51:01 CST
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End of Computer Underground Digest #8.73
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