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Clipping the Wings of Freedom (Reprint, by J.P. Ba
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Computer underground Digest Sun Mar 13, 1994 Volume 6 : Issue 24
ISSN 1004-042X
Editors: Jim Thomas and Gordon Meyer ([email protected])
Archivist: Brendan Kehoe (He's Baaaack)
Acting Archivist: Stanton McCandlish
Shadow-Archivists: Dan Carosone / Paul Southworth
Ralph Sims / Jyrki Kuoppala
Ian Dickinson
Copita Editor: Sheri O'Nothera
CONTENTS, #6.24 (Mar 13, 1994)
File 1--Clipping the Wings of Freedom (Reprint, by J.P. Barlow)
File 2--Leahy to hold hearings on Clipper Chip!
File 3--Survey: communication ethics on the net
File 4--Starring Tom Cruise as Kevin Poulsen?
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 13 Mar 1994 11:30:17 -0500
From: John Perry Barlow <[email protected]>
Subject: File 1--Clipping the Wings of Freedom (Reprint, by J.P. Barlow)
Clipping the Wings of Freedom page 1
Jackboots on the Infobahn
by John Perry Barlow
<[email protected]>
[Note: I wish to reserve to Wired Magazine first paper publication of
the following piece. However, given the fairly immediate nature of
this issue, I am net-casting it now. Feel free to pass it on
electronically as you see fit, but please do not turn it into any sort
of hard copy until Wired has done so. I also encourage you to buy the
April issue of Wired in which it will appear.]
On January 11, I managed to schmooze myself aboard Air Force 2. It was
flying out of LA, where its principal passenger had just outlined his
vision of the Information Superhighway to a suited mob of television,
show biz, and cable types who fervently hoped to own it one day...if
they could ever figure out what the hell it was.
>From the standpoint of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the speech
had been wildly encouraging. The Vice President's announced program
incorporated many of the concepts of open competition, universal
access, and deregulated common carriage which we'd been pushing for
the previous year.
But he had said nothing about future of privacy, except to cite among
the bounties of the NII its ability to "help law enforcement agencies
thwart criminals and terrorists who might use advanced
telecommunications to commit crimes."
On the plane I asked him what this had meant regarding Administration
policy on cryptography. He became non-committal as a cigar store
indian. "We'll be making some announcements... I can't tell you
anything more." He hurried back to the front of the plane, leaving me
to troubled speculation.
Despite its fundamental role in assuring privacy, transaction
security, and reliable identity within the NII, the Clinton/Gore
Administration policies regarding cryptography have not demonstrated
an enlightenment to match the rest of their digital visions.
The Clipper Chip...which bodes to be either the goofiest waste of
federal dollars since Gerald Ford's great Swine Flu program or, if
actually deployed, a surveillance technology of profound
malignancy...seemed at first an ugly legacy of Reagan/Bush. "This is
going to be our Bay of Pigs," one White House official told me at the
time Clipper was introduced, referring to the distastrous Cuban
invasion plan Kennedy inherited from Eisenhower.
(Clipper, in case you're just tuning in, is an encryption chip which
the NSA and FBI hope will someday be in every phone and computer in
America. It scrambles your communications, making them unintelligible
to all but their intended recipient. All, that is, but the government,
which would hold the "key" to your chip. The key would separated into
two pieces, held in escrow, and joined with the appropriate "legal
authority.")
Of course, trusting the government with your privacy is trusting a
peeping tom to install your window blinds. And, since the folks I've
met in this White House seem extremely smart, conscious, and
freedom-loving...hell, a lot of them are Deadheads...I was sure that
after they felt fully moved in, they'd face down the NSA and FBI, let
Clipper die a natural death, and lower the export embargo on reliable
encryption products.
Furthermore, NIST and the National Security Council have been studying
both Clipper and export embargoes since April. Given that the volumes
of expert testimony they collected opposed them both almost
unanimously , I expected the final report to give the Administration
all the support it needed to do the right thing.
I was wrong about this. Instead, there would be no report. Apparently,
they couldn't draft one which supported, on the evidence, what they
had decided to do instead.
THE OTHER SHOE DROPS
On Friday, February 4, the other jack-boot dropped. A series of
announcements from the Administration made it clear that cryptography
would become their very own "Bosnia of telecommunications" (as one
staffer put it). It wasn't just that the old Serbs in the NSA and the
FBI were still making the calls. The alarming new reality was that the
invertebrates in the White House were only too happy to abide by them.
Anything to avoid appearing soft on drugs or terrorism.
So, rather than ditching Clipper, they declared it a Federal Data
Processing Standard, backing that up with an immediate government
order for 50,000 Clipper devices. They appointed NIST and the
Department of Treasury as the "trusted" third parties that would hold
the Clipper key pairs. (Treasury, by the way, is also home to such
trustworthy agencies as the Secret Service and the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, and Firearms.)
They re-affirmed the export embargo on robust encryption products,
admitting for the first time that its purpose was to stifle
competition to Clipper. And they outlined a very porous set of
requirements under which the cops might get the keys to your chip.
(They would not go into the procedure by which the NSA would get them,
though they assured us it was sufficient.)
They even signaled the impending return of the dread Digital
Telephony, an FBI legislative initiative which would require
fundamentally re-engineering the information infrastructure to make
provision of wiretapping ability the paramount design priority.
INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS
Actually, by the time the announcements thudded down, I wan't
surprised by them. I had spent several days the previous week in and
around the White House.
I felt like I was in another re-make of The Invasion of the Body
Snatchers. My friends in the Administration had been transformed.
They'd been subsumed by the vast mind-field on the other side of the
security clearance membrane, where dwell the monstrous bureaucratic
organisms which feed themselves on fear. They'd adopted the
institutionally paranoid National Security Weltanschauung.
They used all the tell-tale phrases. Mike Nelson, the White House
point man on NII, told me, "If only I could tell you what I know,
you'd feel the same way I do." I told him I'd been inoculated against
that argument during Vietnam. (And it does seem to me that if you're
going to initiate a process which might end freedom in America, you
probably need an argument that isn't classified.)
Besides, how does he know what he knows? Where does he get his
information? Why the NSA, of course. Which, given its strong interest
in the outcome, seems hardly an unimpeachable source.
However they reached it, Clinton and Gore have an astonishingly simple
bottom line, against which even the future of American liberty and
prosperity is secondary: They believe that it is their responsibility
to eliminate, by whatever means, the possibility that some terrorist
might get a nuke and use it on, say, the World Trade Center. They have
been convinced that such plots are more likely to ripen to their
hideous fruition behind a shield of encryption.
The staffers I talked to were unmoved by the argument that anyone
smart enough to steal and detonate a nuclear device is probably smart
enough to use PGP or some other uncompromised crypto standard. And
never mind that the last people who popped a hooter in the World Trade
Center were able to put it there without using any cryptography and
while under FBI surveillance.
We are dealing with religion here. Though only 10 American lives were
lost to terrorism in the last two years, the primacy of this threat
has become as much an article of faith with these guys as the Catholic
conviction that
human life begins at conception or the Mormon belief that the Lost
Tribe of Israel crossed the Atlantic in submarines.
In the spirit of openness and compromise, they invited EFF to submit
other solutions to the "problem" of the nuclear-enabled terrorist
besides key escrow devices, but they would not admit into discussion
the argument that such a threat might, in fact, be some kind of
phantasm created by the spooks to ensure their lavish budgets into the
Post-Cold War era.
As to the possibility that good old-fashioned investigative techniques
might be more valuable in preventing their show-case catastrophe (as
it was after the fact in finding the alleged perpetrators of the last
attack on the World Trade Center),they just hunkered down and said
that when wire-taps were necessary, they were damned well necessary.
When I asked about the business that American companies lose to their
inability to export good encryption products, one staffer essentially
dismissed the market, saying that total world trade in crypto goods
was still less than a billion dollars. (Well, right. Thanks more to
the diligent efforts of the NSA than lack of sales potential.)
I suggested that a more immediate and costly real-world effect of
their policies would be reducing national security by isolating
American commerce, owing to a lack of international confidence in the
security of our data lines. I said that Bruce Sterling's fictional
data-enclaves in places like the Turks and Caicos Islands were
starting to look real world inevitable.
They had a couple of answers to this, one unsatisfying and the other
scary. Their first answer was that the international banking
community could just go on using DES, which still seemed robust enough
to them. [DES is the old federal Data Encryption Standard, thought by
most cryptologists to be nearing the end of its credibility.]
More troubling was their willingness to counter the data-enclave
future with one in which no data channels anywhere would be secure
from examination by some government or another. They pointed to
unnamed other countries which were developing their own mandatory
standards and restrictions regarding cryptography and have said to me
on several occasions words to the effect that, "Hey, it's not like you
can't outlaw the stuff. Look at France."
Of course, they have also said repeatedly...and for now I believe
them...that they have absolutely no plans to outlaw non-Clipper crypto
in the U.S. But that doesn't mean that such plans couldn't develop in
the presence of some pending "emergency." Then there is that White
House briefing document, issued at the time Clipper was first
announced, which asserts that no U.S. citizen "as a matter of right,
is entitled to an unbreakable commercial encryption product."
Now why, if it's an ability they have no intention of contesting, do
they feel compelled to declare that it's not a right? Could it be that
they are preparing us for the laws they'll pass after some bearded
fanatic has gotten himself a surplus nuke and used something besides
Clipper to conceal his plans for it?
If they are thinking about such an eventuality, we should be doing so
as well. How will we respond? I believe there is a strong, though
currently untested, argument that outlawing unregulated crypto would
violate the First Amendment, which surely protects the manner of our
speech as clearly as it protects the content.
But of course the First Amendment is, like the rest of the
Constitution, only as good as the government's willingness of the to
uphold it. And they are, as I say, in a mood to protect our safety
over our liberty.
This is not a mind-frame against which any argument is going to be
very effective. And it appeared that they had already heard and
rejected every argument I could possibly offer.
In fact, when I drew what I thought was an original comparison between
their stand against naturally proliferating crypto and the folly of
King Canute (who placed his throne on the beach and commanded the tide
to leave him dry), my opposition looked pained and said he had heard
that one almost as often as jokes about road-kill on the Information
Superhighway.
I hate to go to war with them. War is always nastier among friends.
Furthermore, unless they've decided to let the NSA design the rest of
the National Information Infrastructure as well, we need to go on
working closely with them on the whole range of issues like access,
competition, workplace privacy, common carriage, intellectual
property, and such. Besides, the proliferation of strong crypto will
probably happen eventually no matter what they do.
But then again, it might not. In which case we could shortly find
ourselves under a government that would have the automated ability to
log the time, origin and recipient of everycall we made, could track
our physical whereabouts continuously, could keep better account of
our financial transactions than we do, and all without a warrant. Talk
about crime prevention!
Worse, under some vaguely defined and surely mutable "legal
authority," they also would be able to listen to our calls and read
our e-mail without having to do any backyard rewiring. (And wouldn't
even need that to monitor our overseas calls.)
If there's going to be a fight, I'd far rather it be with this
government than the one we'd likely face on that hard day.
Hey, I've never been a paranoid before. It's always seemed to me that
most governments are too incompetent to keep a good plot strung
together all the way from coffee break to quitting time. But I am now
very nervous about the government of the United States of America.
Because Bill 'n' Al, whatever their other new paradigm virtues, have
allowed the very old paradigm trogs of the Guardian Class to the
define as their highest duty the defense of America against an enemy
that exists primarily in the imagination and is therefore capable of
anything.
To assure absolute safety against such an enemy, there is no limit to
the liberties we will eventually be asked to sacrifice. And, with a
Clipper chip in every phone, there will certainly be no technical
limit on their ability to enforce those sacrifices.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
GET CONGRESS TO LIFT THE CRYPTO EMBARGO
The Administration is trying to impose Clipper on us by manipulating
market forces. Purchasing massive numbers of Clipper devices, they
intend to produce an economy of scale which will make them cheap while
their export embargo renders all competition either expensive or
non-existent.
We have to use the market to fight back. While it's unlikely that
they'll back down on Clipper deployment, the Electronic Frontier
Foundation believes that with sufficient public involvement, we can
get Congress to eliminate the export embargo.
Rep. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) has a bill (H.R. 3627) before the Economic
Policy, Trade, and Environment Science Subcommittee of the House
Foreign Affairs Committee which would do exactly that. She will need a
lot of help from the public. They may not care much about your privacy
in DC, but they still care about your vote.
Please signal your support of H.R. 3627, either by writing her
directly or e-mailing her at [email protected]. Messages sent to that
address will be printed out and delivered to her office. In the
Subject header of your message, please include the words "support HR
3627." In the body of your message, express your reasons for
supporting the bill. You may also express your sentiments to Rep. Lee
Hamilton, the Foreign Relations Committee chairman, by e-mailing
[email protected].
Furthermore, since there is nothing quite as powerful as a letter from
a constituent, you should check the following list of subcommittee and
committee members to see if your congressperson is among them. If so,
please copy them your letter to Ms. Cantwell.
Economic Policy, Trade, and Environment Science Subcommittee:
Democrats: Sam Gejdenson (Chairman), James Oberstar, Cynthia McKinney,
Maria Cantwell, Eric Fingerhut, Albert R. Wynn, Harry Johnston, Eliot
Engel, Charles Schumer. Republicans: Toby Roth (ranking), Donald
Manzullo, Doug Bereuter, Jan Meyers, Cass Ballenger, Dana Rohrabacher.
Foreign Affairs Committee:
Democrats: Lee Hamilton (Chairman), Tom Lantos, Robert Torricelli,
Howard Berman, Gary Ackerman, Eni Faleomavaega, Matthew Martinez,
Robert Borski, Donal Payne, Robert Andrews, Robert Menendez, Sherrod
Brown, Alcee Hastings, Peter Deutsch, Don Edwards, Frank McCloskey,
Thomas Sawyer, Luis Gutierrez. Republicans: Benjamin Gilman (ranking),
William Goodling, Jim Leach, Olympia Snowe, Henry Hyde, Christopher
Smith, Dan Burton, Elton Gallegly, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, David Levy,
Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Ed Royce.
BOYCOTT CLIPPER DEVICES AND THE COMPANIES WHICH MAKE THEM.
Don't buy anything with a Clipper chip in it. Don't buy any product
from a company which manufactures devices with "Big Brother Inside."
It is likely that the government will ask you to use Clipper for
communications with the IRS or when doing business with Federal
agencies. They cannot, as yet, require you to do so. Just say no.
LEARN ABOUT ENCRYPTION AND EXPLAIN THE ISSUES TO YOUR UNWIRED FRIENDS
The administration is banking on the likelihood that this stuff too
technically obscure to agitate anyone but nerds like us. You prove
them wrong by patiently explaining what's going on to all the people
you know who have never touched a computer and glaze over at the
mention of words like "cryptography."
Maybe you glaze over yourself. Don't. It's not that hard. For some
hands-on experience, download a copy of PGP, a shareware encryption
engine which uses the robust RSA encryption algorithm. and learn to
use it.
GET YOUR COMPANY TO THINK ABOUT EMBEDDING REAL CRYPTOGRAPHY IN ITS
PRODUCTS
If you work for a company which makes software, computer hardware, or
any kind of communications device, work from within to get them to
incorporate RSA or some other strong encryption scheme into their
products. If they say that they are afraid to violate the export
embargo, ask them to consider manufacturing such products overseas and
importing them back into the United States. There appears to be no law
against that. As yet.
You might also lobby your company to join the Digital Privacy and
Security Working Group, a coalition of companies and public interest
groups that includes IBM, Apple, Sun, Microsoft (and, interestingly,
Clipper phone manufacturer AT&T) that is working to get the embargo
lifted.
JOIN EFF, CPSR, OR BOTH
Self-serving as it sounds coming from me, I think you can do a lot to
help by becoming a member of one of these organizations. In addition
to giving you access to the latest information on this subject, every
additional member strengthens our credibility with Congress.
Join the Electronic Frontier Foundation by writing [email protected].
Join Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility by writing
[provide e-mail address here.]
In his LA speech, Gore called the development of the NII "a
revolution." And it is a revolutionary war we are engaged in here.
Clipper is a last ditch attempt by the United States, the last great
power from the Industrial Era, to establish imperial control over
Cyberspace. If they win, the most liberating development in the
history of humankind could become, instead, the surveillance system
which will monitor our grandchildren's morality. We can be better
ancestors than that.
John Perry Barlow is co-founder and Vice-Chairman of the Electronic
Frontier Foundation, a group which defends liberty, both in Cyberspace
and the Physical World. He has three daughters.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 7 Mar 1994 21:12:57 -0500 (EST)
From: Stanton McCandlish <[email protected]>
Subject: File 2--Leahy to hold hearings on Clipper Chip!
Dear Friends on the Electronic Frontier:
I have some good news to share with you. Senator Leahy just sent me a
letter indicating that he *will* be scheduling hearings on the
Administration's Clipper Chip proposal. I would like to thank all of
you who sent us messages to forward to him urging hearings. I'm sure
that stack of messages we printed out made a significant impact on the
Senator -- the stack was over seven inches tall! (We look forward to
the day when no trees will have to be sacrificed in the furtherance of
democracy!)
And if you haven't written a message to Rep. Cantwell yet about her
proposed amendment to the Export Control Act, please do so and forward
it to [email protected]. This is an address we set up to enable us to
collect messages in support of her bill. We have been printing out
messages and delivering them each week -- so far we've received over
4500 letters of support. For more information on the Cantwell bill,
send a message to [email protected].
Thanks again. We'll let you know as soon as the Clipper hearing gets
scheduled.
Sincerely,
Jerry Berman
EFF Executive Director
-.-.-.-.-.-.-. forward from Sen. Leahy -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
United States Senate
Committee on the Judiciary
Washington, DC 20510
March 1, 1994
Mr. Jerry Berman
Executive Director
Electronic Frontier Foundation
1001 G Street, Suite 950 East
Washington, DC 20001
Dear Jerry,
Thank you for forwarding to me the many thoughtful and informative messages
you received over the Internet regarding the Administration's recent
approval of an escrowed encryption standard, known as the Clipper Chip.
Many of the messages urge Congress to hold hearings to review the
Administration's Clipper Chip standard. In fact, I intend to hold a
hearing before the Judiciary Subcommittee on Technology and the Law, which
I chair, to consider the important issues raised by the Clipper Chip. I
will let you know when a date for the hearing is scheduled.
Thank you again.
Sincerely,
/s/ PATRICK J. LEAHY
United States Senator
PJL/jud
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
JOIN EFF!!
==========
EFF's work as a civil liberties organization in Washington has been very
successful, but the realization of our goals of freedom and privacy online
can only come with the active and vocal participation of the entire online
community. Now that you have personally experienced both the threat of the
loss of your privacy and the power having won the first battle, won't you
take that next step and become a member of EFF?
By joining EFF, you will help us to expand our reach to educate and involve
an even greater number of people in the shaping of these critical issues.
Your tax-deductible donation will tie you into the EFF information network
and support our public policy and legal work. As a member, you will be
guaranteed timely the timely information and mechanism you need to respond
on these issues. Our voices in unity *do* make a difference.
-------- 8< ------- cut here ------- 8< --------
MEMBERSHIP IN THE ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION
================================================
Print out in monospaced (non-proportional) font and mail to:
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------------------------------
Date: Sun, 6 Mar 94 19:12:56 CST
From: [email protected](Susan Herring)
Subject: File 3--Survey: communication ethics on the net
The following survey is part of a project I am conducting on communication
ethics on the net. I'd appreciate it if everyone who reads this message
could take a few minutes to answer and return the survey. All responses
will remain strictly confidential. A summary of the results will be made
available to respondents upon request.
=========================================================================
NETIQUETTE SURVEY
The following questions concern behavior on electronic discussion lists
and/or newsgroups. Answer on the basis of your personal experience and
reactions. Needless to say, there are no correct or incorrect answers.
1. What behaviors bother you most on the net?
2. What net behaviors do you most appreciate when you encounter them?
3. In an ideal world, what one change would you most like to see in
the way people participate on the net?
SPECIFIC BEHAVIORS
For each behavior listed below, place an X under the number that indicates
how common the behavior is in your experience on the net, and your typical
reaction when you encounter it. (If the behavior reminds you of a particular
list or group, feel free to mention the group or otherwise comment.)
rare common like dislike
1. Participants post very 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
long messages
2. Participants post short 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
messages
3. The same participant(s) 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
post frequently
4. Requests are posted for 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
obvious or easily-
obtained information
5. Requests are posted on 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
FAQs or topic previously
discussed
rare common like dislike
6. Messages don't contain 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
explicit subject headers
7. Messages contain typos 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
or spelling errors
8. Messages are unclearly 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
worded or otherwise obscure
9. Messages posted on topics 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
not directly related to
focus of list/newsgroup
10. Same msg. posted more than 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
once to same list/newsgroup
rare common like dislike
11. Message cross-posted to 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
multiple lists/newsgroups
12. Messages sent publicly 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
instead of to listserv or
to a private individual
13. Messages quote all of 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
message being responded to
14. Elaborate signature files 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
15. Messages contain personal 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
or intimate information
about sender
rare common like dislike
16. Messages compliment or 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
thank others for their
messages
17. Messages agree with the 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
content of previous msgs.
18. Messages challenge the 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
content of previous msgs.
19. Messages have humorous 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
content
20. Messages are ironic or 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
sarcastic in tone
rare common like dislike
21. Messages contain insider 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
references understandable
only to members of that group
22. Messages give advice to 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
other participants
23. Messages sympathize with 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
other participants
24. Messages are tentative or 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
overly polite
25. Messages forcefully 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
assert sender's views
rare common like dislike
26. Participants boast of own 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
achievements/importance
27. Messages contain profanity 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
28. Messages have racist 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
content
29. Messages have sexist 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
content
30. Participants "flame" or 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
express strong negative
emotion
OTHER
1. How many screens does a message have to be before you consider it
"too long" (i.e. consider deleting it or skipping to the next message)?
2. Would you favor limits on length and/or frequency of posting to public
lists/newsgroups? If so, what limits would you propose?
3. Put an X next to the statement that best applies:
In my experience on the net, participants behave politely and
appropriately
a) almost all the time
b) most of the time, with some exceptions
c) about half of the time
d) not very often
e) almost never
RESPONDENT BACKGROUND INFORMATION (important)
1. Age: under 25; 25-35; 36-45; 46-55; 56-65; over 65
2. Sex: M F
3. Ethnicity: White (non-Hispanic); Asian; African-American;
Hispanic; Native American; other
4. Native language if other than English:
5. Academic position: Prof; Assoc. Prof; Assist. Prof; Instructor
(non tenure-track); Grad student; Undergrad; academic staff;
researcher; not associated with academia
6. Field of specialization:
7. Number of years using computer networks:
8. Number of electronic discussion lists you currently subscribe to:
9. How often, on the average, do you contribute to these lists?
10. Number of newsgroups you read (regularly or occasionally):
11. How often, on the average, do you contribute to these newsgroups?
=====================================================================
Thank you for responding. Please send surveys and requests for
summary of survey results to [email protected] or (snail mail):
Prof. Susan Herring, Program in Linguistics, University of Texas,
Arlington, TX 76019 USA.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 6 Mar 94 02:21:40 PST
From: raustin@pro-palmtree.socal.com (Ronald Austin)
Subject: File 4--Starring Tom Cruise as Kevin Poulsen?
((The following is reprinted from Telecom Digest (V 14: #115))
Daily Variety
March 3, 1994 Thursday
SECTION: NEWS; Pg.1
BYLINE: MICHAEL FLEMING
PAR'S HACK ATTACK: Though the minds of Paramount execs have surely
been on potential whackings, computer hacking was the chief focus of
execs Bob Jaffe and John Goldwyn last week. The execs got Par to pay a
low six-figure fee against mid-six figures to Jonathan Littman for the
rights to make a movie from his Sept. 12 {L.A. Times Magazine} article
"The Last Hacker," and major names are lining up to be involved. It's
the story of Kevin Lee Poulson, a skilled computer hacker who was so
inventive he once disabled the phone system of KIIS-FM so he could be
the 102nd caller and win the $50,000 Porsche giveaway.
More seriously, he's been charged with using his expertise to breach
national security by accessing top secret files and selling the
information. He's even suspected of disabling the phone systems of
"Unsolved Mysteries" after he was profiled, so that callers couldn't
furnish clues to his whereabouts. Poulson was caught and has been in
jail for the last three years, facing more than 100 years in prison.
ICM agent Kris Dahl got Littman to turn the article into a book for
Little, Brown, and ICM's Irene Webb racked up yet another sale for the
screen rights to the hacker story. It was a vigorous tug of war
between Touchstone, which was trying to purchase it for "City
Slickers" director Ron Underwood, and Paramount, chasing it for
producer Oren Koules.
Littman chose Koules, and now, Dish hears, Underwood wants to join
Koules to direct. Littman, meanwhile, has remained tight with the
underground community of hackers as he researches his book. That takes
its toll. Among other things, the mischief meisters have already
changed his voice mail greeting to render an obscene proposal.
---------------------
UUCP: hatch!pro-palmtree!raustin The Palmtree BBS
Inet: raustin@pro-palmtree.socal.com 310-453-8726 v.32
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for passing this along. For
readers who do not remember/know of Poulsen, we have a file about him
in the Telecom Archives. As the article above points out, he will
probably be in jail for a long time to come. Articles about other
hackerphreaks who have been arrested and their exploits are in the
same sub-directory in the Archives. You can reach the Archives using
anonymous ftp lcs.mit.edu. PAT]
------------------------------
End of Computer Underground Digest #6.24
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