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Volume 6, #02                      /___________________________________________
                                                              February 28, 1993

Table of Contents:

Section a: Metro/Northwest
[a 1] OCADSV Appeals Oregon CNID Ruling
[a 2] Letters on CNID
[a 3] Multnomah County Library Pushed to Start Charging


Section b: National/World News
[b 1] CPSR Sues Secret Service Over 2600 Raid
[b 2] The Frontier Has Been Crossed, All the Saddlebags Have Cellular
[b 3] Calendar

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  ___|                                                 CPSR/PDX
 |   | Section a:
 |__/| Metro/Northwest


[a 1] OCADSV Appeals Oregon CNID Ruling

On February 18, The Oregon Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual
Violence (OCADSV) asked the Oregon PUC to reconsider its second order
on Calling-Number ID (CNID).  CNID is a telephone service that allows
call recipients to gather the phone numbers and other statistics on
phone callers.

OCADSV objected to the order's permitting defects in a service called
Last Call Return (LCR).  In the PUC's original order, LCR could only
be offered if a critical defect was repaired in LCR.  This defect
allows a call recipient to return a call to a caller, even when the
caller thought they had made a private call using blocking.  The
defect could also allow call recipients to learn the phone numbers of
callers.

Prior to their appeal to the PUC, OCADSV conducted a study of LCR in
other states, and documented problems involving battered women and
domestic violence shelters in six states.  In one Kentucky case, a
woman was badly beaten when her abusive husband activated LCR and
discovered she'd spoken with a crisis intervention program.

OCADSV also documented cases where abusive husbands use LCR to further
isolate their victims.  "This technology is being used by [a woman's]
husband to further isolate her from any kind of support system," the
appeal quotes a New York domestic violence volunteer as stating.

The appeal also notes that abusive partners are using LCR to attempt
to locate shelters, or to locate and harass volunteers, who often call
clients from their homes.

These problems are occurring, despite the newness of the technology.
Abusive spouses are lending new meaning to the term "power user."

The appeal also asked the PUC to clarify a complex section of the
order that provided several complex periods during which selecting
Line Blocking would be free.  Callers who have Line Blocking prevent
call recipients from receiving information about them, unless of
course the call recipient has LCR.

The appeal asks the PUC to reimpose sections of its original order.

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[a 2] Letters on CNID

CPSR/PDX received several letters regarding recent CNID events
reported here:


On the Oregon PUC's revision of its CNID order:

---------------------------
Do you have phone numbers/names of people on the Oregon PUC.  I want
to personally contact them as a phone subscriber to express my anger
at their stupidity in how they decided CNID rules.  (I'm opposed to
all forms of CNID).

Thanks
Rick Hangartner
---------------------------

Sure, the Oregon PUC is composed of:

Chairman Ron Eachus
Joan Smith
Roger Hamilton

They can be reached at:

550 Capitol St NE
Salem, OR 97310
[phone]

A letter has more impact than a telephone call.

Glad to be of help.



On the Washington CNID order:

---------------------------
... the WUTC also essentially ignored not only the testimony of the
staff, but also that of Public Counsel, ACLU, CPSR-Seattle and others.

It is also the case that there is not an Order as such here, as the
WUTC simply allowed amendment to the original filing at one of its
regular weekly meetings, and approved that amended filing then and
there.

The point about "strict guidelines" is unimpressive.

You might find it of interest, and informative, to provide excerpts from
the written comments of some of the parties here, and you may also be
interested to know that GTE-NW filed its CallerID/CLASS proposal with
the WUTC 12/30, just about two weeks after the decision on the US West
proposal. In the wings, behind the GTE filing, is another one, from
United Tel.

Peter Marshall
---------------------------

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[a 3] Multnomah County Library Pushed to Start Charging

A front page story in Friday's Oregonian reported that the Multnomah
County Commissioners are pushing the county library to begin charging
for such services as the telephone answer line and out-of-area
patrons.  Librarians are reported to be strongly objecting to the
proposals.

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 |                                                                     CPSR/PDX
 |___
 |   | Section b:
 |___| National/World News


[b 1] CPSR Sues Secret Service Over 2600 Raid

CPSR filed suit in federal court seeking information on the role of
the Secret Service in the disruption of a meeting of computer users
last November.  The incident, which occurred at the Pentagon City Mall
in Arlington, Virginia, has been described as an example of
overzealous law enforcement activities directed against so-called
computer "hackers."

On November 6, 1992, a group of people affiliated with the computer
magazine "2600" were confronted by mall security personnel, local
police officers and several unidentified individuals.  The group
members were ordered to identify themselves and to submit to searches
of their personal property.  Their names were recorded by mall
security personnel and some of their property was confiscated.
However, no charges were ever brought against any of the individuals
at the meeting.

The Secret Service has not formally acknowledged its role in the
November incident.  However, a mall security official and the
Arlington County Police have said that Secret Service agents were
present and directed the activities of the mall security personnel.

"If this was a Secret Service operation, it raises serious
constitutional questions.  It is unlawful for the government to
disrupt a meeting of people who are peaceably assembled and to seize
their personal property.  We have filed this FOIA suit to determine
the precise role of the Secret Service in this affair," said CPSR
Washington Director Marc Rotenberg.

CPSR submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the
Secret Service several days after the incident.  To date, the agency
has failed to respond.  Under the law FOIA requesters may file suit in
federal court when an agency has not complied with the legally imposed
time limits.

CPSR previously filed a FOIA suit against the Secret Service after the
agency was criticized for several poorly conducted investigations of
computer users.  Documents disclosed to CPSR from the Operation Sun
Devil case revealed that the agency monitored publicly accessible
electronic bulletin boards.

CPSR has recommended the development of guidelines for computer crime
investigations and called for a reassessment of the Secret Service's
role in the computer crime field.

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[b 2] The Frontier Has Been Crossed, All the Saddlebags Have Cellular

                      Editorial By Erik Nilsson

I was reading a particularly tedious article in some tech rag, when it
occurred to me, how much of attention-span shrinkage is really
intolerance of poor writing?  Maybe there just isn't time to put up
with bad writing or poorly-paced cinema any more.

It is widely reported that attention spans are shrinking.  Let's
suppose this is true.  Is a long attention span intrinsically
valuable, and do we moderns have some compensating skill?

Marshall McLuhan probably already said this, but I think we are
trading attention span for bandwidth.  We are unable to concentrate
for days or even hours on a single thing, but we can handle huge
bursts of information.  We are becoming anti-autistic, constantly
shifting our paradigms, even while we search for a new buzzword to
replace paradigm.

Raves reveal this trend.  Large numbers of people wear tie-dye and
subject themselves to extremely dense, high intensity information
streams _for fun_.  Raves are loud in a musical sort of way, and lots
of people ingest chemicals and make new friends, so they aren't a
total departure from the past, but the relentless stream of data is
new.

Speaking of buzzwords, I often seem to bark my shins on the same few
while thinking about the future: "New Media," "Virtual Reality," and
"Internetworks."

Here's my virtual intermedia moment: _The Oregonian_, Portland's Daily
Newspaper, recently started up a telephone information service.  At
about the same time someone called me to tell me that Maya Angelou's
reading for the Clinton inaugural was recorded in _The Oregonian's_
system, the text of the poem arrived via email, so I could read the
poem as I listened to it, from my desk.

This wasn't a Media Lab feasibility study, or startup-seeking-VC demo,
this was a mediation so real as to be almost mundane.

I find virtual reality amusing, not because of the technology, which
is not very new or useful.  What's interesting is people's reaction to
the technology: people seem drawn to the idea of an artificial world
with fascination and fear.  But our whole world is "artificial," in
that it is an artifact, or artifice, of our culture and technology:

- Every reasonably sophisticated object we own required huge amounts
  of information behind it to bring it into being.  The clothes you
  wear are not only clothes, they are also the products of many
  information systems.  Without the information, they wouldn't exist.

- Bill Gates tops Rockefeller by minting money out of --what, a
  market circumstance, an unbaked wrinkle in our culture, thin air?
  Not quite the same thing as black gold.

Our everyday experience, through communications and various media, is
real, but also depends on these media.  If an oxymoron like Virtual
Reality means anything, reality is already virtual.

CPSR is putting a lot of energy into communications technology, from
CNID (Calling Number ID) to SCN (Seattle Community Network).  I bet
we're in the right area, but its unclear exactly what we should be
doing.

Eric Roberts said CPSR needs to get back in front.  However, like a
surfer, CPSR succeeds by using forces many orders of magnitude larger
than itself.  Too far out in front, and you just get hit by the wave,
instead of riding it.  Evolving communications technology is The Big
Wave, so we must position ourselves carefully.

Every day, the online community grows by 10,000 people{1}.  Most of these
people are dialing into BBSs, a constituency that CPSR has poor
contact with.  It's clear that a concerted effort by CPSR to bring
people online through our direct efforts will at best equal a few days
of what people are doing of their own accord.  That's not enough
leverage for CPSR to have much direct effect on the nature of these
networks.

Thing is, not everything is cool with these networks.  Fidonet appears
to be as heavily censored as Prodigy.  The problem is that, since
Fidonet is totally decentralized and cooperative, each sysop decides
their own censorship policy.  But since a typical network transmission
passes through many machines, freedom of expression on Fidonet sinks
to the level of the biggest chickenshit sysop.  Other sysops
self-censor, to guarantee network-wide transmission.

I can go into almost any bar in America, bellow "fuck," advocate the
overthrow of the US Government in very general terms, and propose
unusual and creative sexual activities to various patrons.  Unless and
until I get myself into a fistfight, I am unlikely to be censored.
Why should Fidonet be less permissive than America's barkeeps?

Networks need CPSR, and not just so people can be as big jerks online
as at their fave watering hole.  What can be gained by CPSR's direct
participation in building and maintaining networks?  Besides
censorship, networks are still expensive, and most of the software
still sucks.  By participating in networks, CPSR can:
 - build alliances
 - develop workable policies to ensure freedom of expression, privacy,
   and usability
 - develop application missions, or even full-blown application
   designs

However, these things can be achieved without owning the networks
ourselves, so CPSR need not directly build and maintain the network in
every case.

Lots of people are building networks, many just for the fun of it,
which makes them more affordable.  A lot of energy gets wasted,
however, because different groups act without awareness of what others
are doing, or because entrenched microbureaucracies serve no function
other than to prevent others from succeeding.

There's a big wave, a good ride for CSPR, and work to do.  Maybe we
need a good metaphor under our feet.  _The Electronic Frontier_ ain't
it, that horse is tired.  John Perry Barlow had a stroke of genius in
explaining cyberspace in terms of manifest destiny.  But the analogy
always had limitations: cyberspace is a purely human creation, not an
unexplored territory that existed before us.  The _Frontier_ is in
inner space as much as cyberspace.  Today, creatures from the new
world are reinventing the old.  The frontier is disappearing, maybe it
was a wavefront.

We're building a cartoon world, where your car sings the same
relentlessly cheerful song every time you open the door, and your
credit cards whisper to each other when your wallet is closed.  The
pioneers chose to visit cyberspace, but that choice is rapidly
evaporating.

Before Aswan, the Nile would flood at least every few years.  This
required evacuation, and obliterated most landmarks, but was necessary
to replenish the soil of floodplain farms.  The flooding was
unavoidable in any case.  As a consequence the Egyptians became good
surveyors early on, using a loop of rope with 12 knots to make a 3-4-5
right triangle.  The Nile delta was resurveyed in short order, and
farmers were soon back at work.

I don't know if this story is completely true, but I like the
metaphor.  When I think about the future of information, I mostly get
images of water.  Lots of water.  After immersion, after the
high-water mark, after our kowabunga baptism, somebody better have a
right triangle handy.



{1} Jack Rickard, Boardwatch Magazine, January 1993.  This figure is
probably obsolete already.
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[b 3] Calendar

3/6/93 Sat  CPSR Retreat
            Palo Alto, CA
            Contact: [e-mail]

3/9/93      The Third Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy
            Sponsored by ACM SIGCOMM, SIGCAS & SIGSAC
            March 9-12 San Francisco Airport Marriott Hotel, Burlingame, CA
            Contact: [e-mail]
            Proposal Submission to: [e-mail] by 8/15/92

5/13/93      Electronic Privacy in the 90's
             Guest Speakers: Stansfield Turner and Oliver North
             Sponsored by Systems Technology Services
             May 13-14, Watergate Hotel, Washington D.C.
             Contact: 1-800-845-7685
             CPSR/PDX called this number to confirm that this conference
             actually exists.  The resulting conversation was the oddest and
             edgiest in recent memory.  This is probably a very interesting
             conference, run by some very paranoid people.

5/14/93 Fri  Rural Datafication:
             Achieving the goal of Ubiquitous Access to the Internet
             Sponsored by CICNet and several state networks
             Contact: [e-mail]

5/20/93      Public Access to the Internet
             John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
             Cambridge, MA, 20-21 May 1993
             Abstracts due by: February 15.
             Contact: [e-mail]

6/16/93      NetWORKing - IFIP WG9.1 (Computers and Work)
             Promoted by:  International Federation of Information Processing
             Supported by: Austrian Computer Society & Vienna Chamber of Labor
             June 16-18, 1993, Vienna, Austria
             Contact: Osterreichische Computer Gesellschaft,
                      Wollzeile 1 - 3, A-1010 Wien,
                      Fax: [phone]
                      Tel.: [phone]

10/16/93      CPSR Annual Meeting
              Oct 16 - 17
              University of Washington, South Campus Center
              Seattle, Washington
              Contact: [e-mail]

10/22/93      International Symposium on Technology and Society '93
              October 22-23, Washington DC
              Deadline for submission: February 28
              Contact: [e-mail]
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                                                   /___________________________
Editor:      Erik Nilsson                             Contributing Editors:
Copy Editor: Andrea Rodakowski

_______________________________________________
_____________________________________________ /________________________________
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