The Hacker's Encyclopedia 1998/hackers_encyclopedia.iso/zines/cud/cud642.txt

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Computer underground Digest    Tue  May 17, 1994   Volume 6 : Issue 42
                           ISSN  1004-042X

       Editors: Jim Thomas and Gordon Meyer ([e-mail])
       Archivist: Brendan Kehoe
       Retiring Shadow Archivist: Stanton McCandlish
       Shadow-Archivists: Dan Carosone / Paul Southworth
                          Ralph Sims / Jyrki Kuoppala
                          Ian Dickinson
       Covey Editors:         D. Bannaducci & S. Jones

CONTENTS, #6.42 (May 17, 1994)

File 1--Hope Conference
File 2--The creeping evil of people with funny nameZ (REVIEW)
File 3--Contributions Wanted for Book on Internet Culture
File 4--Letter to NSF Internet Pricing (TAP Info Policy Note)
File 5--Fidonet Crackdown in Italy (update)
File 6--FEDGOVT> Congress On-Line (fwd)

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

Date: Sun, 15 May 1994 15:00:48 -0700
From: Emmanuel Goldstein <[e-mail]>
Subject: File 1--Hope Conference

H  A  C  K  E  R  S    O  N    P  L  A  N  E  T     E  A  R  T  H !
====================================================================
     * T h e   F i r s t  U. S.  H a c k e r  C o n g r e s s *


Come together in the summer of 1994 to celebrate the hacker world
and the tenth anniversary of 2600 Magazine. We will have speakers and
demonstrations from around the globe, a collection of films and rare
videos on hacking, and our very own network between all of us
and the outside world!

This is an opportunity to feel the real magic of hacking instead of
hearing about how we're about to destroy the world in some cheap tabloid
or on the news during sweeps week. Government propaganda and corporate
doublespeak have finally met their match!

If you want to help put together this historic event, contact us
by telephone at [phone], through the mail at H.O.P.E., PO Box 848,
Middle Island, NY 11953, on the Internet at [e-mail].
We need ideas, people, technology, and karma.

H.O.P.E. - August 13th and 14th at the Hotel Pennsylvania,
right in the middle of bustling New York City (Seventh Avenue and
34th Street, right across the street from Penn Station). We've rented out
the entire top floor (except for the mysterious NYNEX office).
Special rates of $99 a night are available from the hotel (double rooms,
four can probably fit easily). Cheaper places are also available as is
nearly anything else. This is New York City, after all.

Admission to the conference is $20 for the entire weekend if you
preregister, $25 at the door, regardless of whether you stay for two days
or five minutes. We encourage you to bring a computer so you can tie into
our giant Ethernet and add to the fun. We hope you try to hack root on
the system we'll be running - all attendees will get accounts with
prizes for the penetrators.

Dancing and merchandising in the halls

Cellular phone workshop

Celebration of the Clipper Chip (not)

Hacker videos from all over the world

Surveillance demos

Hacker legends from around the globe

It's not Woodstock - It's The Future

Many more details are on the way.

Information sources:

2600 Magazine
The Hacker Quarterly
Summer 1994 edition

Off The Hook
Wednesdays, 10:00 pm
WBAI 99.5 FM
New York City

2600 Voice BBS
516-473-2626

alt.2600
on the Internet

and random bits of text like this

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

Date: 16 May 94 16:40:30 EDT
From: Urnst Couch / Crypt Newsletter <[e-mail]>
Subject: File 2--The creeping evil of people with funny nameZ (REVIEW)

              "DR. SOLOMON'S PC ANTI-VIRUS BOOK" EXPOSES
          THE CREEPING EVIL OF PEOPLE WITH FUNNY NAMES WHOM
                         YOU WILL NEVER MEET

Sometime at the dawn of the personal computer age, publishers reversed
the laws of good writing for the specialty niche of computer books.
In place, readers got anti-consumerism which mandated that, usually,
books about computers, computer issues, or software would be written
only by presidents or employees of computer manufacturers, consulting
firms peddling advice on computer issues defined by the same
consultants or software developers and their publicity stooges.

This means that if you actually buy such books, you're getting a pig
in a poke.  Nowhere is this more obvious than the "DOS For Dummies"
series, a line of pamphlets so easy to sell competitors have rushed
out mimics written for "Idiots" and/or "Morons."

And, in the true spirit of American mass marketing, you can now
purchase attractive yellow and black "DOS For Dummies" baseball caps,
suitable for wearing inside the house, restaurant, bowling alley or
local smart bar.  In reality, the hats are a fiendishly clever IQ
test.  If you buy one, you fail, signalling to the corporate office
that you are the kind of Pavlovian consumer ready to invest in a fax
subscription to weekly company press releases.

Which is a long way of bringing the reader to "Dr. Solomon's
Anti-Virus Book" (New-Tech/Reed Elsevier), which fits all the, uh,
_good_ characteristics of the _computer book_.

On the cover are always tip-offs.  Look for concocted venal plaudits
and non-sequiturs.  For instance, "The Anti-Virus Book" is "THE book
on how to eliminate computer viruses" ". . . from the foremost
anti-virus experts" and exposes "computer games and viruses - the
truth!"  The publishing inference is that readers have somehow become
too stupid in 1994 to recognize something decent without a gratuitous
amount of pettifogging and boasting.

Alan Solomon and his co-author, Tim Kay, do realize the bogus nature
of computer literature.  On page 26 they write, "If you hadn't the
money to start manufacturing, or the knowledge to program, you could
always aim at the book market . . . Anyone who could persuade a
publisher that he had an area of expertise and could write, which
wasn't that difficult, could get into print.  One author was reputed
to be writing four or five books at once by using several different
typists in different rooms.  The story went that he walked from room
to room dictating a sentence to each typist as he went.  Looking at
some of the output, there is no reason to doubt this story."

That's a good tale.  But rather ill-spirited when considering "The PC
Anti-Virus Book" is a higgledy-piggledy assembly of reprints from the
S&S International (Solomon's company) corporate organ Virus News
International, Solomon interviewing himself and bursts of writing
which make absolutely zero sense.

For example:

"It would be difficult to create more [virus] experts, because the
learning curve is very shallow.  The first time you disassemble
something like Jerusalem virus, it takes a week.  After you've done a
few hundred viruses, you could whip through something as simple as
Jerusalem in 15 minutes."

Or:

" . . . the DOS virus will become as irrelevant as CPM (an obsolete
operating system).  Except that DOS will still be around 10 or 20
years from now, and viruses for the new operating system will start to
appear as soon as it is worth writing them."

And this favorite:

". . . take the game of virus consequences:

"In the game of Consequences, you start with a simple phrase, and
build up to a convoluted and amusing story.  In the virus version of
consequences, you start off with a false alarm and build from there."

The computer underground also figures highly in Solomon's book as he
spent a great deal of time over the past couple years attempting to
track down and telephone American hackers from the United Kingdom.

Nowhere Man - the author of the Virus Creation Laboratory - is in the
book.  Although VCL viruses never seemed to make it into the wild,
mentioning the software without pointing this out has always been in
vogue.  Members of the hacking group phalcon/SKISM appear, as does
John Buchanan, a Virginia Beach resident, who sold his virus
collection to numerous takers, making about $6-7,000 in the process.
Solomon didn't have these numbers - they're mine. He also fails to
mention that at one point Buchanan contributed his virus collection to
S&S International and was nominated for membership in the
pan-professional Computer Anti-Virus Research Organization by Solomon,
one of its charter members.

Solomon's book wouldn't be complete if it didn't invoke the creeping
evil of virus exchange bulletin board systems.  "The Hellpit" [sic]
near Chicago, is one.

And "Toward the end of 1992, the US Government started offering
viruses to people who called one of their BBS's . . . In 1993 the
Crypt newsletter blew the whistle on the US Government [AIS bulletin
board] system . . . " Solomon writes.

Since I edit the newsletter, this is a surprise to me and I'm sure,
Kim Clancy, the AIS system supervisor. But it's almost identical to
the nutty claim made by American computer security consultant Paul
Ferguson when the black-balling of AIS was featured news in Computer
underground Digest.  As the story developed, Ferguson - egged on by
Solomon - planted complaints about AIS in RISKS Digest and, later, the
Washington Post. Solomon has been a reader of the Crypt Newsletter and
it must have seemed logical to embroider the story because a back
issue featured an interview with Clancy after she was profiled in
Computer underground Digest.

However, Clancy had been a target of CARO since opening her system to
hacker underground files.  Finally, the negative publicity campaign
did that part of the AIS system in.

What a lot of people don't know is that other public systems have been
a target of the same people.  About a year earlier, Hans Braun's
COM-SEC computer security BBS in San Francisco had been a target of a
similar smear campaign for carrying issues of 40Hex, a
phalcon/SKISM-edited virus-programming electronic magazine. In a
recent interview for the book "The Virus Creation Labs," Braun
mentioned security workers David Stang (who has by turns been involved
with or worked for the National Computer Security Association in
Carlisle, Pennsylvania; the International Computer Security
Association - now defunct - in Washington, DC; and Norman Data Defense
of Falls Church, Virginia) and Alan Solomon as responsible for the
pressure. Since COM-SEC wasn't politically sensitive like AIS, Braun
said the efforts to tar him were unsuccessful. COM-SEC still carries
40Hex magazine.

"The anti-virus software industry is going through a shake-out; not
everyone is successful anymore," said Braun.  "It's my opinion, most
of these kinds of things are really attempts to keep access to
information from competitors."

"The Anti-Virus Book" also has annals of alleged virus-related
computer crime, which illustrates the same rush to seize everything
without leveling criminal charges as seen in the United States.

In the book there is the case of an unnamed man in the town of Rugby,
who had his door broken down by a sledgehammer and all his equipment
grabbed by New Scotland Yard officers in December of 1992 after taking
out an ad selling a virus collection in the English periodical Micro
Computer Mart. The charges were ethereal to non-existent.

About the same time, a hacker was arrested for stealing phone service
from his neighbor's line and his equipment confiscated, too. The
hacker turned out to be Apache Warrior, a member of the small United
Kingdom virus-writing group called ARCV (for Association of Really
Cruel Viruses).

Some background information not included in the book:  Alan Solomon
was apparently able to convince New Scotland Yard's computer crime
unit that they should also try to prosecute Apache Warrior as a
virus-writer and that the rest of the group should be rounded up, too.
In conversation, Solomon has said Apache Warrior turned over the names
of other group members. Subsequently, New Scotland Yard and local
constabularies conducted raids at multiple sites in England, arresting
another man.  Paradoxically, prior to the arrests, Solomon joked that
ARCV was better at cyber-publicity than virus programming and its
creations were little more than petty menaces.  The book offers no
reported incidences of ARCV viruses on the computers of others,
although Virus News International, by extension S&S International,
solicited readers for such evidence in 1993.

Later in the year, Solomon telephoned John Buchanan to tell him he had
been implicated as a member of ARCV - he was not - and that Scotland
Yard might be interested in extraditing him for trial.  It turned out
to be so much air.

Apache Warrior settled with the telephone company for the fraud and
the virus-writing prosecutions remain unresolved.  Most of this is
left out of "The PC Anti-Virus Book" except parts about the necessity
of jailing virus programmers.

The final part of "The Anti-Virus Book" is devoted to around fifty
pages of leaden legal boilerplate addressing computer meddling
supplied by a lawyer named Wendy R. London. Only those required under
penalty of death or the mentally ill would be interested in paying
attention to it.

A computer book must also include poor reviews of the author's
competitors' products. "The Anti-Virus Book" toes the line in this
regard, criticizing McAfee Associates and Central Point Software.

Also included is a diskette containing an extravagant color
advertisement for S&S International and a poster-sized Virus Calendar
for 1994 and 1995.

The calendar was fun.  I'm thinking of sending it to some middle
manager in computer services at a large, boring corporation (or an
editor at a computer magazine).  Then they can vex their underlings
(or readers) every day with network e-mail like, "It's May 31. Be on
the lookout for Tormentor-Lixo-Nuke, VCL-Diogenes, AntiCad-COBOL,
Month 4-6, Ital Boy, and Kthulhu computer viruses."

Finally, it would be unfair not to mention "The Anti-Virus Book's"
GOOD parts.  The technical analyses of well known PC computer viruses
were fascinating as was Solomon's description of how he developed
specialized virus identification programming for S&S International.
Solomon's development project, called Virtran, was capped when John
Buchanan - the same fellow who was denounced by him for selling
viruses in America - gave the programmer a copy of the NuKE Encryption
Device, or NED - a piece of code written by Nowhere Man and designed
to encrypt viruses in an esoteric manner.  At the time Solomon
received it, the NED code wasn't actually in any viruses.  It still
isn't, in fact, except for one called ITSHARD. And the story of the
development of Solomon's anti-virus software shows how the virus
underground and one developer in 1993 had each other in a weird
involuntary combination stranglehold and symbiosis.

". . . it does everything in a hundred different ways; it uses word
and byte registers, there are lots of noisy nonsense bytes, little
jumps . . . The NED looked like something out of a Salvador Dali
nightmare and I thought it was going to take a month of programming
[to detect ITSHARD]," writes Solomon.

According to the book, Solomon threw up his hands and decided to
revive a stalled project called the Ugly Duckling. The result was a
major revision of his software, the fruition of the proprietary
Virtran programming techniques used in it and a Queen's Award for
Technological Achievement in 1993.  The one NED virus - ITSHARD -
still isn't in the wild almost two years after Nowhere Man wrote the
original encryption code.

These sections didn't suffer at the hands of the patchwork editors who
threw most of "The Anti-Virus Book" together.  Unfortunately, they
comprise a small part of "The Anti-Virus Book" and were written so
that only someone already acquainted with the field - not your average
computer user - would get much from them. Just like most of the
dubious literature marketed by computer book publishers.

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

Date: 15 May 1994 04:18:11 GMT
From: [e-mail](David Porter)
Subject: File 3--Contributions Wanted for Book on Internet Culture

I am looking for people who might be interested in contributing to a
new book on Internet Culture.  The project is still in its early
planning stages, but I foresee an anthology gathering together a
collection of essays, stories and even poetry about life on the Net.
I'm particularly interested in the way the possibilities of
"cyberspace" get people thinking in new ways about things like
community, social interaction, authority, manners, sexuality,
education, story-telling, youth culture, the public sphere, and so on.
I don't have any set line on any of these things beyond my conviction
that things are changing out there in interesting ways, and ways that
are worth thinking and talking about.

At this stage I am not yet asking for contributions, but rather for
comments and initial expressions of interest from people who might
like to contribute something later.  If you have an idea for a piece
you might like to do (or that you have already done), please send me a
brief description of what you're thinking about via e-mail
([e-mail]) within the next couple of weeks.  Based
on the responses I receive, I'll decide if the project actually seems
feasible, and if so, try to form a better idea of the shape the book
might take.  At that point I'll write back to all those who responded
to talk about how we might proceed.

I see my own role in all this primarily as that of an editor, though I
might also contribute a piece myself.  My own background happens to be
academic (I'm a doctoral student in Comparative Literature at
Stanford), and though I would welcome scholarly contributions, I'm
hoping this collection will represent a wide range of styles and
approaches, and don't want to prescribe in advance the forms
submissions might take.  I've edited a book before (Between Men and
Feminism, Routledge, 1992), and taught a couple of courses on the
social impact of computing, so I'm reasonably confident about my
ability to bring the project off.

Please write to let me know what you think, and what you might like to
contribute!  Also, if you can suggest other newsgroups where this
message might find a favorable reception, I'll try to post it there
too.

Thanks,

David Porter

[e-mail]
Dept. of Comparative Literature
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-2087

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

Date: Sat, 7 May 1994 16:38:20 -0400
From: email list server <[e-mail]>
Subject: File 4--Letter to NSF Internet Pricing (TAP Info Policy Note)

This message is being forwarded to the cpsr-announce list as it is
very relevant to the issue of equal access to the NII- a principle
fundamental to CPSR's NII policy.

TAP postings are archived at cpsr.org:/taxpayer_assets.
Several other postings on the Internet are listed there.

*********************************************************************

Distributed to TAP-INFO, a free Internet Distribution List
(subscription requests to [e-mail])

TAXPAYER ASSETS PROJECT - INFORMATION POLICY NOTE
May 7, 1994

-    Request for signatures for a letter to NSF opposing metered
     pricing of Internet usage

-    Please repost this request freely

The letter will be sent to Steve Wolff, the Director of
Networking and Communications for NSF.  The purpose of the letter
is to express a number of user concerns about the future of
Internet pricing.  NSF recently announced that is awarding five
key contracts to telephone companies to operate four Internet
"Network Access Points" (NAPs), and an NSF funded very high speed
backbone (vBNS).  There have been a number of indications that
the telephone companies operating the NAPs will seek permission
from NSF to price NAPs services according to some measure of
Internet usage.  The vBNS is expected to act as a testbed for new
Internet pricing and accounting schemes.  The letter expresses
the view that metered pricing of Internet usage should be
avoided, and that NSF should ensure that the free flow of
information through Internet listserves and file server sites is
preserved and enhanced.

jamie love, Taxpayer Assets Project ([e-mail]; but
     unable to answer mail until May 15).  Until then, direct
     inquires to Michael Ward.

If you are willing to sign the letter, send the following
     information to Mike Ward of the Taxpayer Assets Project
     ([e-mail], fax: [phone]; voice: 202/387-8030;
     P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036):

Names:    ___________________________
Title:    ___________________________   (Optional)
Affiliation:   ____________________________________
(for purposes of identification only)
Address:       ______________________________________
City; St, Zip  ________________________________
Email Address: _____________________________________
Voice:         __________________________________
for verification)

                            the letter follows:

Steve Wolff
Director
Division of Networking and Communications
National Science Foundation
1800 G Street
Washington, DC  20550

Dear Steve:

It is our understanding that the National Science Foundation
(NSF) and other federal agencies are developing a new
architecture for the Internet that will utilize four new Network
Access Points (NAPs), which have been described as the new
"cloverleaves" for the Internet.  You have indicated that NSF is
awarding contracts for four NAPs, which will be operated by
telephone companies (Pac Bell, S.F.; Ameritech, Chicago; Sprint,
NY; and MFS, Washington, DC).  We further understand that NSF has
selected MCI to operate its new very high speed backbone (vBNS)
facility.

There is broad public interest in the outcome of the negotiations
between NSF and the companies that will operate the NAPs and
vBNS.  We are writing to ask that NSF consider the following
objectives in its negotiations with these five firms:

     PRICING.

We are concerned about the future pricing systems for Internet
access and usage.  Many users pay fixed rates for Internet
connections, often based upon the bandwidth of the connection,
and do not pay for network usage, such as the transfer of data
using email, ftp, Gopher or Mosaic.  It has been widely reported
on certain Internet discussion groups, such as com-priv, that the
operators of the NAPs are contemplating a system of usage based
pricing.

We are very concerned about any movement toward usage based
pricing on the Internet, and we are particularly concerned about
the future of the Internet Listserves, which allow broad
democratic discourse on a wide range of issues.  We believe that
the continued existence and enhancement of the Internet
discussion groups and distribution lists is so important that any
pricing scheme for the NAPs that would endanger or restrict their
use should be rejected by the NSF.

It is important for NSF to recognize that the Internet is more
than a network for scientific researchers or commercial
transactions.  It represents the most important new effort to
expand democracy into a wide range of human endeavors.  The open
communication and the free flow of information have make
government and private organizations more accountable, and
allowed citizens to organize and debate the widest range of
matters.  Federal policy should be directed at expanding public
access to the Internet, and it should reject efforts to introduce
pricing schemes for Internet usage that would mimic commercial
telephone networks or expensive private network services such as
MCI mail.

To put this into perspective, NSF officials must consider how any
pricing mechanisms will change the economics of hosting an
Internet electronic mail discussion groups and distribution
lists.  Many of these discussion groups and lists are very large,
such as Humanist, GIS-L, CNI-Copyright, PACS-L, CPSR-Announce or
Com-Priv.  It is not unusual for a popular Internet discussion
group to have several thousand members, and send out more than
100,000 email messages per day.  These discussion groups and
distribution lists are the backbones of democratic discourse on
the Internet, and it is doubtful that they would survive if
metered pricing of electronic mail is introduced on the Internet.

Usage based pricing would also introduce a wide range of problems
regarding the use of ftp, gopher and mosaic servers, since it
conceivable that the persons who provide "free" information on
servers would be asked to pay the costs of "sending" data to
persons who request data.  This would vastly increase the costs
of operating a server site, and would likely eliminate many
sources of data now "published" for free.

We are also concerned about the types of  accounting mechanisms
which may be developed or deployed to facilitate usage based
pricing schemes., which raise a number of concerns about personal
privacy.  Few Internet users are anxious to see a new system of
"surveillance" that will allow the government or private data
vendors to monitor and track individual usage of Information
obtained from Internet listserves or fileserves.

     ANTI-COMPETITIVE PRACTICES

     We are also concerned about the potential for anti-
competitive behavior by the firms that operate the NAPs.  Since
1991 there have been a number of criticisms of ANS pricing
practices, and concerns about issues such as price discrimination
or preferential treatment are likely to become more important as
the firms operating the NAPs become competitors of firms that
must connect to the NAPs.  We are particularly concerned about
the announcements by PAC-Bell and Ameritech that they will enter
the retail market for Internet services, since both firms were
selected by NSF to operate NAPs.  It is essential that the
contracts signed by NSF include the strongest possible measures
to insure that the operators of the NAPs do not unfairly
discriminate against unaffiliated companies.

Recommendations:

As the Internet moves from the realm of the research community to
a more vital part of the nation's information infrastructure, the
NSF must ensure that its decisions reflect the needs and values
of a much larger community.

1.   The NSF contracts with the NAPs operators will include
     clauses that determine how the NAP services will be priced.
     It is important that NSF disclose and receive comment on all
     pricing proposals before they become final.  NSF should
     create an online discussion list to facilitate public dialog
     on the pricing proposals, and NSF should identify its
     criteria for selecting a particular pricing mechanism,
     addressing the issue of how the pricing system will impact
     the Internet's role in facilitating democratic debate.

2.   NSF should create a consumer advisory board which would
     include a broad cross section of consumer interests,
     including independent network service providers (NSPs),
     publishers of Internet discussion groups and distribution
     lists, academic networks, librarians, citizen groups and
     individual users.  This advisory board should review a
     number of policy questions related to the operation of the
     Internet, including questions such as the NAP pricing, NAP
     operator disclosure of financial, technical and operational
     data, systems of Internet accounting which are being tested
     on the vBNS and other topics.

3.   NSF should solicit public comment, though an online
     discussion group, of the types of safeguards against
     anticompetitive behavior by the NAPs which should be
     addressed in the NSF/NAPs contracts, and on issues such as
     NAPs pricing and Internet accounting systems.

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

Date:         Mon, 16 May 94 16:31:26 GMT
From:         luc pac <[e-mail]>
Subject: File 5--Fidonet Crackdown in Italy (update)

Updates will follow.

>From 'la Repubblica' , May 13th 1994, page 21

COMPUTER PIRATE HUNTING IN ITALY
(Caccia ai pirati dell'informatica)

by CLAUDIO GERINO

Translated by Fabio Rossetti. Translator's notes in square brackets. 'La
Repubblica' is currently the 2nd most important newspaper in Italy after
the 'Corriere della Sera'.

ROME - Crime association finalized to the spreading of illegaly
duplicated computer software; illegal passwords used to break into
government owned computers: the first maxi-operation against computer
piracy starts from the prosecutor's office in Pesaro, Italy, following
the passage of the new computer crime bill on January 14th. Dozens of
BBSes ('telematic data-banks')  have been shut down; computers, floppy
disks and modem have been seized; a large number of sysops (system
operators) has been denounced all over Italy. Nonetheless, the actions
of Sostituto Procuratore [italian prosecutor] Gaetano Saverio Pedrocchi
have been questioned by the networks involved in the affair. Two very
well-known networks, Peacelink and Fidonet, have been indeed caught
under the eye of the judge from Pesaro.

The first network - Peacelink - offers news and services regarding
pacifist voluntary services in our country [Italy] and in the rest of
the world. This is the network which, in collaboration with radio
amateurs, has kept alive most of the communication with the people in
ex-Jugoslavia. In these days it had even indicted a national conference
on peace. The second network is instead the 'italian branch' of an
'international sysop network' and is considered the most up-to-date data
bank on telematics. Both network have iron clad rules regarding illegal
duplication of computer software and password exchange. Both networks
are based on the voluntary collaboration of system operators.

On the other hand, investigations seem to have ascertained severe
violations of the norms against computer piracy in Italy. It is not
unlikely - at least so the investigators seem to intend - that inside
those networks somebody has created a sort of secret sub-network,
perhaps hiding it to the system operator themselves. The operation
conducted by the 'Guardia di Finanza' [the italian customs office]
started the night beetween Wednesday and yesterday [May 11th/ May 12th
94]: it will now be extended to all the people who logged themselves to
the BBSes involved.

"While in the rest of the world  BBSes are assuming an extremely
important role in the diffusion of information - explains Peacelink
spokesman Alessandro Marescotti -  in Italy networks with inflexible
norms against piracy have been struck. All this has happened charging
system operators with every responsability regarding everything that
could possibly happen in a bulletin board. The truth of the matter is
the absence of laws protecting the rights to existance for these
networks. Indeed, many volunteers have already decided to stop their
activities, notably 'Net 10', a sort of 'telematic help line'. We
suspect these investigations to be - as a matter of fact - aimed to
favour  the survival of commercial networks only."

  +______________________________________________________
BITs Against The Empire                             Computer Underground
Fido 2:333/412                                  Research & Documentation
CyberNet 65:1400/1                                        Trento - Italy

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

Date:         Fri, 13 May 1994 16:26:37 CDT
From:         Carol Singer <[e-mail]>
Subject: File 6--FEDGOVT> Congress On-Line (fwd)

This was forwarded to the ACE mailing list

==========================================

            UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
              CONSTITUENT ELECTRONIC MAIL SYSTEM

        We welcome your inquiry to the House of Representatives
Constituent Electronic Mail System.  Currently, twentythree Members of the
U.S. House of Representatives have been assigned public electronic
mailboxes that may be accessed by their constituents.  The results of the
six month public mail pilot have been very encouraging.  The nature and
character of the incoming electronic mail has demonstrated that this
capability will be an invaluable source of information on constituent
opinion.  We are now in the process of expanding the project to other
Members of Congress, as technical, budgetary and staffing constraints
allow.

        A number of House committees have also been assigned public
electronic mailboxes.  The names and electronic mailbox addresses of these
committees are listed below after the information about participating
Representatives.

        Please review the list of participating Representatives below, and
if the Congressional District in which you reside is listed, follow the
instructions below to begin communicating by electronic mail with your
Representative.  If your Representative is not yet on-line, please be
patient.

        U.S. REPRESENTATIVES PARTICIPATING IN THE CONSTITUENT
                       ELECTRONIC MAIL SYSTEM.

Hon. Sherwood Boehlert 23rd Congressional District, New York Rm. 1127
Longworth House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 [e-mail]

Hon. Dave Camp 4th Congressional District, Michigan Rm. 137 Cannon House
Office Building Washington, DC 20515 [e-mail]

Hon. Maria Cantwell 1st Congressional District, Washington Rm. 1520
Longworth House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 [e-mail]

Hon. John Conyers, Jr.  14th Congressional District, Michigan Rm. 2426
Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 [e-mail]

Hon. Sam Coppersmith 1st Congressional District, Arizona 1607 Longworth
House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 [e-mail]

Hon. Peter Deutsch 20th Congressional District, Florida Rm. 425 Cannon
House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 [e-mail]

Hon. Jay Dickey 4th Congressional District, Arkansas Rm. 1338 Longworth
House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 [e-mail]

Hon. Vernon Ehlers 3rd Congressional District, Michigan Rm. 1526 Longworth
House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 [e-mail]

Hon. Anna Eshoo 14th Congressional District, California Rm. 1505 Longworth
House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 [e-mail]

Hon. Elizabeth Furse 1st Congressional District, Oregon Rm. 316 Cannon
House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 [e-mail]

Hon. Sam Gejdenson 2nd Congressional District, Connecticut Rm. 2416
Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 [e-mail]

Hon. Newton Gingrich 6th Congressional District, Georgia Rm. 2428 Rayburn
House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 [e-mail]

Hon. Dennis Hastert 14th  Congressional District, Illinois Rm. 2453
Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 [e-mail]

Hon. Martin Hoke 2nd Congressional District, Ohio Rm. 212 Cannon House
Office Building Washington, DC 20515 [e-mail]

Hon. Sam Johnson 3rd Congressional District, Texas Rm. 1030 Longworth
House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 [e-mail]

Hon. Mike Kreidler 9th Congressional District, Washington Rm. 1535
Longworth House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 [e-mail]

Hon. George Miller 7th Congressional District, California Rm. 2205 Rayburn
House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 [e-mail]

Hon. Earl Pomeroy North Dakota, At Large Rm. 318 Cannon House Office
Building Washington, DC 20515 [e-mail]

Hon. Charlie Rose 7th Congressional District, North Carolina Rm. 2230
Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 [e-mail]

Hon. Karen Shepherd 2nd Congressional District, Utah Rm. 414 Cannon House
Office Building Washington, DC 20515 [e-mail]

Hon. 'Pete' Stark 13th Congressional District, California Rm.  239 Cannon
House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 [e-mail]

Hon. Charles Taylor 11th Congressional District, North Carolina Rm. 516
Cannon House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 [e-mail]

Hon. Mel Watt 12th Congressional District, North Carolina Rm. 1232
Longworth House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 [e-mail]

                    INSTRUCTIONS FOR CONSTITUENTS

     The list above includes the electronic mail addresses of members who
are participating in the program.  However, if your Representative is
taking part in the project, we request that you send a letter or postcard
by U.S. Mail to that Representative at the address listed above with your
name and internet address, followed by your postal (geographical) address.
The primary goal of this program is to allow Members to better serve their
CONSTITUENTS, and this postal contact is the only sure method currently
available of verifying that a user is a resident of a particular
congressional district.

        In addition, constituents who communicate with their
Representative by electronic mail should be aware that Members will
sometimes respond to their messages by way of the U.S. Postal Service.
This  method of reply will help to ensure confidentiality, a concern that
is of upmost importance to the House of Representatives.

        COMMITTEES OF THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES PARTICIPATING
                     IN THE ELECTRONIC MAIL SYSTEM.

Committee on Natural Resources 1324 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515 [e-mail]

Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 2320 Rayburn House Office
Building Washington, DC 20515 [e-mail]

COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS

        Please feel free to send electronic mail comments about our new
service to the Congressional Comment Desk, at

        [e-mail]

        We will make every effort to integrate suggestions into
forthcoming updates of our system.

        Thank you again for contacting the House of Representatives'
Constituent Electronic Mail System.  We are excited about the
possibilities that e-mail has to offer, and will be working hard to bring
more Members on-line and to expand our services.

        This message will be updated as necessary.

                Honorable  Charlie Rose (D-NC)
                Chairman
                Committee on House Administration


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End of Computer Underground Digest #6.42
************************************