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-
- Computer underground Digest Wed June 18, 1997 Volume 9 : Issue 47
- 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
- Shadow-Archivists: Dan Carosone / Paul Southworth
- Ralph Sims / Jyrki Kuoppala
- Ian Dickinson
- Field Agent Extraordinaire: David Smith
- Cu Digest Homepage: http://www.soci.niu.edu/~cudigest
-
- CONTENTS, #9.47 (Wed, June 18, 1997)
-
- File 1--HACKERS SMASH U.S. GOVERNMENT ENCRYPTION STANDARD
- File 2--Hacker may have stolen JonBenet computer documents
- File 3--Mitnick gets 22 months
- File 4--Judge denies Mitnick computer access
- File 5-- Hacker Vows 'Terror' for Child Pornographers
- File 6--Trial Opens IN On-line Kidnapping Case
- File 7--Call for Open Global Net
- File 8--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 7 May, 1997)
-
- CuD ADMINISTRATIVE, EDITORIAL, AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION APPEARS IN
- THE CONCLUDING FILE AT THE END OF EACH ISSUE.
-
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 18:55:12 -0700 (PDT)
- From: sameer <sameer@c2.net>
- Subject: File 1--HACKERS SMASH U.S. GOVERNMENT ENCRYPTION STANDARD
-
- Source - fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu
-
- C2Net Software, Inc.
- 1212 Broadway
- Oakland, CA 94612
- 510-986-8770
-
- For Immediate Release
-
- HACKERS SMASH U.S. GOVERNMENT ENCRYPTION STANDARD
-
- Oakland, California (June 18, 1997)-The 56-bit DES encryption
- standard, long claimed "adequate" by the U.S. Government, was
- shattered yesterday using an ordinary Pentium personal computer
- operated by Michael K. Sanders, an employee of iNetZ, a Salt Lake
- City, Utah-based online commerce provider. Sanders was part of a
- loosely organized group of computer users responding to the "RSA
- $10,000 DES Challenge." The code-breaking group distributed computer
- software over the Internet for harnessing idle moments of computers
- around the world to perform a 'brute force' attack on the encrypted
- data.
-
- "That DES can be broken so quickly should send a chill through the
- heart of anyone relying on it for secure communications," said Sameer
- Parekh, one of the group's participants and president of C2Net
- Software, an Internet encryption provider headquartered in Oakland,
- California (http://www.c2.net/). "Unfortunately, most people today
- using the Internet assume the browser software is performing secure
- communications when an image of a lock or a key appears on the
- screen. Obviously, that is not true when the encryption scheme is
- 56-bit DES," he said.
-
- INetZ vice president Jon Gay said "We hope that this will encourage
- people to demand the highest available encryption security, such as
- the 128-bit security provided by C2Net's Stronghold product, rather
- than the weak 56-bit ciphers used in many other platforms."
-
- Many browser programs have been crippled to use an even weaker, 40-bit
- cipher, because that is the maximum encryption level the
- U.S. government has approved for export. "People located within the US
- can obtain more secure browser software, but that usually involves
- submitting an affidavit of eligibility, which many people have not
- done," said Parekh. "Strong encryption is not allowed to be exported
- from the U.S., making it harder for people and businesses in
- international locations to communicate securely," he explained.
-
- According to computer security expert Ian Goldberg, "This effort
- emphasizes that security systems based on 56-bit DES or
- "export-quality" cryptography are out-of-date, and should be phased
- out. Certainly no new systems should be designed with such weak
- encryption.'' Goldberg is a member of the University of California at
- Berkeley's ISAAC group, which discovered a serious security flaw in
- the popular Netscape Navigator web browser software.
-
- The 56-bit DES cipher was broken in 5 months, significantly faster
- than the hundreds of years thought to be required when DES was adopted
- as a national standard in 1977. The weakness of DES can be traced to
- its "key length," the number of binary digits (or "bits") used in its
- encryption algorithm. "Export grade" 40-bit encryption schemes can be
- broken in less than an hour, presenting serious security risks for
- companies seeking to protect sensitive information, especially those
- whose competitors might receive code-breaking assistance from foreign
- governments.
-
- According to Parekh, today's common desktop computers are tremendously
- more powerful than any computer that existed when DES was
- created. "Using inexpensive (under $1000) computers, the group was
- able to crack DES in a very short time," he noted. "Anyone with the
- resources and motivation to employ modern "massively parallel"
- supercomputers for the task can break 56-bit DES ciphers even faster,
- and those types of advanced technologies will soon be present in
- common desktop systems, providing the keys to DES to virtually
- everyone in just a few more years."
-
- 56-bit DES uses a 56-bit key, but most security experts today consider
- a minimum key length of 128 bits to be necessary for secure
- encryption. Mathematically, breaking a 56-bit cipher requires just
- 65,000 times more work than breaking a 40-bit cipher. Breaking a
- 128-bit cipher requires 4.7 trillion billion times as much work as one
- using 56 bits, providing considerable protection against brute-force
- attacks and technical progress.
-
- C2Net is the leading worldwide provider of uncompromised Internet
- security software. C2Net's encryption products are developed entirely
- outside the United States, allowing the firm to offer full-strength
- cryptography solutions for international communications and
- commerce. "Our products offer the highest levels of security available
- today. We refuse to sell weak products that might provide a false
- sense of security and create easy targets for foreign governments,
- criminals, and bored college students," said Parekh. "We also oppose
- so-called "key escrow" plans that would put everyone's cryptography
- keys in a few centralized locations where they can be stolen and sold
- to the highest bidder," he added. C2Net's products include the
- Stronghold secure web server and SafePassage Web Proxy, an enhancement
- that adds full-strength encryption to any security-crippled "export
- grade" web browser software.
-
- # # #
-
- Pentium is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation.
-
- Netscape and Netscape Navigator are registered trademarks of Netscape
- Communications Corporation
-
- Stronghold and SafePassage are trademarks of C2Net Software, Inc.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 20:03:14 -0400
- From: "Evian S. Sim" <evian@escape.com>
- Subject: File 2--Hacker may have stolen JonBenet computer documents
-
- By JENNIFER MEARS, The Associated Press
- Copyright 1997 The Associated Press
-
- BOULDER, Colo. (June 13, 1997 07:38 a.m. EDT) -- A computer hacker has
- infiltrated the system set aside for authorities investigating the slaying
- of JonBenet Ramsey, the latest blow to a heavily criticized inquiry.
-
- Boulder police spokeswoman Leslie Aaholm said the computer was "hacked"
- sometime early Saturday. The incident was announced by police Thursday.
-
- "We don't believe anything has been lost, but we don't know what, if
- anything, has been copied," said Detective John Eller, who is leading the
- investigation into the slaying of the 6-year-old girl nearly six months ago.
-
- The computer is in a room at the district attorney's office that police
- share with the prosecutor's investigators. The room apparently had not been
- broken into. Computer experts with the Colorado Bureau of Investigations
- were examining equipment to determine what had been done.
-
- ................
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 17:42:07 -0400
- From: "Evian S. Sim" <evian@escape.com>
- Subject: File 3--Mitnick gets 22 months
-
- Computer Hacker Mitnick to Get 22-Month Term Courts:
- In addition to sentence for cellular phone fraud and probation violation,
- former fugitive faces a 25-count federal indictment on software theft.
-
- Los Angeles Times (LT)
- TUESDAY June 17, 1997
- By: JULIE TAMAKI; TIMES STAFF WRITER
- Edition: Valley Edition
- Section: Metro
- Page: 4 Pt. B
- Story Type: Full Run
- Word Count: 398
-
- A federal judge indicated Monday that she plans to sentence famed computer
- hacker Kevin Mitnick to 22 months in prison for cellular phone fraud and
- violating his probation from an earlier computer crime conviction.
-
- The sentencing Monday is only a small part of Mitnick's legal problems.
- Still pending against him is a 25-count federal indictment accusing him of
- stealing millions of dollars in software during an elaborate hacking spree
- while he was a fugitive. A trial date in that case has yet to be set.
-
- U.S. District Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer on Monday held off on formally
- sentencing Mitnick for a week in order to give her time to draft conditions
- for Mitnick's probation after he serves the prison term.
-
- Pfaelzer said she plans to sentence Mitnick to eight months on the cellular
- phone fraud charge and 14 months for violating his probation from a 1988
- computer-hacking conviction, Assistant U.S. Atty. Christopher Painter said.
- The sentences will run consecutively.
-
- Mitnick faces the sentence for violating terms of his probation when he
- broke into Pac Bell voice mail computers in 1992 and used stolen passwords
- of Pac Bell security employees to listen to voice mail, Painter said. At the
- time, Mitnick was employed by Teltec Communications, which was under
- investigation by Pac Bell.
-
- <snip>
-
- Copyright (c) 1997, Times Mirror Company
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 21:17:06 -0400
- From: "Evian S. Sim" <evian@escape.com>
- Subject: File 4--Judge denies Mitnick computer access
-
- JUDGE DENIES HACKER ACCESS TO COMPUTER
-
- Daily News of Los Angeles (LA)
- Tuesday, June 17, 1997
- By: Anne Burke Daily News Staff Writer
- Edition: Valley
- Section: News
- Page: N3
- Word Count: 564
-
- San Fernando Valley hacker Kevin Mitnick wants to log on while in
- the lock up, but a judge said Monday she doesn't think that's
- such a good idea.
-
- "I have real apprehension about any situation where Mr. Mitnick
- is near a computer," U.S. District Court Judge Mariana Pfaelzer
- told the 33-year-old and his attorney.
-
- After all, Mitnick was in court Monday for sentencing on digital
- crimes he committed while leading the FBI on a manhunt through
- cyberspace and the nation.
-
- While Pfaelzer refused Mitnick access to a computer, she said she
- is going to give him something else - 22 months behind bars for
- violating his supervised release from prison on an earlier
- computer hacking conviction and illegally possessing telephone
- access codes. Mitnick is expected to be sentenced formally
- Monday, after the judge considers the terms of his supervised
- release.
-
- In custody since February 1995, Mitnick now faces a 25-count
- indictment charging him with a 2-1/2-year hacking spree from June
- 1992 to February 1995.
-
- Speaking Monday through his attorney in court, Mitnick said he
- now needs access to a computer for strictly legitimate reasons -
- helping to prepare his defense for the upcoming trial.
-
- <snip>
-
- Randolph said Mitnick is not a thief, but rather an electronic
- eavesdropper. The difference is that Mitnick never tries to
- profit, the attorney said.
-
- At Monday's sentencing, Mitnick got 14 months for violating his
- supervised release by breaking into Pacific Bell's computers and
- associating with an old buddy named Lewis De Payne, his
- co-defendant in the coming federal trial. He received eight more
- months for the cellular telephone fraud in North Carolina.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 14:17:01 -0700 (PDT)
- From: Jim Thomas <jthomas@well.com>
- Subject: File 5-- Hacker Vows 'Terror' for Child Pornographers
-
- Hacker Vows 'Terror' for Child Pornographers
- by Steve Silberman
- Source - WIRED News
- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/story/4437.html
- Copyright 1993-97 Wired Ventures, Inc. and affiliated companies
-
- After 17 years in the hacker underground,
- Christian Valor - well known among old-school hackers and phone
- phreaks as "Se7en" - was convinced that most of what gets written in
- the papers about computers and hacking is sensationalistic jive. For
- years, Valor says, he sneered at reports of the incidence of child
- pornography on the Net as
- "exaggerated/over-hyped/fearmongered/bullshit."
-
- Now making his living as a lecturer on computer security, Se7en claims
- he combed the Net for child pornography for eight weeks last year
- without finding a single image.
-
- That changed a couple of weeks ago, he says, when a JPEG mailed by an
- anonymous prankster sent him on an odyssey through a different kind of
- underground: IRC chat rooms with names like #littlegirlsex, ftp
- directories crammed with filenames like 6yoanal.jpg and 8&dad.jpg, and
- newsgroups like alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pre-teen. The anonymous
- file, he says, contained a "very graphic" image of a girl "no older
- than 4 years old."
-
- On 8 June, Se7en vowed on a hacker's mailing list to deliver a dose of
- "genuine hacker terror" to those who upload and distribute such images
- on the Net. The debate over his methods has stirred up tough questions
- among his peers about civil liberties, property rights, and the ethics
- of vigilante justice.
-
- A declaration of war
-
- What Se7en tapped into, he says, was a "very paranoid" network of
- traders of preteen erotica. In his declaration of "public war" -
- posted to a mailing list devoted to an annual hacker's convention
- called DefCon - Se7en explains that the protocol on most child-porn
- servers is to upload selections from your own stash, in exchange for
- credits for more images.
-
- What he saw on those servers made him physically sick, he says. "For
- someone who took a virtual tour of the kiddie-porn world for only one
- day," he writes, "I had the opportunity to fully max out an Iomega
- 100-MB Zip disc."
-
- Se7en's plan to "eradicate" child-porn traders from the Net is
- "advocating malicious, destructive hacking against these people." He
- has enlisted the expertise of two fellow hackers for the first wave of
- attacks, which are under way.
-
- Se7en feels confident that legal authorities will look the other way
- when the victims of hacks are child pornographers - and he claims that
- a Secret Service agent told him so explicitly. Referring to a command
- to wipe out a hard drive by remote access, Se7en boasted, "Who are
- they going to run to? The police? 'They hacked my kiddie-porn server
- and rm -rf'd my computer!' Right."
-
- Se7en claims to have already "taken down" a "major player" - an
- employee of Southwestern Bell who Se7en says was "posting ads all over
- the place." Se7en told Wired News that he covertly watched the man's
- activities for days, gathering evidence that he emailed to the
- president of Southwestern Bell. Pseudonymous remailers like
- hotmail.com and juno.com, Se7en insists, provide no security blanket
- for traders against hackers uncovering their true identities by
- cracking server logs. Se7en admits the process of gaining access to
- the logs is time consuming, however. Even with three hackers on the
- case, it "can take two or three days. We don't want to hit the wrong
- person."
-
- A couple of days after submitting message headers and logs to the
- president and network administrators of Southwestern Bell, Se7en says,
- he got a letter saying the employee was "no longer on the payroll."
-
- The hacker search for acceptance
-
- Se7en's declaration of war received support on the original mailing
- list. "I am all for freedom of speech/expression," wrote one poster,
- "but there are some things that are just wrong.... I feel a certain
- moral obligation to the human race to do my part in cleaning up the
- evil."
-
- Federal crackdowns targeting child pornographers are ineffective, many
- argued. In April, FBI director Louis Freeh testified to the Senate
- that the bureau operation dubbed "Innocent Images" had gathered the
- names of nearly 4,000 suspected child-porn traffickers into its
- database. Freeh admitted, however, that only 83 of those cases
- resulted in convictions. (The Washington Times reports that there have
- also been two suicides.)
-
- The director's plan? Ask for more federal money to fight the "dark
- side of the Internet" - US$10 million.
-
- Pitching in to assist the Feds just isn't the hacker way. As one
- poster to the DefCon list put it, "The government can't enforce laws
- on the Internet. We all know that. We can enforce laws on the
- Internet. We all know that too."
-
- The DefCon list was not a unanimous chorus of praise for Se7en's plan
- to give the pornographers a taste of hacker terror, however. The most
- vocal dissenter has been Declan McCullagh, Washington correspondent
- for the Netly News. McCullagh is an outspoken champion of
- constitutional rights, and a former hacker himself. He says he was
- disturbed by hackers on the list affirming the validity of laws
- against child porn that he condemns as blatantly unconstitutional.
-
- "Few people seem to realize that the long-standing federal child-porn
- law outlawed pictures of dancing girls wearing leotards," McCullagh
- wrote - alluding to the conviction of Stephen Knox, a graduate student
- sentenced to five years in prison for possession of three videotapes
- of young girls in bathing suits. The camera, the US attorney general
- pointed out, lingered on the girls' genitals, though they remained
- clothed. "The sexual implications of certain modes of dress, posture,
- or movement may readily put the genitals on exhibition in a lascivious
- manner, without revealing them in a nude display," the Feds argued -
- and won.
-
- It's decisions like Knox v. US, and a law criminalizing completely
- synthetic digital images "presented as" child porn, McCullagh says,
- that are making the definition of child pornography unacceptably
- broad: a "thought crime."
-
- The menace of child porn is being exploited by "censor-happy"
- legislators to "rein in this unruly cyberspace," McCullagh says. The
- rush to revile child porn on the DefCon list, McCullagh told Wired
- News, reminded him of the "loyalty oaths" of the McCarthy era.
-
- "These are hackers in need of social acceptance," he says. "They've
- been marginalized for so long, they want to be embraced for stamping
- out a social evil." McCullagh knows his position is a difficult one to
- put across to an audience of hackers. In arguing that hackers respect
- the property rights of pornographers, and ponder the constitutionality
- of the laws they're affirming, McCullagh says, "I'm trying to convince
- hackers to respect the rule of law, when hacking systems is the
- opposite of that."
-
- But McCullagh is not alone. As the debate over Se7en's declaration
- spread to the cypherpunks mailing list and alt.cypherpunks -
- frequented by an older crowd than the DefCon list - others expressed
- similar reservations over Se7en's plan.
-
- "Basically, we're talking about a Dirty Harry attitude," one network
- technician/cypherpunk told Wired News. Though he senses "real feeling"
- behind Se7en's battle cry, he feels that the best way to deal with
- pornographers is to "turn the police loose on them." Another
- participant in the discussion says that while he condemns child porn
- as "terrible, intrinsically a crime against innocence," he questions
- the effectiveness of Se7en's strategy.
-
- "Killing their computer isn't going to do anything," he says,
- cautioning that the vigilante approach could be taken up by others.
- "What happens if you have somebody who doesn't like abortion? At what
- point are you supposed to be enforcing your personal beliefs?"
-
- Raising the paranoia level
-
- Se7en's loathing for aficionados of newsgroups like
- alt.sex.pedophilia.swaps runs deeper than "belief." "I myself was
- abused when I was a kid," Se7en told Wired News. "Luckily, I wasn't a
- victim of child pornography, but I know what these kids are going
- through."
-
- With just a few hackers working independently to crack server logs,
- sniff IP addresses, and sound the alarm to network administrators, he
- says, "We can take out one or two people a week ... and get the
- paranoia level up," so that "casual traders" will be frightened away
- from IRC rooms like "#100%preteensexfuckpics."
-
- It's not JPEGs of clothed ballerinas that raise his ire, Se7en says.
- It's "the 4-year-olds being raped, the 6-year-old forced to have oral
- sex with cum running down themselves." Such images, Se7en admits, are
- very rare - even in online spaces dedicated to trading sexual imagery
- of children.
-
- "I know what I'm doing is wrong. I'm trampling on the rights of these
- guys," he says. "But somewhere in the chain, someone is putting these
- images on paper before they get uploaded. Your freedom ends when you
- start hurting other people."
-
- Copyright 1993-97 Wired Ventures, Inc. and affiliated companies
-
- ------------------------------
- Date: Tue, 10 Jun 1997 22:15:08 -0500
- From: jthomas@SUN.SOCI.NIU.EDU(Jim Thomas)
- Subject: File 6--Trial Opens IN On-line Kidnapping Case
-
- Date: Tuesday, June 10, 1997
- Source: By Graeme Zielinski, Tribune Staff Writer.
- Copyright Chicago Tribune
-
- TRIAL OPENS IN ON-LINE KIDNAPPING CASE
-
- Opening statements are expected Tuesday in the federal trial of
- a Florida man accused of using the Internet to seduce and kidnap a
- troubled Chicago-area boy.
-
- Defense attorneys for Richard Romero are expected to argue that
- the boy, then 13, was merely running away from his Mt. Prospect
- home when he left with Romero in March 1996 on a bus bound for
- Florida.
-
- But U.S. attorneys charge that Romero planned to molest the boy
- before his plans were thwarted when the pair was intercepted at a
- bus stop in Louisville.
-
- .................
-
- Prosecutors say Romero first made contact with the boy in the
- summer of 1995 in an America Online electronic "chat room," where
- typed dialogue is displayed. Prosecutors say that Romero, posing
- as a 15-year-old boy named "Kyle" from Iowa, exchanged messages
- about UFOs and space creatures with the Mt. Prospect boy.
-
- Months later, Romero took over the correspondence upon the
- advice of "Kyle," prosecutors allege.
-
- Romero is charged with persuading the boy, now 14, to come to
- his Florida home, where prosecutors say they discovered sexually
- explicit pictures of young boys and a wooden "altar box" that
- Romero, a Brazilian native, allegedly intended to use in sex acts.
-
- ................
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 07:14:54
- From: Richard Thieme <rthieme@THIEMEWORKS.COM>
- Subject: File 7--Call for Open Global Net
-
- STOP THE INTERNET COUP
-
- Assn. for Interactive Media demands an end to the hostile takeover
- of the Internet by the International Ad Hoc Committee
-
- Defend your Internet rights by opposing the gTLD-MoU, the Internet
- Society, and IANA
-
-
- Washington, D.C. (July 11, 1997) The stability of the Internet is
- being threatened by an attempted takeover by a group from Geneva
- known as the International Ad Hoc Committee (IAHC).
- Internet-based business and user have been taken unawares by a
- power grab orchestrated by a technical group with no legal
- authority. The Association for Interactive Media and the Open
- Internet Congress have called for everyone in the Internet
- community to oppose this move.
-
- Takeover plans are detailed in a recent memorandum by IAHC
- regarding issues related to assigning domain names to Internet
- users. IAHC was assigned to meet to discuss the possibility of
- making more domain names available. When they released their
- final report, called the Generic Top Level Domain Memorandum of
- Understanding (gTLD-MoU), it actually contained the structure for
- a world government for the Internet. The leaders of the IAHC,
- including the Internet Society and the Internet Assigned Numbers
- Authority, have installed themselves as leaders of this
- government.
-
- Businesses are being pushed to sign the gTLD-MoU in a global
- effort by IAHC. This document is disguised as an innocent
- standards agreement regarding domain names. It is actually a
- treaty that it actually assigns permanent control over the
- Internet to six tightly controlled, non-representative
- organizations. There are no provisions for elections,
- representation, or input from consumers, business, and
- governments.
-
- Make no mistake If you sign the gTLD-MoU, you will give up all of
- your rights to have any say on the structure and management of the
- internet forever. said Andy Sernovitz, president of the
- Association for Interactive Media. A group of selfappointed
- autocrats have declared themselves rulers of the Internet without
- regard to international law, the stability of the Internet, and
- the rights of you and your organization.
-
- The Open Internet Congress (OIC) was founded to fight for an open
- process that guarantees that all of the Internet's stakeholders
- have a fair and representative voice in its management and
- operations. OIC has called for an Internet Constitutional
- Convention to develop the representative process. An
- organizational meeting will be held July 9, 1997 in Washington,
- D.C., and is open to all.
-
- Founded in 1993, the Association for Interactive Media is the most
- diverse coalition of organizational users of the Internet, with
- over 300 members. AIM's mission is to support the efforts of
- leaders from for-profit and non-profit organizations seeking to
- serve the public through interactive media. With the ability to
- form partnerships and friendships among a wide variety of
- organizations, AIM bridges the gaps between groups working in
- dozens of different fields to ensure the successful future of new
- media.
-
- ###
-
- IMPORTANT FACTS
-
- Who is staging this coup, and how do they plan on pulling it off?
- The gTLD-MoU gives permanent control of the Internet to: Internet
- Society, Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, Internet
- Architecture Board, International Telecommunications Union, World
- Intellectual Property Organization, and International Trademark
- Association. They have already declared control. They have
- created an organization to take control, appointed themselves
- leaders of it, and have begun issuing technical orders to Internet
- server operators. They have publicly declared that they do not
- need the support of governments, consumers, and businesses because
- "the committee says it has direct control of the computers that
- run the Net's addressing system." (CNET, 5/2/97)
-
- What happens to the Internet if they succeed? The Internet is
- likely to break apart on October 15, 1997. That is the date that
- the coup leaders intend to re-route the Internet to be under their
- control against the advice of those who keep things running
- smoothly today. When they rip the essential root servers off the
- Internet backbone, the entire system may begin to fragment. Your
- email will be returned and your Web site visitors will be turned
- away. These organizations have refused to recognize the validity
- of the registries that ensure that traffic is successfully
- delivered to ".com", ".org", and ".net" addresses. Serious
- concern has arisen over the possibility of malicious viruses and
- "Trojan Horses" being hidden in the software that runs the
- Internet.
-
- What happens to me and my business if they succeed? You are
- likely to lose access to reliable Internet communications.
- Control of your trademarks on the Internet will be given up. You
- will be forced to submit to binding decisions made by a "challenge
- panel" in Geneva created and run by this group. If you lose, you
- will not be able to use your trademark in your domain name
- someone else will. You will never have a voice in the governance
- of the Internet. You will not be able to effectively defend
- yourself, your organization, and your rights against future moves
- by these aggressors.
-
- What should I do? Do not sign the gTLD-MOU! Sign up with the
- Open Internet Congress to secure your place in the decision-making
- process. Contact the OIC immediately to get involved. Help us
- gather support from governments, consumers, and businesses.
- Distribute this document to all of your email lists as soon as
- possible.
-
- _________________________ For More Information:
-
- Contact the Open Internet Congress: 202-408-0008 or
- oic@interactivehq.org Visit the web site:
- http://www.interactivehq.org/oic Subscribe to the news list:
- email the words "subscribe oic" in the body of a message to
- buddy@lists.interactivehq.org
-
- Richard Thieme
-
- ThiemeWorks ... professional speaking and
- business consulting:
- ThiemeWorks
- P. O. Box 17737 the impact of computer technology
- Milwaukee Wisconsin on people in organizations:
- 53217-0737 helping people stay flexible
- voice: 414.351.2321 and effective
- during times of accelerated change.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Date: Thu, 7 May 1997 22:51:01 CST
- From: CuD Moderators <cudigest@sun.soci.niu.edu>
- Subject: File 8--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 7 May, 1997)
-
- Cu-Digest is a weekly electronic journal/newsletter. Subscriptions are
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- CuD is available as a Usenet newsgroup: comp.society.cu-digest
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- Or, to subscribe, send post with this in the "Subject:: line:
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- The editors may be contacted by voice (815-753-6436), fax (815-753-6302)
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-
- Issues of CuD can also be found in the Usenet comp.society.cu-digest
- news group; on CompuServe in DL0 and DL4 of the IBMBBS SIG, DL1 of
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-
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- EUROPE: nic.funet.fi in pub/doc/CuD/CuD/ (Finland)
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-
-
- The most recent issues of CuD can be obtained from the
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- URL: http://www.soci.niu.edu/~cudigest/
-
- COMPUTER UNDERGROUND DIGEST is an open forum dedicated to sharing
- information among computerists and to the presentation and debate of
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-
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-
- End of Computer Underground Digest #9.47
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