The Hacker's Encyclopedia 1998/hackers_encyclopedia.iso/zines/n_z/wv2_7.txt

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 Der Weltanschauung  (The WorldView)               Origin: HOUSTON, TEXAS USA
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  August 10, 1992  Volume 2, Issue 7        FTP: ftp.eff.org   pub/cud/wview

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   Published and Distributed By Fennec Information Systems And Consulting
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  Material Written By Computer And Telecommunications Hobbyists World Wide
  Promoting the publication of Features, Editorials, etc...
  To submit material, or to subscribe to the magazine contact this address:

                       [e-mail]

 "Let us arise, let us arise against the oppressors of humanity; all kings,
 emperors, presidents of republics, priests of all religions are the true
 enemies of the people; let us destroy along with them all juridical,
 political, civil and religious institutions."

                         -Manifesto of anarchists in the Romagna, 1878

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         The World View Staff:               InterNet Address:

         The Desert Fox [Editor]          [e-mail]
         Cyndre The Grey [CoEditor]       [e-mail]
         Subscription Requests            [e-mail]

                  WORLD VIEW NEWSGROUP:  [e-mail]

                  FTP SITE: ftp.eff.org  /pub/cud/wview

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        It is the policy of The World View to review any material that is
 received by us for the purpose of distribution. We respect the rights of all
 authors/contributors under the Constitution of the United States, and we
 will honor all requests for anonymity. Any inquiries regarding the
 questionable content of an article written by someone other than the editors
 of this publication should be directed to the author. A return E-mail
 address will be provided if applicable. Reprinting of material from
 this magazine is highly encouraged. Please site the source of the material,
 and gain permission from the author when refering to submitted articles.

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 Editor's Note: Due to a terrible error in the distribution/mailing of
 the last issue, some of the more important articles from that issue will
 be reprinted in this issue. The errors were not the fault of the writers.

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                             TABLE OF CONTENTS

 1) Current Texas Organizational Events................Bryan O' Blivion
 2) Bringing New Users Into The Net....................Bryan O' Blivion
 3) Network User Fees..................................Patricio Mason

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                  Current Texas Organizational Cyberevents

By Bryan O' Blivion ([e-mail])

      Next month will be a year since the organizational meeting of the EFF -
Austin chapter, the first local chapter of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
in the USA. At the organization's first annual general membership meeting in
Austin in May 1992, over 60 members and interested persons appeared.
Coalescing around the leadership and support of local cyber-celebrities
Steve Jackson, John Quarterman, and the notorious Bruce Sterling
(whose book Hacker Crackdown is due out soon), the group has set up active
newsgroups and mailing lists ([e-mail]) on the Net for discussion and
organization around our common concerns.

      Solid achievements of the Austin EFF include the formal organization
of the chapter, with adoption of bylaws and election and monthly meetings
of a Board of Directors. A successful annual meeting and several other
meetings, formal and informal, enhanced our mutual contacts; sort of an
Elks Club for cyberspace frontiersmen socializing, after building our
rude 386 cabins.

      Booths and appearances at cons and national conferences by
distinguished Austin EFF members gave the movement good publicity,
as did Bruce Sterling during his own work and travels. The flag and
T-shirts are also real zippy.

      In Houston, the cyber-liberties scene remains loosely organized
around the regular publications like WordView and NIA magazines, which
continue to publish regularly. NIA magazine may even have its latest
issue out soon. SummerCon in St Louis is the place to be in June for
national exposure, but local 'snerds', cyberlunches' and 'cyberdawgs'
(apparently the Austin version of such an event) as well as a series
of continuing, highly educational private Saturday night parties
provide the backbone of our networking strength. The setup of a Coherent
unix (ashpool.sccsi.com) and a uucp'd dos-based node, (fennec.sccsi.com)
by Cyndre the Grey and Desert Fox respectively have effectively merged
our local nodes into the Net, which we count as a significant achievement.
Taronga continues to provide its excellent support with access and our
own [e-mail] newsgroup.

      But as John Quarterman put it, "It's easy to exchange warm fuzzies..."
and basically get self-congratulatory about our common ideals, ignoring
individual differences of opinion, but the real world brings a different
set of problems.

      Communication between EFF National (Cambridge) and EFF Austin has
suffered of late. After a meeting of the Austin EFF Board decided to
incorporate, Mitch Kapor seemed to back off his support for that, indicating
that incorporation may not be appropriate for a local chapter. This puzzled
the EFF-BOD as well as all onlookers. Mitch recently responded to an inquiry
from WorldView staff about a Houston chapter of EFF by saying that we were
basically on our own, as no one had been tasked yet by National to deal with
local chapter relations, and that all present National staff are running at
125% of capacity. Inexperience in major convention planning have caused
the indefinite postponement of this event -- too bad!

      It appears to this writer that the event planning was too ambitious
in scope, trying to involve everyone in the world. The WorldView heartily
supports any such project, but it must be reasonable in scope at first,
then allowed to grow naturally. Perhaps more informal gatherings, not as
tightly organized and planned as a major con, can become something on the
scale originally planned. In any case, thanks for trying and for all the
work. Readers of the CyberTex mailing list know that it drew major interest
from users all over the world, the WELL, etc.

      So here we are, in the second year of our fragile joint existence as
a tenuous cloud, a web of potential connections. Our strength is in our
networking, and I call for more informal get-togethers under any name,
in Houston or in Austin. Networking, cooperation rather than competition,
is our strength. Rather than planning the world's greatest virtual festival,
let's just start by having a good time and learning from each other. We will
continue to publish, the Austin chapter will proceed under its excellent
Board of Directors, and we'll have a few parties.....

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                    BRINGING NEW USERS INTO THE NET

By Bryan O' Blivion ([e-mail])

        InterNet-connected global wide area networks are still new enough
that most users come from the 3 classic ARPANET communities:
defense/government contractors' corporate sites, university
researchers/students, and .gov sites.

        Folks who do not have such a job have historically had little or
no access to common network services such as news feeds, email, and
file/message posting and  transfer, and little opportunity to learn
how to use them.

        Several years ago, various private UNIX host systems began to
make net access available to users in a few areas nationwide. DOS-based
BBS activity simultaneously soared as modems became cheaply available.
But these two areas of online activity shared little, and the user
communities rarely interacted.

        The purpose of this article is to relate how some private computer
enthusiasts in Houston, Texas, originally experienced as DOS and BBS users
and sysops, obtained participation in UNIX-based WAN network communications
and access to the InterNet.

        Congregating on several BBS's (there are hundreds in the Houston
Metro area), our informal users group became a .sig for anyone who wanted
to learn about networked computing. Dissatisfied with even FidoNet and the
extensive 2000-user chat systems available in Houston, we longed for,
studied for the freedom of the InterNet. UNIX command sheets were copied,
manuals studied. We even tried to learn the vi editor. But we lacked that
all-important account on a REAL system, one that gave us a $ prompt..
Public Unix came to the rescue.

        The widely advertised NixPub systems in Houston are three: NuChat,
Taronga Park, and Sugarland UNIX. NuChat began by kindly offering a few of us
accounts that had email. It seemed like magic to send email from a home PC and
have it appear in a far system. Mailing to Austin took only 2 hours. Then
Stephanie and Peter da Silva, the good-hearted and long-suffering sysops of
Taronga Park, opened free shell accounts for such of us as had gotten a little
command of Unix.

        For the first time I as a private citizen had access to
Internet-borne email, newsfeeds, a UNIX operating system account....
and thru the Taronga system, had referrals to private TCP/IP capable
sites, i.e. TELNET and FTP capability. It was a whole new world; with a
cheap modem I had suddenly expanded my computer reach from one hard disk
into the vast cloud of the Matrix.

        For this article, I asked the sysops of taronga.com, Stephanie
and Peter Da Silva, some basic questions about her system and the guiding
philosophy of this type of Net access. Since any editing of their replies
would be superfluous, here are peter and [e-mail]. The original
messages were exchanged through the Coherent sys of a mutual friend
whose sys was recently enabled as a local InterNet uucp email node
(ashpool.sccsi.com).

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                             NETWORK USER FEES

By Patricio Mason  <[e-mail]>

A while ago, several members of the list debated the issue of user fees for
access to computer networks such as the Internet.  Most were rightly
adamant that charging for use would have an incalculably detrimental
effect.  I thought you might like to know that here in Chile this scenario
has suddenly become reality.

Our Internet hookup is run by CONICYT, (National Council on Science and
Technology) a government body.  Recently, all users of the Internet,
including universities, were notified that starting July 1st, there will be
a minimum monthly rate plus a charge per megabyte of international traffic,
with 18% sales tax on top.  This is a reversal of an earlier decision
whereby only a flat rate was charged, regardless of traffic.  Both the
minimum rate and the charge per megabyte are measured in units roughly
equivalent to CDN$31.00 each, i.e., 10 MB of traffic equals CDN$310.00,
plus the minimum rate, plus tax.  The minimum monthly wage in this country
is 38,000 pesos, roughly CDN$134.00.

Although the CONICYT decision was sanctioned by Chile's Council of Rectors
(university and college presidents), the academic community and other users
such as NGOs, non-profit groups and private individuals are stunned and
outraged.  Needless to say, most university presidents are not users and
simply chose from a limited set of options presented to them by
administrators and CONICYT functionaries.

This may very well mean that university professors will have to obtain
clearance from department heads before replying to colleagues abroad or
accepting mail from them.  Since every byte will cost universities a pretty
penny, it may also mean that students will be prevented from sending or
receiving international messages.  Few will be allowed to do FTP or Telnet.
 For outside e-mail users such as private individuals and non-profit
groups, the high cost will probably entail reducing or eliminating use
altogether.

Access to the Internet is slightly wider here.  High rates mean that only
those who can afford them, i.e., government and corporate users, will have
the run of the system.  Although one of the consequences of the worldwide
computer revolution has been to empower the individual as a counterbalance
to the unbridled power of governments and corporations, the CONICYT
decision in Chile means that those outside the circles of political or
financial power will be left out.

There is no Internet affiliate that I know of which charges on the basis of
traffic volume.  Universities are reeling from the implications: just
figuring out who is to be billed for what, plus the processing and billing
aspects, will most certainly prove an administrative nightmare.  A whole
new bureaucracy will have to be created at CONICYT and elsewhere to handle
this.

There is an international write-in campaign on to try to get CONICYT to
reverse this decision and discard the notion of charging per amount of
traffic.  Along with members of the academic community within Chile, the
members of CHILE-L --Chilean academics, students and others scattered
throughout the world-- are leading this campaign.

As a (albeit silent) member of CANADA-L and Internet user, I thought I'd
tell you of this and try to enlist your support.  If this type of mentality
is allowed to prevail, it will certainly set a precedent.  If you would
like to help, please write a respectful note to CONICYT, the National
Council on Science and Technology of Chile, stating your views on this
issue.  Notes should be sent to Mr. Alberto Cabezas and/or Mr. Florencio
Utreras at

[e-mail]
[e-mail]

CONICYT may also be reached at:

Canada 308
2o Piso
Providencia
Santiago, Chile
Tel.:   [phone]

I will be glad to provide further information to anyone interested.  And of
course, feel free to cross-post.  Thanks in advance.

Patricio Mason
(Carleton/U of T)
Santiago, Chile
[e-mail]

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