NETWORKS AND COMMUNITY : March 1st, 1994 Networks and Community is devoted to encouraging LOCAL resource creation & GLOBAL resource sharing. The 11th report of 1994 is the 17th weekly survey. ------------------------------------------------- coverage in this issue included : ASSISTANCE NEEDED DISCUSSIONS EVENTS FUNDRAISING LEGISLATION NEW SERVICES TRENDS --------------------------------------------------- MY FAVOURITE QUOTE FROM THE PAST TWO WEEKS OF POSTINGS. " The large commercial networks, while providing for access to global resources, defeat the uniqueness of each local community as they concentrate their efforts on broadening their markets and increasing subscriptions. The vision of Community Computing is to defend our regional distinctions and create a new resource for information and services ..." Jim Burns ,Chair, Victoria Community FreeNet Development Committee Victoria, Tx ASSISTANCE NEEDED ================= SOME NZ GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS NEED CONVINCING..! Here in New Zealand I have found that "A Government Official Who Is Not UP On Something, Is DOWN On Something". * After outlining (to a few key Government Officials) the features and benefits of basic e. mail services via the Internet, (e. mail from Government Officials at a National, Regional and Local Levels) among themselves, to other Government Departments and Ministries, to their clients, non profit organisations and the general public they want further "PROOF". * They want information (ie reports, studies and research etc.on the North American experience), on the "ADVANTAGES" and "DISADVANTAGES" for Government Officials to: - Have e. mail facilities for use among themselves. - Have e. mail facilities for their clients. - Have e. mail facilities available for non profit organisations and general public. Would you please: - Forward to me any e. mail publications that you may have, that would assist me in helping these Government Officials to make up their minds about e. mail. - Advise me of any information that I can retrieve via e. mail (and the address to retrieve it). It's no use me, telling some Government Officials that you have "E. Mail" in North America and giving them good general information (which I have done), they want evidence that this is the way to go. Regards Roger Mackenzie rogerm@nzonline.ac.nz ------------------------------------- "I WORK FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN HALIFAX, NS, and perform Secretariat functions for a "One-Stop" Information and Service Centre Initiative now ongoing. (i.e. project logistics, management, scheduling...) The Initiative strives to use technology to its greatest advantage to deliver government (fed, prov, mun) information and services in (initially) 5 locations is Nova Scotia. The centres are to open in June with a basic level of service -- adding to those services as the years progress. Services include information, advisory, program applications and transactions. I would be interested in communicating with anyone who has a unique or novel service delivery method [either using the internet or some other electronic medium], or discussing any issue which we may want to consider when setting up the centres." Contact CJ Carruthers cjcarr@industry1.ditt.ns.ca ------------------------------------- " We are two MLS graduate students who are doing an independent study which involves HELPING BUILD A LOCAL COMMUNITY NETWORK. We are hoping that you will be able to provide us with samples of your promotional literature (brochures, etc.). One of the requirements for our study is the creation of a sample brochure for the Onondaga County CommunityNet committee." Send your materials to Sally Murray (sdmurray@mailbox.syr.edu) and DISCUSSIONS =========== TWO STEPS BACKWARDS ------------------- 1 - SCHOOLS WITH OUT ACCESS TO "SCHOOLNETS" Re. TCI/BA and PacBell educational announcements: One thing that seems conspicuously absent is explicit mention of Internet connectivity. To my mind wiring up schools en masse, to a proprietary closed network, is NOT a desirable activity - rather its a market capture technique. I'm waiting to see an announcement that says "we're going to give every school in a T1 (or even 64kb) connection to the Internet. Miles R. Fidelman mfidelman@civicnet.org Executive Director The Center for Civic Networking 2 - THE PROVINCE CLAIMING NET LEADERSHIP COMMITS HIWAY ROBBERY New Brunswick recently provided SLIP/PPP Internet access via NBNet, a subsidiary of NBTel. I believe that we were in the process of establishing a nice little community until February 1 came along...the day that NBNet began charging. The first post to the local support group, "Where did everybody go?" NBNet's one-time set-up charge is $17.50; after that, all charges relate to connection time. Unfortunately, NBNet has opted to charge $10.00 per hour to a maximum of $400.00 per month, probably because they are the only game in town (for now). In New Brunswick, we call this the Information Highway Robbery. *faint smile* IMHO, NBNet should have attempted to secure a broad base of users at a nominal charge. As it is, individuals must limit their Net use to a bit of email to keep monthly charges under $50.00. If you want to telnet, gopher, etc. be prepared for $100-200 per month. Corporate use only is not in the spirit of the Net. Bruce. newmanb@nbnet.nb.ca FLAME WAR OF THE WEEK Several listservs carried complaints about press coverage. NPTN discussed how Freenets can work successfully with the press and Com-priv saw an assault on the quality of press coverage of Internet events. A poster suggested offering all your local media e-mail access to their Editor or New Room. Other proposed prewritten articles as well as press releases. One the negative side, anger over poor coverage lead to verbal attacks on a number of journalists. One specific target was Philip Elmer-Dewitt, Time Magazine's primary writer on high tech. He did Time's pieces on the Internet and Video Games. I have always liked the way he lead Time in its current effort to appeal to a TV oriented audience with a mental age of 12. Long before Time reformatted to look more like at news show; Dewitt was displaying disdain for his readers by delivering such info-gems as "America's Founding Fathers did not have computers or cable TV." That was from "Dial D for Democracy" in the June 8,1992 issue. His internet delivery is just as incisive. The potential advantages and disadvantages of civic owned utilities and local co-ops for cities and rural areas were explored. The number of municipal internet utility efforts is growing. On the down side, 1 respondent wrote " who needs the clipper chip" if the government already owns the wire. ONET - the ontario canada based network - was attacked as a barrier to rural networking. On writer praised co-ops and suggested that a "cheap net at $10/yr you could actually get on was much better that an freenet you couldn't even start. A good discussion of the significance for community computing of the crop of Telco offers to wire the nation's schools occurred. The very real possibility that schools which took up the telco offerings would end up a few years from now with big bills and no internet connections was pointed out. NPTN agreed to create an electron archive of free-net development documents. Unfortunately, in order to defend the growth of organization and provide a significant membership benefit, it decided to make the archive private. A few posters protested that such a position went against the "spirit" of the freenet movement. Another interesting NPTN discussion focused on creating freenets that had no phone access - only internet connections. While most posters opposed the idea; its easy to understand the frustration that leads to it. Just try raising the funds to pay for the endless demand for phone lines. [ see the item in fundraising for some ideas of reducing phone line costs ] Also touched on were the relationships between libraries and civic nets, non- profits and civic nets, and some good ideas around fundraising and proposal writing. One free-net described an interesting internal structure were all board members were activists in the development of the net. EVENTS ====== MAY CONFERENCE ON COMMUNITY NETWORKS [This is a tremendous opportunity to meet many of the pioneers of the movement at a subsidized conference. And the BAY AREA is never more beautiful than in May. In addition, if you can stay a few days more - you're just hours away from the spectacular Big Sur coast & Yosemity National Park. Both are world class natural areas -ed] " Because of the growing interest in community networks in Canada, the United States, Japan, New Zealand, Finland, and other countries, we believe it is time to convene this conference to take a hard look at the challenges and opportunities for individuals and groups involved in community networking. The meetings are aimed at the organizers, system operators, librarians, educators, users, software suppliers, funding organizations, and information providers for new and existing community systems. It will be an excellent forum for legislators, policy analysts, public utilities commission regulators, and city planners to learn more about these networks. Conference Specifics Date: Wednesday, May 4 to Friday, May 6, 1994 Place: Apple Computer Conference Center, 4 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, California 95014 Cost: $25 U.S. includes meals Wednesday evening through Friday noon. Pre-register. Sponsors: Apple Library of Tomorrow, Cupertino, California The Morino Foundation, Great Falls, Virginia Estimated Number of attendees: 250 maximum. We reserve the right to limit the number of attendees from any one organization. Conference Schedule: (subject to additions) Wednesday: May 4, 1994 5:00-6:00 p.m. Registration 6:00-7:00 p.m. Welcome Dinner 7:00 p.m. -Ken Phillips, Director, Marion Salem Information Services, Salem, Oregon and founder of Santa Monica Public Electronic Network. Then and Now: A look at Santa Monica PEN and community networks 8:00 -8:30 p.m. Organize Ad Hoc meetings for Thursday after lunch Thursday: May 5, 1994 8:00-8:45 a.m.. Breakfast 9:00 -Tom Grundner, President, National Public Telecomputing Network: The State of Free-Nets 10:00-noon Track 1 Urban Systems -Helen Moeller, Director, Leon County Public Library System: User Support Issues for Tallahassee Free-Net -Richard Naylor, Manager, Information Technology, Wellington City Net Community Networking in New Zealand -Miles Fidelman, Executive Director, Center for Civic Networking Sustainable Development Information Network Cambridge and Cape Cod, Massachusetts Track 2 Rural Systems -Richard Lowenberg, Director, Telluride (Colorado) InfoZone Status report on the InfoZone -Jean Armour Polly, NYSERNet, Liverpool, New York Project GAIN: Rural libraries in upstate New York -Patrick Finn, President, La Plaza TeleCommunity Foundation , Taos, NM Building partnerships to build a network -Frank Odasz, Director, Big Sky Telegraph, Dillon, Montana Big Sky Telegraph after six years online Noon-3:00 p.m. Lunch and free time for BOFs, Ad Hoc meetings, and schmoozing. 1:00 - 2:00 p.m. BOF: Public Outreach and training. Eric Theise, Internet Domain Editor, Millennium Whole Earth Catalog. 3:00 - 4:00 p.m. -Mario Morino, Director, The Morino Foundation A Meta-View of Community Networks: the goals of the Morino Foundation 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. Indigenous Groups Online -Keola Donaghy, Network Designer and Administrator, Hale Kuamo'o and MauiLink, Hawaii : Breaking out of the ASCII barrier. Software for other cultures. -George Baldwin, INDIANnet Census Information and Network Center Getting Indian Nations online -Anne Fallis, System Operator, INDIANnet (South Dakota) Setting up small systems for Indian users Friday, May 6 8:00 - 9:00 a.m.. Breakfast 9:00 - noon. Track 1 Policy and Funding -Richard Civille, Center for Civic Networking, Washington, D.C.. Civic networking and local community and economic development -Jim Warren, Columnist and Advocate, Nuts & Bolts getting state and local public records online: real world experiences. -Michael Strait, Project Director, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Washington, D.C.. Response to the CPB/CWEIS Initiative: What are the types of partnerships emerging in the 90 communities that sent in proposals? -National Telecommunications & Information Administration Representative (invited) Community network grant program -Open discussion of funding opportunities and challenges Track 2 Regional Networks and technical issues -Marty Tenenbaum, Enterprise Integration Technologies, Palo Alto, CA CommerceNet: a broadband project for the San Francisco Bay Area -Peter Scott, Saskatoon FREE-NET, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada Free-Nets in Canada -Benay Dara-Abrams, Silicon Valley Public Access Link, Mountain View, CA Designing a distributed multi-hub community network -Dewayne Hendricks, Tetherless Access Ltd, Fremont, California Wireless community networks: examples and future plans. Noon - 1 :00 p.m. Lunch 1:00-3:00 p.m. Short and Sweet: Online and canned demos of community networking software and systems. Show us your best in fifteen minutes of fame. (Please sign up) 3:00 -5:00 p.m. Where are Community Networks headed? -Jean Armour Polly, NYSERNet, Inc. Liverpool, New York Declaration of Information Interdependence -Frank Odasz, Big Sky Telegraph, Dillon, Montana The Need for Rigorous and Quantitative Evaluation of Community Systems -Howard Rheingold, author, The Virtual Community. Open mike 5:30 p.m. End of Conference Registration Details Please fill in the following information. It will be used for a printed roster to be distributed to the other attendees at the conference. Community Network Conference Registration Name: Title: Organization Address City, State, Postal Code Country e-mail address: telephone: Please describe your interest or involvement in community networks in a few words. This will help other attendees to locate like-minded people for informal meetings and discussions. Payment: $25 U.S. by check or money order, payable to "ALUG" One check per attendee. This registration is non-refundable, but you may transfer your registration to another person. If we receive your registration before April 8, you will receive a free conference T-shirt. What size? S M L XL XXL Do you need vegetarian meals? Send the check and registration to: Community Network Conference, Apple Library, 4 Infinite Loop MS 304-2A, Cupertino, CA 95014. For more info e-mail SAC@apple.com HINTS-6 -------- The sixth Hawaii Information Network and Technology Symposium (HINTS) will focus on "Building Electronic Communities" - big ones like the NII and the Internet, as well as community networks like Hawaii FYI and Big Sky graph. Representatives of the Clinton administration, Congress, and the FCC have been invited to deliver their perspectives on the Information Highway. Joining them will be community networkers such as Steve Cisler (Apple Computer) and Frank Odasz (Big Sky), local telco and cable TV representatives, the PUC, and Hawaii educators. The focus is on benefits, issues and applications; the audience is a mix of government, business, and consumers; the result is very synergistic and exciting. Affordable general session fees from $25 for students to $150. Contact HAWAII INC: +1 (808) 586-4636, fax +1 (808) 586-4625, e-mail johnp@pulua.hcc.hawaii.edu. FUNDRAISING & COST REDUCTION ============================ Cincinnati Bell Directory Inc. (CBD) and the Greater Cincinnati Consortium of Colleges and Universities have reached a tentative agreement to transfer administration of TriState Online, a community computer information system, from CBD to the Consortium. Cincinnati Bell created TriState Online in January 1990 to provide a community information and computer communications services in Greater Cincinnati at no cost to users. It has approximately 12,000 registered users, who average 2,000 on-line sessions per day. CBD, a directory services subsidiary of Cincinnati Bell Inc., administers the service. As part of the tentative agreement, Greater Cincinnati Television Educational Foundation, which operates Channel 48, will maintain educational programming support for TriState Online and, on behalf of the Consortium, has applied to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for additional operating funding. .......Barbara Stonewater, Executive Director of the Consortium, said the group is interested in TriState Online as a tool for communicating and sharing resources among its 13 member institutions in Southwestern Ohio and Northern Kentucky. The Consortium is attempting to raise additional operating funds that would enable it to expand TriState Online's community-based information services. >From Mark Powers (powers@tso.uc.edu) ------------------------------------- I am personally pleased to announce that the Toronto Free-net has just received several significant contributions. 1 - The North York Public library is contributing staff time to support the integration of all the regional public library systems' on-line catalogues into the Toronto Free-net's services. 2 - Sun has just donated 3 computer systems to the T-F. 3 - Rogers Shared Services, a division of Rogers Cable will contribute about $500,000 of services, facilities and equipment over the next 5 years. This includes T-F's Internet connection for the next 5 years. 4 - Ryerson University has agreed to provide extensive facilities and services to the T-F as well. This includes the office space for T-F. 5 - York University has donated an additional Sun computer to T-F. 6 - The campaign to get individual businesses to sponsor phone lines has already found its first sponsors too. The Toronto Free-net will open officially next month. My congratulations and appreciation go to the Executive Director, both of the fundraising committees and all the other volunteers. -------------------------------------- Ottawa area networks have come up with several ideas to reduce the cost of phone lines. 1 - Using government tie lines after hours - when demand for freenet is highest and the government use is minimal - cost is zero accept for the connection arrangements. 2 - Getting your lines purchased by the municipal government. [ municipalities making bulk line purchases have much lower rates ] - cost is reduced dramaticly and the government get to make a major financial contribution at no cost to itself. 3 - connecting to the freenet through an existing Centrex system [centrex line costs are also lower than ordinary business lines ] The bottom line is - study you local tariffs - there may be value cost reduction opportunities hidden there. LEGISLATION =========== CANADA GETS INTO THE BUSINESS OF ENDING FREEDOM OF COMMUNICATIONS but there is no campaign to stop it. Isn't anyone interested in legislation to control or prevent this happening in Canada? from E-d-u-p-a-g-e 02-01-94 ] HIGH-TECH SNOOP GADGET. A super-secret branch of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service has awarded three contracts to a Montreal firm to make equipment that can quickly isolate key words and phrases from millions of airborne phone, fax, radio signals and other transmissions. The hardware has the "Orwellian potential to sweep through ... and keep records of all conversations," said one CSIS critic. (CTV National News, 01/31/94 11:00 pm). ONTARIO PUBLIC LIBRARIES AND THE ELECTRONIC REGISTRY OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL BILL OF RIGHTS The Environmental Bill of Rights legislation is a priority of the Ontario government and is the result of several years of consultation and negotiation between business, environmental interest groups, government and the legal profession. The Environmental Bill of Rights establishes new rights for the public so they can participate in protecting the environment. Using computer stations in almost 300 libraries, Ontarians will soon have direct access to environmental information from Ontario Government Ministries through the Electronic Registry of the province's new Environmental Bill of Rights. This is possible because public libraries can use the existing electronic infrastructure of the Information Network For Ontario (INFO) used for interlibrary loan and the sharing of library resources. INFO libraries will take the lead in providing the Electronic Registry to the public becoming an electronic doorway to provincial government information related to the environment. Using the EBR Electronic Registry, the public will be able to get information from 14 Ontario government ministries, including Statements of Environmental Values, proposals for policies, acts, regulations, instruments, instrument appeals and court actions. The Electronic Registry is a computerized bulletin board. The Registry will be accessible free of charge by modem from a home or business computer as well as through public libraries. Network access using the Internet and ONET will also be possible. Library access to the Electronic Registry is expected to be available beginning May 15, 1994. For Information Contact: Gay Spiegel, Project Coodinator Libraries and Community Information Branch Ontario Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Recreation Internet: clubbb@gov.on.ca ----------------------------------- THE MINNESOTA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES LAUNCHED ITS GOPHER SERVER in December of 1993: gopher.revisor.leg.state.mn.us The server provides: - bills that have been introduced in regular session; - long titles of bills introduced in the interim (non-legislative session periods); - house journal; - summaries of bills from House Research; - phone books for the House; - biographical member information; - New Laws book for 1993 session; - the MN Statutes; - civic oriented Mac programs based on MN statutes legislative history, county names, and new laws. For more information contact Representative Marc Asch, rep@loon.house.leg.state.mn.us NEW SERVICES ============ CANADIAN ELECTRONIC FRONTIER GROUP CONCERNED ABOUT NET CENSORSHIP Electronic Frontier Canada (EFC) is concerned about the recent censorship of five Usenet newsgroups at the University of Waterloo. Usenet News is a distributed electronic bulletin board system available to an estimated 15 million Internet users across Canada and around the world. Users can browse articles on any of the several thousand available topics that may interest them. The choice of what to read is left to the reader. Users may also contribute their own articles and follow up on the articles of authors. EFC believes the open exchange of ideas and opinions on Usenet has become an important part of a university education. EFC was founded in January 1994 "to ensure that the principles embodied in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms are protected as new computing, communications, and information technologies emerge". EFC is concerned that, although in Canada the right to free speech is not an absolute right, the censorship recently imposed at the University of Waterloo sets a dangerous precedent and has resulted in the banning of some forms of expression that are protected. "No Canadian court has ever decided that any message on any Usenet newsgroup is illegal," the organization's co-founder, Professor Jeffrey Shallit, said today. "By this ban, the University is exercising `prior restraint' on the rights of University of Waterloo faculty, students, and staff to read and contribute freely to the discussions on the banned newsgroups." Prof. Shallit noted there was a "conspicuous absence of computer scientists and librarians" on the committee that decides what people can read on computers. He also said that the order did not take into account the University's historical role as the guardian of free intellectual inquiry. Prof. Shallit noted that the University of Waterloo has been down the path of censorship before. Acting upon a complaint about a single joke posted to the newsgroup in "rec.humor.funny", the entire newsgroup was banned by the university administration in 1988. Later, a dozen newsgroups devoted to discussions about sex were banned. The ban was reversed in May 1991 after a public outcry. In a Usenet news article, Professor David Jones of McGill University, the other co-founder of EFC, commented that the UW Ethics Committee seemed to "focus on the medium rather than the message". He asked if the sort of information now banned in electronic form would soon be removed from the UW libraries. Prof. Jones observed that the University of Waterloo Library carries information that, at first blush, might seem controversial, including Playboy_ magazine (available on microfilm), and a book denying the Holocaust, _The Hoax of the Twentieth Century_. "If the University of Waterloo administration chooses to place limits on what its students and faculty are allowed to read, these limits should be consistently applied across various media," Jones said. Dr. Jeffrey Shallit, University of Waterloo, Dept of Computer Science E-mail: shallit@graceland.uwaterloo.ca Dr. David Jones, McGill University, Dept of Electrical Engineering E-mail: djones@cim.mcgill.ca Electronic Frontier Canada can be reached electronically by sending e-mail to: efc@graceland.uwaterloo.ca Reference documents collected by EFC are accessible using the Internet gopher file-search tool: gopher -p "1/community/efc" ee470.ee.mcgill.ca [ if only this group and CPI were interested in what CSIS is up to - see the item in LEGISLATION about CSIS Non the less - canadian community networkers should consider joining this group as its focus will definitely cover our interests in providing uncensored information ] A NATIONAL GOPHER SITE FOR CANADA The National Library of Canada has opened its gopher site. This site offers excellent access to almost every other canadian based public Internet facility. It is well organized and will eventually be available in French and English. Currently there is no significant french language information. Three canadian e- newsletters are being archived on the gopher. Gopher -----> gopher.nlc-bnc.ca PROMOTE YOUR COMMUNITY NET World-Wide WAIS-Searchable WWW Catalogues are now available for: Community Network Projects - Companies CS Departments - Government Agencies Hardware - High Performance Computing High Speed Networks - Research Centers Software - Universities Please add your institution's home page, or URL's for interesting items in the categories, or for other categories you define. All are accessible at: http://www.cs.colorado.edu/homes/mcbryan/public_html/bb/summary.h tml Services like this with Wais searchable Web info are really powerful examples of integrated net services. TWO EXCELLENT NEW RESOURCES TO INCLUDE IN YOUR COMMUNITY NET 1 - The online equivalent of Great Books of World Civilizations. This is a marvellous collection of classics in English. Everything from Ancient Greek comedy to Hindu love literature to Sherlock Holmes - nearly 1000 books, full text at one location. This is the best I have found on the net. Gopher: gopher.vt.edu /eris files /information resources /books 2 - An archive of all the Internet FAQs. FAQs - Frequently asked Questions are concentrated collections of subject specific wisdom - voluntarily compiled by internet addicts. This collection is complete and its classified. Gopher: storm.stanford.edu /construction /consulting /FAQ archive TRENDS ====== Transforming Government ------------------------ The first 2 requests for assistance and the legislative item from Ontario about piggy backing public access on a existing library net, show a growing recognition within government circles of the potential of the internet. The importance of net based public access to government is becoming more and more evident. The White House has obtained tremendous benefits from its net connection. And it has also found it initiatives being responded to far more rapidly than those of any previous administration. ----------------------- Here is a brief outline of the principal first year achievements of THE WHITE HOUSE ELECTRONIC PUBLIC ACCESS PROJECT. "In the six months since June 1st, we have received over 100,000 email messages to the President & Vice President. 1a. This is the first Administration to accept email from the public. 1b. President Clinton is the first sitting President to send email to citizens -- 5th graders in Oxford, Ohio spring 1993. 2. This is the first administration to establish internet addresses for President & Vice President: president@whitehouse.gov vice-president@whitehouse.gov 3. Over 220,000 requests for information have been processed electronically since September 1, 1993. 4. In 1993 1,600 public documents were published electronically. 4a. This is the first administration to establish an electronic self-service public document library: publications@whitehouse.gov The service opened experimentally in December 1993. 5. The first ever live online computer conference by a sitting Vice President was done by VP Gore on 1/13/94. The VP took 10 questions in a 45 minute forum. 6. We initiated the first White House forums on commercial networks: America Online, Compuserve, GEnie, MCI Mail 7. Americans Communicating Electronically, an all volunteer organization, was started in Spring 1993. ACE represents the NII in action. It aims to provide government services electronically and enable interactive communications between government agencies and the public, especially those citizens without modem equipped computers. 8. Starting in November, we became the first administration to post audio files of the President's Saturday radio talks to the internet. This use of internet radio is our latest experiment . We plan to continue to roll out new features and services during 1994: The budget on CD-ROM [made available Monday, February 7] Multi-media CD-ROM of the first year's public documents Mosaic "Welcome to The White House" Improved email technology Improved publications@whitehouse.gov technology Additional commercial White House forums" --------------------------- And from the public side, Jim Warren and fellow internauts have opened up the California Legislature, while EFF & CPSR have used the net to MOUNT MAJOR CAMPAIGNS AGAINST THE DISASTROUS "SECURITY" INITIATIVES that the intelligence community is attempting to impose on the public. If you haven't yet taken the time to support those campaigns - please do so. Use the white house e-mail addresses above to talk to the issues. This goes for non citizens as well. Anything affecting the net, affects the planet. ------------------------------------------- SO - GET ACTIVE On January 24, many of the nation's leading experts in cryptography and computer security wrote President Clinton and asked him to withdraw the Clipper proposal. The public response to the letter has been extremely favorable, including coverage in the New York Times and numerous computer and security trade magazines. Many people have expressed interest in adding their names to the letter. In response to these requests, CPSR is organizing an Internet petition drive to oppose the Clipper proposal. We will deliver the signed petition to the White House, complete with the names of all the people who oppose Clipper. To sign on to the letter, send a message to: Clipper.petition@cpsr.org with the message "I oppose Clipper" (no quotes) You will receive a return message confirming your vote. Please distribute this announcement so that others may also express their opposition to the Clipper proposal. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is also working to protect our privacy. To help stop Clipper and eliminate export controls on cryptography, support a bill introduced in the House of Representatives, HR 3627. To support the bill, send email to . For details of EFF membership, send mail to membership@eff.org . ============================================== NETWORKS and COMMUNITY is a public service of FUTURE DATA; a partnership of researchers and research system designers. For commercial services contact Gwyneth Store - circa@io.org Net facilities for the preparation of this newsletter are provided by the DISTRIBUTED KNOWLEDGE PROJECT - York University - Canada Back issues are archived through the kindness of the staff at the WELL : gopher ----> well.sf.ca.us ->networks -->community "subscriptions" are available through the generosity of the listowner for the RRE NEWS SERVICE: subscribe by sending e-mail to rre-request@weber.ucsd.edu) with a SUBJECT LINE reading "subscribe ". Additional distribution is assisted by the managers and owners of NET-HAPPENINGS, COMMUNET, & the CANADIAN FREENET listservs This newsletter is in the PUBLIC DOMAIN and may be used as you see fit. To contribute items or enquire about this newsletter contact Sam Sternberg ============================================== NETWORKS and COMMUNITY is a public service of FUTURE DATA; a a partnership of researchers and research system designers. For commercial services contact Gwyneth Store - circa@io.org Net facilities for the preparation of this newsletter are provided by the DISTRIBUTED KNOWLEDGE PROJECT - York University - Canada. Back issues are archived through the kindness of the staff at the WELL : gopher ---->gopher.well.sf.ca.us ->community --> civic nets... ---> networks & community AND the National Library of Canada : gopher gopher.nlc-bnc.ca "subscriptions" are available through the generosity of the listowner for the RRE NEWS SERVICE: subscribe by sending e-mail to rre-request@weber.ucsd.edu) with a SUBJECT LINE reading "subscribe ". Additional distribution is assisted by the managers and owners of NET-HAPPENINGS, COMMUNET, & the CANADIAN FREENET listservs This newsletter is in the PUBLIC DOMAIN and may be used as you see fit. To contribute items or enquire about this newsletter contact Sam Sternberg .