censored? corrected

NOTE: More than 8 hours have passed since I sent this text in plaintext
directly to Cypherpunks without its being posted, so in this attempt I am
sending it encrypted through ALUMNI remailer. - Gary Jeffers
gjeffers@socketis.net


                    INFO BLACKOUT

 From THE SPOTLIGHT newspaper's TECHNOLOGY & LIBERTY column by Clark
Matthews - Nov. 06, 1995 issue.

   Powerful national security insiders have established effective control
over the entrance gateways to Internet. Disturbing signs are now emerging
that the "information superhighway" has been targeted for systematic sur-
veillance and political dossier-building on Americans' opinions.

   This ominous news came in the first of a series of articles by investi-
gative journalist Steven Pizzo in WEB REVIEW, an online magazine of cyber-
culture and politics (http://gnn.com/wr/) published by Songline Studios of
San Francisco. Pizzo is the author of INSIDE JOB, a groundbreaking expose'
on the massive fraud and theft of insured deposits in 1980s savings and
loan debacle.

   According to Pizzo, control of Internet "domain name registration" has
passed into private hands-with the potential for serious mischief or
worse. "Domain names" are the odd looking identifying names that are as-
signed to individual computer systems that compose the Internet (logoplex.
com, for example).

   Through a complex chain of licensing arrangements and corporate acqui-
sitions detailed in Pizzo's article, this crucial control over Internet
domain names has passed from the non-profit National Science Foundation to
Network Solutions, Inc. (NSI) of Herndon, Virginia. Last May, amid growing
public disbelief of Establishment media reports about the Oklahoma City
bombing provocation, NSI was purchased by Scientific Applications Interna-
tional Corporation (SAIC) of San Diego.

   SAIC is a $2 billion defense and FBI contractor with a board of direc-
tors that reads like a Who's Who of the intelligence community. Board
members include Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, the former director of the Na-
tional Security Agency (NSA) and deputy director of the CIA; Melvin Laird,
defense secretary under Richard Nixon; Donald Hicks, former head of re-
search & development for the Pentagon; Donald Kerr, former head of the Los
Alamos National Laboratory; and Gen. Maxwell Thurman (ret.), the commander
of the U.S. invasion of Panama.

   Former members of SAIC's board include Robert Gates, the former CIA
director under George Bush; current CIA director John Deutch; Anita Jones,
Deutch's former Pentagon procurement officer, and William Perry, the pre-
sent secretary of defense.

   The corporation also has a legion of computer network specialists and
an entire division of computer consultants. SAIC currently holds contracts
for re-engineering the Pentagon's information systems, automating the
FBI'S computerized fingerprint identification system, and building a na-
tional criminal history infomation system.

   The Internet is a marvel of computer software technology. It was de-
signed to survive a nuclear attack on the United States-like the Post
Office, it's literally smart enough to find a way to get the mail through,
even if most of the network is missing.

   But control of Internet domain name registration means the ability to
remove troublesome-or outspoken-computer systems from the network. Po-
tentially, this control also confers the power to insinuate "phantom"
domains into the network-for surveillance purposes, for example-or for
real-time, automatic censorship.

   Furthermore, anecdotal evidence gathered by this author suggests that
actual "truth control" is taking place on the 'net now. E-mail messages
with controversial contents-including the details of the SAIC takover of
domain names-have consistently disappeared as they travel across the net-
work. News items concerning the Vincent Foster "suicide" investigation
and allegations of NSA bank spying through compromised Inslaw software are
being quickly and automatically canceled. And the cancellations are not by
by their authors.

CRACKDOWN

   With domain names under the control of secret government insiders, it
is even theoretically possible that large parts of the Internet could be
SHUT DOWN AND SILENCED at critical times. This could be accomplished by
suddenly altering domain name registrations or interposing compromised
"domains" at crucial points.

   These compromised systems could serve as "black holes" at critical
times, stopping e-mail and important news from reaching the world-or the
rest of the country.

   Exercises in "turning the Internet off" have already taken place in
Taiwan and Hong Kong. In Taiwan, the 'net was successfully shut down.
All network traffic-including news, opinions and e-mail sent by computer
users-was successfully "bottled up" on the island and prevented from
reaching the world.

   In Hong Kong, the Internet wasn't quite strangled, but the British
authorities who control that colony managed to throttle free electronic
speech with the rest of the world until everything was bottlenecked into
a few little-known satellite links.

   These are alarming precedents and sure signs that powerful, shadowy
forces are preparing to chop at the very roots of America's new Liberty
Tree. The secretive people on the board of directors of SAIC are intell-
igence professsionals skilled at manufacturing events-and then manufact-
uring public opinion and consent by controlling the truth. Will Internet
disinformation, censorship or "shutdowns" signal the next American crisis?

Rich Graves <llurch@networking.stanford.edu> said:

RG> On Thu, 2 Nov 1995 anonymous-remailer@shell.portal.com wrote:

>> But control of Internet domain name registration means the ability to
>> remove troublesome-or outspoken-computer systems from the
>> network. Po- tentially, this control also confers the power to
>> insinuate "phantom" domains into the network-for surveillance
>> purposes, for example-or for real-time, automatic censorship.

RG> Anyone capable of sending this message should have known that this
RG> was complete BS.

	Is it?  This is the _one_ thing in the article (is that term
giving it too much legitimacy?) that I whought was barely true.  Whoever
controls the root level DNS servers effectively controls the Internet.
I postulated a couple of months ago about how the US Govt might attempt
to censor the rest of the world: "Remove lurid.porno.site.other-country
from your DNS system within 72 hours or we will remove references to
your DNS servers from the root level servers.".  (I also speculated that
if the US Govt tried doing this, that an 'underground' DNS system would
form almost immediately.)

>> Furthermore, anecdotal evidence gathered by this author suggests that
>> actual "truth control" is taking place on the 'net now. E-mail
>> messages with controversial contents-including the details of the
>> SAIC takover of domain names-have consistently disappeared as they
>> travel across the net- work.

RG> And now we have PROOF! For THIS VERY MESSAGE, sent to THIS VERY LIST
RG> only EIGHT HOURS AGO was MYSTERIOUSLY DISAPPEARED! Hide the women
RG> and children!

	At least, it was allegedly lost.  If I were wanting to hype it,
I'd just _claim_ that it was lost.

		Sten
-- 
#include <disclaimer.h>				/* Sten Drescher */
To get my PGP public key, send me email with your public key and
	Subject: PGP key exchange
Key fingerprint =  90 5F 1D FD A6 7C 84 5E  A9 D3 90 16 B2 44 C4 F3

> 
> 	Is it?  This is the _one_ thing in the article (is that term
> giving it too much legitimacy?) that I whought was barely true.  Whoever
> controls the root level DNS servers effectively controls the Internet.
> I postulated a couple of months ago about how the US Govt might attempt
> to censor the rest of the world: "Remove lurid.porno.site.other-country
> from your DNS system within 72 hours or we will remove references to
> your DNS servers from the root level servers.".  (I also speculated that
> if the US Govt tried doing this, that an 'underground' DNS system would
> form almost immediately.)
> 

	The US govt. doesn't run the root nameservers, nor are all the
root nameservers within US jurisdiction.

-- 
sameer						Voice:   510-601-9777
Community ConneXion				FAX:     510-601-9734
The Internet Privacy Provider			Dialin:  510-658-6376
http://www.c2.org (or login as "guest")			sameer@c2.org

sameer <sameer@c2.org> said:

>>  Is it?  This is the _one_ thing in the article (is that term giving
>> it too much legitimacy?) that I whought was barely true.  Whoever
>> controls the root level DNS servers effectively controls the
>> Internet.  I postulated a couple of months ago about how the US Govt
>> might attempt to censor the rest of the world: "Remove
>> lurid.porno.site.other-country from your DNS system within 72 hours
>> or we will remove references to your DNS servers from the root level
>> servers.".  (I also speculated that if the US Govt tried doing this,
>> that an 'underground' DNS system would form almost immediately.)
>> 

s> 	The US govt. doesn't run the root nameservers, nor are all the
s> root nameservers within US jurisdiction.

	Granted, the US Govt doesn't run the US-based root servers.
But, if an Internet 'Decency' law was passed, they certainly could try
to threaten the US-based root server maintainers to make the cascading
threats.  And, as I understand the way DNS resolution works, address
requests go down to your root domain then up from the other root domain,
i.e., for me to find out what c2.org's address is, my system requests
from:
NS mpd.tandem.com
NS tandem.com
NS com
NS org

If this is correct, if the com NS has the entry for the org NS, I won't
be able to resolve those names.  Of course, explicit IP addresses and
/etc/hosts entries would still work.

-- 
#include <disclaimer.h>				/* Sten Drescher */
To get my PGP public key, send me email with your public key and
	Subject: PGP key exchange
Key fingerprint =  90 5F 1D FD A6 7C 84 5E  A9 D3 90 16 B2 44 C4 F3

Sten Drescher opined:
> sameer <sameer@c2.org> said:
> 
> >>  Is it?  This is the _one_ thing in the article (is that term giving
> >> it too much legitimacy?) that I whought was barely true.  Whoever
> >> controls the root level DNS servers effectively controls the
> >> Internet.  I postulated a couple of months ago about how the US Govt
> >> might attempt to censor the rest of the world: "Remove
> >> lurid.porno.site.other-country from your DNS system within 72 hours
> >> or we will remove references to your DNS servers from the root level
> >> servers.".  (I also speculated that if the US Govt tried doing this,
> >> that an 'underground' DNS system would form almost immediately.)
> >> 
> 
> s> 	The US govt. doesn't run the root nameservers, nor are all the
> s> root nameservers within US jurisdiction.
> 
> 	Granted, the US Govt doesn't run the US-based root servers.
> But, if an Internet 'Decency' law was passed, they certainly could try
> to threaten the US-based root server maintainers to make the cascading
> threats.  And, as I understand the way DNS resolution works, address
> requests go down to your root domain then up from the other root domain,
> i.e., for me to find out what c2.org's address is, my system requests
> from:
> NS mpd.tandem.com
> NS tandem.com
> NS com
> NS org
> 
> If this is correct, if the com NS has the entry for the org NS, I won't
> be able to resolve those names.  Of course, explicit IP addresses and
> /etc/hosts entries would still work.

We all know that an alternative DNS structure would rapidly appear, and
perhaps even a second US (black) Internet - with links between the old
and new fully automatic and transparent.  However, perhaps a good
cypherpunks project would be to create and test a contingency plan and
start an alternative DNS system in parallel with the government run ones.

-- 
-> See: Info-Sec Heaven at URL http://all.net
Management Analytics - 216-686-0090 - PO Box 1480, Hudson, OH 44236

shields@tembel.org (Michael Shields) said:

MS> If the InterNIC yanked your domain, this would *not* affect your IP
MS> connectivity -- your ability to be reached by any Internet protocol
MS> via IP address.  The InterNIC has nothing at all to do with that.

	I never disputed that subverting the DNS system would affect the
ability to use numeric IP addresses, just IP names.  But knowing that
there are multiple 'root' DNS servers makes me a bit more comfortable.
But only a little bit - despite my being one of what is generally
referred to as the 'religious right', the pro-censorship tendencies of
the political 'leaders' pandering to it makes me very uncomfortable (the
"and when they came to censor me, no one was left to protest" concept
[with apologies to the writer of the original version referring to the
Holocaust]).

-- 
#include <disclaimer.h>				/* Sten Drescher */
To get my PGP public key, send me email with your public key and
	Subject: PGP key exchange
Key fingerprint =  90 5F 1D FD A6 7C 84 5E  A9 D3 90 16 B2 44 C4 F3

(Hopefully someone will correct me if any of this is wrong.  But it
would be nice if the thread ends.)

Here's how it works, politically.  IANA is the ultimate custodian of
the namespace.  IANA has delegated administrative control of the six
traditional top-level domains (TLDs) to the InterNIC.

The InterNIC is a building in my zipcode.  It's in a mundane industrial
park they share with PSI.  It is operated by NSI, which is owned by SAIC,
and funded by an NSF grant and the new domain charges.

Here's how it works, technically.  Your nameserver, if it doesn't
know how to jump into the middle of the tree (via cached data, or the
preconfigured servers for the local domain and the root), will start at
the top of the tree and walk down.

The root nameservers are run by volunteers.  There are nine.  One is
at the InterNIC, but it need not be.  The others are at ISI, PSI, UMD,
NASA, UUNET (ISC), DDN, the Army Research Lab, and NORDUnet (in Sweden).

(The most central point is actually Paul Vixie, maintainer of BIND,
the software used for almost all nameservers, including the roots.
UUNET funds BIND development.)

If the InterNIC yanked your domain, this would *not* affect your IP
connectivity -- your ability to be reached by any Internet protocol via
IP address.  The InterNIC has nothing at all to do with that.

I'm much more worried about a lack of competency at NSI than I am about
the FBI asking them to pull the plug on troublemakers, especially since
it would be taken very seriously if you had a legitimate complaint
about unjust termination (and some people, upset at having to pay for
their domain(s), are looking for any reason to tear into the InterNIC's
reputation).

And *especially* since the evil government types could just call up
Bell Atlantic, who they are already friendly with, and have them make
my line unusable.  That's what I'd do, were I an evil government type.

And if anyone wanted to subvert your domain at a small fraction of the
sites, DNS is easily spoofable....

So keep a sense of perspective.
-- 
Shields.

Sten Drescher writes:
>sameer <sameer@c2.org> said:
>> 	The US govt. doesn't run the root nameservers, nor are all the
>> root nameservers within US jurisdiction.
>
>	Granted, the US Govt doesn't run the US-based root servers.
>But, if an Internet 'Decency' law was passed, they certainly could try
>to threaten the US-based root server maintainers to make the cascading
>threats.  And, as I understand the way DNS resolution works, address
>requests go down to your root domain then up from the other root domain,
>i.e., for me to find out what c2.org's address is, my system requests
>from:
>NS mpd.tandem.com
>NS tandem.com
>NS com
>NS org
>
>If this is correct, if the com NS has the entry for the org NS, I won't
>be able to resolve those names.  Of course, explicit IP addresses and
>/etc/hosts entries would still work.

It isn't correct.  First, your host is immediately looking for a
namserver for c2.org, by querying it's configured default server (say,
piaget.mpd.tandem.com) for it.  If the server already has the answer
cached, it's returned immediately.  If not, a bit in the query tells it
whether the client wants it to find the answer or return an "I don't
know" answer -- most want it to find an answer.

Piaget.mpd.tandem.com probably already knows enough to bypass queries
to the tandem.com and com domains, since it's probably already resolved
at least one org query.  It can then go directly to a server for org to
get the c2.org information the client requested.

The other confused point you have is that there isn't just *one* server
for org.  There are at least a dozen interchangeable root nameservers
which handle all of com, org, edu, net, mil, gov, and the country
domains (us, uk, de, etc).

It's been a matter of policy for quite some time now that to register a
sub-domain under one of the top level domains (i.e., to register c2.org
under org) you must demonstrate two accessible nameservers for the new
domain.  I note, for example, that mpd.tandem.com has *four*
nameservers.

To eliminate "tandem.com" from the DNS, all of the dozen or more root
nameservers, which are in different jurisdictions, must be
compromised.  Even then, sub-domains of the top level generally offer
very long expiration periods for cached data.  It could be years before
the data left the cache from some of the second level servers, assuming
they stayed up that long.

It would almost certainly be long enough to get a judge to slap an
injunction against the action.

Once again, the net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

On Thu, 2 Nov 1995, Sten Drescher wrote:

> Rich Graves <llurch@networking.stanford.edu> said:
> 
> RG> On Thu, 2 Nov 1995 anonymous-remailer@shell.portal.com wrote:
> 
> >> But control of Internet domain name registration means the ability to
> >> remove troublesome-or outspoken-computer systems from the
> >> network. Po- tentially, this control also confers the power to
> >> insinuate "phantom" domains into the network-for surveillance
> >> purposes, for example-or for real-time, automatic censorship.
> 
> RG> Anyone capable of sending this message should have known that this
> RG> was complete BS.
> 
> 	Is it?  This is the _one_ thing in the article (is that term
> giving it too much legitimacy?) that I whought was barely true.  Whoever
> controls the root level DNS servers effectively controls the Internet.
> I postulated a couple of months ago about how the US Govt might attempt
> to censor the rest of the world: "Remove lurid.porno.site.other-country
> from your DNS system within 72 hours or we will remove references to
> your DNS servers from the root level servers.".  (I also speculated that
> if the US Govt tried doing this, that an 'underground' DNS system would
> form almost immediately.)

I stand corrected. SurfWatch already allows people and organizations to do
this voluntarily for anything that mentions sex. I am sure that certain
sites are blocked by China, Vietnam, Singapore, and Fortune 1000
Corporations, for both "moral" and political reasons. 

But it's not the DNS you need to control -- it's the routers. Which are 
still rather distributed. BBN is part of the Eastern Elite, though...

- -rich


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On Thu, 2 Nov 1995 anonymous-remailer@shell.portal.com wrote:

> NOTE: More than 8 hours have passed since I sent this text in plaintext
> directly to Cypherpunks without its being posted, so in this attempt I am
> sending it encrypted through ALUMNI remailer. - Gary Jeffers
> gjeffers@socketis.net

Shit happens.

>                     INFO BLACKOUT

BWAHAHAHA!

>  From THE SPOTLIGHT newspaper's TECHNOLOGY & LIBERTY column by Clark
> Matthews - Nov. 06, 1995 issue.

The Spotlight's official classification in the UC and Stanford library
databases is "Serials -- Anti-Semitic." I don't mean to offend anyone too
much, but the Spotlight is generally regarded to be rather lunatic-fringe.
Though the same is probably said of anyone on the cypherpunks list, hmm... 

>    This ominous news came in the first of a series of articles by investi-
> gative journalist Steven Pizzo in WEB REVIEW, an online magazine of cyber-
> culture and politics (http://gnn.com/wr/) published by Songline Studios of

Spotlight tends to be rather vague in its sources for a reason. I found
the article to which this apparently refers at
http://gnn.com/gnn/wr/sept29/news/natl/index.html. It is rather less
lurid, but might still be of moderate concern. See the October 13
followup. 

I'm copying this to Steve Pizzo. I'm sure he'll get a real kick out of
being cited in The Spotlight, whose politics are a little different than 
his.

>    Through a complex chain of licensing arrangements and corporate acqui-
> sitions detailed in Pizzo's article, this crucial control over Internet
> domain names has passed from the non-profit National Science Foundation to
> Network Solutions, Inc. (NSI) of Herndon, Virginia. Last May, amid growing
> public disbelief of Establishment media reports about the Oklahoma City
> bombing provocation, NSI was purchased by Scientific Applications Interna-
> tional Corporation (SAIC) of San Diego.

This is semantically and logically equivalent to:

Last May, amid growing public disbelief of Establishment media reports 
about the Oklahoma City bombing provocation [provocation?], Fred Rogers 
changed his shoes.

Obviously, Mr. Rogers is part of the conspiracy.

>    SAIC is a $2 billion defense and FBI contractor with a board of direc-
> tors that reads like a Who's Who of the intelligence community. Board
> members include Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, the former director of the Na-
> tional Security Agency (NSA) and deputy director of the CIA; Melvin Laird,
> defense secretary under Richard Nixon; Donald Hicks, former head of re-
> search & development for the Pentagon; Donald Kerr, former head of the Los
> Alamos National Laboratory; and Gen. Maxwell Thurman (ret.), the commander
> of the U.S. invasion of Panama.

I know that at least part of this is true, at least in part.

SAIC also designed the hull of the Stars & Stripes yacht that won the 
America's Cup. Obviously Dennis Conner is part of a conspiracy that 
involves the Bavarian Illuminati, the Pope (who visited San Diego once), 
and New Zealand. Isn't it suspicious that the last America's Cup was 
contested and finally decided by the New York Supreme Court, the seat of 
the World Jewish Conspiracy?

Disclaimer: I was born in the San Diego area, and I know people who 
worked at SAIC, so I'm probably part of the conspiracy too.

>    The Internet is a marvel of computer software technology. It was de-
> signed to survive a nuclear attack on the United States-like the Post
> Office, it's literally smart enough to find a way to get the mail through,
> even if most of the network is missing.

I believe this is the first time I have seen the Post Office favorably 
cited.

>    But control of Internet domain name registration means the ability to
> remove troublesome-or outspoken-computer systems from the network. Po-
> tentially, this control also confers the power to insinuate "phantom"
> domains into the network-for surveillance purposes, for example-or for
> real-time, automatic censorship.

Anyone capable of sending this message should have known that this was 
complete BS.

>    Furthermore, anecdotal evidence gathered by this author suggests that
> actual "truth control" is taking place on the 'net now. E-mail messages
> with controversial contents-including the details of the SAIC takover of
> domain names-have consistently disappeared as they travel across the net-
> work.

And now we have PROOF! For THIS VERY MESSAGE, sent to THIS VERY LIST only
EIGHT HOURS AGO was MYSTERIOUSLY DISAPPEARED! Hide the women and children!

> News items concerning the Vincent Foster "suicide" investigation
> and allegations of NSA bank spying through compromised Inslaw software are
> being quickly and automatically canceled. And the cancellations are not by
> by their authors.

I know that several people who have been spamming the net with Foster 
garbage have been UDP'd. Read back issues of news.admin.net-abuse.misc.

> CRACKDOWN
> 
>    With domain names under the control of secret government insiders, it
> is even theoretically possible that large parts of the Internet could be
> SHUT DOWN AND SILENCED at critical times. This could be accomplished by
> suddenly altering domain name registrations or interposing compromised
> "domains" at crucial points.
> 
>    These compromised systems could serve as "black holes" at critical
> times, stopping e-mail and important news from reaching the world-or the
> rest of the country.
> 
>    Exercises in "turning the Internet off" have already taken place in
> Taiwan and Hong Kong. In Taiwan, the 'net was successfully shut down.
> All network traffic-including news, opinions and e-mail sent by computer
> users-was successfully "bottled up" on the island and prevented from
> reaching the world.
> 
>    In Hong Kong, the Internet wasn't quite strangled, but the British
> authorities who control that colony managed to throttle free electronic
> speech with the rest of the world until everything was bottlenecked into
> a few little-known satellite links.

Hmm, few specifics here. I wonder if they would care to elaborate. Nah.

It is, of course, true that countries including Singapore, China, 
Vietnam, and Cuba control net access rather tightly, and there have been 
reprisals against online dissidents.

>    These are alarming precedents and sure signs that powerful, shadowy
> forces are preparing to chop at the very roots of America's new Liberty
> Tree. The secretive people on the board of directors of SAIC are intell-
> igence professsionals skilled at manufacturing events-and then manufact-
> uring public opinion and consent by controlling the truth. Will Internet
> disinformation, censorship or "shutdowns" signal the next American crisis?

Only the Shadow knows.

- -rich
 llurch@networking.stanford.edu


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On Thu, 2 Nov 1995, Rich Graves wrote:

> > 
> >    In Hong Kong, the Internet wasn't quite strangled, but the British
> > authorities who control that colony managed to throttle free electronic
> > speech with the rest of the world until everything was bottlenecked into
> > a few little-known satellite links.
> 
> Hmm, few specifics here. I wonder if they would care to elaborate. Nah.

Don't waste your time with that idiot, he doesn't know what he's talking
about. The 1-week partial black-out here in Hong Kong happened because some
providers had ignored some licencing requirements, and has been quickly
solved once they agreed to comply.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

> On Thu, 2 Nov 1995, Rich Graves wrote:
> 
> > > 
> > >    In Hong Kong, the Internet wasn't quite strangled, but the British
> > > authorities who control that colony managed to throttle free electronic
> > > speech with the rest of the world until everything was bottlenecked into
> > > a few little-known satellite links.
> > 
> > Hmm, few specifics here. I wonder if they would care to elaborate. Nah.
> 
> Don't waste your time with that idiot, he doesn't know what he's talking
> about. The 1-week partial black-out here in Hong Kong happened because some
> providers had ignored some licencing requirements, and has been quickly
> solved once they agreed to comply.


That's one way to look at it.  Of course since the "license 
requirements" had to do with some obscure administrivia that nobody
thought would apply to ISP's, none of the 6 or so ISP's in Hong Kong
had thought to apply for it.  One has to wonder why the gov't pulled
the plug on 5 of them without so much as a warning, much less a
chance to comply.


Did I say 5?  Oh yes.  The largest HK ISP-- and the one with closest
ties to the government-- had gone ahead and applied for the license
just a couple of weeks before the blackout.  Corruption is the modus
operandi in HK, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if that one ISP
got a special favor by being warned of the impending black-out, or
even if it had a hand in instigating it.


I'm sure you'll correct me if I've got any of my facts wrong.


(c'punks relevance:  (parts of) the Net is still vulnerable to
governmental blackout.  Is this relevant?  Well, hardly, but perhaps
interesting.  And at least I flagged it.)


Regards,

Bryce

signatures follow


            "To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield."   
    <a href="http://ugrad-www.cs.colorado.edu/~wilcoxb/Niche.html">

                          bryce@colorado.edu                   </a>



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On Thu, 2 Nov 1995, Bryce wrote:

> That's one way to look at it.  Of course since the "license 
> requirements" had to do with some obscure administrivia that nobody
> thought would apply to ISP's, none of the 6 or so ISP's in Hong Kong
> had thought to apply for it.  One has to wonder why the gov't pulled
> the plug on 5 of them without so much as a warning, much less a
> chance to comply.
> 
> 
> Did I say 5?  Oh yes.  The largest HK ISP-- and the one with closest
> ties to the government-- had gone ahead and applied for the license
> just a couple of weeks before the blackout.  Corruption is the modus
> operandi in HK, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if that one ISP
> got a special favor by being warned of the impending black-out, or
> even if it had a hand in instigating it.

Look: I've followed very closely all that sad story, as I routinely 
participate to the meetings between the Government's Telecom regulator 
(OFTA) and the representatives of the IT industry regarding ISP 
regulations and the difficult relationships with the telephone carrier 
(in the role, incidentally, of a strong advocate of de-regulation). 

The cutoff was determined by an initiative of the Police's Commercial
Crime Bureau, tipped by complaints from that provider you're mentioning
(HK Supernet). The initiative was taken without any pressure from above,
and actually the CCB had to backpedal very hurriedly after the
intervention of several legislators (I assisted to an embarassing panel
meeting where one of them scolded the chief of the CCB and advanced the
hypothesis of a possible lawsuit by the providers agaist the Government
for unlawful action, due to a few clumsy procedural "faux pas" by the
police). In other words, the whole matter looked more like "Inspector
Clouseau vs the ISP's" than a perfidious conspiracy to suppress the
freedom of speech. 

In any case, before Perry (rightly) send us stern reminders of the scarce
crypto relevance of this thread, let's take it out of Cypherpunks and, if
someone is interested, let's continue by e-mail. 

Cheers --

Enzo