Massey, CEO of Compuserve, on Internet

Wow! I am watching the CEO of Compuserve being interviewed on CNBC,
explaining how his company is "taking the high road by complying with the
laws of Germany" in removing access to 200 Usenet groups.

So, what happens with Saudi Arabia announces that Christian and Jewish
newsgroups violate their laws (I don't know this for sure, but I know that
Jewish and Christian temples and churches are strictly verboten in Saudi
Arabia).

And, think of the many countries which ban homosexuality, and so on.

An amazing cave. Massey seems to think that all of the other large ISPs
will fall in line and remove "illegal" newsgroups (illegal in any country
in which they have account holders).

I wrote a longer post on the issues last night, so I won't repeat those points.

--Tim May

We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1  | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

On Fri, 29 Dec 1995, Timothy C. May wrote:

> Wow! I am watching the CEO of Compuserve being interviewed on CNBC,
> explaining how his company is "taking the high road by complying with the
> laws of Germany" in removing access to 200 Usenet groups.

A blatant lie.

Newsgroups: alt.online-service.compuserve,comp.org.eff.talk
From: tomklem@netcom.com (Tom Klemesrud)
Subject: Re: Compuserve lies about the Germans
Message-ID: <tomklemDKDBnr.15F@netcom.com>
 
[ ... ] 
Compuserve CEO Massey appeared on CNBC and said that Compuserve was
only obeying the (German) law.  However, the AP article makes it clear 
that there is no such German law--that there is only an investigation 
going on in Germany as th exactly what is on the internet.  Compuserve 
was not asked to censor anything, according to the AP article.  
Compuserve has apparently used this episode as a excuse to do what it
was already predisposed to do, in my opinion.

[ end ]

From: tc <72417.1514@compuserve.com>
Newsgroups: alt.online-service.compuserve,comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Compuserve lies about the Germans
Message-ID: <4c222o$jc3@dub-news-svc-4.compuserve.com>
 
CompuServe is starting to look worse and worse in this thing.  I'm
still waiting for the real story.  Here is an excerpt from a story on the
AP:
 
       <stuff deleted>
   Munich prosecutor Manfred Wick confirmed Friday that Bavarian state
police investigators searched CompuServe's networks and computers last
month for child pornography, but he would not say what they found.
   "We didn't threaten them with charges," Wick said.
   Arno Edelmann, a CompuServe product manager in Unterhaching,
Germany, said Friday that the company blocked access to 200
sex-oriented newsgroups in a portion of the Internet called Usenet.
   "It is perhaps an overreaction but we want to cooperate with the
Bavarian prosecutor's office," Edelmann said.
       <stuff deleted>
[ end ]

And herein lie the pitfalls of trying to establish a global ISP
presence.

I'm with Tom Klemesrud on this one. CI$ is trying to lick some boots
to get a position as a _capo_ when Der Revolution begins.

Michael, rec.arts.erotica and soc.support.youth.gay-lesbian-bi
moderator (both banned by CI$). As far as I'm concerned, CI$ is
no longer welcome to any articles from my group; I'll mangle the Path:
header as necessary to insure they never get there.
--
Michael Handler <grendel@netaxs.com>      <URL:http://www.netaxs.com/~grendel>

>   Munich prosecutor Manfred Wick confirmed Friday that Bavarian state
    ^^^^^^                                               ^^^^^^^^
>police investigators searched CompuServe's networks and computers last
>month for child pornography, but he would not say what they found.
>   "We didn't threaten them with charges," Wick said.

Its worth mentioning that the state of Bavaria (Bayern) is the most
conservative and one of the most Catholic provinces in Germany. There
was an article in Zeit a few months ago about a division of the police
investigating on-line crime, although at the time it was more BBS and
Video Text related. As a former resident of Bavaria, I am not one bit
surprised at these scare tactics.

-- 
Dietrich Kappe | Red Planet    http://www.redweb.com
Red Planet, LLC| "Chess Space" | "MS Access Products" |  PGP Public Key
1-800-RED 0 WEB|    /chess     |       /cobre         | /goedel/key.txt
Web Publishing | Key fingerprint: 8C2983E66AB723F9 A014A0417D268B84

you said:
|On Fri, 29 Dec 1995, Timothy C. May wrote:
|
|> Wow! I am watching the CEO of Compuserve being interviewed on CNBC, |>explaining how his company is "taking the high road by complying with the |>laws of Germany" in removing access to 200 Usenet groups.
|
|A blatant lie.
|

How this could ever be construed as "the high road" is beyond me.
Censorship and fascism tend to go hand in hand, I suppose it should
be no surprise to see this coming from de-dom.

Can we just start calling them CompuCensor instead of Compuserve?

Tim


________________________________________________________________
tfs@vampire.science.gmu.edu (NeXTmail, MIME)  Tim Scanlon
tfs@epic.org                (PGP key aval.)  crypto is good
Digital Encryption Systems Inc.             I own my own words