Re: Compuserve *hasn't* banned newsgroups

At 05:30 PM 1/3/96 +0100, Anonymous wrote:
>   If you do this, you'll find out very quickly just how empty (or at
>least how slippery) slogans like "the Internet routes around censorship"
>are: if your efforts pay off and you steer even a fraction of CIS's
>traffic toward the remaining open newsservers, they'll close faster than
>you can say "alt." So before you do it, think about how the net will route
>around sysops closing their servers off from the net.
>
>Hieronymous

You mean that the thirty-some odd open news servers listed on
http://dana.ucc.nau.edu/~jwa/open-sites.html might get swamped.  Then the
CIS refugees will be forced to pay Sameer the massive $12.50 (?) a month for
a net-access-only account and read off of c2.org's server.  (Or any of the
thousands of sites worldwide one can open a shell account on.)

DCF

On Wed, 3 Jan 1996, Duncan Frissell wrote:

> You mean that the thirty-some odd open news servers listed on
> http://dana.ucc.nau.edu/~jwa/open-sites.html might get swamped.  Then the
> CIS refugees will be forced to pay Sameer the massive $12.50 (?) a month for
> a net-access-only account and read off of c2.org's server.  (Or any of the
> thousands of sites worldwide one can open a shell account on.)

Cheaper still (and more compatible with GUI newsreaders) try AltNet:

> telnet news.alt.net nntp
Trying 204.137.156.2...
Connected to tofu.alt.net.
Escape character is '^]'.
200 Mail info@alt.net for info about $5/month NNTP access (posting ok).

If you can't afford $5/month, you're not using Compu$erve.

Joe
(not affliated with AltNet, just giving them a random plug)

> You mean that the thirty-some odd open news servers listed on
> http://dana.ucc.nau.edu/~jwa/open-sites.html might get swamped.  Then the
> CIS refugees will be forced to pay Sameer the massive $12.50 (?) a month for
> a net-access-only account and read off of c2.org's server.  (Or any of the
> thousands of sites worldwide one can open a shell account on.)

And if the feds come knocking on Sameer's door, the refugees can go to the
Netherlands or some other country with respect for privacy. When netscape
releases an official, untimed browser with ssl news and mail built in, one
that lets users pick their own CAs, we'll have reached escape velocity. 

I think this all comes back to anarchy.  Anarchy as it relates to
cyberspace isn't a political ideology or a vision of how things ought to
be.  Rather it's a realistic analysis of the net dynamic as it is, a
natural and almost unavoidable consequence of the interaction of the
market and the technology.

Our opponents' position is weak, despite their having the massive power of
the government behind them.  In order for them to pull out a victory,
they'll have to impose extraordinarily draconian restrictions on crypto
very quickly, and they'll have to do it in the face of overwhelming public
opposition as well as strong resistance from business.  On top of that,
they'll have to secure an unprecented degree of international cooperation
to enforce rules net wide, something that's probably going to prove
impossibly difficult for them.  Again, they've got to do this quickly,
because genies are popping out of bottles all over the place. 

It's not impossible for them to pull this off, but I think the smart
money's with us.

> CIS refugees will be forced to pay Sameer the massive $12.50 (?) a month for
	$7.50

-- 
sameer						Voice:   510-601-9777x3
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