Re: Futplex makes the news!

At 2:28 AM 2/3/96, Mike Duvos wrote:
>On 2 Feb 1996 19:02:29 -0500, you wrote:
>
>>I think the whole endeavor was a resounding success, and I wish I had been
>>on the ball enough to participate in it.
>
>[deletia]
>
>>The important thing is that Rich, Declan, Futplex, and anyone else
>>participating showed the world that censorship on the internet, if not
>>impossible, is at least a good deal more dificult then people thought.
>
>Before poo-pooing Tim, declaring victory, and returning home, it
>should be noted that German prosecutors today added AOL to the list of
>entities they wish to charge with "inciting hatred."
>
>UMASS will of course test the political waters before taking any
>action, but we may yet see the gonads of Futplex hanging from one of
>the upper floors of the Graduate Research Center.  :)
>
>Time will tell whether we have won this war, or have simply
>encountered a lull after the first onslought by the enemy.

Meaning no disrespect to any of my colleagues here, but is there now some
sense that "we won"?

I don't see it this way. And the Germans don't seem to think they lost.

Let's look at where this issue is. The UMass admins yanked the Zundelsite
info, Declan has voluntarily withdrawn his ZS info, Germany is accelerating
its threats against CS, AOL, etc., and of course the Communications Decency
Act is about to be signed into law.

Maybe I'm not seeing the Boston-area papers, and their spin on things, but
it doesn't seem to me that an anti-censorship interpretation is getting a
lot of press. What I am sensing is just the opposite, that a bunch of
babykilling Nazis bent on taking over the Internet just had their main
Propaganda Center at UMass shut down by the forces of light. This is the
spin on the story I'm sensing.

(Hate to say it, but the nuances of free speech are lost on most people. To
most of them, putting Holocaust denial information on a site is ipso facto
proof of genocidal racism. I wouldn't be surprised to see the various
groups at UMass foaming at the mouth next week in the campus newspaper to
get the "notorious racist" Lewis McCarthy sanctioned or thrown out.
University administrators  will try to cool things off, but will keep
feeling the pressures from various "aggreived" groups until something just
has to be done. I've seen this many times at Stanford, UC Santa Cruz,
Berkeley, and elsewhere.)

Here's to hoping Rich's site remains up.

--Tim

Boycott espionage-enabled software!
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."

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On Fri, 2 Feb 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:

> At 2:28 AM 2/3/96, Mike Duvos wrote:
> >On 2 Feb 1996 19:02:29 -0500, you wrote:
> >
> >Before poo-pooing Tim, declaring victory, and returning home, it
> >should be noted that German prosecutors today added AOL to the list of
> >entities they wish to charge with "inciting hatred."
> >...
> >Time will tell whether we have won this war, or have simply
> >encountered a lull after the first onslought by the enemy.
> 
> Meaning no disrespect to any of my colleagues here, but is there now some
> sense that "we won"?
> 
> I don't see it this way. And the Germans don't seem to think they lost.

That's what they thought in 1945, too. I'd really hate to have to nuke
them from orbit. I maintain (I hope a little more coherently now) that
widely publicized subversion is far more effective than a frontal assault.
Who holds up the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as great victories
against tyranny? 
 
> Maybe I'm not seeing the Boston-area papers, and their spin on things, but
> it doesn't seem to me that an anti-censorship interpretation is getting a
> lot of press. What I am sensing is just the opposite, that a bunch of
> babykilling Nazis bent on taking over the Internet just had their main
> Propaganda Center at UMass shut down by the forces of light. This is the
> spin on the story I'm sensing.

I think this sense is wrong.

Yesterday's "Modem Driver" column in the San Jose Mercury News was poorly 
researched, but had the right spin. It mentions that the operator of 
webcom.com is the grandson of a Holocaust victim, so he gets the Mom & 
Apple Pie vote.

 http://www.sjmercury.com/living/daveplot/modem084.htm

Front page of the Stanford Daily, which generated calls from the San Jose 
Merc and the Chronicle of Higher Edication, which are likely to get the 
story right:

 http://www-Daily.stanford.edu/2-2-96/NEWS/index.html

[No, I am *not* happy to get all the credit there]

AP story in Boston Globe (long and ludicrous on-line URL, and OK, so this 
is not the greatest story, but I think it's somewhat positive):

 http://www.boston.com/globe/ap/cgi-bin/retrieve?%2Fglobe%2Fapwir%2F033%2Freg%2Fag052102

Web Review (good, even though he totally misrepresented what I'd said 
without even bothering to try to reach me):

 http://www.gnn.com/gnn/wr/96/02/01/news/ndn/zundel.html
 http://www.gnn.com/gnn/wr/current/news/ndn/telcom.html

The News & Observer (also never bothered to contact me before stating 
what I believed):

 http://www2.nando.net/newsroom/ntn/info/020296/info2_20579.html

> (Hate to say it, but the nuances of free speech are lost on most people. To
> most of them, putting Holocaust denial information on a site is ipso facto
> proof of genocidal racism.

I think it is, if (and only if) you agree with it.

> I wouldn't be surprised to see the various
> groups at UMass foaming at the mouth next week in the campus newspaper to
> get the "notorious racist" Lewis McCarthy sanctioned or thrown out.

I certainly would.

> Here's to hoping Rich's site remains up.

I've shut off access and challenged Zundel to get his many friends to run
their own damn mirrors. They could, you know -- at least one of them has a
T1. But I will put the files back (on c2.org and/or netcom and/or AOL
accounts, because it's just not ethical for me to involve Stanford in
this) if Deutsche Telekom continues to block access to webcom.com after,
say, next Wednesday. 

If they're not back up by, say Monday, I'll post an ultimatum to the 
above effect.

Netcom has hosted several notorious hate groups for years. There's no way 
in hell they'd buckle, and they're big enough to matter. Probably bigger 
than Stanford and CMU combined, though without quite the same symbolic 
power.

- -rich

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Rich Graves writes:
 > AP story in Boston Globe (long and ludicrous on-line URL, and OK, so this 
 > is not the greatest story, but I think it's somewhat positive):
 > 
 >  http://www.boston.com/globe/ap/cgi-bin/retrieve?%2Fglobe%2Fapwir%2F033%2Freg%2Fag052102

This article appears to have moved to a different, but equally
ludicrous URL:

http://www.boston.com/globe/cgi-bin/waisgate?WAISdocID=6775428472+0+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve

nathan