NETWORKS AND COMMUNITY : feb 8, 1994 Networks and Community is devoted to encouraging LOCAL resource creation & GLOBAL resource sharing. The 7th report of 1994 is the 13th weekly survey. ------------------------------------------------- coverage in this issue included : LEGISLATION CANADIAN NET NEWS DISCUSSIONS NEW SERVICES TRENDS CLIPPER CHIP BACKGROUND REPORT --------------------------------------------------- LEGISLATION =========== The CLIPPER CHIP CONTROVERSY The Clinton Adminstration - bowing to pressure from the Intelligence Community - has decided to go ahead with the clipper chip proposal. Those interested in opposing this plan can participate in the following activities. And hopefully, all of you are interested. --------------------- CLIPPER PETITION 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 favourable, 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. In only 48 hours, over 2,400 people have signed on to tell the President what they think of the Clipper proposal. If you need more information on clipper ftp/wais/gopher to cpsr.org /cpsr/privacy/crypto/clipper for a large selection of docs on the proposal. ------------------------------------------ EFF [ the electronic frontier foundation ] offers something *you* can do to support freedom and privacy. *Please take a moment to send e-mail to U.S. Rep. Maria Cantwell (cantwell@eff.org) to show your support of H.R. 3627, her bill to liberalize export controls on encryption software.* "I urge you to write to Rep. Cantwell today at cantwell@eff.org. In the Subject header of your message, type "I support HR 3627." In the body of your message, express your reasons for supporting the bill. EFF will deliver printouts of all letters to Rep. Cantwell. With a strong showing of support from the Net community, Rep. Cantwell can tell her colleagues on Capitol Hill that encryption is not only an industry concern, but also a grassroots issue. *Again: remember to put "I support HR 3627" in your Subject header.* This is the first step in a larger campaign to counter the efforts of those who would restrict our ability to speak freely and with privacy. The lack of widespread commercial encryption products means that it will be very easy for the federal government to set its own standard--the Clipper Chip standard. As you may know, the government's Clipper Chip initiative is designed to set an encryption standard where the government holds the keys to our private conversations. Together with the Digital Telephony bill, which is aimed at making our telephone and computer networks "wiretap-friendly," the Clipper Chip marks a dramatic new effort on the part of the government to prevent us from being able to engage in truly private conversations. P.S. If you want additional information about the Cantwell bill, send e-mail to cantwell-info@eff.org. To join EFF, write membership@eff.org. For introductory info about EFF, send any message to info@eff.org. The text of the Cantwell bill can be found on the Internet with the any of the following URLs (Universal Resource Locaters): ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/Policy/Legislation/cantwell.bill http://www.eff.org/ftp/EFF/Policy/Legislation/cantwell.bill gopher://gopher.eff.org/00/EFF/legislation/cantwell.bill It will be available on AOL (keyword EFF) and CIS (go EFFSIG) soon. ------------------------------- IN ADDITION - ONE CONGRESSIONAL OFFICE IS INTERESTED IN DIRECTLY HEARING FROM THE PUBLIC. " Leahy's office said he *wants* to hear from the public on the matter of holding hearings. Any and all comments on the viability of the program, any concerns the public has, should be sent to Leahy immediately, a staffer said. Leahy can be reached at: Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, DC 20510; Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Technology and Law Subcommittee said he would likely hold hearings "on the serious issues raised" by Administration's announcement that it would urge private sector to voluntarily adopt its Clipper Chip technology. "Basically, what this means is that the United States Government will hold the two keys to unlock any private communication coded with this program," Leahy said. Citizens and potential foreign customers aren't likely to see Clipper "as the solution to privacy and security concerns," he said." his phone number is 202-224-3406. ---------------------------------------- The recently posted summary from the Electronic Public Information Newsletter contained several items of interest to the free-net movement. We need unrestricted access to government information and the depository library program is a major force for providing that access. ....................... PUBLIC PRINTER ATTACKS NTIS FINAL RULE ON STEI: In a letter last week (1/27) to the head of the National Technical Information Services (NTIS), Public Printer Michael DiMario attacked NTIS's final rule on agency transfer of scientific, technical, and engineering information (STEI) to NTIS, while at the same time inviting the agency to enter into an agreement with Government Printing Office (GPO) to assure STEI is distributed to the nation's depository libraries. DiMario told NTIS Director Don Johnson that NTIS, in the final rule [Federal Register 1, Jan. 3, 1994, pp. 6-12], included new provisions related to the Depository Library Program (DLP) without consulting GPO, which by statute is responsible for the program. "We are dismayed that these new provisions have been introduced as a final rule without consultation or coordination with GPO," DiMario wrote. ".... SENATE PANEL TO HOLD HEARINGS ON GPO: The Senate Rules and Administration Committee will hold hearings on Feb. 3 and 10 on the Government Printing Office as referred to in H.R. 3400, the National Performance Review, and Joint Committee on the Organization of the Congress. A representative of the Office of Budget and Management and Public Printer Michael DiMario are scheduled to testify on Feb. 3. It is believed that Sally Katzen, Director of the OMB Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, and possibly Deputy OMB Director Alice Rivlin will testify for OMB. Other interested parties are being invited to testify on Feb. 10. For more information on the complete ELECTRONIC PUBLIC INFORMATION NEWSLETTER and subscription rates contact: James McDonough epin@access.digex.net Tel/fax: (301) 365-3621 ------------------------------------------ THE WINNER OF LAST WEEKS FLAME WAR OF THE WEEK CONTEST is available for examination.: Legislation on National Knowledge Strategy. [ strangely enough the providers do not want additional on line comments ] Your off-line comments are solicited. A draft is at , or . Got to articles by rds and down to "National Knowledge Strategy Act of 1994". Comments received prior to 1600 ST on Friday would be especially helpful, but comments at any time welcome. ------------------------------------------ NETWORKS AND COMMUNITY NEWSLETTER - NOW AVAILABLE ON LINE Eric S. Theise - The Internet Domain Editor for the well has kindly offered it space. gopher://gopher.well.sf.ca.us:70/11s/Community/communets/net.com CANADIAN NET NEWS ================= GOVINFO IS A DISCUSSION FORUM FOR CANADIAN GOVERNMENT INFORMATION at all levels of government. The forum is established on the DEC/VAX MAILSERV facility at the University of Saskatchewan. To subscribe, send the message SUBSCRIBE GOVINFO (YOUR NAME) to the following address: MAILSERV@SASK.USASK.CA To post messages to GOVINFO, address them to GOVINFO@SASK.USASK.CA More information on MAILSERV commands may be obtained by sending the message HELP to MAILSERV@SASK.USASK.CA If you have any questions or need assistance, contact: Andrew Hubbertz hubbertz@sklib.usask.ca (306) 966-5989 ------------------------------------------ ALSO OF INTEREST - A RECENT REGISTRANT IN THE CANADIAN DOMAIN Organization: Canada Communication Group - Groupe Communication Canada Type: Federal Government Agency Description: Group responsible for distribution of Canadian Federal Government information in machine-readable form. Admin-Name: Roddy Duchesne Admin-Title: Manager, Electronic Products Admin-Postal: Canada Communication Group, Electronic Publications Admin-Phone: +1 613 956 5782 Admin-Mailbox: admin@ccg-gcc.ca Tech-Name: Roddy Duchesne Tech-Title: Manager, Electronic Products ----------------------------------------- CANARIE IS LOOKING FOR PROPOSALS NOTICE of Pending Request for Proposal Operational Network Product / Services January 27, 1994 It is the intention of CANARIE Inc. to release a Request for Proposal (RFP) on February 1, 1994 relating to the following areas of interest. It is expected that the RFP will close on Tuesday February 22, 1994. This is a notice pre-announcing the RFP only. The CANARIE Inc. Operational Network Product / Services (ONPS) Committee has identified as a funding priorities the development of capabilities to facilitate the Access, Presentation, and Exchange of Information on the operational network as follows: Information Provider Capability - For the following information categories, CANARIE Inc. will provide funding in support of developing and implementing an information provider capability. Note that CANARIE Inc. will not necessarily fund projects relating to all of these categories and that CANARIE Inc. will consider information provider projects which may not readily fit into any of the identified categories. Cultural Information Educational / Education Administration Information Not-For-Profit Information Commercial Information Information Presentation / Interaction Product Development CANARIE Inc. will assist with the development of products which enhance user access to and/or interaction with information available on the operational network. Note that projects may overlap the two general categories of Information Provider and Information Presentation / Interaction Product Development. Parties interested in submitting a proposal should provide contact information including name, postal address, e-mail address (if applicable), telephone number and facsimile number via facsimile or e-mail to Mr. Rod Anderson at: wcsrda@ccs.carleton.ca Fax: (613) 722-1997 ---------------------------------- CANARIE : In recent posting to com-priv, Canarie has been assaulted for policies that it probably will be forced to change under the new rules to be developed in Canada. Internally, Canarie member NSTN (the provincial network in Nova Scotia) has opened offices in" Ottawa, and is actively attracting members away from ONET, and" competing with Hookup, UUNET Canada and the other providers operating in that most lucrative of all Canadian markets. This is in violation of the existing informal operating agreements against cross competition. In a recent posting - Vinton Cerf - the father of the Internet wrote: > for all practical purposes, if you purchase Internet access > from a provider who does NOT exact any restrictions from > users (e.g. UUNET/Alternet, PSI, CERFNET, SPRINTLINK, etc) > then you can make use of the system for any purpose. > The NSFNET backbone limitations are going to evaporate > shortly since NSF is getting out of the backbone service > business anyway. I suggest you just plunge in assuming > the system is essentially free of restrictions. As noted above the electronic boundaries between commercial and non commercial nets have almost disappeared in the U.S. It will happen in Canada too. DISCUSSIONS =========== I have added the COM-PRIV listserv to my monitored group. With this addition, I may have a weekly winner for my new FLAME WAR contest. Participants in the best flame war of the year will be personally rewarded with a CERTIFICATE from Networks & Community. A very high standard has already been set by last year's award winners - the inter listserv battle between cypherpunks and cypherwonks. NPTN LISTSERV announced 7 new committees had joined. A complaint was made about a commercial company seeking a grant along with a public television station for the available community network funding from PBS. [ if PBS can't tell the difference between a private company and a community based effort - we are all in trouble ] Little else of vital interest appeared on the listservs. NEW SERVICES ============ USNONPROFIT-L MAILING LIST IS READY The nonprofits mailing list is set up and ready to broadcast: to subscribe, mail to : majordomo@rain.org in the message, type : subscribe usnonprofit-l (no name necessary) messages to the list go to: usnonprofit-l@rain.org The USnonprofit list is a discussion group for issues facing nonprofit organizations, and the people in the less-advantaged sectors of society that they serve. Particularly encouraged are *action-oriented* discussions :-). For more info write to Thomas Andrew Newman -------------------------------------------- THE COMMERCE BUSINESS DAILY IS AVAILABLE FREE OF CHARGE VIA THE CNS gopher! (gopher cscns.com) For information about CNS, write to info@cscns.com, or call customer service at 800-748-592-1240. ------------------------------------- FREE S. D. I. ON THE INTERNET [selective dissemination of information] In the most exciting positive announcement of the past week Tak Woon Yan tyan@Woodstock.Stanford.EDU announced a free Netnews Filtering Service "I'd like to announce the Stanford Netnews Filtering Service, a personalized netnews delivery service. You subscribe to the service with profiles that describe your interests. Netnews articles (from newsgroups available to our local news host) that match your profiles (based on content, regardless of which newsgroups they fall into) will be sent to you periodically via email. You can access the service from Mosaic: http://woodstock.stanford.edu:2000 The service also supports email access. To get the instructions on the email interface, send a message with the word "help" in the message body to netnews@db.stanford.edu Here is an example to give you some ideas of how the service works. Say you subscribe to the service with the profile "online information services." Then periodically you will receive email messages like this: =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subscription 1: online information services Article: misc.activism.progressive.11965 From: hn0003@handsnet.org Subject: HandsNet WEEKLY DIGEST 1/15-21 Score: 84 First 15 lines: HANDSNET WEEKLY DIGEST January 15 - 21, 1994 News from HandsNet's Information Forums HandsNet is a national, nonprofit network connecting organizations working on social and economic justice issues. Members use HandsNet to make new contacts, work collaboratively and to find and publish information, news .... Article: ca.politics.38420 From: rlm@helen.surfcty.com (Robert L. McMillin) Subject: GOV-ACCESS #5:Cal.Emergency Svcs.online + Net-fax + MINN Pub Info Net Score: 82 First 15 lines: Jan. 22, 1994 CALIFORNIA OFFICE OF EMERGENCY SERVICES INFO AVAILABLE ONLINE The state Emergency Digital Information Service is working fine Telnet to telnet oes1.oes.ca.gov 5501 .... The profiles are like queries in WAIS, i.e., plain English text (no boolean AND, OR, NOTs). After you receive useful articles, you can feed them back to the service to improve your profile. You can also adjust the frequency of delivery, the volume of articles, and the length of subscription. Hope you find the service useful. Questions, comments to tyan@cs.stanford.edu. --------------------------- REALLY IMPROVED INTERNET ACCESS: John Doyle, Washington & Lee University, doylej@liberty.uc.wlu.edu wrote to say his new service is ready for use. I mentioned it in a prior issue. This is a database of high-level sites throughout the Internet. gopher to: liberty.uc.wlu.edu 1020 or WWW to http://liberty.uc.wlu.edu:1020] It includes subject and geographic access to resources. There is even access to a searchable usenet news reader. (root menu) Search: Menu: Subject Menu: Type (Telnet, Gopher, WWW) Menu: Geographic Recent Additions (date coded entries) [Netlink Server - This Item for Help] [Netlink Server - Please Leave Comment or Error Report] ----< Other Major Internet Services >---- High-Level Search of Gopher Menus (no field searching) Veronica Search of Gopher Menus type x WWW (WorldWideWeb Browser - Lynx) USENET Newsreaders WAIS BITNET Mailing Lists/Listservs Archive Searches Archie FTP Site Searches Clearinghouse of Subject-Oriented Internet Resource Guides (UMich) Netfind Email Address Searches "Phone Books" at Various Institutions Local Times Throughout the World Hytelnet (Telnet Login to Sites) ----------------------------------------------- BASIC WEB INFO AVAILABLE This is an announcement of a series of postings starting January 17, 1994, on the newsgroup embnet.net-dev in order to provide an introduction to the World-Wide Web project. The goal is to answer the very basic questions as what is the World-Wide Web, what is available on the Web, what software is required to access the Web, and how to get and install the software. It is not intended to guide people who want to provide information to the Web. Its for those who have access to the Internet and are interested in obtaining and setting up the programs needed to access the Web. Previous experience with network retrieval tools are not essential but knowledge in the use of FTP would be an advantage. Anyone who is interested in receiving these introductionary postings but cannot read the newsgroup embnet.net-dev can send an email request to www@comp.bioz.unibas.ch. ---------------------------------------- NCSA MOSAIC FOR MICROSOFT WINDOWS VERSION 2.0ALPHA1 RELEASED NCSA Mosaic is a network navigational tool that will allow you to easily access networked information with the click of a button. The Internet is the primary source of this world wide information and the amount of available information is literally exploding. Mosaic is capable of accessing data via protocols such as Gopher, World Wide Web, FTP and NNTP (Usenet News) natively, and other data services such as Archie, WAIS, and Veronica through gateways. NCSA Mosaic was designed to provide its user transparent and seamless access to these information sources and services. Mosaic is a product that will retrieve and display a wide variety of data types. These types include text, images, movies and audio. Version 2.0alpha1 of Mosaic is available via anonymous FTP on NCSA's FTP server, "ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu"(141.142.20.50), in the directory "/PC/Mosaic". The file is wmos20a1.zip. -------------------------------------------- YOU CAN NOW VIEW INFORMATION ON THE RURAL DATAFICATION PROJECT on-line, using Gopher and the World Wide Web. Via Gopher: gopher.cic.net CICNet Projects and Gopher Servers Rural Datafication Project Via WWW: hhtp://www.cic.net/ ----------------------------------- TRENDS ====== Serious concern over network related social issues is growing in the US. In its 'Agenda for Action' document, the Administration has set forth a positive vision of what the NII can be," said Dr. Roberts. "To achieve that vision, however, the government must play a major role in the design, development, and regulation of the network." CPSR [ computer professionals for social responsibility ] has recommended that the Administration adopt the following policies: o Promote widespread economic benefits by evaluating the NII's economic success using measures that reflect its impact on the society as a whole, not merely the profits of NII investors and service providers. o Evaluate the social impact of the NII by conducting periodic reviews as the NII is implemented and used to guarantee that it continues to serve the public interest. o Guarantee equitable and universal access through an appropriate mix of legislation, regulation, taxation, and direct subsidies. o Promote the development of a vital civic sector by ensuring resources, training, and support for public spaces within the NII where citizens can pursue noncommercial activities. o Promote a diverse and competitive marketplace in terms of the content carried over the NII. o provide access to government services and information over the NII. o Encourage democratic participation by ensuring full public disclosure, and actively promoting democratic decision-making and public participation in all stages of the development process. o Actively facilitate the seamless connection of America's NII with the information infrastructures of other nations by working to resolve such issues as security, censorship, tariffs, and privacy. o Guarantee the functional integrity of the NII by establishing critical technical requirements including ease of use, widespread availability, full functionality, high reliability, adequate privacy protection, and evolutionary expansion. The recommendations follow from a yearlong review of the NII conducted by CPSR. The process included collecting more than 1,200 suggestions for NII policy from network users across the country, drafting a report, holding special chapter meetings on the NII in Berkeley, Boston, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., and having a multiple-draft review process by the membership. CPSR is planning a conference next April in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the future of the NII, The Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing. The conference will investigate at a more specific level how to achieve the principles in the CPSR report. CPSR's NII paper is available electronically by sending email to listserv@cpsr.org. In the message write the command GET CPSR NII_POLICY or you can also FTP/WAIS/Gopher cpsr.org:/cpsr/nii_policy. For a hard copy of the paper or for more information about CPSR , call 415-322-3778 or write to cpsr@cpsr.org. BACKGROUND ON THE CLIPPER CHIP PROPOSAL AND ITS BENEFITS -------------------------------------------------------- [ This is a serious matter, but I couldn't resist throwing some irony into the subject- ed ] This proposal is best understood in the context of the history of the western intelligence community. The ability to secretly intercept the communications of others has been vital to covert action since the earliest days of international telecommunications. When the first transatlantic cable was laid between Britain and the U.S. in 1927; its operations where monitored by secret agreement between both countries. Britain would capture and analyze all calls coming from the U.S. and the Americans would do the same with british traffic. Relevant material would be sent back to each other. This allowed both countries to honestly proclaim they were not spying on their own citizens, while benefiting from the fact that someone else was. By the end of the second world war; a war that the allies won primarily because of strategic advantage gained from superior telecommunication interception; the english speaking powers agreed to create a multinational agency to capture all the information in the world. Every newspaper, radio broadcast, t.v. transmission, and international telegraph or phone call was to be captured and recorded and stored for possible future analysis. That agreement is still in place. The publications of the FBIS [ Foreign Broadcast Information Service ] are an example of the publicly disclosed results of the joint monitoring program. Today, Canada intercepts private communication in the U.S. and vice versa. This is not illegal. Each country's laws forbid it from invading the privacy of its own citizens. These same laws intentionally provide no such protection for the communications of other nations. The Internet began as a service of the U.S. military. It is impossible to believe that national security considerations were not incorporated into its design. To this day the highest level technical meetings on Internet design in the U.S. can only be attended by individuals with security clearances. The Internet is above all an international network. Messages travel around the globe in fractions of a second. From an intelligence perspective this amounts to providing an unwanted window on the U.S. to the rest of the world. A disloyal government employee could encode a document - and send it over the internet to anyone in the world. An illegally distributed document, once securely encoded may be captured, but unless it is crackable, the government would be hard put to determine the nature of the damage done to its security interests, because it could not determine what document it had in its possession. The recent decision of the Department of Defence to end Internet access for most of its employees is grounded in these considerations. Similar considerations arise for companies that depend on technical secrets for their market advantage, or that wish to be certain that their strategies can not be discovered by competitors. Ordinary citizens also value privacy. Of course - the internet isn't the only problem technology. Digital cellular phones will soon be voice activated and may weigh less than an ounce. The same disloyal government employee will then be able to capture and encode a document. Then, with the aid of a cellular modem, broadcast it to any point on the globe. ------------------- A good situation for a national intelligence service is one in which your own communications are untapable, while everyone else's are easily accessed. The ideal situation exists when everyone believes that their own systems are secure - when they are in fact not secure. The clipper chip proposal - if universally adopted - would appear to provide the U.S. government with a nearly ideal solution to a crisis that has arisen in connection to the Internet. The crisis arises from the fact that cheap secure encryption software and now hardware has become globally available for the first time; from Albania to Zaire everyone who owns a computer can guarantee their own privacy. In essence - the cat is already out of the bag and a desperate effort is underway to stuff it back in. Accepting that a genuine problem exists. Is the Clipper chip proposal a reasonable solution. If it is not a reasonable solution, are their other - better approaches. Or, will one have to accept the fact that the nature of the struggle for advantage through technical espionage has changed. ------------------------------- WHAT ARE THE POTENTIAL BENEFITS AND WHO ARE THE LIKELY BENEFICIARIES The Clipper Chip proposal is an excellent solution if you are a foreign company or nation interested in obtaining competitive economic advantage over the United States. I expect that foreign governments will begin lobbying immediately for adoption of the proposal in the U.S. Here is why. It will not prevent them from using effective encryption outside of the U.S. The United states represents only about 18% of the global market place but it currently dominates in several hardware and software categories. These include supercomputers, network software and hardware, desktop software, cpu chips, most categories of business software for all classes of machines. With adoption of these proposals - each of these categories will become easier to gain market share in outside of the U.S. Intel and Microsoft and Novell along with IBM, Thinking Machines and Wais should all see significant declines in their market share. Network Service providers like AT&T or Sprint should be easy to defeat as they try to sell services in external markets. If similar legislation is also passed in the area of cellular communications, we can expect to see a dramatic decline in the market share for Motorola products as well. In the future as research on encryption techniques comes to a standstill in the U.S. Foreign firms will be able to develop optimized encryption standards that will meet the demands for the emerging Multimedia market. Multimedia vendors seeking product protection need efficient encryption standards to allow protection of property rights. Encryption standards that slow down transmission or minimize the effectiveness of compression techniques will help guarantee the success of foreign firms. SHOULD FOREIGN FIRMS REALLY SPEND MONEY ON LOBBYING. Yes, despite the past history of success by the intelligence community in crippling U.S. competitiveness in overseas markets in areas like desktop computing and database software, and despite that community's success in making U.S. companies the final entrants in the Vietnames market and the China market; you can not count on the continuing willingness of the American people to accept these impediments. In addition U.S. passage of this legislation may actual improve the competitive advantage of a well prepared nation or corporate group. U.S. history is replete with examples of trusted individuals who have used intelligence information for private gain or sold it for other reasons. When men like former the multimillionaire Director of the CIA, William Casey, had to be stopped from using intelligence information for personal gain by Congress; there are probably few serious limits the corruptablity of intelligence community staff. And the clipper chip proposal is based upon trusting the keys to chip's security system in the hands of low paid bureaucrats. Men who may include among their ranks individuals like the Walker Family who sold satellite intelligence secrets to the Russians for peanuts. The real danger here is that the U.S. might actually begin work on improved encryption standards for incorporation in U.S. made products. Such activity would create market advantage for American companies. ISN'T IT A DANGER TO OTHER COUNTRIES AND COMPANIES IF ENCRYPTION THAT IS NOT BREAKABLE IS IN WIDE USE? Not really. The Soviet Union and Israel managed to coexist with the United States even though the U.S. was incapable of breaking their codes. Both countries were themselves unable to break US coded communications. Both countries successfully employed spies and informants to obtain material and information that was otherwise protected from decipherment. Both countries shared intelligence information obtained from the U.S. So this raises the possibility that foreign firms or nations could unite in obtaining economic advantage over the US. Because plans must be turned into action - existing national technical means are sufficient to guarantee the physical security of the U.S. AREN'T THERE OTHER REAL BENEFITS TO THE US FROM THE ADOPTION OF SUCH SYSTEMS? Well, if the U.S. government adopted the clipper chip standard for all its internal communication. It would be able to gain some control of untrustworthy employees who wished to use technical means in subverting the US. People like Jonathan Pollard who simply physically removed documents from their safe storage sites, would of course be unaffected. Similarly the Walker family was exposed only because of a family feud. WHAT ABOUT ORGANIZED CRIME ETC. The US government's inability to prevent the ongoing success of organized crime despite the availability of wire taps and informants is a testimony to the intelligence of these criminal organizations. Implementation of the clipper chip proposals will not result in any change in their successful strategies for avoiding monitoring. ISN'T THERE ANYONE WHO WILL DEFINITELY BENEFIT FROM THIS? Yes, some company will get the contract for these chips. ============================================== ADMINISTRATIVE MATTERS: this issue arrives a day late so that I could include late breaking information on the Cipper chip issue. A recent post to communet correctly noted that the editing of this newsletter is poor. I would welcome any OFFER TO EDIT this publication. I already spend 10 - 15 hours a week on it and just can't spend any more. ============================================== 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 .