From - Wed Jan 14 11:42:27 1998 Return-Path: Received: from relay1.UU.NET by mrco.carleton.ca (4.1/SMI-4.0) id AA25889; Thu, 14 Jan 93 02:08:29 EST Received: from nyx.cs.du.edu by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA25977; Thu, 14 Jan 93 01:36:04 -0500 Received: by nyx.cs.du.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA26043; Wed, 13 Jan 93 23:30:18 MST From: ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu (andy) Message-Id: <9301140630.AA26043@nyx.cs.du.edu> X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University of Denver. The University has neither control over nor responsibility for the opinions or correct identity of users. Subject: FutureCulture Digest #178 To: future-digest@nyx.cs.du.edu Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 23:30:16 MST X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Status: R ______________________________________________________________________ |______________ / | | / | | u t u r e <___________ u l t u r e | _______________________________________________________________________| Issue #178 Wednesday, January 13th 1993 Today's Topics: --------------- Re: Ardic and Mutlu's "parents?" Autonomous Internet Agents revisited Benign "viruses" EFF "reorganization" Forward from EFF old stuff on negativland re: acidwarp Re: EFF "reorganization" Re: Forward from EFF Re: the EFF is over superbowl, menstration, armadillos, DEAD BEEF, lawyers the EFF is over U2 NEGATIVLAND -- X Magazine interviews Mark Hosler (fwd) VIRTUAL CULTURE survey question __________________________________________________________________________ From: "Trond Buland" Date: 13 Jan 93 08:16:32 GMT-0100 Subject: Re: Ardic and Mutlu's "parents?" asale@sfu.ca wrote, among other things, on the subject of Ardic and Mutlu's "parents: > > Not trying to insinuate anything, just makes you think... AND doesn't the idea > of Turkish ai's being developed in a place like Bogazici U sound an awful lot > like Gibson? Made me think again about how easy it is in the information age > for a place to become a major player in global economics or politics regardless > of its geographical location. Sorry, I'm just rambling, now. > I agree, geography could become more or less irrelevant. On the other hand, you have to remember that Istanbul is a city with more than 3 million inhabitants. It's located in the western, modern part of Turkey, close to Greece, near Europe. (In fact, this part of Turkey is generally regarded as a part of Europe...) Istanbul has been a major economic and political player in the Mediterranean area for more than 2000 years.... In other words, Istanbul is no isolated village in the Middle East... So perhaps "Turkish AI's from Bogazici U." isn't the best example of what we're talking about? Sorry, just rambling too.... ---------------------- Trond Buland ---------------------- ______________________________ Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 23:39:59 PST From: strick@osc.versant.com (_s l__ p_a e__q gu_f, l__e_ t__at g_ w__y!) Subject: old stuff on negativland [[ LOTS OF FUTURIANS HAVE BEEN INTERESTED IN THE NEGATIVLAND REPOST, SO HERE I REPOST MORE OLD STUFF, FROM A YEAR AGO. THERE WOULD PROBABLY BE INTEREST IN SOMEONE: -- telling where U2/Negativland archives are -- telling where the Negativland mailing list is -- providing a mu-law sound file (MIME audio/basic) of the U2/Neg 45 (maybe I'll find my copy and do it) -- scanning in the more interesting parts of THE LETTER U... (or provide an email service that I can mail bitmaps to, and it'll mail back OCR decodes!) -- paying off Casey Kasem STRICK@OSC.VERSANT.COM (a man with no fingers) ]] Date: Fri, 31 Jan 92 11:19:34 PST To: stupid (say the secret argot) From: STRICK (STRICK AT OSC DOT COM) Subject: superbowl, menstration, armadillos, DEAD BEEF, lawyers And if you are a fan of Negativland's media stunts, I'm adding some nice copy including comments by Mark Hosler that I haven't seen elsewhere. Chris Milam (ga tech grad computer scientist) sent this to me. For descriptions of Negativland's past media hacks, check backissues of MONDO2000, #2 or #3, I think. Some guy named Steve adds some inane comments to the end, but this is a stupid mailing list. So there. strick ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ stupid ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ >From: Steve Varty Message-Id: Subject: U2 NEGATIVLAND -- X Magazine interviews Mark Hosler (fwd) To: u2@last.cac.washington.edu Date: Fri, 20 Dec 91 9:00:20 GMT X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Sender: prism!gt0804b@gatech.edu Status: RO I, like others I'm sure, had never heard of Negativeland before the U2 affair, and didn't know of the trouble until reading about it from the list. If you are like me this may help; it was recently posted in alt.rocknroll Forwarded message: Hi all. About a month ago I promised that once I got an interview with Mark Hosler and wrote it up I'd post it to the net -- well, here it is. This is from the pages of X MAGAZINE #9, which is due to hit the stands at the end of the month. Hope you buy it when you see it (lots of very cool pix associated with this article, plus interviews with Severed Heads, Kyle Baker, lotsa other articles, and reams of music reviews). Email me for back-issue and subscription information. -- cut here -- Negativland have been playing mix-and-match with the sound of the world around them for over a decade now, pushing the edge of the sonic envelope with tape loops and homebrew noisemakers in an age of digital sampling and sequencing. In 1987 they got their first widespread national attention when California independent SST Records released their frenetic commentary on the media and its effect on the world around us, /Escape From Noise/; two years later the controversy surrounding that album's track "Christianity Is Stupid" and its alleged connection to a Minnesota teenager's ax-murder of four members of his family provided material for their followup composition /Helter Stupid/. In the years since 1980, Negativland has produced five full-length albums, four cassette-only releases, an hour-long video, and one, count it: /one/ single. Ah, but what a magic single it was. Lazlo speaks with Negativland's Mark Hosler. -- THE SINGLE Mark Hosler doesn't sound angry over the phone. Just shellshocked. Back in late August, Negativland released their most recent single, coyly entitled /U2 Negativland/, on SST Records. Some ten days later, by Hosler's reckoning, there was a restraining order placed on the band and the label, demanding that they stop "manufacturing, distributing, selling or otherwise exploiting" the single. 180 pages of legal documents fell out of the sky and onto the four-man band's heads. And that was just the beginning. The offense? Well, when you're a little tiny band that hardly anyone has ever heard of, and you release a single when a really big record company is just about to release a new album by one of their really popular million-selling bands, and on your single you cover -- without permission - - a song from that million-selling band's last million-selling studio album, and on top of that your single just /happens/ to have the name of that really big band in really big letters on the front, bigger than the name of /your/ band by, oh, maybe a factor of forty -- guaranteed to confuse your typical minimum-wage record-shop filing clerk -- well then you tend to attract the unfavorable attentions of that really big record company. And really big record companies like that aren't really known for their ability to understand concepts like "parody", "fair comment", or "cultural criticism". Negativland knows /all about/ this parable now, because they're the little tiny band, and U2 is the great big band, and Island Records is the really big record company, and /U2 Negativland/ is the single, and last September the really big record company came by and stomped the little tiny band into teeny tiny little bits. But to Negativland's Mark Hosler, the problem with the single never seemed that obvious until it was oh-so-unkindly pointed out to the band that Island Records and U2's music publisher Warner/Chappell objected to it. "I've since talked to lawyers," Hosler explains, "who've said: 'You're stupid. You guys were stupid to do this. You should have somehow known better." I dont know how we could have known better. Even when I sent a copy to my parents, my Mom opened it up and before she even put it on, she told me, the first thing she thought was 'oh dear...Mark and his friends are going to get in trouble over this...'" And even as he says this, he still sounds a little surprised. THE ORIGIN So why is it that Negativland thought they could get away with what seems to be, on the face of it at least, the kind of release that would give their record company's legal department the screaming heebie-jeebies? Maybe it's naivete, maybe it's just that the dangers built so slowly that the band didn't have the opportunity to be shocked by the incongruousness of it all. It all started after a Negativland concert in Portland, Oregon, when a fan handed the band a tape of outtakes from Casey Kasem's /American Top 40/ radio show. Outtakes that would probably burn your grandmother's ears off. On the tape, Kasem complains about changes in the format for the show, bitches about having to follow an uptempo song with a death dedication for a dog named Snuggles, spews forth with all manner of obscenity for no particular reason other than that it seems to be what suits his mouth at the moment, and makes fun of (ta daa) U2. It's not exactly what you expect to hear from someone who's got as straightlaced a public image as Kasem -- about the most interesting thing he's ever done is provide the voice of Shaggy on Hanna-Barbera's /Scooby-Doo/ cartoons. Naturally, Negativland loved 'em. Then there were the ads Mark Hosler found in the back of a music magazine, which offered presequenced MIDI arrangements of top-40 songs for sale. He ordered a few catalogs, and what should he find but a disk featuring an arrangement for U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." Like any person fascinated by media and culture, he was curious about what that might sound like. "I have the /Joshua Tree/ album," Hosler says. "I like the record . . . there's a lot of /feel/ to the way they play their rock and roll, and I figured it would translate into a computer really badly . . . probably badly in a way that's good, you know -- that we would like, and that would be funny. Then I was /also/ realizing that if we got [bandmember] David [Wills], otherwise known as The Weatherman, to do the vocals . . . if I gave him a version of the lyrics and I wrote it kind of illegibly, I bet he would really mess them up, and I bet he would butcher them in a really nice way." So given those typically unusual ingredients, the band tried to think up an idea of how to use them. There certainly wasn't enough potential there for a full-length album, but they *had* to be released somehow, there was no question about that. The natural answer: a single. "We were worried about getting in trouble from Casey Kasem," says Hosler, "so we thought another reason to make a single out of it was if something happens where we end up maybe having to pull it for some reason, we don't wanna have to lose a whole album." An ironic thought indeed. The single that would become /U2 Negativland/ gradually came together. Wills' vocals, destroying the pretentious myth of Bono's "serious" lyrics. Don Joyce's recordings of people talking about obscenity and the FCC. Chris Grigg playing around with the presequenced U2 arrangement, replacing the drum fills with breaking light bulbs and the guitar riffs with burbling Pac-Man noises. Tapes of underground radio operators (ha ha) /looking/ for someone. "One thing we like to try and do in our work," Hosler explains, "is to make things that resonate at a lot of levels, so if you listen to them at one level hopefully you'll just think it's funny, but if you start to dig in, you'll see that it acutally connects and hooks together in a way that you may not find that often in music." And them came the cover. "Believe it or not, this really was one of the last ideas we had," says Hosler. We were thinking to call it "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," but we thought "that's boring, and it's too many words -- let's just call it U2." The plane on the cover is a U-2, and that's what we're saying: it's a plane; it's a U-2. And while we were working on the graphics we . . . uhm . . . decided to make the "U2" rather /large/." THE LAWSUIT The big "U2" was the fatal mistake. If /U2 Negativland/ had almost any cover but the one that it finally sported, Island probably never would have noticed it. But with a new U2 album due that fall, and with a big "U2" taking up most of the cover of Negativland's single . . . well, you know lawyers. The lawsuit was over with almost before it even started: Negativland and SST were up against both the British and American versions of U2's label and music publisher, who were capable of paying a lawyer -- Madonna's lawyer, as it turns out -- three or four hundred dollars an hour without even thinking hard about it. SST and Negativland's company Seeland MediaMedia were almost invisible when measured by a yardstick of that size. So what could they do? "We had a lot of talks about it among the group," Hosler explains, "and we talked to the lawyer for SST, and a friend of ours who's a lawyer, and it took me a while to be convinced that there really was nothing that you could do; they could just hang you up, and all they have to do is hang you up for a little while and you don't have any more money to spend, and what can you do?" They ended up doing the only thing that they could afford to do: they gave in . . . gave up . . . and gave it all away. THE SETTLEMENT The settlement that Negativland and SST ended up signing fulfilled virtually all of the demands of the initial Island/Warner-Chappell lawsuit. It's heavy-duty stuff, to be sure: [bullet] All remaining copies of the single -- and all of the master tapes, and all of the stampers and molds used to press the record, and all of the cover artwork, and all of the promotional and advertising material, /all/ of it has to be returned to SST, to be forwarded to Island for destruction. Already-distributed copies are to be recalled from stores, radio stations, and clubs. Anyone who distributes, sells, advertises, promotes, or otherwise exploits the record is subject to fines or jail time. (This Means You, Mr. College Radio DJ and Ms. Alternative Record- Shop Owner.) [bullet] Island and Warner-Chappell get the copyrights to the recordings on the single. Negativland no longer has /any rights whatsoever/ to the recordings that they created. [bullet] Negativland/SST have to pay Island and Warner-Chappell Music $25,000, plus half of the wholesale costs for all of the copies of /U2 Negativland/ that don't get returned. The total amount due to Island and Warner-Chappell rings up at over $40,000. THE FALLOUT It wasn't a completely unexpected lawsuit, but it came in fast and hard, and it's taken a psychological toll on the band. Hosler explains it as a kind of chilling effect: if you look at Negativland's other albums, there's not a one in the bunch that they couldn't have been sued over by /someone/. It's almost certainly going to affect the way they make records in the future. "Suddenly we're saying: was it worth it? "Well boys, we got to make our little 'art statement', and look what's happened to us." Should we keep doing what we're doing? Because obviously if we keep doing what we're doing sooner or later, this is going to happen again. I don't see how it couldn't." "What's been really really hard is to take something that you've worked on -- it took us about a year to get this thing made and out, and we worked very very hard on it . . . I think it's one of the best pieces that we've ever done -- and to see two hundred pages of legalese sent to you, all basically saying "you have no right to say what you want to say, you have no right to your opinion, and furthermore we're going to make it as if you never existed. We're going to take this thing and steal it from you and we're not only going to do that, we're going to /economically/ hurt you. "I especially, more than anyone else in the group, was /so/ pissed off. I was really having an emotional, upset reaction, like "my baby's been stolen from me, and I'm gonna kill somebody. You can't do this." Hosler lays at least part of the blame in a pretty obvious place. "I have no respect for lawyers . . . /any/ lawyers. A lawyer seems to me to be about the same as an officer in a concentration camp: 'I'm just following orders! It's not my responsibility -- /they/ told me to throw the switch and make the gas come on.' The lawyer for Island is in New York but they needed a representative in Los Angeles and I did talk to /him/ once, and he /hadn't even heard the music./ He stood behind their position, he stood behind the case that they were making, and I asked him if he'd ever heard it . . . he sort of bluffed for a little bit, and I pressed him a little more, and it turned out that he'd /never even heard it./ I said well, you know, you should give it a listen. You should know what it is that you're wiping off the face of the earth." "I don't even see them as just protecting Island...it's an entire point of view. It's the entire corporate "don't mess around with our kind of people, and this type of business, and our control of the media...we control it, and you stepped outta line here." So the big boot comes down. THE PROBLEM Hosler doesn't think this lawsuit is an isolated little incident that people can afford to ignore. "This whole thing makes me step back a bit further from just dealing with music," he explains. "In a certain way you could say, "who cares? It's just music and entertainment," but I see it as being representative of a mindset that has to do with our economy, our government, and a whole direction that the world is going in. Something is going on that's really hard to put you finger on, because it's happening all around us and it's sort of inivisible, but you know . . . more and more is owned by less and less people. There are more and more companies and manufacturers of products, and entertainment, and everything around us, that are controlled by fewer and fewer people. You end up with these power structures, the structure of how decisions are made and how they operate, where people are making decisions that are utterly removed from the repercussions of their choices. I would love to see every single charred body from Iraq dropped onto the White House lawn so that you could say 'Okay George, if you think that you wanna do what you do, that's fine, but I'd like you to just /deal with what you did/. Look at what you did, look at what happened to these people.' "In our case, I'm not able to talk to the person who made the decision to do this. There's no one you can really yell at, no one you can talk to and say 'but wait! let's talk about this!' . . . the direct human contact is not happening. We sent packages along to each member of the group U2. Of course, the only way to reach U2 is through their manager . . . once again, there's someone in-between. And of course, you're dealing with a group that's /so big/ and so busy . . . We didn't really know what to expect, but I actually did talk to the manager of U2 on the phone, and he did indicate to me that he was passing along the packages to the group, that they would each get a copy of the record. We wrote a letter explaining what has happened to us, and we said, you know, 'what's at issue here is not whether or not you like what we did, that's not the point. The point it that this is what's being done on behalf of your music, by your company, which you probably don't even realize. And it's not just that we're changing the cover or recalling all the records . . . it's far beyond that. It's to the point where it's . . . you know, it's like putting the band into a /coma/. It's gonna just about kill us. And we just wanted to let you know that /this is happening,/ and if you choose to, you can do something about it.' "So far, there's been nothing." THE FUTURE Negativland isn't dead yet. There's still some question about how the $63,000 in total costs for the case -- more than Negativland has made as a band since they started in 1979 -- will be split between the band and SST, but there's a new single due out soon ("Guns") and a live album will be released in early '92. They're trying to arrange a trans-Atlantic collaboration with The Kalihari Surfers, a South African band that shares Negativland's obsession with the media and how it shapes peoples' lives. More tapes derived from bandmember Don Joyce's radio show /Over The Edge/ (KPFA, Berkeley) are planned. Their 1989 video, NO OTHER POSSIBILITY, has finally been released on Seeland. Hosler's been spending his free time putting together covers for the CD release of their self-titled first record -- as with the original 1979 vinyl album, Mark's making the cover for every single CD in the initial thousand-copy pressing by hand. The show goes on. But Mark and the rest of the band will feel like they have to be a little more careful now. Every time they put together another record, the possibility of geting sued for it will be nagging at the back of their minds, and there's no guarantee that they'll ever again be able to run as loose and wild as they've done on masterpieces like /U2 Negativland/. That's a pretty big price for /us/, the listeners, to have to pay just so Island and U2 can have their peace of mind when they go to sleep at night. -- All the Negativland releases mentioned in this interview and more -- except, of course, for /U2 Negativland/, are available from: Negativmailorderland 109 Minna #391 San Francisco, CA 94105 -- Lazlo (lazlo@triton.unm.edu) End forwarded message: I didn't want to give my view but I can't keep quiet. I haven't heard the record, but I think this blokes attitude to music stinks. If you can't do anything original then don't do it at all; and in this statement I call cover versions original since it is a new interpretation of a song. Stringing together several tapes of somebody elses music is just a rip off and I think they got what they deserved; plus the cover was made to fool people into thinking it was a U2 record which I think is immoral. (Just MHO) I'm going to put my flame proof pants on now :-) Steve. -- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= = From: | The Alarm 1981- = = Steve Varty (steve.varty@uk.ac.newcastle) | 1991 R.I.P. = =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ stupid ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______________________________ Date: 13 Jan 1993 02:50:15 -0600 (CST) From: "free agent .rez" Subject: VIRTUAL CULTURE survey question (multi-list posting) i'm embarking on an INDEPENDeNT STUDY project detailing the emergence of VIRTUAL CULTURE, using INTERNET as case-study and primary source. i guess i'll be posting questions to this end every now and then which you can (obviously) either answer or ignore... although any input you have is immensely appreciated. i'll assure you in advance that NO QUOTE WILL EVER BE USED WITHOUT DIRECTLY BOUNCING THE QUOTE-IN-QUESTION BACK PAST YOU FOR "OKAY" OR "NO." requests for anonymity will be honored. of course, i also want to jump into the general conversations as they happen, but hey, if nothing else, these goopy little querries make spiffy ice-breakers... :) "VIRTUAL CULTURE QUESTION # 1: Recount, in as much or as little detail as you will, how you personally became involved in networking in general and INTERNET in particluar (how and when did you hear of it, why did you finally decide to plunge in, etc...). How has your use of the Net changed (or not changed) your ways of living and thinking? What are your hopes and fears about the Net in general?" send replies of any kind to with the SUBJECT line: thanks lots, much more to come... (i'm coming up with more specific questions for each general list response based on the answers to the questions before... so bear with me...) .rez ______________________________ From: dionf@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Francois Dion) Subject: re: acidwarp Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 15:18:27 EST Beyond the ultraworld of John Coryell.: > > I've found it's definitely RAM limitations, sadly. > > John Coryell. Is this the twilight zone or what? This discussion comes up each month, and each month i say: it's the bios of old paradise chipset and old oak chipset and maybe other slow bios, and that i've tested it. If anybody wants the function (this is with Borland or Turbo C, C++): #define VIDEO 0x10 char far pal_array[ 768]; /* the array containing the palette values, in RGB linear format (char R, char G, char B etc...) */ struct REGPACK reg; reg.r_ax = 0x1012; /* function to reprogram the palette in one shot */ reg.r_bx = 0; /* starting palette */ reg.r_cx = 255; /* ending palette */ reg.r_dx = FP_OFF(pal_array); reg.r_es = FP_SEG(pal_array); intr(VIDEO, ®); On slow bios, this function take more cycles than it takes between two frames. (sorry i don't have the english terms handy). This code is from memory, so i am not 100% sure, but this should work. I'll check tomorrow, if i can find on which disk i put that...). Ciao, -- Francois Dion ' _ _ _ CISM (_) (_) _) FM Montreal , Canada Email: CISM@ERE.UMontreal.CA (_) / . _) 10000 Watts Telephone no: (514) 343-7511 _______________________________________________________________________________ Audio-C-DJ-Fractals-Future-Label-Multimedia-Music-Radio-Rave-Video-VR-Volvo-... ______________________________ Date: 13 Jan 1993 18:25:03 -0600 (CST) From: Scotto >Anyway, as far as the rave stint of the show goes, I seriously take >issue with the guesstimation that 70-80% of the people at the rave >(was it FMR? I don't live in the bay Area so I dunno...) were using >drugs... In my rave experiences, it is much lower, but, then again it >is not really possible to compare the hugely-popular/many-faceted Bay >Area scene with the one-or-two-raves-per-weekend scene here in >Colorado... I was at the rave they featured on that show, or I should say, I was at a rave in San Francisco that night and there were guys with cameras and lights all over the place, but at any rate, it was a relatively difficult process for my friend to get a hold of anything illegal. He saw deals going down all the time, he said, but by the time he got there the dealer had vanished. I was only approached once by someone wanting to buy LSD, which was disappointing I guess. >LSD is illegal, and there are valid reasons, IMHO, for its >being illegal - it is dangerous, if used by the wrong people at the >wrong place and time..... Don't want to be pedantic here, but let's remember, a pillow is dangerous if used by the wrong people at the wrong time. But I still like to have one around occasionally. >I mean, they could've gone >to John Lilly, which would've had all of Iowa up in arms about the >resurgance of acid since it turns you into "one a dem freaks".... Not all of Iowa. Not even most of Iowa, since most of Iowa probably didn't bother to watch. This is the second list this week, by the way, that's taken a shot at Iowa. What did we do all of a sudden? What about all the good things we produce, like one half of every Crispix you eat? >I was, of course, glad to see Leary on there, and at the time I was >thinking "good for them - it would've been so easy to interview >someone along the lines of Art Linketter's perspective in this >segment"... I dunno, these days Leary is an iffy proposition. He seems frazzled of late, and if an interviewer caught him on a bad day, it could wreak havoc, or look silly, or some such... >And take a visit down to any adolescent unit of any psych >hospital these days - they're all filled with kids, 15-18, who've >tripped in the vacinity of 100-500 times), the 500-time tripper, I >couldn't believe him....I mean, he's got trails and visuals every so >often..My question for him is: AREN'T YOU USED TO IT BY NOW?!?! Have you taken this visit and checked? I'd be interested in actual data on this. I hear this all the time, that the psych wards are filled with people who tried LSD and flipped out, and how drug counsellors say it's fraught with danger, etc., but of course, the only people drug counsellors get to counsel are those that do flip out, since the millions who don't aren't interested in talking to counsellors about the good times they're having... >very very tiny percentage of people who use LSD do not recover from >the temporary psychosis it induces. Dig: LSD does not induce "temporary psychosis". This is leftover propaganda from the sixties, when psychedelics were actually called "psychotomimetics," meaning literally, "inducing psychosis" or some such. That term was coined *specifically* to scare people away from the stuff. Until actual research gets *completed*, we don't know much, but we *do* know it isn't psychosis. Fun fact: didja know it's now legal in Switzerland to use LSD in limited psychiatric therapy? Yeehah! ______________________________ From: Visceral Clamping Mechanism Subject: Autonomous Internet Agents revisited Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 20:00:51 PST Here's something that was posted to comp.virus recently, and should look very familiar to anyone who was reading future-culture a few weeks ago. (For back issuess for the future-culture digest, ** and an index **, check ftp.bolero.rahul.net under /pub/atman/UTLCD-preview/*. Issues are stored in ARJ format; unarjers for most platforms are stored nearby in a handi location. If anyone tries the VMS version, please let me know whether or not it works for you. Article 9201 of comp.virus: From: SS942TH@dot1.mail.ufl.edu (Tim Hare) Newsgroups: comp.virus Subject: Benign "viruses" Message-ID: <0008.9301121242.AA22066@barnabas.cert.org> Date: 7 Jan 93 21:28:09 GMT Sender: virus-l@lehigh.edu Perhaps I am a bit naive, not being a virus researcher, but could the problems related to benign virus-like (i.e. self-replicating) programs be solved by implementing a protocol to control the installation of self replicating programs? What I envision is something like the following: 1. Self replicator sends a message to the target machine, asking if self replicators are allowed to be installed there. One of several things happens: A. The target has been set up to allow this to happen automatically, go to step 2. B. The target might allow it, but must ask for judgement from the system administrator (mechanics of "asking" could include E-mail to and from administrator, direct interaction, or whatever). If the administrator OKs it, go to 2. If the administrator doesn't okay it, go to 6. C. The system has been set to always deny these requests. Go to 6. D. The system doesn't support the protocol. It should not be at risk unless it always executes things sent to it from other systems, but I don't think this system could be considered completely safe. In any event, it cannot participate further in the protocol. 2. Send an affirmative message to the source (of the replicator) machine, inviting the transmission of the program. 3. Receive the program to a directory that no users except the system administrators can access. 4. Execute whatever security scanning and checking mechanisms are desired for this program. If malignancy is detected, notify the administrators and stop the process. Do not send negative response messages to the source, since this could allow someone to send many small bits of malignancy over time and determine exactly what holes your scanning and checking procedures allow, then write a self replicator which passes all your tests but is still malignant. 5. If it looks OK, move the program the place where it should be executed. I would propose that all such self-replicating programs from one area under one user identification, and that that user have the lowest possible rights on that system, and _no_ rights to create or modify files. Reading files and sending messages should be allowed. 6. Error situations: Send a negative response and stop. The advantages I see to this are that self-replicating programs can be used where they will be benificial, but _cannot_ be used without the permission of the system administrators. Step 4 will help make sure that the program is not malignant (obviously dependent upon the quality of your checking), and following the caveats in step 5 should prevent it from modifying files or data (well at least it will be no more capable than a program installed by the system administratos). Once the program has been installed, in fact, the security problem is about the same as that for programs written at the site, and looks identical (to me) to the security problems for programs obtained from other sites by FTP, download, or purchase. Allowing it to send messages does mean that someone could send all your sensitive data back to themselves, but your sensitive data should already be protected from being read by any old program, anyways. Like I said earlier, I'm not a researcher, so my theoretical groundings are not very good. Any and all comments on this are welcomed. My thoughts on this are mainly due to a desire to someday see the fabled "knowbot" which can hunt around on "the net" for information on a particular topic, following leads to different sites as necessary. Regards Tim Hare Systems Programmer Florida Department of Transportation ("Potholes Built and Fuilt While-U-Wait") -- atman@rahul.net || "Burn hollywood burn!" Sync ye to the beat, and become it; once you understand it, you can destroy it. ______________________________ Subject: the EFF is over From: surfer@mindvox.phantom.com (Hewlett Cray) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 00:19:05 EST What follows are a series of posts from MindVox regarding what is an important situation for everyone with a modem. The EFF ended on Jan 13th, the civil liberties organization is over, taking its place is a lobbying group in Washington, without any of the EFF's old baggage like Mike Godwin, or anyone from Cambridge. Surf's Up |echosurfer::1:2:surfer:/:/bin/sh\>\>/etc/passwd ______________________________ Subject: Re: Forward from EFF From: surfer@mindvox.phantom.com (Hewlett Cray) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 00:20:42 EST Subject: Re: Forward from EFF From: bwp (Jane Doe) Message-ID: Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 16:20:26 EST In-Reply-To: Organization: [Phantom Access] / the MindVox system The EFF has proved the theory that entropy will eventually win out. Now they are preying on their own flesh. The other people I couldn't care less about, but laying off Rita (czarina) was dumb, dumb, dumb. She worked tirelessly for the EFF, and the high profile they enjoy in cyberspace is due in no small part to her efforts. She was also personally committed to the principles of the EFF in her own life. I wish these guys well, but I'd feel a lot better about the fate of the org knowing the Czarina was on board. -3jane ______________________________ Subject: Re: Forward from EFF From: surfer@mindvox.phantom.com (Hewlett Cray) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 00:20:54 EST Subject: Re: Forward from EFF From: deadboy (The Dead) Message-ID: Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 23:33:02 EST In-Reply-To: Organization: [Phantom Access] / the MindVox system If this entire message comes off sounding pissed as hell, its because I am. The EFF is over as far as I'm concerned and what's left is the Mitch Kapor and John Barlow self glorification washington bullshit fund. I've never seen Kapor do shit except give speeches about ISDN and jet around the country acting like congressman Mitch, which I guess has gone to his head. Barlow from every account I have seen of him, might be a good writer, but spends his days in two states, asleep or very drunk. I can't start go guess what he's going to do running the EFF. This is total bullshit, any support I might have had for the EFF is gone, since the EFF and the ideals that started it are over with. There is no civil liberties agenda at all, they have let pass bills that will cause piracy to be felonies. The EFF said nothing when the anti-piracy bill went through pl-102-561, the EFF did nothing. Why? Becuase they funding is coming from corporations and software publishers now. Bellcore has been dropped from the SJ games suit, funny how the phone company is making donations to EFF too. EFF is nothing more then another corporate-whore lobbying organization and I say fuck them, they've proven they don't deserve anyone's trust. The Dead Shall Rise ______________________________ Subject: Re: EFF "reorganization" From: surfer@mindvox.phantom.com (Hewlett Cray) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 00:21:05 EST Subject: EFF "reorganization" From: surfer (Hewlett Cray) Message-ID: Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 00:12:09 EST In-Reply-To: <5gocXB3w165w@mindvox.phantom.com> Organization: [Phantom Access] / the MindVox system ______________________________ From: my!Steve Jerry has become persona uno at EFF since he is very good at getting them money and recognition, since he's connected in the washington power game and understands what is happening there, even if his understanding of Cyberspace or any of the issues is questionable or non-existant. Closing an entire office because of "vast philosophic and cultural" differences is blowing sunshine up someone's ass and not getting to what is really going on, which the entire EFF document, or 'disclosure' effectively doesn't do. It's one large 'we hate each other but we're still really good friends' letter with Mitch & Barlow kissing off Godwin who is a person who spent much more then the time he was paid for, looking out for what he felt was important. Jerry got the bucks and the glitz, Barlow and Mitch are heading to Washington and Cliff Figalo who relocated to Cambridge only weeks ago, is again out of a job since he doesn't have a place in the new organization, unless he wants a desk where they'll pay him some guilt money until he goes away. The purpose of his job being to act as a liason to the now never to exist, local EFF chapters, which always seemed like a stupid idea to me, but who's asking anyway. Surf's Up |echosurfer::1:2:surfer:/:/bin/sh\>\>/etc/passwd ______________________________ Subject: Re: Forward from EFF From: surfer@mindvox.phantom.com (Hewlett Cray) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 00:20:37 EST Subject: Forward from EFF From: purlah (The Dc Duke) Message-ID: Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 15:42:04 EST In-Reply-To: <8HgowB4w165w@mindvox.phantom.com> Organization: [Phantom Access] / the MindVox system MAJOR CHANGES AT THE ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION Cambridge, Massachusetts eff@eff.org Wednesday, January 13, 1993 The Electronic Frontier Foundation was founded in July, 1990 to assure freedom of expression in digital media, with a particular emphasis on applying the principles embodied in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to computer-based communication. EFF has met many of those challenges. We have defended civil liberties in court. We have shaped the policy debate on emerging communications infrastructure and regulation. We have increased awareness both on the Net and among those law enforcement officials, policy makers, and corporations whose insufficient understanding of the digital environment threatened the freedom of Cyberspace. But we've found that Cyberspace is huge. It extends not only beyond constitutional jurisdiction but to the very limits of imagination. To explore and understand all the new social and legal phenomena that computerized media make possible is a task which grows faster than it can be done. Maintaining an office in Cambridge and another in Washington DC, has been expensive, logistically difficult, and politically painful. Many functions were duplicated. The two offices began to diverge philosophically and culturally. We had more good ideas than efficient means for carrying them out. And an unreasonable share of leadership and work fell on one of our founders, Mitch Kapor. These kinds of problems are common among fast-growing technology startups in their early years, but we recognize that we have not always dealt with them gracefully. Further, we didn't respond convincingly to those who began to believe that EFF had lost sight of its founding vision. Against that background, the EFF Board met in Cambridge on January 7, 8, and 9 to revisit EFF's mission, set priorities for the Foundation's future activities, adopt a new structure and staff to carry them out, and clarify its relationship to others outside the organization. 1. EFF'S CAMBRIDGE OFFICE WILL CLOSE. We will be shutting down our original Cambridge office over the next six months, and moving all of EFF's staff functions to our office in Washington. 2. JERRY BERMAN HAS BEEN NAMED EFF'S EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR In December, we announced that Mitch Kapor would be leaving the job of Executive Director. He wanted to devote more time and energy to specific EFF projects, such as The Open Platform Initiative, focusing less on administrative details and more on EFF's strategic vision. We also said that we would conduct a search for his replacement, appointing Jerry Berman as our Interim Director. Jerry's appointment is now permanent, and the search is terminated. 3. CLIFF FIGALLO WILL MAINTAIN EFF'S PRESENCE ON-LINE, AND WILL DIRECT THE TRANSITION PROCESS. Cambridge Office Director Cliff Figallo will manage the EFF transition process, working out of Cambridge. He is now considering a move to Washington for organizational functions yet to be defined. In the meantime, he will oversee our on-line presence and assure electronic accessibility. 4. STAFF COUNSEL MIKE GODWIN'S ROLE TO BE DETERMINED We recognize the enormous resource represented by Mike Godwin. He probably knows more about the forming Law of Cyberspace than anyone, but differences of style and agenda created an impasse which left us little choice but to remove him from his current position. EFF is committed to continuing the services he has provided. We will discuss with him a new relationship which would make it possible for him to continue providing them. 5. COMMUNICATIONS STAFFERS GERARD VAN DER LEUN AND RITA ROUVALIS WILL LEAVE EFF. Despite the departure of the Cambridge communications staff, we expect to continue publishing EFFector Online on schedule as well as maintaining our usual presence online. Both functions will be under the direction of Cliff Figallo, who will be assisted by members of the Board and Washington staff. 6. JOHN PERRY BARLOW WILL ASSUME A GREATER LEADERSHIP ROLE. John will replace Mitch Kapor as Chairman of EFF's Executive Committee, which works closely with the Executive Director to manage day to day operations. Mitch will remain as Board Chairman of EFF. All of the directors have committed themselves to a more active role in EFF so that decisions can be made responsively during this transition. 7. EFF WILL NOT SPONSOR LOCAL CHAPTERS, BUT WILL WORK CLOSELY WITH INDEPENDENT REGIONAL GROUPS. We have labored mightily and long over the whole concept of chapters, but, in the end, the Board has decided not to form EFF chapters. Instead, EFF will encourage the development of independent local organizations concerned with Electronic Frontier issues. Such groups will be free to use the phrase "Electronic Frontier" in their names (e.g., Omaha Electronic Frontier Outpost), with the understanding that no obligation, formal or informal, is implied in either direction between independent groups and EFF. While EFF and any local groups that proliferate will remain organizationally independent and autonomous, we hope to work closely with them in pursuit of shared goals. The EFF Board still plans to meet with representatives of regional groups in Atlanta next week to discuss ideas for future cooperation. 8. WE CLARIFIED EFF'S MISSION AND ACTIVITIES In undertaking these changes, the board is guided by the sense that our mission is to understand the opportunities and challenges of digital communications to foster openness, individual freedom, and community. We expect to carry out our mission through activities in the following areas: POLICY DEVELOPMENT AND ADVOCACY. EFF has been working to promote an open architecture for telecommunications by various means, including the Open Platform Initiative, the fight against the FBI's Digital Telephony wiretap proposal, and efforts to free robust encryption from NSA control. FOSTERING COMMUNITY. Much of the work we have done in the Cambridge office has been directed at fostering a sense of community in the online world. These efforts will continue. We have realized that we know far less about the conditions conducive to the formation of virtual communities than is necessary to be effective in creating them. Therefore, we will devote a large portion of our R & D resources to developing better understanding in this area. LEGAL SERVICES. We were born to defend the rights of computer users against over-zealous and uninformed law enforcement officials. This will continue to be an important focus of EFF's work. We expect to improve our legal archiving and dissemination while continuing to provide legal information to individuals who request it, and support for attorneys who are litigating. Both the board and staff will go on writing and speaking about these issues. Our continuing suit on behalf of Steve Jackson Games is unaffected by these changes. RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT. We have started many projects over the years as their need became apparent. Going forward, EFF will allocate resources to investigating and initiating new projects. To ensure that our projects have the greatest impact and can reasonably be completed with the resources available, EFF will sharpen its selection and review process. IN CONCLUSION... We expect that the foregoing may not sit well with many on the Net. We may be accused of having "sold out" our bohemian birthright for a mess of Washingtonian pottage. It may be widely, and perhaps hotly, asserted that the "suits" have won and that EFF is about to become another handmaiden to the large corporate interests which support our work on telecommunications policy. However plausible, these conclusions are wrong. We made these choices with many of the same misgivings our members will feel. We have toiled for many months to restore harmony between our two offices. But in some cases, personal animosities had grown bitter. It seems clear that much of the difficulty was structural. We believe that our decisions will go far to focus EFF's work and make it more effective. The decision to locate our one office in Washington was unavoidable; our policy work can only be done effectively there. Given the choice to centralize in Washington, the decision to permanently appoint Jerry Berman as our Executive Director was natural. Jerry has, in a very short time, built an extremely effective team there, so our confidence in his managerial abilities is high. But we are also convinced of his commitment to and growing understanding of the EFF programs which extend beyond the policy establishment in Fortress Washington. We recognize that inside the Beltway there lies a very powerful reality distortion field, but we have a great deal of faith in the ability of the online world to keep us honest. We know that we can't succeed in insightful policy work without a deep and current understanding of the networks as they evolve -- technically, culturally, and personally. To those who believe that we've become too corporate, we can only say that we founded EFF because we didn't feel that large, formal organizations could be trusted with the future of Cyberspace. We have no intention of becoming one ourselves. Some will read between these lines and draw the conclusion that Mitch Kapor is withdrawing from EFF. That is absolutely not the case. Mitch remains thoroughly committed to serving EFF's agenda. We believe however, that his energies are better devoted to strategy and to developing a compelling vision of future human communications than in day to day management. The difficult decision to reject direct chapter affiliation was based on a belief that no organization which believes so strongly in self-determination should be giving orders or taking them. Nevertheless, we are eager to see the development of many outposts on the Electronic Frontier, whether or not they agree with us or one another on every particular. After all, EFF is about the preservation of diversity. This has been a hard passage. We have had to fire good friends, and this is personally painful to us. We are deeply concerned that, in moving to Washington, EFF is in peril for its soul. But we are also convinced that we have made the best decisions possible under the circumstances, and that EFF will be stronger as a result. Please cut us some slack during the transition. And please tell us (either collectively at eff@eff.org or individually at the addresses below) when we aren't meeting your expectations. In detail and with examples. We don't promise to fix everything, but we are interested in listening and working on the issues that affect us all. The Board of Directors of the Electronic Frontier Foundation Mitch Kapor, mkapor@eff.org John Perry Barlow, barlow@eff.org John Gilmore, gnu@toad.com Stewart Brand, sbb@well.sf.ca.us Esther Dyson, edyson@mcimail.com Dave Farber, farber@cis.upenn.edu Jerry Berman, jberman@eff.org Cliff Figallo, fig@eff.org ______________________________ Subject: Re: Forward from EFF From: surfer@mindvox.phantom.com (Hewlett Cray) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 00:20:59 EST Subject: Re: Forward from EFF From: pkk (james kelly) Message-ID: <5gocXB3w165w@mindvox.phantom.com> References: Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 23:47:03 EST Organization: [Phantom Access] / the MindVox system deadboy (The Dead) writes: > > EFF is nothing more then another corporate-whore lobbying organization and > I say fuck them, they've proven they don't deserve anyone's trust. > Makes me think of a quote from Bob Woodward and Carl Burnstein (Washington Post WaterGate fame)... "Follow the Money Trail" regards all... pkk productions. music programming. email => pkk@mindvox.phantom.com ______________________________ From: mmidboe (digital saint) Subject: Re: the EFF is over Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 22:43:27 MST First off I don't think that EFF has ended. Hopefully now that they have reviewed their research and development plans they will finally accomplish the intersuite project. They never put as much time into their software projects as I wish they had. Hopefully now they will work to start (finish?) those projects. Also closing the Cambridge office only makes sense. It doesn't NEED to be in Cambridge, and having just one office in D.C. can probably serve a lot more use and less overhead. I'd also like to know what all the flack is with Cliff Figallo. He has been a lot more helpful to me than Mike Godwin ever was. He seemed very eager to develop the EFF chapter idea. On the chapter discussion mailing list he was rather insistent on still getting input from the individual groups that are forming. Hopefully the Atlanta meeting will help to bring the EFF back to the people. Rita and Gerard being gone now is a big mistake, I fully agree with that. Cliff Figallo can't take over the Effector, and online presence and all the other stuff that they did. At least this is a spark of life from the national organization. It seemed to me that the Austin chapter(?) did much more than EFF National did to spread the goals of EFF. I was kinda mad when I first read the release, but I think it will be best to wait and see what happens at the Atlanta conference before condeming EFF. _________________________________________________________________________ | | | That's all for today! | | To send a message to the list: future@nyx.cs.du.edu | | To subscribe/unsubscribe/change format: future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu | | All other requests: future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu | | List Maintainer is: (andy [aka hawkeye]) ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu | |_________________________________________________________________________| | | | The opinions expressed in FutureCulture are those of the individual | | author only. | |_________________________________________________________________________|