World News Part 1
Another new feature for The Word starting this issue is "World News"
featuring news from multiple sources around the world relating to
computers in general. If you come across anything worth submitting,
send it in asap!
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Hacker Vows 'Terror' for Child Pornographers
By Steve Silberman
2:32pm 13.Jun.97.PDT After 17 years in the hacker underground, Christian
Valor - well known among old-school hackers and phone phreaks as "Se7en"
- was convinced that most of what gets written in the papers about
computers and hacking is sensationalistic jive. For years, Valor says,
he sneered at reports of the incidence of child pornography on the Net
as "exaggerated/over-hyped/fearmongered/bullshit."
Now making his living as a lecturer on computer security, Se7en claims
he combed the Net for child pornography for eight weeks last year
without finding a single image.
That changed a couple of weeks ago, he says, when a JPEG mailed by an
anonymous prankster sent him on an odyssey through a different kind of
underground: IRC chat rooms with names like #littlegirlsex, ftp
directories crammed with filenames like 6yoanal.jpg and 8&dad.jpg, and
newsgroups like alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pre-teen. The anonymous
file, he says, contained a "very graphic" image of a girl "no older than
4 years old."
On 8 June, Se7en vowed on a hacker's mailing list to deliver a dose of
"genuine hacker terror" to those who upload and distribute such images
on the Net. The debate over his methods has stirred up tough questions
among his peers about civil liberties, property rights, and the ethics
of vigilante justice.
A Declaration of War
What Se7en tapped into, he says, was a "very paranoid" network of
traders of preteen erotica. In his declaration of "public war" - posted
to a mailing list devoted to an annual hacker's convention called DefCon
- Se7en explains that the protocol on most child-porn servers is to
upload selections from your own stash, in exchange for credits for more
images.
What he saw on those servers made him physically sick, he says. "For
someone who took a virtual tour of the kiddie-porn world for only one
day," he writes, "I had the opportunity to fully max out an Iomega
100-MB Zip disc."
Se7en's plan to "eradicate" child-porn traders from the Net is
"advocating malicious, destructive hacking against these people." He has
enlisted the expertise of two fellow hackers for the first wave of
attacks, which are under way.
Se7en feels confident that legal authorities will look the other way
when the victims of hacks are child pornographers - and he claims that a
Secret Service agent told him so explicitly. Referring to a command to
wipe out a hard drive by remote access, Se7en boasted, "Who are they
going to run to? The police? 'They hacked my kiddie-porn server and rm
-rf'd my computer!' Right."
Se7en claims to have already "taken down" a "major player" - an employee
of Southwestern Bell who Se7en says was "posting ads all over the
place." Se7en told Wired News that he covertly watched the man's
activities for days, gathering evidence that he emailed to the president
of Southwestern Bell. Pseudonymous remailers like hotmail.com and
juno.com, Se7en insists, provide no security blanket for traders against
hackers uncovering their true identities by cracking server logs. Se7en
admits the process of gaining access to the logs is time consuming,
however. Even with three hackers on the case, it "can take two or three
days. We don't want to hit the wrong person."
A couple of days after submitting message headers and logs to the
president and network administrators of Southwestern Bell, Se7en says,
he got a letter saying the employee was "no longer on the payroll."
The Hacker Search For Acceptance
Se7en's declaration of war received support on the original mailing
list. "I am all for freedom of speech/expression," wrote one poster,
"but there are some things that are just wrong.... I feel a certain
moral obligation to the human race to do my part in cleaning up the
evil."
Federal crackdowns targeting child pornographers are ineffective, many
argued. In April, FBI director Louis Freeh testified to the Senate that
the bureau operation dubbed "Innocent Images" had gathered the names of
nearly 4,000 suspected child-porn traffickers into its database. Freeh
admitted, however, that only 83 of those cases resulted in convictions.
(The Washington Times reports that there have also been two suicides.)
The director's plan? Ask for more federal money to fight the "dark side
of the Internet" - US$10 million.
Pitching in to assist the Feds just isn't the hacker way. As one poster
to the DefCon list put it, "The government can't enforce laws on the
Internet. We all know that. We can enforce laws on the Internet. We
all know that too."
The DefCon list was not a unanimous chorus of praise for Se7en's plan to
give the pornographers a taste of hacker terror, however. The most
vocal dissenter has been Declan McCullagh, Washington correspondent for
the Netly News. McCullagh is an outspoken champion of constitutional
rights, and a former hacker himself. He says he was disturbed by
hackers on the list affirming the validity of laws against child porn
that he condemns as blatantly unconstitutional.
"Few people seem to realize that the long-standing federal child-porn
law outlawed pictures of dancing girls wearing leotards," McCullagh
wrote - alluding to the conviction of Stephen Knox, a graduate student
sentenced to five years in prison for possession of three videotapes of
young girls in bathing suits. The camera, the US attorney general
pointed out, lingered on the girls' genitals, though they remained
clothed. "The sexual implications of certain modes of dress, posture,
or movement may readily put the genitals on exhibition in a lascivious
manner, without revealing them in a nude display," the Feds argued - and
won.
It's decisions like Knox v. US, and a law criminalizing completely
synthetic digital images "presented as" child porn, McCullagh says, that
are making the definition of child pornography unacceptably broad: a
"thought crime."
The menace of child porn is being exploited by "censor-happy"
legislators to "rein in this unruly cyberspace," McCullagh says. The
rush to revile child porn on the DefCon list, McCullagh told Wired News,
reminded him of the "loyalty oaths" of the McCarthy era.
"These are hackers in need of social acceptance," he says. "They've
been marginalized for so long, they want to be embraced for stamping out
a social evil." McCullagh knows his position is a difficult one to put
across to an audience of hackers. In arguing that hackers respect the
property rights of pornographers, and ponder the constitutionality of
the laws they're affirming, McCullagh says, "I'm trying to convince
hackers to respect the rule of law, when hacking systems is the opposite
of that."
But McCullagh is not alone. As the debate over Se7en's declaration
spread to the cypherpunks mailing list and alt.cypherpunks - frequented
by an older crowd than the DefCon list - others expressed similar
reservations over Se7en's plan.
"Basically, we're talking about a Dirty Harry attitude," one network
technician/cypherpunk told Wired News. Though he senses "real feeling"
behind Se7en's battle cry, he feels that the best way to deal with
pornographers is to "turn the police loose on them." Another participant
in the discussion says that while he condemns child porn as "terrible,
intrinsically a crime against innocence," he questions the effectiveness
of Se7en's strategy.
"Killing their computer isn't going to do anything," he says, cautioning
that the vigilante approach could be taken up by others. "What happens
if you have somebody who doesn't like abortion? At what point are you
supposed to be enforcing your personal beliefs?"
Raising The Paranoia Level
Se7en's loathing for aficionados of newsgroups like
alt.sex.pedophilia.swaps runs deeper than "belief." "I myself was abused
when I was a kid," Se7en told Wired News. "Luckily, I wasn't a victim
of child pornography, but I know what these kids are going through."
With just a few hackers working independently to crack server logs,
sniff IP addresses, and sound the alarm to network administrators, he
says, "We can take out one or two people a week ... and get the
paranoia level up," so that "casual traders" will be frightened away
from IRC rooms like "#100%preteensexfuckpics."
It's not JPEGs of clothed ballerinas that raise his ire, Se7en says.
It's "the 4-year-olds being raped, the 6-year-old forced to have oral
sex with cum running down themselves." Such images, Se7en admits, are
very rare - even in online spaces dedicated to trading sexual imagery of
children.
"I know what I'm doing is wrong. I'm trampling on the rights of these
guys," he says. "But somewhere in the chain, someone is putting these
images on paper before they get uploaded. Your freedom ends when you
start hurting other people."
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A NEW Amiga Print Magazine named "Informer" which is a N.American
printed periodical resource for the Amiga community.
http://www.amigainformer.com/
They also supply and distribute news about the Amiga situation.
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'Amateur Action' update
A full background on the Amateur Action BBS case, including its history
and the text of relevant legal documents, can be found in the CuD
archives at: http://www.soci.niu.edu/~aabbs/aabbs.html
Source - fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu
Background: Robert and Carleen Thomas ran an adult-oriented bulletin
board system from their home in California. Prosecutors in Tennesee in
1994 downloaded allegedly obscene pictures of sexual acts and charged
them. Of course, they were applying *their* "community standards" for
obscenity to his California business. They were found guilty and
sentenced to 37 months. While that case was on trial, Federal officials
in Utah heard about and looked into it. They downloaded pictures of
"nude and semi-nude children" and charged Thomas in Utah with
distributing child pornography, although there is no evidence any Utahan
except the official had ever done so. Thomas pled guilty to 1 of 16
charges and appealed alleging double jeopardy.
The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the decision of the Utah
District Court. No double jeopardy because the individual photos are
different from those which were tried in the other cases. Thomas is
serving a 26-month sentence on this count, concurrently with the other
sentence. The opinion does not appear to be on the Emory University web
site which tracks these things.
Moral: anyone who distributes content nationally continues to be
subject to prosecution in each and every locale under prevailing
community standards. If your content is objectionable to the most
small-minded folk anywhere in the US, it would be wise to refrain from
publishing it on the internet or other comparable medium. Prosecutions
continue to apply local "contemporary community standards" to obscenity
prosecutions, but in meeting the Miller test, they are permitted to
demonstrate that the material has prurient appeal to someone else. In
other words, offensive to you, sexually appealing to anyone anywhere.
For example, if space aliens landed tomorrow and their pornography
consisted of pictures that looked like cat vomit, prosecutors could
present evidence that the material is prurient with regard to space
aliens, patently offensive to you (cat vomit, you know), and lacking in
serious literary value to you (obviously) and you would therefore
conclude that the material was obscene.
[v]enue for federal obscenity prosecutions lies "in any district
from, through, or into which" the allegedly obscene material
moves, according to 18 U.S.C. section 3237. This may result in
prosecutions of persons in a community to which they have sent
materials which is obscene under that community's standards
though the community from which it is sent would tolerate the
same material.
United States v. Peraino, 645 F.2d 548, 551 (6th Cir. 1981)
So even if you refrain from sending material to Tennesee residents, an
internet router can make that decision for you by sending data packets
through the state. What a great piece of law.
Refs:
Jonathan Wallace's consideration of the issue:
http://www.spectacle.org/795/amateur.html
http://www.spectacle.org/freespch/musm/obsne.html
http://www.spectacle.org/296/obscene.html
ACLU materials on the Tennessee case:
http://www.aclu.org/court/thomas.html
http://www.aclu.org/court/obscene.html
-- Michael Sims
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Call for open world-wide conveniton on the Net
A different kind of war: a grass-roots revolution to take policy-making
and control of the Net out of the hands of the few and put it into the
hands of those who use the Net
STOP THE INTERNET COUP
Assn. for Interactive Media demands an end to the hostile takeover of
the Internet by the International Ad Hoc Committee
Defend your Internet rights by opposing the gTLD-MoU, the Internet
Society, and IANA
Washington, D.C. (July 11, 1997) The stability of the Internet is being
threatened by an attempted takeover by a group from Geneva known as the
International Ad Hoc Committee (IAHC). Internet-based business and user
have been taken unawares by a power grab orchestrated by a technical
group with no legal authority. The Association for Interactive Media
and the Open Internet Congress have called for everyone in the Internet
community to oppose this move.
Takeover plans are detailed in a recent memorandum by IAHC regarding
issues related to assigning domain names to Internet users. IAHC was
assigned to meet to discuss the possibility of making more domain names
available. When they released their final report, called the Generic
Top Level Domain Memorandum of Understanding (gTLD-MoU), it actually
contained the structure for a world government for the Internet. The
leaders of the IAHC, including the Internet Society and the Internet
Assigned Numbers Authority, have installed themselves as leaders of this
government.
Businesses are being pushed to sign the gTLD-MoU in a global effort by
IAHC. This document is disguised as an innocent standards agreement
regarding domain names. It is actually a treaty that it actually
assigns permanent control over the Internet to six tightly controlled,
non-representative organizations. There are no provisions for
elections, representation, or input from consumers, business, and
governments.
Make no mistake If you sign the gTLD-MoU, you will give up all of your
rights to have any say on the structure and management of the internet
forever. said Andy Sernovitz, president of the Association for
Interactive Media. A group of self-appointed autocrats have declared
themselves rulers of the Internet without regard to international law,
the stability of the Internet, and the rights of you and your
organization.
The Open Internet Congress (OIC) was founded to fight for an open
process that guarantees that all of the Internets stakeholders have a
fair and representative voice in its management and operations. OIC has
called for an Internet Constitutional Convention to develop the
representative process. An organizational meeting will be held July 9,
1997 in Washington, D.C., and is open to all.
Founded in 1993, the Association for Interactive Media is the most
diverse coalition of organizational users of the Internet, with over 300
members. AIMs mission is to support the efforts of leaders from
for-profit and non-profit organizations seeking to serve the public
through interactive media. With the ability to form partnerships and
friendships among a wide variety of organizations, AIM bridges the gaps
between groups working in dozens of different fields to ensure the
successful future of new media.
IMPORTANT FACTS
Who is staging this coup, and how do they plan on pulling it off? The
gTLD-MoU gives permanent control of the Internet to: Internet Society,
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, Internet Architecture Board,
International Telecommunications Union, World Intellectual Property
Organization, and International Trademark Association. They have
already declared control. They have created an organization to take
control, appointed themselves leaders of it, and have begun issuing
technical orders to Internet server operators. They have publicly
declared that they do not need the support of governments, consumers,
and businesses because "the committee says it has direct control of the
computers that run the Net's addressing system." (CNET, 5/2/97)
What happens to the Internet if they succeed? The Internet is likely to
break apart on October 15, 1997. That is the date that the coup leaders
intend to re-route the Internet to be under their control against the
advice of those who keep things running smoothly today. When they rip
the essential root servers off the Internet backbone, the entire system
may begin to fragment. Your email will be returned and your Web site
visitors will be turned away. These organizations have refused to
recognize the validity of the registries that ensure that traffic is
successfully delivered to ".com", ".org", and ".net" addresses. Serious
concern has arisen over the possibility of malicious viruses and "Trojan
Horses" being hidden in the software that runs the Internet.
What happens to me and my business if they succeed? You are likely to
lose access to reliable Internet communications. Control of your
trademarks on the Internet will be given up. You will be forced to
submit to binding decisions made by a "challenge panel" in Geneva
created and run by this group. If you lose, you will not be able to use
your trademark in your domain name someone else will. You will never
have a voice in the governance of the Internet. You will not be able to
effectively defend yourself, your organization, and your rights against
future moves by these aggressors.
What should I do? Do not sign the gTLD-MOU! Sign up with the Open
Internet Congress to secure your place in the decision-making process.
Contact the OIC immediately to get involved. Help us gather support
from governments, consumers, and businesses. Distribute this document
to all of your email lists as soon as possible.
For More Information:
Contact the Open Internet Congress: 202-408-0008 or
oic@interactivehq.org Visit the web site:
http://www.interactivehq.org/oic Subscribe to the news list: email the
words "subscribe oic" in the body of a message to
buddy@lists.interactivehq.org
Richard Thieme
ThiemeWorks ... professional speaking and
business consulting:
ThiemeWorks
P. O. Box 17737 the impact of computer technology
Milwaukee Wisconsin on people in organizations:
53217-0737 helping people stay flexible and
voice: 414.351.2321 effective during times of accelerated
change.
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