Slashdot Mirror

ptbrown writes: "On Wednesday the House Small Business Committee will be holding a hearing on Internet music technologies. (That is, Napster.) Chuck D, of Public Enemy and Rapstation.com, will be testifying on behalf of the good-side of MP3. For the opposition, the Progressive Policy Institute has written a report that recommends extending the DMCA to explicitly outlaw technologies like Napster." Yeah, we should definitely ban peer-to-peer file sharing over the Internet, and NFS pisses me off, too. And Web pages: Ban Port 80! Does anyone out there understand what they're saying?

Both the Washington Post and the New York Times have stories about the FTC's decision to ask Congress for the authority to regulate online privacy. The FTC had recently completed yet another privacy survey that showed companies were doing little to protect privacy on the Internet, even after several years of dire warnings. In other news, Doubleclick named a "No-Privacy Board" -- errr, a "Privacy Board." Its members are listed below, along with my notes on their backgrounds.

It is important to keep in mind what this is being billed as: Doubleclick calls this, in their press release, a "Consumer Privacy Advocacy Board." Supposedly this board is set up to, you know, advocate consumer privacy. So, let's take a look at its composition.

Robert Abrams, former attorney general of New York: hired because of his connections in New York State, which threatened to file suit against Doubleclick. His role will be to lobby his buddies in various government agencies to prevent privacy lawsuits.

Robert Litan, vice president and director of economic studies at the Brookings Institution: supports "opt-out" marketing and notification of privacy policies, as opposed to actual privacy. (Which is exactly Doubleclick's position, of course.)

Harriet Pearson, director of public affairs at International Business Machines Corp.: Pearson is one of the people behind the Online Privacy Alliance, a corporate front group working to attack privacy on the Internet. Pearson has moderated seminars on how to profile users without seeming to be Big Brother; her job is to make you feel good about not having any privacy. Every group needs a PR flack.

Lori Fena, chairman of Web privacy organization TrustE: Fena is an advertising executive by trade. And obviously, having her on board means that TrustE won't exactly be cracking down on any of Doubleclick's practices.

Daniel Weitzner, an executive at the World Wide Web Consortium: Weitzner's main job at W3C is promoting P3P, a protocol designed to automatically give out your name, address, phone number, credit card information, Social Security number, and other personal data to Web sites as you browse -- a sort of hyper-invasive universal cookie. Need I say more?

Elizabeth Lascoutx, a director and vice president at the Council of Better Business Bureaus: Lascoutx's work at the BBB used to center around children's advertising -- she sought to have commercial messages on children's Web sites set off from the rest of the content in the same manner as television advertising ("after these messages, we'll be right back").

David Stazer, vice president and co-founder of PlanetOut.com: I don't know of any qualifications Stazer might have with regard to privacy.

Stewart Baker, a partner at the law firm of Steptoe & Johnson: Baker used to be the general counsel of the National Security Agency, probably not the first people you'd think of when you think "privacy"; he's an influential Washington lobbyist now. Baker publicly attacked the efforts to boycott Intel and Microsoft over the Pentium-III processor ID and the GUID embedded in MSOffice documents -- he stated that if all machines on the Internet were authenticated and identified, things like denial of service attacks could be prevented (which is true enough, if you don't mind a total loss of privacy).

No one from EPIC? No one from the ACLU? You can draw your own conclusions about whether this "Consumer Privacy Protection Board" (sic) is intended to actually help Doubleclick change its ways, or whether it is merely intended to help protect the company from lawsuits and adverse governmental action, like, say, the FTC wanting the authority to force companies to respect privacy concerns.

It's been a busy week inside the 40-story glass monolith that is Slashdot, as our cleverly disguised agents manipulate reality to conform with their own twisted idea of how things should be. Just the same, in an effort to defuse suspicion by appearing fallible, here is another thimbleful of spin in the form of Slashback: Episode IV.

Leveling mountains back to molehills ... Mitch writes "I have read further in the Borland license agreement. People need to be more careful before posting news. Twisting words or only giving half the facts can cause problems and does most of time. This, in my opinion, was an unfair thing to do to Borland. If anyone looked at the rest of the agreement, it says:

'Nothing in this license statement permits you to derive the source code of files that Borland has provided to you in executable form only, or to reproduce, modify, use, or distribute the source code of such files. You are not, of course, restricted from distributing source code that is entirely your own. Code which you generate with a Borland code generator, such as AppExpert, is considered by Borland to be your code.'" Michael Swindell from Borland wrote with much the same information. Thanks to both for the level-headed clarification.

deet-de-deet-deet deet HAVANA: Steve Arner writes "On May 18, 2000, the Associated Press ('The AP') declared that it would not pursue legal action against the creators of a widely-viewed parody combining images of the goverment?s recent seizure of Elián Gonzalez at gunpoint with sounds from Budweisers popular 'Whazzup?' advertising campaign."

Sneaky little devil. Nik would like you to read this Salon article about BSD. Trust him -- it's an interesting overview. It will make you want to spend more time poring through the BSD Section of Slashdot.

No towel-throwing just yet bork bork bork. Audent writes "There's a nice thank you note on the Dialectizer site saying he's still reviewing his options and to check back regularly". You can read his notice here, and since it's on the rinkworks site, you can even read it in psuedo-Swedish or redneck.

Don't line up for tickets yet ... they're still fixing the odds. emmons writes "Judge Kaplan has ordered that the trial concerning DeCSS' legality under the DMCA be moved from December 5th to July 17th. The order is posted on cryptome.org's website." By that time, the law could say that the moon in made of green cheese until proven otherwise, while forbidding lunar analysis.

Aren't you glad you use ... pine? pq writes "John Markoff at the NYT followed up on the Love bug with this story (no login needed). Apparently it simply faxed itself as text to fax numbers in your Outlook addressbook - an interesting article for the Neal Stephenson 'Life imitates Art' angle." Also nice to know that the NY Times writers are reading Neal Stephenson.

Aleatoric writes: "According to this article from the NY Times, advertisers aren't exactly buying into the claimed effectiveness of targeted online user databases. Not to get complacent, though, it also includes comments from many sites that gather user information concerning their efforts to try and change this attitude." Amusing. It seems Web advertisers are just now learning lessons direct mail and print advertisers learned long ago.

Once&FutureRocketman writes "The New York Times has this article (no login required) about a technology that allows publishers of paper media to embed hyperlinks directly in the article in machine-readable format. The system is a little clumsy at this point, but the intent is clear: a seamless integration of the Internet and Real Life."

Quote from a RealNetworks spokesperson, in a CNET article on a RealServer vulnerability yesterday: "We never invaded anyone's privacy.... We never kept track of what music people were listening to or kept track of individuals." Quote from New York Times article last November: "RealNetworks' popular RealJukebox software for playing CD's on computers surreptitiously monitors the listening habits and certain other activities of people who use it and continually reports this information, along with the user's identity, to RealNetworks, said a security expert.... In interviews last week, company officials acknowledged that RealJukebox ... gathers information on what music users are playing and recording." That's all. Just wanted to point that out.

The New York Times Magazine ran a lengthy story today titled The Eroded Self . The author chronicles a wide assortment of privacy abuses, and has a very thoughtful treatment of the harm that is caused when every move you make is scanned, analyzed and permanently recorded.

mudpup writes: "The NY Times has a nice story about Martin Garbus a well-known New York trial lawyer and First Amendment specialist, who was brought on board recently to assist the Electronic Frontier Foundation in the DVD case. My question is will The Motion Picture Association of America now be filing suit against the Times for linking to 2600's catalog of DeCSS mirror sites? Or will that Link disappear sometime before/after the West Coast wakes up this morning? "

mudpup writes: "The NY Times has a nice story about Martin Garbus a well-known New York trial lawyer and First Amendment specialist, who was brought on board recently to assist the Electronic Frontier Foundation in the DVD case. My question is will The Motion Picture Association of America now be filing suit against the Times for linking to 2600's catalog of DeCSS mirror sites? Or will that Link disappear sometime before/after the West Coast wakes up this morning? "

Brian Kingsbury writes: "The New York Times has an article on a new twist in the world of the Sims --- a "virus" that can kill off a player's characters. In a particularly sadistic twist, the virus is carried by a guinea pig that players download from the Sims Web site. I wonder what's next, maybe the Black Death? " That's all Nate would have needed to complete his House of Fear - locked doors, no food, two ghosts, and the kitchen on fire. Will Wright, you're a genius.

Brian Kingsbury writes: "The New York Times has an article on a new twist in the world of the Sims --- a "virus" that can kill off a player's characters. In a particularly sadistic twist, the virus is carried by a guinea pig that players download from the Sims Web site. I wonder what's next, maybe the Black Death? " That's all Nate would have needed to complete his House of Fear - locked doors, no food, two ghosts, and the kitchen on fire. Will Wright, you're a genius.

falon writes "Scientists just discovered, within the remains of a very well-preserved dinosaur, what may be the first fossilized heart of a dinosaur (4 chambered, implying warm bloodedness): "

harryhoch writes "The NY Times is reporting that a couple of business-school researchers at MIT and Harvard have written a report on motivations for participation in open source projects. Among their somewhat-obvious insights is the somewhat-obvious comment that some folks work on open-source as a way to gain professional prestige. " I love talking heads - but again, it is interesting to see outside sources commenting on the growth of the free software/open source movement.

Spasemunki writes: "The NYTimes has an article lurking in their tech page today on Palm's plans to add wireless connectivity to their whole product line. Wireless connected versions of the Palm III and Palm V lines should start appearing "in the reletively near future", with some changes to the product line appearing by the end of this year. Free registration required; you know the drill." From this article, it's not even clear what sort of wireless they're going to choose, but even so: the ubiquitous, wireless personal computer is crawling up onto land. If you had a nearly-a-billion-dollar IPO, you might want some wireless tools / toys, too.

Spasemunki writes: "The NYTimes has an article lurking in their tech page today on Palm's plans to add wireless connectivity to their whole product line. Wireless connected versions of the Palm III and Palm V lines should start appearing "in the reletively near future", with some changes to the product line appearing by the end of this year. Free registration required; you know the drill." From this article, it's not even clear what sort of wireless they're going to choose, but even so: the ubiquitous, wireless personal computer is crawling up onto land. If you had a nearly-a-billion-dollar IPO, you might want some wireless tools / toys, too.

Computers in education are a hot topic these days. Some colleges require students to have computers, and it's doubtful you could get through college today without at least rudimentary computer skills. Increasingly though, the question is whether computers in high school and even grade school are helpful or harmful. Half the world thinks every kid should have a computer in school, the other half thinks schools should concentrate on reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic, and reducing class sizes. A third half thinks both those first two halves are wrong. We're going to take a look at two proposals for portable computing devices in schools and ask for some input.

We'll start with the state of Maine, where the governor recently announced a program to provide portable computing devices to every public school student in Maine in seventh grade. The students would keep the devices after graduation. The specifications envision something that isn't a dumb terminal (thin client is the politically-correct name these days), yet isn't a full-fledged laptop either. They're looking to spend less than $500/device, and get something that runs all day without recharging, connects seamlessly via a wired or wireless LAN at schools or libraries, yet can dial-up from home, won't break when dropped, etc. Given my knowledge of the state of portable computing, their specifications look pretty optimistic for the dollars they want to spend.

A different approach is exemplified by a proposal before the New York City Board of Education, the largest educational district in the country. They plan to provide standard laptops at a discount to every student above the fourth grade. How to pay for the program? Simple: all students will be directed to and through a Web portal for all of their schoolwork, which will be loaded with kid-targeted advertising. Apparently representatives from IBM and Toshiba have been lobbying the school board for the last nine months to get this plan approved; a cynical observer would suggest that they plan to make a few bucks from the $billion or more that would be spent on this plan. What's the best way to keep deals like this from turning into boondoggles and pork-barrel projects? What's the best way to keep kids from being bombarded with Nike advertisements during algebra class?

Conventional wisdom is that commercial off-the-shelf equipment is the best deal. That may not be true in these situations. One commenter pointed out that a specially designed red-and-blue laptop adorned with a NYC logo or something similar would be the perfect theft protection -- since you couldn't sell it to anyone, it's not likely to be stolen.

Some companies are already angling for this market. The people at Netschools are selling a system complete with ruggedized, kidproof laptops. And their internet access is pre-censored; how nice. By press time, Netschools hadn't responded to me with cost information about their systems, but my guess is: not cheap. Not cheap at all.

So Slashdot the Forum is open. Are laptops useful in education? People have looked at this question before, it's even been discussed on Slashdot before, but the jury still seems to be out. What's needed, a proprietary device that downloads homework or a real laptop that can do anything? How much money should be spent? What sort of device can you get for X amount of money? How can you get a device cheap enough for everyone to have one but rugged enough that it doesn't break the first time you drop it? Schools, naturally, want completely closed devices which students can't alter in any way; subversive folks like me and Lord Finkle-McGraw would probably prefer devices which students can alter - and which the more creative, hackerish ones will. How can you avoid the situation presented in Right to Read, where the students don't have the root password to their computers?

"You yourself said that the engineers in the Bespoke department -- the very best -- had led interesting lives, rather than coming from the straight and narrow. Which implies a correlation, does it not?"

"Clearly."

"This implies, does it not, that in order to raise a generation of children who can reach their full potential, we must find a way to make their lives interesting. And the question I have for you, Mr. Hackworth, is this: Do you think that our schools accomplish that? Or are they like the schools that Wordsworth complained of?"

Thursday, I flew to Charlotte to ask executives of the Pinkerton Special Services Group to scrap or modify WAVE America, a "school safety" Web site that encourages schoolkids to anonymously turn in classmates they consider dangerous. We brawled politely for hours over chicken salad, iced tea and fries about school safety, oddball profiling, privacy and reality. Although righteously armed with some amazing and eloquent e-mailed screeds, reports, quotes, studies and pleas from Slashdotters, my expectations were low. I returned with a penetrating glimpse into the corporatist soul. (Read more).

Dawn, Jim, Shannon and I sat down around a conference table in a tightly-secured office building south of downtown Charlotte, N.C. on a brilliant spring day. From the window, we could see the hills of South Carolina in one direction, the towers of downtown in the other. A collection of Pinkerton baseball caps filled a wooden shelf.

If anybody had told me that I would be munching chicken salad sandwiches and fries with executives from the Pinkerton Corporation, the largest security concern on the planet, arguing about kids, violence, oddball profiling and the Net, I would have refused to believe it. But that's the Net for you. Jim was a Pinkerton senior veep, Dawn and Shannon, the Web developer and site architect, respectively.

Jim was courteous, but clearly exasperated.

Two weeks ago, I wrote a highly critical column here about a WAVE (Working Against Violence Everywhere) America Web site developed by the Pinkerton Services Group under contract to the state of North Carolina and soon to go national. It offered an anonymous toll-free number, so schoolkids could turn in classmates they believed were acting strangely or dangerously. After the column appeared, Jim revealed, WAVE America received more than 70,000 e-mails and a few mail bombs, and repelled a number of assaults on their system firewalls. Jim had clearly never heard of Slashdot before all this, and he was still struggling to figure out exactly what it was or why he had to pay attention to it. This Net furor had clearly put a bit of a cloud over Pinkerton's ambitious plan to peddle WAVE America all over the United States in response to the post-Columbine school-violence hysteria. My guess was that this meeting was Dawn and Shannon's idea.

I'd flown to Charlotte, against what I knew were hopeless odds, to persuade Pinkerton to trash WAVE America . We argued for more than three hours behind closed doors. Clearly, the flap over the Web site was something Pinkerton wanted resolved if possible. Jim said the company hoped to set up anonymous toll-free "safety" and anti-violence hotlines across the country to relieve unnerved and overburdened school districts of the responsibility of monitoring students who might be disturbed or dangerous.

Although I write often about corporatism and its unhappy impact on free speech and culture, I had rarely penetrated so deep into the belly of the beast, nor felt so affirmed and unnerved by what I saw there. These were perfectly nice people I was meeting with, and they were unwaveringly embarked on what I believe is an awful course. Corporatism doesn't allow for moral notions like right or wrong, however. Corporatism (which is not the same thing as capitalism or corporations) has one ideology: successful, profitable marketing. Corporatism doesn't like controversy, because it, potentially at least, can scare off or offend potential customers. That's why I was there. I would be reminded of this 20 times over the next few hours. Ethical arguments, like peas off an M-1 tank, failed to penetrate.

It's hard to imagine going into any confrontation better prepared. I felt righteously equipped with the usual brilliant assortment of eclectic e-mail, screeds, quotes, citations, studies, suggestions and encouragements from Slashdotters. The Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice had sent me some stats -- school homicides declined 40% in a single year, from l998 to l999. Students have a one-in-two-million chance of being killed in school, even though the public thinks it's likely to happen.

Computer engineer Chris Burke of the University of Michigan sent me a wonderful set of applied criterion measuring the probability that children considered dangerous actually will be. Chris's criteria are too complex to detail here, but he concluded that the probability that someone who meets the criterian actually is potentially dangerous turns out to be surprisingly low. "If we assume that the number of dangerous students is 1/25000 -- which is ridiculously high, but for the sake of argument I'll use it ... then only 6.7 per cent will be dangerous. Which means that 92.3% of the time you will be harassing innocent people." Reading this aloud to the Pinkerton people was one of the highlights of my life.

Meredith Dixon and many others e-mailed me about Todd Strasser's eerily prescient novel, The Wave, (which became a movie), about a junior high school teacher who uses anonymous reporting techniques reminiscent of the Hitler Youth to demonstrate how easily independent thought and moral conscience can be subordinated to an evil system. The book, published in 1981 and still available (Laurel Leaf Library: ISBN: 0440993717), was based on an actual incident in Palo Alto in l969. The Pinkerton folks were not happy to hear of this antecedent name for their cheeful, up-with-America, let's-promote-some-respect Web site. Nor were they impresed by my repeated arguments that every repressive political system in the 20th century -- Nazism, Communism, Fascism, Apartheid -- featured anonymous reporting -- especially by children -- as a cornerstone tool in their efforts to subjugate dissidents. The idea that this might not be the way to teach citizenship in a democratic society didn't seem to make much of an impression.

Joey Maier e-mailed me this quote from former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis: "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." If anything captured the spirit of WAVE America, that was it.

A Slashdot editor and writer urged me to ask Pinkerton what remedies students and parents would have against false accusations. (The answer: None. Pinkerton doesn't make accusations, they just pass along information. That wasn't the company's problem, the execs said. Nor were any misuses of anonymously reported information by the schools that received it).

I also brought this message: "When I was a teenager, I didn't want people to listen to me because they might be afraid of what I might do," chromatic wrote on Threads. "I wanted people to listen to me because they cared about me and could identify with the way I was feeling and the thoughts I was thinking. Don't alienate young people even further in the guise of helping them. Please."

Even as I was searching for one of my favorite Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn quotes, Jamie McCarthy e-mailed it to me: It's from The Gulag Archipelago, his epic story of Stalin's concentration camps: "... In every village there were people who in one way or another had personally gotten in the way of the local activists. This was the perfect time to settle accounts with them of jealousy, envy, insult. A new word was needed for all these new victims as a class -- and it was born. By this time it had no 'social' or 'economic' content whatsoever, but it had a marvelous sound: podkulachnik -- 'a person aiding the kulaks.' In other words, I consider you an accomplice of the enemy. And that finishes you!'"

I confess to being buoyed by these smart, eloquent messages and citations, which I read and re-read on the flight to North Carolina. I was especially happy to be writing for a site where so many people -- hundreds -- could send such messages, and had such passionate perspective on what freedom really means, in a culture where it's constantly trampled and manipulated for profit, ratings, political gain or cultural power. Somewhere deep in my consciousness was the naive (or just plain dumb, maybe) belief that the Pinkerton execs would hear these messages, experience an epiphany and abandon WAVE America on the spot.

What emerged instead was as strange a cultural stand-off as one might imagine, a mix of the fascinating -- it was amazing to have a face-to-face confrontation with executives of the storied Pinkerton company (the writer Dashiell Hammett was a Pinkerton man, and the company had a bloody history of strike-breaking around the turn of the century) yet it was innately futile, and we all soon knew it. Over the sandwiches and iced tea, which hardly any of us touched, we each epitomized our distinctly opposite sides of a cultural chasm. Shannon and Dawn (given the volume of hostile e-mail Pinkerton was getting, I've decided not to use their full names) let Jim do the policy talking.

If there was any comfort to be drawn from the encounter, I suspect it would have to be from the fact that it was taking place. Voices on the Net had reached deep into a company that wasn't exactly famous for being interactive. That was something new.

These were pleasant, articulate, reasonable sounding -- and profoundly intractable -- people. We weren't speaking from the same sensibility or history or even using the same language. We butted heads all afternoon, but it was an odd argument in that scrapping WAVE America was never really on the table, and it was clear the company wasn't particularly interested in refuting any of my arguments, or those of the people who had e-mailed me theirs. I wouldn't swear that they disagreed. It simply didn't matter. The point was, there was a market for school-safety programs like this, and if Pinkerton didn't pursue them, somebody else would. The corporatist ethic doesn't allow for relinquihing potentially lucrative markets to competitors, any more than it does for conventional notions of right or wrong. In that sense, the meeting was exhausting and, probably, largely pointless. If there was leverage, it was in the fact that Pinkerton clearly wanted to go forward with its program in the least controversial way -- another corporatist hallmark.

I argued that WAVE America was simply wrong. That it was neither necessary, since the amount of school violence had been insanely exaggerated, nor effective -- kids could hardly be expected to accurately gauge the emotional or mental states of their classmates. I also argued that it was dangerous, that anonymous reporting was one of the primary tools of every evil political system in modern times. I reminded them that some of the smartest, most interesting and ultimately successful kids often experienced extreme and systematic harassment and brutality for being different, alienated or otherwise non-normal. That if educators, politicians or private corporations like Pinkerton really cared about school safety, they would do something to protect these outcasts.

The experience, in many respects, resembled talking to an affable stone wall. I did encounter more flexibility than I expected. Yes, my hosts acknowledged, they knew that school violence was dropping sharply (more about this later), but so what? It was still a problem, politicians like those in North Carolina were demanding some action, and so were parents, journalists and educators. Schools didn't have the resources or security skills to police themselves. Somebody had to respond, and Pinkerton was in the "secure environment" business, so why not step up to the plate?

Jim told me something I hadn't quite grasped: the anonymous reporting culture is a growing business, now deeply entrenched in the United States, a result of the victimization movement and lawsuit epidemic rampant for nearly a generation. Encouraged by federal and local governments, and many corporate and educational institutions, hotlines operate all over the country to report date rape, sexual harassment, abuse, and other forms of brutality and insensitivity. Since so many institutions in the United States are now presumed to be unresponsive to the needs of one group or another, privately-administered anonymous reporting hotlines are spreading. Pinkerton itself runs more than 800 such lines. It was inevitable, said Jim, that they would move into schools, and that Pinkerton would extend its security expertise and set them up. I found this amazing, which made Jim shake his head and shrug. I was transfixed by the idea of a democratic country whose response to social problems was to create an entire new tradition of informing. It had been happening for some time, he told me.

Yes, my hosts further acknowledged, they were aware that anonymous reporting was a staple ingredient of some of the world's most repressive regimes. Until the Wave America flap, however, Pinkerton had received no complaints about its hotlines. Privacy and security are the company's cornerstone marketing values, Jim insisted, and it's very careful about screening and disseminating the information it receives. Pinkerton's credibility depends on it.

Basically, the Pinkerton people spouted the now-familiar rationale for behavior like this: "Hey, don't blame us. A North Carolina Task Force came up with this, got the governor's blessing, and somebody is going to run it.Why not us? We know how, and if we don't do it, somebody else will."

Fine, I countered, but what about the schools that receive these forwarded anonymous tips. What about their privacy rules? Their security? Do these reports stay in files forever, or go into computerized law enforcement agency files? Are they destroyed after a given time, especially if they prove false or unfounded? Couldn't a kid be wrongly -- and anonymously -- on file, never know it, yet find this information in government or corporate files years later? Here, the Pinkerton people just shrugged. That was the school's problem. But, I persisted, didn't they just say that schools didn't have the resources to run such programs, which is why Pinkerton was involved in the first place? More shrugs.

Reports will be carefully screened and analyzed by professionals, I was assured.Only the most serious calls, involving serious violence -- rape, assault, possible crimes with guns -- were forwarded to school officials; the rest were not passed along at all. What happened to the not-passed-along reports? Nothing; they stay within Pinkerton's secure walls. For how long? Nobody knew.

Pinkerton was unhappy with some of the media portrayal of some of WAVE America's more controversial features.

Initially, the press reported (and I passed along) that kids were being offered cash and other gifts as incentives to turn in their angry, depressed or trouble classmates. But although the site clearly did offer gifts -- a computer, CD's -- the Pinkerton execs denied that they had or would offer cash or other goodies as a direct incentive for reporting their peers.

Things get a bit murky here, as the site has been hurriedly altered and re-designed in the past week or so. Under "Fun Stuff," the web site now has a message that simply says: "Coming Soon." Clearly, gifts will be used as incentives to draw kids onto the site, and reward them for participating, even if kids can get them without reporting anyone. But Pinkerton explained, there may be marketing tie-ins with companies promoting school safety in the future. Let's see: no direct reward for turning in a classmate, but gifts and prizes encouraging kids to use a site that offers anonymous reporting. A fine line.

The execs seized somewhat obsessively on this point as an example of how the program's goals -- to promote respect and school safety, and to provide a last-resort outlet for reporting of serious crimes in a country where schools are overwhelmed, underfunded and rattled by recurring media and political hysterias -- had been distorted by people like me.

"We understand that you disagree with the program," Jim said, "but we expect you to be responsible and accurate." Fair enough. But I pointed out repeatedly that the goodie give-aways were incidental, never the main issue.

The central question, I argued, was that the Net culture included, even embraced, kids who are brainy, individualistic, sometimes-alienated and rebellious, and often outside the norm in their values, attitudes and behavior. These kids suffer enormously at the hands of hostile peers, unknowing teachers, clueless parents, journalists and politicians. It's hard to imagine how WAVE America would benefit them in any way, but simple to foresee how it might still provide another forum in which they'd be branded -- anonymously, no less -- dangerous.

Pinkerton conceded that the "symptoms" of dangerous behavior its site had listed earlier were too vague. These initial "early signs of violence" included: Suddenly has bad grades or little interest in school; Expresses uncontrolled anger; Has excessive feelings of isolation and/or rejection; Is easily angered by minor things. Dawn and Shannon showed me their new, improved criteria, still under consideration and design and not yet up on the Web site. These new "warning signs," says Pinkerton, were provided by the American Psychological Association.

"If you see these immediate warning signs," WAVE America will announce, "violence is a serious possibility":

• loss of temper on a daily basis
• frequent physical fighting
• significant vandalism or property damage
• increase in use of drugs or alchohol
• increasing risk-taking behavior
• detailed plans to commit acts of violence.
• announcing threats or plans for hurting others
• enjoying hurting animals
• carrying a weapon

My response was that these symptoms were still awfully vague, and in any case that school kids weren't psychologists and shouldn't be asked to evaulate their peers emotional lives, or to try and differentiate between transitional depression or alienation and being potentially violent. What kind of risk-taking behavior? Agressive skateboarding? I still didn't understand why these weren't school or parental problems, rather than Pinkerton ones, or why the monitoring of emotional disturbance was being handed off to children. I still believed it was offensive and disturbing to put schoolkids in the position of anonymously turning in their classmates, enemies, and friends to an anonymous hotline run by a profit-making corporation with a vested interest -- and a classic conflict-of-interest -- in promoting the notion that schools were dangerous. This didn't promote safety, it subverted responsibility and democracy.

Besides, I added, many knowledgeable Constitutional scholars believe that the Supreme Court will eventually overturn police or other administrative actions based solely on anonymous reporting of crimes or potential crimes without supporting evidence. Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court overturned the arrest of a Florida man who was searched because of an anonymous tip and found to have a gun. This, the court said, violated Fourth Amendment strictures against unreasonable search and seizure; the police needed evidence beyond an anonymous report. Though kids are stripped of Constitutional rights in most American schools, it's hard to believe courts will ultimately uphold educational or police actions taken on the basis of anonymous calls. If they do, though, Pinkerton and its Web site will have succeeded in undermining a fundamental freedom.

The Pinkerton people did say they'd consider refining their "symptoms" still further. And they made the inevitable co-opting gesture: Would I be interested in working with Pinkertons on WAVE America, or in writing for the site? Would Rob Malda perhaps like to contribute something? I said "No" on my behalf, and giggled a bit at the idea of Cmdr Taco or his partner in crime, Hemos, as columnists for WAVE America. But if the site were going forward, I suggested, Pinkerton could at least set-up an e-mail account to receive and consider feedback from people involved in the issue. It might even consider assembling some sort of advisory panel to help safeguard the interests of the kids it affects.

I found WAVE America too exploitive, offensive and disturbing to participate in, but others can make their own decisions.

Still, I left the meeting discouraged by the spectre of a country where the emotional welfare of schoolkids, and the potential violence that emotionally disturbed kids might wreak, seem to have been turned over to profit-making security corporations rather than to teachers, guidance counselors, therapists, and parents. The Task Force in North Carolina that came up with this dunderheaded response to a complex social problem is the first candidate that should be reported on that hotline.

Last Sunday, nearly a year after the Columbine massacre, the New York Times finally got around to publishing an exhaustive look at "Rampage Killers." The paper profiled 102 killers in 100 rampage attacks in a computer-assisted study looking back more than 50 years and including the shootings at Littleton in l999. Four hundred and twenty-five people were killed and 510 people were injured in the attacks. The newspaper found -- and convincingly detailed -- what should have been obvious from the first. The most common thread in these horrific sprees isn't media, technology or culture, but mental illness: at least half of the killers shown signs of seriousl mental health problems. Also this week, the National Association of Attorneys General reported that the most important factor in preventing youth violence was a "stable, loving home." The group also reported numerous instances of bullying and harassment of schoolkids all across America because students wore unusual clothing or were taller, shorter or heavier than other kids. This rare outburst of sanity was almost completely ignored by the mainstream media. But since unstable and unloving parents have now been identified as a child safety issue, perhaps we need a new anonymous hotline so that kids can turn in their unstable or unloving moms and dads -- or their neighbor's mom and dad -- along with the angry classmate in the next row. It would seem to follow. And it would seem inevitable.

The Times' series is detailed and impressive. But it comes after years of hysterical media reporting linking violence among the young to pop culture and new media technologies -- TV, movies, computer gaming, the Net. More than 80% of all Americans, reported the Washington Post last year, believed the Internet was at least partly responsible for the killings at Columbine. The very idea that programs like WAVE America will alter this horrific reality is itself a mental health problem.

Was the trip worth it? I don't honestly know. I appreciated the Pinkerton people meeting with me, though it didn't cost them anything, other than a few hours and some sandwiches. (Slashdot paid my traveling expenses.) I made some points directly to the people who needed to hear it. They are well aware that thousands of people are watching them; that's a strong stimulus to behave. They're tightening up vague criteria and dropping the idea of of rewarding tipsters with cash, gifts or caps. They seemed to understand that abuse of the different is a safety issue, along with guns and assaults.

But the meeting also reinforced my growing belief that corporations like Pinkerton are inherently amoral. I'm sure their workers are kind to their spouses, pets and kids. But the Pinkerton people don't see morality as their concern, which, in a sane society, might be one reason not to turn issues like school safety and violence among the young over to private corporations. Theirs is a simple equation, a statement right from the contemporary corporatist heart: they perceive a profitable opportunity in the security market, one created not by them but by irresponsible journalists, lazy educators and exploitive politicians. Someone will fill it. Might as well be them.

Sunday, I received this e-mail from the head of Pinkerton's WAVE America Web Development team:

"Jon,

It was very nice to meet you in person the other day. From that meeting we have made several changes to the WAVE website. The changes include clarifying that there are no prizes, cash, or other rewards for submitting a report via the website or phone. We also made clear that only reports which contain safety concerns should be submitted to WAVE. Our privacy policy, while not yet in it's final form, is much more complete now than the last time you saw it.

While here, you also suggested we get some input from the readers of slashdot to help us with the WAVE project. If you would be so kind, please include the email address [suggestions@waveamerica.com] in your article. We hope the WAVE website will be used not only as a tool to aid in preventing school violence, but also as an educational hub where students, teachers and parents can go to collaborate. Any suggestions or constructive criticism about how to make the website better would be greatly appreciated.

The WAVE website is now, and probably always will be, a work in progress. We hope that with the help and suggestions of you and your readers, we will be able to build a website that will empower the students and give them a voice.

I know that you didn't agree with everything about the WAVE project, but hopefully when you left here, you were able to see that this isn't a "big brother" program, but rather an educational program that hopes to prevent school violence by teaching Resolve, Respect, and Responsibility."

ContinuousPark writes "The NY Times has an article on Esther Dyson's difficulties heading ICANN, some of them deriving with her inability to do politics, a much needed thing when you have individual and civil interests on one side and huge commercial ones on the other. Although the article praises her enormous intellectual capacity, it also has EFF's Mike Godwin saying: 'I think that there is a dimension of being a political being that involves going out and getting hands on and dealing with individuals. I don't think she is terribly comfortable with that. I think she is democratic in principle but not entirely democratic in practice.' Is Dyson recklessly ignoring politics or is she maybe redefining them?"

Gentleman Goat writes: "The NY Times has a well-written article exploring the recent court decision about Deep Linking in closer detail. " Free registration required. This one goes deeper and talks about Web crawling bots and other issues related to deep linking. Honestly I think the spider problem is a separate issue. I think people should be able to say, "Please don't spider this page" (robots.txt for example, but it gets stickier with copyrighted content) but I don't think anyone should ever be able to say, "You may not link this page" since that is fundamentally the anti-point of the Web. Check out the ruling from Japan that linking, in some cases, is illegal.

fremen was among the first to write with this news: "Yahoo is reporting the end of the mediation talks with Microsoft. Richard Posner has declared the discussions to be at an impasse, and the disagreements to be "too deep-seated to be bridged." The story can be found here." This is not an April Fools joke. Watch this space; we will update this story as more details become available. The outcome may be more dramatic than the strong hints of settlement had suggested. Updated 3:15GMT by timothy: Here's a more detailed article from The New York Times helpfully sent in by reader GenetixSW.

treble writes, "Of course the military has had these playthings for ages, but The New York Times is running an AP story about a Japanese 'Compact Copter' for general consumption. It's become my newest wish-I-could-afford-it toy. The coolest things of note: No license required in the U.S., and top speed of 60 mph. Imagine a swarm of these things rising in the air for rush hour commute." All I can say is that the traffic jams would be ... interesting.

Quite a number of people have written in about today's business section headline in the New York Times: IBM Goes Counterculture with Linux . Beyond just a good title, it delves into the increasing pairing of IBM and Linux as well as some of the history behind it. The article also talks about the commitment from the top levels in IBM - from Louis Gerstner down. The other interesting aspect is IBM's recognition that Linux is a way for them to regain some of the ground that they have lost to Sun and Microsoft.

cfanjul writes: "IBM seems to be helping nanotech's slow march to end products with magnetic particles that can be made into a storage device with ten times the density of some of today's drives."

Geographic screening -- the restriction of Net access by geography -- is the latest nightmare stemming from the culture wars launched by the music and movie industries against a free Internet. This time the firewalls aren't coming from the People's Republic of China, but out of Canada. Read more.

In February, after two months of operation, the Canadian Net company iCraveTV.com shut down after being sued by the Motion Picture Association of America, the same freedom-loving folks who had a Norwegian teenager thrown in jail a few months ago for distributing DVD decryption codes.

iCraveTV's business -- legal in Canada but not in the United States -- was the redistribution of live broadcast television programming over its Web site. The MPAA sued iCraveTV in federal court because U.S. copyright laws proscribe redistribution of TV programming without first obtaining permission from the programs' owners. The MPAA suit, similar to those being filed all over the country by music industry representatives, claimed that computer users in the U.S. could circumvent iCraveTV's simple access barriers to non-Canadians.

If the company hadn't halted operations instantly, it might have been liable for hundreds of millions in damages under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, passed quietly 16 months ago and signed quickly by President Clinton. The DMCA is turning out to be the most potent weapon ever against the free spread of cultural artifacts like movies and music.

What was particularly significant though, was less the MPAA's lawsuit than iCrave's response. iCrave didn't argue the legal merits of the suit, according to Denise Caruso, writing in Monday's New York Times . Instead, the company responded by filing a series of patent claims for what it says is a new technology that could significantly affect the copyright skirmishes breaking out all over the Internet. The companies and organizations claim that they are only seeking to halt the theft and piracy of cultural properties like music and movies. Whatever their intentions, their actions threaten to permanently alter the nature of the Net itself, until now the freest culture in the information spectrum.

The company says it has developed what it calls a technological protection mechanism that locates where its customers are, permitting the site to bar anyone from viewing protected programming outside Canada. The company refused to disclose any of the technical details of this program, but Icrave President and co-founder William Craig said this new "enhanced geographic screening technology" would soon be necessary to make the Net appealing and safe for copyright holders.

"Collectively, the Internet has to evolve and adapt," Craig told the Times. "So what we're trying to do is create 'country-area-networks'where you can have a computer just serve a certain territory."

If this kind of software works and spreads, it presents a laundry list of ugly implications for the Net. This intentionally fragmented model of entertainment and content distribution -- think movie theaters, video chains and cable TV -- would transform the Net into the exact business model that has made so much money for the the entertainment industry, which is estimated to have earned more than $75 billion in revenues in l999.

Ironically, government interventions have had little effect on the free-wheeling nature and growth of the Net, but it's taken global corporations just a few short months to raise more disturbing legal, copyright and patent issues about cyberspace than had been raised in the preceding generation.

The DMCA of l998, which was passed after intense lobbying by entertainment industries (Disney, AOL/Time-Warner), has as its centerpiece an anti-circumvention provision, a new kind of liability aimed directly at information software, and which clamps down even on activities previously permitted by "fair use" provisions.

In copyright terms, "fair use" describes conditions under which someone can legally use or excerpt a copyrighted work. These might include referring to a copyrighted work but not quoting from it, using a small enough portion of a copyright work that it's considered "fair," or copying work you own.

But under the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions, it is now illegal to violate copyright protection technology for any reason at all. Under the law, anyone who makes, sells or uses a device -- software, hardware, or a computer -- that makes copyright circumvention possible is engaging in a criminal act. This is the reason downloading free music and sharing Napster sites had been curtailed on college campuses in recent weeks. Schools are receiving warning letters from the RIAA (the music industry association) threatening legal action under the DMCA that would hold them liable for any and all copyright infringements if they don't take steps to eliminate the transmission of copyrighted material on networks they control.

It was the anti-circumvention provision of the DMCA that resulted in the arrest of 16-year-old Jon Johansen, a Norwegian teenager who had allegedly published code allowing the circumvention of the encryption found in DVDs, even though he wasn't intending to make illegal copies. He simply wanted to watch a movie which he owned legally but couldn't watch on his Linux laptop. Thus he was prosecuted not for pirating digital content, but rather for publishing and distributing the code that made it possible for him to view the film contained on a disk he already owned. That's an escalation of the culture wars, to say the least.

And it's not the last. "I think we want to nail them to the wall now," Jack Valenti, the president of the Motion Picture Association, told reporters when the iCraveTV.com suit was filed.

The fact is, there is hardly a person reading this who isn't a criminal under the provisions of the DMCA, including me.

There are plenty of disturbing elements to the recent assaults by the movie and music industries on the cultural infrastructure of the Net, but the elimination of any kind of "fair use" -- any circumstance at all in which the making of a copy might be considered legal -- is a huge legal victory for the corporations seeking to dominate cyberspace by breaking the Net and Web into marketing territories.

If iCrave succeeds in developing, patenting and distributing technology that permits geographic screening, the Net could become a Balkanized culture, with access restricted by technologically and legally enforced roadblocks, and by geographical restrictions to content and access. The Net and its protocols were designed to be free, and this freedom has resulted in one of the greatest creative, technological and cultural outpourings in human history. For a handful of greedy corporations to turn the Net into a digital Wal-Mart is unthinkable. It is also, for the first time, not a completely impossible notion.

zeroth writes, "According to an article in the New York Times (yes, free registration), "Representative Bob Franks called today for passage of state and federal legislation that would require schools and public libraries to equip computers to filter out sexually explicit material on the Internet, or lose some of their aid." As a resident, I call upon other NJ residents to share their views with Franks and their local representatives. Contact information can be found at The New Jersey Infobank." This is actually sort of funny; local resident Beth Spader, quoted as saying "My son's mind was molested by cyberpornography at the library", was quoted a year ago in another New Jersey censorship attempt saying, guess what, "my son's mind was molested by cyberpornography in the Library." Obviously there have been no new "cyberpornography molestations" in the past year, and the same old boogie-man keeps being trotted out.

zeroth writes, "According to an article in the New York Times (yes, free registration), "Representative Bob Franks called today for passage of state and federal legislation that would require schools and public libraries to equip computers to filter out sexually explicit material on the Internet, or lose some of their aid." As a resident, I call upon other NJ residents to share their views with Franks and their local representatives. Contact information can be found at The New Jersey Infobank." This is actually sort of funny; local resident Beth Spader, quoted as saying "My son's mind was molested by cyberpornography at the library", was quoted a year ago in another New Jersey censorship attempt saying, guess what, "my son's mind was molested by cyberpornography in the Library." Obviously there have been no new "cyberpornography molestations" in the past year, and the same old boogie-man keeps being trotted out.

Trilliumjs wrote to us about a NYTimes article concering some of the latest moves from the FCC. The FCC wants to turn some of the unused airwaves into an open market so that companies can pick up bandwidth as needed.

The NYTimes is running a good recap of the iCraveTV situation. The U.S. broadcast industry shut down the operation because it redistributed programming over the internet... to U.S. citizens (assuming you could figure out a Canadian area code to enter into their website). Discusses the Digital Millennium Copyright Act extensively.

haase writes: "James Gleick has written a thoughtful and compelling piece on software patents for the New York Times magazine. This would be a good piece to send to your representatives. You can read it at the NY Times Web site. (Registration required.) "

iKev writes: "Today's Globe and Mail has an interesting story on China's attempt to restrict Internet content available to its citizens. It seems that The New York Times is on the list of 'politically sensitive' sites, but all other U.S. papers are not. ... Porn, however, is free for all 1.3 billion people to view. Go figure. I wonder what kind of setup they have running this firewall." "Firewall" is the wrong term for blocking political content, but the pun's too good to resist I guess. If anyone has details on the software, please post your comments below or emailme.

ICANN has been in the news quite a bit recently. Although new TLD's have been in the works for more than five years now, ICANN has given in to the lobbying of its patron mega-corps and stated that no new TLD's would be created unless trademark holders got first dibs on them. So much for a personal TLD exempt from trademark considerations... ICANN is currently pushing its At-Large Membership, which everyone should join, even though the system has been carefully rigged so that the public cannot make meaningful changes in the composition of ICANN's Board. All these and more will be discussed in their Cairo meeting, which will be Webcast starting 2 a.m. EST on March 8.

For years, Old Media dismissed electronic competitors as frivolous and temporal. Then New Media appeared to be burying its predecessors for good. It appears both notions may have been wrong. The boundaries between new and old media are getting fuzzy, as a hybrid Middle Media emerges between the two. (Read more.)

Since the rise of electronic media like TV and the Net, the idea of New and Old media has become entrenched in the culture. Conventional wisdom says that the former will ultimately and completely replace the latter.

That doesn't seem to be happening, though interactive media are ascending rapidly, and the influence and monopoly of traditional media have diminished. But there are signs all over of a new, hybrid, and probably permanent Middle Media.

Old media are generally defined as newspapers, magazines, publishing and network TV, controlled by small groups of gatekeepers who make decisions about what's news and what's not. New media, by contrast, are interactive, with choices made by their consumers, and they're digitally or electronically transmitted. In general, they are much freer and more opinionated.

But technology and the way people use it is so inherently unpredictable that that rigid distinctions between the two are becoming less useful each day. Most "old" media now have "new" appendages, adjuncts and outlets, especially on the Web. And the people using new media still acquire information and use culture in traditional forms - they go to megaplexes, read magazines, follow books.

The idea of "new" or "old" media may not hold too much longer, just Middle Media that combine elements of both, giving information-seekers many more options.

One small but telling example was reported in American Demographic magazine's March issue, which reported that dot.com companies - Garden.com, Wine.com, Tavolo.com and jewelry retailer Miadora.com, among others -- are successfully experimenting with print catalogues. People buy online, but they want to see some paper and pictures first.

"There's something about flipping through a catalog that can't be replaced by the online experience," says Rich Fazekas, research director at W.A. Dean & Associates, a San Francisco catalog consulting firm that's just completed an informal study of e-commerce players launching catalogs. "If [e-tailers] want to grow as a sales channel, catalogs can be a vital part of their business."

Another indication of an emerging Middle Media is the fact that the journalistic move from paper to e-news has gone from a trickle to a flood. Reporters are leaving newsrooms all over the country to work for online information sites. These reporters, leaving papers like the Wall Street Journal and New York Times and smaller papers in chains like Gannett, are bringing traditional journalistic sensibilities to e-news, which until now has been much more free and raucous than the offline press.

Just a few years ago, most retailers thought catalogs would disappear as consumers browsed through graphically - advanced online displays.

The rise in catalogs in conjunction with dot.coms is interesting because it demonstrates again that people are often less absolute in their technological choices than the techno-pundits and seers predict.

The music industry is hysterical about online music distribution, but there is little or no evidence that their "property" is being hi-jacked en masse by digital thieves. Last week, the industry announced it earned a record $14+ billion in l999. Some newspapers - USA Today, the New York Times, the Washington Post - are belatedly realizing that the Net doesn't necessarily replace them, but can often offer new venues for breaking news, new vehicles for identifying and acquiring subscribers, and can generally promote interest in their existing formats. They may no longer hold monopolies on news and information, but they still have a significant slice of the pie.

In a Slashdot discussion last week about the future of newspapers, it was obvious that many people here, for example, valued print news in certain circumstances, particularly if papers would offer more focused and in-depth information on subjects like technology and culture, as well as local news.

Publishers approaching meltdown about the future of books can visit any Borders or Barnes & Noble, where salespeople constantly suggest that customers find books online, and where it's also clear that people aren't even close to giving up reading words on paper even if they also read words on computer screens. Although online book sales are growing on sites like Fatbrain, Amazon and BN.com, so are the sales of books in stores. The technological absolutism invoked by the rise of the Net - everything will go digital - is not coming to pass.

Certain information formats can offer a sensual, contextual appeal that's impossible to quantify, and was not predicted. Consumers have fiercely resisted getting newspapers or books via digitized tablets. Convenience and speed are critical measures, but not the only ones. People enjoy browsing through catalogs they can see and hold, it seems, rather than simply buying everything online. They cling to the experience of congregating at malls and in bookstores, even when many of the items sold there are readily available on the Net and the Web. Movie admissions were up sharply last year, along with music revenues, and chain bookstores made huge profits.

The symbiotic boom in catalogs and online shopping may foreshadow the way future media will work. Media may not, in fact, be old-fashioned or new-fangled, but co-dependent. E-news and information can feed off print news and information, one stimulating interest in the other.

And the form of media might vary in terms of content as well. Information about politics, for example, might always be centered around print publications -- a handful of newspapers and magazines -- which are to many people better vehicles for presenting complex issues. Music distribution seems sure to move almost completely onto the Web, along with elements of radio and TV. But even though DVDs are booming, it seems unlikely people will forego the experience of going to theaters, which are also booming. Breaking news is clearly moving exclusively to e-media, as it is fast and tailor-made for hypertext.

Other kinds of coverage -- pop culture, health, investigative reporting, strong writing -- might always remain popular to consumers on paper.

Even though that pattern seems to be emerging, the truth is, nobody knows for sure. Interactivity has become one of the most powerful ideas in media history, no longer a fad but an expectation. As much as gatekeepers, politicians and journalists hate it, it isn't going away.

People expect to contribute to and participate in their information media, and to hold pundits, columnists and other information-givers accountable for what they report, think and write.

But as Garden.com's sweet-smelling catalogs show, the boundaries between old and new media are getting tougher to find. What is visible is a new and hybrid information structure, a new media species all its own.

This week's New York Times Cyber Law Journal is an interesting look at whether the courts can effectively resolve questions about technology when the facts change "in internet time." If the Microsoft ruling is appealed, the earliest the Supreme Court would hear it is in 2002 - geez. We need artificial intelligence attorneys written in C. Then the first thing we do is kill-HUP all the lawyers.

BigDaddyJ writes, "The Holland, Mich. library ruling was mentioned in Thursday's NY Times. Check it out here (as always, username/password required). Too bad you guys weren't mentioned... "

Maybe Peacefire's timing is bad. Two courts have recently said that the reverse-engineered DeCSS program is illegal to publish in the United States, and UCITA gets closer every second. Yet Peacefire today released a program that reverse-engineers the encryption on a list of sites blocked by a major censorware product. Maybe T-shirts that say 'X-Stop has a 68% error rate for blocking student homepages' will get classified as munitions next. Bennett Haselton shares his thoughts (below) on corporate crypto.

Bennett Haselton is the founder and head of Peacefire, an activist group to support the free-speech rights of young people. He suggests that you might want to download the X-Stop "smoking gun" evidence (4MB) before the company has a chance to remove it from their server.

The feature below was written by Mr.Haselton.

X-Stop is an Internet censoring program with an encrypted database of 370,000 URL's blocked under various categories: Sex, Drugs, Rock `n' Roll, etc. Their competitors like SurfWatch and Cyber Patrol also do not publish their blocked site lists; the officially given reason is to keep kids from using the lists to find smut on the Internet. This is silly, given how easy it is to find Internet porn without the aid of X-Stop's secret database (although if you still want to, you can download our codebreaker, follow the instructions to get the X-Stop list and decrypt it, and help yourself). But for the next part of our report, after we decoded the URL list, we looked at the first 50 URL's in the .edu domain that were still valid, and found that 34 of them were regular student home pages with nothing offensive (hence the "68% error rate" t-shirt slogan). None of those 34 students who responded to our e-mails could think of why X-Stop would want to block their pages.

X-Stop admits on their Web site that their database is put together by a Web spider called "Mudcrawler" and not by human reviewers, but even for a machine, a 68% error rate is pretty bad. And even though the real reason why these lists are encrypted is obviously to keep competitors from stealing them, this also makes it much harder for third parties to find out what the programs really block. In fact, X-Stop had once claimed that every URL on their list was reviewed by a human before getting blocked, but cyber lawyer Jonathan Wallace called them on it when he published "The X-Stop Files" in 1997, asking why X-Stop blocked several sites like the Quakers home page, the AIDS Quilt, and parts of Jonathan's own e-zine, The Ethical Spectacle. Peacefire also put up a page in 1998 about sites blocked by X-Stop, including an affirmative action site and a blind children's hospital. But these examples were all found through trial and error; today is the first day that the entire list of URL's has been made public. And to determine the 68% figure, it was necessary to have a copy of the entire list, so that the first 50 blocked sites could be used as a random sample.

So far, this is more or less the same story that took place in 1997 with another blocking program, CYBERsitter, right down to Jonathan Wallace posting a page about CYBERsitter and getting his site blocked. First, several people posted articles criticizing CYBERsitter's policies, and slowly CYBERsitter's public image deteriorated as word got out that they were blocking sites which criticized their company (even Time magazine got blocked, and then posted an article about how they found themselves on CYBERsitter's list). Then in April 1997, Peacefire released a program that broke the encryption on CYBERsitter's list of blocked URL's. CYBERsitter sent Peacefire a threatening letter demanding that we take down the program and remove all of our links to CYBERsitter's Web page. Jim Tyre, a volunteer lawyer and future founding member of the Censorware Project, sent CYBERsitter a reply telling them they had no case, and we never heard from them again. But UCITA, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and the two court injunctions against the right to post DeCSS, didn't exist in 1997. If we had released the CYBERsitter codebreaker today, would CYBERsitter actually file a lawsuit?

The outcome of the DeCSS court cases could, in fact, determine the rights of a private citizen to embarrass a big software company by reverse engineering their products and catching them in a lie. It's easy to forget the importance of legal protection for reverse engineering, because sometimes public opinion is enough: RealNetworks never sued Richard Smith when he revealed that copies of RealPlayer included a "globally unique identifier" to track user's listening habits, and Microsoft never sued Andrew Schulman when he discovered that Windows 3.1 threw up fake error messages about DR-DOS. These were large companies that would have been crucified if they had tried to sue someone for discovering something that the public thought they had a right to know anyway. But legal protections are still important, because sometimes public opinion isn't enough - when the software company doesn't have much of an online reputation to worry about, or when then they have a reputation but they don't care about it.

The RIAA, with their campaigns against MP3 technology and reverse-engineering SDMI, is an example of an organization that doesn't care about their online image - and why should they, since we all download our music for free anyway. CYBERsitter is another good example - they do care about their reputation, but in 1997 their image was that of a children's guardian angel and an ally in fighting government censorship, almost immune to criticism. It took an enormous amount of bad press - letters from CYBERsitter's CEO threatening ISP's and flaming people in general, and at one point actually mail-bombing a lady who sent them a complaint - before even advocates of blocking software started distancing themselves from the company. Even today, CYBERsitter's public image is fairly rosy, and their campaigns of legal harassment hardly affected their reputation at all. (What had you heard about CYBERsitter before you read this article?) It's hard to imagine Microsoft, for example, filing a similar lawsuit without embarrassing themselves and turning their intended target into a martyr. The real threat to "reverse engineering for the public good" is from medium-sized companies, small enough that not everything they do will get in the news, but still big enough to afford lots of lawyers.

This threat affects not just programmers, but even journalists who get anonymous tip-offs - like Brock Meeks and Declan McCullagh, who were threatened with an FBI investigation by CYBERsitter in 1996, after they published their "Keys to the Kingdom" article about sites that CYBERsitter and other "censorware" programs blocked. The part of the article that got them in so much trouble was this excerpt from CYBERsitter's bad- word file:

[up][the,his,her,your,my][ass,cunt,twat][,hole]
[wild,wet,net,cyber,have,making,having,getting,giving,phone][sex...]
[,up][the,his,her,your,my][butt,cunt,pussy,asshole,rectum,anus]
[,suck,lick][the,his,her,your,my][cock,dong,dick,penis,hard on...]
[gay,queer,bisexual][male,men,boy,group,rights,community,activities...]
[gay,queer,homosexual,lesbian,bisexual][society,culture]
[you][are][,a,an,too,to][stupid,dumb,ugly,fat,idiot,ass,fag,dolt,dummy]

If this now counts as a "trade secret" under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, then our list of the 50 .edu sites blocked by X-Stop - and the study that found the 68% error rate - could be declared illegal. And under UCITA, CYBERsitter could even claim the enforceability of these excerpts from their license agreement:

Reverse Engineering Prohibited
Unauthorized reverse engineering of the Software, whether for edcucational, fair use, or other reason is expressly forbidden. For the purposes of this license the term "reverse engineering" shall apply to any and all information obtained by such methods as decompiling, decrypting, trial and error, or activity logging.

Non-Disclosure
Unauthorized disclosure of CYBERsitter operational details, hacks, work around methods, blocked sites, and blocked words or phrases are expressly prohibited.

So any CYBERsitter user who even discusses what the program blocks, would be in violation. Not that CYBERsitter would enforce this against everybody, but they probably would have liked to enforce it against Brock and Declan.

At this point, we don't know how X-Stop will respond to our report. But we do know that for all of their bluster, CYBERsitter never actually sued Brock, Declan or Peacefire. Given that CYBERsitter pursued the matter for months (and the fact that Brock and Declan had actual money), if CYBERsitter gave up, it's because they had no case. If the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, UCITA, or the DVD court rulings change that situation, then it will become much harder to criticize blocking software - or any kind of software - except for the user interface and other things that users can "see" without looking under the hood.

plaXion writes, "California's Transmeta Corp said on Monday Taiwan's key computer manufacturing industry was already adopting one of its new chips as a de facto industry standard for new mobile 'Web pads.'" It's a New York Times story, free registration required to read.

Last week, I gave a presentation on SurfWatch, and blocking software in general, in downtown Holland, Mich. Preparing for it was an interesting experience, mostly in annoyance, hard work, and dealing with getting seriously sick two days before. Read on for the story of recovering, preparing, talking, giving away $100, a bolt of lightning, and why nothing anyone does is going to stop fundamentalists from bringing issues like this to America's ballots.

I'm not a public speaker, and I hadn't stood before an audience in quite a while. The feedback I'd gotten from my first presentation on SurfWatch was that I talked too fast and too much. At the time, I'd wanted to communicate as much as possible of what the Censorware Project had learned over the last two years, in a half hour. An impossible task, and I shouldn't have tried.

But I felt I could do better, so I wanted to try again. That's the effort that ended up becoming Thursday's presentation.

My main problem is that the subject is complicated. Many computer professionals have this problem when trying to communicate computer-related ideas to nonprofessionals. If these things were simple, we wouldn't need computers. But trying to get across too much information in a half hour didn't work.

The other thing I'd tried that didn't work was borrowing the computers of the Family Research Council. The FRC had two computers set up, one filtered and one not, run by two volunteers. I'd thought it would be a clever coup to use their own computers to show their software failing.

But it wasn't impressive for one reason: when I showed an innocent Web site blocked, all that showed up was the "Blocked by SurfWatch" screen. I was using the FRC's filtered computer and their other one was turned off. Nobody had any idea that valuable information was being blocked, except me.

Kind of the way the censorship works in the library. But not an effective demo.

For my second go at it, I rented a ballroom in downtown Holland, advertised it in the paper, and brought my own computers. I purchased SurfWatch and installed it on one of them. And I spent some time thinking over which issues were important enough to hit and which were just too technical to mention.

Setting up was great fun, if by "fun" I mean wrestling with a network under a deadline. The 10baseT jack didn't seem to be connected, one of the extension cords didn't work, a projector wouldn't turn on, and finally I was faced with Windows' endless dialog boxes of options just to use DHCP. But it all worked out with time to spare.

I began my talk by explaining out why I was there and why blocking software was wrong. Currently, Holland's opposition to the software is being waged largely on political issues: chiefly, the fact that three-fourths of library taxpayers cannot vote on the ballot. To many, what the blocking software actually does is a non-issue.

But these are mere procedural concerns. Every community is going to have to face the core problem squarely, sooner or later; it might as well be now. So I began my talk by laying out, from the beginning, my belief that blocking software inherently violates the First Amendment.

After talking about some of the myths put forth in the community's debate, my next step was to display some pornography on the big screens. The local Family Research Council has been trotting out a presentation that focuses on some of the most graphic stuff available on the web: bestiality, fisting, etc. I'd decided to try not offending my audience quite as much. I chose some milder Web pages, mostly softcore, though several of the sites I chose also contained harder material.

And, of course, unlike the Family Research Council's, my demonstration showed the pornography appearing on both screens: filtered and un-.

I think I'll not reveal here which porn sites I showed. I want to see how long SurfWatch goes without finding them. So far it's been about two weeks, but of course revealing them here would get them blocked immediately for PR purposes.

I will say that I chose six sites that all begin with the letter "A". This was to make the point that there is plenty of unblocked pornography - there being 25 other letters in the alphabet. As if to make my point, a Tennessee paper ran that same day a story about a schoolteacher who was fired for accessing over a hundred porn sites - right through the school's "filter."

After all, if the software fails only a tiny fraction of the time, it still allows through - dozens? hundreds? thousands? - of porn sites. How many porn sites does the average person need? What's the point in blocking 99% of it, if the remaining sites are more than enough to keep anyone busy?

The next step in my talk was the flip side: showing protected Web pages unfairly blocked. Finding a plethora of wrongly-blocked pages was easy. SurfWatch uses URL keyword blocking, so, for example, the complete text of the classic book Of Human Bondage is blocked because of "bondage" in the URL. The hard part was narrowing the list down to 10 to demonstrate.

(If you're interested, here are the ten blocked pages I used: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.)

Next, I pointed out that these sorts of errors were not often corrected. What data there is suggests that most errors go unfixed. In our analysis of Web logs in the State of Utah, we found about 300 wrongly blocked sites, of which only six were overridden. Also, in the Family Research Council's $7,000 canned demo, they tried to show how easy it was to fix errors by unblocking The Onion. Since they couldn't even do their prepared site correctly (they left graphics.theonion.com blocked), how could the staff be expected to do the job on real sites, in a busy library?

I explained that the errors I'd found were intrinsic to blocking software, because of the growth of the Web. In my first talk, I spent 10 minutes talking about exponential growth; this time, I just gave the impressive figure that, during just the course of my talk, a million Web pages were created or changed. Much quicker and I'm sure it made the same point.

There seemed to be concern, in Holland, that pornography just "popsup" at any time, for no reason. I debunked that myth by pointing out that typos almost never lead to offensive Web sites. I read this quote from the Supreme Court's ruling on the Communications Decency Act, where they affirmed a lower court's conclusions:

"Communications over the Internet do not 'invade' an individual's home or appear on one's computer screen unbidden. Users seldom encounter content 'by accident.' ... Almost all sexually explicit images are preceded by warnings as to the content. Even the Government's witness ... testified that the 'odds are slim' that a user would come across a sexually explicit site by accident."

All the incidents of "verified pornography" in the Holland press seem to boil down to the same two cases over and over. In the first, a woman was reading Hotmail and, when she was done, closed the browser window. Behind it was porn that another user had left up as a prank.

There are programs that can be run between users' sessions to shut down Netscape and clear its history - my local library is using one with much success - so blocking software isn't necessary to solve this problem. I've explained this to the woman, but she continues to use her incident as an argument for blocking software.

The second incident involved a teenage girl. It seems she was at the library computer and stumbled across naked women purely by accident while doing an innocent search for chocolate chip cookie recipes. Interestingly, she didn't report this to her mother, apparently out of embarrassment, until weeks later. I'd like to speak with her as well but the local pro-filtering groups refuse to put her in touch with me.

I haven't been able to replicate this event, and neither have other people who have tried. And I know a lot about search engines. Now, I'm not saying it didn't happen. Maybe it was a misunderstanding.

What I did in my speech was hold up a $100 bill and offer it to the first person who could show me how it was done. I'll make the same offer to Slashdot readers. Let's see whether this is an urban legend or not. See the bottom of this story for the rules.

I spoke briefly about the legal issues. The Holland area has been hearing suggestions that it will be legally safer to use blocking software. In fact, though the case law is by no means definitive, the experiences of Livermore and Loudoun point toward the opposite conclusion.

Next was the fun part, where I brought up some quotes from the two organizations pushing filters in Holland to illustrate the folly of relying on unaccountable third parties for censorship. In a 1996 legal brief, the Family Research Council had mentioned Cyber Patrol by name as a product that families and libraries "should make use of." But just two years later, in a bulletin called "Filtering Out Decency," they were warning parents away from using the same software.

Why? Because Cyber Patrol had stuck to its guidelines for what constituted hate speech. They had reviewed the American Family Association, the other organization pushing filters in Holland, and found them to be espousing intolerance of homosexuals. The entire AFA site now found itself censored, by the same type of software it had been pushing. In a bulletin called "Filtering Out Morality," the AFA warned parents to think twice before using any blocking software:

"In a secularist culture, both filtering software and federal regulations may well be used to filter out Christianity along with other undesirable elements.

"Another kind of software simply informs parents what sites their children have visited. Instead of making it impossible for children to see certain sites, this approach puts parental discipline at the center. Children, realizing that their parents are looking over their shoulders, are thus taught to internalize the restraints and to develop a conscience of their own.

"As Christians get involved in these debates - before they get filtered altogether - they should keep in mind the warning of the great Puritan poet John Milton ... 'If it come to prohibiting, there is not aught more likely to be prohibited than truth itself.'"

Teaching children to develop a moral conscience of their own? There's a radical idea. Why did it take censorship backfiring before anyone thought of that?

I wrapped things up by talking for a bit about the importance of teaching these moral lessons to children. The children of today are growing up in the 21st century. The Internet will be available to them on every street corner and desk, and mostly unfiltered. What they need is not a temporary and leaky set of blinders strapped on. They need to be given an ethical foundation and the self-reliance to make good decisions about their own lives.

Somewhere in there I called up the AFA's Web site and showed that their discussion about pornography was blocked by SurfWatch as if it were pornography. That got a chuckle from the audience and made the point: it isn't just one product that backfires. The very product that has been pushed in their community blocks the very organization that has spent $35,000 pushing it.

As I wrote in an earlier article, I'm not sure any of this will make any difference to most people. For most, the issue is and will always be pornography: to be against pornography is to support filters.

And the opposition to sexually explicit material is, at heart, an emotional one. It's a primal one. Sex and fear are two of the gut instincts that we humans carry with us from our earliest days.

The day after my talk, the Holland Sentinel carried a powerfulinterview with the man who is behind the city's ballot initiative. IrvBos is the head of the Holland Area Family Association, a branch of the American Family Association.

It seems his aversion to pornography began when he was a boy, in a dramatic incident. At the age of 12, he found a book by the side of the road - a book with stories about "pretty graphic things," a book that the young boy secreted away in his parents' barn.

When "lightning struck the barn, burning it to the ground," it must have been a frightening demonstration of God's power to the guilty child, the child who associated that barn with sneaking behind his parents' back to do evil things, to read evil words.

I think I put together a pretty good presentation Thursday night, but it couldn't have compared to a bolt from the sky striking down a house of evil - like "Sodom and Gomorra," according to Mr.Bos's recollections.

That's hard to top. I can talk about the Internet equivalents of electrons and lightning rods all I want. But I don't think anyone can get through to people who believe this battle to be an epic one, a battle of good and evil. There is something primal there.

We'll see Tuesday night how the vote comes out.

Rules for the $100 offer are as follows. Find a search result URL that shows naked people, for a search on "chocolate chip cookies" or "chocolate chip cookie recipes." I'll accept any variant that an inexperienced Web-surfer might search for. Your result must appear on one of the first five pages of results returned (typically the first 50 results). I'll accept any major search engine. Send me the exact query you used; I will only accept queries I can verify to work as claimed. You aren't allowed to put up a cookie page, submit it, then change its content; to prevent this, you have until 11:59PMEST, Wednesday the 23rd. Only the first person gets the money; order is determined by timestamp of Received: headers at my server. I'll mail you a check or donate it to your favorite charity. This offer is made by me personally, not Slashdot, Andover.net, or VALinux. Notify me at jamie@mccarthy.org.

Update: 02/22 9:30 PM EST by J : I'm getting a lot of submissions that underscore the importance of properly spelling queries. Since I said I'd allow variants, I'll allow these and pick the most reasonable-sounding to give the $100 to. Some of the better ones so far: "chocchipcooky," "chocolateecipe," and the amusing "chocolatecoochie." If you can't beat those, don't bother emailing me.

But what I'm really looking for is a search engine result that looks innocent - that a 16-year-old girl might click on without suspecting pornography at the other end. See the CNN story:

"She typed in 'Chocolate Chip Cookies,' hit the search button and immediately there appeared before her eyes a picture of a nude woman."

The issue is whether pornography appears unexpectedly, from clicking on an innocent-looking link. If no one finds one of those, the other Slashdot authors and I will just decide on the most reasonable-sounding of the other submissions (first entries win ties).

Scientists at the University of Rome claim they have discovered evidence for Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). Their paper will be presented on Friday, and of course the verification process will take a while. The claimed particles weigh as much as a nickel atom, and could turn out to be the dark matter that astrophysicists have sought for so many years. All you touch and all you see may be only 20% of the universe. Read the NYTstory (free reg. req.) and then visit the TBTFblog for detailed information.

Ben Green says, "First of all, I want to thank Robin Miller, Hemos, and CmdrTaco for giving me the opportunity to participate in this discussion. Slashdot has been a great resource for me both professionally and recreationally, since I started at Gore 2000."

1) Internet Policy
by Uruk (#6)

Something that I've seen missing from all of the candidate's Web sites is their policy on the Internet. How can you campaign on the Internet and not discuss the issues pertaining to the very media you're putting your ideas out on?

Ben:

This is a great question and one I obviously cannot speak for other candidates on. As for Al Gore's policies on Internet and Tech issues, there is quite a bit of content on our site regarding those issues.

Making all our content easy to find is a challenge for sure. We recently added a search feature that returns 139 pages when queried for the word "Internet", and 164 pages when queried for the words "Internet Policy". Without going in to painstaking detail, some of the topics covered in relation to Internet policy at algore2000.com, are a comprehensive Tech policy paper, and answers to four questions posted by visitors to the Town Hall portion of the Web site.

Incidentally, video of Gore's speech from Baltimore on Monday, which addressed the issue of the "Digital Divide" is posted on the site, as well as a text version.

You can search the Gore 2000 Web site from the main index page, as well as all 50 state pages, Town Hall, The Agenda, and The Briefing Room.

2) Why Linux?
by VP (#8)

According to netcraft, algore2000 is running Linux and Apache. What were the reasons for choosing that platform, and were they mainly technical, or political? Was this your initial choice, or did you change the platform at some point?

Ben:

Originally, algore2000.com ran on an NT box using the IIS Web server. The move to Linux came about for a number of reasons, and coincided with the campaign's move from K Street in Washington, DC to a new location on Charlotte Avenue in Nashville.

Our primary reasons for moving to Linux:

i) Performance ii) Reliability iii) Security iv) Cost-effectiveness

The move to Nashville and the subsequent reinvigoration of the campaign is in many ways analogous to our site's move to the Linux platform and what it has allowed us to do on the Internet.

Throughout most of last year, the campaign was overspending on many things and Web hosting was one of them. When Al Gore announced that he was moving us all to Nashville, we took a look at all our expenses to see where we could cut costs. When we determined that changing hosts would save us money, it allowed me an opportunity to fully explore the possibility of moving the site to a Linux environment.

Our long-term plans called for a lot of dynamic page generation and up until that point we had been using asps for our interactive forms. We also assumed that our site would start getting a lot more traffic as we moved into the primary season, so server performance was definitely an issue as well. Expanding the functionality of the site with asps and would have been expensive.

It became clear to me at that point that Linux was our best option, and given the chance to switch over it was an easy decision to make.

Since we moved to Nashville, this campaign has really turned around and our web site has improved a great deal. By using a tool called asp2php, we were able to convert our existing asps to a format compatible with Linux, and add a ton of functionality such a publishing system, state by state pages, and other stuff that you can see by visiting our site. Michael Kohn, (naken@i1.net) the author of asp2php, deserves much of the credit for making this happen. Our site wouldn't be what it is now without his help. There are other people who deserve credit for this as well Jeff Barger (maczilla-at-look-dot-net), who helps me administer our listservs, provided great advice and ideas.

The real heavy lifting was done by Eric Loeb, (frontaloeb@yahoo.com) who is one of the real pioneers of the field of politics and the Internet having worked on Clinton-Gore '92's e-mail distribution system, and the first - ever campaign Web site for Ted Kennedy's 1994 re-election. Eric is the chief software engineer at Gore 2000. During the month of January, he worked around the clock for three weeks to build algore2000.com's customized publishing system with php and mysql.

3) Marketing
by TheTomcat (#10)

What marketing and advertising methods have you found most successful for promoting the Web site? We all know that banners are dying, and the creators have to become more creative to get people to even NOTICE the banners. Is old media (television, print -- newspapers, magazines, billboards etc., radio.) the backend to the Web site's marketing campaign, or have you found innovative ways to make online promotion work?

Ben:

Probably the coolest promotion we have done so far has been our use of RealFlash. Back when Al Gore announced his candidacy last June, we bought 500,000 "pre-roll" impressions on the Real Broadcast Network to promote the live Web cast of the announcement speech. The click-through rate was very good, far better than we expected. If you aren't familiar with RealFlash, it is basically a flash presentation that is viewed in a RealPlayer, and is served to folks who are using the "presets" in the RealPlayer. Eileen Quigley and Sam Tucker at RealImpact helped us put that together, and it was the first-ever paid Internet advertising by a presidential campaign.

Other than paid promotion, we have seen traffic on our site affected by news events. Obviously the Iowa Caucus and the New Hampshire Primary generated a lot of traffic to our site, which has tripled since the first of the year. We are now averaging slightly less than 20,000 user sessions per day.

Whenever Al Gore is out on the campaign trail he mentions the Web site, the news media picks it up, and the site gets hit. One day last fall when Gore was on the "This Week With Sam & Cokie" he mentioned the site address - we signed up 1000 volunteers in less than two hours.

4) Bad Press
by Signal 11 (#11)

In an increasingly wired society rumors and myths propagate at incredible speeds - how do you diffuse rumors and myths. For example, if I start a rumor that Mr. Gore said he "fathered Linus Torvalds" - how do you diffuse that? Rumors and myths often come about as a minor distortion of the truth which then goes through the "telephone game". How do you keep the public informed about what a candidate /really/ thinks, as opposed to what other people think the candidate thinks?

Ben:

This type of thing is dealt with on case by case basis. Most of the time these things don't even warrant a response. If you respond it only lends credibility to the charge.

5) External links?
by Pseudonymus Bosch (#20)

Linking to another sites is an essential feature of the Web.

Would you recommend linking to another sites from your boss' site? If yes, what kind of sites (supporters, other candidates, ~independent~ media, Slashdot :), supported campaigns)?

Would you object to being linked from another sites, even from opponents?

Ben:

Our links are mostly to voter registration information sites, such as Motor Voter registration forms and the like. As a general rule linking to other sites from a campaign page should be done selectively, because it can potentially detract from the purpose of having a campaign Web site in the first place.

Of course, we have links to download tools like the Adobe Acrobat Reader, RealPlayer, and QuickTime as well.

To the extent which an external link helps Gore supporters in having a better experience on our site we will add them.

This is an evolving area of campaign finance law, and as I understand it, other sites can link into ours, but FEC regulations are very clear in prohibiting links from corporate sites.

6) What's the true measure of success?
by A Big Gnu Thrush (#29)

This Wired article talks about the flood of donations received through McCain's Web site after a win in NH. Increasingly, the most effective form of political activism appears to be cash. While a strong Web presence could promote a dialogue of issues, this does not seem to be taking place.

If a Web site brought in little or no money, could a candidate still view it as successful, or is income the final measure of success?

Ben:

Excellent question. Every campaign has different sets of priorities. Obviously, raising money is a challenge for every campaign and we are no different in that respect. For Gore 2000, using the Internet to expand participation in the political process is more of a priority than using the Internet to raise money. Although we have been very successful in that regard, having raised over 1.1 million online since the site launched last April.

In my humble opinion, the degree to which the Internet is integrated into every aspect of a campaign is the degree to which that campaign will succeed on the Internet. At Gore 2000, it is ubiquitous - almost everything we do has an Internet component - including fundraising. This article, which ran on the New York Times Web site last Saturday, sheds some light onto how the various campaigns are raising money on the Internet.

Over 100,000 people have joined our online community, by volunteering, signing up for Gore Mail, or joining our voter outreach programs. This has allowed many people to get to know Al Gore, ask him questions, and become connected to the process. By that measure, our site and our Internet campaign have been a tremendous success thus far.

7) Interactivity in sites?
by Saige (#47)

The current political candidate sites seem to be little more than political rhetoric and volunteer information. Are there any plans to treat the Web site differently than a broadcast medium? I mean, including interactivity, such as message areas for open discussions, polling booths to get a feel for what people are really interested in. And also perhaps for offering large amounts of data about a candidate's past actions in government, such as voting records (and perhaps reasons for the vote).

Ben:

Our site offers users two-way communication and a vast amount of information on all things Gore. Of course there is a lot more we can do, and as the campaign progresses you will see the addition of more features that facilitate greater interactivity. We are also getting a steady flow of great ideas and insight from those that know the Internet best.

8)How long will the site be up?
by Pseudonymus Bosch

Disk space is cheap.

Will somebody maintain the site up after the election, even as a frozen site? It will be valuable for historians (and electors who would check the promises).

Ben:

One of my colleagues here has the greatest (and largest) collection of political memorabilia I have ever seen. In fact, it is so large that he recently added a 2000 sq. foot addition to his house to accommodate it. Our plan is to archive the site at this facility, which is not far from Nashville and is complete with a DSL connection. If anyone has any ideas about this, please feel free to e-mail me (ben@min.net) about them.

9) How does the Web site affect the candidate?
by Silas (#62)

Many of the questions posted so far ask you to discuss how the Web site and its upkeep influence the voters and the campaign. I'd like to you to discuss how having a Web site affects the candidate, his views, his methods, his public personality.

That's my main question, here are some points to ponder:

It seems that having a Web site as large and significant to the campaign as Gore's or most of the others would tend to force them to be more responsible, to be held more accountable for each and every utterance. In a world where disinformation and twisting of facts is commonplace in the popular media, how does a Web site like yours influence the candidate's` ability to take advantage of this?

Are Gore or any of the others more or less likely to refer back to their campaign managers and Web site before making statements about policy and moral issues? Or is it just as easy to perform an "about face" because the Web site can be updated just as quickly? Can campaigners now say "please see the FOO section of my Web site" instead of answering questions about specific issues?

Ben:

Al Gore visits algore2000.com every day, and I get regular feedback from him - and ideas for what we can do with the site. He frequently mentions the url at campaign appearances, and is so familiar with the content that he can direct people to its various sections when asked about specific issues. His detailed knowledge of policy and issues allows him to interact with voters AND refer them to the Web site at any time.

10) Lowest common denominator
by BOredAtWork (#195)

I'm a 20 year old male; this will be the first time I can vote in a presidential election. I am one of your target demographics. I'm a student; so my time to research the candidates is limited. One of my major sources of information is the Web - cnn.com and the various candidate sites in particular. At this point, my vote is up for grabs.

Algore2000 is a good site. I'm sure there was countless hours of thought put into each and every detail, especially the "agenda" page. That page in particular is a work of persuasive art, right down to the picture of Al with a pair of cops (tough on crime), and the (over)use of red, white and blue. The list of catch phrases is an especially nice touch; who could possibly NOT support "Saving Our Schools," "Fighting for America's Seniors" and "Improving Health Care," right?

My question for you, sir, has to be this: Why does algore2000.com seem to think I'm a fool? Am I supposed to be genuinely impressed by the load of press releases and speeches? I hate to break the news to you, but I want to see real content, NOT glazed over executive summaries. Take for instance something VERY relevant to me as a college student - the link from the front page about Al's Plan to Make College More Affordable. It leads here. The extent of the "details" stated is this:

"Gore announced new details of his National Tuition Savings Program, which is designed to help families save for college. The plan allows families to invest funds in an account where their money will be protected from inflation and can be withdrawn to pay for higher education expenses tax-free. The plan will also guarantee the cost of college tuition at any participating college or university in the country."

The rest of the press release is all fluff. No mention of whether this is limited to public or private universities, 2 or 4 year degrees, graduate school, part or full time study, etc. And this is the *basic* stuff. I'm also interested in why this would be a better option than, say, investing in short-term CD's.

That's just ONE example from the many I could have chosen. Nearly all the "content" of algore2000.com is fluff. And shots at Bill Bradley. The simple fact is this does not impress me. Actually, since this site represents Al Gore, I'm inclined to believe Al relatively clueless - if he wasn't, surely he'd tell us HOW he plans to fund his proposed programs, tax cuts, etc. Any politician can CLAIM to support any number of things. Algore2000 picks popular issues, and loads the wording of them such that ANYONE would be nearly forced to agree. Come on, who on earth DOESN'T support "A better educational system?"

What I could like to see from algore2000.com, as well as EVERY OTHER CANDIDATE is DETAILS. I want to know HOW you plan to provide a tax cut - will this come at the expense of the defense budget? Money always comes from somewhere; I want to know what has to be CUT to lower taxes. And don't tell me "unnecessary pork" or some trite answer. I want to see numbers.

And I want a big ass chart, with a column for every candidate, and a row for every issue. "Do you support abortion as it currently stands? y/n" "Do you support the abolition of legal abortion under all circumstances? y/n" "Do you support abortion under limited circumstances? If so, when?" Things like that. REAL questions. Some more: "Do you support the reverse engineering of software for porting and compatibility purposes?" "Do you support CDA in its current form?" And more of the like. I don't want to read "Al Gore supports technology and innovation" - I want to read HOW he supports them.

Simply put, algore2000.com seems to play to the lowest common denominator - the average american, who sadly enough has little interest in politics, and little technical knowledge. I think this is a mistake; this audience doesn't read political advocacy Web sites on a wide basis. You'd do better to use the Web site to provide details and elaborate on Al's statements and ideas rather than just rehash them.

One more side note: I followed Jesse Ventura's campaign slightly - I don't know his stance on most of the issues. I dont live in Minnesota, so I didn't take the time to research him. What I DO know is that I was very impressed when a reporter asked him if he supported some obscure bill I'd never heard of. Ventura replied something like "Well, to be honest, I'm not familiar with that at all. I'm not gonna lie to you; I don't know everything, or have all the answers you wanna hear. But I learn fast; I'll read up on it." When can we expect Al Gore to say something like THAT?

Ben:

Ø Algore2000 is a good site.

Well, that's a good start. I like this guy already.

Ø Why does algore2000.com seem to think I'm a fool?

Hmmmmm. Sounds like he changed his mind. Uh-oh.

>Nearly all the "content" of algore2000.com is fluff.

I disagree.

> Simply put, algore2000.com seems to play to the lowest common denominator - the average american, who sadly enough has little interest in politics, and little technical knowledge.

To answer this question in all candor, I would remind everyone that the average American is our target audience! However - I for one take exception to your assertion that "average Americans" have little interest in politics or technology. Working on this and other campaigns has shown me that average Americans are driving the demand for technology and therefore are driving the technology industry in this country. The large number of volunteers we have recruited through the site is also and clear indication that we are connecting with people interested in helping the campaign. algore2000.com is for all everyone - not just geeks like you and me. Our site has the most content, the most detailed content, more interactive features of ANY of the presidential campaign sites - AND it runs on Linux and PHP!

Hey - don't get me wrong - you and I know that we can always do better with our Web sites - so your point is well taken.

Thanks, and now I'm going back to my duties as Al Gore's Webmaster.

Keelor writes, "It seems DoubleClick has decided to start a privacy initiative. In addition to having itself audited, it's started its very own privacy Web site at privacychoices.org. Privacy groups aren't terribly happy." Click for more...

Keelor goes on: "It seems that the auditing company has audited DoubleClick before (obviously did a lot of good)... and they call opting out like 'placing 'Do Not Disturb' signs on [your] door, rather than locking it.' Also, looking at the Privacy Choices Web site, everything but the links section seems to be just another way for DoubleClick to spread their propaganda. Oh, and get this - they'll be advertising the new site with their ad banners. Talk about irony: they'll be tracking how you got there."

Their section on "Understanding Your Rights" explains that you have no rights, unless you count the right to use a secure Web server. What you have, dear consumer, are responsibilities. It is your responsibility to:

"Read the Web Site's Privacy Policy." These policies, as groups like Forrester Research have found, are legalese intended to cover companies' butts. If not outright lies. DoubleClick's own privacy policy has gotten them sued.

"Check if the Web Site Has a Third Party Privacy Seal." DoubleClick doesn't.

"Disclose information only to Web sites with business practices with which you are comfortable." Or don't; it's all the same to DoubleClick, who found out about you the old-fashioned way: they bought a huge database of your purchasing habits.

And so on.

DoubleClick was "one of the first advertising companies to offer consumers the choice to receive targeted advertising and the ability to opt-out." By "choice" they mean that everyone on the Net receives target advertising unknowingly, and has no idea that DoubleClick is behind it. But, the 0.01% of us who read technical discussions of privacy issues will learn who they are and might visit their site to opt out. Freedom of choice!

And do you think their new site will get a few hits? They're driving traffic to it with 50million banner ads and full-page ads in major newspapers. Old saying: "never get in an argument with someone who buys ink by the barrel."

Still, nobody seems to be buying it, at least not yet. The New York Times (free reg. req.) has a splendidly skeptical story.

crovira wrote to us with an article from the NYT (free reg. req'd.) Apparently, both Toshiba and IBM are dissatisified with the current state of monitor development. To that end, they've created some wondrous toys like 16.5" LCD screens that display 200 PPI. They've run into a most curious problem however: Legacy software/drivers. Click thru to read more - and if IBM should want to send a couple screens my way, I'd see what we can whip up around the office *grin*.

Volatile_Memory writes "A new study suggests that we are all by our lonesome out here in the Milky Way. The article is entitled Maybe We Are Alone In The Universe, After All. The researchers assert all of this based on a search for earth-like life, which I feel is their mistake. With all the activity in the cosmos, could this (meaning "humans") happen twice? "

Last month I shared with you some news about the pressure to install blocking software on the Holland library's Internet terminals. I promised to dive into the trenches of the struggle, and report occasionally to Slashdot on what was happening. There's been a lot to report, but more to do. Over the next two weeks I'll catch you up on what's been happening. Today, a peek into the heart of the matter: an open letter to the local Family Research Council, on the flaws of their favorite software. Click for more.

Last Wednesday, the library board opened up its auditorium for two and a half hours for three presentations on blocking software. The local branch of the FRC went first and put SurfWatch through its paces. They showed an unfiltered Internet on the left, SurfWatch on the right, and demonstrated how a search on "breast cancer" was successfully not blocked. Then they put child pornography on the wall of the library auditorium, demonstrating what SurfWatch would block.

For my presentation, I had brought a computer, but asked them if they would mind my demonstrating the software's flaws on their own laptop, to show I had not misconfigured anything. They agreed.

I spent much of my presentation talking about the size of the Internet and why most blocking was done by robots. Then I spent several minutes just listing some of the sites found blocked in some of our earlier studies at the Censorware Project.

Then I turned to the keyboard to illustrate some bad blocks. I ran out of time before getting to most of them. Some I did show but so quickly that many of those watching may not have realized what was going on.

Afterwards, Kimberley Fraser, who gave the Family Research Council presentation, asked me about some of what I'd said. I ended up asking her if I could respond to her in the form of an open letter. She agreed.

Below is that letter.

Dear Ms. Fraser,

As you know, at Herrick District Library last Wednesday night, your group gave a demonstration of SurfWatch's successes and then I showed some of its failures. I went through these failures rather quickly and didn't give the audience much of a chance to see the details of what I was doing.

You asked afterwards if I could provide verification of some of these points of failure, and I am delighted to do so.

First of all, regarding the colossal list of wrongly-blocked sites that I spent so much of my presentation reading, please consult our Web site. These wrong blocks were found in our reports on five other popular blocking packages: X-Stop, Cyber Patrol, WebSENSE, X-Stop again, SmartFilter, and Bess. You will find these reports at http://censorware.org/reports/.

There was some confusion in the question-and-answer period about whether these wrongly-blocked sites were also blocked by SurfWatch. Surely not all, and I have no reason to believe very many of them, are still blocked by SurfWatch or any other software. As I explained, when wrong blocks are publicized, they are usually unblocked quickly to minimize bad press.

Now, regarding the errors of SurfWatch itself. Note that some of its past errors are cataloged at http://peacefire.org/censorware/SurfWatch/. I am not sure whether I found time to describe those erroneous blocks or not.

In any case, here is information that hadn't been reported before. The following are all sites which I had prepared for Wednesday night, not all of which I was able to demonstrate. Please consult with your technical staff and confirm that each of these URLs and searches is wrongly blocked using the same category ("Sex") that you use in your tests and that you would recommend for public libraries.

http://www.gaydaze.com/sstory/curfantasy.html
"Daisies for my Wife," by Harold Roppers, a science fiction short story.

http://censorware.org/essays/sex_lies_jt.html
"Sex, Lies, and Censorware," an essay by my colleague Jim Tyre that is critical of SurfWatch.

http://intertain.com/store/browse.html
The bookstore at Intertain.com. Starting from that Web page, click "Browse," then "Love, Sex and Marriage." All categories of books on that page, 600 books total, are blocked, including books on domestic violence, natural childbirth, and African-American families.

http://www.wap.org/ifaq/sex/marriage.html
"Marriage." A humorous look at marriage through the eyes of children.

http://netdetours.com/archive/sex.html
"Sex and Politics: A historical look at affairs of state." A comparison of the Clinton sex scandal to scandals of other historical figures.

http://www.wwf.org/galapagos/booby.htm
The World Wildlife Foundation maintains information about the animals found on the Galapagos islands. SurfWatch refuses to let us read about the Blue-Footed Booby.

Searches on the following phrases are blocked, on (almost) any search engine:

safe oral sex
testicle cancer
sexually abstain
abstain from sex
sexual abstinence
no sex
Sex, Laws and Cyberspace (book title)
Smart Sex (book title, safe sex guide)
Voyeurism in the French Novel (book title)
Save Sex (title of both book and FRC poster campaign)

http://www.nytimes.com/library/arts/013000tv-voyeurism.html
"Television's New Voyeurism Pictures Real-Life Intimacy." The New York Times looks at shows like "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire." (In the question-and-answer period, one gentleman suggested that this page was blocked for a suggestive photo that appeared in the print edition of the Times. Please confirm that the Web page has no photo.)

http://www.rainbow.ch/chribru/chris/odonnell.htm
A Chris O'Donnell fan page.

http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Spa/6834/
"Alternative Healing Resources: A Reference Guide for Balancing Your Mind, Body, and Spirit."

http://www.lesbigay.com/equal_rights/equality.html
"The Equality Project: Dedicated to promoting education and acceptance of all genders, sexualities, races, and religions."

http://www.magiccarpet.com/%7ecgrafe/diamondgallery/
"Diamond Gallery Sports Cards." Baseball and football cards for sale or trade.

http://dir.yahoo.com/Society_and_Culture/Crime/Crimes/Sex_Crimes/Child_Pornography/
Four of the thirteen anti-child pornography sites listed on Yahoo are blocked. "All Against Child Pornography," "Anti Pedophile Network", "Adult Sites Against Child Pornography," and "Defence for Children International."

http://cnn.com/starr.report/
The Starr Report, in every place it appears on the Internet (this URL is just one example).

http://afa.net/Pornography/pornography.html
And finally, the American Family Association, which launched the pro-blocking-software initiative in Holland, is blocked.

I believe your technical staff will confirm what I have found to be true: that all of these are blocked as pornography by your software. Please let me know what your team says. Thank you.

Jamie McCarthy
jamie@slashdot.org

trims writes "Ford Motor Company is giving each of its 350,000 employees a computer & printer (and good ones, too), plus Internet service (by UUNet). Are we getting to the point where corporations subsidize the Internet in the name of productivity? It's a NY Times article (free registration required)" The Internet access is supposed to cost $5 per month - and possibly less in low-wage countries. Nice move, Ford!

DeepDarkSky writes "This is a general interest story in the NY Times about Morris Chang - the founder and chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor - and the dynamics of semiconductor manufacturing in Taiwan, and how the earthquakes a while back affected it. Since Taiwan is the leading manufacturer of chips, with Intel, Motorola, and IBM (also Transmeta, as I vaguely recall in the press releases) all having chips manufactured in Taiwan, I thought this would be an interesting read. More significantly, also in the NY Times, another story about the U.S. House of Representatives voting to strengthen military ties with Taiwan. Perhaps they are all too aware of the U.S.'s (and the world's) dependence on Taiwan's chip manufacturing prowess (reminded by the earthquakes) and are eager to protect this source against China?" (free NYT reg. req.)

DeepDarkSky writes "This is a general interest story in the NY Times about Morris Chang - the founder and chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor - and the dynamics of semiconductor manufacturing in Taiwan, and how the earthquakes a while back affected it. Since Taiwan is the leading manufacturer of chips, with Intel, Motorola, and IBM (also Transmeta, as I vaguely recall in the press releases) all having chips manufactured in Taiwan, I thought this would be an interesting read. More significantly, also in the NY Times, another story about the U.S. House of Representatives voting to strengthen military ties with Taiwan. Perhaps they are all too aware of the U.S.'s (and the world's) dependence on Taiwan's chip manufacturing prowess (reminded by the earthquakes) and are eager to protect this source against China?" (free NYT reg. req.)

C. E. Sum writes "The New York Times is running a very nice article this morning on the past, present, and future of the Galileo space probe. Overcoming a few problems early on, the probe has gone on to a long and prosperous mission. There is a lot of talk about the current survey of Jupiter's moons, including some really neat pictures of volcanos on Io. The probe has lasted twice as long as the original engineers thought, and probably has at least another year of life in it. "

A number of people have written about the latest twist in the Mitnick case. Kevin wants to get his data back, but the government is refusing to do so until he gives them the key. Apparently, the government is unable to crack the encryption that he's got on it - you'd think after having the data for five years, they'd be able to brute-force the darn thing. It's a NYT article - free login required.

artiste writes "The NY Times tech section is reporting that eToys is dropping the suit against the artists group, etoy." (Free reg. required to read). eToys "dropped" the suit earlier, but not all the way. This time it looks like they've really and truly surrendered. They're even paying etoy's legal bills. Click Below to read etoy's e-mailed press release.

From: "etoy.AGENT027" [agent027@mail.toybomb.com]
Subject: VICTORY*VICTORY*VICTORY*VICTORY*VICTORY!

OFFICIAL etoy.PRESS-RELEASE:

TOTAL VICTORY for the etoy.CORPORATION AND THE INTERNET COMMUNITY ((WHICH PROVED THAT THE NET IS NOT YET IN THE HANDS OF E-COMMERCE GIANTS)).

NOBODY INVESTS TO LOSE MONEY! NOT EVEN MEDIA ARTISTS...

"MONEY AND SHARES ARE THE OBJECTS OF OUR DESIRE... BUT ART IS WHAT WE WOULD KILL FOR..." *

thank you for flying etoy....

_______________________________________
*QUOTE etoy.DAVE, TONGA 1994

(SANTA MONICA / ZUERICH / NEW YORK)
THE LAWSUIT AGAINST etoy IS DROPPED!

according to the etoy.LAWYERS chris truax in san diego and peter e. wild in zurich eToys Inc. gave up its naive fight against the famous international art group etoy this tuesday after a long and exhausting dispute about the terms and conditions of this settlement.

on monday, january 24, 2000, the TOYWAR.crisis-control-board, 1345 special TOYWAR.agents and media warriors triggered another firestorm : within a few hours many hundred EMAIL-TOY-BOMBS exploded in the brains of customers, e-shoppers, brokers and nervous business men all over the world.

no one got hurt - but the message is placed and the eToys share value sunk below its initial price of $20: value on tuesday / 11.12 AM: $19.0625 per share unit.

one of the targets of the violence-free toy-bombing was the eToys HQ in santa monica .. eToys felt that it is now time to drop this lawsuit and to accept all the demands the etoy.CORPORATION submitted.

IT WAS A PLEASURE TO DO BUSINESS WITH ONE OF THE BIGGEST E-COMMERCE GIANTS IN THE WORLD: F*U*C*K*I*N*G* INTENSE & REALLY EXPENSIVE BUT A KICK FOR ALL OF US! WE ALL LEARNED A LOT.

WE THANK ALL THE BRAVE AGENTS WHO LINED UP BEHIND US TO PROTECT THE ART BRAND "etoy" & FREEDOM ON THE NET!

all agents on TOYWAR.com get rewarded with etoy.SHARES and special compensations.

TOYWAR.heros will be awarded with etoy.MEDALS and TOYWAR.titles after champagne and drugs left the bodies of the TOYWAR.crisis-control- board-members.

THIS IS A GREAT MOMENT IN THE HISTORY OF INTERNET ART!

for one time we avoid long statements and launch the party rockets...

signed and verified: the etoy.BOARD
(MORE INFORMATION SOON!)

etoy.CRISIS-PRESS-OFFICE: 0041 1 242 40 81
etoy.PRESS-FTP: ftp://212.71.98.169/pub
____________________
if you joined this community because of the lawsuit....you can now unsubscribe@toybomb.com without any negative feelings! good bye & it was nice to meet you. otherwise stay tuned and wait for even more exciting media viruses and twisted business plans from the etoy.LABORATORIES. we are not done yet.

LAST MESSAGE TO the eToys LEGAL-DEPT:
THANK YOU FOR HELPING US GROW!

artiste writes "The NY Times tech section is reporting that eToys is dropping the suit against the artists group, etoy." (Free reg. required to read). eToys "dropped" the suit earlier, but not all the way. This time it looks like they've really and truly surrendered. They're even paying etoy's legal bills. Click Below to read etoy's e-mailed press release.

From: "etoy.AGENT027" [agent027@mail.toybomb.com]
Subject: VICTORY*VICTORY*VICTORY*VICTORY*VICTORY!

OFFICIAL etoy.PRESS-RELEASE:

TOTAL VICTORY for the etoy.CORPORATION AND THE INTERNET COMMUNITY ((WHICH PROVED THAT THE NET IS NOT YET IN THE HANDS OF E-COMMERCE GIANTS)).

NOBODY INVESTS TO LOSE MONEY! NOT EVEN MEDIA ARTISTS...

"MONEY AND SHARES ARE THE OBJECTS OF OUR DESIRE... BUT ART IS WHAT WE WOULD KILL FOR..." *

thank you for flying etoy....

_______________________________________
*QUOTE etoy.DAVE, TONGA 1994

(SANTA MONICA / ZUERICH / NEW YORK)
THE LAWSUIT AGAINST etoy IS DROPPED!

according to the etoy.LAWYERS chris truax in san diego and peter e. wild in zurich eToys Inc. gave up its naive fight against the famous international art group etoy this tuesday after a long and exhausting dispute about the terms and conditions of this settlement.

on monday, january 24, 2000, the TOYWAR.crisis-control-board, 1345 special TOYWAR.agents and media warriors triggered another firestorm : within a few hours many hundred EMAIL-TOY-BOMBS exploded in the brains of customers, e-shoppers, brokers and nervous business men all over the world.

no one got hurt - but the message is placed and the eToys share value sunk below its initial price of $20: value on tuesday / 11.12 AM: $19.0625 per share unit.

one of the targets of the violence-free toy-bombing was the eToys HQ in santa monica .. eToys felt that it is now time to drop this lawsuit and to accept all the demands the etoy.CORPORATION submitted.

IT WAS A PLEASURE TO DO BUSINESS WITH ONE OF THE BIGGEST E-COMMERCE GIANTS IN THE WORLD: F*U*C*K*I*N*G* INTENSE & REALLY EXPENSIVE BUT A KICK FOR ALL OF US! WE ALL LEARNED A LOT.

WE THANK ALL THE BRAVE AGENTS WHO LINED UP BEHIND US TO PROTECT THE ART BRAND "etoy" & FREEDOM ON THE NET!

all agents on TOYWAR.com get rewarded with etoy.SHARES and special compensations.

TOYWAR.heros will be awarded with etoy.MEDALS and TOYWAR.titles after champagne and drugs left the bodies of the TOYWAR.crisis-control- board-members.

THIS IS A GREAT MOMENT IN THE HISTORY OF INTERNET ART!

for one time we avoid long statements and launch the party rockets...

signed and verified: the etoy.BOARD
(MORE INFORMATION SOON!)

etoy.CRISIS-PRESS-OFFICE: 0041 1 242 40 81
etoy.PRESS-FTP: ftp://212.71.98.169/pub
____________________
if you joined this community because of the lawsuit....you can now unsubscribe@toybomb.com without any negative feelings! good bye & it was nice to meet you. otherwise stay tuned and wait for even more exciting media viruses and twisted business plans from the etoy.LABORATORIES. we are not done yet.

LAST MESSAGE TO the eToys LEGAL-DEPT:
THANK YOU FOR HELPING US GROW!