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Congress Ixnays FIDNET; Prez Finds Money
Signal 11 writes "Congress has shot down the Fidnet project - to read about more details on Fidnet, go the original story about the project. In related news a national jam echelon day is coming up. Unfamiliar with Echelon? It is best to educate oneself. " Well, the sequence of events for FIDNET goes something like this: Clinton proposes computer security group, liberties groups hate it, Congress shoots it down for funding, Clinton attachs it to another bill. So, we won and lost - for more details, check out our recent YRO Story.
These "hacktivists" seem to think that peppering their email with naughty words is a new idea. It isn't: "spook fodder" is at least ten years old (take a look at Tim May's 1992 Cypherno micon). The idea that they can "jam" Echelon is incredibly naive; if they're really concerned, they'd do better to encourage people to understand these surveillance systems and to use PGP - spreading misinformation about surveillance and encouraging one-day actions is counterproductive. Some of the hacktivist organizers have been told again and again (for example, by the foounders of Hack-Tic/xs4all) that their methods are misguided and useless, but they never listen. Hacking is about, among other things, understanding technical systems: if you promote misunderstanding, you've got no business calling yourself a "hack"-anything.