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Privacy Your Rights Online

The Dangers Of Protecting Free Speech 164

Posted by timothy from the happy-july-2nd dept.
endisnigh writes: "Stephen K. Gielda of www.cotse.com has posted a very interesting article about the trials and tribulations (and attacks, sometimes physical) of running his website, which is mostly dedicated to computer reference and security, but which also gives users the ability to post anonymously to usenet." Considering that litigants can have content pulled (and cause accounts to be yanked) under the DMCA, that organizations can harrass individuals for public opposition, and that anonymity is increasingly hard to find in general, it's sobering to see how much trouble is involved in attempting to provide what Gielda calls "anonymity with accountability."
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The Dangers Of Protecting Free Speech More

The Dangers Of Protecting Free Speech

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  • its a shame the same rights that allow us to voice our opnions, and say what we think is the same right that protects people who spew nothing then hatred, i would say our forefathers would have been ashamed but they were slave owners

    You are applying modern values on a society that existed 200 years ago. Your statement is therefore invalid and wrong.

    200 years ago, the black man was consideren to be a "sub human". If you were born and raised at this time and were told this by your mother, your father, your neighbors, your clergy, the local media, the president, and yes, even by the black men themselves, you would grow up believing it too. Such people are not "evil" for believing what they were taught since infancy. They are the norm for their time. They are the correct upstanding citizens for their time.

    But here you sit with an extra 200 years of knowledge that the people you rag on didn't have and proceed to moralize? What arrogannt smugness!

    Well, I'm sure that 200 years from now, people will look at you and your belief that criminals should be striped of most of their rights and locked away in a jail, when the causes of their criminal behaviour are, in the future, readily corrected with a $5.00 medical treatment, and they will see you as some barbaric savage who "ought to be ashamed" of his behaviour.

    Pot.

    Kettle.

    Black.

  • FBI's double standard (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    When big corporations are subject to "DoS attacks and hacking attempts" the FBI springs into action and tracks down the crackers. But when it happens to cotse, Steve is on his own.

  • Thank You (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward

    In case nobody has said it lately, thanks!

    I see it everyday, people go about their business, pissing and moaning about their taxes, government, company, HMO, MS, or whatever; but they don't do anything about it. At least Steve has the gonads to do something about it. And what's even better is that YOU could benefit from it! What would you do if one day Slashdot disappeared? Where would you get your news? (AOL-Time-Warner-CNN-Warner Bros.Time-Life Books or ABC-Disney-Buena Vista Dist. or NBC-General Electric-MS-MSNBC) Where would you be able to voice your opinions?

    Steve, fight the good fight!
    Never Retreat,
    Never surrender!

    I'm posting AC, because I'm too damned lazy to fill out another form. I'm AC, but I'm not that AC!

  • Have you seen POSTNET? (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02, 2001 @04:24AM (#114589)
    POSTNET is a network service like the USENET with the difference that posters keep their posts and know the locations of the replies. In postnet you are the moderator and administrator of the replies to your posts. So its spam free (spammers too keep their posts) and posts are really owned by their authors. Nobody can deny access to postnet, and posts can be modified *after* submission (but that can be checked because the parent has the CRC).

    On the other hand, all posts may not be available all of the time if a poster is off-line. And people are responsible for their backups.

    It is still BETA and experimental, but usable nontheless. Check it out at here [upatras.gr] and help in its development.

    Usually the problem with anonymity is spamming. postnet seems to solve that.

    Thanks

  • Usenet can easily be made useful until you get people like cotse.

    I now just filter out everything that is posted from a cotse address because they simply won't stop their users from posting hipcrime floods, binary floods, massive crossposting etc. Their abuse teams simply pass your email address on to the "troll".

    I'm in the process of persuading my ISP to drop everything from cotse.com.

  • They have no anti-abuse policies. They simply ignore your complaints and pass your real email address on to the abuser for amusement.

    We're talking about hipcrime floods, "snuh" cascades and massive crossposting to *completely* unrelated groups. And then they talk bollocks about freedom of speech. Once their abusers are done with a newsgroup you use, there *is no speech*. Everybody leaves.

  • Ridiculous! (Score:5)

    by Loundry ( 4143 ) on Monday July 02, 2001 @06:38AM (#114592) Journal
    BTW, fuck privacy - you don't need it if you ain't guilty.

    And what happens when someone in power decides you are guilty -- except that you are innocent? Are you going to say that people in government won't abuse their power? How many Russians died under the rule of Stalin? (Answer: 100 million)

    Privacy is protection from tyranny. Your attitude is indicative of the belief that powerful governments are the source of compassion and never do wrong. Unfortunately, history is not on your side.

    Reason and Evidence [lp.org].

  • Are you intentionally trying to miss the point? For all intents and purposes the posters are anonymous to other readers on Usenet (hence their opinions can't be quelched through physical threats, harrassment, etc.) : anonymous, however the service keeps track of who you are itself in case you use the service for illegal purposes, in which case you will be turned over to the authorities : accountable. Seems pretty damn clear to me. Someone with a "real" account might post under "anonymous coward" and others might not know it's CmdrTaco, but that doesn't mean that Slashdot couldn't put two and two together and figure out that he's agreeing with his own posts.

  • What he's talking about isn't freedom of speech whatsoever: It's abuse of a format. If we were sitting in St. Mark's Square discussing politics and someone disagreed with us, would it be okay if they made their point by pulled out a 107dB bullhorn and blaring it in your ear? People who abuse Usenet (blatant cross-posts, dupes, floods) do so at the expense of all who use Usenet, and it has nothing to do with freedom of speech.

  • Out of curiosity, what's a "hipcrime" flood?

  • When I first read this story (and the related article) I was absolutely on the side of cotse.com, and truly believed that there should be Internet Awards of Merit (or something like that...what happen to awards? I used to anticipate the issue of PC Mag with technical awards, shareware awards, etc. Now it seems there's nothing of that sort around) handed to them for fighting the good fight. However then I read several posts on here about cascades, copy paste drowning, etc., all originating from cotse.com with no responsible administration (I'm not concurring with this: Simply saying I've read that), and having come to ignore Usenet for exactly that reason, I can see why a lot of people would be pissed: It's one thing for someone in a political newsgroup to discuss their beliefs about the Taliban or whatever, but when they post their spam to every god damn newsgroup (common. Everyone thinks their issues should be the top issues for everyone) it ruins the entire medium for everyone. If cotse.com doesn't actively seek out and eliminate dirtballs like that then I do have a problem with them.

    So my question is this: Is cotse.com an overwhelming source for assholes on Usenet? [I don't know myself: For all I know the claims as such could be from people who hate that they can't harrass someone whose opinion they disagree with, so they attack the deliveryman] I don't want to defend the organization if they are irresponsibly responsible for the decline of Usenet.

  • Back in the late 90's I abandoned Usenet and IRC because they were flooded with idiots and morons. I had used these communication tools for years and years and now they became the CB radio of today, useless. I have been waiting for the mess to die down, I figure that the people that are wasting the bandwidth and time would fade away or go back to their web_IRC or other places and the technical+scientific would gain our tools back..

    This is not the case, I now don't think it will ever come back. Usenet used to be a great place, now the only way it can be fixed is to apply some type of global moderation system, and have positive identification systems (PGP signatures anyone?.. If you dont use them now, I reccomend that you start.. It's damned hard to fake a PGP signature, and you at least can show the fake email wasn't you.)

    I guess sticking to private usenet/email lists is the only choice now. and IRC has been replaced with I.M.'s .

  • Re:Contradiction? (Score:3)

    by Sloppy ( 14984 ) on Monday July 02, 2001 @09:10AM (#114598) Homepage Journal

    There are varying degrees of anonymity and accountability. For example, if I were to check off "Post Anonymously" on this post, I would be increase my anonymity and decrease my accountability, but I have no illusions that this would be to the absolute extremes. Slashdot may very well store my UID with the post, for all I know.

    Ideally, you want to be anonymous to people who you can't trust to behave responsibly (e.g. the seething mob horde), and be accountable to those who you do trust to be responsible (e.g. a server admin with a reputation for ethical behavior and trustworthiness).

    Thus, you can have some amount of both, without there being contradiction.


    ---
  • FWIW, this was an economic hack job based on social engineering. Not a technical problem in need of a tech fix.

    The power shortage was caused when a small number of companies which owned the entire thing took down power plants "for maintenance" at the same time all over the place. And then neglected to bring them back on-line for a long time. (I didn't follow that part, so I don't know if they brought them back up before or after the lawsuits started.) And these ... oligarchs is the only term I can think of ... made enormous profits during that period of time.

    My guess is that the point of this is to prove the folly of governments saving money. I can't think why else the government has been letting them get away with it. The entire sorry mess has caused be to consider the Republicans totally corrupt, and the Democrats nearly the same.

    I wish there were some decent reporters around, but since the corporations bought out the news that species seems to have disappeared (well, they were always rare).

    OTOH, it probably isn't a matter of no decent reporters. If one paid careful attention to the news stories then what was going on was actually spelled out quite clearly. Usually just one or two paragraphs toward the end of the story, but it was there. It just wasn't the new that they wanted to emphasize. Or, perhaps, corrupt economic practices are just seen as so expected, that it wasn't even seen as news.

    But don't take the headlines for the story.


    Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
  • I'm sorry that your conveninece allows you to justify censorship. Mine doesn't allow me to do the same.

    I do use Usenet, and not just the moderated groups. It is also true that there are a lot of groups that I don't use. E.g., comp.lang.c++.moderated ... there's just too many posts. The spam is the most irritating, but it's the shear quantity of posts that can render even a good usenet group useless. OTOH, if you don't get a certain number of posts, then it isn't very useful either. Probably the only real answer is for usenet groups that get too busy to split into subgroups. Like (e.g.): comp.lang.c++.IDEs.scripting . Of course, Borland does their part by hosting newgroups for each of their products, split into multiple sub-categories. This works a lot better than one huge group.

    But the spam isn't really the problem (though it sure would be nice if newsreaders had better filtering capability ... say a filter that applied filters to mark articles "pseudo-read" (so that stepping through, you would step over it, but also so that you could see that you hadn't actually read it).


    Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.

  • Governments, Corporations, Ordinary People (Score:5)

    by Badgerman ( 19207 ) on Monday July 02, 2001 @06:40AM (#114601)
    The webmaster in question states "ordinary people" are the problem, not governments or coprorations. This may seem a surprise to some.

    However, it shouldn't be - because be they ordinary people, government people, or corporate people, the operative word is *people*. The greedy, the oppressive, the self-rigtheous are people too, and they can be found anywhere and their behavior is always the same. Some just have the tools or position to make their pathology into policy.

    The oppressor can exist at any level of society. It's up to those of us who don't like the oppressor to not let him gain power - and even more important, to not become like him in the process.

  • It's called "gallows humor", and it's a long and distinguished tradition.

    People who cannot see the moral difference between actual, physical violence and talking (or joking) about violence are at best poorly adjusted, and at worst sociopathic. I do not mean to imply that you fit either of these categories, but you might consider why one action is intrinsically harmful, and the other is not.
  • The english word to describe this would be 'irony'.

    It's not clear whether you are serious when you talk about violating the American constitution, and it is particularly 'funny' to Americans that a German citizen would judge Americans to be too restrictive of speach when the situation is far worse for Germans.

  • www.nic.cx does not seem to be working.

    Curious. IANA's WHOIS server index [iana.org] doesn't list a WHOIS server for .cx. Logically whois.nic.cx would seem appropriate, but it doesn't exist.

  • The signal/noise ratio is worse than it is here, The raving loonies are out in force, and I don't have the time to sort through all of the above to find the useful stuff. Yes, the moderated groups are a little better, but even there... Usenet was cool in the late 80's and early 90's, but today it's just overloaded with sludge. Ah well, such is life.

  • Get your lamer ass off slashdot and hack some code :P !

    In other news, I'll be calling or emailing you today (Tuesday), so watch for it..

  • Well, anonymity here means "anonymous, unless there's sufficient evidence to suspect that you're breaking US laws". Meaning that users of cotse.com are subject to US laws. Similarly, if it were hosted in China, it would be anonymous except when in conflict with China's laws.
    --

  • Re:Have you seen POSTNET? (Score:3)

    by interiot ( 50685 ) on Monday July 02, 2001 @05:31AM (#114608) Homepage
    POSTNET looks like e-mail and USENET with the difference that posters keep the posts. Messages are not send to somebody; they remain in your hard disk and others come and get them.

    Meaning there's really no anonymity, because they know your IP before they read your post. This is the opposite of what cotse.com is trying to do.
    --

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Comment removed (Score:4)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday July 02, 2001 @04:06AM (#114612)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • People have issues (Score:5)

    by joq ( 63625 ) on Monday July 02, 2001 @04:24AM (#114613) Homepage Journal
    Isn't it sad that people can't come to reasonable conclusions in life. You know one thing that has always pissed me off was racism online, and although I despise it, I don't feel some site should be blacklisted, attacked, even put down, because they should have the same kind of rights as I do. When it comes to legalities however, lines have to be drawn, hopefully people can gain a sense of understanding of life, and grow up, before the better sites are gone, and they'll have no one to blame but themselves.
    But I'm battle scarred and shell shocked. It hasn't been an easy fight. Those against us are not the governments, they are not the corporations, they are not the legal system. They are individuals self-righteous in their views. They are the very people who's freedom of speech we are trying to protect. They have a right to be heard. But at the same time they work hard to squelch any opposing opinions or speech, those others also have a right to be heard. If they succeed, they will only have given away their own freedom.
    This is a bit puzzling to me:
    They have one goal, shut us down or get me to shut it down because we shield someone they want to attack. All because that person said something unpopular or disagreed with their views.
    What happens to anonyminity in a tight situation. Let's say a woman was raped and would like to get some counseling online, but is terrified to post her name. Why should she have to when sites like this allow for anonyminity. Should she have to feel slighted because some moronic script kiddie has too much time on their hands? Suppose someone wanted to report some form of corruption, but was afraid of the aftermath should their identity be revealed, then what.

    Certainly it is very sad to see some assholes abusing the site, maybe for his own sanity, and protection, he should make everyone register with an ISP email address before allowing them to post anonymously. That would probably cut down some attacks. He could clarify that no information will be posted, sold, etc., and this is solely for theirs, and his protection
  • Are you that plainly stupid? Honestly - consider Thomas Paine, or Patrick Henry's style of rhetoric and oration and tell me, are their ideas "much good to begin with?"

    Love,
    -Tork

  • You're fundamentally mistaken. The issues at stake really are timeless. I'm sure that people in the 21st century have taken abuse to new levels and new applications, but harassment by lawyer and fraud are nothing new.

    Ben Franklin once said, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." It applies to this situation as well as it did to the US Revolutionary War.

    Mr. Gielda did identify the problem correctly -- it is not that Cotse's users expect too much privacy; it is that attackers engage in illegal tactics that are unlikely to be punished, and they have learned that they can get away with this. It's the WWW (Wild Wild West) all over again; fewer people may die, but lives still get ruined, and technology just makes it harder to prosecute the bad guys.

  • I don't give a rats ass who knows where I surf. And I don't care about spam. Sure, I get lots of emails a day promising my larger breasts and a huge dick, but is it really that harmful?

    Maybe you don't care who knows where you surf. Others do, particularly if they live in a country where reading the wrong web sites is a good way to end up in prison.

    Maybe you don't care about the time and annoyance of spam. Others do, particularly if they're busy people, have children using the net, etc.

    But those are irrelevant to the point that Mr. Gielda and Cotse bring up in the URL posted, and your arguments about the FBI and fundamentalists are specious. In the FBI case, they could presumably get a subpoena, in which case he is obliged to reveal the information. In the fundamentalist case, you seem to almost be sanctioning the fundamentalist coming hunting for blood.

    Of course I don't condone violence, but when you allow someone the right to say whatever they want, you're giving them the right to say something that could REALLY piss someone off. Say it, and you're gonna have to put up with the consequences. It's called prior restraint or something, isn't it? (I'm no lawyer - honest).

    Part of living in a free society is that sometimes you hear things you don't like, and if those things don't infringe on your freedom, you are obliged to let the speaker say them. You may disagree with that. There are any number of oppressive regimes in this world that do disagree; they do not provide a free society.

    As for prior restraint, that's an entire other ballpark -- prior restraint is making something illegal to ever say. It is a label applied to government actions, not those of private citizens.

    No one should have to live in fear for speaking an honest opinion, but the cyber-terrorists that Mr. Gielda describes try to instill that fear -- just like any other terrorists.

    If I've offended anyone, then I'm sorry. If you're angry at me, that's fine.

    I'm not angry, and don't understand why anyone would be. I'm just astounded at your lack of concern for civil liberties and your sanction of illegal response to the exercise of civil liberties.

  • Their abuse teams simply pass your email address on to the "troll".

    The guy manning the abuse desk is serious BOFH material. If you've got a valid complaint, it is taken as such, and accounts do get cancelled. Now, if you're forging posts by someone in order to get them in trouble (an all too common ocurrence), then it's different, though I'm not sure what the policy is then.

  • Hipcrime is a usenet bot that makes it easy to do mass cancels and other really irritating things. It is used en masse as a censorship tool. A google search [google.com] can tell you more.

  • Usenet can easily be made useful until you get people like cotse.

    I now just filter out everything that is posted from a cotse address because they simply won't stop their users from posting hipcrime floods, binary floods, massive crossposting etc. Their abuse teams simply pass your email address on to the "troll".

    I'm in the process of persuading my ISP to drop everything from cotse.com.


    First, I must disclaim I have a COTSE [cotse.com] webmail account. This is because I know Steve, the guy who runs the site.

    The above comment is blatantly false. One by one:

    • You can't run hipcrime through the COTSE interface.
    • There's a limit on binary size. It was 4 MB with the last system, not sure what it is now.
    • The remailers have a limit of 5 newsgroups per post.
    • The abuse department at COTSE (not Steve) will cancel accounts. It has been done for high BI (aka, spamming). Steve just told me that anyone running hipcrime-like floods (if they could figure out how) or binary floods would quickly lose their account, if reported, or if anyone there noticed. John, the abuse desk head, just confirmed that for me.

    Now, as for blocking COTSE content, there's a problem with that. All (well, most) of what the COTSE newsgroup poster is is a front end to a few mail2news remailers. So, you (or your ISP) could block those. But, people can post to newsgroups with an @cotse.com address without posting through COTSE, and that's probably the source of those hipcrime/binary/crosspost floods. The same people could use hotmail addresses, yahoo addresses, etc.

    Also, for help with abuse issues, we've been working on a post authenticator, since so many people forge COTSE posts just to get COTSE in trouble (no joke). Of course, they can look in their recent posts and prove one way or another, but it takes a lot of time.

    In my opinion, Steve and COTSE are doing a great thing by letting people make usenet posts anonymously. Some people use it to get around cancel bots run on their names, bizarre forms of censorship, or to say things that aren't safe to say with a name attached. Anyone who has ever needed privacy or anonymity thanks him.

  • Funny...last definition of recursion I heard was a function that passed a new value to an instance of itself.
    ---
  • Every age is different. True. Every day is a new day. True.

    So what? What's your point?

    What's that got to do with making someone else do work without getting paid and forcing him/her to live in the quarters you choose for him/her?

    You probably think slavery is gone (not true) because it's an age of different values (even if it were gone, this is the wrong reason it's gone in some areas - hint hint revolution).

    Poverty will be with us always. So will power tripping and abuse of others and attacks on civil rights.

    The values of today are the same they were ages ago. Somebody struck a successful blow and the dominant values changed sides, but the values remain. You can't kill values. Having too many people who support one value system will breed antivalues and cause people change their minds.

    Do you really think that when slavery was outlawed in the US it was because there was concensus? Revolutions do not come out from large concensus.

    You're saying the times were different. Guess what? That's about as pointless a statement as a child saying that balls bounce. So what?

    You left out the logic between your observation and your conclusion. That is if you could even call it an observation.

    Go away. Ewwwwwwwwwwwww, relativism. Ptooooooey!
  • freedom of speech... unless you speak negatively [manilasites.com] of microsoft?

    check out scripting news today [userland.com] and yesterday [userland.com] ...hmm.

  • Interesting post, and one that covers a topic I've thought much about. A couple of minor points, however.

    The phrase "legal tender" does not mean something issued by the Federal Reserve. "Legal tender" means a unit of currency that, by law, must be accepted as payment for a purchase, a debt, etc. The government could make Slashdot karma legal tender, if they wanted . . .

    Also, it's good to notice that the "Federal Reserve Note" is short for "Federal Reserve Note of Credit". Pointing that out helps to emphasize that our paper currency (and our coined currency, as well) has all been borrowed . . .
  • a) We do not ignore complaints, although, sometimes it does take a few days to reply.
    b) We do not pass on your email address.
    Feel free to try and prove me wrong here.
    Nix - Random Cotse person

  • It's nice to see that someone is sticking up for people's freedom of speech (a thank you goes out to Slashdot as well). Sometimes it's nice to be anonymous, especially when in political situations where your family and friends can be raped, tortured, and murdered :O

    I for one applaud his work. I actually wouldn't mind working for him. I can only begin to fathom the amount of security experience one would gain.

    I'm wondering how anonymous posting on Usenet would be handled if it was done from a country which did not have freedom of speech. Given the recent Slashdot story on global conferences for Internet content, it'll be interesting to see how this works out over time.


  • People love freedom but they sure as hell get upset when anybody else actually tries to use it.

    :-)

  • <and IRC has been replaced with I.M.'s

    No it hasn't, IRC and icq and it's clones are used for different things, icq is for two people to talk, irc is for a number of people to talk at the same time. Mass messages on icq is just for pr0n ads i never pay much attention to them. And if irc is flooded with morons and idiots then you're in the wrong channels/servers.
  • Your posting is missing something. A sense of humor, perhaps?

    After reading all of the current thread, I agree with those that called your "humor" tasteless and inappropriate. Your "success" in a improv group, and in being moderated up, etc. are not relevant to whether this posting was humorous. Death threats never really are and I didn't see anyone else (so far) call your posting funny.

    The only remaining question is whether your response is going to be "Fuck you, asshole" or "Hmmm. Maybe jokes about death threats are really not funny."
  • We do not ignore complaints, although, sometimes it does take a few days to reply.
    According to the page that started this thread - and thus according to your own boss - you ignore complaints about people grossly violating newsgroup chartas.

    So you do ignore complaints.

    f.
  • I can deny the holocaust all I want if I feel like it and that wouldn't even be hate speech in the sense that I was asking that a group of people be injured, killed or otherwise treated unpleasantly.
    Just in case you are really German, you suffer from substantial - and dangerous - delusions. Its is by no means possible to deny holocaust in this our country. Not even partially. Regardless how polite or educatedly you formulate it. Maybe there are qualificatiuons in the law that should -- in theory -- allow independant scientific research while banning only nazis from saying it. In practice, though, courts have consistently interpreted any attempt to publish substantial doubts on parts or the whole holocaust as political and punished people for it severely.

    Get your facts straight.

    No, I won't engage in debate on wheter the idea of legislating truth -- or distinguishing 'pure' from 'political' research in a court -- makes any sense. It is quite obviously utter bull.

    But that's the reality. We just live with it.

    f.
  • The current American government was elected by a small majority of voters.
    Not to spoil anyone's fun, but that is a claim a large part of these people would hesitate supporting.

    The only majority Mr Bush had some claim to is the majority of electors in the electoral college. And even there is more and more evidence coming up that he obtained these votes ... hmm ... not really the way they were meant to be obtained.

    He certainly never had or even claimed having whatever majority of voters on his side.

    f.

  • I for one wouldn't know jack about the way my own government works if I hadn't have been the sort of iconoclast troublemaker that school admins are scared of these days. My government class in HS was spectacularly bad and was taught by a rabid Jon Bircher. However, I actually sent away for a copy of the consitution and read just so I could piss my teacher off. I learned a fair amount that way too. One of the problems with America's speech laws is that its citizens have not been educated in the way their own government works, and they have even less of an interest in finding it out for themselves. All we as Americans tend to do is panic every time there's a bit of shocking news. The politicans gives us quick fixes to placate us, and the rest of the time they feel confident ripping the constitution to shreds because the citizens just don't care and are too ignorant to care. Like I said, a big part of it is the educational system we're stuck with. Growing up we're taught largely by people who are frankly too incompetent to do anything else, working for salaries that don't even amount to the cost of living in a lot of places. And, the textbooks. Yeesh! The number of factual errors I found even as a high schooler were astounding. Recently I looked at a science text book for the Detroit school and was appalled. The authors got every single concept they were trying to teach wrong. And, given that classes like government are considered "extra" they get shorted even worse than the rest.

  • Read the article you linked to. The only Freedom of speech/press issue discussed was media reporting of election results before the polls had closed. Censorship was not even mentioned.

  • They should say after every swearing in: Sold to the Highest Bidder!
  • I'm in the process of persuading my ISP to drop everything from cotse.com.

    Because after all, if you don't want to read posts from cotse then nobody else should be able to either.

    Don't bitch about trolls if you are one.
    ---

  • Blockquoth the poster:
    While there is plenty of grey between the black and white, there are also plenty of unambiguous cases of abuse of Usenet.
    I have only the guy's word to go on, but he claims that they have significant anti-abuse policies. Have you reported these unambiguous cases to him? What was the response?

  • Re:Contradiction? (Score:3)

    by EvlPenguin ( 168738 ) on Monday July 02, 2001 @04:20AM (#114637) Homepage
    Isn't the whole point of being anonymous to decrease you accountability?

    Erm, no. He clearly states that his purpose is to promote open discussion, and that if you try to exploit his services by making death threats and such, then you will be held accountable. How else can you protect yourself against the idiots on Usenet?
    --
  • death threats are not

    Is it that black and white?

    What about that recent COTS case where there were "death threats" using a "Tom Cruise Missile"?

    And for reference, that guy fled to Canada under Terrorism charges

  • BTW, fuck privacy - you don't need it if you ain't guilty.

    Yet you don't have an e-mail address and you have an invalid home page. Try practicing what you preach.

  • Notice I said "death threats" not death threats.

    If one party thinks (or more accurately in the case of COTS, willing to say so under oath / in a court of law) that it is a threat, is it? Should it be limited?

    That's what I mean it's not as black and white as it sounds. When there is more than one person involved, since interperetation is involved, there is very little that is black and white.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday July 02, 2001 @07:14AM (#114643)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • The newsgroups are totally flooded with crap. It's pointless to even try to initiate any meaningful dialogue. The only good newsgroups out there are the binaries with free mp3's :) And even they're getting overrun with porn messages.
  • Of course noone is more worthy of such threats. The basic rule to follow must simply be "Dont to anything that can harm anyone else in any way". This is ofcourse not possible to follow strictly, but should be a guideline...

    Its much as saying.. This person killed someone.. lets kill him. In computer terms this is called a recursion ;)

    -- Dont let the evil win, but defeat the evil with the good --

  • Certainly it is very sad to see some assholes abusing the site

    Remember that he is providing anonymous posting to USENET. He is not an ISP by himself.

    Let us imagine that one or two percent of your usenet readership are fools and assholes.

    One or two percent of a planet is an awful lot of fools and assholes. 100,000,000 people online = 1,000,000+ willing to make life unbearable for somebody else.

    10,000,000 on USENET = 100,000+ dedicated jerks

    Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip

  • Re:Who ese is getting tageted? (Score:2, Interesting) by Chakat (chakat@fuckhumanity.spamandibiteyou.org) on Monday July 02,
    @07:52AM CST (#51)
    Re:Who ese is getting tageted? (Score:1) by Chakat (chakat@fuckhumanity.spamandibiteyou.org) on Monday July 02,
    @09:24AM CST (#124)
    Quite all right. Sometimes I wish there was a remote control for life where I could pause life so I could get a few extra hours sleep, or rewind an especially dreadful monday so I could fix those faux pas I've made.
    your computer has a built-in reclaim-your-life remote control function. it's called the On/Off button. log off /.; push the button; close your eyes; awaken later feeling refreshed and whole once more.

    ---
  • Why is it that we the people are no longer represented...the govenment, has become the govenment of concerns, the big guys, the money launders. Get it right you goddamned politicians they should add a new line to the oath of office for every position. And I Insert name Understand completely, that in this country, its we the PEOPLE, and not we the BUSINESS.
  • "OpenBSD has a local root hole."

    It does it really now? Got anything to backup your off the wall comments?

    OpenBSD claims "Four years without a remote hole in the default install!"

     That means your comments about local root holes are bullshit. Unless of course your putting them there; in which case you're the dope.
  • The Federal Reserve Board is an independent agency of the United States government (i.e., not directly beholden to any of the 14 cabinet-level departments). It was created by Congress in 1913 in order to increase stability of the economy. Ultimately, it has little direct control of currency, which is handled by the Department of the Treasury and its subagencies.

    The Federal Reserve has several duties, which basically consist of acting as an advisory body to the rest of the government, and helping to define fiscal policy. But, more importantly, they are an oversight body for the banking system of the United States, and most of their power comes from their ability to supervise the nation's banks (which is exercised by things such as raising/lowering interest rates).

    Furthermore, the Federal Reserve Board does not handle the issuing of Federal Reserve Notes, which is generally left to Congress. The Chairman of the seven person FRB could not, for instance, decide to stop issuing notes, particularly now that they are the only currency in circulation. What the Board does do is to determine how to distribute them through the banking systems of the country: the central Board distributes the notes to its seven regional banks, who then put the notes into circulation, depending on the needs of the public.

    And they do not collect your money. The Reserve Board simply helps facilitate the banking system; the nitty gritty details are handled by the Treasury. They have a lot of power over our currency, but its hardly complete power. The seven-member board is appointed by Congress.

    BTW, the homepage for the Board of the Governors of the Federal Reserve System (the technical name for the FRB) is http://www.federalreserve.gov/ [federalreserve.gov] which is, last time I checked, a government site. I don't know what you're talking about when you say that it isn't.

  • Should Free Speech Be Free? (Score:4)

    by tenzig_112 ( 213387 ) on Monday July 02, 2001 @05:04AM (#114651) Homepage
    Everyone seems to want anonymity for themselves and public accountability for everyone else. We want free speech with no personal cost- free speech for free.

    Saying something unpopular is protected by the Constitution, death threats are not. It really isn't all that complicated from the outside.

    Personally, I'd be thrilled if I got enough traffic to warrant the occasional death threat. [ridiculopathy.com]

  • Boy, did you get that one wrong.

    Reading some more on this -- yeah, I did get it wrong. I had skimmed headlines like the Slashdot article "Windows 2000 to be banned in Germany?" [slashdot.org] based on a story with a similar headline at c't. Yes, I know that believing something because a Slashdot editor stated it is not an excuse.

    On the other hand, policies (and in the cases of Bavaria and Hamburg, laws) forbidding the government from transacting business with members of a religious group would never fly in the US. And in general, the US provides much more freedom to unpopular religious and political groups than does Germany. Yes, I understand the historical reasons why they're leerier of giving the protection of civil rights to neo-Nazis and hate groups. But I hardly think Germans are in a position to sneer at us for arresting people for making death threats in comp.os.advocacy.idiots, as seems to have been the case here.

    Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.

  • Re:Americans and freedom (of speech) (Score:3)

    by update() ( 217397 ) on Monday July 02, 2001 @05:53AM (#114653) Homepage
    As a German, I just can't help but wonder about Americans. It seems that the land of the free doesn't know its own rights and continually tolerates breaches of constitutional law. Not only that, they allow laws to be enforced which are krassly against the constitution.

    Geez, whose country wants to ban software made by Scientologists?

    Maybe if you explained exactly what you think is a violation of the Constitution I could respond in more detail. But I don't see anything in this article that has anything to do with what you're saying. Under US law, Usenet loons are free to flame each other to cinders, but they're not allowed to make death threats or bomb threats. Except for Slashbots, most Americans are perfectly aware that that's how the system works and consider it a perfectly appropriate implementation of "free speech."

    Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.

  • The source of the problem (Score:5)

    by Foggy Tristan ( 220356 ) on Monday July 02, 2001 @04:44AM (#114654)
    It's interesting to not that Mr. Gielda doesn't cite corporations or the US Government as the biggest problem, but instead cites ordinary people who for one reason or another can't accept the fact the people should be free to say and think what they want.

    I'd hate to think that a service like this which helps give a voice to people in countries where freedom of speech doesn't exist could be destroyed by people with thin skins.

    Hopefully one day we'll actually show enough responsibility to deserve the rights we have, but I'm not holding my breath.

  • Then i found out i cannot find out who registered a cx domain.

    www.nic.cx does not seem to be working. Although its possible that its been slashdotted, the error message (something about Cold Fusion and IP addresses) makes me think it is just misconfigured.

  • As an American, I find it disgusting that our reputation as the "land of the free" has basically been whittled down to allowing businesses almost any freedom they desire. .... I just got back from a month long visit to Europe. I never spent more than 30 seconds in a customs line. When I came back to the US through Philidelphia, I had to wait two hours in line to declare my copy of "Alf: Der Film"

    I agree with your premise, but not with your example. Try flying through Chicago or JFK next time! I personally have had no trouble in either place, although I haven't been through many times.

    Or, better yet, try getting through Customs in Europe in 30 seconds or less WITHOUT that American passport! Believe me, it's worth something in that situation!

    It seems that the American reputation as "the land of the free" is worth somethin OUTSIDE our borders...

  • My thoughts exactly. As an American, I find it disgusting that our reputation as the "land of the free" has basically been whittled down to allowing businesses almost any freedom they desire. Hell, with DMCA, etc, businesses have more rights than I do. I just got back from a month long visit to Europe. I never spent more than 30 seconds in a customs line. When I came back to the US through Philidelphia, I had to wait two hours in line to declare my copy of "Alf: Der Film" - had I been even luckier I may have had a friendly customs agent search my inner cavaties for cocain. Land of the free indeed.
  • Actually, I just didn't feel like wasting Slashdot's space by explaining the whole situation. I waited in line for imigration (over an hour) and then moved on to customs. Rather than wait an hour in line for the "no items to declare" officer, I took my form over to the "items to declare" desk because there was no line. Much quicker that way. But yes, you do have to declare if you have under $400 so long as some items are intended to be sold or as gifts. You just don't have to pay a tariff unless it's above $400.

    And Alf: Der Film may have cost just 49 shillings (3 bucks), but its priceless in my book.
  • Admitedly the backup in customs is also a by-product of the problamatic airline situation - my problem was precipitated by a mass arrival of planes into USAir's Philly terminal. It's pretty small as far as internation terminals go. Still, though I don't fly internationally often, I had another long wait coming into Atlanta from Jamaica, and Atlanta has a huge international terminal.

    Regarding lacking an American passport, the countries I visited (with the exception of France) all had open borders. Somewhat different from America eh? It was a little dissapointing that I couldn't fill up my passport with stamps though. Just one coming into Amsterdam and another from a confused passport checker in Munich who really wasn't supposed to stamp it anyway. But yeah, your right that being American carries influence internationally. I'd argue, however, that it shouldn't.
  • I agree. But I'm not sure what your point is?

    My point, which I admit could appear vague, is that if you give people the opportunity to hide behind anonymity, some of them will post utter shit, as I'm sure you are aware.
    My post was in response to your complaint that you cannot have anonymity where you have also accountability. I'm sure all those who have a genuine use for the service that cotse.com provide are not bothered.
    It keeps out the idiots, thus ensuring the service still has credibility, and does not have to answer the charge of being a free-for-all-anonymous-flame-portal.
    Regards,
    cmclean

  • Someone who feels they have a perfectly legitimate complaint against the government of the US might still fear posting knowing that they can be held accountable.

    Granted, but the idea here seems to be to make the site as legitimate as possible, so when the government wander in and say "We want to know who this anonymous poster saying bad things about us is.", Gielda can say, "Sorry chum, the government say that anonymity is part of free speech."
    The point I see is that at least as a legit site, there's no case of anyone saying "You're a bunch of yahoos who let anyone post anything."
    Gotta cut this short, gotta go home :-)
    Regards,
    cmclean

  • Then it's not true anonymity.

    Try browsing through the posts associated with this (or any other) article at -1, check out all the stuff from "Anonymous Coward", then consider again the anonymity/accountabiliy argument.
    I sure as hell would not want to be held responsible for some of the stuff that appears at -1 in the discussions on slashdot, and they are nothing compared to some of the advocacy flamewars available now from an NNTP server near you.
    Regards,
    cmclean

  • The previous poster sounds as though he'd like nothing more than moving back to the gold standard for currency. Almost no established country depends on the gold standard. It makes management of funds, particularly difficult, and eliminates a whole class of wealth buildin business enterprises. Perhaps that is good, but it'd certainly negitively impact a significant portion of the population at this point in the history of the financial markets.

    The gold standard does buy you some financial security, but the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. It you want to deal exclusively in a gold standard currency, you can use any one of a number of proposed internet currencies [slashdot.org] but good luck finding merchants that will accept it.

    --CTH


    --

  • Re:Contradiction? (Score:4)

    by American AC in Paris ( 230456 ) on Monday July 02, 2001 @06:51AM (#114664) Homepage
    Isn't the whole point of being anonymous to decrease you accountability?

    If you're looking to avoid accountability for your actions and statements, yes.

    Of course, Mr. Gielda's unenviable position is to protect and maintain the right to anonymity in the face of individuals who use anonymity to threaten to murder the children and spouses of their enemies; who use anonymity to try and crack and DoS the servers of their enemies; who use anonymity to intimidate, slur, slander, spoof, and defame their enemies; who use anonymity as a weapon of intolerance and cowardice instead of as a voice for the oppressed, small, and afraid.

    If it weren't for the tireless efforts of individuals like Mr. Gielda, I assure you that our valuable right to anonymous speech would be heavily curtailed today. Without dedicated individuals fighting an endless battle against those who wish only to take anonymity and turn it into immunity from reproach, governments would quickly step in and put an end to the "menace of anonymous attacks," as well as all anonymity online.

    Anonymity is the shield that protects those who would be unjustly harmed or persecuted for their actions. There are few greater signs of cowardice and selfishness than one who uses anonymity to evade accountability for their own unjust actions.

  • It's interesting to not that Mr. Gielda doesn't cite corporations or the US Government as the biggest problem, but instead cites ordinary people who for one reason or another can't accept the fact the people should be free to say and think what they want.

    Perhaps you missed the part where he says he's under a gag order not to talk about that the FBI wants from him.

  • I, as an atheist, am a bit bothered at being thrown in with those other groups. Atheists are not hate-mongering bigots like the rest of the organizations you named. I have no idea if you were implying that or not, but I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you only meant to list groups that attract violent opposition. Please, be careful of your phrasing in the future.
    ----------
  • As an American living in Germany, I'm not at all sure you get it. Did you read the original article at the Church of the Swimming Elephant (cotse.com)? If so, what "breaches of constitutional law" are you talking about?

    Granted, the original post here on /. sorta gives the impression that this is about corporations, the DMCA, or some such, but it's not. Reading the original article shows it's about the harassment by individuals --- individuals who confused usenet with reality, and got all bent out of shape by something someone else said.

    The real point here is not "laws which are krassly [sic (lovely Germanism there, are you sure you're not a troll?)] against the constitution", but rather the immaturity of the technology we call "internet" --- it allows us unimagined new possibilities to communicate, anonymously or otherwise, with or without accountability, but this also opens those who actively provide the service up to a thousand and one variations on "road rage". The real question is how we can protect those brave souls without "krassly" limiting other folks' freedom of speech.

    Ron Obvious

    P.S. Just out of curiousity, if you're really German and not a Troll, what do you think of verbotene Parteien?

  • The source of the problem is human nature, and sadly, it's always good for a disappointment.

    In other words, first, you're quite right when you say that "It's interesting to not that Mr. Gielda doesn't cite corporations or the US Government as the biggest problem, but instead cites ordinary people...", a point a lot of other posters here missed.

    But I think we can all do more than not hold our breaths until the day when "we'll actually show enough responsibility to deserve the rights we have". First of all, that day will never come. Look at the most recent News of the Weird" [newsoftheweird.com], where we read that, recently,

    "A 34-year-old man was shot to death over a piece of sweet potato pie (Atlanta, January). A man was stabbed to death allegedly by his girlfriend when he brought her home a McDonald's ham, egg and cheese bagel instead of the two Egg McMuffins she requested (Martinez, Calif., March). A 48-year-old man was shot to death, allegedly by his wife, after a fight over their satellite-TV controls (Orlando, April). A 37-year-old man was beaten to death, allegedly by his roommate, in a fight over the thermostat setting..."

    My point being, people are reliably inclined, all over the world, to lose all sense of proportion over things wackier and less important than usenet posts.

    And, given this, my real point is: The source of the problem is technical! The internet has given us a wonderful system for facilitating communication, but it's immature. How can we (technogeek slashdotters) make it better? How can we implement noble ideas like "anonymous with accountability"? How can we get real free speech to places like China or Saudi Arabia, while still doing something to increase the responsibility of people who unleash ddos attachs and the thousand and one more interesting forms of abuse mentioned in the original article?

    How can we, that is, truley best support and protect the work of those noble few who keep the net running from the inevitable depths of human nature?

    Ron Obvious

  • Re:Contradiction? (Score:3)

    by plcurechax ( 247883 ) on Monday July 02, 2001 @04:29AM (#114673) Homepage
    Accountability to whom?

    Anonymity is a tool to help permit the freedom of unpopular speech, a person has no obligation to be accountable to the "mob rule" of the general population, only to a fair government, and honest legal systems. In fact it is questionable if there is a moral or ethical obligation to abide by the laws of undemocratic countries.

    Limited anonymity is a better balance between unrevokable anonymity and no freedom of speech.

    The US Supreme Court has upheld that anonymous speech is important to free speech.

    Unfortantly many people want to shoot the messager (Mr. Gielda) when his users send annoying or unpopular messages.

  • While I have no doubt Steve gets a lot of flak, I for one have complained to cotse about some of the posts coming from there. As I recall it was when some 3 or 4 posters were posting 10 cut-and-paste messages a day to a certain newsgroup.

    (cut-and-paste meaning that the posts were just cut-and-pasted off of a website).

    Was I an evil anti-free speach person? Perhaps. But I felt a complaint was appropriate. Especially if those 3 or 4 posters were really just one person (which appeared to be the case) simply trying to drown out other discussion.

    That said, this service is darn useful.
  • Death threats never really are and I didn't see anyone else (so far) call your posting funny.

    I thought that it was hi-freaking-larious. I actually laughed out loud. Of course, my entire family has a hard time keeping a straight face at funerals too...

    But regardless of whether or not it was funny, it was certainly protected speech and perfectly legal. Isn't that ironic (for anyone who read the article)? It's not like he was making death threats, he was simply making a joke (or comment for the morbid-humor impaired) about how he thought that it was appropriate for the goatse.cx man to get death threats.



    Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups. [thedaythatcounts.org]
  • BTW, fuck privacy - you don't need it if you ain't guilty.

    True, but sometimes the only crime these users are guilty of is voicing an opinion.

    (First off, I know that only the seoncd line is your comment, but they both seemed enough out of whack to quote them together.)

    Are you crazy!?!??! We are all entitled to privacy. Do you really want people prying into every minute detail of your life? Trying to find out who you associate with? Trying to videotape you having sexual relations with your spouse/significant other? Trying to find out your credit history and the names of the banks and other businesses that you deal with? Privacy is an important way of protecting yourself. Just because someone isn't a criminal doesn't mean that they want to expose themselves to people who are.

    Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups. [thedaythatcounts.org]

  • Did you read the article? (Score:3)

    by drew_kime ( 303965 ) on Monday July 02, 2001 @06:47AM (#114680) Journal

    I'm in the process of persuading my ISP to drop everything from cotse.com.

    Isn't this exactly what the author said people try to do? Post trash under a cotse name to try to get the site in trouble? Did you consider that you are being used?

  • I was reading this story on how americans feels that the 1st amendment goes too far [usatoday.com], and it made me sad. It seems that the influence from the facist liberals like Joe Lieberman and Hilory Clinton are having their effect. Now that the public knows that censorship has "bipartisan" support, they've begun to tolerate it more, so know you have the liberal people saying censorship is ok, not just the religious right. It's scary to think that when americans are willing to give up their most basic freedom, what freedom will they be willing to give up next?
  • Is it just a matter of time before slashdot, being the public forum that it is, becoms the target of the psychotic individuals currently targeting cotse?

    Unfortunately, the idiots have already begun attacking. [slashdot.org] The psychotologists forced the removal of one of their "sacred documents" from this site. Of course, it didn't do much good, if you read a ways down in the comments. People seem to hate free speech if they're the one being attacked.

  • Re:Sorry guys... (Score:3)

    by Spagornasm ( 444846 ) on Monday July 02, 2001 @06:07AM (#114696) Homepage

    "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

    Benjamin Franklin, 1759

  • Most people simply don't know how to access USENET in the most productive way, which is why they dismiss it like you do. Why would you need to sort through the spam and BS? Let your software do it for you.

    The best newsreader by far is a Windoze program called Gravity by a company named Microplanet. I'm sure there's probably something for Linux which does a comparable job, but at any rate it automatically sorts all similar messages together in a much more effective way than the most popular newsreader, Forte Agent, does. Therefore, with a few clicks, all the spam is gone. If you don't even want to spare a few clicks, then you can easily set up personal spam filters to automatically get rid of almost all spam messages. After all, most spam is crossposted to several groups or displays other signs which can set it apart for filtering.

    And if you're too fucking lazy to set up spam filters and then just read the groups, you can always get a feed from a provider who filters the spam for you. There are several, some of which have great spam-filtering capabilities. The interested can try http://www.exit109.com/~jeremy/news/providers/prov iders.html for a list of providers and features, and http://www.newsreaders.com/ for lists of readers, servers, and all sorts of stuff.

    Personally, I much prefer USENET to the Web any day. It's far more free and far easier to maintain privacy. A group for every subject and every subject for a group. Some communities are filled with old hands who can tell you more than the mostly-youngsters here on /. any day. Other communities have wonderful traditions and initiations that are older than most MOOs or MUDs still in operation.

    And don't even get me started with the art of forging headers on any server willing to let you supply your own values (like Altopia). It's fun and provides a level of privacy that's hard to get on the Web.

    But, I digress. My point is, the sludge and loonies are easily taken care of with filters and killfiles, and USENET is as vibrant as ever. The only thing about USENET that's bad is the high traffic in binaries which are easily obtainable on the Web or via protocols more suited to binary transfer. The MP3 groups especially piss me off since 99% of what gets posted was easy to find on Napster and is still easy to find on the Web or via Gnutella, Audiogalaxy, and other sources better suited for binary transfers. But, ah well...
  • Mr. Gielda and his Cotse service are really the black sheep of the remailer community. All you have to do to see this is spend some time in the venerable group alt.privacy.anon-server , where remailer operators (remops) and others interested in security and privacy congregate. Gielda has his supporters, but nearly everyone in the community views him with suspicion. After all, he admits to keeping tracking data on his users, which is the opposite of what remailers are for. They were designed to prevent tracking. If I chain a message through good remailers, I know that that message is untraceable, and that my speech, however unpopular, is protected. If I send a message through Gielda's shitty Cotse thing, then the minute my unpopular speech results in the government asking him who I am, with a warrant (all too easy to get today--just recall the Independant Media Center case recently), he'll fold like a cheap suit. That in no way equates to protecting free speech, which is what a real remailer does.

    For a good discussion on the opinions of both sides, I recommend a thread I posted in under another nic some time ago. http://groups.google.com/groups?as_ugroup=alt.priv acy.anon-server&as_uauthors=carbonymous&num=100 I'm the one named "Carbonymous Howard" and unfortunately Google truncates each article in the thread so that you'll have to click on some links to get the rest of the articles.

    At any rate, Gielda isn't exactly a beloved guy in the privacy field, and it's sad to see him get the spotlight when there are plenty of *real* privacy and free speech advocates who deserve it more. To meet them, just hang out in alt.privacy.anon-server for a while.

  • Contradiction? (Score:4)

    by Blue Aardvark House ( 452974 ) on Monday July 02, 2001 @04:13AM (#114714)
    it's sobering to see how much trouble is involved in attempting to provide what Gielda calls "anonymity with accountability"

    Isn't the whole point of being anonymous to decrease you accountability? Using software to mask your IP, or even simply posting anonymously on here are both methods of decreasing accountability.

    It's no small wonder why Mr. Gielda's job is so difficult.
  • I'm curious as to something. This is the second time [slashdot.org] in my few months of being a /. reader where a security organization has become a target for computer based attacks.

    The system described by here sounds very similar to the slashdot system. And /. too, has been vistited by copyright lawyers in attempting censorship. [slashdot.org]

    Is it just a matter of time before slashdot, being the public forum that it is, becoms the target of the psychotic individuals currently targeting cotse?

  • Americans and freedom (of speech) (Score:4)

    by buglord ( 455997 ) on Monday July 02, 2001 @04:52AM (#114724)
    As a German, I just can't help but wonder about Americans. It seems that the land of the free doesn't know its own rights and continually tolerates breaches of constitutional law.

    Not only that, they allow laws to be enforced which are krassly against the constitution. Of course, there will always be a small minority which will profit from these laws.

    But remember: Freedom goes as far as the freedom of others is not endangered.

  • American Free Speech Law (Score:5)

    by Thomas M Hughes ( 463951 ) on Monday July 02, 2001 @05:53AM (#114730)
    Here are some important US Court Cases involving Speech, incase you want to read up on this stuff more than just slashdot editorials and newspaper articles.

    Schenk v United States (249 U.S. 47, 39 S.Ct. 247, 63 L.Ed 470) - Debut of Clear and Present Danger Test

    Gitlow v New York (268 U.S. 652, 45 S.Ct. 625, 69 L.Ed. 1138) - Overthrow of Government Speech protected

    Rice v. Paladin Enterprises, Inc. (940 F.Supp. 836 (D.Md. 1996) - A district court case, that allows for people who publish material advocating criminal activity to be sued for aiding and abetting, never made it to the US Supreme Court.

    Forsyth County, Georgia v. Nationalist Movement (Lost my notes on this) - Discusses the Heckler's Veto.

    Edwards v. South carolina (327 U.S. 229, 83 S.Ct 680) - Time, Place and Manner restrictions. Discussion of what constitutes a Public Forum.

    Adderly v. Florida (385 U.S. 39, 87 S.Ct. 242, 17 L.Ed. 2d 149) - More Time, Place, and Manner. In this case, Prisons aren't a traditional Public Forum.

    International Society for Krishna Conciousness, Inc. v Lee (505 U.S. 672, 112 S.Ct. 2701) - Has to do with leafletting at airports. More forum stuff.

    Madsen v. Women's Health Center Inc. (512 U.S. 753, 114 S.Ct. 2516, 129 L.Ed.2d 593) - Limiting of speech around abortion clinics.

    Cohen v. California (403 U.S. 15, 91 S.Ct. 1780, 29 L.Ed.2d 284) - "Fuck the Draft" case.

    That's all I feel like posting right now...maybe later I'll go into the Symbolic speech stuff, and publisher rights, etc. Use this for a good starting point if you really like this stuff.

    ---

  • the hallmark of a new era (Score:4)

    by Yellow Brick Choad ( 464067 ) on Monday July 02, 2001 @04:13AM (#114731)
    we can no longer achieve anonymity. there's cameras [slashdot.org] pointed at us; authentication [microsoft.com] is the new killer app; we can't even post to Usenet anymore without leaving a trail for the fundamentally-evil DMCA lawyers to trace. Napster's dead and gone. OpenBSD has a local root hole. The MPAA is breathing down our necks. the power grids are dimming.

    is anyone in a position of authority going to save us?? are you waiting around?

  • Why do you have to give up freedom to be secure? This sounds like something a government would say to keep collecting tribute for providing security.

    People mimic what they see and what they see is an oppressive government that takes away freedom at every turn. Instead of hating group A,B or C or bitching about how unfair X,Y and Z is, why not ask why the system is this way and who benefits from it.

    You are a slave Neal..... A private corporation owns you and your country Lock, Stock and Barrel. You know there is something not right with the world but can't seem to put your finger on it. All you life you have been told you are a free man made so by the US Constitution but you and your country where lost in a bankrupts settlement back in 1913. You government continues to collect tributes to pay off there debts but an impossible system has been put in place that only creates more debt when you try and pay it back so you can never be free.

    The US government prints money that then the Federal Reserve buy for pennies on the sheet for paper of 1000, 100, 20 etc. The government then borrows these notes from the Federal Reserve with the promise that they will pay them back with interest. So that twenty you have in your pocket is actually a promissory note it doesn't actually represent anything other than a debt to the Federal Reserve, that's why it states on it. "This note is legal tender for all debts public and private" What the hell is a NOTE and why is only good for debts. Even if we gave back all these NOTES to the Federal Reserve we would still owe them interest on these NOTES. Real money can be traded for gold or silver they are "Gold or Silver Certificates" not promissory NOTES.

    You have no constitutional rights because you are a citizen of United States of America not a united states of America citizen. Same geographic region different government and laws You are under the law of admiralty, NOT common law(constitution is a common law documents), placed there because the government now considers you property of the State with privileges granted by them. In legal terms your corporate alter ego has accepted a service from the government and placed you under their jurisdiction.

    Freedom breeds security, only seeking security breeds tyranny. We are not free, that is the true source of the cancer eating at society. A fight more dear to the overall preservation of freedom is at.

    www.givemeliberty.org

  • Cotse maintains a strict Abuse Policy and an even more strict Privacy Policy. What you have been witness to is the whinning of usenet posters that think all the information about someone should be open to the public and nothing to be held Private.

    Cotse will not release the information of someone to the general public without a subpoena, it says so plainly in their Terms of Service. People want that IP address to harrass posters. They want the ability to send the originating ISP an abuse complaint and try to get their Internet Service term'd.

    With Cotse, if you don't have a subpoena, you don't get the info. Don't like that? Tough.

    The problem with usenet is not anonymity. The problem is people don't know how to use a kill file. If you don't like the way someone posts, use a kill file and get over it.

    What's the difference between one posters idea of having "...Cotse.com banned at my ISP level." and using a kill file???

    ISP's blocked at the ISP level will still be delivering messages to usenet, in this case, you won't be able to read ANY OF THEM. But, if you had it kill filed, at least you have the ability to turn it off/on whenever you want. If the ISP blocks, you no longer have that right.

    And that's what this is all about isn't it? Individual Rights?

    Do I have the right to tell you to "...kiss my ass." Of course I do. Do I also have the right to say ".... there's a bomb on the plane." Of course I have that right. The difference is, I must be held accountable for my actions. If I violate the law, whether using anonymous services or not, I should be held accountable.

    If a judge/jury see's fit to find me guilty of libel because I told you to "kiss my ass", then so be it. But, and here's where the shit hits the berry bowl, the law of the land says that if I make threats concerning a bomb on an airplane, I can be held for questioning immediately. It's criminal. Libel is Civil.

    Cotse users are accountable for their actions. Which is more to say for the thousands of anonymous remailer proxy types that have no accountability for their actions.

    I applaud Mr. Gielda's efforts and the efforts of other privacy advocates out there. They are fighting "the good fight" and whether you like to admit it or not, they are also boosting your rights as an individual.

    --
    Colonel Flagg
    http://www.geocities.com/pentagon/1475/

    "Big Brother is watching you, Little Brother is too. When Big Brother goes to sleep, Little Brother goes through his stuff." - Unknown Author

    "...Pepper spray works nicely, unless your assailant uses it as a condiment." - CF, 2001

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