Date: Fri, 9 Jul 93 16:54:21 PDT Reply-To: Return-Path: Message-ID: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain From: surfpunk@osc.versant.com (ORTVA CTC ZRFFNTR) To: surfpunk@osc.versant.com (SURFPUNK Technical Journal) Subject: [surfpunk-0088] USENET: We are Becoming Politically Correct Sheep > The only thing that will cause the death of Usenet is a > *halt* to discussion on so-called "delicate" subjects... > > -- abbey1@husc10.harvard.edu (Joshua Abbey) Quite right. One prodigy is enough. The three postings below are all by Tim May. They're in cronological order. You'll have to imagine the other hundred messages that mix with these. strick ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Newsgroups: alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children Date: Sat, 26 Jun 93 02:20:06 GMT From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Subject: GIF std. decrypt, then open -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- Version: 2.2 b2cCrVJKUYUZf7UBA/i1tSSz66dOx4+cJKzNkm1JBhGigMdRvxM8Slm3TyC7kgWW L8J3w/On10thisi487rU/Gl7xOMajxCQedHrb6k0+wYDGjxmVcu9xwLWAWpkgq+5 fUiNKBnF/SUA/JisFrWvn63rt44n+DqROwx8CXuSvL1mUdqLRTS0t/timjHnhIwC VmLN1FTnSD8BBACFa38SqiwByarfcVhFg/fuKWc4AgKtYqSt5oWW6sYLckC3nEen ZcHV+DNFo36Exg7r0trapoBXpjoe9ENCsCbFJ7i/M7FwFYvK1QAcxQ6zGt+3HICM 9Hsxg1d5Goqp4+nmpW+9Y/UVY16+WVl9moY3c7Iv04Cp0ipu2B5qfIxPZoSMAlKv tpiLITm1AQP+MePTv9pKo01NnW3/EBZ+glrMRNIDSWS+WPWbLRpZ0Fnn8ZWJPLPg FPmhHl0liM40bf5p7XQ43wwEb7jShpHXwm/aUeWAWpKoilv5LwuR4nZxTPBfgt9Q f+hx23tQYkzzDFkhLoefRAUH/cD2zSEUGK0ESNqTUpX+1tghi1KyycOETAJUA0cU ACLlLQECAISGu23kb8cKQi1Slzc8TQHubtK3LB0BavAII1Ui/o1B57sizTzehPM1 m9AB/HF+XX2pC3cEY3rzwQOd/LDz8biEjALidd4O/2f3CwED/0ajlHGBpaLn6Rqv 7o38QMQ28qN8qafW7gObGgLMoziFyNUtW98S3IHkgpfwWkkWlejxg5/023IgseVL WgGw0UL4V04CSklM+WAC2/Y6RtVIWjfrs1nOmqZCsqm2VmeA+AOBdt0Halhh9Q/4 op9guFy8ZWgnPNUWtJB4JUq04nJ7pgAAA4jJ1pSBvwGXP4+c4QHOzr3vHlIfCOxK voG+HI+k0nL/pP9he4kFUGDHK53p3V5X3y2uy2NEB6KseYU5izTW0vQu/WicruTx iLtGFm/iwfWrZilphmb03JhychKvFNT+k90soQDVt0A0t6a6UqzaOBWADh6UiJKp NmHp4UthisItDFgLCm+sEdKTqAhpJzZPGL9bYNuQNbSY/IA34E0PiXkNeB0ANxwa 7ZmdkeF8Ywlooksvimz+Ji7OavkUKQ6FNbwDoeVK31nHgOVsMWI9pYfUc9N/OeTB qELEhSzXTTMrxDvlikeJ4SX4H1M93LiQRgASy20NGAZVKgUkKNz6EyrCSHWJ2YHl 4DYJBwmpbMzVIxxeAMxa0u7vR6v2faZILDRPI8Vh/Rzf2cytRsVoPrJ8SJiU8S0B XHdg9+NQYt7b5EAxFIYSstingjDJTpfsrfGD91fizkarA3tc/FAsGnksPcGh5xfH H8T/76zuy4n9KSQ9iUlAiN/WbIChv+TR+36QpBJVWqxgnKJ+pgOAgOc9zZ/wsf8X CR4mjVSH9QLclfK1Nc1+0KQ6q0usS0uGx9PGgKSujY0rGdcqw3AQMVsvO57miUZ+ 6ch+rz7pPZ/BgDaul+Puuf1j4c8LF1lT48LNANgl9a3gFxxwdrNV2GBI0n3FSwCM KlpIp6Rq0+IucF2Ag2gMrvPm4hZs/jM+oTebq7qnM8q+z5F8kjGL+mKsfAM3JMPy add4tK+dQ6ZHl9EHPhQu4lfPIdYdGGQ4+DD7/LUwNCw3w88cqGBWE+umeVioGy/t K6J4G2fPQQqNIItJPDv/L/kC7n/Azh6tjrXC3YWTqsKfgYcMauCf/8A7hdLMGBQY /d2ih7xrGmC8nND2CnSJXOlvozEi3t3Wgl4SirfOqYQvMCF0zaric2OEPyLTmYuG puKc7au15QobrRGICm0HjDLEhnDu3pqXw2yZUCdswg31TnhsheMfP9JqOGEHdTB8 zbpTII/7+bAliB+n+5Jx6TonURnT8ropkXDs8uQHjvkScbK2ib/sCy5sOUVCWTwW dJEH9vrmngNklBtEobgmVHHHsOwvxQlmCD5sFQUtnnMjQWfUzxPpOghrnCJA/hYm E0j3rZS1I4VJyoTDFfSPLHxyaEySPCcEKW4PPCSPe2SMQ6hUwQAHBMIbODmu2+WI /2h3HLezLQwxrSmrrQ1YJgj8384fjb87wO =hPyII -----END PGP MESSAGE----- -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it. ________________________________________________________________________ Newsgroups: alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children,alt.config,netcom.netnews Date: Sat, 03 Jul 93 09:28:29 GMT From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Subject: GIFs--Now it can be told Xref: netcom.com alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children:89 alt.config:17255 netcom.netnews:1433 One week ago tonight a new group appeared at my site, "alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children," a group certain to provoke controversy, to bring out the Net Cops, and to induce a certain kind of "Stockholm Syndrome," wherein some folks scramble to initiate censorship prior even to the Feds doing it. (Their battle cry is "Eeek! If we don't nip this in the bud, _right now_, think of what might happen!) My experience has been that these Net.Censors are usually too quick to claim something has clearly gone beyond the bounds of decency and acceptability. Thankfully, they usually fail in their efforts. Anyway, seeing this strange new group appear on my system, I decided to conduct an experiment. I posted an "encrypted GIF," not further identified, and waited for the reaction. The file was as follows (only part of it shown): -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- Version: 2.2 b2cCrVJKUYUZf7UBA/i1tSSz66dOx4+cJKzNkm1JBhGigMdRvxM8Slm3TyC7kgWW L8J3w/On10thisi487rU/Gl7xOMajxCQedHrb6k0+wYDGjxmVcu9xwLWAWpkgq+5 fUiNKBnF/SUA/JisFrWvn63rt44n+DqROwx8CXuSvL1mUdqLRTS0t/timjHnhIwC VmLN1FTnSD8BBACFa38SqiwByarfcVhFg/fuKWc4AgKtYqSt5oWW6sYLckC3nEen ZcHV+DNFo36Exg7r0trapoBXpjoe9ENCsCbFJ7i/M7FwFYvK1QAcxQ6zGt+3HICM 9Hsxg1d5Goqp4+nmpW+9Y/UVY16+WVl9moY3c7Iv04Cp0ipu2B5qfIxPZoSMAlKv ..... Not to my surprise, about 20 people have (so far) requested the key to this file. (The whole encryption rationale is covered later.) I didn't reply to them...some of them asked for the key a second time! What surprised me is that nobody carefully looked at the file. Here it is again, with some places marked: -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- Version: 2.2 b2cCrVJKUYUZf7UBA/i1tSSz66dOx4+cJKzNkm1JBhGigMdRvxM8Slm3TyC7kgWW L8J3w/On10thisi487rU/Gl7xOMajxCQedHrb6k0+wYDGjxmVcu9xwLWAWpkgq+5 ^^^^ fUiNKBnF/SUA/JisFrWvn63rt44n+DqROwx8CXuSvL1mUdqLRTS0t/timjHnhIwC ^^ VmLN1FTnSD8BBACFa38SqiwByarfcVhFg/fuKWc4AgKtYqSt5oWW6sYLckC3nEen ^ ZcHV+DNFo36Exg7r0trapoBXpjoe9ENCsCbFJ7i/M7FwFYvK1QAcxQ6zGt+3HICM ^^^^ 9Hsxg1d5Goqp4+nmpW+9Y/UVY16+WVl9moY3c7Iv04Cp0ipu2B5qfIxPZoSMAlKv ....... I put a couple of other "subliminal messages" in, which I suppose could provoke the Religious Right into squawking that "Satanic messages" are being hidden in computer files *that children could possibly read*. Gasp! Needless to say, such ASCII surgery performed on a PGP file (which, by the way, was just some random message someone had sent me a while back, utterly unreadable by anyone other than the two of us--and not even that after I mutated various characters) makes it completely unreadable. Even if someone had the other half of the PGP key pair--which never existed--the file would not even checksum as a legal PGP file! (Putting plaintext into the file was both a message I hoped astute readers would eventually notice--though it *is* pretty hard to see--and an ironclad proof that the file could not be a real PGP message, let alone a GIF, let alone kiddie porn.) There are some quasi-legitimate issues surrounding the area of child erotica. Was the child coerced? Was consent meaningful? Etc. But the posting of mere bits qua bits causing such anger and flamage indicates a serious overreaction. Are mere thoughts the crime? Orwell covered this, didn't he? * What if such images merely "look like" children (and just what is the age of consent? 18? 16? "Children" of 15 can get married in most countries of the world.)...are such "fakes" illegal? * What if they are computer-generated images, of children that never existed outside of a computer? Which children were exploited? We're back to thoughtcrime again. (Don't laugh, a leading interpretation is that even computer-generated child porn would be illegal, not because of crimes committed against children, but because of the "atmosphere" and "climate" it might produce. That is, thoughtcrime.) * What if the images were morphs? Not wholly computer-generated, but the morph of an adult image into that of a child? * What if one 15-year old child took photos of a another 15-year old child? What if one child "exploited" another? What if a child took pictures of herself, self-portraits? * What if the images, if they were ever to be posted, originated someplace where they are legal? Perhaps Amsterdam, someone suggested. If the U.S government tries to stop the Net (which is already a market anarchy, thankfully) from distributing this material, mightn't all the various countries that have different laws than ours do the same thing? There goes alt.fan.salman.rushdie. And there goes soc.motss and all the "normal" alt.binaries.pictures.* groups. Of course it won't likely happen, nor will alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children go away,either. Get used to it. (Again, I don't care for it, but wailing and moaning won't make it go away.) * What if someone scanned-in images from the widely available books by David Hamilton, or Robert Mapplethorpe? Certainly many of these photos are of nude children...would the imminent death of Usenet finally happen if someone went down to B. Dalton Books, bought a David Hamilton collection, and posted some of the photos in a.b.p.e.c.? So, I would encourage folks to lighten up. In a week on the Net, not a single kiddie porn picture has been posted. And if it does happen, try to just ignore it. The kid whose picture was taken is probably grown up by now (I'm guessing that many such images are from old magazines, etc.). In any case, the occasional picture is hardly going to create a new slave trade in children. The issue of how the media may react is a more serious one. Part of the reason I'm explaining my little experiment now is to make sure my posting, at least, is not used by some nitwit reporter as the basis of a story. (If it's being used, then he'll soon have egg on his face.) That's the story. I hope you enjoyed the ride. P.S. I said I'd say something about why I used encryption. Aside from not being a real PGP-readable file, the idea was to make it look like one. This is the likeliest way for such material to get posted, along with anonymous remailers. The "look for the key in the 'usual places'" bit was to resonate with the "binary nerve gas" idea, where the dangerous pieces are stored separately and only combined at the last minute. I don't know if such techniques are already in use, but I expect them soon. The mutant condors that one reader (who claimed to be a Pope in the Church of the Subgenius, but who humorlessly missed the joke--but I forgive him, for he knew not what he saw) wanted to feed me to, can now stop circling my house. -Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it. ________________________________________________________________________ Date: Tue, 6 Jul 93 12:04:34 -0700 Message-Id: <9307061904.AA12415@netcom.netcom.com> To: cypherpunks@toad.com From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Subject: We are Becoming Politically Correct Sheep Perry Metzger writes, about the reaction to the "junk bits" file I posted in a controversial new group, "alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children": >Michael Ross says: >> Tim, >> >> That was very manipulative, and did not achieve much. > >I wholely disagree. Tim's post to alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children >was a valuable exercise even given its limitations. > Of course I agree with Perry, though I also respect the others who have posted disagreements (sometimes strong!) here on this List or in the various newsgroups...that's what free speech is all about. Bear in mind that most of the "Cypherpunks agenda," to the extent we can identify it, is likely to provoke ordinary citizens into _outrage_. Talk of anonymous mail, digital money, money laundering, information markets, data havens, undermining authority, transnationalism, and all the rest (insert your favorite idea) is not exactly mainstream. While I don't personally care for the "kiddie porn" I've seen (the David Hamilton photos of young girls and the occasional Mapplethorpe photos in news reports), the issues raised in this area are of great importance. (I don't plan to argue for or against these images in this forum, though.) If we back down every time a censor screams "Illegal!," then very few of our agenda items will ever see the light of day. So long as physical violence or coercion is not involved, I see no reason to restrict the activities of others. I completely reject the concept of "class-based crimes," such as: - conventional erotica and pornography should be banned because it is degrading to women, objectifies them, etc. (ironically, unless of course it is "made by and for wimmin," a loophole added by Andrea Dworkin and her supporters after they discovered their anti-porn crusade in Canada and elsewhere would put an end to Lesbian porn mags like "Yellow Silk"!). - I put "child porn" in this category because only the actual coercion of children--if it is happening--should be stopped. (And even this is confusing, as coercion of children happens all the time--we call it "parenting.") A mere image carries no proof that this coercion has happened, for the many reasons I have cited and others have cited (e.g., the child may have willingly participated, the "child" may be 18 and merely look 15, the images may have come from other countries where the customs and laws are different, the image may have been computer-generated or morphed, and so on). - "racist jokes" are being targeted for elimination in many of the Usenet groups, by halting the carrying of "offensive" newsgroups. Legal purists will of course note that this is not "censorship" in the legal/government sense. IMHO, the English language needs a new term for something between the one extreme of government censorship and the other extreme of personal choice, perhaps something like "institutional censorship." Being a free market sort of person, I have no problems with, say, Apple Computer deciding not to carry "alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children" or "rec.humor.funny.cripples," but it still a _form_ of "institutional censorship." [especially when they are acting so as to head off legal action, as I describe below] - read the "academic freedom" group (I forget the exact title...search for "acad-free" in your newsreader) and you'll see that more and more universities are using the "sexual harassment" laws/codes to stop certain newsgroups, to halt the distribution of sexually oriented images, and to take disciplinary action against students (mostly male) who have put GIFs on their computers or workstations (apparently female students who walk past an office in which female models are used as startup screens have decided they are being "sexually assaulted" or "harassed"). [An important point to make here is that many of these institutions are taking actions largely because they fear that if they don't, the plaintiffs will take their case to the _government_ legal system, perhaps by suing the university for "condoning an atmosphere hostile to womym and other people of color." If there was no threat of ultimate legal action, much of this "institutional censorship" would vanish, and people could just concentrate on doing their jobs, with or without calendars of "Miss Usenet" gracing their walls.] - discussion of ways to undermine the State, via crypto anarchy and strong crypography, are likely to be targets of future crackdowns. Sedition laws, conspiracy laws, RICO, etc. How long before speaking on these matters earns a warning letter from your university or your company? [Again, I think it's the "big stick" of ultimate government action that spurs these univeristy and company policies. Apple fears being shut down for having "involvement" with a terrorist plot, Emory University fears being sued for millions of dollars for "conspiring" to degrade wimmin of color, etc.) - how long before "rec.guns" is no longer carried at many sites, as they fear having their universities or companies linked to discussions of "assault weapons" and "cop-killer bullets"? [Prediction: Many companies and universities, under pressure from the Feds, will block groups in which encrypted files are posted. After all, if one encrypts, one must have something to hide, and that could expose the university to legal action from some group that feels aggrieved.] So, free speech is under assault across the country. The tort system is being abused to stifle dissentinting views (and lest you think I am only a capitalist, only a free marketeer, the use of "SLAPP suits"--"Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation"--by corporations or real estate developers to threaten those who dare to publicly speak against their projects is a travesty, a travesty that the courts have only recently begun to correct). We are becoming a nation of sheep, fearing the midnight raid, the knock on the door. We fear that if we tell a joke, someone will glare at us and threaten to sue us _and_ our company! And so companies are adopting "speech codes" and other such baggage of the Orwell's totalitarian state. Political correctness is extending its tendrils into nearly every aspect of life in America. Time to fight back. -Tim May -- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: by arrangement Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ The SURFPUNK Technical Journal is a dangerous multinational hacker zine originating near BARRNET in the fashionable western arm of the northern California matrix. Quantum Californians appear in one of two states, spin surf or spin punk. Undetected, we are both, or might be neither. ________________________________________________________________________ Send postings to , subscription requests to . This looks like a sting. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ UthisItDFgL 8Ywlooksvimz rxDvlikeJ4SX Mxa0u7vR YSstingjDJT