Der Weltanschauung (The WorldView) Origin: HOUSTON, TEXAS USA %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% % % % T H E W O R L D V I E W M A G A Z I N E % % % %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% June 20, 1992 Volume 2, Issue 5 FTP: ftp.eff.org pub/cud/wview -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* Published and Distributed By Fennec Consulting And Information Brokerage *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- Material Written By Computer And Telecommunications Hobbyists World Wide Promoting the publication of Features, Editorials, etc... To submit material, or to subscribe to the magazine contact this address: request@fennec.sccsi.com "Let us arise, let us arise against the oppressors of humanity; all kings, emperors, presidents of republics, priests of all religions are the true enemies of the people; let us destroy along with them all juridical, political, civil and religious institutions." -Manifesto of anarchists in the Romagna, 1878 @-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@ The World View Staff: InterN et Address: The Desert Fox [Editor] root@fennec.sccsi.com Cyndre The Grey [CoEditor] root@ashpool.sccsi.com Subscription Requests request@fennec.sccsi.com WORLD VIEW NEWSGROUP: wv@taronga.com FTP SITE: ftp.eff.org /pub/cud/wview @-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@ Printing Policy Of The World View Magazine It is the policy of T he World View to review any material that is received by us for the purpose of distribution. We respect the rights of all authors/contributors under the Constitution of the United States, and we will honor all requests for anonymity. Any inquiries regarding the questionable content of an article written by someone other than the editors of this publication should be directed to the author. A return E-mail address will be provided if applicable. Reprinting of material from this magazine is highly en couraged. Please site the source of the material, and gain permission from the author when refering to submitted articles. @-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@ TABLE OF CONTENTS 1) Current Texas Organizational CyberEvents.................Blivion 2) Final Ad For Legion Of Doom T-Shirts!....................Chris Goggans 3) Bringing New Users Into The Net..........................Blivion 4) A Misanthropy Primer............. ........................Modok Tarleton @-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@ Current Texas Organizational Cyberevents By Bryan O' Blivion (blivion@taronga.com) Next month will be a year since the organizational meeting of the EFF - Austin chapter, the first local chapter of the Electronic Frontier Foundation in the USA. At the organization's first annual general membership meeting in Austin in May 1992, over 60 members and inte rested persons appeared. Coalescing around the leadership and support of local cyber-celebrities Steve Jackson, John Quarterman, and the notorious Bruce Sterling (whose book Hacker Crackdown is due out soon), the group has set up active newsgroups and mailing lists (eff-a@tic.com) on the Net for discussion and organization around our common concerns. Solid achievements of the Austin EFF include the formal organization of the chapter, with adoption of bylaws and election and monthly meetings of a Board of Directors. A successful annual meeting and several other meetings, formal and informal, enhanced our mutual contacts; sort of an Elks Club for cyberspace frontiersmen socializing, after building our rude 386 cabins. Booths and appearances at cons and national conferences by distinguished Austin EFF members gave the movement good publicity, as did Bruce Sterling during his own work and travels. The flag and T-shirts are also real zippy. In Houston, the cyber-libertie s scene remains loosely organized around the regular publications like WordView and NIA magazines, which continue to publish regularly. NIA magazine may even have its latest issue out soon. SummerCon in St Louis is the place to be in June for national exposure, but local 'snerds', cyberlunches' and 'cyberdawgs' (apparently the Austin version of such an event) as well as a series of continuing, highly educational private Saturday night parties provide the backbone of our networking strength. The set up of a Coherent unix (ashpool.sccsi.com) and a uucp'd dos-based node, (fennec.sccsi.com) by Cyndre the Grey and Desert Fox respectively have effectively merged our local nodes into the Net, which we count as a significant achievement. Taronga continues to provide its excellent support with access and our own wv@taronga.com newsgroup. But as John Quarterman put it, "It's easy to exchange warm fuzzies..." and basically get self-congratulatory about our common ideals, ignoring individual dif ferences of opinion, but the real world brings a different set of problems. Communication between EFF National (Cambridge) and EFF Austin has suffered of late. After a meeting of the Austin EFF Board decided to incorporate, Mitch Kapor seemed to back off his support for that, indicating that incorporation may not be appropriate for a local chapter. This puzzled the EFF-BOD as well as all onlookers. Mitch recently responded to an inquiry from WorldView staff about a Houston chapter of EFF by saying that we were basically on our own, as no one had been tasked yet by National to deal with local chapter relations, and that all present National staff are running at 125% of capacity. Inexperience in major convention planning have caused the indefinite postponement of this event -- too bad! It appears to this writer that the event planning was too ambitious in scope, trying to involve everyone in the world. The WorldView heartily supports any such project, but it must be reasonable in scope at first, then allowed to grow naturally. Perhaps more informal gatherings, not as tightly organized and planned as a major con, can become something on the scale originally planned. In any case, thanks for trying and for all the work. Readers of the CyberTex mailing list know that it drew major interest from users all over the world, the WELL, etc. So here we are, in the second year of our fragile joint existence as a tenuous cloud, a web of potential connections. Our strength is in our networking, and I call for more informal get-togethers under any name, in Houston or in Austin. Networking, cooperation rather than competition, is our strength. Rather than planning the world's greatest virtual festival, let's just start by having a good time and learning from each other. We will continue to publish, the Austin chapter will proceed under its excellent Board of Directors, and we'll have a few parties..... @-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@- ==-@-==-@ FINAL CALL FOR LOD SHIRTS! By Chris Goggans (erikb@fennec.sccsi.com) Net Denizens: With all the amazing hullabaloo going on in several newsgroups and throughout the electronic community as a whole, I have decided to go ahead and make one more, FINAL, print run on the LOD t-shirts. Please, if anyone is interested, have your mail sent by the end of July, so everyone who wants one can get one this time. I thought that in the 6 print orders I made previou sly "Everyone" who wanted one got one, but from the requests I have received apparently not. I was amazed at the orders that came in from locations such as Hong Kong, England, Netherlands and Australia. The list of luminaries who came out of the woodwork with an interest in such item was equally as impressive, security types at LLNL, government employees, hackers from the golden days, and even a certain regular contributor to a few "not for normal distribution" mail lists. This run is for th ose of you who got left out. Again, I urge that you respond BEFORE JULY 31, 1992, as that is when it the opportunity ends FOREVER! Blatant promotion follows: "LEGION OF DOOM--INTERNET WORLD TOUR" T-SHIRTS! Now you too can own an official Legion of Doom T-shirt. This is the same shirt that sold-out rapidly at the "Cyberview" hackers conference in St. Louis. Join the other proud owners such as Lotus founder Mitch Kapor and award-winning author Bruce Sterling by adding this collector's item to your wardrobe. This professionally made, 100 percent cotton shirt is printed on both front and back. The front displays "Legion of Doom Internet World Tour" as well as a sword and telephone intersecting the planet earth, skull-and-crossbones style. The back displays the words "Hacking for Jesus" as well as a substantial list of "tour-stops" (internet sites) and a quote from Aleister Crowley. This T-shirt is sold only as a novelty item, and is in no way attempting to glorify computer crime. Shirts are only $15.00, postage included! Overseas add an additional $5.00. Send CHECK or MONEY-ORDER (NO CODs, cash or credit cards--even if it's really your card) made payable to Chris Goggans to: Chris Goggans 5620 Glenmont #P-17 Houston, TX 77081 @-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@ BRINGING NEW USERS INTO THE NET By Bryan O' Blivion (blivion@ taronga.com) InterNet-connected global wide area networks are still new enough that most users come from the 3 classic ARPANET communities: defense/government contractors' corporate sites, university researchers/students, and .gov sites. Folks who do not have such a job have historically had little or no access to common network services such as news feeds, email, and file/message posting and transfer, and little opportunity to learn how to use them. Several years a go, various private UNIX host systems began to make net access available to users in a few areas nationwide. DOS-based BBS activity simultaneously soared as modems became cheaply available. But these two areas of online activity shared little, and the user communities rarely interacted. The purpose of this article is to relate how some private computer enthusiasts in Houston, Texas, originally experienced as DOS and BBS users and sysops, obtained participation in UNIX-based WAN network co mmunications and access to the InterNet. Congregating on several BBS's (there are hundreds in the Houston Metro area), our informal users group became a .sig for anyone who wanted to learn about networked computing. Dissatisfied with even FidoNet and the extensive 2000-user chat systems available in Houston, we longed for, studied for the freedom of the InterNet. UNIX command sheets were copied, manuals studied. We even tried to learn the vi editor. But we lacked that all-important accou nt on a REAL system, one that gave us a $ prompt.. Public Unix came to the rescue. The widely advertised NixPub systems in Houston are three: NuChat, Taronga Park, and Sugarland UNIX. NuChat began by kindly offering a few of us accounts that had email. It seemed like magic to send email from a home PC and have it appear in a far system. Mailing to Austin took only 2 hours. Then Stephanie and Peter da Silva, the good-hearted and long-suffering sysops of Taronga Park, opened free shell acco unts for such of us as had gotten a little command of Unix. For the first time I as a private citizen had access to Internet-borne email, newsfeeds, a UNIX operating system account.... and thru the Taronga system, had referrals to private TCP/IP capable sites, i.e. TELNET and FTP capability. It was a whole new world; with a cheap modem I had suddenly expanded my computer reach from one hard disk into the vast cloud of the Matrix. For this article, I asked the sysops of taronga. com, Stephanie and Peter Da Silva, some basic questions about her system and the guiding philosophy of this type of Net access. Since any editing of their replies would be superfluous, here are peter and arielle@taronga.com. The original messages were exchanged through the Coherent sys of a mutual friend whose sys was recently enabled as a local InterNet uucp email node (ashpool.sccsi.com). @-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@ A MISANTHROPY PRIMER By Modok Tarleton The misanthrope seems to be at a great advantage these days. With so many things to dislike in this world, a hater of man has more than enough to keep his mind occupied. Often death obsessed and sometimes even insane, these people can provide great inspiration to those wanting to further their nasty state of mind. The following set of quotes from writers, philosophers and bona fide lunatics should provide proper inspiration for those who might like t o go out and add a little negativity to the world. Viva vida La muerte! He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you. Frederich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil Before the grim shadow of Pain and Death mere theological differences cease to exist. Antonio Gallonio, Tortures and Torments of the Christian Martyrs Life lives by killing and eating itself, casting off d eath and being reborn like the moon. Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth Chaos rules at the beginning and the end of time. Time is the creator of all things, but also their devourer. Jeffrey Burton Russell, The Devil Those who live, live off the dead. And death too must live; and there's nothing like an insane asylum to tenderly incubate death, and to keep the dead in an incubator. Antonin Artaud, Artaud Le Momo In a totally sane society, madness is the only freedo m. J.G. Ballard, Running Wild Madness is something rare in individuals- but in groups, parties, peoples, ages it is the rule. Fredrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil Order, Disorder, Unity, Anarchy, Poetry, Dissonance, Rhythm, Discord, Grandeur, Childishness, Generosity, Cruelty Antonin Artaud, Heliogabalus Just as madness, in a higher sense, is the beginning of all wisdom, so is schizomania the beginning of all art and all fantasy. Herman Hesse, Steppenwolf There is a strong connection between fun and terror and death. Boyd Rice The truth is a knife and cuts sharp Charles Manson @-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@ NETWORK USER FEES By Patricio Mason A while ago, several members of the list debated the issue of user fees for access to computer networks such as the Internet. Most were rightly a damant that charging for use would have an incalculably detrimental effect. I thought you might like to know that here in Chile this scenario has suddenly become reality. Our Internet hookup is run by CONICYT, (National Council on Science and Technology) a government body. Recently, all users of the Internet, including universities, were notified that starting July 1st, there will be a minimum monthly rate plus a charge per megabyte of international traffic, with 18% sales tax on top. This is a reversal of an earlier decision whereby only a flat rate was charged, regardless of traffic. Both the minimum rate and the charge per megabyte are measured in units roughly equivalent to CDN$31.00 each, i.e., 10 MB of traffic equals CDN$310.00, plus the minimum rate, plus tax. The minimum monthly wage in this country is 38,000 pesos, roughly CDN$134.00. Although the CONICYT decision was sanctioned by Chile's Council of Rectors (university and college presidents), the academic community and ot her users such as NGOs, non-profit groups and private individuals are stunned and outraged. Needless to say, most university presidents are not users and simply chose from a limited set of options presented to them by administrators and CONICYT functionaries. This may very well mean that university professors will have to obtain clearance from department heads before replying to colleagues abroad or accepting mail from them. Since every byte will cost universities a pretty penny, it may also m ean that students will be prevented from sending or receiving international messages. Few will be allowed to do FTP or Telnet. For outside e-mail users such as private individuals and non-profit groups, the high cost will probably entail reducing or eliminating use altogether. Access to the Internet is slightly wider here. High rates mean that only those who can afford them, i.e., government and corporate users, will have the run of the system. Although one of the consequences of the worldwid e computer revolution has been to empower the individual as a counterbalance to the unbridled power of governments and corporations, the CONICYT decision in Chile means that those outside the circles of political or financial power will be left out. There is no Internet affiliate that I know of which charges on the basis of traffic volume. Universities are reeling from the implications: just figuring out who is to be billed for what, plus the processing and billing aspects, will most certainly prove an administrative nightmare. A whole new bureaucracy will have to be created at CONICYT and elsewhere to handle this. There is an international write-in campaign on to try to get CONICYT to reverse this decision and discard the notion of charging per amount of traffic. Along with members of the academic community within Chile, the members of CHILE-L --Chilean academics, students and others scattered throughout the world-- are leading this campaign. As a (albeit silent) member of CANADA -L and Internet user, I thought I'd tell you of this and try to enlist your support. If this type of mentality is allowed to prevail, it will certainly set a precedent. If you would like to help, please write a respectful note to CONICYT, the National Council on Science and Technology of Chile, stating your views on this issue. Notes should be sent to Mr. Alberto Cabezas and/or Mr. Florencio Utreras at acabezas@uchdciux.seci.uchile.cl futreras@uchdciux.seci.uchile.cl CONICYT may also be re ached at: Canada 308 2o Piso Providencia Santiago, Chile Tel.: (562) 274-4537, 204-7541, 204-7542, 204-7566 I will be glad to provide further information to anyone interested. And of course, feel free to cross-post. Thanks in advance. Patricio Mason (Carleton/U of T) Santiago, Chile pmason@chasqui.mic.cl @-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@-==-@