[173] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Steve Wolff's response to the censorship charges
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John Gilmore)
Thu Nov 15 17:16:11 1990
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 90 12:59:40 PST
From: gnu@toad.com (John Gilmore)
To: steve@cise.nsf.gov
Cc: com-priv@psi.com, gnu@toad.com
steve@cise.nsf.gov wrote:
> I can (and do) assert I made no threats. You will counter that whenever an
> Official of a Funding Agency makes a "request" a threat may be inferred even
> if it is unstated, and there's no point continuing the discussion from there.
When the official pulls MIT administrators aside at public meetings to
insist that "something be done", and follows up with frequent email and personal
phone calls, it's not just a casual "request".
Let's be clear about the level of involvement here. This is no "I wish
you wouldn't", this is "get that crap off my net", directed at multiple
sites, some even outside the U.S.
> I don't care what folks keep on their machines - it's none of my business -
> and I've always been careful to say so, to MIT and a bunch of other places.
Maybe Mr. Wolff has to do things in his official capacity that in his private
and personal capacity he deplores? Well, I deplore it too, and if you won't
stop it yourself, we will have to stop you.
> Anyone who wants to offer for ftp material that
> violates the policies of one or more networks is welcome to [a traceroute
> hack to deny access to people coming in through NSFnet].
As has been made amply clear on com-priv, there is no such thing as "material
that violates policies". People violate policies. It would be perfectly
valid for a researcher into sexual mores at Stanford to transfer copies
of alt.sex.bondage from MIT over the NSFnet. According to the written rules,
that is.
> It does not solve the general problem of the existence of acceptable use
> policies, nor, given that failure, does it place the onus of observing policy
> where it belongs (on the user rather than the server), but it is perhaps
> adequate for now.
It is not even useful -- let alone adequate. It band-aids the problem
by arbitrarily denying access to valid NSFnet users, while not admitting the
censorship officially.
If you want a band-aid, bandage the acceptable use policy by rewriting
it to the REAL rules -- e.g. sexually oriented material is banned from
the NSFnet. That would be the EFFECT of the traceroute hack, so what
is your problem, Mr. Wolff, with saying so? It's even what Congress wants
you to say. My opinion is that you want to get that result by threats
and hidden manipulation, without ever acknowledging to the public that
that's what you're doing. And that's "secret law", where the enforcement
is harsher than the official rules, which the Supreme Court has properly
called "an abomination".
John Gilmore
