Computer underground Digest Wed Mar 8, 1995 Volume 7 : Issue 19 ISSN 1004-042X Editors: Jim Thomas and Gordon Meyer (TK0JUT2@NIU.BITNET) Archivist: Brendan Kehoe Semi-retiring Shadow Archivist: Stanton McCandlish Correspondent Extra-ordinaire: David Smith Shadow-Archivists: Dan Carosone / Paul Southworth Ralph Sims / Jyrki Kuoppala Ian Dickinson Monster Editor: Loch Nesshrdlu CONTENTS, #7.19 (Wed, Mar 8, 1995) File 1--Re: Cu Digest, #7.18 File 2--Acm-IIT Computers Seized by Ill. Institute of Tech (fwd) File 3--Cu in the news File 4--Role-playing adventure BBS starting New game File 5--"You all support child porn" and other rubbish File 6--Alert #1: Fifth Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy File 7--CMC Magazine March Issue File 8--TIME WARNER ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING File 9--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 26 Feb, 1995) CuD ADMINISTRATIVE, EDITORIAL, AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION APPEARS IN THE CONCLUDING FILE AT THE END OF EACH ISSUE. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 07 Mar 1995 22:54:34 -0500 From: spaf@CS.PURDUE.EDU(Gene Spafford) Subject: File 1--Re: Cu Digest, #7.18 Re: the review of "Virus Creation Labs" and the excerpt by George Smith. I gather from the tone of the excerpt and the review that Mr. Smith has lumped together all kinds of PCs and therefore likewise all developers? If so, it is both a technical and a social error, at the least. For instance, Macintosh systems are PCs, in the true sense that they are personal computers. They also have less than 2 dozen viruses written for them, ever. The Mac anti-virus community cooperates, quiety and without publicity. The world's only successful prosecution of computer virus writers was brought about by the Mac anti-virus community. And there have been two very complete and wonderful FREE programs that deal with Mac viruses: Disinfectant and Gatekeeper. Even the competing commercial vendors praise them and sometimes help their authors. Thus, in the Mac virus arena at least, we have not seen any evidence of a "...bizarre Pirandellian world of inflated egos, malicious territorialism, questionable ethics, and avarice, about equally divided between the moral entrepreneurs amongst virus fighters and their nemesis, the virus writers." There is no "phalleocentric anti-virus community" (thank heavens!). In fact, outside of the IBM MS-DOS arena, I would question if the view described exists elsewhere. I have not heard anything resembling these same descriptions applied to those working with viruses in Atari, Amiga, or (almost non-existant) Unix environments. From my perspective, which reaches back to where I think I was principal author of the second or third book written on viruses (not counting Cohen's dissertation as a book), even the MS-DOS community was not always as described. A few greedy and self-serving people changed the field for the vendors, and a few destructive virus authors changed it for everyone else. Even so, there are some people in the MS-DOS anti-virus field who are not malicious, territorial, or avaricious. Ken van Wyk, Vesselin Bontchev, David Ferbrache, and Fridrick Skulason all come to mind without much effort as good examples of community spirit and cooperative effort. There have been, and are, others. I don't doubt that Mr. Smith's view is entertaining and informative. I hope that it is more balanced and fair, however, in its presentation than I might imagine from the review and the excerpt. The attitudes and behaviors discussed could more likely be blamed on repeated exposure to MS-DOS than to viruses or personal computers, especially when we look at the record of behavior of others. It would be a pity if the book presents a local phenomenon as the global picture. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Mar 1995 12:13:20 -0600 From: jthomas@SUN.SOCI.NIU.EDU(Jim Thomas) Subject: File 2--Acm-IIT Computers Seized by Ill. Institute of Tech (fwd) ACM-IIT COMPUTERS SEIZED BY ILLINOIS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY _________________________________________________________________ ACM - The First Society in Computing "AND LET IT BE KNOWN THROUGHOUT THE WORLD WHAT WAS DONE THIS DAY..." DATELINE TUESDAY JANUARY 17, 1995 Today sometime before noon today, the Illinois Institute of Technology seized the computer systems of the Association for Computing Machinery student chapter at IIT. 700 Student and Faculty users are not happy. And are now without their Email and other private files. The locations of the ACM-IIT systems is currently unknown, and the security of the system and the accounts on it is highly questionable, as it was quite literally riped out of the wall. ( a piece of the modem was found lying on the table ). The reasons given by IIT where that members of ACM-IIT are suspected of hacking into the computer of another IIT student group, and pulling several pranks. The memo sent to the Dean of Students details the hacking attempt, but no evidence points to ACM-IIT's systems or to any of their users, but the memo does make several unbacked accusations. And at this time, we can see no reason ACM-IIT would even be tied to the events. However because ACM-IIT members are suspect, the systems where unlawfully seized by IIT. IIT has no legal right to seize ACM-IIT's systems, nor anyone else, as they contain private accounts, files, and Email. Such rights are protected under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), which extended most of the protections of the federal Wiretap Act ("Title III") to electronic mail. Precidence was established in the case Secret Service vs. Steve Jackson Games decided March 12, 1993 in favor of SJG (1) (2) Needless to say, ACM-IIT members are not too happy about all of this. And the other 700 people don't seem happy either. _________________________________________________________________ DATELINE WEDNESDAY JANUARY 18, 1995 * Members realize that along with Troll, which is physicaly considered IIT's property even tho it was purchased with student funds, property of ACM-IIT members was also seized includind a network card, SIMM modules, and the modem that was broken by IIT during the seizure. * ACM recieves writen copy of allegations and supposed proof that ACM systems where used in the attempt. However the evidence clearly shows that other IIT owned systems where used and NOT ACM-IIT's systems. * Electronic Frontier Foundation is called and informed of the situation, and begins investigating the situation. * ACM-IIT hears that the computer system is in the process of being searched by IIT staff, and ACM-IIT members now consider the system compromised. Still no evidence showing ACM-IIT involvement. * Word continues to spread amung the IIT community, many more students and faculty are outraged about the seizure of their accounts and files. * Continued stress to students due to the lack of access to their Email, addressbooks, and other files. Email is now being lost in mass due to the ACM-IIT systems removal, much of which is considered critical by many people. * ACM-IIT members miss the ACM Chicago Chapter meeting due to the fact that all the info concerning time/location was stored on the seized systems. More info on previous legal cases involving seizure of systems and the data they contain. _________________________________________________________________ DATELINE THURSDAY JANUARY 19, 1995 Everyone waits for the Dean of Students hearing friday morning... _________________________________________________________________ DATELINE FRIDAY JANUARY 20, 1995 * IIT agrees to put ACM-IIT's computer back online "late next week" provided ACM-IIT is on it's own subnet, and IIT gets root access to the machine, and can take the machines offline at anytime. * ACM-IIT meets in an emergency meeting, and unanimously votes that the terms are completely unreasonable and that ACM-IIT cannot continue to operate machines on the internet under IIT's conditions and maintain services and security. + ACM-IIT mobalizes to aquire donatated or private machines to provide services on, so that hopefully at least some legal rights will have to be respected by IIT. + Calls will be made Monday to INTERNIC to hopefully expedite ACM-IIT's applications mailed in several weeks ago for IP space and the domain name acm-iit.org + Searching begins for a site with a T1 line or better to host ACM-IIT's systems, since IIT will not assure that ACM-IIT will have access to the net at all times, and wants student groups off of IIT's backbone. This means several services cannot be offered by ACM-IIT, but at least most can. * On the matter of the disciplinary action without any proof, the Dean of Students makes the statement "This isn't a court of law, we don't need proof." Several students including the acused start looking at other schools, looking for someplace they will be allowed to make a difference. _________________________________________________________________ DATELINE MONDAY JANUARY 23, 1995 Various people and organizations now helping ACM-IIT with the situation, but it has yet to resolve itself. Several additional courses of action are proposed as ACM-IIT seeks to get back online ASAP. _________________________________________________________________ DATELINE TUESDAY JANUARY 24, 1995 At the Student Leadership Committee meeting, the issue is brought up and a subcommittee is formed to investigate the actions taken buy the Dean of Students office and IIT. _________________________________________________________________ DATELINE FRIDAY JANUARY 27, 1995 After another Meeting with the Dean of Students, ACM members are finally allowed to take back the privately owned property in the machine, and also are allowed to take the hard drive. ACM-IIT now has possesion of all the data/files/Email on the system. Plans to get ACM-IIT back onto the internet ASAP with the help of Ripco Communications, Inc. a local Internet Provider are made. _________________________________________________________________ DATELINE SATURDAY/SUNDAY JANUARY 28-29, 1995 ACM-IIT members attempt to gather the needed PC hardware to restore services. Corporate donations are sought, and many friends are called. _________________________________________________________________ DATELINE JANUARY 30TH - FEBRUARY 9TH, 1995 * On February 1st IIT agreed to allow users files and Email to be placed back online for users to download, however ACM-IIT will not be allowed to administrate systems directly attached to IIT networks. * Due to problems coordinating with IIT staff, ACM-IIT systems are still offline, but will hopefully be online somewhere relatively soon. * ACM-IIT submitted a proposal to IIT to allow ACM-IIT back online to run their systems if a firewall could be acquired, but has still not heard back from IIT officials. * ACM-IIT members continue to attempt to gather enough PC hardware to leave IIT's network for another site where the systems will be secure. _________________________________________________________________ DATELINE FEBRUARY 15TH, 1995 * The ACM-IIT system is placed back online for users to download their files pending a permanent solution to the problem. * However the system is again rendered inaccessable when the nameserver entries are rechanged, and some IIT machine is told to respond as if it where ACM's system and refuse connections. _________________________________________________________________ This document would be on the ACM-IIT Web site, but we don't have one anymore. So now it lives at http://xtreme.acc.iit.edu:4242/~bebeada/ and is mirrored at http://rci.ripco.com:8080/~bebeada/ACM.html ------------------------------ Date: 07 Mar 95 17:59:53 EST From: Gordon Meyer <72307.1502@compuserve.com> Subject: File 3--Cu in the news Harris-steria? ========= A recently-spotted ad for an Internet firewall begins with the ominious proclimation that "Every 20 seconds, a network is infiltrated. Vital files are sabotaged. Corporate secrets, financial data and sensitive customer information are stolen, and all traces of the intrusion are erased. The futures of companies which took years to build are terminated in a few short seconds". Every 20 seconds? That amounts to 4320 companies having their futures "terminated" every 24 hours (we all know hackers never sleep). In February alone that would be over 108,000 companies, assuming that most hackers took Valentine's Day off. Yearly calculations are left as an exercise for the reader. =============================================================== The Software Publishers Association (SPA) reports that of the calls they received on their "piracy hot line", they took action against 447 organizations in the U.S. That's 23% fewer actions then in 1993. The SPA "actions" include 197 audits aned lawsuits, netting $2.7 million in penalties. (Datamation. March 1, 1995. pg 26) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Feb 95 02:53:04 +0200 From: RMthawanji@UNIMA.WN.APC.ORG Subject: File 4--Role-playing adventure BBS starting New game For about six months I've been running a role-playing adventure on my BBS the message areas. I got a lot of response and all the people playing had a pretty good time. I've decided to open the next adventure to ANYONE with an E-mail account for no charge. The games ruling systems will be Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play based, with some small variation into other role playing systems. Its ideal for all modem-literate Games workshop junkies!! _Anyone_ intrested in joining the game should mail me at: Email: Rmthawanji@unima.wn.apc.org Fido: 5:7231/1.113 (FIDO) Please include somwhere in the body of your message, your most frequently used email address and your age. Also, as a matter of intrest, please include any other role playing systems you've played & details. I am also looking for a server to run this via Email off (ie. a listserv of some sort). I'm not familiar with the basics of running something off a list server, but I'm pretty sure I'll be able to get to grips with it pretty quickly. If there's anyone willing to explain how use a listserver to run the adventure off, and show me one to use, please do contact me.. I'm also looking for someone to post this in all relevant USENET news groups - if you find the time to do so, just let me know once its posted. The first adventure will start as soon as I get 10 players ready to go. Players joining after the adventure has began should Email me as normal, and I will reply and brief them on the on going adventure, give them their characters & start them up as soon as possible. The second adventure will begin when there are 15 players, who've opted for it ,ready to go. Yes as you've noticed, I'm running TWO adventures, from the brief descriptions below please decide NOW, which you want to join and state that somewhere in your Email. <1> - The Tower Of Despair - Delve into another dimension of danger & excitement as a terrible evil unfolds across the empire! <2> - The Legions Undead - Bretonnia, a kingdom previously of great beauty & tranquility. Now the dead all across the land groan and writhe in their tombs as peril befalls the land ... From the list below, select a career class for your character and include that in your email. 1) Warrior 2) Rogue 3) Ranger 4) Academic (cleric, druids etc.) - these are only the basic choices the rest is determined randomly - Once I've generated your character, I'll send a copy to you to keep and modify between each turn. You'll then be required to send a short and un-exaggerated piece on your characters background and description matching your characters stats. To play the adventure you'll need a map, I'll place a GIF map on an FTP site and inform all users who've joined the adventure. Eventually, once the adventure is complete, I'll compile it into a story and put it on a couple of FTP sites & BBSes for others to see. If you use PGP, please send your Public key along with your Email. Looking forward to a pretty mad adventure ... the whole thing will be pretty informal so tag along, it should be good (famous last words. ) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Mar 1995 22:25:58 +1000 From: Rhys Weatherley Subject: File 5--"You all support child porn" and other rubbish Frankly, I'm getting a little sick of views such as the following, which seem to crop up with regularity in the free speech vs censorship debate: > If you want it to be legal for people to use email, or web pages, or > improvised FidoNets or whatever to send around JPGs of perverts raping > 6 year olds, or detailed descriptions of rape/murder/torture fantasies > with people's real names for the victims, or GIFs of people having sex > involving excrement, carving knives, and/or animals ... well, then say > so! Brad Hicks was the author of that little gem, but there are many more like it all the Net over. Very few free speech supporters, myself included, want that kind of crap distributed on the Internet or anywhere. Most of it takes an actual physical crime to produce the information. It is therefore not free speech by any stretch of the imagination. It is a crime, and should be punished to the full extent of the law. However, by raising these little gems, Brad and those like him do the anti-Net-censorship movement a great disservice. Those are extreme examples which are easily dealt with by after-the-fact complaints and clean-up mechanisms, handing the perpetrators off to the cops at the earliest opportunity. Before the fact scanning is not required, yet S.314 certainly seems to require it. It is all the other things, which are NOT extreme, which the free speech advocates want people to be able to say and do without reprisal. Whilst some of the non-extreme things may not be in the best of taste, they do not involve physical crimes to make the information. Heavy handed control and scanning is not required to deal with this. Personal choice, parental supervision, kill files, and the unsubscribe function are plenty good enough. Yet S.314 still seems to require scanning. Raising the extreme examples twists the debate and paints the supporters of free speech as criminals, and only serves to frighten those people who do not understand the true implication of a monitored and scanned society: "we may get rid of what most ordinary people don't like, but what else will we get rid of in the process?". I recently spent an interesting afternoon attending a panel on censorship given by 4 Australian authors. The first 3 said a lot of very good things about anti-censorship. The last, a very staunch Australian feminist, gets up and says "I support free speech. However defamation is not free speech." So far so good (more or less). Then she says "Pornography is defamation against women. Therefore pornography is not free speech and we should ban it, especially on the Internet". She was seeking to redefine what she didn't like as something else so that she could ban it. And this is a free speech supporter! Interestingly, she trotted out all of the extreme examples (child porn, degrading sex scenes, etc, etc, etc) to justify her case, snowing the audience into thinking that all of it is like that. My efforts, and those of a couple of others in the audience didn't really help to dissuade her. Probably because we were men. :-( I left feeling that the rest of the audience (mostly women) had bought her line, because they didn't realise that she was using extremes to justify her case. The danger that I see in S.314, and proposals currently before the Australian Federal Government, is that they seek to blame first, ask questions later. Yes, the word "knowingly" is in there, but how is that going to help the Internet-on-a-shoestring provider pay their legal costs to point the finger at their users? Will they go bankrupt trying to prove their aren't liable, or will they get fined or go to jail because they are financial nobodies? Make no mistake about it: the big Internet providers will be protected. No one will bother hauling them into court. But the little providers will get it in the neck because they are easy targets. Is this how we want the future of law enforcement to operate? Targeting the weak because the police can get away with it? Eventually laws may be needed to deal with the extreme examples. But this can only happen after we clear up the liability question. When police make it a matter of policy of targetting users first, and only targetting providers when evidence of conspiracy comes to light, then we can start to have some sanity in laws about the net. Until then, S.314 and its ilk are very dangerous things to have on the law books. So, please cut the crap about the extreme examples. It isn't helping. It merely diverts attention away from the real issues that free speech advocates are trying to raise. Most of us do NOT consider the extremes free speech. Stop trying to claim that we do. Cheers, Rhys Weatherley, President of BrisNet, an Internet service provider in Brisbane, Australia. Also the head of the Australian Computer Society and Electronic Frontiers Australia task force on "Freedom in Cyberspace". E-mail rhys@brisnet.org.au for details. P.S. I have a lot of respect for the feminist movement and the quest for equality. My intention was not to debate the merits of the feminist movement but merely to point out that some people are using extremes to sidetrack the censorship debate because of personal distaste for certain things. In the long run, this is a diversion, not a solution. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 Mar 1995 03:22:05 -0800 From: ceh@LELAND.STANFORD.EDU(Carey Heckman) Subject: File 6--Alert #1: Fifth Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy * WHY CFP * WHAT'S NEW FOR '95? * EARLY REGISTRATION DEADLINE: FEBRUARY 24 * PAEAN TO UNSUNG HEROES * THE WHOLE WORLD WILL BE WATCHING * CONNECTING TO CFP'95 WHY CFP Never has the need for a conference on computers, freedom, and privacy been so urgent. New laws are being proposed. New commercial ventures are being launched. New arrests are being made. New conceptions (and misconceptions) are being spread by newspapers, magazines, books, and broadcast media. New lawsuits are being filed. New databases are being created. In short, new threats are emerging and new crises are brewing, all while new opportunities are evolving. Exploring and better understanding the definition of our rights at this crucial crossroads of the Information Age requires a balanced public forum that includes participants from computer science, law, business, research, information, library science, health, public policy, law enforcement, public advocacy, and others. That's the Fifth Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy. March 28-31, 1995. Burlingame, California. WHAT'S NEW FOR '95? If you have attended a previous Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy, you have some idea of the high quality and diversity of people the conference attracts as speakers and attendees. CFP'95 continues that tradition, but breaks new ground as well. Topics: CFP'95 covers the critical issues of the day, including those that touch on freedom of speech, privacy, access to public records, freedom of association, and fair access to computer and telecommunications technologies. The program gives particular emphasis to how the growth of computer and data communications into the mainstream expands and threatens our freedoms. Speakers: With more than half of the CFP'95 Program Committee new to organizing the conference, it should come as no surprise that CFP'95 is far from a gathering of the usual suspects. Among this year's featured speakers are John Morgridge, chairman of Cisco Systems; Roger Wilkins a Pulitzer Prize-winning commentator for National Public Radio and Professor of History and American Culture at George Mason University; Margaret Jane Radin, a Stanford Law School professor and expert on property law and political philosophy; and Esther Dyson, founder of EDventure Holdings, editor of Release 1.0., co-chair of the National Information Infrastructure Advisory Council's Information Privacy and Intellectual Property Subcommittee, and among the leading experts on computers, software, and computer communications in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Also included in the CFP'95 program are * Kent Walker, the Assistant United States Attorney who led the investigation and arrest of Kevin Mitnick. * Brock Meeks, the journalist who defended himself from an Internet libel lawsuit earlier this year. * Pamela Samuelson, the University of Pittsburgh law professor who co-authored the manifesto urging a radical redefinition of legal protection for computer software. * Roger Karraker, the director of the Santa Rosa Junior College journalism program where the tension between free speech and sexual harassment on computer bulletin boards became a national news story. * Virginia Rezmierski, the advisor on policy to the Vice Provost for Information Technology at the University of Michigan where Jake Baker was indicted for publishing a story on the Internet. Formats: The issues discussed at CFP'95 have two or more sides, and rather than have panel of speakers after panel of speakers, the session formats have been designed to showcase different perspectives and stimulate audience interaction. For example, Thursday afternoon features a Socratic forum on free speech and responsibility, led by professional moderator Professor Kim Taylor-Thompson of Stanford Law School. A Socratic forum assembles experts from various disciplines who role play themselves in a hypothetical scenario. The moderator fires questions and stokes discussion between the experts to create a bright light of information (as well as some white hot heat of controversy). EARLY REGISTRATION DEADLINE: FEBRUARY 24 Register this week to save as much as $175 in registration fees. You can do this by mail, phone, fax, or electronic mail. See the contact information below for how to get registration information. PAEAN TO UNSUNG HEROES Each Conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy is a non- profit, non-commercial event. CFP'95 is no exception. Volunteer Coordinator Judi Clark has already assembled a remarkable corps of volunteers who will be staffing the registration desk, making sure sessions go smoothly, taking photographs, and a host of other indispensable functions. Many thanks in advance to Judi and the rest of the volunteers for making CFP'95 possible. THE WHOLE WORLD WILL BE WATCHING Media Coordinator Scott Nicholas reports active press interest in CFP'95. Requests for press credentials have already been received from national newspapers, newsweeklies, broadcast media, foreign publications, and a variety of trade magazines. Past CFPs have attracted CNN, the New York Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today. CONNECTING TO CFP'95 Registration and other information about CFP'95 is readily available from many sources: By WWW: URL=http://www-techlaw.stanford.edu/CFP95.html By Gopher: www-techlaw.stanford.edu By FTP: www-techlaw.stanford.edu By Email: Info.CFP95@forsythe.stanford.edu By Fax: (415) 548-0840 By Telephone: (415) 548-9673 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 Mar 1995 06:28:08 -0500 From: Kevin Douglas Hunt Subject: File 7--CMC Magazine March Issue The March Issue of COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION MAGAZINE has hit the Web. Look for it here: http://sunsite.unc.edu/cmc/mag/current/toc.html Here's a look at what's inside the March issue: COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION MAGAZINE ISSN 1076-027X / Volume 2, Number 3 / March 1, 1995 ___________________________________________________________________ Editor's Page COVER STORY E-Literacies: Politexts, Hypertexts, and Other Cultural Formations in the Late Age of Print In her novel Pintamento, Lillian Hellman advises her best friend Julia to "Take Chances!!" Now, it's your turn. Writer, educator, artist, and hypertext theorist Nancy Kaplan presents us with an intriguing challenge to explore the creative possibilities of hypertext. CMC NEWS Are You Decent? Senator James Exon's new Senate Bill, the Communications Decency Act of 1995, is causing an uproar in the online community. Some netizens are calling it the greatest challenge yet to the First Amendment. Kirsten Cooke's news report sheds light on the issue and the varied responses to it. The Cutting Edge: News in Brief Chief Correspondent Chris Lapham rounds up the latest in CMC News: the seizure of a Finnish Postnews server by Interpol, the resurrection of the WebAnts project, and the first G7 International Communications Policy conference. FEATURES Book Excerpt: Computer-Mediated Communication and Community We are creating new worlds, and our imaginations and thoughts will be the forces that colonize the electronic frontier: Steve Jones's romantic vision of a wired society is artfully presented in this introductory chapter from his new book of essays, CyberSociety: Computer-Mediated Communication and Community. Book Excerpt: Computer-Mediated Communication and the Online Classroom in Higher Education A look at the introduction to the second of three volumes by Zane Berge and Mauri Collins, which examines computers in the educational environment. Well-Constructed Gophers: Is Your Gopher Golden? The Internet Gopher has proven to be a popular tool for delivering information, but how do you make a "golden" Gopher? Jeff Kosokoff presents a schema for appraising and improving Gopher servers. Electronic Feedback: CMC Magazine Visits The Netoric Cafe You are cordially invited to "eavesdrop" on the virtual debates that followed our January special issue, "Previews, Predictions, Prognostications." Various "technorhetoricians" met in MOOspace to discuss pedagogical issues with Netoric founders Tari Fanderclai and Greg Siering. REVIEW Cybersmith: Tales of the First Coffee Shop on the Infobahn CMC Magazine Graphics Editor Jason Teague reviews what he calls "the latest evolution of cyberspace," a coffee-klatch establishment in Cambridge, Mass. called "Cybersmith." It's a place where technojunkies go to combine the two C's which keep them all moving -- computers and coffee, but in a public space rather than a basement apartment. DEPARTMENTS From the Nets . . . Women on the Web by Lisa Schmeiser Of Style and Substance by Lisa Schmeiser Mbox Vic Moberg responds to Laura Gurak's February Last Link. The Last Link: Ubiquitous Computing vs. Radical Privacy: A Reconsideration of the Future Consider Porush's Law: "Participating in the newest communications technologies becomes compulsory if you want to remain part of the culture." David Porush embarks on a Talmudic journey toward understanding "future culture" in his response to Steve Doheny-Farina's October, 1994 Last Link. ___________________________________________________________________ Kevin Hunt (huntk@rpi.edu) Assistant Editor, *Computer-Mediated Communication Magazine* ------------------------------ Date: 02 Mar 95 16:48:17 EST From: "Kelly L. O'Keefe" <76711.1476@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: File 8--TIME WARNER ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Kelly Leonard O'Keefe, TWEP Publicity, 212-522-4643 TIME WARNER ELECTRONIC PUBILISHING ANNOUNCES PARTNERSHIP WITH LEARN TECHNOLOGIES, INC. Product Development and Creative Partnership Deal Signed NEW YORK, NY, March 2, 1995 -- A partnership between Time Warner Electronic Publishing (TWEP) and Learn Technologies, Inc. (LTI), in conjunction with Warner Books Multimedia Corp., a subsidiary of Warner Books, Inc., has been announced today by Andrew Lerner, Director of TWEP, and Luyen Chou, President and CEO of LTI. LTI's partnership with TWEP, the multimedia arm of Warner Books and Little, Brown and Company, has created Learn Technologies Interactive. In tandem with TWEP, Learn Technologies Interactive will design, develop and publish cutting-edge entertainment, educational and informational multimedia CD-ROM products. Drawing on LTI founders' experience in educational technologies and TWEP's content and distribution resources, the partnership will focus on developing and distributing interactive titles for home and institutional use. The products will combine the production quality and design standards of the most sophisticated interactive games with the latest in interactive learning concepts. "Educational products have largely failed to live up to their promise. The partnership's goal is to create truly interactive products that excite and provoke," said Chou. "We expect educational multimedia to propel the rapid growth in CD-ROM sales the industry will see over the next several years, and we intend to be at the forefront of this trend." Several titles are currently under development in collaboration with museums, cable television networks, publishers and other information providers. Release dates are scheduled for the 1995 holiday season. A sampling of projects includes: * Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, Electronic Edition-- 140 years in the making, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations on CD-ROM expands the concept of quotation to include picture, sound, and video quotes. The powerful search engine gives easy access to 2,550 authors and over 20,000 quotations, making Bartlett's the '90s reference tool for expression. * Dynasty--A photo-realistic adventure game set in the tomb of Qin Shi Huang Di, the first emperor of China. Playing the role of a daring archaeologist, the user will solve riddles and brave ancient traps to discover the tomb's secrets. Based upon the best scholarly guesses on the contents and structure of this as-yet unexcavated site, the program will also include an on-line library of Qin culture, Chinese history, archaeology and historiography. * A Search for Justice: CaseMaker I--The Rodney King Case--Created in collaboration with Courtroom Television Network, L.P., the first title in the series is based upon the Rodney King case. Users argue for the defense or the prosecution by constructing multimedia presentations from a wealth of primary materials on the CD-ROM. Seventh-graders, Harvard Law students and practicing attorneys have already given Casemaker an enthusiastic response. "With LTI's creative talent, brain power, and academic know-how and TWEP's content, acquisition and retail distribution power," commented Lerner, "this partnership puts us in a tremendous position for the future of entertainment and educational multimedia products." ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Feb 1995 22:51:01 CDT From: CuD Moderators Subject: File 9--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 26 Feb, 1995) Cu-Digest is a weekly electronic journal/newsletter. Subscriptions are available at no cost electronically. CuD is available as a Usenet newsgroup: comp.society.cu-digest Or, to subscribe, send a one-line message: SUB CUDIGEST your name Send it to LISTSERV@UIUCVMD.BITNET or LISTSERV@VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU The editors may be contacted by voice (815-753-0303), fax (815-753-6302) or U.S. mail at: Jim Thomas, Department of Sociology, NIU, DeKalb, IL 60115, USA. 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