Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site unc.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!akgua!mcnc!unc!tim From: tim@unc.UUCP (Tim Maroney) Newsgroups: net.general Subject: Censorship: A Case History (part 1, 11 Jan 84 to 23 Jan 84) Message-ID: <7200@unc.UUCP> Date: Mon, 7-May-84 22:59:31 EDT Article-I.D.: unc.7200 Posted: Mon May 7 22:59:31 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 9-May-84 01:27:30 EDT Organization: CS Dept., U. of N. Carolina at Chapel Hill Lines: 325 From root Mon Feb 27 16:09:22 EST 1984 Date: 11 Jan 84 11:15:37 EST (Wed) From: Rick Snodgrass Subject: RAship To: tim@unc Cc: bj@unc In-real-life: Rick Snodgrass Location: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Status: RO Tim, I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that Dr. Brooks has agreed to put you on the payroll as an RA, or some other title acceptable to the bureaucracy. Your task, as we have previously discussed, will be to finish development of the IDL system for C. If time remains this semester, the next task will be supporting Modula-2. The bad news is that your use of the system is to be restricted to that necessary to do your job. In particular, sending net news on newsgroups not relevant to your IDL work will not be allowed. [ description of TreePrint project omitted ] I look forward to continuing to work with you. Please tell me what the next milestone is, and when you expect to reach it. Although we won't be using IDL in softlab immediately, I already have four other projects were IDL would be perfect. Rick From root Mon Feb 27 16:09:22 EST 1984 Date: 12 Jan 84 13:03:20 EST (Thu) From: Tim Maroney Subject: Re: RAship To: Rick Snodgrass Cc: bj@unc In-Reply-To: Message of 11 Jan 84 11:15:37 EST (Wed) from rts@unc Status: RO That is indeed good news. However, the other restrictions most certainly are not, since at any given time I tend to be in the middle of ten conversations on the news and in my private mail. Any particular reason? This does not impose much of a strain on the system, but even so I can restrict my news activities to the wee hours of the night. When can I expect to see the formal offer of employment? Are we still meeting on Fridays? I will resurrect the IDL project and send you my next milestone this weekend. (A few weeks of inactivity has thrown me off a bit...) From root Mon Feb 27 16:09:22 EST 1984 Date: 13 Jan 84 16:20:02 EST (Fri) From: Tim Maroney Subject: employment restrictions To: mason@unc, brooks@unc Status: RO I would like to discuss the restrictions placed on my use of the computer facilities. Particularly, I would like to know what motivated the placing of these restrictions, and why news posting was cited in particular. As far as I know, such restrictions have not been placed on any other staff member, and I feel that I am entitled to some explanation. Thank you. Tim Maroney From root Mon Feb 27 16:09:22 EST 1984 Date: 17 Jan 84 08:33:06 EST (Tue) From: Capt. Ralph A. Mason Subject: Re: Important Questions To: Tim Maroney Cc: ram@unc, brooks@unc, jem@unc, howell@unc, rts@unc Status: RO Tim, to answer your questions re your employment 1. I intend to pojut on the bi-weekly payroll commencing 9 jan for 20 hours per week at 200dollars per week for 18 weeks. --untill 13 may 1984. 2. I would think your first pay chec k would be on 3 feb. 3.I have not assigned you a desk at this time as I assumed you would be using a terminal for most of your work. If you need a desk in addition to a terminal let me know and I will try to find something. there are no extra desks in the dept but we can possibly double up with your half time status. 4. With respect to your employment dutties you will be working for RTS 5. The restrictions on using mail and news outside the department are imposed based upon your excessive use of resourses in the past that have to be paid for with taxpayers money coupled with your questionable judgement as to what constitutes educational and research use of national networks, as jem has discussed with you in the past. If you have a need to use mail outside the department in connection with rts research He may authorize that useage. You may use mail and news inhouse within the department at any time. No personal use of any department facilities is authorized at any time duringh this employment. From root Mon Feb 27 16:09:22 EST 1984 Date: 17 Jan 84 13:26:18 EST (Tue) From: Tim Maroney Subject: Re: Important Questions To: Capt. Ralph A. Mason Cc: tas@unc, rts@unc, jem@unc, howell@unc, brooks@unc In-Reply-To: Message of 17 Jan 84 08:33:06 EST (Tue) from mason@unc Status: RO Thanks for your reply. I am doing most of my work at a terminal, but a desk would provide me witha place to store the documentation I need and a place to hang my coat... I have been told in the past by Tim Seaver that outgoing news and mail cost us nothing. CSNET is an exception, but I don't use that except to receive the AI Digest which is also gotten by others here. Contrary to your assertion, I have never spoken with John Menges on this subject; perhaps you mean Tim Seaver? If so, that incident was caused by some completely irresponsible and unfounded accusations by Reed and Hedlund which were apparently motivated by purely personal reasons. In short, then, this ban does not save the department any significant amount of money, and since this is the stated purpose, I would ask that the ban be lifted. The resources which I use that cost the department are mostly disk space, which I am willing to accept a ceiling on. I would appreciate some sort of formal documentation of the claim that my news and mail cost the department excessively if the ban is not lifted, since as far as I know the calls to MCNC are free. Thanks for your cooperation. Tim Maroney From root Mon Feb 27 16:09:22 EST 1984 Date: 17 Jan 84 14:40:54 EST (Tue) From: Capt. Ralph A. Mason Subject: Re: Important Questions To: Tim Maroney Cc: tas@unc, rts@unc, jem@unc, howell@unc, brooks@unc Status: RO With respect to your usage of the CS NET--FROm january to april last year you were the tenth highest user of the net using3.25% of our total usage which cost about 52 dollars of scarce communications money.In may you were the 4th largest user consumming 10.3 % of departmentusage July was 8% august 2.1%. The average usage of a grad student is about.1 to .2 % while I dont have usage data for last semester yet your past usage as I stated in an order of magnitude larger than other students. With respect to your thinking that Drs. hedlund and Reed have anything personal against you that is probably not true. I read some of the things that you were putting on the net and found them to be in poor taste--in my opinion--but more importantly I could not stand up before University officials and defend that type of usage as contributing to graduate education. I defend your right to free speech and you as an individual will be judged by what you say as we all are. However I do not believe that resourses--be it nets, terminals, computers, or just a heated room to work in --that are provided by the hardworking taxpayers of North Carolina should be wasted in any manner. Unless overruled by The chairman The ban remains in place as a condition of employment. If you can accept this I shall look for a desk for you. From root Mon Feb 27 16:09:22 EST 1984 Date: 17 Jan 84 14:42:08 EST (Tue) From: Tim Seaver Subject: news and mail To: mason@unc Cc: tim@unc Status: RO Date: 17 Jan 84 14:33:06 EST (Tue) From: Tim Maroney Subject: The Ban To: tas@unc Capt. Mason has imposed a ban on outgoing news and mail from me, charging excessive use of resources. YOu told me a while back that such things cost us nothing, since they go over the leased line from MCNC. Has this changed? If so, please tell me how I can find out how much money my use of these facilities costs and how much the average cost for a staff member is. If not, please write Capt. Mason and tell him that the charge is unfounded. Regardless, please cc all correspondence on this topic to me. Thank you. Tim Maroney Tim is correct in this. Only csnet mail costs us money, and when I checked last, Tim's csnet usage was very low. All news is transmitted via cost-free (to us, anyway) lines. From root Mon Feb 27 16:09:22 EST 1984 Date: 17 Jan 84 14:53:39 EST (Tue) From: Tim Maroney Subject: Re: Important Questions To: Capt. Ralph A. Mason Cc: tas@unc, rts@unc, jem@unc, howell@unc, brooks@unc In-Reply-To: Message of 17 Jan 84 14:40:54 EST (Tue) from mason@unc Status: RO Tim Seaver's figures contradict yours; what are your sources? However, according to your figures, I was never the top user. Have you imposed any such sanctions on the people above me? I should point out that you will never be called upon to stand before University officials to defend my articles; at most, you could be called upon to defend the use of the network at all, and in that context a small amount of "abuse" (although I do not consider it to be that) is unavoidable. If the posting of articles that do not directly further education or research is a waste of resources, then why does this site subscribe to the discussion groups at all? Why is any personal mail from anyone allowed? I hope you will not see this as excessive argumentativeness on my part. I simply feel that the ban as imposed is not fair, particularly given Tim Seaver's figures on my net usage. Tim Maroney From root Mon Feb 27 16:09:22 EST 1984 Date: 17 Jan 84 14:59:49 EST (Tue) From: Tim Seaver Subject: csnet mail To: tim@unc, mason@unc Status: RO As long as I've been brought into this, I may as well present all of the information I have. 100% of Tim's csnet usage that I have detailed information about has been receipt of an Artificial-Intelligence Digest which is shared between Bruce Smith and Tim. It is not clear, therefore, that Tim is responsible for any csnet usage. If Bruce would continue to get the digest while Tim does not, Tim's receipt of the digest is obviously costing us nothing. From root Mon Feb 27 16:09:22 EST 1984 From: smb@ulysses Date: Mon, 23 Jan 84 16:01:38 est From: ulysses!smb (Steven Bellovin) Message-Id: <8401232101.AA16745@ulysses.UUCP> Received: by ulysses.UUCP (4.12/3.7) id AA16745; Mon, 23 Jan 84 16:01:38 est To: unc!tim Subject: Re: news ban Via: Ulysses; 23 Jan 84 17:13-EDT Status: RO From unc!tim Tue Jan 17 13:51:14 1984 Message-Id: <8401171851.AA06374@ulysses.UUCP> Received: by ulysses.UUCP (4.12/3.7) id AA06374; Tue, 17 Jan 84 13:51:09 est Date: 17 Jan 84 13:29:53 EST (Tue) Original-From: Tim Maroney Subject: news ban To: smb@ulysses Status: RO A ban has been placed on my outgoing news posting. One reason cited was "questionable judgment concerning the use of national networks for educational and research purposes". If you don't feel that this charge is just cause for throwing me off USENET, I would really appreciate a note from you to Capt. Mason and Dr. Brooks to that effect. I feel that it would have a significant impact, since you are well-repected around here as wellas being a "USENET founder". Thanks for any help you wish to give. Tim Maroney Sorry for any delay in responding; I just got back from D.C. Before I send any such note, I'd appreciate more specific information, like what you did that aroused such ire. From root Mon Feb 27 16:09:22 EST 1984 Date: 23 Jan 84 20:19:46 EST (Mon) From: Tim Maroney Subject: Re: news ban To: smb@ulysses In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 23 Jan 84 16:01:38 est from smb@ulysses <8401232101.AA16745@ulysses.UUCP> Status: RO A ban has been placed on my outgoing news posting. One reason cited was "questionable judgment concerning the use of national networks for educational and research purposes". If you don't feel that this charge is just cause for throwing me off USENET, I would really appreciate a note from you to Capt. Mason and Dr. Brooks to that effect. I feel that it would have a significant impact, since you are well-repected around here as wellas being a "USENET founder". Thanks for any help you wish to give. Sorry for any delay in responding; I just got back from D.C. Before I send any such note, I'd appreciate more specific information, like what you did that aroused such ire. That's a very good question. No specific examples were cited. The charges are essentially two: (1) Wasting money. Capt. Mason quoted some figures that seem completely fabricated as to my expenditures; Tim Seaver responded that my expenses from use of news and mail are virtually nil, but Mason has not responded. (This information was made available to him last Wednesday). (2) "Questionable judgment concerning what constitutes educational and research uses of a national network." This is the charge I'd like you to say something about, if you don't feel it's accurate. Am I hurting USENET and UNC's reputation by my posting of sometimes inflammatory articles? Should I be ejected from the net? I really do wish that I could provide something more specific, but those are the charges as presented to me, which I assure you is not a situation I am pleased about. By the way, I might add that even this letter to you is a breach of the restrictions; however, please do not conceal the fact that I sent it. -- Tim Maroney, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill duke!unc!tim (USENET), tim.unc@csnet-relay (ARPA)