Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!ucbvax!VLSI.JPL.NASA.GOV!hack%lock.span
From: hack%lock.span@VLSI.JPL.NASA.GOV (Edmund Hack)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Access control to future nets
Message-ID: <890111072152.1c53@VLSI.JPL.NASA.GOV>
Date: 11 Jan 89 15:21:52 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 62

Recently, Nick Taylor (mcvax!ukc!etive!hwcs!nick@uunet.uu.net) said:

>...
>I think we need to be able to restrict access in order to prevent the
>mischievous and malicious from making the net unworkable. [Comments?]
>However, when we talk about restrictions we have to do our best to ensure
>that they are not used as a (very powerful) tool of repression.
>
>Now, I don't want to go running off down the Big Brother avenue again so
>how about this as an idea:
>
>Create a system whereby people can have their access suspended by popular
>demand. An automated voting system could be instituted which would accept
>nominations for suspension and votes for and against. If the votes for minus
>the votes against exceed some number (which should be some proportion of those
>who could have been adversely affected by the defendant's activities) then
>the defendant should be suspended. The defendant should be given one final
>opportunity to defend himself (in case his supporters had not realized how
>seriously others were treating the issue) and if the result still held the
>suspension would be implemented. [Comments?]
>...

An alternative approach to "banishing" people for unpopular opinions and/or
obnoxious postings is better mail reading software.  Set up the mail reader at
your own node to exclude the messages of people you don't want to hear from
and also the direct replies.  As more and more people get hooked to nets, the
problem of electronic junk mail is going to increase.  On CompuServe, I have
already gotten several mail messages that were solicitations to buy things.
Paper junk mail I don't mind - it helps pay for the USPS and I can look at the
envelope and toss it if I recognize it as an ad for something I don't want.
But, electronic junk mail costs _me_ money in the form of connect charges.

A similar problem has arisen on Fax machines - junk mail by Fax has started to
be a problem at some companies.  It ties up the machine when it is needed for 
company affairs.  The solution here will possibly be 2-pronged - unlisted Fax
numbers for use inside the company (between offices, etc.) and Fax machines that
refuse calls except from known machines.  (The current high end Fax machine we
use here at NASA prints the originating number at the bottom of the first page.)

However, malicious access, such as sending worms and flooding the net with
harassing mail is dealt with in 2 ways - as a crime if over a public or private
network (it's illegal to do such things in Texas now and one conviction has
been made for erasing records in a corporate mainframe), or with termination
of service if over a commercial network (as CompuServe will do if you are
abusive).

I am wary of "voting" types of schemes as they can be abused to suppress the
rights of minorities easily.  I could see where Communists, Atheists and
just plain strange people could be banished for having unpopular opinions
and expressing them out loud.

Anyway, there are my 2 centavos worth. 

{ I may have sent a null message out earlier - if so, I apologize - the power
glitched in our building, knocking my PC offline from our VAX }

Edmund Hack                            ARPA: hack%lock.span@vlsi.jpl.nasa.gov
AI and Telerobotics Dept.              SPAN: lock::hack
Lockheed Engineering and Sciences Co.
Johnson Space Center
Houston, TX 
"All opinions expressed herein are not known to be held by any bureaucrat."