From: nobody@huge.cajones.com (Huge Cajones Remailer)
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1997 07:26:23 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Webpage picketing?...
Message-ID: <199706032302.QAA01920@fat.doobie.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Peter Trei wrote:
> Jim Choate wrote:
> > I have been looking at how to impliment picketing on the web. To date I have
> > been unable to come up with a way to force a connection to one machine to go
> > through a third machine in order to express some view about the original
> > target.
> >
> > It occured to me
> > that since one could argue that the links between sites are public avenues a
> > site could 'picket' another site. The question became at this point, how?

> Jim:
> You may dislike
> one of the sites linking to yours, but you really can't hijack their
> connections and force people to listen to you who don't want to.

  Wrong! It's done every day in every media from newspapers to TV
and points in between, including the InterNet.

> Imagine if you could! Anyone who dislikes any other page on the
> web could block access

  Like CyberSitter, for instance. They can keep your child from 
using the local library computer to access Humane Society pages
and animal rights groups because they have the word "bitch" on
their websites.
  
> There are two things you *can* do.
 (With Peter's approval, but many more things you can do with
my approval.)

> 1. You can put a disclaimer on your page "If you linked here from
> XXX.XXX.XXX, please be aware that I object to that connection for
> the following reasons..."

  "...and I have uploaded a virus to your machine. Have a nice day."

> 2. If you or your webmaster have any kind of technical
> sophistication, you can force links to your page to go to a CGI
> script, which uses the HTTP-referrer: header to provide different
> pages depending on the source of the connection.

      "You have linked to the CHILD PORNOGRAPHY Home Page."
  "Information regarding your sexual proclivities will be forwarded
to the FBI, the local religious and law enforcement authorities in
your home town, as well as to your employer and known associates."
                  "Have a nice day."

> But please, don't try to extend the 'information superhighway'
> (blech!) metaphor to include virtual sidewalks with picketing
> rights

  Please, do!
  There is not a day goes by where government and corporate 
entities do not promote legislation or software standards, etc.,
which are designed to influence what we may and may not see,
as well as in what manner we perceive it. There is no reason
that the individual cannot work in their own way to counter 
activities that they see as working against their own personal
interests.

  It is possible to promote a wide range of "links" to web pages
which are "spoofs" of another page or which link to the page but
do so by opening them in a window which has surrounding windows
revealing contradictory opinons, links, etc.
  Provide a link to the "Pretty Lousy Privacy" homepage, but add
a window which mentions that your ten year old son cracked their
cryptography program. Provide a pointer to a copy of the latest
crypto legislation, which you have "translated" to include phrases
such as, "despite its blantant unconstitutionality" and "in order
to shear the sheeple."
  You are under no obligation to produce links or pointers, or to
respond to links or pointers to your own site, in a manner that
runs contrary to your own self-interest, or which allow those
following those links to do so with blind faith that they will
receive information slanted only toward a pre-conceived view of
the world.

  Someone posted a URL to a web page "spoof" done by a number
of cypherpunks (Hal Finney??,??) who had placed a number of
options such as "Click here to destroy your hard-drive.", etc.
on the site. It was a very Zen koan type of page which made
one think about what they were doing and the possibilities
of what the web page authors were/could-be doing.
  Click on a link that states, "Click here to see Hot, Teenage
Sluts" and you are likely to end up at hotmail.com, adding to
their list of spammees. To join the Dorthy Denning fan club,
send email to majordomo@toad.com with a message body that says
"subscribe cypherpunks."

  One can change the content of another's message when replying
to an email:
> Peter Trei
> Disclaimer: The above represents the opinion of the people who
> are holding my family hostage.
or invent whatever "facts" suit their purpose:
  "Dr. Vulis is a murdering Armenian and Jim Choate sends the
ASCII art spams to the list. These are well-known facts to which
they have admitted in the past."

  I have a lot of respect for Peter's work, opinions and for his
integrity, but my perception is that he fails to understand that
the InterNet is a growing mosaic which can and should reflect
*all* of life, and that his perception of what the InterNet is
and should be somehow dictates what should and should not be
done on the InterNet.
  I think that what should be done on the InterNet is exactly
what people *want* to do. It is up to their own conscience as
to whether their actions are done with integrity and up to the
rest of us to interpret and respond to those actions.

  Tim May replied to someone on the list that a subject header
he had used was "guilty(?)" of being inflammatory, and that
he had used it for that very reason, to draw attention to his
post. Is this manipulative? It is the way life works.
  I used Peter Trei and others' software for the DES Challenge,
but I posted a suggestion to the list that perhaps their programs
contained subterfuge designed to thwart others in their attempts
to find the secret keys. Was I spreading FUD? The responses to
my post gave me much more information about the processes behind
the software than any direct inquiries I had made about their
workings. (And they reinforced the fact that "blind trust" in
their programs or anyone else's is foolish.)

  In short, I do not see Jim's concept of "picketing" web sites
to be lacking in ethics, any more than Dr. Vulis' "rants" or
John Gilmore's "unsubscribing" of the good Doctor or Tim May's
"prodding" of our attention by his choice of subject headers.
  Each of us is responsible for interpreting and analyzing the
information we access whether it says the king is wearing 
clothes or the king is naked.
  I could put a pointer to Peter's software which opens an
adjoining window which warns that it may be compromised as a
result of ulterior motives. The fact is, however, that Peter
might himself put a disclaimer on his page saying, "If you
can't read code, then you can't be certain of what my software
is doing." (As a matter of fact, I believe his documentation
mentions that there is no guarantee his logic is not in error.)

  And in the extreme case of anti-abortionists intercepting the
email of pro-choice groups and inserting "Abortion is Murder!"
messages--if the person receiving the message can't figure out
that something is amiss, then maybe its not a good idea for
them to be having children, anyway.

(maybe) TruthMonger (maybe not)
  To view the contents of the whitehouse.gov hard drive:
http://www3.sk.sympatico.ca/carljohn/