From: Alan Olsen <alano@teleport.com>
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 95 15:15:16 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: AOL Porno
Message-ID: <199509142214.PAA07197@desiree.teleport.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 05:25 AM 9/14/95 -0400, you wrote:
>Will the federal prosecutors and Fibbies on this list please 
>emphasize that the Internet was not involved in the AOL kiddie porn 
>case.  The Internet has enough opportunities for bad publicity as 
>it is.

I watched the local news coverage of that case.  The report was given by an
individual who has made that mistake before.  (He hosts a "Town Hall"
program that exploits various subjects of the day.  He was corrected as to
"AOL not being the Internet" during one of them.  I know, I was the one who
corrected him.)  The coverage showed lots of shots of the various internet
binaries echos (including alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children, but not
alt.binaries.pictures.cops.), the web including the Penthouse site (as if
Penthouse has kiddy porn), and other unrelated and non-AOL pictures.

The Internet has become the new scapegoat of choice.  The general media
cannot (or is unwilling) to distinguish the difference between electronic
nets.  The Internet is a generic term for them and since when is the media
willing to look beyond the surface?

How does this connect to crypto?  Well, aiding and abetting in a scapegoat
is a capitol crime in this country.  You can be assured that the Department
of Scapegoat Management will link kiddy porn and crypto at some point in the
minds of the generic public. Hopefully that perception can be "headed off at
the pass".  Having cryptography as a means of avoiding crime and criminals
in the perception of the public is a good idea.  The question is how to get
that perception into the minds of the general public before the other meme
can be inplanted by Scapegoat management and the other TLAa? 

>"Who wonders:  How it is that CompuServe was able to exist from 1979 
>to the arrival of Prodigy and AOL without major sex, and drugs, and 
>rock and roll problems?"

I think the six-dot-three filenames has something to do with it...
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