PRIVACY Forum Digest      Sunday, 12 June 1994       Volume 03 : Issue 11

          Moderated by Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com)
            Vortex Technology, Woodland Hills, CA, U.S.A.
	
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   	  The PRIVACY Forum digest is supported in part by the 
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    	     *  PRIVACY FORUM TWO YEAR ANNIVERSARY ISSUE  *
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CONTENTS 
	Summer Submissions for the Digest
	   (Lauren Weinstein; PRIVACY Forum Moderator)
	Newsgroup censorship (Thomas M. Swiss)
	Thank you, France Telecom (Technology Strategy & Architecture)


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VOLUME 03, ISSUE 11

   Quote for the day:

	"Don't look so scared." 

		-- Will Randall (Jack Nicholson)
		   "Wolf" (1994) 
		   (Release by Columbia Pictures on June 17, 1994)
			
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Date:    Sun, 12 Jun 94 11:07 PDT
From:    lauren@vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein; PRIVACY Forum Moderator)
Subject: Summer Submissions for the Digest

Greetings.  We're now entering the summer season which traditionally results
in fewer submissions to most network digests.  However, this does not
necessarily have to be the case, *if* more readers become senders.  PRIVACY
Forum is now a very large list, with readers across the globe, including
many in Australia, where, I might note, they're about to enter--you guessed
it--*winter*.

So there's no excuse--get your privacy questions, concerns, anecdotes,
and news in here, and we can make this a most productive season for the
exploration of privacy issues around the world.

--Lauren--

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Date:    Mon, 16 May 1994 14:19:55 -0400
From:    "Thomas M. Swiss" <tms@ziggy.tis.com>
Subject: Newsgroup censorship (from PRIVACY Forum Digest V03 #10)

      In PRIVACY Forum Digest V03 #10, Willie Smith (wpns@roadrunner.pictel
.com) comments on possible censorship of newsfeeds by the University of
Waterloo:

>There _are_ no censorship or privacy protection implications here!  If
>TPTB were preventing you from accessing the Uselessnet ("No student
>may have an account with a public access Unix site with a full news
>feed"), or requiring that all postings by students from those sites be
>first vetted for 'appropriate language', then there would be an issue.
>All I hear is "But we _want_ it!!!".  If I want the Wall Street
>Journal is the paperboy practicing censorship by not giving it to me?

     Here, you make an interesting comparison, which I'd like to explore a
bit further. Let's say that the University was providing the Wall Street
Journal to students thru the library - but was removing the editorial page.

     Is this censorship? Depending on the exact definition of censorship
used, it may not be; but it certainly is censorship-like behavior, and
should concern us. A University should be committed to spreading
information, not stopping its distribution. If the University decides,
based on resource allocation considerations, not to offer USENET feeds to
its students, fine. But to pick and choose among newsgroups based on
possibly offensive content, as appears to be the case here, is close enough
to censorship that it should concern us.

-Tom Swiss / tms@tis.com, speaking for myself.

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Date:    Fri, 20 May 94 11:07:13 MET DST
From:    Technology Strategy & Architecture <kaiser@heron.vbo.dec.com>
Subject: Thank you, France Telecom

The pay telephones in the airport at Nice have an augmented keypad that
includes a flash/hangup button and a redial button.  Almost all of the
phones use prepaid phone cards, which are common in Europe: you buy a card
with a prepaid number of usage units; the units are decremented as you use
the card.  Directions to use the phone, such as "Pick up the handset",
"Insert your card", the number you're calling, and "(n) units remaining",
are shown on the phone's LCD screen.

Wednesday at the airport I was trying urgently to reach someone by phone,
but kept getting a busy signal.  I took my card out of the phone and walked
away.  Later I came back to the same phone, inserted my card, and pressed
the redial button.  It not only redialed my number, it displayed it on the
screen.

Obvious privacy risk.  It was convenient at the moment, but I'd far rather
the number be erased when the card is removed from the phone.

___Pete

kaiser@heron.vbo.dec.com
+33 92.95.62.97 FAX +33 92.95.50.50

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End of PRIVACY Forum Digest 03.11
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