========================================================================= ________________ _______________ _______________ /_______________/\ /_______________\ /\______________\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/ ||||||||||||||||| / //////////////// \\\\\________/\ |||||________\ / /////______\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\/____ |||||||||||||| / ///////////// \\\\\___________/\ ||||| / //// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/ ||||| \//// ========================================================================= EFFector Online Volume 08 No. 12 July 7, 1995 editors@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 IN THIS ISSUE: ALERT - Public Input to FCC on Public Spectrum - July 10 Deadline! Background What You Can Do Now For More Information Bernstein Crypto Case Update: Justciability Motion Schedule Calendar of Events Quote of the Day Errata - Typo in Baker Case Article Last Issue What YOU Can Do Administrivia * See http://www.eff.org/Alerts/ or ftp.eff.org, /pub/Alerts/ for more information on current EFF activities and online activism alerts! * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: ALERT - Public Input to FCC on Public Spectrum - July 10 Deadline! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Background On May 24, 1995, Apple Computer filed a petition with the FCC ("Petition for Rulemaking in the Matter of Allocation of Spectrom in the 5 GHz Band - to Establish a Wireless Component of the NII", Petition No. RM-8653, a.k.a. the "NII Band Petition"). The document summarizes itself: "This Petition for Rulemaking calls for the creation of a new band of frequencies for high capacity, unlicensed wireless data -- the 'NII Band.' Specifically, Apple proposes that the Commission allocate 300 MHz of spectrum in the 5 GHz range, comprised of the 5150-5300 MHz band (which has been allocated throughout most of Europe for 'HIPERLAN' unlicensed wireless local area networks) and the 5725-5875 MHz band (which currently is used by unlicensed Part 15 technologies; industrial, scientific and medical ('ISM') devices; and Amateur operators)". The meaning of all of this is, essentially, free and unregulated local and metropolitan communication, unmediated by monopolistic telecommunications companies. The features and effects of the plan include the following: - Adequate bandwidth to support high-speed voice, video and data applications (up to 24 Mbps or more) for large numbers of users; - operation in protected spectrum and in conformance with an overarching set of technical rules, developed by the information industry, and set at the minimum level necessary to assure equal access; - open entry and equal access to the spectrum for all compliant devices and all types of communications; - longer distance communications (10-15 km or more), creating new possibilities for unlicensed community networks - much greater range than cellular sites; - allows consumers to sidestep the upcoming telecommunications rate increases almost certain to result from the Telecommunications "Reform" Act; - essentially FREE voice and data communications for residential, educational, business, community, city, county, rural and mobile voice, video and data communications - including point-to-point exchanges and point-to-multipoint creator-controlled broadcasting; - no phone/data/video bills for this service, no mega-corporation ownership and control, no wires, no fees or operator licenses; - security - spectrum-spreading algorithms make eavesdropping difficult, and communications can be further scrambled (while the trasmitted data itself can be pre-encrypted for another layer of security); - derails arguments for censorship - content is inherently scrambled, and the idea that children or unwilling adults will be subjected to unwanted offensive material just doesn't fly, if it ever did; - true competition in both content and conduit - like the Internet, the NII Band would not be controlled by monopolies or cartels, and the two-way nature of this extension to the medium would further allow consumers to be creators and service providers as well. - would greatly extend the future of rural, community and educational networking; - a boon to wearable computer technology, for the disabled and for general computer-users, which depends upon wireless communications. Apple's petition states: "The NII Band would promote the full deployment of a National Information Infrastructure ("NII"), extending the effective reach of the NII by making possible high-bandwidth access and interaction throughout a limited geographic area -- where mobility is key -- both on a peer-to-peer, ad hoc basis and through wireless local area networks. Moreover, it would provide for unlicensed, wireless, wide area "community networks" connecting communities, schools, and other groups underserved by existing and proposed telecommunications offerings. The NII Band would advance a host of public policy objectives, including assuring that all segments of society have access to the 'information superhighway;' extending advanced telecommunications offerings to schools, libraries, hospitals, and government agencies; and promoting the participation of small businesses, businesses owned by women or minorities, and pioneering firms in tomorrow's telecommunications marketplace. Because the NII Band would build upon, but transcend, both the European HIPERLAN effort and existing Part 15 unlicensed use, it would increase U.S. competitiveness and create new export opportunities; provide interconnectivity between U.S. and European markets, thereby furthering the creation of a Global Information Infrastructure ("GII"); and dramatically expand the applications that can be supported by, and the market for products operating in, the 5 GHz ISM band. These goals can be achieved while accommodating most current and proposed uses of the 5150-5300 and 5725-5875 MHz bands... Accordingly, Apple requests that the Commission expedite creation of the NII Band and adopt technical rules to hasten the development and deployment of new technologies." * What You Can Do Now Submit comments to the FCC by July 10, 1995! Dewayne Hendricks, who's Warp Speed Imagineering site is hosting materials on the topic, including the petition itself, says that if a fair number comments from the publice aren't filed in favor of this conenct, "then it will die an early death. Asking for 300 MHz of spectrum to be turned over to the public for its own use, without an auction, was a pretty gutsy move on Apple's part I believe. It continues in the tradition of the original Data-PCS petition they submitted to the FCC four years ago. At that time, no one really thought that the Commission would respond favorably to such a bold move on the part of the computer industry. Well, they did and the spectrum allocation for Data-PCS is history. Problem is, I don't think that in this case, without major public support, lightning will strike twice in the same place." Public comments on petitions to the FCC, normally filed in the form of a letter addressed to the Secretary of the FCC, are included in the docket and made a part of the proceeding. They will be reviewed by members of the Commission staff, and made available for public inspection. To be included in the process, you should snail-mail one signed original along with one copy of your comments to: Mr. William Caton, Acting Secretary RE: RM-8653 Federal Communications Commission 1919 M Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20554 Simply say in your own words why you believe the FCC should give serious consideration to Apple's petition for an NII band. IMPORTANT: The first page of your comments should clearly reference the Apple petition, by labelling your submission "Re: RM-8653". Those wishing to send addtitional comments in criticism of the WinForum "SUPERNET" counter-petition, which would use this bandwidth for regulated and expensive communications services controlled by telecom conglomerates, can do so by sending to the same address, with submissions marked "Re: RM-8646". After the July 10 deadline, more comments can be submitted until July 25. However, this second comment period is technically for comments on the original comments, and sending original comments during this period is unlikely be anywhere near as effective as sending them by the July 10 deadline. Unfortunately, the FCC does *not* accept emailed or faxed comments. If you find this questionalble, you may wish to send polite, concise, but firm faxes regarding this matter to the FCC commissioners (Chairman Reed Hundt, Andrew Barrett, Rachelle Chong, Susan Ness, and James Quello) at the FCC's Office of Public Affairs: +1 202 632 0942. There appears to be no more general fax number for FCC, much less for the Commission secretary. You should also send copies to your Congresspersons, who can effect chages in FCC policy. See the "What YOU Can Do" section of this newsletter for info on contacting your Senators and Represenatatives. * For More Information See Dewayne Hendrick's archive of information on the Apple Petition. The text of the petition and more detailed instructions for sending comments are here, and more material is expected soon. http://www.warpspeed.com/ Gopher and FTP users can access the petition at: ftp.eff.org, /pub/Alerts/apple_fcc_rm8648.petition gopher.eff.org, 1/Alerts, apple_fcc_rm8648.petition NB: Thanks to Jim Warren, Paul Baran, Dewayne Hendrick and W. Curtiss Priest. ------------------------------ Subject: Bernstein Crypto Case Update: Justciability Motion Schedule -------------------------------------------------------------------- Things are moving along in the early stages of Bernstein v. US Dept. of State, et al. - the groundbreaking EFF-sponsored suit against the US government for freedom of speech violations in the restriction of encryption export. To date, EFF and Dan Berstein have filed a suit against the State Department, NSA, and other agencies. The government has responded with a motion to dismiss, arguing that the court does not have jurisdiction over the issue (e.g. because it's a "national security" matter, and because, they claim, software is not speech and therefore there is no constitutional issue involved.). Judge Patel has set several dates for papers to be filed in preparation for a hearing on the jurisdiction matter, has put on hold motions from all parties, and has stayed discovery (i.e., argument and evidentiary proceedings over the facts of the case and of parties' arguments), until justiciability is settled. * August 15: Government to file motion on justiciability (they hope to demonstrate that the case cannot even be brought before the court, and to show that software is not protected speech. Good luck. * September 22: Our opposition papers will be filed, arguing that the restriction on export of cryptographic software is unconstitutional. We believe our case is very strong. * October 6: Government may file reply papers in response to our opposition. * October 20, 10:30am: Hearing to be held on the government's motion. When the justiciability issue is settled, it will most likely be in EFF and Bernstein's favor. At this point the trial begins in earnest. ------------------------------ Subject: Calendar of Events --------------------------- This schedule lists EFF events, and those we feel might be of interest to our members. EFF events (those sponsored by us or featuring an EFF speaker) are marked with a "*" instead of a "-" after the date. Simlarly, government events, such as deadlines for comments on reports or testimony submission, are marked with "!" in place of the "-" after the date. If you know of an event of some sort that should be listed here, please send info about it to Stanton McCandlish (mech@eff.org) The latest full version of this calendar, which includes material for later in the year as well as the next couple of months, is available from: ftp: ftp.eff.org, /pub/EFF/calendar.eff gopher: gopher.eff.org, 1/EFF, calendar.eff http://www.eff.org/pub/EFF/calendar.eff Updated: July 5, 1995 1995 ---- July 11- 15 - '95 Joint International Conference: Association for Computers and the Humanties, and Association for Literacy and Linguistic Computing; UCSB, Santa Barbara, Calif. Will highlight the development of new computing methodologies for research and teaching in the humanities Contact: Eric Dahlin, +1 805 687 5003 (voice) Email: hcf1dahl@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu July 12- 14 * Interactive Services Association 10th Annual Conference & Expo; Marriott Copley Place Hotel, Boston, Mass. Featured speakers include Esther Dyson (EFF Board of Directors), and executives of CompuServe, Prodigy, Netcom, AOL, Tribune Co., MCI Info. Services, NYNEX, Continental Cablevision, AT&T, WordPerfect, Microsoft, eWorld, Arlen Comms., BFD Prod., Fujitsu, and others. Fax: +1 301 495 4959 July 22- 26 - Syllabus'95; Sonoma State U., Rohnert Park, Calif. "The premier conference covering the use of technology in the curriculum" Contact: 1-800-773-0670 (voice, US-only), +1 408 746 200 (voice, elsewhere) Email: syllabus@netcom.com Aug. 4- 6 - DEF CON III; the Tropicana Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada; "a convention for the "underground" elements of the computer culture...the Hackers, Phreaks, Hammies, Virii Coders, Programmers, Crackers, Cyberpunk Wannabees, Civil Liberties Groups, CypherPunks, Futurists, Artists, Etc." Members of the enforcement & security communities are also regularly in attendance. Email: dtangent@defcon.org or len@netsys.com Aug. 4- 9 - Seminar on Academic Computing '95: Tough Choices, Radical Opportunities; Snowmass Village, Colorado. Email: bridd@ccmail.orst.edu WWW: http://www.princeton.edu/~sac/ Aug. 6- 11 - SIGGRAPH '95 - International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques; Los Angeles, Calif.; sponsored by the Assoc. for Computing Machinery. Email: siggraph95@siggraph.org Aug. 10- 12 - Tenth Annual Conference on Computing and Philosophy (CAP); Pittsburgh, Philadelphia. Contact: +1 412 268 7643 (voice) Email: rc2z@andrew.cmu.edu Aug. 13- 16 - Conference on Organizational Computing Systems (COOCS'95); Silicon Valley Sheraton, Milpitas, Calif.; sponsored by the Assoc. of Computing Machinery. Contact: +1 408 456 7667 (voice), +1 408 456 7050 (fax) Email: kswenson@ossi.com Aug. 14- 18 - Computers in Context: Joining Forces in Design; Aarhus, Denmark. Contact: Computers in Context, Aarhus University, Dept. of Computer Science, Bldg. 540, Ny Munkegade 116, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. Aug. 16- 19 - Libraries of the Future - IFLA; Istanbul, Turkey. Email: mkutup-o@servis.net.tr - AI-ED'95: 7th World Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education. Washington, DC. Sponsor: The Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education Contact: +1 804 973 3987 (voice) Email: aace@virginia.edu Aug. 16- 20 * ONE BBSCon '95; Tampa Conv. Ctr., Tampa, Florida Largest BBS sysop/user convention in the world Probably will feature EFF speakers. Contact: +1 303 693 5253 (voice) ------------------------------ Subject: Quote of the Day ------------------------- "History has shown that there are very few mechanisms as effective at maintaining the status quo as a set of institutionalized regulations. Once set in regulatory concrete, reconsideration of the basic underlying assumptions is very difficult. While it will be an uphill fight to re-examine the basic underlying assumptions of any law or administrative rule, it is clearly not impossible. It will just take longer than if not so well institutionalized." - Paul Baran, "Is the UHF Frequency Shortage a Self-Made Problem", Marconi Radio Centennial Symposium, Bologna Italy, June 23 1995. The time has come to act, and act quickly on numerous issues - free speech on the Internet, an end to monopolized communication, the right to privacy and security, and many others. There are many things you can do (see the What YOU Can Do section of this newsletter) about many issues (see the EFFWeb Alerts at http://www.eff.org/pub/Alerts, or at ftp.eff.org, /pub/Alerts). YOU can help change things, no matter how entrenched the status quo may be. You can also join EFF and help us make these and others efforts a winning battle. ------------------------------ Subject: Errata - Typo in Baker Case Article Last Issue ------------------------------------------------------- The final directory in the paths give for more information on the Baker case was wrongly given as Baker_UMinn_Case. It's is actually Baker_UMich_Case. Apologies to the University of Minnesota and our readers for any confusion. The full sites and paths are: http://www.eff.org/pub/Legal/Cases/Baker_UMich_Case/ ftp.eff.org, /pub/Legal/Cases/Baker_UMich_Case/ gopher.eff.org, 11/Legal/Cases/Baker_UMich_Case ------------------------------ Subject: What YOU Can Do ------------------------ * The NII Band FCC Petition Submit comments to the FCC by July 10, 1995! Mr. William Caton, Acting Secretary RE: RM-8653 Federal Communications Commission 1919 M Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20554 Simply say in your own words why you believe the FCC should give serious consideration to Apple's petition for an NII band, and reject the competing "SUPERNET" petition (RM-8646). * The Bernstein Privacy Technology Liberation Case Please contribute to the EFF Cyberspace Legal Defense Fund, which fuels important cases like this. See http://www.eff.org/pub/Alerts for more info, or send queries to ask@eff.org. * Anti-Net Hysteria Write letters to the editors and op-ed pieces for your local publications, cricize hypey and inaccurate reporting (especially on tv), call in to talk radio shows, and set these people straight. Fight b.s. with the inescapable facts. * Internet Censorship Legislation Business/industry persons concerned should alert their corporate govt. affairs office and/or legal counsel. Everyone should write to their own Representatives and ask them to support the Cox/Wyden bill. For more information on Internet censorship (and anti-censorship!) legislation, see: ftp.eff.org, /pub/Alerts/ gopher.eff.org, 1/Alerts http://www.eff.org/pub/Alerts/ If you do not have full internet access, send your request for information to ask@eff.org. * Find Out Who Your Congresspersons Are Writing letters to, faxing, and phoning your representatives in Congress is one very important strategy of activism, and an essential way of making sure YOUR voice is heard on vital issues. EFF has lists of the Senate and House with contact information, as well as lists of Congressional committees. These lists are available at: ftp.eff.org, /pub/Activism/Congress_cmtes/ gopher.eff.org, 1/EFF/Issues/Activism/Congress_cmtes http://www.eff.org/pub/Activism/Congress_cmtes/ The full Senate and House lists are senate.list and hr.list, respectively. Those not in the U.S. should seek out similar information about their own legislative bodies. EFF will be happy to archive any such information provided. If you do not know who your Representatives are, you should contact you local League of Women Voters, who typically maintain databases that can help you find out. * Join EFF! You *know* privacy, freedom of speech and ability to make your voice heard in government are important. You have probably participated in our online campaigns and forums. Have you become a member of EFF yet? The best way to protect your online rights is to be fully informed and to make your opinions heard. EFF members are informed and are making a difference. Join EFF today! For EFF membership info, send queries to membership@eff.org, or send any message to info@eff.org for basic EFF info, and a membership form. ------------------------------ Administrivia ============= EFFector Online is published by: The Electronic Frontier Foundation 1667 K St. NW, Suite 801 Washington DC 20006-1605 USA +1 202 861 7700 (voice) +1 202 861 1258 (fax) +1 202 861 1223 (BBS - 16.8k ZyXEL) +1 202 861 1224 (BBS - 14.4k V.32bis) Membership & donations: membership@eff.org Legal services: ssteele@eff.org Hardcopy publications: pubs@eff.org General EFF, legal, policy or online resources queries: ask@eff.org Editor: Stanton McCandlish, Online Services Mgr./Activist/Archivist (mech@eff.org) This newsletter printed on 100% recycled electrons. Reproduction of this publication in electronic media is encouraged. Signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of EFF. To reproduce signed articles individually, please contact the authors for their express permission. Press releases and EFF announcements may be reproduced individ- ually at will. To subscribe to EFFector via email, send message body of "subscribe effector-online" (without the "quotes") to listserv@eff.org, which will add you to a subscription list for EFFector. Back issues are available at: ftp.eff.org, /pub/EFF/Newsletters/EFFector/ gopher.eff.org, 1/EFF/Newsletters/EFFector http://www.eff.org/pub/EFF/Newsletters/EFFector/ To get the latest issue, send any message to effector-reflector@eff.org (or er@eff.org), and it will be mailed to you automagically. You can also get the file "current" from the EFFector directory at the above sites at any time for a copy of the current issue. HTML editions available at: http://www.eff.org/pub/EFF/Newsletters/EFFector/HTML/ at EFFweb. HTML editions of the current issue sometimes take a day or longer to prepare. ------------------------------ End of EFFector Online v08 #12 Digest ************************************* $$