Library Juice 2:11 - March 17, 1999
Contents: 1. American Libraries Online March 15 news stories (ad) 2. Latest issue of RUSA Update Now on the Web 3. Understanding MARC Bibliographic: MAchine Readable Cataloging 4. Out-of-print book sites 5. American Women's History: A Research Guide 6. _Talking about people: a guide to fair and accurate language_ 7. Update on strike at the British Library 8. TOC: Progressive Librarian #15, Winter 1998/99 9. Online Journal of Peace and Conflict Resolution 10. NETFUTURE and the Issues Facing Libraries 11. Spanish/English Dictionaries and Glossaries of Computing 12. Guatemala: Memory of Silence - report to UN 13. NEA Blocks Grant for "Story of Colors" - Discussion 14. Practical History Website 15. Defend Your Data -- ACLU 16. "Freedom" software to guarantee anonymity on web 17. From _Private Matters: In Defense of the Personal Life_ Quote for the week: "[Information technology] is inherently destructive of memory. You think you're getting lots more [information] until you've found out you've made a bargain with the Devil. You've slowly mutated, and have become an extension of the machine." "It's significant that we call it the Information Age. We don't talk about the Knowledge Age." - James Billington, Librarian of Congress, quoted in "The Too-Much-Information Age: Today's Data Glut Jams Libraries and Lives. But Is Anyone Getting Any Wiser?" by Joel Achenbach, in the Friday, March 12th 'Washington Post.' ___________________________________________________________________________ Note: Library Juice is now searchable. See http://www.libr.org/Juice ___________________________________________________________________________ 1. American Libraries Online March 15 news stories (ad) Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1999 16:33:33 -0600 From: "Gordon Flagg" <gflagg[at]ala.org> To: member-forum[at]ala.org Subject: American Libraries Online March 15 news stories (ad) Reply-To: member-forum[at]ala.org Sender: owner-member-forum[at]ala.org Status: U News stories appearing in the March 15 American Libraries Online http://www.ala.org/alonline/ * ALA President Holds Discussions with Filtering Software Manufacturers * Voters OK $139.9 Million for Broward County Library * San Diego Politicians Float New Library Funding Plans * San Antonio's June Garcia Named CARL Corporation CEO * Wisconsin Librarians Appeal for Continued BadgerLink Service Funding * Mormons to Launch Genealogy Service on the Web * British Librarians Devise Rating System for Literary Works * SurfWatch Blocks Filtering Facts Web Site * Rare Book Makes History (Room) * Parent Objects to Giant's Beer in Beanstalk Book American Libraries' Web site also features the latest "Internet Librarian" columns by Karen Schneider; AL's "Career Leads" job ads; listings of conferences, continuing-education courses, exhibitions, and other events from AL's "Datebook"; and Tables of Contents for the current year. ___________________________________________________________________________ 2. Latest issue of RUSA Update Now on the Web Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1999 10:00:19 -0600 From: "Cathleen Bourdon" <cbourdon[at]ala.org> To: Reference and User Services Association List <rusa-l[at]ala1.ala.org> Subject: Latest issue of RUSA Update Now on the Web Thanks to editor Beth Woodard, the latest issue of RUSA Update, Volume 20, Number 1, is now available on the Web at: http://www.ala.org/rusa/update/ ___________________________________________________________________________ 3. Understanding MARC Bibliographic: MAchine Readable Cataloging http://lcweb.loc.gov/marc/umb/ This site explains what a MARC record is, how is was developed, and also has a reference section explaining what the many of the fields, tags, codes, and indicators stand for. Produced by Follett Software Company and the Library of Congress. - ew Subjects: librarians Carole Leita, cleita[at]sunsite.berkeley.edu LIIWEEK Listowner and Coordinator of the Librarians' Index to the Internet http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/InternetIndex/ ___________________________________________________________________________ 4. Out-of-print book sites Sent to NEWLIB-L in response to a query: MX BOOKFINDER http://www.bookfinder.com/ (excellent; my personal favorite) POWELLS http://www.powells.com/ (also excellent and efficient) ADVANCED BOOK EXCHANGE http://whipper.abebooks.com/abep/il.dll ALIBRIS http://www2.alibris.com/cgi-bin/texis/bookstore ANTIQBOOK http://www.antiqbook.com/index.html Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America (ABAA) http://www.abaa-booknet.com/booknet1.html BIBLIOCITY: http://www.bibliocity.com/ BIBLIOFIND: http://www.bibliofind.com/ http://www.trussel.com/f_books.htm (scroll down a bit) Good luck Alistair Kwun Acquisitions Dept University of Auckland Library Auckland, New Zealand ___________________________________________________________________________ 5. American Women's History: A Research Guide http://frank.mtsu.edu/~kmiddlet/history/women.html Created by Ken Middleton, reference librarian and graduate student in American Women's History at Middle Tennessee State University, this site is an excellent resource for researchers, especially graduate students or advanced undergraduates, interested in US women's history. At the site, users will find a large number of citations of print and online reference materials and primary resources. These are grouped into three sections: General Reference and Biographical Sources, Subject Index to Research Sources (currently containing resources in 27 topical areas), and State and Regional History Sources. Middleton supplies full bibliographical information for print sources and a link for those available in electronic form. The site also offers two sections on tools and strategies for finding additional sources and a collection of (unannotated) select bookmarks. >From the Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-1999. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________________ 6. _Talking about people: a guide to fair and accurate language_ Maggio, Rosalie. _Talking about people: a guide to fair and accurate language_. Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press, 1997. 436 pages. http://www.oryxpress.com ISBN: 1-57356-069-3 paper $27.50 With minds on automatic pilot, writers and speakers spout cliches. Empty or imprecise linguistic conventions can have detrimental consequences, however. While adults may argue that "man" means "human" and "he" means "he and she," study after study demonstrates that children preceive "man" as "men." This tremendously useful book, an updated and greatly expanded version of _The dictionary of bias-free usage_ (Oryx, 1991), offers a wealth of thoughtful suggestions for countering ambiguity, not to mention sexist, class, racist and otherwise biased language. In no way proscriptive, the bulk of it consists of entries on "how to say it" better, from emotionally loaded words and phrases ("queer" and "nigger," for example), to alternatives for such words as "manhandling" and "man-made." Arranged alphabetically, mini-essays are worked in which examine such terms (and concepts) as rape, violence, sexual harrassment, and welfare. Besides the book's reference value, an introductory section titled "Writing Guidelines" ought to be read by all. Concisely covering language exclusivity, gender issues, pseudo generic terminology, and self-definition, it also counters alarmists who decry such "corrective" constructions as "person hole cover" which no one has seriously suggested. Maggio rightly points out that people who complain of being "tired" of having to learn to watch what they say are quite skilled at picking and choosing appropriate works when they choose to do it. Once again, catalogers at the Library of Congress have missed the boat on this title, assigning NONSEXIST LANGUAGE but neglecting the broader NON-BIASED LANGUAGE which its scope entails. -Chris Dodge, MSRRT Newsletter, Jan/Feb 1998 Review reprinted in Counterpoise 2:2, April 1998 Details at http://www.liblib.com ___________________________________________________________________________ 7. Update on strike at the British Library ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 10:45:24 -0800 (PST) From: News & Letters <nandl[at]igc.org> To: undisclosed-recipients: ; Subject: Support for british library strikers Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1999 16:53:47 -0500 Reply-To: H-Net Labor History Discussion List <H-LABOR[at]H-NET.MSU.EDU> Sender: H-Net Labor History Discussion List <H-LABOR[at]H-NET.MSU.EDU> From: Seth Wigderson <sethw[at]maine.edu> Subject: Support for british library strikers To: H-LABOR[at]H-NET.MSU.EDU Thanx to Diana Paton for this update. SW - - - - - - - - A couple of weeks ago Seth posted a message from the British Library's management about the (then) imminent strike of Library Assistants. Here's some more information. My information comes from talking to people on the picket line yesterday--I hope I haven't misrepresented anything! The Library Assistants are the 125 workers responsible for delivering books to readers. They are members of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS). They have have been on indefinite strike since Monday of this week. (The strike is a "rolling" strike involving occasional days in which all are out but mainly 50% out at any one time.) They went on strike after talks about management's efforts to impose its "Review" of staffing practices broke down. There are lots of concerns about proposals in this Review, including the fact that the "consultation" process by which it was arrived at failed to take into account the workers' opinions. The most important point is the proposed division of the 110 library assistant jobs into 2 grades ("D" and "E"). These are already the lowest paid workers in the library, with the lowest earning less than 10,000 pounds a year. The 45 people who will be allocated into the lower grade E will have their pay cut, losing 20 pounds a week, or more than 1,000 pounds a year. Most of the grade E jobs will involve working full time in the basements of the library where the books are stored, rather than the present situation where people working in book delivery rotate frequently between working in the basement and in the reading rooms. Since there are many health and safety problems associated with work in the basements this is a big concern. An independent health and safety reportissued in June 1998 made 37 recommendations yet PCS members have seen no changes. Management has been trying to set readers against workers in this: their line has been that these proposals are necessary to provide a better service to readers--although it's not clear how poorer and unhappy staff will provide a better service. They have also emphasized the inconvenience that the strike is causing readers, attributing this to the union's supposed intransigence. Pressure from readers in support of the workers could be essential at this point in persuading management to negotiate in good faith. I would guess that lots of people on this list are British Library readers--past, present or future! Especially if you are, but even if you are not, please e-mail or fax the BL's management, urging them to settle the dispute fairly: brian.lang[at]bl.uk +44 171 412 7268 e-mail or fax support for the strike to PCS, including sending them copies of messages you send to the BL: pauld[at]pcs.org.uk +44 171 924 1847 Come and show your support--everyone will be out next Wednesday (March 17th) and the strikers have asked readers to join them from 10-11 am at the library. --Diana Paton <kate.chedgzoy[at]compuserve.com>--> my e-mail account is not in my own name ... ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ "Human Power Is Its Own End."--Karl Marx News and Letters Committees / NEWS & LETTERS 59 E. Van Buren Ave., Room 707, Chicago IL 60605, USA http://www.newsandletters.org nandl[at]igc.apc.org ___________________________________________________________________________ 8. TOC: Progressive Librarian #15, Winter 1998/99 Articles A Few Gates: An Examination of the Social Responsibilities Debate in the Early 1970s and '90s. by Steven Joyce Librarianship and Resistance by Sandy Iverson Conference Proceedings: SRRT-ALA Program on International Social Responsibilities & Librarianship LIWO: Local Touch and Global Networking in South Africa by Johnny Jacobs >From Student Revolt to Working Librarians: The Formation of BiS, Sweden by Lennart Wettmark AKRIBIE: Arbeitskreis Kritischer Bibliothekarinnen / Working Group of Critical Librarians, Germany by Frauke M”hrt-Thomsen KRIBIBI: Public Libraries and the "Working Pool of Critical Librarians" in Austria by Renate Obadalek Radical Librarianship, UK: Something of an Overview from the UK by Martyn Lowe Added Entries The Cuba Poster Project by Lincoln Cushing Book Reviews Librarianship and Legitimacy: The Ideology of the Public Library Inquiry by Douglas Raber reviewed by Patti Clayton McLibel: Burger Culture on Trial by John Vidal reviewed by Martyn Lowe Documents Remarks on Racism, International Relations & Librarianship by E. J. Josey Letter Against Bombing of Iraq, 12/16/98 World Bank Protest Letter, 6/29/98 ------ More information is available at http://www.libr.org/PL ___________________________________________________________________________ 9. Online Journal of Peace and Conflict Resolution Vance Bell wrote: From: vbell[at]dept.english.upenn.edu (Vance Bell) Subject: Online Journal of Peace and Conflict Resolution Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1999 11:46:01 -0500 (EST) Online Journal of Peace and Conflict Resolution http://members.aol.com/peacejnl/index.htm ISSN 1522-211X The Online Journal of Peace and Conflict Resolution in a Web-based free text resource for anyone interested in peace studies and/or conflict resolution. Past submissions have come from professors, graduate students, diplomats and professionals. The journal has been published since March of 1998. Contact: Editor: Derek Sweetman Email: peacejnl[at]aol.com -------------------------------------------------- (Sent to NewJour: News of New Electronic Journals) ___________________________________________________________________________ 10. NETFUTURE and the Issues Facing Libraries Response to: "Editor's Note" (NF-85) From: David Miller <dmiller[at]curry.edu> I'm sorry to see that IFLA is pulling the plug on NETFUTURE. I want to assure all nonlibrarian readers that this doesn't say anything about NETFUTURE's relevance to librarianship. I thought that it was quite enlightened of IFLA to provide space for the newsletter, but apparently not everyone at IFLA agreed. Too bad. I'm sure I'm not the only librarian reader, since the questions you address go to the heart of many of our most important issues and challenges. David Miller Levin Library, Curry College Milton, MA dmiller[at]curry.edu ............................................................ NETFUTURE is a freely distributed newsletter dealing with technology and human responsibility. It is published by The Nature Institute, 169 Route 21C, Ghent NY 12075 (tel: 518-672-0116). Postings occur roughly every couple of weeks. The editor is Steve Talbott, author of *The Future Does Not Compute: Transcending the Machines in Our Midst*. Copyright 1999 by The Nature Institute. You may redistribute this newsletter for noncommercial purposes. You may also redistribute individual articles in their entirety, provided the NETFUTURE url and this paragraph are attached. NETFUTURE is supported by freely given user contributions, and could not survive without them. For details and special offers, see http://www.oreilly.com/~stevet/netfuture/support.html. Current and past issues of NETFUTURE are available on the Web: http://www.oreilly.com/~stevet/netfuture/ To subscribe to NETFUTURE send the message, "subscribe netfuture yourfirstname yourlastname", to listserv[at]maelstrom.stjohns.edu . No subject line is needed. To unsubscribe, send the message, "signoff netfuture". Send comments or material for publication to Steve Talbott (stevet[at]oreilly.com). If you have problems subscribing or unsubscribing, send mail to: netfuture-request[at]maelstrom.stjohns.edu ___________________________________________________________________________ 11. Spanish/English Dictionaries and Glossaries of Computing COMPUTACI²N, ELECTR²NICA Y TELECOMUNICACIONES (EspaÒol) http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2323/glosario.html COMPUTER TERMINOLOGY 9/97 http://www.eu.microsoft.com/HWDEV/glossary.htm http://personal.redestb.es/joseamillan DICTIONARIES http://www.freewaresite.com/dictionary/index.html http://www.ctv.es/USERS/alberfon/dicsear1.htm http://www.notam.uio.no/~hcholm/altlang/ (Alternative dics.) http://www.gmsmuc.de/look.html - Langenscheidt Online Spanish-German-English dictionary http://www.bucknell.edu/~rbeard/diction.html A Web of On-line Dictionaries http://www3.anaya.es/diccionario/diccionar.htm Diccionario Anaya http://www2.echo.lu/edic/ Eurodicautom http://www.m-w.com/netdict.htm Merriam-Webster's Dictionary http://www.logos.it/query.html The Logos Dictionary http://www.grec.net/home/assumpta/lexic.htm Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana http://www-math.uni-paderborn.de/dictionaries/Dictionaries.html List of Dictionaries http://www.onelook.com/ OneLook Dictionaries, The Faster Finder http://www.ipl.org/ref/RR/static/ref2000.html IPL Ready Reference Collection: ELECTR²NICA, COMPUTACI²N Y TELECOMUNICACIONES (EspaÒol) http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2323/glosario.html INTERNET TERMS http://www.matisse.net/files/glossary.html http://www.netlingo.com/ ñ very good http://www.bbn.com/getsmart/glossary.htm http://www.dsmo.com/lingo.htm http://clever.net/cam/encyclopedia.html http://www.alcala.es/internet/glosario/glosario.htm ñ Spanish, Univ. de Alcal· MICROSOFT Glossaries for several languages can be found at this site: ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/developr/msdn/NewUp/Glossary/ http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7110/msgloss.htm http://www.icactive.com/msgb/ -- Download the MSG Browser for the MS glossaries. http://www.microsoft.com/Access/Assistance/AccGloss/default.htm Submitted by: Dyran translator[at]paonline.com ------ From ResPool - http://members.tripod.com/~rtiess/respool.htm ___________________________________________________________________________ 12. Guatemala: Memory of Silence - report to UN http://hrdata.aaas.org/ceh/ Established in 1994 as part of the Peace Process in Guatemala, the Guatemalan Historical Clarification Commission (CEH) recently completed its work and forwarded its report to the parties to the Peace Accords and to the Secretary General of the UN. Titled, "Guatemala: Memory of Silence," the report makes disturbing reading, accusing the US-backed military of a host of human rights violations and systematic state terrorism against the Mayan Indian population. While the report concludes that the responsibility for the majority of these violations "reaches the highest levels of the army and successive governments," it still reflects the army's continued power in that it does not name the guilty or call for any trials. However, like the Final Report of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (described in the October 30, 1998 Scout Report), this report is seen by some as both an essential acknowledgement of the truth and as an important step in the political healing process in Guatemala. Provided by the Science and Human Rights Data Center, the first three chapters of the report, an annex (Chronology of the period of armed confrontation), and several maps and charts are currently available at the site in both English and Spanish. The remainder of the report is promised shortly. [MD] >From the Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-1999. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________________ 13. NEA Blocks Grant for "Story of Colors" - Discussion (Letter sent to ALA Council list by Councilor Mark Rosenzweig...) If you have labored under the misapprehension that the National Endowment for the Arts survived the Republican Congressional assault which almost resulted in its demise with any dignity left and any pretenses that it was more than a servile and hypocritical instrument of government policy, look no further than the front page of today's NYTimes. The story "NEA Couldn't Tell Book by Its Cover" relates the fate of a childrens' book entitled "The Story of Colors" which went through the grant process and was about to be released with the agency's endorsement and financial assistance when the chairman of the endowment, in an act of all-too-revealing political hysteria, withdrew the NEA's imprimatur and "generous" financial support (without which it indeed could not have been published), thus effectively censoring the book in question. You see, the author of "The Story of Colors" happens to be the enigmatic Subcommandante Marcos of the Zapatista front based in Chiapas, Mexico, a man whose movement has displayed incredible audacity, courage, resourcefulness and imagination in effectively bringing the demands of the disenfranchised of Mexico to the attention of its government and the world. Besides leading the Zapatistas, Marcos --a former University professor --writes childrens' books and judging by the description of the one whose translation under the imprint of US based Cinco Puntos Press was nixed by the NEA's chairman-- very vivid, beautiful and unusual books. NEA Chairman William Ivey cancelled the grant after a reporter called called and brought to his attention the fact that the book his agency had endorsed was an "inappropriate" piece of work. Not only that, but there were fears that some part of the agency's money might end up in the tattered pockets of the Zapatista subcommandante himself. What rubbish! The book, according to specialists in this literature, is a particularly fine representative of the "multiculturalism" the agency supposedly embraces (or to which they, like so many other bureaucratic outfits, give much lip). This rescinding of the grant to Cinco Puntos Press is an act of political censorship of literature pure and simple. Rather than saving the face of NEA which is apparently what the pan icked Mr. Ivey intended, it tears the mask from the face of the NEA and what it reveals is not pretty. ALA Council and membership, all committees and round tables and offices, should respond to this act of political cowardice with a show of public support for Cinco PuntosPress of El Paso Texas and for Bobby Byrd the editor/translator whose project this was. And we should rise quickly to condemn NEA chairman William Ivey for this violation of intellectual, literary and artistic freedom. Mark C. Rosenzweig Councilor at large ............................................................ (Response from Councilor James Casey) The Zapatistas have plenty of web sites available. Here is a listing. http://www.ezln.org/links.html IF that group's propaganda has been "muzzled" by any official sources in our country, it is hard to believe that this brand of censorship is in any way effective. John Gear indicates that the book is available for pre-publication orders via Amazon. If enough libraries and stores want the book, our "dirty" capitalist marketplace will undoubtedly obey the call of public demand and generate a river of money flowing into the pockets the author and/or his cause far beyond any puny NEA grant. If the NEA and/or other power brokers had imagined that proscribing a book would in any way discourage readership and sales, they are sadly mistaken. The Ayatolla condemned "Satanic Verses" and sentenced its author Rushdie to death. Nothing could have been better for sales! Libraries and bookstores which would never have imagined buying the book ended up buying multiple copies in order to address market and public demand. Efforts to censor merely draw public interest and attract readership. James B. Casey -- Councilor-at-Large ............................................................ Jim, Here's what I'm concerned about in the NEA affair. The issue here is the chilling effect created by the Right and the way in which the culture is shaped by the implicit demand for narrowing ones' artistic/cultural vision in order to fit the insipid politically-tailored program of cultural bureaucrats, Democrats and Republicans alike. The reflex reaction of Chairman Ivey of the NEA in revoking NEA support for "The Story of Colors" by Subcommandante Marcos, not only shows that he personally was spineless and acted in contradiction to the NEA's own supposed mandate and the considered opinions of all the lower levels of NEA review, but contributes to creating a climate of self-censorship and pre-censorship which is reminiscent of the cultural ethos of the McCarthy years. I trust your library will buy The Story of Colors, Jim. And I hope, too, you will see that the application of crude political criteria to a cultural project, mostly to avoid the threat of potential political controversy, is a bad thing for America no matter where it comes from. Mark Rosenzweig ALA Councilor at large ............................................................ Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1999 09:56:07 -0600 (CST) From: Sandy Berman <sberman[at]sun.hennepin.lib.mn.us> Reply-To: srrtac-l[at]ala.org To: SRRT Action Council <srrtac-l[at]ala.org> Cc: ALA Council List <alacoun[at]ala1.ala.org&> srrtac-l[at]ala.org Subject: Re: Political censorship at the NEA Contact data for Cinco Puntos Press ("traced," incidentally in the HCL catalog as an alternative/ethnic publisher): 2709 Louisville, El Paso, TX 79930; 915-566-9072 (FAX same); bobbybyrd[at]aol.com En solidaridad... sandy berman ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Sanford Berman sberman[at]sun.hennepin.lib.mn.us Hennepin County Library phone: 612-694-8570 12601 Ridgedale Drive fax: 612-541-8600 Minnetonka, MN 55305 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ............................................................ Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1999 11:29:59 -0600 (CST) From: Chris Dodge <cdodge[at]sun.hennepin.lib.mn.us> To: Sandy Berman <sberman[at]sun.hennepin.lib.mn.us> Subject: Re: Political censorship at the NEA (fwd) they also have a web site/catalog: http://www.cincopuntos.com -cd- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Chris Dodge cdodge[at]sun.hennepin.lib.mn.us Hennepin County Library phone: 612-694-8572 12601 Ridgedale Drive fax: 612-541-8600 Minnetonka, MN 55305 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ___________________________________________________________________________ 14. Practical History Website This is to let you know about the new Practical History website, which you might be interested in. The address is: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/7672/ So far the site includes: "Do you remember the first time? - resistance to the Gulf Massacre 1991" "Iraq: a century of war and rebellion" - a chronology of strikes, riots and massacres from the birth of the Iraqi state to the present day. "South London Stress" - a chronology of events from the radical history of South London, produced for a Reclaim the Streets party. "Reclaiming the Streets for Children" - a text about cars and kids, also produced for the South London RTS party, June 1998. From: "Neil Gordon" <practicalhistory[at]hotmail.com> -- ARTISTS AND WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE... YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT BAD TASTE! Email: lamp[at]igc.apc.org - Website: http://www.igc.apc.org/laborart ___________________________________________________________________________ 15. Defend Your Data -- ACLU http://www.aclu.org/privacy/ >From Secret Service funding of efforts to develop a national database of driver's license photographs to the unique Processor Serial Number (PSN) on the new Pentium III processors, individual privacy has become increasingly difficult to protect in the digital age. In response to recent and pervasive threats to privacy by the government and the private sector, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has launched a new Web-based campaign on privacy rights. At the site, users will find a selection of background information and press releases, a demonstration of just what others can learn about you on the Web, and a Data Defense Kit. The Kit includes a privacy survey, a pocket card with tips on protecting your privacy, and a complaint form for reporting privacy violations. Additional resources at the site include faxable letters to Congress and a free mailing list. [MD] >From the Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-1999. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________________ 16. "Freedom" software to guarantee anonymity on web for more information http://www.zks.net also of interest.. http://www.zks.net/p3/ to test the serial number turn off fix of Pentium 3 chips ************************************************************* Your Secret's Safe ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >From New Scientist, 20 February 1999 Kurt Kleiner YOU can never be too paranoid on the Internet. That seems to be the philosophy behind a program called Freedom which promises to preserve the anonymity of Net users as they browse the Web, send e-mail and post messages to newsgroups. "We anticipate it will be used by people like political dissidents, or someone with an illness they don't want their employers to know about," says Dov Smith, a director of Zero Knowledge Systems, the Montreal company that created Freedom. It handles the problem by encrypting data, such as requests for Web pages, before the information leaves the computer. The program then shuttles it between a series of Web servers, each of which encrypts it again, hopelessly scrambling the electronic trail. Suppose a Chinese dissident wants to look at the Free Tibet website and doesn't want the government to catch him at it. The program starts by selecting at least three separate servers from the cooperative Freedom network. Then, before the computer sends out a data packet, it encrypts it three times--in effect wrapping the data in three secure "envelopes", each of which can only be unwrapped by a specific server. The packet goes to the first server, which unwraps the outermost envelope, revealing only the address of the next server in line. The first server then sends the packet to the second, which unwraps the second envelope, reads the address for the next server in line, and sends it along. The final server does the same to the last envelope before sending the packet to the Free Tibet website. Information coming back from the site is treated the same way but in reverse. What this complicated procedure means is that no single server in the system knows both where the packets are going and where they are coming from. This makes it very unlikely that the Beijing administration could work out that the dissident was looking at the Free Tibet site. The program provides similar anonymity for users posting to newsgroups or sending e-mail. Some of the ideas behind this software have already been used on the Net, says Sameer Parekh, president of C2Net Software and an authority on Net privacy issues. But no other package has brought them together. Related links: Find out all about the Freedom software at the Zero Knowledge Systems website http://www.zks.net where you can download a paper in pdf format. ***************************************************************** :-) :-) Message Ends; Signature File Begins (-: (-: Forwarded by; George(s) Lessard, Community Media Arts, Management & Mentoring Contact info, subscriptions, public keyword searchable archives and CAUTIONS, Disclaimers, NOTES TO EDITORS and copyright information may be found [at] http://members.tripod.com/~media002/disclaimer.htm - 30 - ___________________________________________________________________________ 17. From _Private Matters: In Defense of the Personal Life_ by Janna Malamud Smith (Addison-Wesley, 1997). p.238 What is clear is that the personal surveillance and information gathering now facilitated by computers, videotapes, voice recorders, and other sophisticated technologies, combined with the anxiety of contemporary life and the ingenuity of a commodity culture, make it possible to completely end privacy - and thus the personal life - as we have lately known it, without necessarily advancing real safety or social justice. Unless we are willing to think much more carefully about protecting privacy, its present abundance is going to be lost, remembered as a brief time when a historically remarkable number of people were allowed large freedom. Ironically, part of protecting privacy is recognizing the ways surveillance usually contributes to safety. A paradoxical question emerges: How much and what kinds of surveillance *are* necessary to prevent the real abuses of privacy? Self-knowledge, honor systems, and love may contain us only so far. How much do all of us need to be watched communally to hold in check our violence, greed, lying, destructive entitlement, anger, or lust? ... ...Unfortunately, the temptation to misuse private data appears to be almost irresistable. Newspapers run frequent stories of confidential databanks - tax returns, HIV status lists, criminal records - illegitimately invaded, and information wrongly and harmfully disseminated. Tabloid media and some biographers and journalists daily do the equivalent to public figures. If we decide to better protect privacy, we will have to examine the sale or exposure of all kinds of personal information more carefully than we have of late; we will have to write laws and reinforce them. Instead, we witness a mushrooming of spastic and inadequately regulated attempts on the one hand to exploit the profitability of private information, and on the other to heighten repressive social control through work surveillance, DNA checks, proposals for national identity cards, or video traffic monitors. The bottom line is clear. If we continually, gratuitously, reveal other people's privacies, we harm them and ourselves, we undermine the richness of the personal life, and we fuel a social atmosphere of mutual exploitation. Let me put it another way: Little in life is as precious as the freedom to say and do things with people you love that you would not say or do if someone else were present. And few experiences are as fundamental to liberty and autonomy as maintaining control over when, how, to whom, and where you disclose personal material. ___________________________________________________________________________ L I B R A R Y J U I C E | http://www.libr.org/Juice/ | | Except where noted, items appearing in Library Juice | are copyright-free, so feel free to share them with | colleagues and friends. Library Juice is a free weekly | publication edited by Rory Litwin. Original senders | are credited wherever possible; opinions are theirs. | Your comments and suggestions are welcome. | mailto:Juice[at]libr.org
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Date: Wednesday, March 17, 1999 08:04 AM