3/1/01CSC309 Miller1 Ch6 Communication Paradigms

3/1/01CSC309 Miller2 U.S. Constitution Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.... -First Amendment The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. -Fourth Amendment

3/1/01CSC309 Miller3 Internet Anybody can publish. Results in freedom of the press meaning something to individuals and not just to the big publishing companies. First Amendment spirit and intent (to protect our freedom to say what we wish) not strictly followed for the "new" technologies. First Amendment to protect offensive and/or controversial speech and ideas. (Don't need protection for things everyone agrees on)

3/1/01CSC309 Miller4 Historical Communications technologies have been divided into three categories. Print media (newspapers, books, magazines...) Broadcast (television, radio). Common Carriers (telephone, telegraph, and the postal system).

3/1/01CSC309 Miller5 Not Equal Under the Law Cable TV found to have more First Amendment protection than TV but less than Print, by the Supreme Court.

3/1/01CSC309 Miller6 Print Media vs. Broadcast Both provide news and entertainment but broadcast industry highly regulated. To get a broadcast license must meet government standards of merit. Content for broadcast under control with pressures to make it conform. There are words that can be used in print but not said on the radio.

3/23/09CSC309 Miller7 Why More Restrictions? Controls originally based on scarcity of frequencies. That argument has pretty much disappeared cable and satellites. Now the justification for restrictions is based on the need to prevent children from being exposed to objectionable material.

3/1/01CSC309 Miller8 Print media vs. Common Carriers Provide medium not content. Often must provide "universal access". Prohibited from controlling the content of material that goes through the system. *** Have no responsibility for content.*** Big question now is if an Internet server (AOL etc.) is a common carrier or a publisher.

6/25/02CSC309 Miller9 Libel Under libel law, a person can be sued for damages for saying something in print, or in another media like television, about another person, business, or organization that is false and defamatory. If everyone is a publisher on the Internet then just like the New York Times we can be sued. Libraries and bookstores can't be sued because it has been deemed unreasonable that they should have to read everything they sell.

3/1/01CSC309 Miller10 Pornography on the Internet Time magazine only found 900,000 sexually explicit pictures when they developed an article on the subject. Note that discussion of sexual activity, even unusual or illegal; is protected by the First Amendment.

3/1/01CSC309 Miller11 Concerns from the Past Of interest is that when the new technology called an automobile started to catch on in this country there was a great deal of concern over what this new ability for dating couples to separate themselves from proper supervision would do to the morals of this country.

3/22/09CSC309 Miller12 Miller vs. California Material is obscene under the law (and not protected by the First Amendment) if 1) It depicts sexual acts which are specifically prohibited by state law. 2) It depicts these acts in a patently offensive manner... that violates community standards. 3) It has no serious literary, artistic, social, political, or scientific value.

3/1/01CSC309 Miller13 Community? A couple in California operated a computer BBS that made sexually explicit images available to Its members. It was agreed that this would not be viewed as a crime in California so a postal inspector in Memphis working with a US attorney became a member and downloaded images. The California couple were then charged and convicted of distributing materials that violated local decency standards. Both received jail terms.

3/1/01CSC309 Miller14 Community? July 21, 1999 Gulfport: A 65 year old man was arrested following a lead from San Bernardino investigators who had targeted pedophiles when the investigators posed as "sexual predators" in Internet chat rooms. In California the charge would be a misdemeanor but in Mississippi, child exploitation is a felony. Conviction could result in years in prison and up to $25,000 in fines.

3/1/01CSC309 Miller15 Censor the Net? FBI says bad folks doing bad things with Internet. Protection for children. Legal sanctions against service providers most effective way to control, but look at the side effects. How do you control foreign sites? Do you want to? CompuServe responded to a German request to shut off access to sites providing neo-Nazi info (against German law) and cut off access to more than 200 newsgroups.

3/1/01CSC309 Miller16 Oklahoma City Bombing Following the bombing the Senate's terrorism and technology subcommittee met to look into bomb building instructions on the Internet. They also found directions on how to build an ammonium nitrate and fuel oil bomb in the Encyclopedia Britannica, and in books in libraries and bookstores and in "Blasters Handbook" published by the Agriculture Department.

2/7/02CSC309 Miller17 Bio-terror “Cookbook” Months into an expanded war on bio-terrorism, the government is still making available to the public hundreds of formerly secret documents that tell how to turn dangerous germs into deadly weapons. For $15 one can purchase a 57 page report that gives details on a pilot factory for producing dried germs in powder form, designed to lodge in human lungs. These documents were produced between 1943 and 1969.

3/1/01CSC309 Miller18 Online Sexist, Racist, and Harassing Speech A Santa Rosa Junior College instructor set up a computer system with almost 200 discussion groups for students. At the request of students he then set up a men-only and a woman-only discussion group. Those that signed up agreed to keep the content confidential. But...

3/1/01CSC309 Miller19 Online Sexist, Racist, and Harassing Speech (Cont.) Complaint filed with U.S. Dept of Education Office for Civil Rights. Professor put on administrative leave. Awards of $15,000 made to all who complained. Ruling was that federal law banning sexual discrimination had been violated. Ruled "created hostile education environment" that constituted sexual harassment.

3/1/01CSC309 Miller20 2/2/99 Judge Blocks Net Porn Law The Child Online Protection Act which was an attempt to address problems in lawmakers first anti-porn Net law, the Communications Decency Act, (overturned by the Supreme Court in June of 1997) was blocked by federal judge Lowell Reed. Reed said he sympathizes with parents who wish to protect kids from Internet porn, but that the Constitution needed to be protected.

3/1/01CSC309 Miller21 2/2/99 Judge Blocks Net Porn Law (Cont.) In explaining his actions Judge Reed said "Indeed, perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if the First Amendment protections, which they with age will inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection."

3/1/01CSC309 Miller22 30 July 1999 : Michigan Internet Crime Bill Violates First Amendment, Commerce Clause

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11/6/01CSC309 Miller24 10/01 US Supreme Court Mulls High-Tech Child-Pornography Law Key provisions of the 1996 Child Pornography Prevention Act were struck down by federal appeals court, which said the statute's language was too broad and vague. The law expanded earlier child-pornography prohibitions by outlawing images that "appear to be minors" engaged in sexual activities or that "convey the impression" that minors were portrayed - even if real children weren't involved. A ruling in the case, Reno vs. Free Speech Coalition, , is expected by mid-2002.

4/7/02CSC309 Miller25 1/18/02 China Institutes Strong Internet Content Regulations New regulations in China require ISPs to screen for subversive political content and hold them responsible for website, chat-room and bulletin board content. In addition, software manufac- turers have to guarantee that their products do not contain backdoors.

3/1/01CSC309 Miller26 Anonymity Pen names. Pseudonyms R ing services let you send anonymously and to post messages to newsgroups anonymously. A r er in Finland had volume jump to 7000 messages a day shortly after he was discovered.

3/1/01CSC309 Miller27 R ers Fully anonymous r er strips off return address and destroys it before forwarding mail. No replies possible. Normal is to assign a code number in place of originator identification and then when replies include code to look up code and send message to originator.

6/25/02CSC309 Miller28 Anonymity Good/Bad? Anonymity provides protection against retaliation and embarrassment. Victims of rape, people trying to kick illegal drug habits, and people seeking medical advice can benefit. On the other side anonymity supports fraud, harassment, rumors, copyright violations, kiddy porn, and all sorts of criminal activities. The fact that there are strong arguments for and against anonymity suggests that it should not be illegal.

6/25/02CSC309 Miller29 Another Viewpoint on Anonymity Davenport, David, “Viewpoint”, CACM, April 2002/Vol45., No. 4, pp Anonymity, so the argument goes, ensures governments cannot spy on citizens and thus guarantees privacy and free speech. The view is fundamentally mistaken; by allowing anonymous communication we actually risk an incremental breakdown of the fabric of our society. The price of freedom is not anonymity, but accountability. Without accountability we loose all recourse to the law and hence risk our very freedom.

6/25/02CSC309 Miller30 Another Viewpoint on Anonymity Davenport, David, “Viewpoint”, CACM, April 2002/Vol45, No. 4, pp In circumstances where people can be largely anonymous, and the threat of punishment is thus minimal, they find it easy to justify to themselves actions against those they perceive as outsiders or enemies. Experience suggests that a society that relies solely on the goodwill and conscience of its citizens would be unlikely to succeed in assuring justice.

3/1/01CSC309 Miller31 Cryptography Authors of a book on cryptography got permission to export their book but could not get permission to export disks containing the programs found in the book. We do seem to treat paper documents differently from electronic ones.

10/15/01CSC309 Miller32 Spelling Scam U.S. court closes down more than 5,500 Web sites: The government alleges that these sites with similar URLs to well-known Web pages were set up to trap Net surfers and subject them to ads for pornography and gambling. The scheme is especially harmful to children or employees who may put their jobs at risk when they inadvertently call up pornographic or gambling-related material, the FTC said.