human-nets@ucbvax.ARPA (11/09/84)
From: Charles McGrew (The Moderator) <Human-Nets-Request@Rutgers>
HUMAN-NETS Digest Thursday, 8 Nov 1984 Volume 7 : Issue 73
Today's Topics:
Computers and People - Labor Unions (2 msgs) &
USIA Satellite Broadcasting &
Research for DOD &
To Read or not to Read (E-mail),
Computer Networks - Cancelling E-Mail (3 msgs),
Information - Symposium On Security And Privacy
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Date: Sun 4 Nov 84 11:07:15-EST
From: Larry Seiler <Seiler@MIT-XX.ARPA>
Subject: Labor unions for the disadvantaged
To: haas@UTAH-20.ARPA
Cc: Seiler@MIT-XX.ARPA
It is true that unions were formed to give choices (or at least better
fixed conditions) to people who had no choices about where and how to
work. To a certain extent, they still do so. But a funny thing
happened - the union members got prosperous - middle class, even. And
many unions (such as the AFL-CIO group, to go by the evidence) also
changed from providing disadvantaged people with choices into
businesses that seek to insure their own prosperity (which is usually,
although not always, equivalent to the prosperity of their members) at
any cost. So we see independent truckers getting beaten up by union
goons, whole groups of people forced by law into becoming paying
members of unions, whole groups of people being forced not to work
because they don't belong to the union (and in many cases, can't join
even if they want to), and yet more people being forced to GIVE UP
CHOICES about how and where to work, because those choices threaten
the union's control over workers. Funny, these unions are starting to
act just like the companies whose practices they were originally
formed to fight.
What's the solution? Beats me. Breaking up the unions is not a
solution - we'd end up with the same injustices being perpetrated by
companies again (or still - there are a lot of workers still being
unfairly treated by their companies). But when a union changes from
seeking the welfare of workers (not just its members) into seeking its
own increased power at the expense of workers, then things have gone
too far, and it is time to oppose the union, at least until it goes
back to its original charter of giving choices instead of taking them
away.
Larry
------------------------------
Date: Sun 4 Nov 84 16:56:10-MST
From: The alleged mind of Walt <Haas@UTAH-20.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Labor unions for the disadvantaged
To: Seiler@MIT-XX.ARPA
I could add a few horror stories about union stupidity from my own
personal experience. However, I tend to support the union movement
overall because there are a lot of people in very menial jobs, such
as migrant farm laborers, who desparately need unions.
Two thoughts occur to me: one is that we could probably make some
progress toward a more sensible solution for everybody if we worked
out laws that would protect our own freedom of choice and at the
same time guaranteed that the people who need unions can have their
protection.
The other thought is that the ability to unionize a job is directly
related to the technology which defines the job. In the case of a
factory, the union can potentially exert power by making the factory
unusable. Similar tactics are also available to workers in the hotel
and restaurant industry, and anywhere that the business is defined by
a fixed installation which is labor-intensive. However, it would seem
very difficult to effectively unionize an industry that was highly
portable and widely distributed. I would think that any form of
distributed information processing application would be inherently
hard to unionize.
Regards -- Walt
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 7 Nov 84 11:09 CST
From: Giebelhaus@HI-MULTICS.ARPA
Subject: Effects of USIA satellite broadcasting
Good for ASP%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA for stating the obvious that people
seem to have such a hard time precieving. It is my hope that we would
start swaying away from such nationalistic policies. Of course, with
Regan back, that dashed my hopes somewhat.
------------------------------
Date: Wed 7 Nov 84 14:27:47-EST
From: "Art Evans" <Evans@TL-20B.ARPA>
Subject: Research for DOD
To: zauderer%ucbcory@UCB-VAX.ARPA
Marvin M. Zauderer raises questions about DoD sponsorship of
Computer Science research in universities (though the issues raised
are equally relevant to DoD sponsorship in any field in any place).
I gave a lot of thought to such matters before becoming involved
with development of Ada some years ago, and I find that I still
accept the conclusions I reached then.
Given the complex inter-relationships of science today, I do not
believe it possible to be professionally active in any area of
scientific endeavor without taking the chance that the military
might take advantage of results. For example, research on the
structure of the compound eye of various insects, an apparently
benign topic, turned out to be useful in building certain "smart
bombs".
Inasmuch as I have spent my career in computer science and I enjoy
the practice of that field, I do not elect right now to give it up
in favor of farming, or some other "safe" occupation. On the other
hand, I am all too aware that anything of value that I produce could
well be put to uses of which I do not approve. What I've decided,
then, is this: I will work on projects providing that what I produce
could be used equally well for peaceful or military uses; I will not
work on projects whose sole apparent purpose is military.
Thus I had no problem contributing my efforts to Ada. While I have
every confidance that programs will be written in Ada whose purpose
is exclusively werapons-oriented, I am equally confidant that other
Ada programs will be written to which I can take no exception, and
further that the results of Ada-related development will benefit the
entire computer science community.
Now for the question raised by Zauderer of DoD sponsorship of
university research: It seems to me that the important issue is not
*who* pays for it but rather *what* is being done. If the research
is as likely to benefit non-military purposes as military, then I
see no problems.
Art Evans/Tartan Labs
------------------------------
Date: Mon 5 Nov 84 12:25:45-PST
From: Mabry Tyson <Tyson@SRI-AI.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Electronic mail
To: ZALESKI@RU-BLUE.ARPA
It was not a "manager bragging to one of his employees" but a person
(with backlogged mail) whose organization is SUPPOSED to perform a
service (specifically, provide computer service) for another
organization. His failure to read his mail is a failure of his
service.
Yes, phones are more direct. However, I notice you didn't call me
about your reply (via Human-nets) to my message. Nor the thousands of
others who read this. Even if you did try to call me, I seriously
doubt you would catch me at my phone.
If it is important, contact the person as soon as possible. If you
don't want to sit on the phone all day (trying to contact someone who
is sporadically available), use computer mail! If you only need it
done today, computer mail is certainly fast enough for people who read
their mail. (Why should anyone bother to answer his phone if he
doesn't bother to read his mail?)
You didn't say why you don't like computer mail. Perhaps it is
because you ran into people who didn't read their mail (like the one
I'm complaining about).
As for the issue of canceling electronic mail, I do not believe I have
seen one good reason in this list against doing it (except in the case
of messages delivered to some of the recipients). I still don't
understand why. If no one has seen a message you have sent, why in
the world could it cause any harm to cancel it? Granted, there are
technical issues about how to implement it, but I think lack of time
to do it right is no excuse to say it is wrong to do it!
------------------------------
Date: Wednesday, 7 Nov 1984 10:12-PST
Reply-to: imagen!geof@shasta
Subject: Re: Cancelling E-Mail
From: imagen!geof@su-shasta.arpa
`Brint' (abc brint? brint abc?) made the point that you wouldn't want
someone to tamper with your mailbox. I wouldn't want a PERSON to
tamper with my mailbox. But I would be willing to let the MAILER
tamper with it -- after all, that's how I get mail in the first place.
If someone sends me a message, and I see it (or the header in my mail
box listing) then they can't retract it, because they can't retract my
memory of it. The harm, if any, is done. But until I see the
message, what do I care if someone changes their mind? They might
have changed their minds several times before actually sending the
message (the magic ^D). As I write this, I realize that I might just
decide not to send it after reconsidering. Could I not equally
reconsider after sending the message? Would you care (well, pretend
the message is less charming and witty)?
Discussion about the possibility of a buggy mailer tampering with mail
seems to me to be off the point. We are discussing whether
cancellable mail is a good idea. This presumes that a good (and safe)
technical solution can be found. I think that the ability to cancel a
message up to the point the recipient detects its presence is a good
idea (you can question whether the ``You have mail'' message is a
detection of the presence of a particular message).
[There was to be another paragraph here, but I decided to cancel
sending it]
- Geof Cooper
------------------------------
Date: 7 Nov 1984 11:20:33-EST
From: sde@Mitre-Bedford
Subject: mail unsending
My understanding of the law on paper mail is that:
1) until the letter is postmarked, it is owned by the sender and
retrievable, at least in principle;
2) after being postmarked, the physical letter is owned by the
recipient;
3) at all times, unless explicitly transferred by the author, a
common law copyright to the contents exists which prevents the
recipient from reproducing the letter.
The rules seem reasonable to extend to E-mail, leaving open only the
question of what constitutes postmarking. Of course, there is nothing
physically transferred, so that part of the question is moot.
David sde@mitre-bedford
P.S. I am not, nor have I ever been, a lawyer, but I do recall reading
an article on the issue several years ago, from which I extracted the
relevant points.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 7 Nov 84 18:20:09 pst
From: dual!fair@Berkeley
Subject: Cancellation of Electronic Mail
While the USENET is not really an electronic mail network, I'm
surprised that no one has mentioned that we have the ability to cancel
a USENET message network wide with a `cancel' control message. All
USENET messages (just like mail that properly conforms to RFC822) have
a Message-ID field in the header, with a network wide unique message
id. The original sender of the message can request the cancellation of
a message that he sent by sending out a message with the header field
`Control: cancel <message-id>'
This gets broadcast to all the neighboring sites (and so on, and so
on) until the cancel has reached all 1052 USENET hosts.
The main problem with the current implementation is that it assumes
that the messages arrive in the order that they were sent, and it is
possible for the cancel control message to get ahead of the message
that it intends to cancel, therefore failing to cancel the target at
the sites where it arrives before the target message.
It is also possible for people to read the `cancelled' message between
the time that the message arrives and the cancel control message
arrives.
But these relatively minor glitches in the system in no way invalidate
the concept. Many, many people send things out, only to regret having
done so later on (or so I surmise, since we receive somewhere between
40 and 60 cancel messages per week out of total traffic of around 3000
messages)...
Erik E. Fair ucbvax!fair fair@ucb-arpa.ARPA
dual!fair@BERKELEY.ARPA
{ihnp4,ucbvax,hplabs,decwrl,cbosgd,sun,nsc,apple,pyramid}!dual!fair
Dual Systems Corporation, Berkeley, California
------------------------------
Date: 3-Nov-84 21:33 PST
From: William Daul - Augmentation Systems - McDnD
From: <WBD.TYM@OFFICE-2.ARPA>
Subject: CALL FOR PAPER -- 1985 Symposium On Security And Privacy
1985 Symposium On Security And Privacy
Oakland, Ca., April 21-24
The meet is being sponsored by the Technical Committee on Security and
Privacy and the Institue Of Electrical & Electronic Engineers, Inc.
Papers and panel session proposals are being solicited in the
following areas:
security testing and evaluation
applications security
network security
formal security models
formal verification
authentication
data encryption
data base secutity
operating system secutity
privacy issues
cryptography protocols
Send three copes of the paper, an extended abstract of 2,000 works or
panel proposal by Dec. 14 to:
J.K. Millen
Mitre Corp.
P.O. Box 208
Bedford, Mass. 01730
Final papers will be dur by Feb. 25 in order to be included in the
proceedings.
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End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
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