Human-Nets-Request@Rutgers.ARPA (04/06/84)
HUMAN-NETS Digest Thursday, 5 Apr 1984 Volume 7 : Issue 28
Today's Topics:
Responses to Queries - Employee Environments &
Children and Technology,
Computers and the Law - The Austin Case (3 msgs),
Computers and People - Why Austin did it (from a talk with him) &
Troubles in the Computerized Office (2 msgs),
Humor - A New Form of Divestiture
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Date: 4 Apr 84 12:33:02 PST (Wednesday)
From: CharlieLevy.es@Xerox.ARPA
Subject: Employee Environments
It's already obvious that there's no "best" working enviroment. What's
clear is that there's an incredible variabilty in preference among
programmers. Also clear is that there's a large variation in
programmer productivity between programmers.
In view of these facts, I think it's to the benefit of all concerned
to have a company offer a choice of environments--bullpens, single
offices and double offices. I think that the expense of providing this
flexibility is minor compared to the productivity gains, whether due
to the environments themselves or due to the Hawthorne (or
Westinghouse) effect.
My own preference, in a company which provides only single offices,
was to have a double office. I didn't like the fan noise generated by
our workstations' CPU's, and I like the ability to ask questions,
share jokes, etc., of a person whose expertise doesn't exactly overlap
my own. The companionship is more important for single people (again,
the variability). My solution was to take two offices, put both people
and their displays in one office, and both CPUs in the other office.
The cost of the rewiring was only $100, negligible compared to the
productivity benefits gained in a 2000 hour year, and the total real
estate consumed is the same.
Charlie Levy
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Date: 4 Apr 1984 08:56-EST
From: David.Anderson@CMU-CS-G.ARPA
Subject: children and technology
To: vortex!lauren@rand-unix
Of course there's Pappert's book, "Mindstorms," as well as an episode
of Nova more or less devoted to Logo that showed how it has been
adapted for use by handicapped students, kids in Africa, extremely
young children (21 months, I think), etc. Transcripts are available;
contact your local PBS affiliate for more information.
A more balanced, but still fairly superficial treatment, was the cover
article in the February 20, 1984 issue of InfoWorld, "Preschool
Computing: Are We Pushing Our Kids Too Hard?" Several apparently
authoritative persons are quoted in that article, and their
affiliations given, so if you don't mind running up your phone bill
you could probably contact some of them.
I'm sure there are other good sources, but these are the only ones
I've seen recently.
--david
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Date: Tue, 3 Apr 84 17:15:38 PST
From: Richard Guy <guy@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA>
Subject: Austin case
Many people interested in this case have been frustrated by the
seeming lack of cooperation by those of us who have been asked to
testify. This is often as uncomfortable for us as it is for those
wishing more details "from the horses mouth". You understand, I
trust, that it is not ethical for us to participate in a media trial
of Mr. Austin while he is currently being charged by California. Nor
is it appropriate for us to make public comments regarding same.
I, for one, am very interested in computer abuse and non-abuse, and
would like to participate in a human-nets discussion of same.
However, until the trial is over, I can only be a passive participant,
and merely read what others have to say. I don't currently subscribe
to human-nets, and hesitate to add yet another mailing list to my
daily reading. Therefore, I'd be grateful if those commenting on this
topic (specifically as it may realte to Mr. Austin) could CC: a copy
to me directly.
A paper describing my perspective of this case and related issues will
be forthcoming; hopefully, very soon after my direct involvement ends.
richard guy@locus ucbvax!ucla-s!guy
ps The case if formally known as "People vs Austin", case #A395976.
Hearing was in Division 41, Municipal Court, Los Angeles.
Copies of the transcript are available from the court reporter for
about $100 (200pgs @ 50cts each), about 8 hours total testimony,
etc.
------------------------------
Date: 2 Apr 1984 16:14:54-EST
From: csin!cjh@CCA-UNIX
Subject: [hacker] trial in LA
I find this excerpt very informative about a certain unfortunate
mindset:
>> But prosecutors alleged Austin had cost the government hundreds of
>>thousands of dollars to reprogram its computers to protect ''very
>>sensitive'' information.
My immediate reaction, admittedly from a position of little experience
with security and some contempt for the common bureaucratic mania for
secrecy, is "Here is some kid who shows this turkeys how inadequate
their security precautions are without doing any damage [so far,
nobody has claimed he acted like the 414's, who are alleged to have
altered patient therapy records]. He even tells them they have a
problem---so they jump on him because he committed the unforgivable
crime of showing them up."
Now, I know enough about security to know that there are severe
restrictions on allowing a computer with "'very sensitive'
information" to talk to other computers. So what does the prosecutors'
statement actually mean? The govt has to do work they should have done
some time ago? Or is it simply the DA mouthing off for the public the
way the defense charges?
I don't [crack] and I hold no brief for [crack]ers per se (although I
regret missing great hacks of the past, e.g. the aforementioned
football games---this is a similar principle but a more directly
humorous end). But this sort of overreaction is similar to that
observed recently by someone watching the govt. banning the export of
VAXen while not touching much [larger] machines. It serves no good
purpose and may well have the anesthetizing effect of any form of
crying "Wolf!".
------------------------------
Date: 3 April 1984 07:42-EST
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM @ MIT-MC>
Subject: AP wire story on Austin case
To: Newman.es @ XEROX
Cc: Guy @ UCLA-LOCUS
Date: 31 Mar 84 00:50:34 PST (Saturday)
From: Ron Newman <Newman.es@Xerox.ARPA>
...
But Deputy District Attorney Clifton Garrott said Austin committed
a crime similar to burglary by ''picking a (computer) lock'' to
gain illegal access.
It sounds like this DA understands the principle of law quite well,
a lot better than the authors of recently-proposed "computer crime"
laws which try to make everything having to do with computers a
special case instead of an analogy with current law. Maybe when this
case is over he could be contracted to advise Congress and various
state legislatures as to reasonable amendments to current law to cover
"computer crime"?
------------------------------
Date: 2 Apr 84 22:15:33 PST (Monday)
From: Ron Newman <Newman.es@Xerox.ARPA>
Subject: More on Austin case
Cc: Guy@UCLA-Locus.ARPA
Besides attending Mr. Austin's hearing, I've also talked to the kid at
some length. Here's "why he did it":
If you want an account on the computers at UCLA, you have to take a
computer class. If you sign up for such a class and you're not in the
engineering school, you have to wait in a priority queue behind all
the engineering students. And if you want to transfer into the
engineering school after your freshman year, you need a 3.94 average,
which Austin didn't have, bright as he may be.
So here's a kid who wants to learn Unix, but UCLA doesn't let him. So
he buys himself a modem and a cheapo home computer and starts
exploring on his own. If he'd picked MIT to do his exploring, someone
would undoubtedly have noticed him and offered a guest account with
the strong suggestion that he learn LISP. Unfortunately UCLA doesn't
see tourists the same way, and so rather than calling up the kid
(whose phone number and address they KNEW from the logs they were
making!) and having a long talk, or maybe calling up his academic
advisor (since he was after all a UCLA student), they decide to spy on
him for a few weeks and then sic the police on him. This is like
using a nuclear bomb to kill a mosquito.
What truly astounds me is even after UCLA *knew* that the "offender"
was one of their own students, they did not use any of the university
disciplinary machinery, but instead turned their student over to the
tender mercies of the LA District Attorney. I don't know how every
college works, but my school (MIT) always went to great lengths to
keep its students OUT of trouble with external authorities. If a
student got drunk and broke a window, or got caught painting something
on the Harvard Bridge, the university would handle the matter
internally. It also made sure that students who wanted to use
computers could do so without resorting to such tactics as Mr.
Austin's.
/Ron
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Date: 3 April 1984 08:18-EST
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM @ MIT-MC>
Subject: Troubles in the Computerized Office? / CRT = ?
To: vortex!lauren @ RAND-UNIX
From: vortex!lauren at RAND-UNIX
Date: Thu, 29-Mar-84 15:38:33 PST
n008 0701 28 Mar 84
By WILLIAM SERRIN
c.1984 N.Y. Times News Service
...
A CRT is a cathode ray terminal, another term for video display
terminal.
Orwellian newspeak (or sloppy journalism?) again. CRT means "cathode
ray tube", i.e. just the picture tube, in a terminal or in a TV or in
a radar system. The term is used as an adjective to describe a
terminal which has a CRT in it, and sometimes used (sloppily) by
itself to refer to the whole terminal, but the "T" in CRT doesn't
actually stand for "terminal" as claimed in this news-wire story.
Right?
It should have said: A CRT is a cathode ray tube, the "picture tube"
in most video display terminals (and television sets).
------------------------------
Date: Tuesday, 3 Apr 1984 19:16:16-PST
Subject: Troubles in the Computerized Office?
Some comments regarding "Troubles in the Computerized
Office?," HNT Vol. 7, Issue 27.
'' We're talking about removing a lot of the low-level
work from the desks of secretaries and even professionals
and having it automated, and presumably providing a bonus
factor of available time in which people can be more
creative and productive.''
Actually, it seems that having determined a pay level for
semi-skilled clerical labor, we seek to maximize the "productivity" of
a worker's 8-hour day. Assumimg that the worker wants to maintain the
same paycheck, he or she is is not getting any more "available time."
(''I feel I'm doing six days' work in five.'')
''Before executives were calling up Data Processing and
saying, 'I need such and such figures,' '' Koenke (of Wang)
says. ''Now they are saying, 'I can punch the data myself.' ''
Does Wang now sell keypunches?
__Rich
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Date: 3 Apr 1984 10:19-PST
Subject: A new form of divestiture.
From: the tty of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow <Geoff @ SRI-CSL>
To: info-cobol@MC
***** sri-unix:net.jokes / pyuxn!rlr / 7:11 am Mar 30, 1984
April 1 1984 - Washington DC
After the huge success surrounding the divestiture and reorganization
of the Bell System, the Justice Department has sought to expand the
logic to other public service functions. As a first step, the postal
system will be reorganized in a similar fashion to the new Bell
System.
Under the new scheme, the currently existing US Postal Service will be
divided into regional post office companies (RPOCs) serving the local
communities. The RPOC will service customers solely on a local basis,
moving letters only between the mailbox and the local postal facility
(central office). If the point of delivery is within the scope of the
local central post office, then delivery is the sole responsibility of
the RPOC local office. However, if the item is to be sent to a
location outside the realm of the local post office, the customer must
be given a choice as to which non-local carrier service he/she wishes
to use. The choices will include USMail (a fully separated entity
from the RPOCs), UPS, Federal Express, Emery Air Express, and the Pony
Express (which will be divested from the USMail corporation). The
RPOCs may not show any favoritism toward their former parent
organization, now called USMail, and must allow other carriers
complete accessibility to their customer base. This is being done to
foster a free market environment in the mail industry, and to promote
competition and free enterprise amongst the carriers, many of whom
felt that USMail had limited such practices in the past.
The question arose as to which organization, the RPOCs or the national
postal service, would retain the name 'U. S. Mail', especially in
light of the widely held reputation surrounding that name. In the
end, the issue was settled by a coin toss, which the national postal
service lost. Since they get to keep the name, the national postal
service has been compensated by allowing them to divest themselves of
the Pony Express service, which has been a great burden on them what
with having to feed the horses and all. This will make the Pony
Express a fully separated service from USMail, and will allow the Pony
Express to venture forth into new technological areas previously
unentered by the Postal Service due to governmental regulation. These
areas will include the use of modern equipment for sorting and filing
pieces of mail employing new technologies such as electricity, the use
of well-trained and literate personnel to route mail to its proper
destination, and the development of a new service which will guarantee
(for a fee) that the mail you send will arrive at its intended
destination in readable/usable condition. (No guarantee is made
regarding how long it takes for the mail to arrive, and trampling or
other mutilation of the mail by horses is not covered under the
guarantee.)
One problem with the new scheme is that, without the financial support
of the national postal service, the RPOCs may not have enough capital
to survive in the new marketplace. Thus local mail rates will
probably increase in the near future. However, long distance mail
rates will generally fall into line with the rates of competing
carrier services, which means that, more than likely, they will go up
as well...
--
"I'm not dead yet!"
"Oh, don't be such a baby!" Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlr
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End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
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