Human-Nets-Request%rutgers@brl-bmd.UUCP (Human-Nets-Request@rutgers) (12/23/83)
HUMAN-NETS Digest Thursday, 22 Dec 1983 Volume 6 : Issue 84
Today's Topics:
Computer Networks - WorldNet approaches,
Computer Security - Passwording (2 msgs),
Information - FCC moves to regulate telephone `sex-services'.
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Date: 16 Dec 1983 1342-EST
From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO>
Subject: Networks are getting bigger -- WorldNet approaches
In this digest we have often talked about the coming of WorldNet.
More and more networks are becoming interconnected, and during a
recent trip to Europe I was never away from my normal modes of
communication. WorldNet is here if you know how to use it.
I originally wrote the following as a submission to a NOTES discussion
within DEC of an appropriate name for our internal network. Many
names were being suggested, some whimsical, some serious, most hotly
defended.
My point was that in a network crossing all parts of DEC's matrix
organization, a network which now has about 2000 defined nodes, of
which 1700 are currently operating at various times and at any point
in time about 1200 are available for direct connections -- with about
ten new nodes connecting per week, a network which is connected via
gateways to external networks, finding a name is pretty pointless.
The net is becoming as ubiquitous as the telephone.
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Just got back from travelling around the net.
Almost three weeks ago, as I was packing my bags, the familiar beeps
of a few new mail messages called to me from the terminal connected
via DTN into the Enet.
The first was a message from a friend on the MILnet at SAC in Omaha
wishing me a good trip and telling me that his secretary was envious
of my travel plans after reading the copy of my itinerary I'd sent him
over the net.
The second was from a friend at Apollo, sent to me over the Usenet.
We had been doing some timing experiments to see how long it took to
get messages back and forth through the Usenet, which stores messages
at intermediate hops.
The third was from one of the people I'd be meeting at Telecom 83 in
Geneva the next day, using a node on the local area net in our booth
at the show connected via the Swiss PTT's packet net into our net.
After making arrangements to meet him at our booth the next day, I
routed my mail to the DBN node I would be using to access the net for
the week in Geneva.
One of the exhibitors at the show, MCI, is expanding their network to
be a world-wide network. They've also bought WUI (the international
part of Western Union) and are getting into the data network business.
I used a line from their telephone network which they had brough into
the show to access my MCI mail account. Later, I would use a modem on
a machine back home in our network, reached via "Set Host" to dial out
into AT&T's 800 Service network to access MCI Mail.
At the end of the week in Geneva I had CASTOR reroute my mail to the
node in the Easinet I would be using during my week in Munich. The
DBN node had no mail forwarding services, so while I was in Munich I
occasionally received messages on the DBN node. But using SET HOST
over the net, I was still able to read them.
I was in Munich to study the requirements for connecting to the German
public circuit switched data network. Fortunately, we seem to do a
good job of meeting these requirements. We'll probably use circuits
in this network to connect demo machines at German DECUS in Darmstadt
next Spring into the net.
At the end of that week, I moved my mail reception point to an Enet
node at DECeast (Reading, England). Here I was meeting with the
people who will be responsible for adapting DEC's Telephone Management
System (for the Professional-350 Personal Computer) to European
telephone networks. One of the problems here is that telephone dials
don't always send the same number of pulses for the same digit. The
Norwegian network uses two methods within the same country; they have
to translate between switching machines inside and outside Oslo.
I needed the details, and got them over the phone, but wasn't sure I'd
gotten the right answer, since the person I talked to in Norway was
absolutely flabbergasted by my request, but after thinking about it
realized that there was something different about the phones.
Fortunately I received confirmation from someone in the Norwegian
Telecom Administration, who sent net mail from a VAX running Unix at
the NTA research center via the Arpanet.
---------------------------------------------
It's a wonderful net, folks. Using it, you can be at home away from
home. I responded to most of my mail the same day I received it.
Some of my correspondents didn't even realize they were communicating
with someone who was 5000 miles away. This interconnection of all our
networks will proceed even further over the next few years.
E Pluribus Unum. Now I'm back home on my node in the Enet.
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Date: Fri 16 Dec 83 00:20:06-PST
From: Ken Laws <Laws@SRI-AI.ARPA>
Subject: Passwords
Jerry Bakins presentation of generated words is interesting,
but brings to mind a caution. Difficult-to-guess passwords
are not always difficult to enumerate if you know the generating
algorithm. If there are 1000 basic syllables, for instance,
the search space of all two-syllable nonsense words is only
a million tries. Similar difficulties arise if passwords are
generated by the system from random seeds: the search space is
only the seed size (e.g. 10**9 for a 32-bit seed) rather than
being derived from the character set of the output. The generated
passwords are far better than most user-selected ones, but will
not withstand concerted attack. Systems where a user can gain
access to an encrypted password table and the encryption algorithm
are particularly vulnerable since one can generate random passwords,
encrypt them, and check for any occurrence in the password table.
-- Ken Laws
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Date: 17 December 1983 00:49 EST
From: Jerry E. Pournelle <POURNE @ MIT-MC>
Subject: password security
I wouldn't have thought that making up passwords was all that
difficult since presumably one can run two or more wordstogether
resulting in something easytoremember bu not inanydictionary?
It would seem to me that if youhadto try toguesshow one put
words together that way one would havesomeproblems?
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Date: 14 Dec 1983 17:18-PST
Subject: FCC moves to regulate telephone `sex-services'.
a238 1609 14 Dec 83
AM-Telephone Sex,650
FCC Moves To Regulate ''Dial-A-Porn''
By NORMAN BLACK
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Federal Communications Commission, with
some trepidation, moved Wednesday toward regulating ''Dial-A-Porn''
telephone sex services.
By a unanimous vote, the agency solicited public comment on how
it might enforce a new law signed by President Reagan last week that
declares any commercial service using ''obscene or indecent''
language illegal if it is available to persons under 18 years of age.
Since the law gives the agency only 180 days to establish
regulations, the FCC said it was setting a deadline of Jan. 23 for
comments.
The commission's action came just one day after Car-Bon
Publishers Inc., a New York firm that publishes High Society magazine
and whose call-in sex line prompted the new law, went to federal
court in Manhattan with a suit aimed at overturning the statute as
unconstitutional.
High Society, a magazine that features pictures of nude women,
began offering its telephone sex service last spring as a promotional
gimmick. The service allows individuals to call a special phone
circuit in New York City and listen to tape recordings of women -
supposedly those in the latest issue of the magazine - simulating
sex.
There is no special charge for the service in New York, because
much of the city is on measured service and thus local phone calls
are billed separately or counted toward an allowance. Persons outside
New York who dial the number must pay the normal long-distance
charges.
While originally designed as a promotional gimmick, the service
has proven highly lucrative for High Society because of the huge
number of people who have been calling. The magazine pockets two
cents for each call, and the service has attracted up to 500,000
calls a day.
The callers, to the chagrin of state and federal governments,
have included public employees listening in during work hours.
Several state governments - Virginia, for one - have received
unexpectedly high long-distance bills because of calls to High
Society's number.
On Wednesday, the Pentagon acknowledged it had discovered that
136 such calls had been made from the Defense Intelligence Agency in
February, March and April. The agency's phones have now been equipped
with a special ''electronic block'' to prevent such calls in the
future, the Pentagon said.
Under the law signed by Reagan Dec. 8, the FCC is authorized to
impose civil fines, and the attorney general to seek criminal
penalties, against any person or firm operating a phone service
judged to be ''obscene or indecent'' if available to minors.
Operators of such a commercial service face maximum penalties of up
to $50,000 and imprisonment for six months.
The law specifically directs the FCC to develop standards for
determining when a phone sex service has taken reasonable steps to
ensure that minors can't call it and thus is immune from prosecution.
It was that provision that attracted commission scrutiny
Wednesday, with FCC General Counsel Bruce Fein stating he was not
sure how the agency should comply with the directive.
The FCC offered several possibilities for public comment, such as
restricting the services to ''those hours when a majority of parents
can be expected to be home and therefore responsible for their
children's behavior;'' for example, from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.
The agency also noted any service requiring credit card
information might be acceptable, while acknowledging that would have
no effect on High Society's service.
''Comments are sought, however, on whether some automated
variation of a screening device might be feasible, such as an access
code that requires no operator assistance,'' the FCC said.
The agency also noted it might consider limiting advertisements
of such phone numbers to the inside pages of magazines available only
to persons over 18, but at the same time questioned whether it had
authority ''to impose restrictions on advertising.''
In a related development, the author of the new law asked the FCC
Wednesday to levy fines totaling $15.8 million on High Society. Rep.
Thomas J. Bliley, R-Va., argued the FCC should levy the maximum
penalty of $50,000 a day dating back to Feb. 1, when the service
first began.
Bliley contends the phone sex service was illegal even before the
new law was enacted and that it is ''time the FCC got off the dime...
and put these guys out of business.''
ap-ny-12-14 1909EST
***************
With 1984 just two weeks away, I find the `Owellan' implications of
this proposed law worthy of considerable note:
Who declares/decides if a given dial-up service is obscene or
indecent? Would the law have certain words (the like George Carlin
magic 7) which are not allowed?
The text of the story seems to revolve around "voice sex services",
but what about computer based bbs systems, such as the MRC BBS in
Mtn.View?
And just HOW does one propose to PREVENT the under 18ers from
accessing such voice or computer based systems electronically? When
you walk into your local ol' sex shoppe, they can ask for your ID or
Drivers License....but how would the equivalent of being `carded' be
done over a phone connx?
Lastly, anyone know how/why High Society goes about accumulating 2
cents per call made to their porn number? I would be interested in
having the same accumulation technique/service put on my home and
office phone lines.
Geoff
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End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
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