HUMAN-NETS Digest V8 #27
The Moderator
HUMAN-NETS Digest Tuesday, 27 Aug 1985 Volume 8 : Issue 27
Today's Topics:
Query - Telephone/Mail networks,
Computers and the Law - BBS's: New "pornography" law? &
Carbonless Credit-Card Forms,
Information - Quickly Computing Quarks
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 85 12:31 EDT
From: Mi...@CISL-SERVICE-MULTICS.ARPA
Subject: Telephone/Mail human networks
A number of the Naturist groups along the east coast have been
discussing methods of better coordinating their political activites.
A major problem in doing this is effective communication between the
different groups. Some people have suggested e-mail as a solution,
but given that few if any of the groups have any computer equipment it
would seem that the initial outlay for equipment and software would be
rather high. I have investigated using utilities like the Source and
Compuserve, but once again price becomes a major problem. This led me
to think about non-computer networks that utilize telephones and/or
U.S. mail. The only such network I have heard of is the "Phone-Tree"?
that the L5 society uses. (This is why I am posting this to Space as
well as Human-Nets). If anyone has any info on how the L5 net works,
if it realy exists, or how any other phone/mail net works I would
greatly appreciate it. Any references to books/articles on how to
build such a net would also be very interesting. We are talking about
approximately 30 groups east of the Mississippi, mostly on the coast,
with about 5 people in each group that need to contacted with each
"posting".
John Mills
send replies to Mills at CISL-SERVICE-MULTICS.ARPA
------------------------------
Date: Mon 26 Aug 85 16:35:29-PDT
From: Mark Crispin <Cri...@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: BBS's: they're at it again
To: MsgG...@BRL.ARPA
Forgive me if this is old news. I just read in the 26
August issue of Computerworld that Sen. Paul S. Trible Jr.
(R.-Va.) has introduced a bill (S. 1305) which would ban
"pornographic" messages from computer bulletin boards. In
particular, Trible wants to close down "sex talk" computer
services and networks run by alleged child molesters who share
information about their victims.
It is hard to object to making it difficult for child
molesters, but it is the other aspects of this bill which are
chilling. For several years I have run a BBS which is more or
less the electronic equivalent of a bathroom wall. The messages
have ranged from the merely crude to the outrageous (in the
positive sense), but by and large it's all in fun. There
obviously is a social need for what is essentially a public
graffitti board.
The only run-in my BBS has ever had with the law up to now
was about a year ago. A Pacific Bell investigator was looking
into a case of toll fraud and wanted whatever information I could
provide about a call the BBS got a few weeks prior. I didn't
have much to tell the guy since my BBS allows any string for a
"name" and "where calling from", but I gave him what little I
had. It turned out my info verified to him that he was on the
right track, he thanked me and that was the end of it.
If S. 1305 passes my BBS and hundreds like it would be made
illegal. It is completely unclear as to what constitutes
"pornography" -- would a Planned Parenthood BBS providing
information about VD be "pornographic"? Granted, my BBS is
rather openly "dirty", but all the messages on it are posted by
the same people who read them. I don't see who is getting harmed
by it, especially since almost all of the escapades described in
the messages on my BBS are anatomically impossible!
The most idiotic statement I have heard is about children
with modems could dial up an X-rated BBS. I wonder what parents
have in their heads when they buy their kids modems. What, pray
tell, do these parents think these kids are doing with their
modems? Calling up BBS's is about the most innocuous thing they
can do. Otherwise, they are running up bills on their parents'
Visa card calling up CompuServe/Source/etc. or cracking systems
they have no business being on.
-- Mark --
------------------------------
Date: 14 Aug 85 10:12:54 GMT
From: jmccombie @ DCA-EUR
Subject: carbonless credit-card forms
They're here in Europe, too. I've seen them in a couple of places in
Italy. I was rather disappointed to have NOT seen them the last time
I was in London (theater tix, hotel, restaurants), nor at any airline
counter yet.
It's about time; I'm getting tired of having to wash my hands every
time I use my credit cards (to get the carbon-paper residue in the
sink rather than on my clothes).
Jon
------------------------------
Date: 19-Aug-85 10:20 PDT
From: William Daul / McDonnell-Douglas / APD-ASD
From: <WBD...@OFFICE-2.ARPA>
Subject: Quickly Computing Quarks (Science News, VOL. 128)
To: phy...@sri-unix.arpa
...news of at least one IBM research effort in high-speed computing
surfaced at last month's National Computer Conference in Chicago. A
team of physicists will soon take over a specially built computer
designed to solve a single physics problem. According to an IBM
official, this computer is supposed to take less than a year to solve
a provblem that would take a CRAY-1 supercomputer more than 300 years
to do.
The IBM machine, developed at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center in
Yorktown Heights, N.Y., consists of an array of 576 processors, each
one capable of 20 million "floating point" operations per second
(equivalent to multiplying two decimal numbers 20 million times). In
contrast, a typical personal computer performs 1,000 or so such
operations per second. When all the processors are working in
parallel, each one handling a small part of a computation, the IBM
computer can handle more than 10 billion floating point operations per
second.
The machine will be used to calculate the mass of a proton from "first
princilple," applying quantum chromodynamics theory. This year-long
exercise should give physicists some clues as to the valididty of
their concepts about quarks and gluons. Once this project is over,
the machine could be used for uther purposes, says IBM's George Paul.
And the computer's design team is already thinging about how to extend
the ideas they developed for the original machine.
------------------------------
End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
************************