From: iw@all.net
Subject: IW Mailing List iw/960304
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Date: Sun, 03 Mar 1996 20:32:06 -0600
From: "John S. Brofka" 
Subject: Re: IW Mailing List iw/960227
> Subject: Re:Mexican Countermeasures?
> ...

I agree with Bob.  Let's get back to discussing IW ...  like what it is
as opposed to what some folks would like it to be (based on their own
individual agendas).  I've read attempts to make it the superset of
propaganda, misinformation, even psycological warefare.  Perhaps an
effort to come up with a real definition is in order ...  a definition
most can agree on.  Until then, I'm afraid the discussions will continue
to take on a helter skelter flavor.

[Moderator's Note: Perhaps John and Bob could help to achieve their goal
by posting something to the list that they feel is more interesting.]
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Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 07:24:09 -0800
From: Bruce Sterling 
Subject: check out that *last paragraph*
 
 White House braces for a flood of electronic junk mail
 
 Copyright ) 1996 Nando.net
 Copyright ) 1996 N.Y. Times News Service
 
ALBANY, N.Y (Feb 28, 1996 00:03 a.m.  EST) -- The White House is girding
for an electronic assault Thursday on its Internet e-mail facilities. 
 
Cyberspace protesters are expected to use so-called e-mail bombs,
"explosions" of words sent over the Internet, in a bid to clog the White
House electronic mail link to the public, a Presidential spokesman told
the Times Union. 
 
"We understand there are students who are organizing a protest of sorts
against the telecommunications decency standards that the President
signed.  The attempt will be to send so many messages to the President
on Thursday that it will shut down the system," Rick Borchelt of the
President's office of Science and Technology Policy said. 
 
A Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute student was disciplined recently for
sending an e-mail bomb to the White House in early February -- around
the time the federal government enacted the Internet restrictions. 
 
The e-mail bombs can disrupt the information superhighway by jamming
traffic on a feeder road to a World Wide Web site, or filling a site's
available electronic "parking spaces."
 
"If we know about these kinds of things in advance, we can prepare for
them and shunt off traffic," said Borchelt, adding, "We have staff who
routinely monitor e-mail traffic." He declined to detail the White
House's system capacity or security measures. 
 
The White House quickly spotted the illicit RPI communication earlier
this month and notified the school, which traced the sender and stopped
the message within hours. 
 
The repetitive message from the RPI system was one of several sent to
the White House from sites around the country, but they failed to
disrupt the White House home page or e-mail system, according to White
House and RPI spokesmen. 
 
Isabel Nirenberg, who oversees major e-mail systems at the University at
Albany, said it is relatively easy to program a computer to send
repetitive messages.  She said the school receives several complaints a
week about e-mail bombing. 
 
Tracking an e-mail bomber, she said, is easy if the communication
emanates from a site with a "responsible" mail administrator like RPI
and most universities. 
 
But some system administrators are uncooperative or difficult to reach
and some mail-routing sites, including one in Finland, strip the usual
detailed information about a letter's origin as a matter of philosophy,
she said. 
 
Brendan Kehoe, author of the online classic, "Zen and the Art of the
Internet," said sites under assault can block mail from specific
locations or shunt repetitive mail into a cyber-trashcan.  Most
defensive measures risk destroying legitimate communication in the
process, he said. 
 
Any attack on the White House will pale compared to the war of
electronic words between mainland China and Taiwan.  Nirenberg said they
have moved their decades-long political hostilities into cyberspace by
constantly barraging the other with e-mail bombs. 
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