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****************************************************************** ////////////// ////////////// ////////////// /// /// /// /////// /////// /////// /// /// /// ////////////// /// /// ****************************************************************** EFFector Online Volume 5 No. 11 6/25/1993 editors@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 -==--==--==-<>-==--==--==- In this issue: EFF Is Moving NREN Applications Bill Update Interval Research Conference on Online Communities -==--==--==-<>-==--==--==- ************************************************************************ EFF Is Moving ************************************************************************ EFF has outgrown our current office space. On July 2, we will be taking over an entire floor of an historic building in downtown Washington, DC. Please note our new address and telephone numbers beginning July 2: Electronic Frontier Foundation 1001 G Street, N.W. Suite 950 East Washington, DC 20001 202/347-5400 voice 202/393-5509 fax Our e-mail address will remain the same, eff@eff.org. ************************************************************************ NREN Applications Bill Update ************************************************************************ by Andrew Blau In an earlier issue of EFFector (5.07), we described legislation introduced by Congressman Rick Boucher to stimulate Internet applications in health care, education, libraries, and for access to government information. On June 17, the bill, H.R. 1757, was marked-up by the Science Subcommittee, which Mr. Boucher chairs. ("Mark up" is the process by which a committee or subcommittee reviews a bill, adds amendments, and if passed, sends it on to the next stage in the legislative process.) The bill that emerged reflects a number of important changes to the original H.R. 1757. Some of these changes reflect the Clinton Administration's input, others come from efforts to accomodate the Republican members of the Subcommittee, while still others reflect concerns of groups that would be affected by the legislation. ------------------------------------- Major changes to HR 1757 as marked up ------------------------------------- New name -------- The bill had originally been called the High Performance Computing and High Speed Networking Applications Act of 1993. Its new name is the National Information Infrastructure Act of 1993. Emphasis on accessibility ------------------------- H.R. 1757 had originally specified that applications developed under this program should be accessible by all persons in the United States. The new version expands on that by specifying throughout the bill's many provisions that applications must be accessible to people with disabilities; that training programs must include training for people with disabilities; and that public access points for networked information should include centers for people with disabilities. Connections program to support *services,* not facilities --------------------------------------------------------- The connections program originally called for the creation of local networks connecting schools, libraries, and state and local governments. Now, the bill calls for the development of network services in local communities. The language clarifies that the money is to support the purchase of network services, not to build new facilities. Museums were also added to the list of local institutions under this program. The length of the Connections Program was cut from 5 years to 3 years (at which time it is likely to be reviewed). Process for restricting use of test-bed networks modified --------------------------------------------------------- One of H.R. 1757's most controversial provisions had required that government supported test-bed networks could not be used for services that could be "provided satisfactorily" by commercial networks 18 months after the bill is enacted. Educators, the research community, librarians and others were concerned by the rigid timeline and feared that users would be restricted from using the government supported NSFNet without any adequate alternative, or at substantially higher costs. The new provisions replace the fixed timeline with guidelines for determining when the cutover may happen and a process for determining it. 1) The bill outlines conditions by which "satisfactory availability" is to be determined: the determination "shall include consideration of geographic access to and affordability of service, and timeliness and technical performance standards in providing services." This responds to the concern that there be well-known standards "available" that take into consideration various conditions faced by users across the country. 2) The bill calls for a study to explore the issue and decide when commercial services are satisfactorily available, subject to the results of the study. The study is to be done by the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) in consultation with Federal agencies and departments supporting test bed networks. The study is due 6 months after the date of enactment of the legislation. This abandons the fixed, 18-month timeline and asks OSTP to make the determination according to the specified conditions. 3) The bill also includes an "escape" clause if conditions change. If the OSTP report announces a date for the cutover, but "for technical reasons" the cutover cannot be imposed on that date, the OSTP Director has the option of going back to Congress with a new date. As a related matter, the bill includes renewed emphasis on using commercially available network services whenever possible, "to minimize Federal investment in network hardware and software." Scope of Education section expanded ----------------------------------- H.R. 1757 originally specified primary, secondary, and higher education as the beneficiaries of the education section. That has been broadened to include educational institutions at all levels, which adds pre-school or early childhood education and vocational/technical schools. The new provisions also specify the inclusion of the Department of Education in the program. Advisory Committee expanded; Public input process specified ----------------------------------------------------------- The original H.R. 1757 modified the High Performance Computing Advisory Committee created by the High Performance Act of 1991 to expand its membership. The new provisions take additional steps to expand the committee to include library representatives, the computer hardware and computer software industries, and the publishing industry. The new provisions also require that the Advisory Committee meet at least once a year to take oral and written testimony from the public on progress in implementing the network and applications plan, summarize the public input, and report it to OSTP Director. Lastly, the bill first specified that Advisory Committee members were to be appointed by the President. The new provisions specify that the OSTP Director is to appoint them. New attention to copyright issues --------------------------------- The bill as amended now includes greater attention to the copyright issues that electronic networks create. Specifically, the bill calls for general research to facilitate the management and protection of copyrighted information accessed via the Internet, and a means to identify electronically copyrighted works and electronically indicating whether permission to reproduce it has been granted. Money: less of it and none of it is "new" ----------------------------------------- In an effort to keep this package within the parameters of the Administration's budget request, and in light of the budget deficit and the struggles to pass a budget package, the amount of money authorized in each section has been cut. The overall total was reduced from $1.55 billion over five years to $1.005 billion over that period. A large portion of that total comes from the removal of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) from the program. NTIA is not under the Science Subcommittee's jurisdiction, and will be reauthorized by the committee that does have jurisdiction, the Energy and Commerce Committee, which is expected to authorize money for similar purposes. The bill now also clarifies that all money authorized in it is from money already authorized for each agency. These provisions were added to clarify that the bill was not seeking to add over a billion dollars to the federal budget for these programs, but was authorizing agencies to spend the money they have on these applications. Miscellaneous ------------- The bill as reported out of the Subcommittee also calls for: o an emphasis on the development of "interconnected and interoperable information systems" rather than proprietary or stand-alone systems; o research into "the long-range social and ethical implications of applications of high-speed networking and high-performance computing"; and o new applications in clinical medicine, including drug development, technologies to monitor, evaluate and treat patients in nonclinical settings, and modeling of sociological populations affected disproportionately by selected diseases or disorders. Finally, H.R. 1757 no longer includes the section that calls for a coordinator for the networking and applications program nor a section specifying an Associate Director at OSTP to oversee Federal efforts to disseminate scientific and technical information. The bill is now scheduled to come before the full Science, Space and Technology Committee on June 30 for a vote. It is not expected that additional major revisions will be made, but changes are always possible. Following the full Committee markup, the bill will be ready for consideration by the full House of Representatives once the Committee issues its report. No date for House consideration has been set. ************************************************************************ Interval Research Conference on Online Communities ************************************************************************ The Interval Research Mini-Conference on Online Community May 17-18, Palo Alto attended and reported on by Cliff Figallo This past Monday and Tuesday, I attended the "FIRST EVER INTERVAL GATHERING ON ONLINE COMMUNITIES," hosted by Interval Research in Palo Alto. It was described as "a small meeting of professionals and advanced students to explore the nature and dynamics of on-line communities -- including informal presentations and panels, show and tell, rants and ravings, and hands-on net surfing orchestrated by the inimitable Jonathan Steuer, host of Stanford's famous net.jams!" The list of topics covered at the meeting included: o MUDs and MOOs o the world of online gaming o virtual identity and gender o "emergent" vs. "planned" communities o multimedia vs. text o online services o professional/work communities o political and social issues - the net of the future The list of communities invited included: America Online, CPSR, EFF, Electronic Cafe, Fidonet, Habitat, Kidsphere, LambdaMOO, MediaMOO, Seniornet, Sierra Network, Smart Valley, and the WELL. The purpose of the gathering, as expressed to me by Brenda Laurel and Lee Felsenstein, the Interval employees who planned the mini-con, was to demonstrate the existence and meaning of online community to those higher-ups at Interval who didn't yet "get it." John Coate, Marc Smith and I followed Lee Felsenstein's opening remarks on the importance of networked communities as agents of social change. John Coate and I had worked together at the WELL and Marc Smith wrote his master's dissertation, "The Logic of the Virtual Commons" about the WELL. I described the many variables that contributed to the formation of the WELL's online sense of community including, the policy of users being responsible for the words they post, the communal background of its managers, the connection with Whole Earth, the no-anonymity policy, the inclusion of users in developing the system, the distribution of responsibility among the users, and the personal and technical challenges that the population faced and overcame through the WELL's formative years. The concept of "common goods" was discussed as a centerpiece of community; some value that most participants could agree on that is gained by taking part in the online scene. This "common good," I think, can also be a commonly perceived threat, as from government or corporations. Most often, though, it is the knowledge and personal resource of the group present online, providing information and support at the convenience of the users. Gaming populations are present on the Sierra Network where, rather than through conferencing or messaging software, interactive games are the meeting places, with e-mail filling the need for extended communication. Although little in the way of "serious" group discussion happens on Sierra, a community of sorts does, in fact, exist. Sierra Net has over 20,000 subscribers. They have, since the meeting, signed on with Prodigy to collaborate somehow. Habitat is a semi-animated interactive system where each participant is represented online by a graphic figure of a human body on which a head, chosen from a gallery of heads, can be attached. Dialog takes place through cartoon-like "balloons" above the characters' heads. Habitat is popular in Japan, and its two American developers, Chip Morningstar and Randy Farmer, are reviving Habitat in the U.S. (it formerly ran only on Commodore 64 machines), while also developing a pay-or-barter-for-information system called AMIX in California (initially funded by AutoDesk) and working on a conferencing interface for a wide-reaching information structure like the Internet. They claim to have a "very large corporation" interested in funding their idea. MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) and MOOs (MUD-Object-Oriented) are structured and user-modifiable online environments that allow users to not only interact with each other, but to do role-playing, build and furnish living areas and interaction areas, and extend and create the interactive "space" and the rules for using that space. Some MUDS and MOOs are being used to teach children and, after giving the children the ability to create on their own, to study how children work in an unencumbered environment. Amy Bruckman of MIT's Media Lab and Pavel Curtis of Xerox PARC described their systems and experiments. Some examples of specially-designed online communities were described by participants. Anna Couey, Director of Arts Wire, talked about the reluctance of artists to move from systems of regional or cultural preference to another system where a central Arts Forum was established. Loyalties run strong online. Seth Fiery described the Smart Valley project for installing a broadband network throughout Silicon Valley as a prototype for the NII. Even on this local scale, there are more questions about interoperability than answers. Fran Middleton talked about SeniorNet and how, even having their system located on America Online, there were many complaints about difficulty using the system and high expense. Dave Hughes gave his list of ingredients for grassroots networked systems: 1) Rooted in real cultures 2) Universal grassroots access 3) Public technical standards 4) Start farthest from centers of power (rural, remote, foreign) 5) Always evolving (technically, connectively, individual/group/ community skills) to higher orders 6) End users do not just connect, they create 7) Sysop's role is to enable and empower Patricia Seybold of Seybold Publishing spoke about her efforts to get corporate users to participate in networks using Lotus Notes. She is having to "be patient," waiting for them to actively use these systems. Tom Jennings, inventor of Fidonet, described the self-governing nature and evolution of the Fidonet and how node sysops had developed sanctioning norms and techniques. Tom's original idea took off so fast that the software tables he originally designed to count the nodes overflowed after just one year of distribution. Fido now generates its own regular "newsletter" that reports on the operation of this anarchic networked community of communities. It is a poor (non-academic or corporate) person's Internet, operating with none of the national or international regulatory red tape of the Internet. Mark Graham, president of Pandora Systems, talked about the growth in public access to the Internet, the need for better tools for access and data searching (which his company develops) and the growing interconnectivity with foreign countries. Pandora was instrumental in installing the first commercial Internet site in the former Soviet Union. Bob Carlitz is a physicist who has been involved in networking children through the Internet via KidSphere. He has seen how children can form their own communities online and learn at the same time on a global scale. Kathy Ryan of America Online gave a description of the service and how they have handled its rapid growth and customer support, specifically how they have created systems for gathering feedback from their users on system design and features. They are struggling with the question of opening their system into the Internet beyond just having an e-mail gateway. Finally, Kit Galloway and Sherry Rabinowitz demonstrated some video clips from their almost 20 years of involvement with the Electronic Cafe, which uses low-cost to sophisticated video equipment to encourage creativity and communication between different communities and cultures. In some cases, they have set up satellite video feeds between geographically-distant groups holding simultaneous events. In other cases, they have linked local culturally-disparate groups in different neighborhoods in the same town. No keyboarding necessary; anyone can hold the camera. The purpose of the meeting was addressed mostly in discussion between and following presentations as the differences and commonalities between many concepts and models of community were explored. It was evident that sophistication of technology was not the determining factor, but more that freedom and openness and encouragement of creativity seemed to be the critical keys to nurturing community. Greater access will allow more people to connect, and basing systems around some kind of "commons" may stimulate involvement and loyalty. The fragility of trust online is something that must be recognized, and privacy concerns are high on the list of values. Creating and enforcing community standards, even where a minority may claim that free speech is being infringed upon, was also seen as a contributor to community. Where a group needs to feel secure in giving free rein to their children online, rights to use strong language or provide pornographic files may be, appropriately, abridged in the interest of community. Discussion of the privacy rights of children were examined in the case of Amy Bruckman's desire to study and document children's behaviors online in MOO environments without the children's knowledge. Would parental permission be sufficient or should the children know they are being studied? The presence of children online, in general, presents many difficult ethical dilemmas which may have, at least, partial technical solutions. The looming spectre of collusion between large cable companies and telcos, leading to domination of electronic media by mostly one-way communications and entertainment at the expense of the interactive and user-created activities necessary to foster community, was recognized as a threat that could best be countered by proactive development of more interactive communities of all types in the near future. I explained EFF's positions on several issues of concern to the attendees. EFF's existence as a watchdog over policy and regulation as well as a protector of civil liberties was regarded as a comforting security umbrella and a real necessity if the practice of online community is to expand and thrive. ============================================================= EFFector Online is published biweekly by: Electronic Frontier Foundation 666 Pennsylvania Ave., S.E., Suite 303 Washington, DC 20003 USA Phone: +1 202 544 9237 FAX: +1 202 547 5481 Internet Address: eff@eff.org Coordination, production and shipping by Shari Steele, Director of Legal Services & Community Outreach (ssteele@eff.org) Reproduction of this publication in electronic media is encouraged. Signed articles do not necessarily represent the view of the EFF. To reproduce signed articles individually, please contact the authors for their express permission. *This newsletter is printed on 100% recycled electrons.* ============================================================= MEMBERSHIP IN THE ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION In order to continue the work already begun and to expand our efforts and activities into other realms of the electronic frontier, we need the financial support of individuals and organizations. If you support our goals and our work, you can show that support by becoming a member now. Members receive our bi-weekly electronic newsletter, EFFector Online (if you have an electronic address that can be reached through the Net), and special releases and other notices on our activities. But because we believe that support should be freely given, you can receive these things even if you do not elect to become a member. Your membership/donation is fully tax deductible. 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