Papers in PDF format

A key value of the Internet is freedom of speech. This was recently reinforced by the actions of a Canadian
researcher who organised the setting up of miror-sites ("Zundelsites") to enabled Germans to read censored
neo-Nazi material. Deutsche Telekom blocked acess to a small Santa Cruz company that maintains Zundel's
World Wide Web site. Rich Graves set up a mirror site for Zundel's material, even though he disagrees with
Zundel's views, and has put up arguements against them. Other mirror sites were established, and the attempt
at censorship was dropped. The San Jose Mercury News reported:
"Declan McCullagh, a recent graduate from Carnegie Mellon who created the mirror site there, said censoring
Zundel's message just lends credence to his arguement that there is a conspiracy preventing "the myths" about
the holocaust from being revealed.
"The best way to respond to lies and deception is by rebuttal and refutation," he said. "The best efforts of a
major Western democracy (at censorship) were thwarted by a couple of college students with an hour or two of
spare time on the weekend." [San Jose Mercury News, 1996]
This action provides a blueprint for the successful handling of "offensive" material within the Internet. It
involved exposure of the material to public view, criticism of the material, and caused the writer to be
accountable to the public. People who set up mirror sites supported the principle of freedom of speech, but
through the intervention of adding critical commentary and forcing the author of it (Ernst Zundel) to be
exposed to public questioning, also gave the public an opportunity to assess the truth or otherwise of the
allegations made by Zundel.
3 Cryptography Regulation
The interest of Governments in regulating for key forfeiture systems and surveillance holds insufficient weight
against the rights of citizens to privacy of communications. Shearer, [ Gutmann, 1996]
The notion of a right to privacy of citizens in their communications should be seen in the context of an
international movement by governments towards regulation of cryptography, and consideration of key
forfeiture systems in national cryptography use. The right to privacy in computer-based communications is an
issue of major importance, assuring freedom of the individual in national and global communications.
Regulation and control of cryptography use in the Internet by national governments may lead to an imbalance
in the citizen/government power relationship, with consequences including unprecedented surveillance of
citizens, disruption of international commerce due to lack of powerful cryptography (and lack of
standardisation), human rights abuses by less democratic or non-democratic governments, and limiting of the
political potential of an Internet global system. It is conceivable that a mediation committee would find that
the Internet community strenuously opposes cryptography regulation. In the United States, a National
Research Council Committee studying the cryptography issue has recommended that cryptography controls be
progressively relaxed, and that the Government should stop pushing escrowed encryption. The Government’s
efforts in this direction are in the third edition , legislation known as “Clipper 111.” In view of political
activity in the United States and in other countries around the world, this issue has conflict status, and would
be a prime case for Internet mediation. It would empower Internet cryptography activists in putting their case,
within the Internet community as well as without.
4 Software Patents and Copyright
Software patents applications being approved in increasing numbers in the United States pose a threat to the
future development of the software arts within the Internet community. The interest of the United States
companies benefitting from these patents appear to be outweighed by the wider interest of the Internet
community.
Critics of US software patent laws say inventors of software are already protected by copyright and trade secret
law, and inappropriate patents are approved, eg “obvious” applications, which may already be well known by
programmers or which may be reinvented over and over in the normal course of software development. They
claim software developments, whether patented or not, build on prior art, and thus patents are inappropriate.
Central to the debate, however, is the charge that large companies are viewing patents as an opportunity to
profiteer at the expense of the international software development community.