1996 Fools: Government Announces Solutions To Ensure A Safer Internet
Subject: Government Announces Solutions To Ensure A Safer Internet
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DWARF'S MEDIA ADVISORY
Dwarf's Oupost On The Digital Frontier
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For release: April 1, 1996
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For additional information:
Dwarf
Internet: dwarf@dwarf.com
http://www.dwarf.com/dwarf/
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United States Government Announces Solutions To Ensure A Safer Internet
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WASHINGTON, DC -- The United States Government announces today
a series of broad-based solutions to ensure that the inhabitants of
Cyberspace enjoy a safer internet. Members of Congress have thought
long and hard about this and have made a series of policy decisions on
Internet issues that will ease the use of the internet for all users.
Bureau of Internet Affairs
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The United States has established a Bureau of Internet Affairs
"BIA" under the Federal Communications Commission ("FCC") that protects
Internet users' rights and interests in the federal government, and
throughout the several States and Outlying Areas. The BIA provides
vital services and opportunities to all American Internet users.
The new federal agency can contract with private companies, and
with local and state agencies, to ensure that essential Internet users
needs are met in every rural, urban and suburban area in America.
The FCC is an independant government agency charged with
regulating interstate and international communications by radio,
television, wire, satellite, cable, and the internet.
Domain Names
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Congress has been aware, over the last year or so, of the
increasing number of trademark disputes that are occuring with internet
domain names. We believe this is largely due to the increasing use by
criminals of the internet domain name space. To prevent further
widespread criminal activity, all Domain Name Service ("DNS") activity
will be halted immediately until appropriate laws can be passed to
allow proper DNS regulation by the FCC. As of today, it becomes a
criminal offence to give out a domain name in order to solicit commerce
over the internet, or to use domain names to connect to computers that
could have been contacted instead by a perfectly usable IP address.
Instead, users are required to give out the host IP address of the
computer they wish to identify.
Temporary licenses are obtainable through the FCC which grant
restricted use of DNS to qualified organizations provided that the DNS
is only used on an internal intranet which is not connected in any way
to the public internet.
The FCC will shortly begin issuing internet broadcast licenses
as a replacement to domain names.
[A "Domain Name" is the name after the '@' symbol in your email
address. An "IP Address" is a number that is used to identify a
computer on the internet]
Protecting US Borders
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In order to win the battle to keep pornography out of American
children's school computer networks, Congress has decided that we must
eradicate all foreign pornography from the US internet. Starting today,
work will begin to "firewall" the US part of the internet from the rest
of the world. As security experts acknowledge, this is the most
effective method of creating a secure network of computers immune from
the evils of hackers, child-pornographers, and other unsociable
influences, short of disconnecting it altogether.
United States Customs begins accepting applications today from
organizations who are passing internet traffic across international
borders for US Firewall licenses. Failure to obtain a US Firewall
license within the next 30 days will result in the removal of that
organization from the US internet border, and, as with any border,
there will be stiff penalties for improper use, smuggling of digital
contraband, etc.
As a condition of US Customs granting a US Firewall license,
each organization operating a border firewall will implement the
"Clipper Packet Filtering" protocol on their firewall equipment. This
is an exciting new technology that implements the same kind of rating
system as the V-Chip, except that it is enhanced to identify criminal
activity occuring at the US internet border that could harm or damage
computer property. As a result, all viruses, trojan horses, and
other potentially damaging computer programs will not be granted access
onto the US internet. In addition, criminals (such as drug smugglers)
using encryption technology will not be able to pass encrypted messages
through the border firewall without it first being decoded by a law
enforcement official.
Telephone Software Regulation
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A growing number of companies are selling software programs
with ancillary hardware options that enable a computer to transmit
voice conversations.
This, in fact, creates the ability to "by-pass" local, long
distance and international carriers and allows for calls to be made for
virtually "no cost." For example, on-line service providers generally
charge users around $10.00 for five hours of access and then around
$3.00 for each additional hour. Five hours equals 300 minutes, divided
by $10 is 3.3 cents per minute. The average residential long distance
telephone call costs about 22 cents per minute or seven times as much.
The FCC now has been given jurisdiction over the use of the
Internet for unregulated interstate and international
telecommunications services. Use of voice telephony software now must
be approved by the FCC to operate and users must file tariffs before
both the FCC and state public service commissions.
It is now a criminal offense to make telephone calls over the
internet that are not first approved by the FCC.
Exon Machine
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A number of outstanding internet problems can be solved if we
are able to identify the age of the person accessing the internet.
Internet Providers ("ISP") would be able to automatically filter out
undesirable material targeted towards our childen when they used the
internet. Thanks to the new "Exon Machine" (otherwise known as the
"Exon Social Security Server", and named after Sen. James Exon) which
stores social security information on over 240 million Americans at
each ISP, the ISP will be able to determine who the internet user is,
and route approved portions of the internet to them when unlocked by
the Exon Machine. Exon Press Secretary Russ Rader has described this as
"one of the most exciting solutions available to the NSA today".
We look forward to making the internet a safer place for you.
See you on-line!
Sincerely,
Congressman Rick White
http://www.house.gov/white/
Senator Patrick Leahy
http://www.house.gov/~leahy
Congressman Rick Boucher
http://www.house.gov/boucher/welcome.htm
Senator Larry Pressler
http://www.senate.gov/senator/pressler.html
Speaker Newt Gingrich
mailto:georgia6@hr.house.gov
Congressman Jack Fields
Congressman Edward Markey
Congressman Mike Oxley
http://www.house.gov/oxley/welcome.html
Congressman Christopher Cox
Congresswoman Anna Eshoo
http://www-eshoo.house.gov/
Congressman Bob Goodlatte
mailto:talk2bob@hr.house.gov
Congressman Tom Campbell
mailto:campbell@hr.house.gov
Congressman Robert Walker
http://www.house.gov/walker/welcome.html
Congresswoman Jennifer Dunn
mailto:dunnwa08@hr.house.gov
Congressman Vern Ehlers
http://www.house.gov/ehlers/welcome.html
Senator Slade Gorton
http://www.senate.gov/senator/gorton.html
Senator Conrad Burns
http://www.senate.gov/~burns
Senator Ron Wyden
http://www.senate.gov/senator/wyden.html
Congressman Sam Farr
http://www.house.gov/farr/welcome.html
Congressman Bill Luther
http://www.house.gov/luther/welcome.html
Congresswoman April Fool
http://www.dwarf.com/dwarf/news/april-fool.html
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