POLI/TECH/SURVEY: Feds and computers.

[Alexander Chislenko <sasha@cs.umb.edu>]

    There were two interesting articles today in the Marketplace section
of the Wall Street Journal.
 
  I advise you to read them, and will give only brief references here:
 
1.  "White House lets you turn on your PC, tune into politics"
   - Some stuff on White House and its email addresses, email in general,
etc. Some of it informative, some stupid, some babble.
One remarkable piece:
 
    "... the backward White House computer system doesn't receive the 
    electronic messages directly, and the mail isn't answered electronically.
    Instead, the e-mail messages are delivered to White House on disk,
    where they are printed out and answered by low-level workers through
    regular paper mail."
 
       Ain't that amazing?!
 
2.   To the right from the big central material on the crucially important
subject of bacon sales, there starts an article "Ruling gives privacy a
high-tech edge" - about the Jackson Games BBS case.  While it might not
offer conceptual breaktrhoughs to anybody on this list, it is (IMO) a very
informative and sympathetic material; it describes the history of the case,
recent rulings, their implications, etc.  It is very nice that this is
offered to a large audience. 
- Well worth reading.
 
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|  Alexander Chislenko | sasha@cs.umb.edu | Cambridge, MA  |  (617) 864-3382 |
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