Re: Email Stalking on CNN

[sidney@apple.com (Sidney Markowitz)]

Jeff Davis <eagle@deeptht.armory.com> said:

>You might pass this information on to CNN in Atlanta.

I think that there's an aspect to this that people are missing. I've been
told that there's a big flame/discussion happening on WISEnet (Women In
Science and Engineering mailing list) about a recent article in Newsweek
which portrays women on the Internet as being intimidated by the technology
and the net traffic, going so far as to show pictures of women at their
pink computers. People on the mailing list are upset over the underlying
message of the article that the net is technological and male and no place
for a poor helpless unscientific woman.

The CNN report seems to have the same message. It doesn't matter to them
that there exists technology to prevent "e-mail stalking", whatever that
is. The whole story doesn't match most people's experience of e-mail,
anyway. The point is not to present facts, but to perpetuate the culture
that relies on CNN for information rather than wider and more free
alternatives represented by the Internet.

I admit that I did not see the report, and I am not questioning the
reporter's intentions or objectivity. This is a comment about the broader
messages that make the commercial news media worthy of funding by corporate
and governmental powers. The relevance to cypherpunks goes beyond the fact
that anonymous remailers can prevent "e-mail stalking". It has to do with
what is newsworthy when information is set free.

 -- sidney markowitz <sidney@apple.com>