NYT on CFP

[John Young <jya@pipeline.com>]

   The New York Times, April 1, 1996, p. A14.


   Pioneers of Cyberspace Move Into Wider Arena

   By Peter H. Lewis


   Cambridge, Mass., March 30 -- Cyberspace is dead, many of
   its electronic pioneers said at a conference here this
   week.

   As the Internet population has grown into the millions,
   what was once a small, self-regulating society of academics
   and computer wizards has been engulfed by mainstream
   culture. But in their efforts to preserve the libertarian
   spirit of the electronic frontier, the original members of
   the cyberspace community have emerged as a political and
   social force.

   "Last year, it was still possible for people to say
   cyberspace is a different place, subject to different laws
   and different rules and that there is a Net culture," said
   Hal Abelson, a professor of computer science and
   engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
   here. "Now you have such a large percentage of the
   population on the Net, it just is not sensible to talk
   about this as some other place anymore. What you are really
   talking about now is the communications fabric of the
   country."

   In what was seen as a clear sign of Internet users new
   power, several members of Congress announced, by telephone
   and through the Internet, new legislation and initiatives
   at the gathering here, the annual Computers, Freedom and
   Privacy Conference. The proposals include the formation of
   an Internet Caucus in Congress and a Senate blll to relax
   the Government's laws restricting the transmission of
   secrets over the global information network.

   "Washington is coming to thls conference in droves," said
   Daniel J. Weltzner, deputy dlrector of the Center for
   Democracy and Technology, one of several public-interest
   groups that seek to influence Government policy related to
   cyberspace, "and I think it's very exciting and promising.
   It's the coming of age of this community."

   The members of Congress were wooing more than 500 of the
   Internet's most prominent champions, who had gathered to
   discuss issues that were once esoteric but are now
   affecting millions of people worldwide: questions of
   privacy, electronic copyrights, computer crime, the nature
   of free speech, digital pornography, electronic cash and
   grassroots electronic democracy.

   The Computers, Freedom and Privacy crowd included its usual
   assortment of computer hackers, academics and self-
   described crypto-anarchists, and even one man wearing video
   goggles with an antenna apparently sprouting from his head.
   But it also included others who wanted to assess the fusion
   of cyberspace and real space: Federal judges, lawmakers,
   White House policy experts, corporate executives and
   law-enforcement agents.

   Senator Conrad Burns, a Republican from the real frontier
   state of Montana, chose the conference to announce, by
   telephone, new legislation that would remove nearly all
   current Government restrictions on the export of
   mass-market encryption software, which is used to send
   secret messages over computer and telephone networks.

   Senator Burns's legislation would also block the
   Administration from imposing as a Government standard any
   form of data encryption that would give law-enforcement
   agencies the ability to decode messages.

   The Senator's bill places him squarely at odds with the
   Clinton Administration and the Justice Department. But Mr.
   Burns said the use of robust data encryption would foster
   the rise of electronic commerce, distance education and
   digital communicatlons, which his large, rural state
   desperately needs in the 21st century. While the bill might
   have little chance of passage this year, conference
   participants were heartened by what appears to be growing
   support in Congress for a relaxation of the Government's
   cryptography policy.

   The proposal drew some opposition. "I think we'll regret it
   down the road," said Dorothy E. Denning, a professor of
   computer sciences at Georgetown University and a computer
   security consultant to the military. Dr. Denning and others
   have argued that the use of unrestricted encryption would
   thwart the ability of law-enforcement and intelligence
   agencies to conduct wiretaps on messages sent by foreign
   spies, terrorists, child pornographers and other criminals.

   On Friday, a bipartisan group of wired lawmakers addressed
   the conference by telephone and Internet to announce the
   formation of a Congressional Internet Caucus. Fewer than
   half of all members of Congress are now on line.

   Representative Rick White, Republican of Washington, said,
   "The idea behind the Internet Caucus is to do two things:
   increase members understanding of the Internet and get more
   members on-line so that people can contact their elected
   representatives on the Internet."

   [End]