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This issue of Netweaver was distributed in December 1991
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Volume 7 ---CONTENTS--- Winter 1991
TABLE OF CONTENTS
0. MASTHEAD AND TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION TO THIS SPECIAL "GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES" ISSUE
2. IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD ........... by Dave Hughes
3. NETWORKING IN ARGENTINA ........... by Eduardo Salom
4. FROM THE BANKS OF TAMAGAWA RIVER ........... by Mary Lou Rebelo
5. GETTING THE KIDS ONLINE .................. by Odd de Presno
6. ONLINE FOR A SMOKEFREE PLANET ............ by Nancy Stefanik
7. THE MATURATION OF THE MATRIX ........... by John S. Quarterman
8. ENA - Seattle 1991 - Get Ready for F-T-F!
ENA NETWEAVER Volume 7, Article 1 (Winter 1991)
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INTRODUCTORY NOTE
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This issue is about global perspectives, a topic which our contributors are well familiar with. For them, "the Global Village" is more than a cliche. They live in it.
The articles may not seem to concern themselves with the future, but they do. The personal perspectives of our authors give a cross section of some of the things happening right now, and which are shaping our lives. We are facing a global revolution which will change the face of politics, business, eduaction forever. Read on and be prepared.
Odd de Presno
CONTRIBUTORS
ODD DE PRESNO, guest editor, is an independent author, journalist
consultant, and modem globetrotter living in Norway. He has been
involved with international communication for 16 years, and has written
extensively about the subject. He is the Project Director of the global
KIDS-91 project.
DAVE HUGHES, as the Cursor Cowboy, had been riding the electronic range
for over 10 years. Both using, and creating online systems which have
reached from Russia to China, one-room school houses in Montana, to
Banks in France. Currently he is the SEWAYAKU -or Sysop - of NHK
Japanese Television's Ginganet - from Colorado, is teaching Indians how
to do original art in telecommunicated Naplps, while building a Western
Saddle complete with an LCD in the horn and packet radio in the saddle
bags, and linking MIT with school kids by modem to learn Chaos
mathematics.
EDUARDO SALOM, in 1967, at his first job as Industrial Engineer started
to work with computers to get rid of an awfully repetitive calculation
job his boss assigned him to do. Now president of SoftWare Plus SA, a
software house based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, he is mostly dedicated
to industrial applications and datacommunication. He discovered the
networks in 1988, and has since then been obsessed by the changes that
networking might introduce in the global society.
MARY LOU REBELO was born in Southern Brazil, lived for many years in Rio
de Janeiro. She moved next to Belgium and then back to Brazil, to
Manaus, in the Amazon State. Now she lives in Tokyo, Japan, where she
teaches Portuguese and does translations for living.
NANCY STEFANIK is a public interest computer networking specialist based
in Washington, DC. Her job at the Advocacy Institute is to explore how
computer networking can be used to enhance public interest advocacy
efforts; one "laboratory" is ACS GLOBALink, which was developed to
enable the tobacco control movement to match the global reach of the
tobacco industry for the first time.
JOHN S. QUARTERMAN lives in Texas, and is the author of, THE MATRIX, the
landmark book of the telecommunication world. He is a founder, with
Smoot Carl-Mitchell, of Texas Internet Consulting of Austin, a firm
specializing in networking and in UNIX standards and programming. He has
served on the USENIX Board of Directors since 1986.
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IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD
=================================
by Dave Hughes
It is easy to become blase about the significance of global 'personal' telecommunications after using it for a while. But over these past few days of the American Thanksgiving season when I have stood behind the chair at this computer in my study and gently given just a few hints on what keys to press to my new daughter-in-law as she telecommunicates with ease to Japan, to Norway, to Russia, to Saudia Arabia, the Deaf and Blind School across town - to thousands of people she will never meet face to face, I am struck by the miracle of it all.
For you see, Ha Ning is a young lady who had never met a foreigner in her 24 years growing up in China, much less a modem or a computer. Her mind was circumscribed by a remote, ancient and nearly closed culture of a billion people where my son went less than two years ago when things were calm, to taste the culture by teaching English at a small college. Carrying a 6 lb laptop Toshiba with Word Perfect, a modem with two alligator clips, with which to connect to an ancient Chinese rotary dial phone in his room, with exposed brown wires going to the wall. So he was able to reach half around the globe when Tiananmen Square erupted and he was cut off from critical sources of information.
While cataclysmic world events swirled around him, Ed hung onto his slender silver lifeline of modem communications to the outside world, and got information he could not learn from the inside. Thus, armed with vital information, and judgements from afar, he stayed. And fell in love with, and married, the lovely young Ha Ning and brought her to America. Aided all the way by a tiny computer and modem.
But already she, who loves her native country very much, is exercising the telecommunications and computer skills he taught her which I taught him - as well as reading and writing Chinese on that same tiny laptop - by which she will not only stay in touch with her family, but help her country move into the modern world. From afar.
And she teaches my young granddaughters, 1,500 miles away in another American city, by modem, about an ancient culture which they may never visit physically.
It may be enough. For by the time little Lindsey and Jennifer, who have begun to learn these skills by talking about what interests them at their age - Barbie Dolls and doting grandmothers - grow up and exercise their communications skills when they can exercise political, financial, educational clout on the world stage, it will be routine, and no longer news. They will not even need telephones, as digital radio devices today in the hands of hobbyists, and specialized companies become ubiquitous personal tools carried in the pocket or purse. My granddaughters will be able to reach virtually any person on the face of this globe with ease. And check any fact seen by media, personally and in their own way. It won't even be such a big deal.
I can't imagine what incredible devices Ed and Ha Ning's own children-to-be will learn on.
Multiply such stories as that of Ed and Ha Ning, Lindsey and Jennifer by hundreds, thousands, and millions - and a global revolution will have occured which will change the face of politics, business, education forever. No tyrant or ideology which seeks to maintain control by controlling all 'information' or 'communications' will long survive. And the power of 'selective media' which so very much shapes our view of the world according to the perspective of those who control mass information in democratic societies will diminish also.
The global Power Shift has begun.
And when everyone is able to determine their own version of Global Reality, instead of sharing those few symbols and impressions by which we perceive things from afar, will it be for better or for worse?
I am not prescient enough to know. For people will still be people. In all their individual stupidity, greed, cruelty and fear, and deceipt, as well as wisdom, generosity, benevolence, bravery, and candor. Whether new social systems organized around global-ranging minds moving instantly between virtual, as well as physical, communities, states and nations, will be able to handle such human weaknesses any better than the institutions we have now, is an open question.
All we know is the world will be very different when Man, who started out sharing with the animals the ability to communicate only out to the range of his voice and limits of his vision, is now beginning to share with the Gods, the ability to span the globe - yeah the universe - with the individual mind, and communicate intimately with whomever is there.
But if we are going to have the communicative power of the Gods, I guess we better start deciding what it is we are going to say. For the Medium is getting far, far ahead of the Message.
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FROM THE BANKS OF TAMAGAWA RIVER
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by Mary Lou Rebelo
I lived all my childhood and teenager years near the beach, or better, beaches. Plenty of them and of all sorts. My social life, then, was centered in the beach, where I used to go everyday to meet my friends. We would decide where to go in the evening, or who was going to throw a party in the coming Saturday, which movie to see, what kind of books to read, etc. We had golden skin and healthy bodies, just like any of Sun worshipers. I used to think then that I could never live without going to the beach every single day and when I was sick in bed, I felt ostracized... Sometimes even in a rainy day I would go to the seaside and take a look to see if somebody else was there, too.
After those "sunny" days, I've moved to other places and lived many years -- and still live now -- far from the sea and had to center my social life in other circles, like clubs, associations or workplaces. But none of them had the appeal the beach used to play in my life. One day, not long ago, I finally found an almost perfect substitute for the beach: computer conferencing! My social life now is centered in that, it seems. Parties, meetings, get-togethers, short trips, cruises, etc. are discussed and decided online. The information we get about what's on in Tokyo, which movies are worth seeing, which are the best modems, what books to read, places to go, etc. are just some of the possibilities this medium can offer to us.
Tokyo has a very lively BBS-dom, even for the ones who don't have abilities in Japanese language. There are plenty of English-based BBSes and computer networks. The majority of those BBS are owned by international schools, like American School of Japan (ASIJ-BBS-0422-33- 0381), St. Mary's International School (SMBBS-03-709-3463), Nishimachi International School (NIS-BBS-003-798-2462) and St.Joseph's International School (INN -045-671-9727). In all those places we can find plenty of students eager to talk and exchange their computerese and other knowledge... They also login on TFA ("The First Amendment" BBS-03- 813-1169), one of the craziest and funniest BBS in Tokyo, where almost everyone use a pseudonym, though usually everybody knows who are behind the most creative handles. The founder and sysop of TFA is an Australian engineer who loves science and space and has special boards for these topics. In a way, TFA is much more educational than all the school boards, with people learning new things without even noticing...
Another popular BBS is POLYGLOT (03-464-0537), run by a Spaniard, born and raised in Salamanca and transplanted to Tokyo, where he teaches Spanish and earns his living as a translator. POLYGLOT specializes in discussing words, expressions and translation related topics. Though only few Japanese login there their contributions often are the highlights of the ongoing discussions. POLYGLOT has international access using KDD-Venus P and occasionally receives "visits" of people signing from abroad.
My main system, or my favorite "beach", if you want, is TWICS, where I feel "at home". In TWICS I can not only use English, but also my own language, Portuguese, as well as Spanish or French in the various conferences we have for and in those languages. In those three language topics ("PORTUGUES", "ESPANOL" and "FRANCAIS") membership is small and for some time I was kind of talking to myself. I felt like a person who sends a message inside a bottle in the sea without knowing if someone will ever find it or respond to it. Usually, however, there are people logging in from abroad and who like to talk in their native tongues. Other members like the possibility of using a foreign language to communicate with people. We can learn and teach at the same time and try to help the ones who are not that fluent in English -- or Japanese -- to get acquainted with the system.
We had some good experiences like when a Brazilian logged from Curitiba, southern Brazil, some time ago. He was planning to come to Tokyo to study Japanese and with the help of TWICS members, not only found a place to stay in Tokyo for two months but also a language school to attend and many friends to meet f-t-f... Another one, an engineer working for the Brazilian State owned telecom company, was trying links to Japan but found also time to exchange information on other topics as well. As for "ESPANOL" we used to have Mexicans online, logging in from Mexico City and an American who lives in San Francisco, who used to teach good Spanish to Odd de Presno, coming all the way from Norway! Exciting new small world.
What I like best is that without leaving my room in Tokyo I can travel all around the world and communicate with people who live far apart, and paying only local calls. I'm always planning to login on a regular basis to a Brazilian BBS, though the high international telephone rates kind of scares me. BBS in Rio, Brazil, is quite active too, but people there are more interested in exchanging notes on computers or softwares. For the moment I just exchange messages with some Brazilian friends via university networking systems. I do hope the future will see many other possibilities of communication in a global basis.
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NETWORKING IN ARGENTINA
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by Eduardo Salom
In the last few years here, in Argentina, we have seen a quick development of the communication networks. The conditions are not the best because the phones lines are noisy, expensive and getting one isn't easy. There are many people on a wating list from more than 10 _years_ and there are even a few who have been waiting for 20 years. The recent privatization of EnTel (the national phone company) may change this, but it could take not less than a year, maybe two.
Today, a local call (less than 30 Km) costs US$ .03/min. A long distance call can cost US$ 2.50/min and an international one up to US$ 5.00/min. >From most phones, to make an international call you need to call an operator to get a line. Sending fax and calling with modems to other countries are not possible from any phone ... Luckily, we don't need an operator to receive incoming calls.
There is also a Public Packet Switching Network (ARPAC). The phone access is limited to 1200 bauds. Direct X.25 connection it's possible up to 9600. It's a good alternative to the phone because it allows almost noise free long distance and international calls. The cost for national traffic is US$ 4/ KiloPacket while the international one costs US$ 14/KiloPacket. The final cost for normal net traffic (file transfer with a protocol, answerbacks, etc. with a 1200 connection) is US$ .45/min for national traffic and US$ 1.45/min for the international one. This includes the cost of the phone call to ARPAC. These prices are for calls during business hours. At night national traffic costs 50% less but there is no reduction in the international tariff.
To decide between a direct phone call and the PPSN isn't easy. The first to analyze is the tariff itself. Sometimes the caller needs to put a long distance call to reach the nearest ARPAC node so this must be added to the cost. Another item to consider is the line noise. Not too heavy line noise can reduce the throughput from 1200 to 300. If the call is done through the phone system the caller pays for connection time so its costs multiplies by 4. The first calculations may indicate that using the phone is less expensive than the PPSN, but this may not be true.
Due to partial deregulation, two companies began to offer VSat services earlier this year. This is the best choice for point to point links once the traffic exceeds 30MB/month. These companies sell only point to point links. Soon, it is expected that some companies will lease links between cities to provide e-mail and data transfer services to low traffic users at lower cost than ARPAC or the phone system.
At first the development of this technology - modems, fax and network technology in general - was possible due to the availability of the phone system, especially in the United States. Then modem prices went down while reliability and speeds went up. Consequently, its utilization becomes an economic alternative in Argentina for different reasons: - As there are less phones than needed the system is overcharged. To complete a call might take several hours and even days. Letting a machine send fax and e-mail at night with reduced tariffs is a very attractive alternative. - Mail is expensive, slow and unreliable. There are fast and reliable private couriers, but these are twice as expensive (US$ 1.50 a simple letter)
In the last few years a few commercial systems and networks have appeared. The oldest and biggest commercial system is Delphi, which has around 7,000 active users. Delphi provides e-mail, FAX and Telex services, access to Dialog, OAG, World Trade Center, NewsNet, etc along with SIG's (Special Interest Groups). None of the other commercial systems has reached the 1,000 users yet. They provide also e-mail, FAX and Telex and gateways to other foreign services like those mentioned above.
Any user of one of those systems is unable to exchange e-mail with other users of other national system nor with users of foreign systems like MCI, EasyLink, GeoNet, etc. To do that one needs a personal account(s) with the required service(s) and to log on to check each mailbox regularly. Several companies use those services to communicate with vendors and clients located mostly in USA and Europe. Few use the gateways to do this. They are calling directly through ARPAC or the phone system.
CompuServe has a local office and a gateway. This service has about 200 users connecting from Argentina. There is also a dozen of BIX users connecting thru ARPAC.
FidoNet is well developed and growing. Now, the country has around 30 nodes and some 700 users. The Latin American region coordinator is at Buenos Aires. They have a very active NetMail and EchoMail exchange with other countries.
There are also 2 UUCP nets: RAN (Red Academica Nacional = Academical National Network) which divides in two subnets: education and medicine. The other net is RECYT (Red Cientifica y Tecnica = Scientific and Technical Network).
RAN now has almost 200 nodes but they don't allow private organizations to use the network. Many of the nodes are kept hidden in the university departments. Only the node administrator knows about it's existence and it is being used as a private mailbox for the department. Now, they don't receive any newsgroup. They use it for e-mail only.
The second and newest net (RECYT) has almost 60 nodes and is growing quickly. They allow private organizations to join the net. Another attraction is that they receive NewsGroups. The distribution of the newsgroups is still a problem as most nodes are MS-DOS machines and they do not yet have the software to handle this service.
Both UUCP nets are connected thru a node which calls uunet twice a day to exchange mail with the rest of the world and receive newsgroups. They also have a gateway to one of the commercial systems and there is an experimental gateway between RECYT and FidoNet.
There are 3 known BITNET nodes feeding from Chile and from a node located in Uruguay. These nodes do not have any local connection with other systems. A message delivered from a local UUCP system must travel to the USA, and pass to BITNET thru a relay before it can travel back to Argentina to reach any of the other nodes. In other words: Chile calls USA, Argentina calls Chile and Uruguay calls Argentina. A BITNET message posted at Uruguay passes thru Argentina and Chile before its arrival to the States.
Several multinational companies have their own private networks. The local branches of these companies are usually linked to their networks thru leased lines (Hewlett Packard, IBM, Dupont and Citicorp, to name some of them). Any company can lease a point to point line but is not allowed to share it with other users. This regulation protects the income of the phone company but keeps communication costs high.
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GETTING THE KIDS ONLINE
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by Odd de Presno
* A MESSAGE FROM SVETA
There are modems and children in the Soviet Union. This message
was sent to the KIDS-91 global dialog project in November:
" My name is Sveta (Svetlana) Alexandrova. I am 11, and I am a
girl. I live in Moscow (USSR). I like to read books, to sing, to
danse and to swim. I like cats very much. I have a cat. It's name is
Vasya. I like to read fantastic books and I want to have a contact with
UFO. I also like japanese instant food cal- led UFO (japanese
spagetti)."
" I don't know, what I want to be, when I grow up. When I was
small, I wanted to be an architect. But now I don't know, what
profession I like. I want to grow up, and then I shall know."
" How do I want the world to be better when I grow up? I want
to see the world without catastrophies. I want to see it in green
colours. I want better civilizations to help us a little bit. But we
must help our blue planet first. "
" What can I do now to make these dreams come true? Now I can't do
much. I must to learn and know a lot of different things. We must plant
many trees, because plants can help us to save from ecological
catastrophies. And for fewer quantity illnesses, after what people can
die, we can be good each to other."
** EXACTLY WHAT IS KIDS-91?
KIDS-91 is a grassroot project for kids ages 10 to 15. The goal is to involve as many kids as possible in a global dialog which is going on right now until May 12, 1991. Some of it is done electronically - for those who have access to modems and computers. And some of it is done by mail or in other forms.
The task seems simple enough: to collect the childrens' responses to four questions:
1) Who am I? 2) What do I want to be when I grow up? 3) How do I want the world to be better when I grow up? 4) What can I do NOW to help this come true?
We also want them to draw themself in their future role/world.
After the 12th of May, the responses will be turned into an exhibition that will be sent back to the children of the world.
* GETTING THEM ONLINE
The number of children in the world is staggering. The thought of reaching a considerable number through conventional channels was never viewed as realistic by those who started KIDS-91. The online resource had to be the basis of the project.
Today, seven months later, responses have been received from all over the world. They have been sent in by children, parents, teachers, and others from Canada, Norway, the United States, Spain, Brazil, Latvia, Australia, the United Kingdom, Finland, Japan, Finland, and the Soviet Union. And there are
still five months to go until the KIDS-91 "Big Bang" on May 12, 1991!
Users of bulletin board systems and networks in other countries are getting ready to send responses from children in their countries.
Watch for news from Argentina, Singapore, Poland, Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, Sweden, India, Austria, Malaysia, Ireland, South Africa, Mexico, Chile, Puerto Rico, Israel, Germany, Nicaragua, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Hong Kong, and many more.
On the other hand, there are still many countries where the KIDS- 91 message has probably not yet been received. We therefore ask the help of all networkers to spread the word further.
* WONDERFUL OPPORTUNITIES
But, why bother?
The main reason is that the children are our future. By exposing them to our medium - directly or indirectly - we can hopefully help them find solutions to problems that we have been unable to solve. Like poverty, unemployment, war, environmental destruction, and so on. The list is long.
We want to help our children realize their personal visions through participating in a global interactive initiative. We hope to empower them by demonstrating how they can directly affect social change, while also developing marketable skills. We want to raise their consciousness about the "global village" in which they live.
Another good reason to bother is the sheer energy of the four KIDS-91 questions. They represent a simple but powerful force that spreads quickly, involves people, and helps push technological frontiers.
Many teachers view KIDS-91 as a wonderful teaching and learning opportunity. Its global scope lends itself naturally to lessons in geography and cultural awareness. The simple questions and responses given by youth the same age as their students facilitates the teaching of English as a second language, etc.
To exploit the opportunities to their full potential, however, the teachers need access to the responses received from other countries. And, the most efficient way of doing that is by modem.
Some teachers are using KIDS-91 to raise funds to purchase personal computers and communication equipment. We are actively promoting such actions, and are able to provide interested teachers with material for use in proposals.
* TOWARD ONE WORLD
KIDS-91 is taking place on many networks, in many conferences. The most global of these "places" is our discussion forum on Internet. Access is free. (Send email to OPRESNO@COMA.UIO.NO if you want to know how to subscribe.)
We also have a discussion group for kids on the Internet called KIDCAFE. Kids around the world are developing "keypal" relationships -- and learning about each other's cultures and life styles. Here's a simple exchange from an American boy to a Norwegian girl who met in the KIDCAFE :
Hello Karina,
This is is Bill again. I have pets too! They're names are Cyrus, Willie, Otis and Thor. Otis and Thor are big dogs! Cyrus and Willie are cats. I am staying home from school today because I am sick.
Bill Unsworth
While Internet is one of the most widely accessible networks in the world, many people do not have access to it. And often if they do, it is costly or cumbersome, even when using services like CompuServe, FidoNet, Metanet, TWICS, PortaCom, Dialcom, GeoNet, or whatever.
KIDS-91 is indirectly helping to change this situation. The demands of the participants motivate system operators and sponsors to invest in better email gateways, parallel conferencing software, and other methods of porting responses between systems.
At the same time, the project is serving another important purpose. By the end of the yearlong effort, we will have a valuable database of knowledge about the current state of the planet's communications infrastructure - and particularly where kids and classrooms can get online.
So you see - there are all kinds of reasons to get involved in KIDS-91. Please help a kid participate today -- particularly in those countries where modems have not yet reached the grassroots. Our future may very well depend on it!
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ACS GLOBALink: Online For a Smokefree Planet
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by Nancy Stefanik
On Friday, November 23rd, 1990, U.S. Trade Representative Carla Hills announced that the United States was dropping its 18-month-old trade case against Thailand over that country's tobacco-related health laws. This outcome contrasts sharply with earlier trade cases brought by the U.S. against Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea in which those countries made significant concessions on a wide range of issues to avoid U.S. trade retaliation. This recent development may very well signal a turning point in the United States' pro-tobacco trade policy. (ACS GLOBALink Information Alert, December 4, 1990)
What happened? How could Thailand withstand pressure that even an economic powerhouse like Japan couldn't resist just a few years ago? What's changed?
------------------------
In January 1990, tobacco control advocates representing all regions of the world convened under the auspices of the American Cancer Society to explore new means of strengthening resistance to the incursions of the transnational tobacco companies (TTCs). They knew that unless current trends are arrested, by the year 2050, 12 million people worldwide will die each year of tobacco-related diseases - more than five times the current death toll. And that the overwhelming majority of these deaths would occur not in Western Europe or North America or Australia, but in Asia, Latin America, Africa, and eastern European countries. At the January "summit", advocates from Thailand and other developing countries warned about the aggressive efforts of the TTCs and implored assistance from the international tobacco control community. The group agreed that a new level of global communication and strategic coordination was essential to effectively counter these efforts. And so, ACS GLOBALink was born.
ACS GLOBALink is a computer-based communications system developed by the Advocacy Institute for the American Cancer Society. It was officially launched at the 7th World Conference on Tobacco and Health held in Perth, Australia in April 1990, and now has about 50 members including representatives from the World Health Organization (Geneva and Copenhagen); the Pan American Health Organization; the International Organization of Consumer Unions (Malyasia); the International Union against Cancer (Geneva); national cancer or heart societies in the U.S., Canada, Indonesia, and Belfast; governmental public health departments in Australia, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Canada, the U.S., Japan, Tanzania, and the UK; the British Medical Association; the American Public Health Association; grassroots organizations in Norway, Japan, Taiwan, Egypt, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Argentina, and Australia.
The network features:
* a twice-weekly news service on tobacco-related developments worldwide. More than a dozen news correspondents around the world provide news for monthly regional spotlights.
* Strategy Exchanges. Advocates use GLOBALink's computer conferencing facilities to develop strategies for resisting the TTCs, share experiences and report on tobacco-related developments, and ask for the assistance of other advocates when needed.
* Global Action Alerts. GLOBALink staff work with advocates involved in intense tobacco control campaigns which could use the mobilization of the international health community to develop action alerts succinctly providing sufficient background, relevant facts and quotes, and suggested actions.
* a searchable database of news summaries, quotes and facts. This useful database can be searched by subject, date, or keyword.
* other advocacy resources. These include case studies of successful and unsuccessful campaigns, guides to increasing tobacco excise taxes and promoting advertising bans, fact files on the tobacco companies, and a directory of international advocates.
* access to SCARCNet, the sister network linking tobacco control advocates around the U.S.
ACS GLOBALink is more than a computer network however. From the onset, it was recognized that not all interested advocates would be able to access it directly due to lack of financial resources or electronic communications capability. GLOBALink staff has thus been working in partnership with the international health and consumer organizations to disseminate strategic information and news to their membership through more traditional means including their newsletters. Action Alerts, excerpts from GLOBALink's Strategy Exchanges and News Bulletins have also been faxed, mailed, and telexed when necessary. The American Cancer Society is actively seeking sponsors to set up regional GLOBALink clearinghouses and subsidize the usage of advocates without the financial means to participate directly. UNICEF has recently agreed to sponsor GLOBALink's youth-oriented efforts.
Within six months, the GLOBALink communications system has demonstrated its value. "Ambassador Hills' announcement came after an intense 18-month campaign waged by tobacco lobbyists and health advocates around the world. Thai officials say pressure from the health community was crucial in forcing the U.S. to drop its case without achieving its objectives. The campaign included several rounds of hearings and the submission of hundreds of written comments by international and domestic groups to the U.S. Congress and the "Section 301 Committee" which advises the President in cases such as this." (ACS GLOBALink Information Alert, December 4, 1990) "The U.S. Trade Representative requested public comment on the question of whether trade sanctions should be imposed on Thailand, but provided a deadline which made it difficult for groups outside the U.S. to participate. Through GLOBALink, the international community was mobilized and informed of developments on a regular basis. As a result, more than a dozen distinguished international organizations wrote to let the USTR know that trade sanctions against Thailand would provoke harsh international condemnation." (December letter to 250 advocates from GLOBALink staff)
The next GLOBALink mobilization is already underway. Activists in New Zealand alerted GLOBALink staff to an announcement by the newly elected National party government that they will be introducing legislation early next year to repeal the ban on all forms of tobacco sponsorship that was passed and enacted by the former Labor government this fall. New Zealand's ban includes some of the world's most stringent restrictions on tobacco sponsorship of sports and cultural activities. A GLOBALink Action Alert was developed providing background information, proposed actions, and draft letters to New Zealand government officials.
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The tobacco industry has seemingly unlimited resources at its disposal. Hopefully, GLOBALINK will help save many of the lives the tobacco industry is prepared to kill in the interest of business expansion.
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THE MATURATION OF THE MATRIX
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by John S. Quarterman
Camping
When I finished The Matrix (Digital Press, 1990) in late 1989, the web of computers and humans it described was divided into at least three camps:
The First Camp, of research and academic computer networks. In their own eyes, the first, the best, and the defenders of the Only True Way (which one? depends on which continent you're on) against the barbarian hordes.
The Second Camp, of commercial database and conferencing systems and public data networks. Perhaps not always acceptable in academe, but certainly profitable.
The Third Camp, of conferencing systems. Not usually as profitable as the Second Camp, but sometimes as respectable as the First Camp, and frequently more fun than either.
Some of these camps (particularly the First and the Third) hardly even acknowledged eachs existence, and the division between one of them (the First) and the rest was so strong that I adopted the traditional term WorldNet for the former and distinguished as more general (and optimistic) Bill Gibson's name, the Matrix, to include the other two camps, as well.
We've hardly reached the state of networking described in Gibson's book, Neuromancer, where everyone is connected, the interfaces are graphical, aural, contextual, and allusive, as well as verbal, and cyberspace is so real that many prefer to be in it than the ``real'' world. Well, ok, so that last part is already true, and words are enough for context and allusion, too.
For the rest, the necessary speeds, storage capacities, and user interfaces will come, and with them are already coming millions of new users of new kinds. We're getting there.
One can debate whether we *want* to get there, but if we assume that for the moment, I think I can safely assert that warring camps do not contribute to the general usability of the Matrix. Fortunately, the various network nations have in recent years mostly at least accorded each other diplomatic recognition, and there are many trade routes between them now. This isn't to say there aren't border skirmishes and occasional acts of terrorism, but at least we haven't achieved full scale warfare.
Let's take a quick look at some recent adventures in interconnectivity.
The Ivory Tower, the Friendly Barbarians, and the Big Top
In the Bad Old Days (a year or so ago), blatant capitalist outfits like CompuServe and MCI Mail were not allowed access to that pristine (or at least white-washed) ivory tower, the TCP/IP Internet. (This didn't stop many people from getting mail there anyway, e.g., through DASnet, but that's another story.) But even before the fall of the Berlin Wall, it became possible for Internet users to send mail to him@compuserve.com and her@mcimail.com, and the reverse. It's true that he can't send to her nor her to him through the Internet, but that sort of problem has become a major topic of national policy discussion, with workshops sponsored by the Kennedy School of Government and the Office of Technology Assessment, and with implications for the future of gigabit networking technology here and worldwide.
The Americans, Europeans, and Japanese have been using each other as reasons for more funding in high speed network research for years. They're still doing this, if anything more than before. But now there are new developments like the group of U.S. federal agencies that fund the Internet co-authoring reports with the organizations (E.C. and other) that fund and and organize networking efforts in Europe.
The Europeans have even (some of them) admitted that perhaps OSI (the long-heralded but not-very-evident Fourth Camp) might not be the Only True Way, and maybe something that works now might be of use, even if TCP/IP is a barbarous American acronym. Even stranger, some Americans have even admitted that there might be something useful about OSI, even if it has been mostly promoted by those well-known foreigners, the Europeans. Meanwhile, the First Camp has pitched its Big Top, the Internet, over the whole industrialized world, from Australia to Finland, by way of Canada, Mexico, Japan, Korea, and even Moscow (maybe; depends on who you ask and which week).
As for the Japanese, the Americans are convinced that Japan Inc. is going to do gigabit networking before Congress (or maybe IBM and MCI?) gets around to it, and the Japanese are convinced that they are way behind the Americans. Who is right? Well, my business partner and I spent a couple weeks in Japan last month, and we're writing a book about Networks in Japan with our favorite translator. We're aiming for simultaneous publication in Japanese and English, by the middle of 1991. Stay tuned.
The Fun Camp
The Electronic Networking Association has for years represented the Third Camp of Networking, which probably prefers to think of itself as the First Camp. Whichever it is, there have always been some marvelously colored tents in it, inhabited or frequented by interesting, amusing, and useful people in salons and parties, and even caravanserais of tents of the same color. Some of them have even established caravan routes to the Third World and other geographically remote areas. Unfortunately, there hasn't been a lot of tent-to-tent communication, and the trade regulations and tariffs between the tent-states have sometimes been horrendous.
But the most recent ENA (San Francisco, May 1990) showed ambassadors (or maybe they were trade representatives; I don't understand all the local customs) sitting around the same table and teaching each other trade languages like RFC1036 and X.400. Many of them have even already adopted noms-de-comm for their tents in WorldNet dialects such as DNS. (And NETWEAVER is being edited this month by a Norwegian who is collecting articles by RFC822 mail!)
Big Brother's Side Show
Now that the Berlin Wall is no more, and even the Department of Defense has to admit that the Soviets aren't much of a threat anymore to the American Way of Life, what do the powers that take it upon themselves to defend said Way have for an enemy? Hackers! Maybe it's the KGB's fault for sponsoring the Spy Who Broke the Net (I assume that one has gotten so much publicity that I don't need to explain it; after all, who am I, Readers Digest?), but it's no joke.
The Secret Service (if you didn't know we had one in the States, they're the people whom you usually see in dark suits with wires out their ears when the American president appears on TV) has apparently decided people who use computers are the new commie pinko subversives.
Keeping source code that you used in a previous job could land you in jail. Publishing apparently harmless documents could get your printing press (if electronic and not paper) seized at gunpoint. Having employees who once used to be associated with groups that might have done something illegal recently might get all the computers in your company seized without a search warrant.
All hypothetical? 'Fraid not. And it's not even as if the gummint really knew what it was doing. They seem to be attacking something they don't understand *because* they don't understand it. If you *do* understand computers, don't be surprised if you get a surprise visit someday.
Fortunately, there are people attempting to do something about this problem, from a legal, and especially from an educational, perspective. A good example is the Electronic Frontier Foundation, jointly founded and funded ($150,000 each) by Mitch Kapor of Lotus-1,2,3 fame and Steve Wozniak of Apple fame.
Maturity?
One of the strangest cases of recent cooperation is the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference, to be held March 1991 at San Francisco International Airport. This thing is co-sponsored by a list of organizations as long as Mycroft Holmes' arm, from just about every group associated with computer communication you can think of, from ENA to Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, to founders of various large software and hardware companies, to lawyers and cops. Pretty unusual, but it hardly even sticks out in these days when the Barbarians have caravans to the Big Top.
So, will we achieve cyberspace soon, will that be the Maturation of the Matrix? Maybe. Me, I'd like to see maturation evidenced by cooperating camps and extended access. Maybe the Circus would be a better metaphor than the Matrix....