🚀 go-pugleaf

craig@scot.demon.co.uk (Craig Cockburn) writes:

>In article <34vlg3$1gd@salmon.maths.tcd.ie> efi@maths.tcd.ie "EFI" writes:


>All very well, but what exactly is electronic frontier Ireland??

That's a very good question. 

Electronic Frontier Ireland is an organisation of people who want to make
sure Information Technology, the Internet, electronic communication, etc.,
chang Ireland for the better, not for the worse. 

Current areas of interest are: Information Technology and Irish law; price
increases for analogue leased lines in Ireland. 

We've produced a booklet explaining how to get on the Internet in Ireland,
which we hope to begin distributing next week.

There follows an interview with one of our members that was published in a
national newspaper.

Antoin O Lachtnain (aolchtnn@alf2.tcd.ie)


This is an OCR of an interview printed in Computimes, in the Irish Times. It was written by Fiachra O Drisceol and Michael Cunningham
(computimes@irish-times.ie). Contact them before distributing it further.

Also, some information has changed. EFI can now be reached at EFI, Box 1,
Regent's House, Dublin 2, Ireland.


On the new frontier
 
 
Today marks the public launch of Electronic Frontier
Ireland, the new lobby group to promote digital culture and
protect the rights of those partaking in it. Michael
Cunningham and Fiachra O Marcaigh report
 
 .........................................
 
 
 
 
SUCH IS the pace of technological change nowadays that it
has rapidly outstripped the ability of legal systems to
catch up _ creating many grey areas on computer use and
misuse, privacy and computer access. It's one of the main
reasons Tom Murphy gives for taking the initiative to form
Electronic Frontier Ireland (EFI).  
 
  This legal uncertainty leaves individuals unsure of their
  rights, he argues, opening the way for shock-horror hacker
  scares, and hasty, repressive legislation or legal
  crackdowns in which all sorts of rights are ignored.
 
  In conversation it quickly becomes apparent that Murphy,
  who works as a programmer at a Dublin insurance company,
  believes in computers and communications technologies. Not
  just in the machines, or their productivity, but in all
  the social, educational and cultural opportunities that
  they open up.
 
 When he talks about people having their computer access cut
 off aribitrarily, a note of horror enters his voice. But
 then  when asked about the new organisation's top
 priorities, he stresses positive steps to safeguard and
 expand the possibilities of the digital revolution, in
 several broad areas such as:
 
 The promotion of Internet and bulletin board usage;
 
 The improvement of Irish communications structures;
 
 Clarification of the laws surrounding computer usage, and
 
 Safeguarding electronic privacy by setting up a ``key
 repository'' to allow people to encrypt their e-mail.
 
 
How it started
 
 Murphy's own experience of the Internet began as an
 undergraduate at Trinity College six years ago. ``This is
 where my interest came from. And I've always been involved
 in role-playing gaming,'' he says.  These two strands
 collided after ``Operation Sundevil'' in 1990, when
 anti-hacker raids by US law enforcement agencies spread
 ever wider, taking in bulletin boards and a range of
 ordinary, completely innocent users.
 
  Among the latter was Steve Jackson Games, a publisher of
  role-playing games. Murphy was among its many fans around
  the world, and was naturally surprised when its doors were
  broken down and computers confiscated in the search for an
  allegedly  stolen computer document.
 
  In the US, the raids sparked the formation of the
  Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) to defend the civil
  rights of computer users. But here in Ireland it was still
  ``very distant at the time,'' he recalls.
 
 Due to the circumstances in which the EFF was formed, and
 its high profile in successfully defending some people
 facing huge penalties for alleged hacking, there was an
 impression that its main purpose was to defend people
 caught up in hacking cases.  Murphy argues that the Irish
 situation is very different.
 
 ``We didn't really have people in the Irish policing system
 booting down the doors.  EFI is mainly not about that but
 about promoting computing culture,'' he says. ``The problem
 is that there's a lot of journalists out there who can't
 sell an article about ordinary computer usage but can about
 some 14-year-olds hacking into military systems or
 whatever.
 
 ``The EFF in the States have to fight against a suspicious
 and hostile government. We want to mould things before it
 ever gets to that stage, so that we can educate our
 government and the general public. We want to get it right
 first time and not have to try and change a bad set of
 laws.''
 
 
Access
 
 Meanwhile, other issues of rights, privacy, and access to
 networks were beginning to trickle onto the political
 agenda. ``It had been mulling over in my mind _ I'm the
 kind of person who supports Amnesty International, I'm wary
 of censorship in general,'' he says, recalling instances of
 people being kicked off systems in Ireland for things
 they'd said.
 
 Then after seeing an article about US Government policy on
 the encryption methods available to individuals, he mailed
 Stanton McCandlish at EFF about whether there was a similar
 group in Ireland. He also posted a message on tcd.talk, a
 computer mailing area in Trinity College for staff,
 students and some graduates.
 
  ``I got a number of replies, people saying very quickly
  that it's not about hacking but about rights  _ rights and
  freedom of speech and privacy on the one hand and on the
  other about more people using the Internet etc. The
  Internet is now attracting people from more walks of life
  and getting far easier to use _ it shouldn't be just for
  techie anoraks, an elite few with the knowledge, but about
  the basic right to communicate.''
 
 While EFI will not be expecting everybody to get free
 Internet access, it will be campaigning for it to be cheap.
 Among its long-term aims is that every library in Ireland
 should provide Internet access. Another issue is the
 allocation of resources; for example,  the much
 talked-about plans for EU structural funds envisage
 concrete highways rather than digital ones.  ``We could get
 a national network through connections in public libraries
 and so on,'' he says.
 
 
Privacy
 
 The US Government is currently attempting to promote one
method for encryption of digital communications: a hardware
standard based on a single computer chip which it says will
protect communications _ but which will also allow
law-enforcement agencies to overcome the encryption with a
``back door'' built into every chip. This has sent major
ripples throughout the international computing community,
with concern about the erosion of personal rights. Legal
uncertainty surrounds the main alternative _ softwar e  such
as PGP (Pretty Good Privacy)  which provides users with
powerful encryption techniques of their own and also allows
people to ``sign'' a letter electronically, proving that it
originated with them.
 
  To Murphy the case for ordinary users having their own
  means of encryption for e-mail is straightforward.
 
   ``What do you do when you mail a normal letter?'' he
   asks. ``You write it, you sign it with your signature,
   and then what? You put it in an envelope, you lick the
   envelope and seal it, and maybe even sign the back of it,
   then bring it to your post office and presume that the
   post office is not going to open your mail. If it did, it
   would be an enormous scandal.
 
 ``We already take that sort of privacy for granted. We want
 to get the same level of privacy and authenticity for
 electronic mail as ordinary mail. Basically PGP is the
 envelope, and PGP signatures are your signatures at the end
 of the (electronic) letter.''
 
 
Legislation
 
 The EFI argues that legislation in Ireland, just as in most
 other countries, has been slow to catch up with the digital
 explosion, in an era where a book, say, can now be
 electronically sent from one side of the planet to the
 other in seconds. ``Will judges be able to handle _ with
 the current laws _ the newer technologies and their
 cultures? Take the publishing laws. These were based on
 physical printing presses, and you knew where they were.
 But everything is so much quicker now _ the Data Protection
 Act is not based on the speed at which you can delete
 information.''
 
 For example, he says that when people resort to that Act to
     ask for computerised information about themselves which
     might be inaccurate or misleading, a company can quite
     easily hide the particular database, change the
     information or simply deny its existence. ``Computers
     work an awful lot faster than the law,'' he says,
     returning to the Operation Sundevil cases where US
     Government agents kicked down doors and sometimes bent
     the rules  ``because the old laws were insufficient''.
     There is a pressing need to change the law to ensure
     that the rights which people enjoy in other areas are
     guaranteed to computer users. To this end the EFI
     intends targeting the Law Reform Commission rather than
     looking for changes in th e Constitution.
 
 
 
The future
 
 The EFI has taken shape over several months of busy
 networking. There were delays in getting the  association
 on its feet, ironing out legal and policy details. E-mail
 messages bounced back and forth to the EFF in the US at the
 rate of three a day. Electronic Frontier Australia (which
 began a few months ahead of EFI) also helped with advice.
 ``We're trying to get it right first time, spelling out
 clear short, medium and long-term aims,'' he says. The
 organisation is now  about to be incorporated as a
 non-profit company, it has a charter, an interim committee
 and a clear idea of where it's going.
 
 About 50 people have already signed up before today's
   official launch.  Many of the people who responded to the
   first e-mail postings canvassing interest in the idea
   also volunteered their professional skills. Murphy is
   particularly pleased that Eoin O'Dell, a TCD lecturer
   specialising in information technology law, has joined
   the committee as its legal adviser. There is no
   membership fee for ordinary individuals (unlike the EFF
   in the States, which charges $40) because EFI wants to
   encourage the widest possible membership base. They have
   a treasurer but no cash _ voluntary donations are
   welcomed and there will be a fee for corporate
   membership. ``The main problem we have is to educate the
   public and the politicians about the net and BBSes and
   what they offer Ireland. I can never understand why
   Ireland has not embraced the Internet _ given our
   geographical isolation _ but this is changing  and it was
   the imminent change that forced the creation of EFI. We
   want to mould the future politics of the Internet within
   Ireland.''
 
 
EFI can be contacted by e-mail at EFI-Membership@efi.ie or
by post at 5 Seamount Heights, Malahide, Co Dublin.