ANST - Fw: Help (hoax!)

[Michael Tucker]

Greetings, all from Michael Silverhands:

N. Hunter wrote:
> > Sorry for the waste of bandwith, but this was just forwarded to me, and I
> > think it will affect us all........
> >
> > >>> Guess we realized the government would sooner or later find a way to
> > >>> tax us for using the internet. Congress will be voting in less than
> > >>> two

To which Charlene Charette responded:
> And a waste it is.  For the debunking of this latest twist on an old myth see
> http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html#internetcharge.  Folks, please check
> these things out before passing them along.
> 
> --Perronnelle

Thank you for pointing out this hoax, HL Perronnelle, and for the link to the
government's Computer Incident Advisory Capability (CIAC) (a dumb acronym, but
an extremely useful Web site). For those reading this who do not have access
to the Web, here is the complete text from the CIAC advisory:

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January 1999 

This is a variant of the historic modem tax hoax of bygone years. This latest
version started making its rounds on Nov 06, 1998, based apparently on a CNN
story. Early versions pointed the finger at the FCC as the villian in this
story. Then it was 'the government', then it was 'the Congress'. 

FCC statement:
"... the FCC has no intention of assessing per-minute charges on
Internet traffic or of making any changes in the way consumers obtain
and pay for access to the Internet." 

This alert is a hoax. The earliest electronic version of it, which does not
urge any particular action but merely reports and comments on the story,
appeared on Usenet on Nov 06, 1998. Appearing under the thread "INTERNET PER
MINUTE FEES COMING?" on the ba.internet news group, it cited a CNN story aired
that same day. A later version, urging everyone to contact Congress, appeared
on Nov 18, 1998 in a different news group and referenced an FCC release dated
Oct 30, 1998 as the source of the CNN story. The actual FCC proceeding which
apparently set off this mushrooming flurry of alerts dealt with the 'reciprocal
billing' issue, which relates to charges for interconnectivity between various
telcos. 

[ text of hoax snipped ]

In reaction to it, the FCC issued an official statement of December, 1998, which
can be found at <http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Factsheets/nominute.html>.
This publication restates that the reciprocal billing issue does not include any
proposal to have metered billing of any sort by the telcos for internet usage. 

Reputable organizations producing legislative alerts will include some basic
information which will assist the reader in determining how and when to respond.
Most if not all of this information was missing from this spurious alert. 

1) Congress does not vote as a single body. Any alert should name the specific
body (House or Senate) scheduled to vote to whom letters/email should be sent.
It will also indicate whether this is in front of a committee, and which
committee, or that it is set for a floor vote. 

2) At a minimum, a specific bill number will be cited such as S.1615 or H.R.3888.
The reader can then check the Congressional bill status web site
<http://thomas.loc.gov> to determine the precise current status of the bill
before writing to your member of Congress about it. 

3) A specific alert date, and a deadline date for responses, will be included to
help in determining whether the alert is stale. 

4) A legitimate alert will say exactly what is wrong with (or right with) the
bill, possibly even citing a specific section. Check the language of the bill on
Thomas to ensure that amendments to the bill in between the time the alert went
out and the time that you're reading it haven't changed it to the point where the
alert is no longer relevant. 

It should also be noted that this alert began making its rounds after the 105th
Congress had adjourned. Although the House of Representatives came back into a
lame duck (post election) session to consider the issue of impeachment of the
president, no other issues were considered. And the Senate did not reconvene at
all. The 106th Congress was officially convened in early January, 1999. At the
time the new Congress is seated at the beginning of every odd numbered year, all
bills not enacted into law by the end of the previous Congress are swept away.
The new Congress starts over with a clean slate, introducing entirely new bills
which must make their way through the entire legislative process. A legislative
alert from 1998 is null and void in January, 1999, whether it was spurious at the
time or not.

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I hope this helps many of you to learn to recognize (and ignore) this kind of
internet hoax. I thank Pug for his vigilance at defending this listserver from
such hoaxes, which seem to arise in a never-ending stream. (I'm sure he'll have
this one filtered out before long.)

Yours in service,
Michael
(Baron Michael Silverhands)

p.s. I don't usually include my "signature" file on SCA-related messages, but
for those of you who wonder how I'm qualified to speak about computer-related
issues, here it is:

-- 
Michael C. Tucker   | Java Developer
Software Engineer   | Sun Certified System Engineer
Solid Systems, Inc. | Certified Lotus Professional
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