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Ärende: FidoNews 21:44 [04/08]: In The Snooze Ten Years Ago
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IN THE SNOOZE TEN YEARS AGO
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THE S.C. ITALIAN FIDOBUST: SIX MONTHS LATER
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Pietropaolo Bianchi, 2:331/307
Former NC331 (93-94)
The so called "Italian Fidobust" was not aimed at FidoNet per se after
all. Six months later, we have a better appreciation of the whole
picture. And before anything else is said, rest assured the Fido
community worldwide: Italian Fidonet has NEVER been zeroed, as I read
somewhere on Fidonews. Shocked of course and maybe made wiser, but
always adherent to the old Heinleinian motto that "the routes must
roll". Mailflow never really stopped. We are again some 400 active
nodes now, a cooperative, smoothly running region overall.
Let me recall the facts. On May 11, 1994, 122 patrols of the "Guardia
di Finanza", the financial branch of italian police, knocked at the
door of 122 people, mostly but not exclusively Fido sysops or
cosysops, in execution of a confiscation warrant issued by the until
then unheard-of Chief Prosecutor at Pesaro (nice town of central
Italy), Dr. Gaetano Savoldelli-Pedrocchi.
The police at Pesaro, within an investigation about prostitution, had
observed a heavy going-and-coming of young males from a flat in center
town. They had rushed in, only to discover a full software piracy
business run by some two Mr. Paolorosso and Mr. Cardinali. Thousands
of labeled and properly inventorized floppies in cartons, label
printers, Amigas, PCs, and the like. Among the "like", a modem, a
Telix (unregisterd copy) and alas, a Telix dialing directory.
The Telix dialing directory was the Ariadne's thread that drove
Prosecutor Savoldelli's squads in the homes of 122 hobbyists all over
Italy in search of accomplices. The warrant cited the possibility that
the two pirates acted "together with unknowns" to circulate pirated
software, and it imposed to police to "sequester anything apt to the
purpose" found at the domiciles of the indagated people.
You could have had your BBS called by those two pirates, and
automagically you became a suspect pirate too, you got visited by
Police, and you had your system sealed and taken away. The large scale
of the action forced the police to recruit for the mission any even
vaguely computer-literate agent (i.e., able enough to distinguish a
printer from a stove). As it quickly became evident, the average
knowledgeability of the recuited cop turned out to be not up to the
purpose, giving rise to funny and not-so-funny anecdotes.
Paolo Borghesi, 2:331/204, a well mannered teenager student of
Brescia, had his sleeping room sealed for a few days until the
policemen could make their way ahead of it. All too often Mummy had
told him "Paolo make order in all this mess".
Alfredo Persivale, 2:331/302, the owner of a mechanical factory in
Buccinasco, ran his BBS over a LAN connecting his firm's
administration computers. The whole information system at his plants
was put under seal and taken away. He purchased a stock of ballpens
and frantically started billing his clients by hand.
Giulio Cipriani, 2:331/344, had everything electronically-looking in
his home sequestered: computer, modems, CDROM reader and CDROMs,
mouse, mousepad, mouse cover, power outlet extension and allegedly, an
answering machine.
Max Berni, 2:332/301, a prepossessing summer beach-beau in Rimini,
whose messages used to be written all guts and nuts, had his system
totally sequestered. Following the shock, as soon as he could lay
hands on a backup system, his messages regained a totally unexpected
logical sense, grammar smoothness and overall readability.
Mario Mure', NC332, ran his host on an Amiga. The cops were reported
as watching puzzled to his system, trying to issue some infruitful
"dir" commands, and eventually taking away everything. His NEC took
over him in polling the other NCs the very same night.
Walter Mascarin, 2:331/323, was among the happy few visited by
knowledgeable policemen. They came, saw, extensively searched, found
nothing, went away leaving him with his system intact and a receipt of
search performed.
Dozens of stories like the above were reported from all corners of the
country, all pointing to policemen generally quite polite but not
quite competent, with a generalized "take away now, control later"
approach.
Fidonet being the major amateur network in Italy, if only for
statistical reasons Fido nodes (about 30-35: a 10% of the italian net)
were the most often struck, thence the popular term "fidobust".
However, also co-sysops and points were reportedly visited, and to a
lesser degree, non-fido sysops.
The region shivered when rumors ran that this wasn't but the first
wave of the attack, and that from the logs of the inquired nodes a
chain reaction would ensue. A couple of me-too type inquiries soon
after the major Fidobust, hitting half a dozen nodes in Turin and one
in Taranto (the latter action possibly politically biased against the
leftist host of the "Peacelink" Net), strenghtened this impression.
On the other hand, a few truly pirate, alternet boards, were
surprisingly spared by the first hit. They were reported as having
spontaneously "crashed" soon thereafter, though.
The busting of many honest nodes and the sparing of some pirate boards
seemed to somewhat substantiate the early claims of a few radicals,
that behind the attack lay an obscure manoeuvre primarily aimed at
wiping off free amateur telematics, rather than against piracy.
The contemporary announcement by Olivetti, the major computer
manufacturer in Italy, that they would set up a nationwide telematic
service named "Italia Online", and the deepest involvement of Italian
Prime Mininster and television tycoon Mr. Berlusconi in the
information media market, made such suspicions, exaggerate they might
seem, not theoretically unfounded.
So far however no clue of any kind has been reported to substantiate
such allegations. Six months after its announcement, Italia Online is
still offline, and the roughness of the attack has been definitely
ascribed to a poor choice of objectives and methods by the inquirers,
who even partially admitted them.
A parliament official interrogation on the hit was immediately asked
by some radical MP's. Prosecutor Savoldelli kept a press conference to
explain the operation. Newspapers and magazines reported on the facts.
In this climate, a few sysops definitely pulled the plug. Among them
former R33 Founder and long time RC33, Giorgio Rutigliano, who
declared: by no means whatever pleasure i can draw from amateur
fidonetting balances the risk of being seized by the police. I always
have been fully legal and have promoted the fullest legality in the
net, and don't deserve this. Amateur telematics game has definitely
gone out of control.
But for the few who left, the other sysops held on tighter to the
RC33, Giancarlo Cairella, who had truly hard days acting as a relay of
news and counsels, together with the other *C's and with an attorney
sysop. Routes were redesigned where necessary, and mailflow promptly
resumed everywhere. Alternets, who had always blamed italian Fidonet
as being "obsessive with rules and paranoid about legal issues", got
duly frightened and somewhat looked for reapprochment. An "all
networks' sysops" conference was established.
Over the time, our Region has regained "normality". After examination,
one after another, the sequestered systems are being given back to
their operators, and messages of the latter restart popping out in the
net. Current hot topics have returned to technics, such as V.34
modems, ISDN services and Internet connectivity, about which people
are truly going crazy.
But in the depth something has changed.
We no longer regard ourselves telematicians as a "lucky island" where
real life and outer people won't reach. Legal issues are no longer
perceived as moral obligations and policy agreements of ours own, but
as very material constraints instead. We are fully aware that the
fellow sysops seized by police, though having had their materials
restituted, may still undergo a process whose outcome nobody can
foresee. The law on software and telematics piracy is too recent with
little or no antecedents. The only sure thing, whichever the outcome,
will be the legal expenses every seized sysop will have to sustain, in
the USD 1000 range.
On the broader picture, we have become aware of the need for a good
legislation on BBS. If being listed on a dialing directory is enough
to get inquired, we definitely want a law to back us up. Fido merry
times when we described ourselves as a loosely organized anarchy kept
together by the nodelist were great times, but for us they are over.
We need to know where our responsibilities begin and where they end,
what to do with users and uploaders, if we are forced to surely
identify them or not, and if so, how. We want to know from law
scholars if not reading in transit mail makes us liable of omitted
vigilance, or if reading it makes us liable of privacy violation. We
ask clearcut criteria for allowing or not allowing crypted messages,
we want to know who's is the final responsibility for echomail
offending messages, and so on.
The benefit of all this clash is that our debates now go beyond the
rather futile "long signature" and "commercial message" issues, and
attain to some more basic rights, and profounder questions. Our story
made noise, and together with other social and political organizations
we are given the opportunity to influence the establishment of a good
law on telematic messaging, and we'll work on this.
The debate is running and we will be glad to share our conclusions
with the rest of fidonet community when we reach consensus or obtain
some favourable legislation.
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