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From: Orrin Winton
Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 21:53:28 -0800
To: technomads@UCSD.EDU
Subject: experiences with sub-100 IQs

Latest adventure with my Konexx acoustic cup modem (4800 baud):

At the school i go to here in Monterey, California, the campus security chief and his assistant found me hooking up to the Net on a phone company pay phone. They weren't nice, they weren't interested in a demonstration of "internet by pay phone." They believed i was doing computer crime, or bypassing phone company charges, or subverting something, or DOING SOMETHING, ANYTHING, BAD!

I'm not kidding ... i couldn't reason with them, and they couldn't understand anyway. These are not police officers, but they're the administrators of the campus Police Academy which trains future peace officers for California careers.

After careful thought i informed them i could not comply with their request to cease using the phone, and could they please call the police. When the REAL cop arrived, he was great... informed me i was breaking no law.

Then the next night the campus cops came back and threatened to charge me with prowling... this is getting tiresome, i thought. After another harangue i went back to getting my net fix. Today i filed a formal academic grievance against the suckers, called the phone company who said i was in the right but they couldn't take a complaint against the school. Shucks. My grievance letter went to a Dean and the campus president, and i think it's going to get results. No more harassment.

I recall Steve relating here some of his experiences with suspicious locals on his bike trips, people suspicious of him hooking up to the phones... didn't really think it would happen on a campus in this part of california, but it did. Fear of technology, fear of unconventional people possessing toys they don't have and wouldn't know how to use or have a use for even if they had them...

orrin@redshift.com

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  "Gravissima calamitas umquam supra Occidentem accidens erat
   religio Christiana."
                                         -- Gore Vidal, A.D. 1987


  Orrin C. Winton WN1Z
  P.O. Box 89
  Big Sur  CA    93920     (CM96)        orrin@redshift.com


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