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To:      Everybody

From:    Crimson Tablet

Date:    June 26 1999

Subject: PROJECT MEDIA MATRIX




CONTENTS

  This Document Introduces PROJECT MEDIA MATRIX.

  Our World Isn't What It Appears To Be.

  Freedom Of The Press In The United States Of America Is An Illusion.

  Here's An Example.

  Here's The Proof.

  There Are More Examples.

  Where Do You Find The Truth?

  How Do You Know When You Have The Truth?

  Here Are A Few Tips About Finding The Truth On The Internet.

  Why Are There Lies In Our News?

  Why Do The Big News Media Repeat Lies?

  Are There Business Reasons For Repeating Lies?

  How Are Reporters And Middle Managers Controlled?

  How Are The Top Managers And Independents Controlled?

  Who Are In Control?

  Are You Not Yet Convinced?

  The Bad Guys Are Winning.

  Why Are The Good Guys Losing?

  The Good Guys Must Control The Media To Win.

  We Must Urge People To Stop Listening To The Lies.

  We Must Make Obtaining The Truth Easier.

  The Internet Isn't Enough.

  We Must Build The Truth Distribution Network (Abbreviated TDN).

  Here Are Some Ideas About TDN User Features.

  Here Are Some Ideas About TDN Development.

  Here Are Some Ideas About TDN Security.

  We Ought To Be Concerned About Our Safety.

  Please Respect The Privacy Of Participants In PROJECT MEDIA MATRIX.

  To Hide My Identity I'll Use These Precautions.

  Here Are Some Ideas About Distributing This Document.

  Let Us Begin.

  Here's Crimson Tablet's PGP Public Key.




This Document Introduces PROJECT MEDIA MATRIX.

  The goal of PROJECT MEDIA MATRIX is to change, for the better, the
way most people receive news.
  This world has many problems.  Before we're able to fix these
problems, we need to comprehend them and their causes.  But the big
news media aren't helping us. In fact, they're making matters worse.




Our World Isn't What It Appears To Be.

  Or perhaps it is?  But if it is, it has gone mad.
  You know what I mean if you watch the news every evening.  Something
is wrong, but it's difficult to tell exactly what.
  A lot of the serious news is very bad.  Innocent people suffer, and
the guilty people prosper.  Evil is rewarded, and good is punished.
In the instances where justice appears to have been done, there's
doubt, and in general it's difficult to tell the good guys from the
bad guys.
  There's some good news, but a lot less than the bad. Many of these
stories, like scientific breakthroughs, are thinly disguised
advertisements or corporate public relations pieces.  Other reports
are human interest stories, and have little relevance to the general
public.
  There's the so-called neutral news, like sports, news about
Hollywood, and news about other kinds of entertainment.
  And, there's the opinion.  There appears to be a lot of this.
Sometimes it's clearly an editorial.  But usually it's bits and pieces
sprinkled in stories of other kinds.  Sometimes it's sound bites from
experts, so-called, or people in the street, probably carefully
chosen.  Sometimes it's poll results, some of which are totally
bizarre, if not contradictory.
  Is the world actually mad, or does it only appear that way in the
evening news?  Actually it's some of both.
  The world is mad.  But it's more mad than what's shown in the
evening news.  And it has gone mad because of what's shown in the
evening news.




Freedom Of The Press In The United States Of America Is An Illusion.

  Our world has gone mad because the news media that report about it
aren't free.  Amendment 1 to the Constitution of the United States of
America supposedly protects freedom of speech and freedom of the
press, but this is protection in word only.
  Important newsworthy events occur every day.  The big news media
don't report them to you, or worse, they lie about them.  What you see
in the news is probably not what actually occurred.
  "That's Ridiculous!" you say.
  Well I don't expect you to believe this without explanation and
proof, but fortunately there's both.




Here's An Example.

  Perhaps you remember news reports about a siege near Waco Texas in
1993 by the BATF and the FBI against a group called the Branch
Davidians.  According to reports by the big news media, the Branch
Davidians and their leader David Koresh were religious fanatics,
possessed many illegal guns, dealt in illegal drugs, abused children,
and ended their own lives by committing mass suicide and murder on the
last day of the siege.
  What actually occurred was completely different.  The group was a
true church.  The members had unusual religious beliefs, but they were
peaceful people and were well liked by their neighbors and the local
sheriff.  There was no child abuse and they weren't dealing in drugs.
There were guns there because two of the members were licensed gun
dealers.  The BATF's attack against this church was a public relations
event just to benefit their own approaching budget appropriation.
Fifty one days later the FBI committed mass murder of the remaining
Branch Davidians by gassing them, shooting them, burning them.  The
fire destroyed almost all evidence of government wrong doing at that
site.
  A fact that wasn't widely reported is that the surviving Branch
Davidians, those who were charged with murdering the four BATF agents
who died in the initial raid, were eventually found not guilty by
reason of self defense.
  This is an excellent example of how things reported in the news
never actually occurred.




Here's The Proof.

  The excellent Oscar nominated documentary film "Waco: the Rules of
Engagement" shows clearly what occurred in the Waco incident.  It
shows also how the news media reported it.
  The film shows how the FBI blew gas into the building to force the
people to the rear of the building.  It includes infrared video shots
from an airplane flying just above the site.  The airplane video shows
projectiles shooting into the building from the tanks, the fire that
followed, and machine guns firing toward the rear of the building to
prevent the Davidians from escaping this fire.  All this is in direct
contradiction of the FBI statements, also included in the film, that
the FBI never fired a shot.
  You ought to see this film, but be careful that you see the correct
film.  There's more than one version of it.  The version I saw was 2
hours and 16 minutes long, but there's a shortened version.  This
shorter version was shown recently on the HBO Signature cable TV
channel but it's less than 90 minutes long, so more than a third of
the entire film is missing.  It isn't surprising that the sections of
the film that show the most damning evidence of government wrong doing
were removed when it was broadcast on HBO.  There was nothing at the
beginning of the film saying that it had been edited.  Be very careful
to see the longer version.
  The film is available on video tape, but you might have difficulty
finding it at your video store.  The last time I looked you could
obtain information about this film and how to receive a video tape of
it at the Internet Web site http://www.waco93.com, but if it isn't
there you might need to use an Internet search engine to find it.  I
don't benefit from sales of this tape, but I encourage people to
purchase it because I believe that people who report the truth ought
to be rewarded.  If you don't want to purchase your own copy, you
could see somebody else's copy.  People who own the tape are generally
very willing to show it to other people.
  This incident at Waco is only one example, but a very good one, of
how the media distort the news.  It's simple and dramatic.  The big
difference between what actually occurred in the incident, and how it
was and continues to be reported, just proves that the big news media
are controlled.
  But the incident at Waco isn't the only example how of the news
media distort your news.




There Are More Examples.

  There are many more examples of big stories that have been falsely
reported.  Sometimes I think that there are few that haven't been.
Their subjects range from politics to science, and they cover local,
national, and international events.
  If you want to learn about more examples of falsely reported news
stories, this section and the next 3 sections will help you do that.
But you may skip these sections if you already believe that many news
stories are falsely reported, and you want to learn about why and how
it occurs, about the problems it causes, and about what we plan to do
about it.

  I won't give you more examples in this document.  I don't want to
use a lot of space on examples.  Anyway you ought not trust what I
tell you without verifying it with sources that are closer to the
stories.  If you're going to do that, you ought to skip the middleman,
me, and go directly to those other sources.
  Also, I won't recommend particular stories for you to research.  If
I did that, you might think that falsely reported stories are
uncommon, and that I was choosing the few stories that would prove my
point.  But distorted stories abound, so I want you to choose the
stories to research.  They'll make a bigger impression that way.
  But I recommend that you begin with big national stories in which
people died, stories reported to be suicides, assassinations,
accidents, or acts of terrorism.  Everybody comprehends murder, and
most of these stories are about murder.  Also, you ought to avoid
stories that are less than a year old because it usually requires some
time for the truth to leak out.




Where Do You Find The Truth?

  There are truthful news sources that you're able to use.  There are
some good news oriented talk radio shows, and there are some good
newspapers and other publications.  Regrettably these truthful news
sources are generally difficult to find or hard to obtain.  They're
generally little, specialized, available at inconvenient times, or not
in your local area.  Also, they aren't very useful for historical
research.
  I think one of the best places to obtain news, both current and
historical, is the World Wide Web on the Internet.  Almost anybody
with Web access is able to publish news on a Web page.  If you have
unfiltered Web access you could view these reports.
  There are many poor sources also on the Internet.  What's important
is that if you're willing to search the Internet and use your brain to
filter what you find, you're able to determine the truth about an
event.  It'll sharpen your mind when you analyse reports and
differentiate the true statements from the false ones, the lies from
the mistakes, the facts from the opinions, the actual reasons from
cover stories, the actual bad guys from the scapegoats, the important
issues from the distractions, and incompetence from genuine evil.
It's a lot like detective work, and for some people this is fun.




How Do You Know When You Have The Truth?

  This is a difficult question.  It's a lot easier to answer the
related question: how do you know when you don't have the truth?
  You know that you don't have truth when you have a contradiction.
For instance, if one of your stories says that no one fired a shot at
the Branch Davidians, and another story says that somebody did fire at
the Branch Davidians, you have a contradiction.  One of these stories
isn't able to be true.
  People who receive their news from the big news media usually don't
have this problem.  The media conveniently provide one story about
every event.  In the very uncommon instance in which they provide a
contradictory report, it's cleverly done with the statements of a
person who most people think isn't very credible, or the report
includes information that discredits the person.
  So one of the first things you ought to do to determine whether a
story is true or not is to look for a contradictory story about the
same event.  If there's a contradictory story you'll probably be able
to find it on the Internet.  If you aren't able to find a
contradictory story anywhere, the original story is probably true.
  If you hear two contradictory but credible stories about the same
event, how do you determine which one to believe?
  Most people think about not only the stories, but also their own
trust in the sources of those stories.  Two people might have
different experiences with a particular source, so each trusts it
differently.  So, reasonable people may disagree about which stories
to believe.
  Returning to our example about the firing at Branch Davidians, if
the first story is from an FBI agent, and the second story is from an
ordinary person, you'd probably believe the first story, because most
people trust the FBI more.  But if the first story is from an FBI
agent, and the second story is from somebody who you know and trust,
you'd probably believe the second story.
  Reasonable people frequently disagree about which stories to
believe, but they could resolve their disagreements if they made the
attempt.  They could exchange the information each had received from
his sources, including information about why he (or she) trusts or
doesn't trust particular sources.  It might require some time, but
after each person has the same information, they ought to be able to
reach the same conclusion about what's the truth.

  If you're able to obtain all relevant information, here are some
ideas about how to learn which information is the truth.
  You ought to trust the evidence collected by your eyes and your
ears.  In other words, you ought to trust you.
  Also, you probably ought to trust most evidence shown to you on film
or tape.  It's more costly to fake a film than it is to convince
somebody to lie.  But, it's not impossible.  Remember the special
effects in the movie Forest Gump.
  All false statements are either mistakes or lies.  For each of the
people making contradictory statements about a story, think about
whether that person has a reason to lie or make a mistake.  You ought
to remember that it's possible to convince a witness to lie, by
threatening him (or her), or by promising to do something pleasant for
him.  Also, sometimes it's possible to convince a witness to make a
mistake, by convincing him that he didn't see what he thought he saw.
  If you're not sure about the honesty of your source, attempt to find
out more about it.  Has your source lied before, and if it has, how
frequently?
  Quantity counts.  If the number of witnesses confirming a story is a
lot bigger than the number of witnesses confirming a second story, the
first story is probably true.  I'm mean all witnesses of an event, and
not just the fraction of witnesses reported by the big media.
  If you hear two contradictory stories about the same event, one of
them must be false, but that doesn't mean that the other one has to be
true.  Sometimes more than one false story is made up to distract
people from the true story.  If you haven't found a story that fits
all the evidence, you don't yet have a true story.
  And, do a cost-benefit analysis.  For example, for each story, think
about if the story was false, and about how much it would cost for
somebody to make the story appear to be true by convincing witnesses
to lie and by faking other evidence.  Also think about whether there's
anybody who would benefit enough from the fake story to make paying
that cost worthwhile.  If there isn't at least one of these people,
that story is most probably true.  Remember that if enough is at stake
to make the cost worthwhile, anything is able to be faked.




Here Are A Few Tips About Finding The Truth On The Internet.

  One way to search the Internet is to begin at a popular Internet
portal site, and click on hypertext links to move from one Web page to
another.  This is like browsing in a mall.  Searching this way is
alright if you have a lot of time.  You might eventually find what you
want, but you'll probably find what the mall store owners want you to
find.  If you don't want to be limited in this way you ought to
attempt something different like using the Yellow Pages, or asking an
independent expert or a friend.
  A very good way to find things on the Internet is to use the search
engines.  A search engine searches the Internet for all pages
containing names and other words that you give to it.  Search engines
are able to dramatically decrease the time necessary to find
information about subjects that interest you.  One of the original
search engines is Yahoo at http://www.yahoo.com, but there are many
other ones.
  When you use a search engine, you ought to not use its categories.
In other words, don't use a search engine like a portal.  Instead,
actually search.  Input the word or words that name the subject of
your search in the box for search criteria and click the search
button.  If there's a button labelled "advanced search" or something
similar, click on it to see what options you have to control your
search.  Always choose an entire Web search.
  When you search and obtain results, you ought to see a list of Web
pages that match your search criteria.  The best matches ought to be
near the beginning of the list.
  Regrettably with many search engines, the search results at the top
of the list aren't necessarily the ones that best match your search
criteria.  Sometimes it's because the search engine simply searches
poorly.  Frequently it's because other people want to control the Web
pages that you see.  Most of these other people are advertisers who
want you to purchase their products.  But, some of them don't want you
to see news reports that contradict the reports by the big news media.
  The first thing for which you ought to look is information about
other search engines.  Visit many different ones.  Learn a little
about how each one works, particularly about how it searches and how
it sorts out the results.
  Don't be afraid to use search engines that aren't very well known.
Like broadcast media outlets, some of the best search engines are ones
that aren't well known.  But unlike broadcast media outlets, all
search engines are equally easy to access.
  In my experience, the search engines that appear best for finding
the truth are the ones that sort their search results according to
some kind of page popularity.  This is encouraging because it shows
that most people prefer the truth when they're able to obtain it.  It
appears that the better search engines are the ones that actually
search the Web for new and changed Web pages, and don't require that
the maker of a page send the information to the search engine.
  When you have your list of search results, click on each result to
see whether the associated Web page contains important information
about your subject.
  When you find a page that contains a lot of important information,
use your browser to save the address of that page before you leave it
so you'll be able to visit it later.  Most browser software calls
these addresses "bookmarks" or "favorites".
  If there are hypertext links on a page that you visit, and some of
them appear related to your search, click on them also.  If a page
contains information about many different subjects, and you don't
immediately see your subject, you ought to use the Edit/Find command
of your browser to search that page for your search words.
  If you find a page containing information that doesn't appear true
or doesn't make sense, or appears not relevant to the subject of your
search, don't waste your time on it.  Go to another page.
  When you're finished with a page, use the Go/Back command of your
browser and view the next page.
  If you look for some time and don't see a lot of useful information,
one reason might be that you're using a poor search engine.  Use a
different one.  If you've tried all your search engines, look for
more.
  You might also have difficulty finding what you want if somebody
built a big set of misinformation pages about your subject, pages that
were very specificly designed to be found by most search engines and
hide the legitimate pages.  This is an instance in which a search
engine that sorts search results by page popularity is most helpful.

  Finding the truth about your subject might require some time, but if
you continue looking, you'll find it.  When you find it, everything
makes sense.  It's like coming into a clearing after struggling in
brushy woods.




Why Are There Lies In Our News?

  The reason people in news stories lie is similar to the reason that
children lie about stealing cookies from the cookie jar.  The child
lies to avoid the unpleasant consequences of its parents learning the
truth.  Participants in the news stories lie to avoid the unpleasant
consequences of the public learning the truth.
  Here's an example.  In the Waco incident, the BATF lied about the
Branch Davidians and staged this raid against them just to prevent
Congress from decreasing the BATF's budget.  The FBI later lied about
its actions because it didn't want the public to know that it had
destroyed property and murdered witnesses in order to eliminate
evidence of government wrong doing.
  These are the clearest reasons.  There might be other reasons about
which we don't know.
  The important point is that for every lie, somebody somewhere
somehow expects to gain something from it.




Why Do The Big News Media Repeat Lies?

  There are several possibilities.
  Sometimes it's caused by incompetence.  There are probably naive
reporters who trust their sources, so they report what's told to them.
If they're told lies they repeat lies, perhaps slightly reworded.
  Some reporters are lazy.  They might not trust their sources, but
repeat what they're told anyway.  This is a lot easier than
investigating to learn the true story.
  But these things don't explain all lying.  It's impossible that all
news reporters are incompetent or lazy.  Some reporters work hard to
find and report the truth about stories, but clearly lie about other
stories.  There must a reason for this.
  One reason is that management requires its reporters to act this
way.




Are There Business Reasons For Repeating Lies?

  Repeating lies in the news media surely doesn't occur because of a
desire for higher viewer ratings.  Frequently the truth is a lot more
sensational than the lie, like it is in the Waco incident.  So the
news media sacrifice high ratings when they repeat lies.
  But there are other business reasons for lying.  A negative report
about a company that purchases a lot of advertising time might offend
that company and cause a loss of advertising revenue.  Sometimes the
news organization and a company that's the subject of a negative
report are owned by a big holding company.  This occurs more today
because of deregulation and the mergers that have resulted from
deregulation.  The management of the holding company would probably
prefer that there be no negative news about other companies that it
holds.
  But these reasons don't explain all false reports.  For example,
they don't explain the false reports about the Waco incident.  There
are many other forces at work.  These forces work on reporters, their
managers, and in other instances witnesses of news events.




How Are Reporters And Middle Managers Controlled?

  Most people act in their own self interest.  Reporters repeat lies,
and managers encourage this, because they all comprehend at some level
that they'll be rewarded if they do, and punished if they don't.
Punishments include unpleasant assignments, slow career advancement,
and job termination.  Rewards include pleasant assignments, fast
career advancement, and job security.  It's that simple.
  Don't expect many reporters or managers to admit to this.  Some of
them don't comprehend it.  Other ones comprehend it, but keep it
secret for their own protection or benefit.  Only a few are willing to
say what's actually going on.  Most of them no longer work in that
business.




How Are The Top Managers And Independents Controlled?

  Top management, by definition of the phrase "top management", has no
superiors, at least none in the company.  So unlike other employees,
top management must be controlled from outside the company.
  There are many different ways that top management and independents
could be controlled.
  The cooperative top managers could be rewarded.  Rewards include
gifts of money, paid positions in other companies, property,
invitations to social events, memberships in exclusive clubs, special
loan deals and important investment advice, and business intelligence.
  The uncooperative top managers could be punished.  Punishments
include law suits, more competition against them in their business,
wide publication of vicious lies and gossip about them, other kinds of
dirty tricks, bodily harm or death, and threats of these things.
  These pressures could be applied either directly to the person to be
controlled, or to one of his friends or one of his loved ones.
  Many of these influences are from private parties.  But another big
source of influence is the government.  This ought to not be
surprising because the most sensational lies that are repeated by the
big news media are the lies told by our government.
  If it wants, there are many things that government could do to
convince somebody to repeat lies.  These things include discriminatory
enforcement of laws and regulations, and the discriminatory delaying
of bureaucratic procedure.  On the pleasant side, these things could
be used to benefit you and harm your competitor.  On the unpleasant
side, these things could be used to harm you and benefit your
competitor.
  For example, the FCC (the Federal Communications Commission) could
make problems with radio or TV station license approval or renewal.
OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) could
suddenly find problems with an organization's office space.  The IRS
(the Internal Revenue Service) could decide to audit the
organization's finances and continue this for months or years.
  You might not always be able to determine whether a government
interest or private interest is responsible for a particular
influence.  Some parties might be agents, some willing, some not, of
other more powerful parties.  Sometimes a government entity acts on
behalf of a powerful private interest.  Sometimes a private company is
a front for a government entity, or acts under threat from a
government entity.
  There are many methods for controlling the top management of the big
news media.  For a particular manager, one or more of them is probably
in use.




Who Are In Control?

  I'm not able to answer this question with confidence like I did the
earlier questions.  Frequently somebody who appears to be responsible
for an event is actually an agent for somebody else.  The ones in
control are usually separated from visible events by many layers of
personal and professional relationships.  Each layer protects the ones
in control with secrecy, cover stories, and organizational complexity.
  Obtaining the answer to this question is important, but obtaining it
at this time isn't practical.  We don't have enough information, at
least I don't.  Making it easier to obtain this information is one of
the goals of this project.
  But, we don't need this answer in order to act.  We could act using
the information that we do know about the ones in control.
  We know they're very powerful.  They're powerful enough to cause all
big news outlets to report basically the same lies about story after
story.  For example, they were powerful enough to convince most of the
country that the mass murder of good people at Waco, an event that was
broadcast live to the world, was a mass suicide by bad people.
  We know the ones in control are evil.  Not only do they force our
news media to lie about or hide evil acts, they protect and sometimes
reward the people who committed those acts.  These people, who ought
to have been put in prison or executed, are free and living normal
lives.  So, not only has our news media been corrupted, our system of
justice has been corrupted also.  And people and organizations who
attempt to right these wrongs, or only report these wrongs, are
ignored, harassed, or destroyed.
  For brevity, and because those in control are evil, I'll call them
the bad guys.  For similar reasons, I'll call the people who oppose
them the good guys.  I'm one of the good guys.  I hope you are also.




Are You Not Yet Convinced?

  I'm not able to respond to all objections you might have to my
assertions of media control.  But I want many people to help PROJECT
MEDIA MATRIX.  So I use this section to respond to some objections
that I think many of you might have.  If you don't need more
convincing you may skip this section.

  Perhaps you know of a little media outlet that you know reports the
truth about stories which the big media lie about.  You might think
that because they don't control that little news outlet, they must not
be controlling the bigger ones either, because controlling the little
ones would be a lot easier than controlling the big ones.
  If you believe this, your error is in thinking that they want to
control the little news outlet.  It's true that not every news report
is distorted, and not every news outlet is controlled.  But there's no
need for complete control.  Partial control is enough.  In the United
States of America, fortune and power are money and votes.  In our
winner-take-all system of elections, one group of voters loses against
another group of voters that's bigger by only one vote.
  Here are some reasons why a particular news outlet might not need to
be controlled.  Perhaps its audience is little.  Perhaps its audience
is big, but few of them vote or they contribute little to the sales of
the important corporations.  Perhaps the outlet is an overnight radio
show, so a lot of the audience is asleep during the day, so it isn't
very politically active.  Perhaps the affect of reports of a few
sensitive news stories is diluted by reports of many more stories on
different subjects that are less sensitive or not credible.  Perhaps
the stories which you think are sensitive aren't thought to be
sensitive by those in power.  Perhaps it's a combination of several of
these reasons.
  In summary, the news outlets that are controlled are the ones that
are enough to control the voting and most purchasing activities of the
people.  If control of your favorite news outlet isn't necessary for
this, the outlet probably won't be controlled  They need to control
the beliefs of most people, but not all people.  Generally, control of
the big media is enough.

  You might point out that there are sometimes heated arguments
between liberals and conservatives, between Republicans and Democrats,
or between other groups with opposing opinions.  Each side receives
plenty of coverage in the media, and you might say that this wouldn't
be occurring if the media were controlled.  But this is easy to
explain.
  One explanation is that these controversies in the news are caused
by competing factions inside the bad guys.  But I think that usually
these controversies are artificial.  They're in the news only to
distract us.  They distract us from more important events and the
hidden agendas behind them.  There's a third side, that we don't hear,
that would reveal this hidden agenda.  Big contributors to political
campaigns comprehend hidden agendas.  They must have hidden agendas,
because many of them contribute to more than one candidate for the
very same office.




The Bad Guys Are Winning.

  At this time you probably realize that your world is less nice a
place than you thought.
  If you realize what's actually occurring in the world instead of
what's reported in the news, you know that we're treated like sheep.
We're fleeced like sheep with high taxes, fees, and artificially high
prices.  We're controlled like sheep by the media, oppressive laws and
regulations, and the bureaucracies that enforce them discriminatorily.
An increasing number of us are slaughtered like sheep, a few in public
view like at Waco.  And our taxes are paying the bill for it all.
  You know also that all of these things have been becoming worse.  If
this trend continues, our life, property, and our remaining freedoms,
and those of our children, will be in big danger.
  Will we be able to prevent the loss of the freedoms we've remaining?
Will we be able to restore the ones, like freedom of the press, that
we've lost without even realizing it?

  Freedom activist individuals and groups, the good guys, have been
attempting for years to protect and to restore our freedoms.  But they
haven't been having big success compared with the success of the bad
guys who are destroying our freedoms.
  Both the bad guys and the good guys, or their agents, attempt to
convince the people to believe in their respective causes.  Neither
side will be able to attain all their goals without having enough of
the people on their side.
  In terms of their final goals, the good guys have had very few
successes.  When they attain a final goal, it's usually temporary or
accompanied by a loss on another front.
  Successes by the good guys are usually the attainment of their
intermediate goals like increasing membership or raising funds.  Some
of these successes have been significant.  They say that if they
continue these intermediate successes they'll eventually be able to
overpower the bad guys and attain their final goal.  This is
technically correct, but later successes are more difficult to attain.
  Increases in good guy activist group membership are usually the
result of finding people who agree with the group already.  They
convince people who already agree with them to join their cause.  They
aren't making converts.  Making converts means convincing people to
change their beliefs, which is a lot more difficult.
  When a good guy group actually convinces people to agree with its
beliefs, it's usually because the bad guys are busy somewhere else.
This occurs when the group is relatively weak and far from attaining
important final goals.  If the group eventually becomes close to
attaining some important goals, it's no longer ignored.  When that
occurs its successes slow down, they stop, or they reverse.




Why Are The Good Guys Losing?

  The principal tools of the bad guys are the media, particularly the
news media.  To maintain and increase their power, the bad guys need
the public to cooperate with them, or at least to tolerate their
activities.  The bad guys aren't powerful enough to control many of
the people directly with force.  But they're powerful enough to
control the media with force.  With the media's help, they're able to
control the remainder of the people indirectly, with the information
that the media delivers for them.  They force the media not to report
particular activities, or to lie about them, so that the people will
permit those activities to go on.
  The good guys deliver information that contradicts the information
from the bad guys.  They generally deliver less information than the
bad guys, because they don't have the big media on their side.  They
receive help from a few media outlets, but not a lot of help, and this
puts them at a big disadvantage.
  So, the good guy groups usually win their converts by using narrow
targeting.  This is the concentration of attention on a few little
groups of prospects at a time.  If the prospect groups are little
enough, or if their members partially agree with the good guys, it's
possible to deliver enough information to convert them.
  The problem with this method is that each new conversion of a
prospect requires more resources, labor and money, than the previous
conversion.  There are several reasons for this.
  First, each new conversion requires more information to be delivered
to the prospect than the previous conversion.  This is true because
the prospect groups in most agreement with the good guy group are
targeted and converted early.  This means there's less agreement
later, and more information must be delivered to each prospect to
convert him.
  Secondly, not all their resources are available for convincing
prospects to convert.  Some of the resources must be used to prevent
the converted prospects from converting back.  This defensive
convincing becomes a significant fraction of the group's total budget
after the group has been growing for some time.  Available resources
grow also, but usually less fast than membership, because agreement
with the cause is different from commitment to the cause.  And
resource availability is sensitive to interruptions in growth
momentum.
  Thirdly, each convert for the good guys becomes a prospect for the
bad guys.  So the effectiveness of information delivered by the wide
targeting big media on behalf of the bad guys increases with the size
of the activist group.  This is another reason why the big media are
told to deliver more information damaging to the good guys after the
their group grows for some time.
  All these facts explain why if the big media continue to deliver
most news information to the people, and the big media continue to be
controlled by the bad guys, it'll be almost impossible for the good
guys to win.
  In other words, there's a limit to what the good guys are able to
accomplish by increasing the quality of their marketing.  Eventually
they must increase the quantity of their marketing, a lot.




The Good Guys Must Control The Media To Win.

  The good news is that in the instances in which people have equal
exposure to information from both sides, they generally side with the
good guys.  They do this because, if other things are equal, most
people prefer the truth.  Truth is generally what they receive from
the good guys, because one doesn't need to lie to convince somebody
that having more freedom is a good thing.
  So the good guys will able to win if they deliver at least the same
amount of information to each prospect that the bad guys deliver.  To
do this, the good guys need more control of the delivery of
information to the people.  But how will they, how will we, obtain
this control?

  Here are some possibilities.
  We could attempt to convince the bad guys to give us some control of
the big media.  This clearly won't work.  First, the bad guys wouldn't
act against their self interest unless forced.  Secondly, they're a
lot more powerful than us, so we aren't able to forced them.  Thirdly,
we aren't even sure who they are.
  Or, we could attempt to convince the big media to deliver less
information to the people on behalf of the bad guys.  Clearly this
won't work either.  The bad guys have a lot more power to convince
with.  The good guy groups could become more convincing by making
alliances with each other, but that probably wouldn't be enough.  And
if it was enough, the bad guys could use one more trick.  The bad guys
use force to control the media when voluntary methods fail.  Good guys
don't use force.  That's why they're good guys.  But the bad guys will
use enough force necessary to keep media control.
  Or, we could attempt to convince the people to use less of the
information offered by the big media.  This could actually work.  Here
are several things we could do to accomplish this.




We Must Urge People To Stop Listening To The Lies.

  Begin with you.
  Stop using news sources that you know are inaccurate.  It wastes
your time, and is destructive to your mind.  It's better to be
uninformed than to be misinformed.  When one hears a lie enough times
one begins to believe it.
  Do it.  I have.  It feels a little bit strange at first, but later
it feels fine.
  Stop watching the evening news.  Stop reading your newspaper.  Be
more critical of the news that you receive.  Realize that the reason
for many of their reports is simply to influence your opinion, and it
isn't to inform you.  Those reports deserve less of your attention
than a mosquito bite.

  Next, find accurate replacements for your old news sources.  The
Internet is probably the best place to look.  Not all news sources
there are good, but some of them are.  If your brain works you'll be
able to find the good ones.  If you don't have Internet access you
ought to obtain it.
  Always be on the lookout for truthful news sources.  Never trust a
source completely.  And don't trust a source to stay truthful forever.

  Next, encourage other people to do the same.
  Show them how poor their news sources actually are.  Show how good
your sources are.  Next, offer to help them switch sources, like you
did.
  I didn't say to TELL them how poor their news sources are.  I said
to SHOW them.  With regard to the news, most people trust what they
see on TV more than they trust you.  This is true for close friends
and family members also.  If you aren't able to show proof of the
surprising truth of a news event, they'll probably think you're crazy
and you ought to not mention it at all to them.
  So, show something like the Waco documentary if you're able to
obtain it.  Or show evidence about other events that you might have.
But SHOW them something.
  Show what's fitting for the person you're dealing with.  For
example, don't bother to show a book to somebody who never reads.

  It would be nice if this was enough to convince everybody to switch
news sources.  Regrettably it isn't.  Not many of us will do enough to
convince them.  Some of us will make the effort to collect and present
enough evidence to cause some people to switch.  But to most of us
this is a lot of work, and we won't bother.
  Some of the people will be convinced, and some of them will switch.
But most of them won't, because switching isn't convenient for them.
It's a lot easier to sit on the couch and open the newspaper or turn
on the TV set.
  To cause more people to switch, we must do something more.




We Must Make Obtaining The Truth Easier.

  To repeat, if other things are equal, people prefer the truth.
Today people receive more lies than truth because true news is a lot
more difficult to obtain.  If we make it easy for people to obtain the
truth like it is currently to obtain lies, convincing them to switch
to truthful news sources would be effortless.
  How could we make obtaining the truth easier?

  We aren't able to grow little honest news media to compete with the
big dishonest media, not yet.
  There are a few individuals who are distributing or have distributed
true news.  I mean particular talk show hosts and publishers of some
little magazines and newspapers.  The ones that continue today are the
few that have a passion for delivering the truth, and a willingness to
accept unpleasant consequences.
  These news outlets are little versions of the big outlets, so
they're vulnerable to the same kinds of media control.  They or their
supporting organizations have been held back, or beaten back, or
corrupted, or distracted from their work by dirty tricks, or even
destroyed.  And this will occur again if we attempt to make them grow
bigger.

  So, we need a NEW medium to deliver true news.  It must be
fundamentally different from the existing big media, because it must
be a medium that the bad guys aren't able to control.  But it must be
a medium that's able to compete successfully with the existing big
media.




The Internet Isn't Enough.

  Perhaps you think that the Internet is the new medium that will
bring the bad guys under control and save the world.  Today anybody
may publish almost anything on the Internet.  Today it's possible to
find true news on the Internet, and many people are doing it.  If
enough other people do it they would force the traditional news media
to become honest, or even force them out of business?  If they wanted
to, couldn't everybody obtain true news from the Internet?
Regrettably, there are problems with this idea.

  First, obtaining news from the Internet is a lot less easy than
using the popular media.  Until that changes, most people won't use
the Internet for news.
  Secondly, Internet freedom won't last.  The Internet currently has
few controls because not many people are using the Internet for news.
When the number of Internet users grows, the Internet will be targeted
for control.  In this country, one is already able to see the
beginnings of Internet controls like copyright, obscenity, libel,
national security, and other kinds of proposed legislation.  In other
countries, Internet censorship is already occurring.
  There are other reasons.  I give some of these in a later section in
which I discuss security issues.




We Must Build The Truth Distribution Network (Abbreviated TDN).

  The new medium, the TDN, ought to have the following
characteristics.

  The TDN ought to deliver true news, analysis, and opinions from
around the country and the world.
  But the TDN ought to be no more costly than the news media of today.
  The TDN ought to be easy to use like the news media of today.  This
is particularly important because people are very busy today.
Generally more than one member of the family is working, and many
people have more than one job.  Every increase in the ease of use of
the TDN means an increase in the number of people who will prefer to
use it instead of the controlled news media.
  The TDN ought to use distributed control instead of centralized
control.  The bad guys are able to control most popular news media by
controlling a few upper management positions.  A TDN that uses
distributed control has no upper management positions at all.  In this
situation, the bad guys could afford to control only little sections
of the TDN, and that wouldn't be enough for them to attain their
goals.
  Lastly, for similar reasons, the TDN ought to not depend on goods or
services for which there are only sources that are vulnerable to
outside control.

  If designed correctly, a network of personal computers could meet
all these requirements.  Computers are currently very popular, almost
like TV sets, and not a lot more costly.
  Most computers sold today are able to display color images and play
high fidelity sound.  They have point-and-click graphical user
interfaces.  With good software computers are very pleasant and easy
to use.
  Personal computers have modems, network interfaces, or removable
disks which permit the exchange of information with other computers.
  Lastly, a computer is programmable.  It'll act like a controller if
programmed correctly.  So it's possible to build a network of these
computers that will use distributed control, without vulnerable
centralized controllers.

  So most of the TDN hardware already exists.  But we need TDN
software also, and developing this software is where most of the work
is going to be.  The TDN software ought to perform the following
functions.
  First of all, it makes its computer be a news presentation
appliance.  It permits the user to choose the stories that the user
wants to view.
  Secondly, it manages communication between the computers in the TDN.
It sends news reports and control information to other computers, and
receives them from other computers.
  Thirdly, it helps users write documents for distribution across the
TDN.
  And lastly, it does all this automatically.

  The next sections of this document will discuss ideas for a TDN that
meets all the above requirements.  These ideas include user features,
development, and security.
  These ideas are for the technical people, particularly software
engineers, who will develop the TDN.  If you don't have a computer
background, you might want to skip these sections.
  These ideas are from different sources.  Some of these ideas are
already implemented in existing computer software, but they're
generally not easy to use and not in common use.  Some ideas might be
totally new ones.
  Not all these ideas are necessarily good ones, and this isn't a
complete list.  But I believe it's a good place to begin.




Here Are Some Ideas About TDN User Features.

  First, here's some background.
  News is able to be distributed in many different document formats.
They include simple text files, Internet Web pages, and electronic
mail and Usenet messages.  TDN software ought to be able to deal with
all these formats with equal ease, and other formats that might become
popular.
  Documents are able to be distributed by different methods.  They're
passed by different protocols across the Internet, also passed from
person to person on floppy disk.  The passing of information on floppy
disk is called the sneaker net.
  Each document format and distribution method has advantages,
disadvantages, vulnerability to sabotage, and possibilities for
improvement.

  The Internet's world Wide Web is already used widely for publishing
news.  Many news organizations currently publish on the Web, in
addition to one or more traditional methods like TV, radio, and print.
  The basic unit of the Web is the Web site.  Each Web site has a few
pages that list, summarize, and provide links to reports contained in
other pages.  Each of the other pages contains one report or a section
of a report if the report is big.
  Web pages are generally very easy to read.  HyperText Markup
Language (abbreviated HTML) is the principal language of Web pages.
With this language, it's easy to make pages aesthetically pleasing.
In addition to text of different sizes, styles, and colors, Web pages
are able to contain tables, pictures, animations, and even sound.
  Web pages are hypertext, which means a Web page is able to contain
links to other locations on the same page, on other pages at the same
site, and on pages at other sites.  When the user clicks on a
hypertext link, the computer immediately displays the information from
the associated location.  A writer could use these links to implement
tables of contents, indexes, footnotes, and bibliographies.  The
mention in a page of a relevant document might be a link to a copy of
that document which the user is able to read immediately.  That
document is able to be at the same site, or at a different site on the
other side of the world.  When used well, hypertext links make
communication of news and ideas fast, efficient, and fun.
  Building a Web page is more difficult than reading one, but not very
difficult.  Currently most Internet Service Providers (ISPs) permit
each of their customers to have his own Web site at no additional
charge, if his site doesn't exceed limits set by the ISP.  Almost
anybody could publish news stories on the Web.

  Next, let us think about electronic mail, also called e-mail.  It's
the most popular use of the Internet.  E-mail doesn't need a lot of
explanation because it's basically an electronic version of the United
State Postal Service.
  Like the Web, electronic mail is used currently to distribute news.
It has all basic functions.  One is able to write a news report in an
e-mail message.  One is able to send that e-mail message to many other
people.  And one is able to receive e-mail messages containing reports
and read them from one's computer.

  Usenet news groups are similar to e-mail.  One is able to write a
news report in a message, and send it to a Usenet group.  Anybody who
subscribes to that group could read the message.
  Like the name indicates, Usenet news groups work well for the
distribution of news.  The groups are organized by subject.  There are
thousands of groups.  In principle, all messages that are sent to the
group address are related to the subject of the group itself.  People
generally subscribe to only the groups that interest them.

  Both e-mail and Usenet news groups are used to send information to
many people.  E-mail does this with electronic mailing lists.
Messages sent to a special e-mail list address are forwarded to all
people subscribing to that list.  Like Usenet news groups, these e-
mail lists are usually organized by subject or interest.

  Each of these systems has problems that ought to be fixed if the
system is going to be used by the TDN for distributing news.

  A big problem with all the systems above is document proliferation.
There are many documents processed by one's computer today, and it's
difficult to manage them all.
  The problem of document proliferation would become a lot worse if
people all begin using their computer to receive most of their news.
If the problem is big enough, it would discourage people from
receiving their news this way.
  Think about e-mail.  Our e-mail messages might be from many
different sources, including both individuals and organizations.  This
e-mail includes personal e-mail, business e-mail, e-mail from
electronic distribution lists, and unsolicited advertisements also
called junk e-mail.  And there are the e-mail messages we write and
send to other people.  Many of us want to keep copies of these
messages for ourselves.
  A lot of software attempts to control this problem of document
proliferation by using a folder metaphor.  The computer folder that
stores computer documents is the electronic equivalent of the
cardboard file folder that stores paper documents.  There might be a
hierarchy of folders, because like cardboard folders, computer folders
are able to contain other folders.  Some e-mail software is able to be
configured to automatically organize messages by storing them into
folders based on the presence of particular words in the messages.
  The folder metaphor is helpful, but it has its limitations.  The
biggest problem is that it indicates that each document ought to be
classified only one way, and this isn't true.
  Think about e-mail again.  An e-mail message is able to be described
by many different attributes.  Examples are: Business, Personal,
Advertisement, News, Humor, Flame, Interest-X, Interest-Y, Read,
Unread, Needs-A-Response, Needs-No-Response, Has-Response, Accurate,
Inaccurate, etc.  It isn't practical to build a hierarchy of folders
to represent each possible combination of attributes by a one position
in a folder hierarchy.  One would need to use more than one position,
but this means making copies of each message and storing them in
multiple folders at the same time.  This is wasteful of space and
might be very confusing to the user.
  I recommend that instead of using the folder metaphor to organize
documents, TDN software ought to use an attribute metaphor.  Instead
of listing the documents in folders, TDN software ought to list
documents which have chosen combinations of attributes.  Some examples
expressed informally are: "list Unread documents", "list documents
about Interest-X", and "list every Business message that needs-A-
Response".
  Whenever the content of a document is shown, the attributes attached
ought to be shown with it.
  Some attributes ought to be attached to the documents automatically.
For example, each document ought to be assigned the Unread attribute
when first received, and this attribute ought to be removed from the
document once the user reads it.
  The attachment of some attributes ought to be semi-automatic and
controlled by options chosen by the user.  For example, one user might
configure e-mail software to assign the Personal attribute to a
message when it's received from his mother, or assign the News
attribute to messages received from a source on a list of news
sources.
  It ought to be possible for anybody to make new attributes, and
manually attach them to documents or detach them when desired.
  It might be helpful to permit attaching attributes to objects in a
document, in addition to the entire document.  By this I mean
paragraphs, sentences, or even littler objects.  For example, you
might want to mark a particular sentence Inaccurate or False by
attaching to it one of those attributes.

  Usenet news groups are organized in a hierarchy.  The groups are
named by strings of words separated by dots.  Each successive word
specifies a subgroup in the next lower level in the hierarchy.  This
organization is similar to a folder hierarchy, so it has problems like
those of the folder metaphor.
  These problems could be solved by adapting the attribute metaphor to
Usenet news groups to organize the messages.  Instead of storing all
messages in a hierarchy of separate groups, there would be one big
collection of messages, and each message would have one or more
attached attributes with a format like the present Usenet group names.

  Hierarchical attribute names ought to be able to be attached to all
kinds of document, including regular e-mail and Web pages.
  Hierarchical attribute names ought to be used to specify political,
managerial, or geographical subdivisions like country, state, county,
town, and precinct.  For example, usa.ca tags a report about an event
which affects all of California, but one tagged with usa.ca.burbank is
about an event that affects the city of Burbank.  There ought to be
standards for the formats of these attributes.
  By default, a TDN user would be subscribed to news about
subdivisions in which the user lives.  But the user could change these
settings when desired to receive news about other areas.

  Another way to organize documents is by threads.  With this method,
documents are linked together based on whether one document is an
answer to another earlier one.  This method of organization is good
because it displays together documents about one subject, in a logical
sequence.  When a document is read, the reader software lists all
response messages and permits the user to easily read one of them
easily next.
  Threads are already used for organizing messages in some electronic
discussions like Usenet.  Threads ought to be expanded to work with
all kinds of documents with which the TDN might deal, including e-mail
messages and Web pages.  Threads appear very fitting for TDN documents
because many of them will contain interpretations of, and comments
about, earlier reports, particularly with regard to their accuracy.
  Present implementations of thread displays support the situation of
several documents responding to an earlier one.  Thread displays ought
to be generalized to support one document responding to more than one
earlier document, or sections of earlier documents.
  Eventually threads ought to be general enough to show references of
other kinds like quotations and hypertext links.  In other words, the
thread display ought to show all known references to and from the
document viewed.
  The list of links in a thread display ought to be ordered.  Links to
documents that are probably of most interest to the person viewing
them ought to be listed first.

  A big problem with Web pages is the difficulty of building them.
There are tools available for designing Web pages and uploading the
pages to one's Web site, but these tools must be a lot easier to use
before the common person will publish news on his Web site.

  Another problem with Web pages is that they sometimes disappear.  It
isn't uncommon for a controversial report published on the Web to be
unavailable a short time later, with no reason given.  It's like
somebody read the report and told the publisher to remove it.
  If the TDN is going to support Web browsing, the TDN software ought
to be able to easily save permanent copies of the pages which make up
the news reports.  If a report later disappears from its original
publication site, it wouldn't be lost, and could continue to be
distributed in other ways if desired.
  Web browsers already save copies of Web page files in something
called a cache.  Usually this is a folder in the user's disk.  These
copies are made for performance reasons, to avoid needing to reload
the same files from the Internet if referenced later.  These aren't
permanent copies.  Old files are eventually deleted automatically to
make room for new ones when the space allocated to the cache is
filled.
  The cache size ought to be bigger so that files need to be deleted
less frequently.
  The cache ought to act differently.  It ought to be a persistent
cache.  Instead of automatically deleting old files when the cache
fills, the browser ought to instead permit the user to decide how to
make more room, by deleting files that he doesn't want, or compressing
files, or moving files to other disks, etc.
  If the structure of the browser cache is changed, it would simplify
management of these files.  The cache ought to be organized like a
collection of directory trees, or folder hierarchies.  Each directory
tree ought to cache the files from one Web site.  Each tree in the
cache ought to have a directory structure like the tree storing the
same files at the associated Web site.  This would eliminate the need
for most file name mangling done to avoid file name collisions.  It
would also simplify off line browsing of saved Web sites.

  Another way that news might be lost is for a Web page to change.  In
this situation the Web page continues to exists, but its old content
was replaced by new content.
  Some changes are legitimate.  For example some are corrections.
Also some Web publishers reuse file names on their sites.  In some
instances all reports, even the noncontroversial reports, are gone in
less than 24 hours, replaced by new ones.
  Other changes appear to be deliberate attempts to hide information.
A report could be replaced by a different one, or very important facts
could be deleted or changed.
  To prevent the possible loss of information, the Web browser ought
to detect differences between pages stored in the persistent cache and
new versions of them when they're downloaded.  If the browser detects
a change it ought to notify the user.  It ought to display both
versions and permit the user to see the differences.  The user would
choose to replace the old version by the new one, or save both of
them.  The browser ought to always indicate whenever it has more than
one version of a page, and permit the user to easily view and compare
the different versions.

  On a related subject, it might be a good idea to download Web page
files before the user requests to view them.  This would lessen the
amount of time a user would have to wait because when the user clicks
on a link the page associated with it will probably already have been
downloaded from the Internet.  Preloading preference ought to be given
to files associated with links in or near the section of the page that
the user is viewing.  The maximum amount of preloaded files ought to
be controlled by the user.
  If the user's browsing schedule is predictable, and the user wants
to, the TDN software ought to download all the new files from the
user's favorite Web sites shortly before the user begins browsing.
This would eliminate the download delays for those sites.  Unless the
user decides unexpectedly to visit another site, he could browse all
sites off line and very fast.

  A big problem with Web pages is having people read them.  People
don't read pages that they don't know about.
  One solution to this problem is to publish new pages on a Web site
frequently.  This encourages people to visit the site frequently to
see those new pages.  But this wouldn't work well for a TDN with many
individual publishers, each of which publishes a document only
occasionally.
  Another solution is to make the TDN browser software use its spare
time to look for changes on the sites in which the user has an
interest.  This makes things easier for the user, but causes a lot of
redundant Internet traffic.  Also, change detection might be difficult
if advertisements are present.  Advertisements are able to change a
lot more frequently than the content of interest.
  Another solution is for the publisher to notify the user's of
significant page changes.  People sometimes learn of new Web pages
from references to them in e-mail messages, but this means that
somebody, either the publisher or another user, makes the effort to
write these messages.
  A better way is to automatically inform people about new published
Web pages.  Web server software ought to collect e-mail addresses from
site viewers who want to know when the Web site is updated.  Web page
publication software ought to automatically send to those users
special e-mail messages summarizing page updates when they occur.  E-
mail software ought to recognize these special messages and route them
to the browser software.
  Another way is to automate the process of TDN users notifying other
users about new pages.  Messages could be sent with the update
information to everybody on a distribution list of people interested
in the same page.
  This automatic update notification system could be used for other
things.  It could be used to simplify forwarding of interesting new
sites, distribution of reports about anomalous network activity,
document accuracy evaluations, and other things.  I discuss these
elsewhere.
  No matter how the browser software learns of page updates, it ought
to store this information in a list, and present all the new
information to the user when the user next browses the Web.

  Another problem with the Web pages is changing Web site bandwidth
requirements.  When a person begins to publish reports on a Web site
and the site becomes popular, the site might become overloaded by the
many hits it receives.  This results in poor response time, and the
ISP might charge the site owner more for those hits.  This would
discourage Web page publishing by everybody but those who were willing
to pay more or who published reports that no one wanted to read
anyhow.
  Some ISPs don't charge more if the site owner permits advertisements
to be inserted in his pages, but this makes problems too.
  A better solution might be to mirror the popular Web pages on many
other people's Web sites.  Mirroring is the duplication of pages of
one site on another site.  By distributing the load to many mirror
sites, linked together in a bushy tree, the site bandwidth problem
would be eliminated.
  Site mirroring would need to be automated more for this to work, and
enough people would have to enable it.  Standards would need to be
developed for directory and file naming and the communication of
mirror site information in e-mail messages and HTML files.  The system
probably ought to be integrated with the update notification system
which is described above.
  A similar system could be applied to streaming audio and video, but
this would require that ISPs permit it, and require low level
protocols with the ability to receive information packets broadcast
from one Internet address and rebroadcast them to several other
addresses.

  People don't usually read all stories in a newspaper.  So a TDN
software user would probably not read all news reports received
electronicly.  There might be many more news reports received from the
TDN network than from a newspaper, so it would be important for the
TDN software to help the user find reports of interest, and filter out
all other ones.
  There are several things the software ought to do to make easier the
finding of documents of interest.  It ought to be able to display and
summarize documents in a variety of ways.  The software ought to be
able to search the entire document set or a user specifiable subset,
for words, phrases, or attributes.  The software ought to be able to
repeat earlier searches automatically on new documents whenever
they're received.  It ought to list together all new documents on the
same subject, and documents in the same message thread.  The software
ought to be able to identify junk e-mail, documents from sources
determined to be inaccurate, documents which are duplicates of
documents received before, and all other undesirable documents, and
filter them out, or protect the user from them.  The user ought to be
able to change the active search targets and filter criteria at any
time.  The software ought to immediately update all displayed document
lists based on the new criteria.

  There ought to be standards for things like document titles,
identification numbers, addresses, references in one document to
sections of another document, etc.  These standards would make the
implementation of other features a lot easier.

  In order to compete with the newspapers, the radio, and TV, the TDN
software ought to have several mostly-hands-off modes.
  If the computer is equipped with a printer, the software ought to be
able to print a little newspaper containing news reports that user is
interested in.  This might be an acceptable substitute for the person
who currently reads the newspaper at breakfast or on the commuter
train.
  If the computer is equipped with speakers, the software ought to be
able to list or read news reports using computer synthesized voice for
the person who currently receives news from the radio.  With
additional hardware it ought to be able to record the news overnight
on a cassette tape or other audio storage device for playback on his
way to work.
  When pictures, graphics, or moving video are available, these ought
to be displayed on the computer's video monitor.  This might be an
acceptable substitute for the person who currently receives news from
the TV.

  When it's easy to switch from existing entertainment devices to the
personal computer, the computer and the TDN will be used more.  The
computer ought to turn on fast like the TV set.  It would be good to
integrate the computer with TV and sound equipment.  The TV ought to
be viewable on the computer video display, and computer video ought to
be viewable on the TV.  The radio and audio players ought to be
hearable from the computer speakers, and computer sound ought to be
hearable from the hi-fi speakers.  Everything, including the computer,
ought to be controllable using one infrared remote control.
  A lot of the hardware necessary for this already exists, in terms of
cable connectors and equipment with the ability to be controlled by
infrared remote control signals.  Where more work is necessary is in
the ability of the computer to receive and send infrared signals, and
the computer software to manage it all, particularly the infrared code
numbers.

  In all instances, simple menus ought to be displayed on the display,
or spoken in the computer synthesised voice, listing the available
choices.  The user would make his choices using the keyboard, mouse,
or remote control.  If the computer is equipped with a microphone, the
software ought to be able to recognize the user speaking a little set
of commands to make choices.  Either the infrared remote control or
voice commands would give the user the convenience of making choices
right from the couch, without sitting directly in front of the
computer.

  Regrettably, for many people writing more than a few coherent
sentences of English text is difficult.  This difficulty might cause a
person to publish poorly written documents to the TDN, or publish none
at all.  One may blame the public schools, but that wouldn't solve the
problem.
  The most practical solution to this problem might be to add writing
tools to the TDN.  These tools might be difficult to build, but if
built well would be worth the effort.  I don't mean tools to help with
page layout.  Many of these already exist, but some need improvement.
I mean tools to help with writing in the English language.
  There are many kinds of documents that a person might write.  One of
the simplest is a specialized links page that consists of a list of
links to documents about related subjects.  Another kind is a raw news
report, which reports only what occurred at an event.  Another kind is
the analysis and opinion piece which attempts to draw conclusions from
news.  Each kind of document requires different writing skills.

  Here are some ideas about a tool that helps one write a raw news
report about an event.  The tool would ask the user for a list of
participants in the event and ask what each participant did or said.
It would obtain answers to all questions of who, what, when, where,
and why.  It would maintain a chronology of what occurred, manage
witness hearsay chains, etc. and it would use all that information to
write a simple report covering it all.  It ought to permit the user to
easily make corrections, and increase or decrease the importance
attached to particular facts.  After that the tool would write a new
report from the new information.  This cycle could be repeated until
the report is finished.  The result wouldn't be perfect, but it would
be publishable.
  In addition to increasing the number of reports published on the
TDN, writing tools like this, combined with a spelling checker, could
be used protect the anonymity of writers by removing personal writing
style from reports.  Similar technology might be useful for the
translation of reports in different languages.

  A very effective way of convincing a reader of the accuracy of a
report is to make it easy for him to comprehend and verify it.  Most
statements in a report ought to include supporting links.  These links
would link to glossary entries, footnotes, or sections of other
documents that support the statement or explain terms that are used in
the report.
  The supporting hypertext links ought to not be obtrusive, because
most readers won't click on most of them.  But reports with them have
advantages over reports without.  A new reader who's completely
unfamiliar with the subject of a report could click on the links to
learn fast about the subject and build trust up in the writer.  A
regular reader could learn fast about a new term that he hadn't seen
before.
  All document writing tools ought to make it easy to make supporting
hypertext links.  This feature would be particularly useful for
writing links pages and analysis and opinion pieces.
  Document writing tools ought to maintain a directory of names and
short phrases with the hypertext link address associated with each
one.  The link addresses specify documents or document sections that
provide explanatory information about that item.  Writing tools ought
to automatically use the hypertext link directory to mark up all
inserted text, perhaps with user confirmation, with the necessary link
tags.
  For example, somebody writing a report about gun control might input
the following text: "The second amendment to the Constitution of the
United States says: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the
security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear
Arms, shall not be infringed".  If the hypertext link directory had
matching entries, the writing tool could automatically make links
from: Constitution of the United States, Militia, and Arms.
  A big link directory might also have entries for the words:
amendment, security, free, state, right, people, and infringed.  You
might say that this is going too far, and people ought to know the
meaning of these words anyway.  That doesn't change the fact that some
people will be confused by some of these words.  Converting them to
links to points in a glossary file is a little price to pay to keep
these people reading, particularly if the links are made
automatically.
  Many important words have more than one meaning, and there could be
a link directory entry for each one of the meanings.  In these
situations the writing tool might need to ask the writer to resolve
the ambiguity.  For example, it might ask whether a use of the word
"right" means the moral adjective or the legal noun.  Or it might be
able to determine that automatically from the context.
  Each new Internet document that the user writes ought to cause the
making of at least one new entry in the link directory.  The user
ought to be able to add other entries to the directory when he wants.
For example, when the user sees a Web page that appears to explain an
idea very well, it ought to be easy to make a link directory entry for
that page.
  Whenever the user inserts or deletes entries in the link directory,
the writing tool ought to automatically help the user with adding or
removing links, in all his Web documents, at all places where the
subjects of those entries are referenced.
  The TDN software ought to support the easy exchange of hypertext
link directory information.  With it, TDN writers will be able to
easily build and maintain an integrated network of documents with
which anybody could learn the truth fast about any subject that's in
the news, or ought to be in the news.

  It ought to be impossible to put the TDN software into a crippled
state from which a user is unable to easily leave.  At installation
time, advanced features ought to either be disabled, or put in useful
and stable default states that won't cause the user problems.  It
ought to be easy to undo all nontrivial commands.  It ought to be easy
to return the TDN to its default initial state.

  Regardless of the number of features and options in the TDN, it's
important to remember one thing.  The TDN must be very easy and
pleasant to use.  It ought to be easy like changing channels on the
TV.  If it isn't, people won't use it to obtain their news.  Ease of
use is the most important requirement of the TDN, and it ought to be
designed into all components from the beginning.
  This is very important to the success of the TDN, so I'm going to
repeat it.  The TDN must be very easy and pleasant to use.




Here Are Some Ideas About TDN Development.

  The TDN software will consist of multiple communicating software
components, each with many features.  Building these components will
require many people, but there will probably be a shortage of
developers in the beginning.  So unless you have a preference for
working on a particular section of the TDN, I recommend you develop
first the TDN features that would encourage more people to join in.

  I think we ought to first concentrate on the TDN Web writing tools.
I think that this would be the fastest way to make more people
interested.
  People who are skillful at writing Web content ought to immediately
begin to work on a network of Web sites devoted to the delivery of
current and historical news and analysis, particularly at the state
and local levels where there's more need.  They ought to make wide use
of supporting hypertext links, which were discussed before.  Also,
there's a lot of good historical material printed on paper that could
be converted to an electronic format and integrated into this network,
if the owners of the material approve.
  Each Web site ought to publicize PROJECT MEDIA MATRIX and the TDN
development effort.
  Meanwhile, people skillful at writing application software ought to
begin working on software that supports the development of Web
content, and related TDN features.  These include Web writing tools,
and support for the maintenance and exchange of hypertext link
directory information.
  This will cause an immediate increase in Web publishing and
browsing.  In addition to increasing the number of people receiving
true news, it'll increase the number of people working on the TDN.
  When time permits and conditions require, developers ought to
develop other TDN features.  For example, if severe restrictions are
placed on Web publishing, developers ought to work on TDN features
that distribute pages by e-mail for viewing locally.  If the number of
documents becomes big and unmanageable, developers ought to
concentrate on document management features to help the user find and
view documents that he's interested in fast.  Features ought to be
chosen for development to maximize the number of people receiving true
news.

  Coordination of the efforts of many developers will be necessary for
the building of TDN software of high quality.
  Originally I thought that some TDN components ought to be developed
commercially because they would be excellent business and educational
tools.  They would be given away to individuals, and sold to
businesses.  But perhaps the best model for TDN software development
is the open-source software model.  In this model the source code for
the software is freely available, and is generally included free with
the executable code.  This model is used for the Linux operating
system and other software.
  Open-source software development has many advantages over the
methods used to develop most commercial software.  Because source code
arrives with the software, it's easier for anybody who wants it to
contribute to the software development effort.  It's easier to detect
and correct security problems, whether they're intentional or not.
Because work on these projects isn't directed by the profit motive, it
isn't vulnerable to discriminatory enforcement of business laws, which
is a very powerful method of control.  And it's possible to organize
open-source software projects without a centralized leadership who's
vulnerable to outside control.  TDN development ought to be organized
this way.
  Open-source software projects don't work well beginning from
scratch.  Fortunately TDN development doesn't have to.  There are e-
mail readers, browsers, and other components that may be used as
beginning points for the TDN components.  In many instances it might
be more sensible to influence the development of existing components
and integrate them into the TDN, and not fork the code.
  Since many TDN users won't be experienced computer users, TDN
software releases ought to put more emphasis on stable bug free
versions than most other open-source software.




Here Are Some Ideas About TDN Security.

  When PROJECT MEDIA MATRIX is successful the TDN will replace today's
big news media as the people's principal source of news.  When that
occurs most people will be receiving true news.  The bad guys won't
like that.  The big news media could begin reporting the truth to
regain their viewers, but the bad guys wouldn't like that either.  The
only way the bad guys could restore the delivery of their lies to the
people is to neutralize the TDN.
  In this section, I discuss ways that the TDN might be attacked.
Also I recommend countermeasures to defend against those attacks.
  Some of these attacks might never occur.  But that doesn't mean that
one ought to not prepare the associated countermeasures.  It's the
belief that these countermeasures would be used if they became
necessary, and make particular attacks ineffective, that would
discourage those attacks.

  The Internet works very well and is in wide use.  One might think
that the Internet, or a more advanced version of it, will always be
the principal means of communication between computers in the TDN.
Regrettably, this might not be true.
  With many people using the Internet to obtain true news, efforts are
underway to change the Internet, to control it.  If these efforts
succeed, the Internet wouldn't be very useful for the TDN, because of
higher costs, less privacy, and more centralization and control.

  The Internet is increasingly subsidized by our government.  Like all
subsidies, these subsidies will increase the price of Internet access
for most of us.  The subsidies pay for high speed Internet access for
public schools and libraries.  Taxes on telecommunications currently
pay for these subsidies.  It was recently reported that
telecommunications is one of the 4 highest taxed products in this
country, with alcohol, tobacco, and gasoline.  This will discourage
people from accessing the Internet using private providers, and
encourage people to access it using government subsidized controlled
providers.
  At this time, efforts are underway to declare a telephone call to an
Internet Service Provider (abbreviated ISP) to be an interstate call.
If these efforts succeed, it would significantly increase telephone
bills of those who access the Internet by telephone.  Actions like
this would cause some people to not use the Internet, or force them to
the bigger and more easily controllable ISPs like cable TV companies
that provide Internet service by other means.

  Government is imposing new laws and regulations on ISPs.  These
rules will force ISPs to police and accept responsibility for material
posted by their customer, material which violates copyright,
obscenity, libel, and other laws.
  Laws are proposed to also require ISPs to block e-mail from other
ISPs or users who send unsolicited e-mail advertising, also called
spam.  These laws, with the secret hoaxing of spam from innocent
sites, could be used to censor those sites.
  It's probably not a coincidence that rules like these burden the
little ISP more than the big one, and will force littler companies out
of the business.  A few big companies are a lot easier to control than
a lot of little ones.  Also, like all laws, Internet laws are able to
be discriminatorily enforced and used to harass with false charges.
This has occurred with broadcast and print media.  ISPs which permit
the publication of unapproved material will be targeted most
frequently and suffer the most damage.

  Realize that the potential audience of every Web page is a lot
bigger than the most powerful radio or TV station on the planet.
Because of this, I wouldn't be surprised to see many of the
regulations on broadcast media proposed soon for the Web.
  For example, one could see it proposed that Web sites or Web pages
be rated in a way similar to motion pictures or TV shows.  Many TV
filtering systems that use the infamous V-chip treat NR (or not Rated)
shows like the most undesirable ones, just under the pornographic X
rating.  So, with any level of filtering, unrated shows are filtered
out by default.  Web filtering software would probably act similarly.
A rating system like the one in the motion picture business would
discourage the little independent Web publisher because the system
decreases the numbers of viewers of unrated works, or adds the cost of
obtaining ratings for those works, or adds the cost of defending self
assigned ratings.
  It wouldn't be surprising to see legislation proposed to require Web
sites to be licensed, like radio and TV stations are currently.

  Another way to control the Internet could be to control domain name
servers.  Domain name servers are the computers and software that
translate alphabetic Internet addresses, like yahoo.com, to numeric
Internet addresses.  This service is very centralized because there's
a central registry for all those names and their translations.
Interference with these servers could cause Web sites to appear to
respond slowly, or appear unreliable, or disappear completely, or be
replaced by imposter sites.  This interference could be made by
political control of the organizations that manage the servers, by
technical interference with the servers themselves, or with imposter
taps in the network connections to the servers.

  Internet search engines also might be targets of control.  People
use search engines to search the Internet for documents about subjects
that interest them, and most people use only a few popular search
engines.  If search engines are made to not report particular
documents, many people would never see them.

  Web sites that publish sensitive information could be made targets
of sabotage.  If a site is unable to be infiltrated it could be made
difficult to access by overloading it from the outside.
  There are ways to defend against attacks from central locations, but
it's also possible to attack from thousands of locations.  Here's how
a stealthy virus program might be used to do this.  When an infected
user is connected to the Internet the virus downloads a list of Web
sites to be censored.  The virus makes file requests to sites on the
censored list and throws these files away when it receives them.  The
affect of thousands of viruses accessing censored Web sites overloads
the sites.  This makes it almost impossible for users to view the
sites.  It's difficult to defend a site against this kind of attack
because you aren't able to determine whether an Internet file request
is from a legitimate user or a virus.

  If many of these Internet problems develop, it would be necessary to
change the way the TDN uses the Internet, or use additional networks.

  The problems associated with centralized servers could be controlled
by duplicating some of their functionality in the TDN personal
computer software.
  For example, the problem of tampering with domain name servers could
be controlled by having TDN software save domain name translations
locally.  The TDN software could use the saved information to detect
domain name tampering in a way that's similar to the way described
before for detecting Web page changes.  If tampering is detected, a
report about it could be published and operations could continue using
cached translations.  Also, domain name translations could be included
in outgoing files that reference disappeared sites.
  The problem of search engine tampering could be controlled by
exchanging information about the ability of the different search
engines to find particular sites, and avoiding the bad search engines.
If all search engines on the Internet are corrupted, we ought to put
some search engine functionality in the TDN software.  This could be
implemented by expanding the hypertext link directory idea discussed
before, duplicating some of that information in all computers of the
TDN, and integrating it with the page update notification system
described before, and adding a TDN search function.

  If the publication of unapproved news on the Internet is prohibited,
it might be necessary to limit TDN use of the Internet to e-mail.  In
other words, unapproved material isn't published on the Internet.  It
goes directly from one person's or organization's TDN computer to
another, using the Internet for delivery only.
  Regrettably this means that the browsing of unapproved material
could no longer occur on line.  The Web browsers could continue to be
used, but they would be used to view pages received attached to e-mail
messages and stored on disk.
  The e-mail software would need to route these messages to the
browser, which would store the attached Web files in folders on disk
in formats fitting for browsing off line.  The browser would add these
pages to the list of Unread documents.

  E-mail and Usenet messages could be sabotaged, either by interfering
with message delivery, or by breaking into a communication link and
becoming an Internet address imposter.  An Internet imposter could
make it appear that a message was delivered to its destination when
actually it was delivered to the imposter.  Imposters are able to
block, discriminatorily forward, or in sensitive situations change and
forward messages.  Messages addressed to e-mail list servers and
Usenet news groups have the biggest chance of becoming targets of this
kind of attack because of the many readers of the messages sent there.
  One countermeasure against this kind of interference is to have all
e-mail messages acknowledged.  E-mail is able to be acknowledged today
using return receipt messages.  Using these receipts ought to become
the default between TDN installations.  Or, acknowledgement
information could be passed in special header fields of messages.
Either way, the user ought to not usually need to deal with this
information.  The e-mail software ought to store this information and
notify the user only when acknowledgement of a message is overdue.  It
ought to also be able to resend unacknowledged messages.
  Another countermeasure is the use of encryption technology.  Pretty
Good Privacy (abbreviated PGP), and compatible software, are probably
the best encryption systems for this project.  It's able to add
unforgeable signatures to electronic documents to stop Internet
imposters.  A signature makes possible the detection and prevention of
one person hoaxing the publication of a document by another person,
the secret changing of a message before forwarding it to its
recipients, and the sending of a deceptive message delivery receipt.
  All TDN document viewer software ought to automatically attempt to
validate signatures on all incoming documents, and report validation
failures.
  It would be a good idea if all outgoing TDN documents were signed
automatically.  A problem with automatic signing is the need to
repeatedly input a pass phrase.  A solution used currently is to not
require the user to input the pass phrase again if an encryption or
signing operation occurred in the previous few minutes.  The idea is
that the person currently in front of the computer is probably the
same person who input the pass phrase the last time.  This is good
when one has many documents to sign all at once, but usually the times
at which one needs to sign a document are separated by longer periods.
So this solution causes many people to not enable automatic signing.
  A better solution is to have the software act more like a screen
saver.  Measure the time from the last key stroke or mouse operation.
If a time limit is exceeded, the user will need to input the pass
phrase the next time a document needs to be signed.  The software
ought to play a sound or display a visual signal when the timer is
close to expiring.  If the user is there, pressing a shift key or
moving the mouse a little bit will reset the timer without distracting
the user a lot.
  PGP is also able to be used to make messages unreadable by all but
the intended recipients.  This feature isn't useful for distribution
of news, but it would be useful for collaborative projects that
require secrecy, like sensitive news investigations or development of
important new TDN software components.

  TDN software ought to record all anomalies like inaccessible or
unexpectedly changed Web pages, undeliverable messages, and overdue
message delivery receipts.  It ought to write reports that summarize
all those anomalies.  These reports ought to be distributed to other
people using the TDN to help detect intentional network interference,
identify the interferers, and permit TDN operations to continue.

  If the delivery of unapproved news by Internet e-mail is prevented,
either by covert interference or by overt prohibition, it would be
necessary to remove all TDN functions from the Internet and use
different networks.
  A possibility is to have the computers executing TDN software
telephone other computers executing TDN software and exchange files
directly.  They wouldn't use ISPs or the Internet at all.  Networks
have been implemented this way before.

  If the situation becomes very oppressive and one isn't permitted to
use the telephone to exchange news files directly, we must use the
sneaker net.  This means exchanging files in person on floppy disk.
TDN software ought to be able to write the latest news files to a
floppy, and read news from the floppy.  The TDN ought to write all
possible new documents to the floppy, preferably at least those
received since the previous information exchange with the same
contact.
  For news to be distributed efficiently, most people using the TDN
ought to have no less than three reliable sneaker net contacts.  For
convenience, these contacts probably ought to be co-workers or
neighbors.
  Also, ones choice of sneaker net contacts has a big affect on how
fast news travels.  If everybody's contacts are only neighbors, news
could travel only a few hundred feet each day.  But if one commutes to
work and one of the contacts is a co-worker, news could travel many
miles per day, the distance they live from each other.  There would be
only local news on weekends and holidays, but perhaps this isn't bad.
If one works for a transportation company, and one's contacts are at
opposite ends of a regularly travelled route, news could travel
hundreds or thousands of miles per day.
  Co-worker contacts could exchange TDN floppies that they prepared
before leaving for work.
  Neighborhood contacts could exchange floppies also, but they could
exchange news with one floppy.  A neighbor would visit another and
bring the latest TDN floppy.  The second neighbor would put the floppy
in his computer.  The computer would read all new news from the
floppy.  The computer would write to the same floppy all new news that
it had received from other sources.  Lastly, the floppy would be
returned to the first neighbor who would bring it home.
  A person with some courage and a lot of spare time could act like a
clearinghouse for local area news by volunteering to be a sneaker net
contact of many people.  This would make the time necessary to
distribute a document to the entire area very little, and would be
very helpful to activist groups who want to respond fast to news
events.
  The above methods work with faster networks also, but the savings in
time is littler and less significant.
  The TDN software ought to also be able to copy a set of documents
specified manually by the user to a floppy.

  Because of the possible need to use networks that use infrequent
dial-up and sneaker net links, TDN protocols that distribute documents
ought to work efficiently in these situations.  These protocols ought
to support the sending of huge amounts of information identifying
available documents, desired documents, received documents, and actual
document content, without requiring immediate acknowledgement.  These
protocols ought to support the compact representation of arbitrary
document sets, including gaps in document sequence numbers if sequence
numbers are used in document identifiers.  Hash functions would be
useful for this, particularly for representing big stable sets of
older documents.

  But, until and unless the Internet becomes unusable, the TDN ought
to be able to make good use of the Internet to access documents that
are available on demand.
  In other words, the TDN ought to work well in two situations.  One
situation is of documents available from the cheap multiple hop
Internet connections available today.  Each document exists on only a
few highly accessible high capacity servers.  Web browsing protocols
were originally designed to work this way.  The other situation is of
documents available from intermittent one hop connections like dial-up
and sneaker net connections.  In this situation each document must be
copied to many computers in the network to compensate for the absence
of on-demand connections to servers.  The older Usenet news was
originally designed to work this way.

  Lower bandwidths generally make a medium less pleasant to use.  So
the TDN ought to be able to make best use of whatever network
bandwidth is available.  Here's how different bandwidths might best be
used to report a story, from highest bandwidth to the lowest: by
streaming video and audio with a transcript; streaming audio and a few
pictures with a transcript; a few pictures and transcript with
computer vocalization of most of the transcript and streaming audio of
a few important quotes; and transcript with computer vocalization of
the transcript.
  It's said that a picture is worth a thousand words.  It might
require a thousand words to describe all details of a picture, but for
a news report, many of the details aren't relevant to the news.  So
using the TDN on low bandwidth networks wouldn't be a big sacrifice.

  Another way to damage the TDN is by using it to publish reports
containing misinformation or useless information.  Misinformation is
information that's false or misleading.  Misinformation is already a
big problem on the Internet.
  Sometimes a report contains all false information and was written to
be a simple distraction from the actual story.
  Sometimes a report contains a combination of true and clearly false
information.  The reason for this appears to be to cause people to
disbelieve the true information because of its association with the
false information.
  To limit the effectiveness of misinformation, TDN software therefore
ought to attempt to help users determine the accuracy of reports.
  The TDN ought to record users' evaluations of the accuracy of
reports.  These evaluations are made when TDN users read the
documents.  A document ought to be treated like an Unread document
until the user makes an evaluation of the document.
  The user ought to be able to choose one of at least three
evaluations.  These are: Good, Not-sure, and Bad.  Their meanings are
clear.  A Not-sure evaluation might be used a lot, for example when
the user decides fast that a document isn't about a subject of
interest, and stops reading it.
  To make document evaluation easy for the user, the recording of an
evaluation ought to be combined with the commands that are used to
finish reading one document and move on to another.  Examples are the
browser Go/Back command, and the e-mail reader command that displays
the next Unread message.  The user ought to be able to choose any one
of the combination commands with one mouse click on one of several
displayed buttons, or a press of one of several keyboard keys, or the
speaking of one of several words.
  Each recorded evaluation affects the believability of the writer of
the associated document, and the believability of any users who
evaluated that same document before.  The TDN software ought to pass
evaluations across the TDN network with the documents that they
evaluate.
  Whenever the TDN software displays a document it ought to also
display nearby a score of the believability of the document based on
information it has about the document.  This information includes the
believability of the writer, evaluations of the document, and the
believability of the users who made those evaluations.
  It ought to be possible to use these evaluations to automatically
adjust document filter criteria discussed before.
  This system will help TDN users identify misinformation and its
sources, and filter them out regardless of the number of times they're
repeated.
  This evaluation system could be expanded.  Instead of rating
documents simply for accuracy, they could be rated for relevance to
particular issues represented by attributes, or other measures like
bandwidth utilization.  Like accuracy evaluations, these evaluations
ought to affect the believability of users who evaluated the same
document with respect to the same measure.

  Another way to damage the TDN is to build and release a computer
virus that interferes with the host computer if the virus detects TDN
software on the computer.  The virus would reproduce very quietly, but
otherwise lay dormant until the user installs TDN software. at that
time the virus would cause the computer to malfunction.  This appears
to the user like the TDN software causes the malfunction.  A virus
like this would discourage TDN use.

  But there's software to protect against computer virus infection,
and antivirus software ought to be included and activated with all
releases of TDN software.

  Another way one might attempt to damage the TDN is to build harmful
code into another popular application program or the operating system.
This code would act in a way similar to the virus.
  This is potentially a very serious problem.  Unless the security of
Windows is significantly improved, it might be necessary to replace
Windows completely and execute TDN software on only more secure
operating systems.
  This is a very drastic action.  There are other cheap operating
systems available, but they generally don't execute Windows programs.
Many users would choose not to switch to another system if that meant
that they couldn't execute the software to which they had become
accustomed.
  One solution to the problem is to have both Windows, and a secure
operating system, on the same computer.  The user could use the secure
operating system for the TDN and other software that executes there,
and use the Windows for everything else.  This could be by having the
operating systems on separate partitions of the same disk, on separate
fixed disks, or on separate removable disks.  The important security
requirement is that the destructive Windows program must be unable to
detect the presence of the TDN software or the secure operating system
on which it executes.  Let us hope that this doesn't become necessary,
because it would be difficult to make this easy for the common user.
  Another solution to this problem is to port more application
software to a secure operating system, thereby making it easier to
switch.  This might not be impractical like it sounds.  Linux is an
efficient, reliable, secure, and free operating system.  Many
companies have already ported their application software to Linux, and
Linux is gaining popularity as a high performance video game platform.
If these trends continue, and it receives an easy installation
procedure and a good GUI (or Graphical User Interface), Linux could
replace Windows as the operating system of choice for personal
computers.




We Ought To Be Concerned About Our Safety.

  PROJECT MEDIA MATRIX endangers the power and fortunes of the bad
guys.  They'll want PROJECT MEDIA MATRIX to fail.
  PROJECT MEDIA MATRIX could be stopped by stopping its participants.
We know from earlier actions that, to sabotage this project they'll
attempt to harm project participants, up to and including murder if
they think that enough is at stake and that they would go unpunished.
Of course these murders would probably be labelled accidents or
suicides in reports in the big news media.
  So you might want to hide your participation in the project at
first.  Later you could work more openly.  After many people know
about it, stopping PROJECT MEDIA MATRIX by stopping all participants
will be practically impossible.  But the inability to stop the project
doesn't mean that the bad guys won't attempt to slow it down.
  Here are several options that you may use for self protection.

  Option 1:  Hide your participation in PROJECT MEDIA MATRIX.  They
aren't able to harm you if they don't know who you are.
  The problem with this option is that the more you participate, the
more difficult it is to stay hidden.  Think about who you're up
against.  You might need to use advanced secrecy methods.
  This option is probably best for the person or little group who
develops important new components in secret, and publishes them
anonymously, once.  If each component and its interface is well
documented, other developers could integrate the new components into
the TDN and maintain them in the open.

  Option 2:  Do the opposite.  Widely publicize PROJECT MEDIA MATRIX
and your own participation in it.  They'll probably not want to harm
you a lot if you're widely known because this could make you a martyr
and thereby benefit the project.
  This option doesn't eliminate all dangers, but it forces the bad
guys to use more costly under-handed methods, or find a way to
discredit you instead of killing you, or to harm your loved ones
instead of you and thereby distract you and decrease your
effectiveness.
  This option is probably best for a person who likes publicity, and
doesn't have a family.

  Option 3:  Be one of many interchangeable participants.  If you
don't stand out, or if your work would be continued by many other
people if you're eliminated, you probably won't be a target.

  You might even be able to combine these options.  For example you
could use option (3) for routine TDN software improvements and bug
fixes, and option (1) for special projects.




Please Respect The Privacy Of Participants In PROJECT MEDIA MATRIX.

  People ought to be able to choose the amount of their participation
in this project, to whom that participation is revealed, and when it's
revealed.  So please be discrete.  It's alright to reveal to other
people that you work on PROJECT MEDIA MATRIX if you feel comfortable
revealing it.  It's alright to ask other people whether they know
about PROJECT MEDIA MATRIX.  But please don't ask other people about
their participation, or about the identities of anonymous
participants, and keep speculation about these things confidential.
People will reveal these things if they feel comfortable revealing
these things, and if they believe that they'll be able to defend
against resulting attacks on them.
  The identity of an anonymous participant is a lot more useful to
somebody attempting to damage this project than it is to a another
project participant.  So, anybody who insists on knowing or discussing
this information is probably an enemy of the project and ought to be
shunned.




To Hide My Identity I'll Use These Precautions.

  This list might give you an idea of how seriously I think about the
issue of project security.

  The name "Crimson Tablet" isn't my actual name.
  I'll distribute copies of this document on floppy disk by postal
mail.
  I won't put my return address on the envelopes and won't mail them
from locations that are near my residence, place of work, or the
residence of anybody closely associated with me.
  When I address the envelopes I'll disguise my hand writing by
writing with my opposite hand and using different character stroke
order.
  I'll mail the floppies to people who don't know me.
  I'll use all new floppies, envelopes, stamps, and ink which are
difficult to trace.
  I'll remove the lot serial numbers from the floppies, and I'll erase
and format the floppies in order to remove identifying information
recorded on them.
  I'll use gloves or other protection when I handle the floppies,
envelopes, and stamps, to prevent the deposition of finger prints or
bodily substances that contain DNA.  For the same reason I won't lick
the envelopes or stamps because saliva contains DNA.
  To prevent the matching of this anonymous document with other
documents that I've written, I'm avoiding common subject matter, and
I'll have this document rewritten to disguise the writing style.  This
might explain some unusual wording in this document (or it might just
be an excuse for bad writing :).
  I'm taking other precautions that don't appear here.

  I'm not sure, regrettably, that all these precautions are necessary.
I'm not sure either that they're enough.  With technology advancing
constantly, and the policy of government agencies not to reveal their
investigative capabilities, it's difficult to know what precautions
are necessary.  These are all precautions of which I was able to
think, and which I'm able to implement.




Here Are Some Ideas About Distributing This Document.

  Until many people are working together on PROJECT MEDIA MATRIX, the
best way for people to learn about it is for all of us to distribute
copies of this document.
  So, please give copies of it to other people.  Give it first to
people who will probably be interested in helping the project, like
freedom activists, and computer professionals.  But don't stop giving
away copies until each of the people you know has one.
  Here's a list of methods for distributing the copies.  The most
secret methods are listed first.  There's probably not a lot of risk
associated with redistributing this document, unless you're
distributing many copies, but some of you will want to use
precautions.

  Method 1:  Give this document to people on floppy disk.  This method
is good for people who have computers, but aren't yet on the Internet.
If you want to give it anonymously, you could send the floppy by
postal mail or use another secure delivery method.

  Method 2:  Send this document to people by e-mail.  This method is
good for people who are on the Internet.  This method is convenient,
but not very secret unless you use other precautions.  Government
intelligence agencies monitor all kinds of electronic communications,
using computers to search it for words and phrases of special interest
to them.  This document will interest them and trigger an
investigation.  If you're one of the first few people to distribute
this document over the Internet, and you don't hide your identity, you
ought to not be surprised to receive a visit from some government
agency.

  Method 3:  Send this document to people by Usenet news.  This is
similar to method 2, but is able to reach many more people at once.

  Method 4:  Publish this document on Internet Web sites.  This is
also similar to method 2, but it has the potential of reaching even
more people over a longer period of time.

  Method 5:  Distribute or publicize this document in print, by radio,
by TV, and by all other means that might reach new people.




Let Us Begin.


  The power of the bad guys has been growing for years, because the
controlled news media have been hiding their activities and effective
ways of fighting them.  The bad guys have been winning because most
good guys either didn't know that they were losing, or were convinced
that they couldn't win.  It's time to change all that.
  The goal of PROJECT MEDIA MATRIX is to expose the lies in the big
news media, urge people to obtain news from truthful sources, and
develop the TDN to make obtaining true news easy for everybody.  By
doing these things, PROJECT MEDIA MATRIX will make it impossible for
the bad guys to hide their evil.  When their secrets are revealed,
their ability to do evil will end.  They'll either be brought to
justice or be forced to stop their evil and hide.  The good guys will
be able to undo the damage that the bad guys have done.  In the end
our world will be a lot saner, safer, freer, and a more pleasant place
in which to live.

  I invite you all to join PROJECT MEDIA MATRIX.  You might be an
activist attempting to expose and end injustice and restore liberty.
You might be a former activist discouraged by lack of success.  You
might be an ordinary person who has never thought about these matters
before.  Or you might be a computer hacker looking for a more
meaningful use for your hacking.  Whatever your situation, please give
this invitation serious thought.  It might be the best investment
you'll ever make for you, your children, or the good causes for which
you work.
  If you're a good person, you'll probably enjoy helping PROJECT MEDIA
MATRIX.  Many of you will make it your hobby, and a few of you will
make it your life's work.
  Please help in whatever way you're able, even if that's only giving
copies of this document to other people.

  I thank you for reading this document.

  Please do what you think is right.




Here's Crimson Tablet's PGP Public Key.

  To prevent somebody else from claiming to be Crimson Tablet, here's
Crimson Tablet's PGP public key.  The PGP signature for this document
follows the key.

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5DCEm7r/KYqKqPtdu+lQEVzvEKPkM2ghMDbeHxDSjssWWDUPnqsnX7+2kbqFAAUR
tA5Dcmltc29uIFRhYmxldA==
=VlBF
- -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----




THE END.


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