User:Vivek.m1234/Sandbox

Cyberspace Communications

File:GrexTownHall.png
Founded	June 26, 1991
Type	Community foundation (IRS exemption status): 501(c)(3)
Focus	Education, Free Speech, Internet
Location	Ann Arbor, Michigan
Area served	Global
Method	Donations
Owner	Cyberspace Community
Revenue	less than US$ 25000
Website	www.cyberspace.org

Grex, also known as grex.cyberspace.org is a nonprofit, charitable (501(c)(3)), public access UNIX system, on the Internet. It is physically located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA, and is cooperatively owned and operated. It is supported entirely by donations from users, and all staff members are volunteers. It is one of the oldest, completely free, shell provider in existence today.

History

Grex came on line on June 26, 1991 and opened to the public on July 18. It ran on a Sun 2 computer, had four public dial-in lines, and was housed rent-free in a warehouse. A non-profit corporation called Cyberspace Communications was formed to run it. Grex has always been firmly dedicated to open access. To ensure democratic operation of the system, they have compiled a set of by-laws allowing any member to call for a binding referendum on any issue.

Services

The system currently runs on an OpenBSD 4.4 server and offers complete, unprivileged, and free Unix shell access to all its users.

Lots of Unix programs and utilities, including a BBS (Backtalk), chat program (party), email programs (Pine, Mutt), and developer tools (GCC, Perl, Python, PHP, Ruby, Expect, MySQL, GDB, Strace) have been made available at no cost to the lay user. Users can also host their personal-website (eg: http://johndoe.cyberspace.org), and are permitted to run CGI scripts.

Outbound access from Grex, for non-members, is severely restricted and IRC bots and bouncers do not work because of patches implemented at the kernel level; mailing lists and file storage are also not provided.

As a member (who has made a donation and sent ID), you can: vote in Grex elections, serve on the board of Cyberspace Communications, access outbound SSH, FTP, and IRC sites from Grex. You can also access web sites running on unusual ports, from Grex using (lynx or links).

Software

Grex runs some pretty unique and antiquated software that was cutting edge at a time when computer conferencing systems were beginning to become publicly available. Cursive, a program to generate signatures and text using ASCII was written in 1987. Backtalk v0.9.0, was first released on Oct 6 1997. The original version of party was written by Marcus Watts for System III Unix some time around 1983, for use on the original Mike Myers' M-Net system (this was the second free public-access Unix system in the world). An early version of party migrated to Chinet (the first public-access Unix system in the world) where it sprouted many new features, including channels.

Access

The simplest way to access Grex is to create a new account, by connecting to cyberspace.org via telnet and typing newuser at the login prompt. However, due to constant abuse, a newuser has to 'validate' his account after logging in. This is done by typing 'help' at the restricted shell and following the instructions provided. Validation costs you nothing, and gives you complete access to all services.

Policy and governance

Cyberspace Communications functions as an online democracy, with policies set by its users. The Co-op Conference is open to all users and provides a forum for discussing policy issues. The Board of Directors, elected by the members, is the formal governing body and uses consensus in the Co-op Conference as its primary guide for making decisions. Any member of Grex who can attend the monthly meetings, held in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is eligible to run for the Board of Directors. In addition, any member can call a binding vote by the membership on any policy issue. The Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws can be viewed online.

Cyberspace vs Engler

In 1978, the Michigan state legislature enacted a statute to protect children by prohibiting the distribution of obscene materials to children of that state (1978 Public Act 33, M.C.L. 722.671 et seq.; M.S.A. 25.254(1) et. seq). In an effort to modernize the statute due to the advent of computers, the Legislature then amended the statute by means of 1999 Public act 33. The act primarily attempted two things: 1) it added criminal prohibitions against using computers or the Internet to disseminate sexually explicit materials to minors 2) it changed the language of the statute so that the statute prohibits the dissemination of "sexually explicit" materials to minors rather than "obscene" materials.

The amendments to M.C.L. 722.671 et seq., was signed by Defendant, John Engler, the Governor of Michigan on June 1, 1999. It was set to take effect on August 1, 1999. Violations were punishable by up to two years in jail, and a fine of up to $10,000, or both.

Cyberspace claimed that the Act would adversely impact them because it was unconstitutionally vague or over-broad. They maintained that it would have a chilling effect on their freedom of speech under the First Amendment. People logging in to cyberspace.org, communicate online, both within and outside of the state of Michigan. Their speech would be accessible within and outside of the state of Michigan. For this reason, Cyberspace argued that the Act violated the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution. They requested that the Court issue a preliminary injunction to enjoin the amendments to the statute.

Michael J. Steinberg, Legal Director of the ACLU of Michigan said that "The law would reduce the level of discourse on the Internet to that which is appropriate to a seven year-old,"

The Court concluded that a preliminary injunction would not cause substantial harm to others, but would serve the public interest, because it would protect the free expression of millions of Internet users both within and outside the State of Michigan.

External links

• Official website Cyberspace Communications
• Telnet to Grex Cyberspace