Sender: "Mario Profaca, Freelancer; Zagreb, Croatia" <•••@••.•••> Subject: Croatian flag in Cyberspace Surfing all over Cyberspace I found many web sites were offering clickable flags of countries of the world. I used to click the Croatian one offered and so many times I was disappointed when a late communist flag of Socialist Republic of Croatia showed up on my PC monitor. I took one of my graphic editors and made myself the actual Croatian flag in gif format and sent it to some of those Web sites. But, I was wondering how come that they had that old flag even five years after Croatia proclaimed independence and exchanged the flag, internationally recognised. One of webmasters I talked to told me he download it at NATO's Alpha CCIS page Flags of the World. I failed to believe that and went there to check it myself. Connected to Alpha CCIS URL http://cliffie.nosc.mil:80/~NATLAS/flags I was welcomed with this: "WARNING USE OF THIS COMPUTER SYSTEM CONSTITUTES AN EXPRESS CONSENT TO MONITORING AT ALL TIMES." "This Computer System and all related equipment are to be used for the communication, transmission, processing, and storage of official North Atlantic Treaty Organisation or other authorised information only. All North Atlantic Treaty Organisation computer systems are subject to monitoring at all times. If monitoring of any North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Computer System reveals possible violation of applicable laws, all relevant information may be provided to law enforcement officials." "After reading and understanding the foregoing statement, you may continue or exit from this server." Believe or not - I continued. Anyway, I thought, if that computer system provides me an express consent to monitoring at all times as it reads, why don't take advantage of it and monitor it myself too. I went on and monitored Flags of the World page searching for the flag of Croatia. And there it was (and still is): at URL http://cliffie.nosc.mil:80/~NATLAS/flags/C/Croatia.gif there is that old communist flag of late Socialist Republic of Croatia (remember that big red star on it?) instead of the actual flag of Republic of Croatia we have for more than five years. I released that computer system in question was so busy monitoring it's visitors that it had no time for monitoring and updating it's contents. Well, in the mood for the "nobody's perfect" happy ending as in an old American movie ("Somebody likes it hot") I remembered , I went further on and wrote a comment to the webmaster <goossens@cliffie>. I took advantage of feedback utility provided on that hypertext server. I was so happy when it automatically generated the answer thanking me for that message of mine they automatically displayed too. In short, I did it three times so far. I wrote them that they could (I didn't write they should) download the actual Croatian flag at my Web site (Mario's Cyberspace Station): URL http://jagor.srce.hr/~mprofaca/mcstation.html or just jumping on URL http://jagor.srce.hr/~mprofaca/croflag.gif to spare some time. Naive as I might sound I thought they were going to exchange the flag of Croatia on their Web site as quick as possible. For several days so far I'm monitoring that computer system and it's monitoring me monitoring it, but the late communist flag is still there. Please, if anybody is monitoring me here too, do something to exchange the flag of Croatia at your Web sites here and there in the Cyberspace if you still have that communist one. You see, we, the Croats, we love our flag at least as much as you love your one. For all those not familiar with computers and networking, a group of Croatian alpinists recently sticked the Croatian flag on to the top of Himalayas too. Mario Profaca Freelance Journalist Zagreb, Croatia •••@••.••• ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ Posted by Andrew Oram - •••@••.••• - Moderator: CYBER-RIGHTS (CPSR) You are encouraged to forward and cross-post messages for non-commercial use, pursuant to any redistribution restrictions included in individual messages. ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~
