December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

RE: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Vladimir Z. Nuri, in his Ruskie disguise: hi timmy, a word to the wise: it amuses me that whenever I referred to a cypherpunk "community" my eyebrows were flamed off, by people who claimed there was no such thing. a community has certain properties, many of which I believe the cypherpunks "crowd" has always lacked. ...................................... LD, when you say "community" it means something else than when others do. When the cpunks said "community" they meant the camaraderie which develops in the company of people with similar interests. When you say it, it means a group of people stuck to each other by rules of order and socialization, with boundary lines predetermining the limits of their arena. The cpunks had intended that everyone would self-determine the extent or limits of their interactions, thus arriving at a sense of "community" from the decision to do so, rather than from being squeezed along through "proper" channels. == one aspect of the "crowd" that is lacking is LEADERSHIP. I have pointed this out again and again. the cpunks believe that leadership is no longer relevant in a digital society, somehow. the list is in the shape it is in because of POOR LEADERSHIP.. neither you nor EH care about what LEADERSHIP entails, or wish to exert the sacrifices that it requires. ............................... Typically, people who yell for LEADERSHIP are those who either need it themselves or are eager to supply it for others - i.e., to determine the course of events. Which one of these categories do you yourself fall into? == <<* The proper solution to bad speech is more speech, not censorship. ah, so everyone should post 5 messages to the list, instead of 1, and those that are quite should post 3. ........................................ I would more precisely say that the solution to bad speech is better speech, thus eliminating the need for 5 messages when 1 will do. YMMV. Do you think this would hold up in reality? == quite an elegant solution. do you see how the silly rhetoric fails to hold up in reality? when will you get a clue about where your own views are really leading you? ................................ You're starting to sound like Ayn Rand. (heh) .. Blanc

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RE: Filling Power Vacuums
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Vladimir Z. Nuri, filling in for Mother Theresa: timmy, I encourage you to understand that leadership is not inherently evil. there are enlightened ways to lead people that leave the group better as a whole. you just fell into the trap of "negative leadership", the dark side of the force as you write. imho, however, there is a light side of the force that still involves leadership. ................................................. Well, thank you, Master Yoda ! :>) Not speaking for Tim (I doubt he will answer you, anyway), but he *has* supplied leadership. Leaders can lead by example, and also by the clarity of thought & ideas which they present. I think he has quite often supplied such qualities in his posts, and this has contributed greatly to the atmosphere of anarchic "community". Speaking of leadeship, though, to "lead" implies that there is a place to go, and that the leader is the one at the head of the pack, indicating the proper direction (this would be the opposite of what anarchists want, since they would be going not toward, but away from, something). If leadership is defined to mean setting a course for people who lack direction, this implies the existence of followers who are willing to be led into places and to adopt methodologies when they don't know what else to do; that they will follow a leader who will supply structure and purpose to their indecisive condition. This does place a lot of responsibility upon a leader, then, for setting the goal, the course, and the methodology. That's a lot of formality to impose; too much, when you're only exchanging ideas rather than formally setting out to accomplish something specific (like by a particular time & date). Is it Time for the Revolution? .. Blanc

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[PCS] Fighting the cyber-censors
by nobody＠zifi.genetics.utah.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dumbbell Vindictive styles his facial hair to look more like pubic hair. D\___/\ (0_o) Dumbbell Vindictive (V) ---oOo--U--oOo---

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Re: Dissolving Choke Points
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

pdh(a)best.com (Peter Hendrickson) writes: > What we want are many machines carrying the cypherpunks list. A > message posted to any machine goes to all of the others. Each > machine sends messages to its subscribers only once. Some of > these machines should be across borders. Ever heard of Usenet? It works exactly like that...

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Re: Moderation [Tim,Sandy]
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Adam Back <aba(a)dcs.ex.ac.uk> writes: > Lucky Green <shamrock(a)netcom.com> writes: > > I believe that Cypherpunks is beyond hope of recovery. In fact, each day > > Cypherpunk (as in cypherpunks(a)toad.com) lives on, it does damage to the > > cause. Let's kill the list. Once and for all. Let the hard core crypto go > > to Coderpunks, the politics to Cryptography, and the garbage into the void. > > What about the leaks? (rc4.c, Mykotronics dumpster contents, etc) > Where do they go? How about sci.crypt, where they usually go before being forwarded to cypherpunks?

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Re: concerning Ben Franklin
by Kent Crispin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

David Farber allegedly said: > > My favorate Ben Franklin quote is > > "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary > safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Ben Franklin, ~1784 In the constitutional convention a property requirement for voting was discussed. Franklin said "A man owns an ass; he can vote. The ass dies; he cannot vote. Who owns the vote?" (I may not have quoted it precisely.) -- Kent Crispin "No reason to get excited", kent@songbird.com,kc@llnl.gov the thief he kindly spoke... PGP fingerprint: 5A 16 DA 04 31 33 40 1E 87 DA 29 02 97 A3 46 2F

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Re: what's in a name?
by Kent Crispin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Wei Dai allegedly said: > > I've stayed out of the debate about list moderation so far, but a recent > post from tmcghan(a)gill-simpson.com reminds me of something I've been > thinking about. An interesting way to look at what happened is that John > Gilmore owns the name "cypherpunks(a)toad.com" and has chosen to exercise > that ownership. Even though those of us who disagree with the way he has > done so are free to leave and set up our own mailing list, it is costly to > do so, and the problem of central name ownership remains. List > subscribers have made investments that are specific to the name > "cypherpunks(a)toad.com", and most of the cost of switching to a new list is > in the new investments they would have to (re)make. The fact is that a > promise of no censorship is not enough incentive for us to do so. > > I suspect that the hierarchical nature of name ownership on the Internet > today will be an important technological barrier for the establishment of > truly anarchic virtual communities. Unless this problem is solved, the > closest we'll come is pseudo-anarchies that exist with the tolerance of > beneficent dictators. While the name hierarchy may have some effect similar to what you suggest, I think the real issue is more likely economic hierarchy -- toad.com is a name of some value, true, but toad.com is also a T1 connection and some compute power that many people simply can't afford. -- Kent Crispin "No reason to get excited", kent@songbird.com,kc@llnl.gov the thief he kindly spoke... PGP fingerprint: 5A 16 DA 04 31 33 40 1E 87 DA 29 02 97 A3 46 2F

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RE: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Vladimir Z. Nuri, in his Ruskie disguise: hi timmy, a word to the wise: it amuses me that whenever I referred to a cypherpunk "community" my eyebrows were flamed off, by people who claimed there was no such thing. a community has certain properties, many of which I believe the cypherpunks "crowd" has always lacked. ...................................... LD, when you say "community" it means something else than when others do. When the cpunks said "community" they meant the camaraderie which develops in the company of people with similar interests. When you say it, it means a group of people stuck to each other by rules of order and socialization, with boundary lines predetermining the limits of their arena. The cpunks had intended that everyone would self-determine the extent or limits of their interactions, thus arriving at a sense of "community" from the decision to do so, rather than from being squeezed along through "proper" channels. == one aspect of the "crowd" that is lacking is LEADERSHIP. I have pointed this out again and again. the cpunks believe that leadership is no longer relevant in a digital society, somehow. the list is in the shape it is in because of POOR LEADERSHIP.. neither you nor EH care about what LEADERSHIP entails, or wish to exert the sacrifices that it requires. ............................... Typically, people who yell for LEADERSHIP are those who either need it themselves or are eager to supply it for others - i.e., to determine the course of events. Which one of these categories do you yourself fall into? == <<* The proper solution to bad speech is more speech, not censorship. ah, so everyone should post 5 messages to the list, instead of 1, and those that are quite should post 3. ........................................ I would more precisely say that the solution to bad speech is better speech, thus eliminating the need for 5 messages when 1 will do. YMMV. Do you think this would hold up in reality? == quite an elegant solution. do you see how the silly rhetoric fails to hold up in reality? when will you get a clue about where your own views are really leading you? ................................ You're starting to sound like Ayn Rand. (heh) .. Blanc

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Re: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"
by Kent Crispin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Scott V. McGuire allegedly said: [...] > I didn't change my subscription from the filtered to > the unfiltered list because I expected this to end in a month and I was > willing to participate in the experiment. You can't ask someone to try > something for a month to see if they like it and call there use of it in > that month evidence that they like it. I agree. But there is more. As much as anything else, I didn't change lists because of inertia and laziness. I suspect that most people are like me in this regard. I suspect that if the tactic had been to require people to subscribe to the moderated list we would see just the reverse of the current numbers. In fact, in the interests of fairness, integrity, and adherence to the scientific method, I suggest that after this month trial has passed that we reverse the lists, and see how many change to the moderated list. [snip] > Sandy, you said that you thought the list had improved since you began > moderating. How could you think otherwise? When you send an article to > the flames list its because you think the list would have been worse > otherwise. I don't think the moderators opinion should be considered in > determining if moderation is a good thing. I think there is a conflict of > interest there. Absolutely no doubt that there is a conflict of interest. In Sandy's shoes a saint couldn't be objective. -- Kent Crispin "No reason to get excited", kent@songbird.com,kc@llnl.gov the thief he kindly spoke... PGP fingerprint: 5A 16 DA 04 31 33 40 1E 87 DA 29 02 97 A3 46 2F

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RE: Filling Power Vacuums
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Vladimir Z. Nuri, filling in for Mother Theresa: timmy, I encourage you to understand that leadership is not inherently evil. there are enlightened ways to lead people that leave the group better as a whole. you just fell into the trap of "negative leadership", the dark side of the force as you write. imho, however, there is a light side of the force that still involves leadership. ................................................. Well, thank you, Master Yoda ! :>) Not speaking for Tim (I doubt he will answer you, anyway), but he *has* supplied leadership. Leaders can lead by example, and also by the clarity of thought & ideas which they present. I think he has quite often supplied such qualities in his posts, and this has contributed greatly to the atmosphere of anarchic "community". Speaking of leadeship, though, to "lead" implies that there is a place to go, and that the leader is the one at the head of the pack, indicating the proper direction (this would be the opposite of what anarchists want, since they would be going not toward, but away from, something). If leadership is defined to mean setting a course for people who lack direction, this implies the existence of followers who are willing to be led into places and to adopt methodologies when they don't know what else to do; that they will follow a leader who will supply structure and purpose to their indecisive condition. This does place a lot of responsibility upon a leader, then, for setting the goal, the course, and the methodology. That's a lot of formality to impose; too much, when you're only exchanging ideas rather than formally setting out to accomplish something specific (like by a particular time & date). Is it Time for the Revolution? .. Blanc

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Re: [PICS] Credentials without Identity--Race Bits
by Secret Squirrel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Deflated Volcano K[rust] Of The Moment does NOT eat pussy. He only eats asshole if it's got a big dick up in front. Whoever calls him bisexual is a fucking liar. He likes to suck cocks in front of an audience. _ O O _ \-|-\_/-|-/ Deflated Volcano K[rust] Of The Moment /^\ /^\ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^

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Re: Dissolving Choke Points
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:59 PM 2/3/97 -0800, Greg Broiles wrote: >At 10:55 AM 2/3/97 -0800, Peter Hendrickson wrote: > >>Moderation has been a failure. I'm pretty good at filtering and I >>can sadly report that there is very little signal out there. > >I don't think it's reasonable to expect an increase in signal within 2 1/2 >weeks of the start of moderation. Improvement in the s/n ratio, yes. But >(at least if my speculation is correct), the good posts driven away by bad >posts (because some good authors are too busy to wade through lots of crap, >and some good authors are reluctant to publish their work amidst crap) >would take a much longer time to return. Many good authors have already left the list and *nothing* will get them back. The only solution is to move traffic to a different list. [Ever wondered why it is called a "TAZ" and not a "PAZ"? Though, in all fairness, I there is a "SPAZ". <Hi to Dave Synthesis and all the folks from SPAZ>.] -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred "I do believe that where there is a choice only between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence." Mahatma Gandhi

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Re: Dissolving Choke Points
by E. Allen Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"roach_s(a)alph.swosu.edu" "Sean Roach" 4-FEB-1997 00:47:40.30 >On your idea for fast implementation, this could be hacked by would-be >censors. A message comes into the list, the censor sees that the post is >from a regular enemy. The censor then copies the header information onto a >new message, one containing garbage, or snippets from old posts, reads the >new post to see if it is acceptable, and if it is, adds a new header, >probably only the time would be changed, and transmits it out. If the would >be censor was the sysop of a machine near the origin of the message, and if >the censor operated the censorship either by bots, or monitored the feed 24 >hours a day, (not likely), then the actual message would get to few. I would suggest that the cure for this problem is to have what is examined be a cryptographically secure hash instead of (or as well as) the message ID. The hash should be over the body of the message, and possibly the sender and Subject line. Unless Lance has driven up the prices at Infonex a lot, I'd be willing to support such a server on an Infonex account. I'd _greatly_ appreciate help getting the thing started, preferably as a group endeavour (to spread the load (i.e., keep infonex from being overwhelmed), keep me from temptation, and make it less likely that a legally troublesome message would go through an account that I might be blamed for). -Allen

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Re: Dissolving Choke Points
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:59 PM 2/3/97 -0800, Greg Broiles wrote: >At 10:55 AM 2/3/97 -0800, Peter Hendrickson wrote: > >>Moderation has been a failure. I'm pretty good at filtering and I >>can sadly report that there is very little signal out there. > >I don't think it's reasonable to expect an increase in signal within 2 1/2 >weeks of the start of moderation. Improvement in the s/n ratio, yes. But >(at least if my speculation is correct), the good posts driven away by bad >posts (because some good authors are too busy to wade through lots of crap, >and some good authors are reluctant to publish their work amidst crap) >would take a much longer time to return. Many good authors have already left the list and *nothing* will get them back. The only solution is to move traffic to a different list. [Ever wondered why it is called a "TAZ" and not a "PAZ"? Though, in all fairness, I there is a "SPAZ". <Hi to Dave Synthesis and all the folks from SPAZ>.] -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred "I do believe that where there is a choice only between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence." Mahatma Gandhi

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Re: Dissolving Choke Points
by E. Allen Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"roach_s(a)alph.swosu.edu" "Sean Roach" 4-FEB-1997 00:47:40.30 >On your idea for fast implementation, this could be hacked by would-be >censors. A message comes into the list, the censor sees that the post is >from a regular enemy. The censor then copies the header information onto a >new message, one containing garbage, or snippets from old posts, reads the >new post to see if it is acceptable, and if it is, adds a new header, >probably only the time would be changed, and transmits it out. If the would >be censor was the sysop of a machine near the origin of the message, and if >the censor operated the censorship either by bots, or monitored the feed 24 >hours a day, (not likely), then the actual message would get to few. I would suggest that the cure for this problem is to have what is examined be a cryptographically secure hash instead of (or as well as) the message ID. The hash should be over the body of the message, and possibly the sender and Subject line. Unless Lance has driven up the prices at Infonex a lot, I'd be willing to support such a server on an Infonex account. I'd _greatly_ appreciate help getting the thing started, preferably as a group endeavour (to spread the load (i.e., keep infonex from being overwhelmed), keep me from temptation, and make it less likely that a legally troublesome message would go through an account that I might be blamed for). -Allen

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The V chip
by nobody＠zifi.genetics.utah.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dr.Demented Vomit was born when his mother was on the toilet. \|/ @ @ -oOO-(_)-OOo- Dr.Demented Vomit

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Re: [DSS] PGP Signatures
by nobody＠zifi.genetics.utah.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Decoy Vilus K)ankersore( Of The Minute's family tree goes straight up. All of his ancestors were siblings, too dumb to recognize each other in the dark. |\_/| (0_0) Decoy Vilus K)ankersore( Of The Minute ==(Y)== ---(u)---(u)---

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Re: Dissolving Choke Points
by E. Allen Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"gbroiles(a)netbox.com" "Greg Broiles" 4-FEB-1997 01:26:13.34 >(I'm working on a message re moderation and the list which will better >explain what I think about that - but I'm not trying to argue, above, that >we *must* have moderation for a long time - simply that it's too early to >call it a failure for failing to significantly increase the number of >useful messages.) I'll be interested in that message. I have problems with the takeover of the original list name, personally. While it is certainly John Gilmore's right to do whatever he wants with the mailing list software/hardware (I believe we've settled that, right?), I'd prefer for the cypherpunks _name_ not be associated with a moderated/censored list. (I mean no insult to either Sandy or John in this, BTW... I simply think that they've gone about this the wrong way. For instance, if John was getting an email overload for toad.com and was trying to indirectly reduce the load via reducing responses to flames, there are other ways to solve the problem - such as the distributed mailing list idea. I do think that Sandy's filtered list could provide a valuable service - most of the other filtered lists seem to filter out a bit too much, judging by the "cc any replies to this message directly to me, I'm on the [insert name of filtered list]" messages I see. If the list switches to cypherpunks and cypherpunks-edited, I might go with cypherpunks-edited (or with some combo of cypherpunks-edited and cypherpunks-flames, the latter more filtered by procmail). My objection is mainly due to the principle of the thing.) Incidentally, I checked the cyberpass.net services, and it does list mailing lists - including a 10$ per month charge per 100 subscribers. At that rate, I can afford about 100 subscribers on a local distributed list, given the 10% discount. (Depending on how it goes, I might be able to afford more... I haven't looked at my personal finances in detail recently.) >I think you misspelled "Usenet". Hope this helps. >Seriously, if you want a distributed no-choke-points "flooding" message >distribution system, you're talking about Usenet. Robust software exists >for clients and servers, and it's already supported worldwide on many >operating systems. No need to write more software to graft that >functionality onto E-mail. If the list is going to turn into Usenet (we've >already got most of Usenet's better kooks), we might as well just move the >damn thing over to alt.cypherpunks and be done with it. (Anyone care to >guess who founded alt.* as a way to route around censorship?) I'd point out that we _know_ every list member can get email, but not that they can get Usenet. I can't conveniently get it, for instance - I'd have to read it via HTTP and respond via email to a news-to-mail server. Sure, I can get an account at infonex or wherever and pick up the news groups there... but I'd prefer not to be forced to, and I suspect the same is true of many people. >(Of course, Usenet is a technical success and a spectacular failure, >content-wise. So opponents of moderation will be forgiven for failing to >mention this sparkling example of an unmoderated, anything-goes forum for >discussion.) Usenet also has easy crossposting, has been discovered by just about every spam artist known to humankind, and doesn't have very good filtering software (IMO, the last time I checked). Limited propagation, especially for a new alt group, especially for a _controversial_ alt group, is also a problem. Sure, Usenet has its advantages. (Under allens(a)earlham.edu and allens(a)yang.earlham.edu, I was the second or third highest poster on it for a few weeks a few years back. I'm familiar with Usenet.) But it also has its problems. -Allen

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Re: FCPUNX:ecure Phones (fwd)
by Dave Emery 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: >From die Tue Feb 4 00:30:04 1997 Subject: Re: FCPUNX:ecure Phones To: eli(a)gs160.sp.cs.cmu.edu (Eli Brandt) Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 00:30:04 -0500 (EST) From: "Dave Emery" <die(a)pig.die.com> Reply-To: die(a)die.com In-Reply-To: <199702040425.UAA08359(a)blacklodge.c2.net> from "Eli Brandt" at Feb 3, 97 11:24:03 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1404 Don't think I will bore the list with it, But a slightly more complex version of this scheme was one of the major tactical medium security voice scrambling systems used by the US in the 70's and 80's and even to a slight extent into the 90's on military radio circuits. The military version is called Parkhill and the crypto gear is the KY-65 and KY-75. At one time (in the 70's) it was used for at least secret traffic. It was downgraded a couple of times since and is now considered obselete and compromised. A Parkhill crypto box can be seen in the NSA museum... The NSA version used time inversion (playing voice samples backwards) and faster shuffling than this one does, and possibly a more secure key generator. But it is rumored to have been broken by more than one opponent, perhaps including drug cartels. Its appeal and why it was so extensively used for a while is that it interfaces to normal voice radio gear at the audio input and output level rather than requiring different modulations and complex digital modems integrated into the radio. It also gives pretty good speech quality and speaker recognition. Its primary replacement is the ANDVT digital voice terminal which takes advantage of modern DSP technology to implement modems usable over radio links and vocoders which can produce acceptable speech at 1200 or 2400 baud. Dave Emery die(a)die.com

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Re: what's in a name?
by Secret Squirrel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Without answering any of the points raised by Wei Dai, let me address the subject line. I have been a long time reader of and occasional contributor to the cypherpunks list. Since it is high volume, I prefer not to have it show up in my mailbox, but read it from either nntp.hks.net or infinity.nus.sg/cypherpunks. With the recent change in status of the list, what I get at those two places is the edited list. The same would apply to other sublists subscribed to cypherpunks(a)toad.com too. If hks and infinity started archiving the unedited list, this wouldn't bother me so much. Other than that, I am saddened, as much as a Tim is enraged, that a supposedly libertarian and anarchistic group of people has decided that censorship is the right solution to their problems. Btw, what is with nntp.hks.net? Seems to have been down for couple of days.

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[STEGO] Degausser
by nobody＠zifi.genetics.utah.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Decoy L[esbian] Vitriol K[ancer]OTM has been fired for masturbating in front of his boss. o/ Decoy L[esbian] Vitriol K[ancer]OTM <| / >

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Mailing Lists vs. Usenet
by pdh＠best.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 7:59 PM 2/3/1997, Greg Broiles wrote: > Seriously, if you want a distributed no-choke-points "flooding" > message distribution system, you're talking about Usenet. Robust > software exists for clients and servers, and it's already supported > worldwide on many operating systems. No need to write more software > to graft that functionality onto E-mail. If the list is going to > turn into Usenet (we've already got most of Usenet's better kooks), > we might as well just move the damn thing over to alt.cypherpunks > and be done with it. (Anyone care to guess who founded alt.* as a > way to route around censorship?) > (Of course, Usenet is a technical success and a spectacular failure, > content-wise. So opponents of moderation will be forgiven for > failing to mention this sparkling example of an unmoderated, > anything-goes forum for discussion.) Several people have brought up this point and it is worth discussing. There are some differences. I don't like Usenet's architecture. It is silly to duplicate vast amounts of traffic everywhere. It was a fine idea when there were 100 groups with lots of overlap in what people read. The horse and buggy was a good idea once too. Performance is a problem with Usenet. The system I envision (nearly identical to Igor's) would have about ten mail servers, each of which sends articles to all the others. Even in situations where something is wrong, articles will be nearly instantly transmitted along an alternate path. I think this is harder to arrange with Usenet. Competition among Cypherpunks providers works the right way. If you are getting your mail on a system which is slow and isn't up all the time, you have good reasons to switch to another provider. This is easy - just subscribe yourself to one mailing list and unsubscribe from the other. It's harder for most people to do this with Usenet. You may not want to switch your ISP to get a better Cypherpunks feed. In my opinion, Usenet is less conducive to filtering than is mail. It is true that there are lots of Usenet readers which can do things like kill whole threads and the like, but mail just screams "run me through a perl script!" This is mostly subjective, of course. More subjective opinions: I don't like being associated with Usenet. It is seen as an international bulletin board. Many people believe that it is "public" space and should be subject to zoning. I like the idea of keeping the cypherpunks list "private". I like being able to say "if what's on the list upsets you so much, why did you subscribe?" This is more effective than "so tell your child not look at Usenet". I don't like the whole Usenet cabal and all of the voting to decide which lists to canonize. Less of an issue with alt.cypherpunks, but the association is still there. Peter Hendrickson ph(a)netcom.com

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Re: Dissolving Choke Points
by pdh＠best.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 7:59 PM 2/3/1997, Greg Broiles wrote: >At 10:55 AM 2/3/97 -0800, Peter Hendrickson wrote: >> Moderation has been a failure. I'm pretty good at filtering and I >> can sadly report that there is very little signal out there. > I don't think it's reasonable to expect an increase in signal within 2 1/2 > weeks of the start of moderation. What I have seen is a pretty complete elimination of the signal that was there. Some might argue that this is "just" because Tim stopped posting. But so what? The result of moderation was the elimination of signal. (Aside: Can anybody think of five members of the list whose combined contributions clearly exceed Tim's? I can't.) Also, I am curious when you expect the benefits of moderation to arrive. Two and a half weeks should be plenty of time for a reasoned creative and interesting discussion to develop. It hasn't happened. Instead the value of the list has - in my view - steadily tapered off since the announcement of moderation. >> There are lessons to be learned here. One is that censorship does >> not promote a stimulating and creative dialogue. > No, that is a silly lesson to draw from this experiment. There are > lots of useful and interesting "moderated" (on paper, it's called > "editing") publications/lists/digests where the content is > intentionally controlled for content and style. And in practice people get their friends published. Ever wonder why Denning got so much bandwidth on the RISKS list when she had so little to say? I don't like edited journals, either. I prefer to have somebody I respect say "Did you see so-and-so's paper? Here's the URL." Most of what is in, for instance, peer reviewed scientific journals is fluff designed to enhance somebody's resume. Moderation was a good idea when you had a number of people who couldn't all talk at once in the same room and in which a disruptive influence could not be easily ignored. We have better ways to communicate now. Let's use them. Peter Hendrickson pdh(a)best.com

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Re: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"
by paul＠fatmans.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> This is Tim's first error of fact. I point it out not to insult > him, but because it seriously affects much of the rest of his > analysis. We are conducting an experiment. It will last one > month. After that, it's over if list members want it to be over. > If, on the other hand, moderation is seen by the list members as > beneficial to their use and enjoyment of the list, the current > form of moderation--or some variation will continue. How will you allow list members to decide? - Here presumably we have a self proclaimed anarchist in favour of direct democracy. And if the subscribers can call off this "experiment" it seems rather out of place that they did not institute it in the first place. > > With no false modesty I tried awfully hard to compose substantive > > essays on crypto-political topics, often more than one per day. > > I would hope that Tim will return to this practice irrespective > of whether the list remains moderated or returns to its previous > policies. More on this, below. You genuinely expect a thoughtful writer and intelligent author of posts to allow you to approve them or otherwise for general release? > > (Others did too, but they seem to be tapering off as well, leaving the list > > to be dominated by something called a "Toto," the "O.J. was framed!" > > ravings of Dale Thorn, the love letters between Vulis and someone name > > Nurdane Oksas,... > > Two points: Since Tim largely agrees with those in opposition to > moderation, and because of the extraordinary nature of Tim's post, > I did not send it to the "flames" list. It was a judgment call. Why? - I saw nothing whatsoever in Tim`s post that would make it a "judgement call" for any objective moderator^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hcensor. The real reason it was a judegement call was because it was critical of Gilmore and yourself, in addition Tim`s points where too subtle and deep for you to respond to without resorting to sophistry. The reason on the other hand you did choose to post it to the censored list was because you realised this and could not get away with junking it to the flames list without incurring criticism. > The problems Tim describes, did not arise with moderation. > Indeed, they were the imputus for the moderation. Sophistry once again. I shall not even bother to explore in more detail this issue as any intelligent reader can, even at face value, see this to be a falacious argument. > > Second, the list was consumed with > > flames about this, many from Vulis, and many from others. > > It was consumed with flames before. Now, at least, the vast > majority of folks on the list don't have to read them, nor jump > through any hoops to implement some sort of dynamic filtering > half-measure. Three questions: 1. How do you see filtering to be a "half measure" 2. What hoops? - if you count implementing a simple filtering measure to be "jumping through hoops" how do you consider that readers of the list do not have to "jump through hoops" to subscribe to the uncensored list. 3. What makes you think that your subjective and evidently self serving method of moderation is any better than keyword filtering. > What didn't work was "local filtering" which has no feed-back > loop to engender comity. This might not work either, but I see > no evidence that it has made things worse. Remember, there are a > hand-full of subscribers to the Flames list, 20-30 on the > Unedited list and *2000* or so on the Moderated list. Sure some > of that may be due to laziness, but it would be cavalier in the > extreme to claim that such an overwhelming acceptance of > moderation is merely an artifact of inertia. Cavalier? - I`ll bet you anything you like if you had set up a new list for the censored articles and left cypherpunks(a)toad.com as an uncensored list you would have seen the same results, that 2000 or so would have remained where they were instead of trying to "unimbibe", and a hardcore of 20 to 30 subscribers would have consciously taken the decision to move to the censored list. As we seem to be in "experiment" mood on the cypherpunks list at the moment I challenge you now to re-configure the list as stated above. The we shall see whose viewpoint is "cavalier" > But to make things perfectly clear one more time, ANYONE WHO > WANTS TO READ THE ENTIRE CYPHERPUNKS FEED SHOULD SUBSCRIBE TO > "CYPHERPUNKS-UNEDITED" AND/OR "CYPHERPUNK-FLAMES." See above argument, the flock stay together. In addition other list members are lazy, stupid, ignorant etc. And cannot/will not subscribe to the uncensored list. > But let's apply Tim's above definition for the sake of argument. > Am I, thereby, a censor? Well I am examining "other material" > and I am making judgments with regard to whether or not it is > "objectionable," unfortunately for Tim's argument, I am neither > "removing" nor "supressing" anything. Anybody can read anything > that gets posted to Cypherpunks--in two places. I am sorting, > but even my sorting can be completely avoided. Waffle. There is a suprising profundity of waffle in this post considering it is supposed to be refuting some very subtle and eloquently stated arguments by Tim. The fact is you are a censor, you are deciding what is seen on the "main" cypherpunks list, you send any comments on your form of censorship, apart from compliments, to the "flames" list in order to protect yourself and John Gilmore. > Very possibly true. Moderation is like crypto, perfection isn't > and option. However, a 90% solution is a heck of a lot better > than no solution at all. Yes, I've made what I consider to be > errors, but I think on some, I've done a very good job overall. > > > * (Frankly, one of my considerations in leaving was the feeling that I > > would never know if an essay I'd spent hours composing would be rejected by > > Sandy for whatever reasons.... > > Tim, I think this is disingenuous. I have been quite clear on > my moderation criteria. You are too intelligent to feign such > a lack of understanding. Not at all, Even if you had been clear (and let me make it clear that I do not believe you have been) you still would not objectively follow those guidelines you had set for yourself. Your censorship is subjective and unethical. However, I am deviating from the point as I happen to be arguing from an anti-censorship point of view whoever were carrying out said censorship. > > * The decision to "moderate" (censor) the Cypherpunks list is powerful > > ammunition to give to our opponents, > > Piffle. Letting spoiled children destroy the list puts a far > more powerful weapon in the hands of our enemies. Piffle, showing that even an anarchic list "requires" censorship is the best ammunition we could have given them. We are better off without a cypherpunks list at all than we are playing into the hands of those who oppose us. > > and Vulis is certainly gleeful that > > his fondest wishes have been realized. > > I do not have a crystal ball. My Vulcan mind meld is in the > shop. No one--neither Tim, nor I, nor probably even Vulis--knows > whether he is gleeful about all this or not. And frankly, who cares? > The question is, are list members happy or not with moderation. > Tim was not. I am. By the end of the experiment, I dare say we > will have a good idea what most list members think. We already have a good idea what they think if we care to look at the flames list where all their relevant comments are junked to. Besides which you are not answering the question here, just picking a random point to put forward an argument you wanted to. > as far as moderating political rants go, I'm agnostic. You mis-spelled self-serving. Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul(a)crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul(a)cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: 5BBFAEB1 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"

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Re: About: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List
by paul＠fatmans.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> For what it's worth, I think that this Tim May, not being a > user of the list, has no place to talk. His type, to me, > characterate those who quit something and complain later, > knowing that some people will listen to them. Tim May has been one of the most intelligent, eloquent and on-topic posters to this list in it`s entire history... Who the hell are you? I would respond to your post with reasoned and logical argument but I cannot find one substantive point in it that is worthy of comment. I will muddle through as best I can anyway: One easy jibe here is you don`t know how to spell characterise, maybe you would be better off unimbibing? > So what, if he decided to leave? It was his own choice > and he can't just come back and say everyone who stayed is > now impelled to listen to him, just because he used to > do a bunch of posts. I don't think that hardly any of > you would listened to me later if I left the list. No-one knows who you are nor do we care, you have not accumulated any reputation capital nor are you likely to with posts like this. Tim tried to cover in as much depth as possible without resorting to verbosity the points he felt were important and worthy of discussion regarding the censorship of the list and other associated issues. You were not impelled to read his post nor to reply to it with a content-free rant as you did. If you felt "impelled" to read a post simply because it was on a screen in front of you you clearly do not understand even the rudiments of anarchism. Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul(a)crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul(a)cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: 5BBFAEB1 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"

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No Subject
by Howard W Campbell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

subscribe cypherpunks(a)toad.com

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FW: concerning Ben Franklin
by Butler, Scott 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Kent Crispin wrote: >Franklin said "A man owns an ass; he can vote. The >ass dies; he cannot vote. Who owns the vote?" Poor Timmy May must not be able to vote then, as surely his ass must have been "bashed" to death by now. Scott. REMEMBER: "Dreams are just Screen Savers for the brain"

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Re: [ANNOUNCEMENT] Elliptic curves
by nobody＠zifi.genetics.utah.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim May's wee-wee is so tiny that only his mommy is allowed to touch it. /\ /..\ Tim May /_\/_\

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PGP sourcecode books
by Alex de Joode 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

application/pgp-message

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Re: Embarrass a Marylander, Go to Jail
by tmcghan＠mail.bcpl.lib.md.us 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

in a message allegedly from: Robert Hettinga <rah(a)shipwright.com> this appeared... > A Maryland bill that would make it illegal to send "annoying" or > "embarrassing" e-mail was introduced this week by Democratic General > Assembly member Samuel Rosenberg. {snip} > "Never attribute to conspiracy what can be explained by stupidity." -- Jerry Pournelle As a marylander, in particular, a baltimoron, I am both embarrassed and annoyed that these legislative bozos have the unmitigated gall to expend time and energy on pursuits such as these. Perhaps they feel that our state attorney general needs to earn his excessive salary by attempting to defend this constitutionally indefensible mental excrement. Did the defeat of CDA not resonate?

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Re: Information Warfare
by tmcghan＠mail.bcpl.lib.md.us 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

in a message allegedly from: Peter Hendrickson <pdh(a)best.com> > The cypherpunks list has been under "attack" for some time. {snip} > Some people have dismissed the idea that rogue governmental elements > are behind some of our problems. {snip} > We know that "Information Warfare" is the big thing in the defense > establishment right now. Information Warfare Conference sponsored by DPMA/AITP Washington, DC, March 13-14, 1997 Crystal City Marriott 1999 Jefferson Davis Highway Arlington, VA 22202 Presentations by: Major General Michael V. Hayden, Commander, Air Intelligence Agency Dr. C. Kenneth Allard, Competitive Strategies Col. H. Stevens, Land Information Warfare Activity - current service visions and planned program initiatives - operational concepts for 'third-wave' warfare - information warfare drivers for 21st century C4I architectures - emerging technologies and systems for information warfare superiority: opportunities on the horizon 'information warfare targets and vulnerabilities', Maxim I. Kovel, TASC systems management group 'information warfare for deterrence', William H.J. Manthorpe, Jr. Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins 'adaptive techniques for counter-deception', James Llinas, technical advisor, DOD JDL, Data Fusion group 'emerging threats come in all sizes and flavors', Eugene Schultz, SRI consulting "Information has been termed the 'fifth dimension' in the conduct of 'third-wave' warfare, and promises to dramatically enhance the role of C4I as a force multiplier. Joint and individual service doctrine is emerging for IW, ans is affecting the needs and requirements for diverse systems: from space-based surveillance and communications systems to terrestrial image processing, visualization, and information fusion systems." "This conference will provide a valuable forum where military and industry staff can interact with key decision-makers to achieve the most current possible understanding of Information Warfare concepts, initiatives, technologies and potential opportunities. The Critical Questions to be addressed include: - how is IW changing operational concepts? - how can we defend the weak links in the planned information-intensive reconnaissance, strike, targeting architecture? - what developments in enabling technologies are needed to support current Information Operations, Battlefield Visualization, and Information Exploitation initiatives? -what can be done to develop defensive information technology capabilities? and last, but _c_e_r_t_a_i_n_l_y_ not least: - how will we move forward to develop a true offensive IW capability ==============================================

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Re: More Hacking of the Mykotronx Site!
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

While this report may be true, I wonder if it's not a spoof or even official disinformation to mislead about the details of Aaron's mission as well as what Rainbow and others are really peddling to rabble-fearing paranoids. This last sentence seems a bit too melodramatic even for a suck-up crippled-chip manufacturer: >The MYK-82, developed by Mykotronx and fabricated by VLSI Technology, >Inc., is the first of a series of security products to be developed as >part of an alliance with the NSA, targeting both Government and >commercial citizen monitoring markets. Granted that defense to LEA-market conversionists like to pornograph the godawful carnage their technology can wreak on disobedient civilians to arouse ex-military-to-LEA converted glands -- do they actually write SOF drool like this?

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Moderation, Tim, Sandy, me, etc. * Strong crypto == DES?!
by John Gilmore 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm glad we're talking about some of the real issues here. Tim May said: > I don't want Sandy Sandfort sitting in judgment on my > posts, deciding what the Cypherpunks--a group I co-founded for God's > sake!!!!--are to be allowed to read and what they may not. Tim, the Cypherpunks have chosen to follow Sandy's lead for this month. I'll admit I made it easy for them, but the results are conclusive. There are 1311 addresses in the cypherpunks list today; 42 in the unedited list; and 19 in the flames list. Forty people cared enough to read every posting; the other thousand either wanted to try the experiment -- or didn't care enough to send an email message. Which, as we all know, is a very low threshold. If I was a social scientist I might want to run the experiment both ways, or six different ways. Name it this, or name it that. I'm not; all I want is something that works. The cypherpunks list was unusable for this kind of discussion, only a month ago. It's usable now. I'm definitely bugged by the community's attitude toward my "censorship". Rather than being glad that someone, anyone, was doing something about the major problem on the list, 99% of the reaction was to create even more ill-considered, emotional flamage. *I* didn't make the signal/noise get worse at that point -- *you-all* did. Perhaps at that point I should have shut down the list, as Lucky is now suggesting. "Asking the list what to do" was clearly not a useful option. Sandy cared enough about the community to make some concrete suggestions to me about how to get the list back on track. They involved a lot more work than the previous setup. I told him if he was willing to do the work, we could try it. As Dale suggests, I wasn't about to waste my time reading the whole list in real time and passing judgement on the postings. Sandy was, for a month. The element I find most lacking from the whole discussion, until recently, has been responsibility. In an anarchy, *everyone* is responsible; nothing is "somebody else's job". Sandy felt responsible, so he proposed something. I felt responsible, so I helped. But a large part of the community sat on the sidelines and criticized, without making attempts to make things better; indeed the volume and tone of the criticisms themselves made things worse. Unpaid labor for a peanut gallery of spoiled children isn't very gratifying. You-all remind me of a passage from Booker T. Washington's book _Up From Slavery_, describing what happened on the night that news of the Emancipation Proclamation reached the South: The wild rejoicing on the part of the emancipated coloured people lasted but for a brief period, for I noticed that by the time they returned to their cabins there was a change in their feelings. The great responsibility of being free, of having charge of themselves, of having to think and plan for themselves and their children, seemed to take possesion of them. It was very much like suddenly turning a youth of ten or twelve years out into the world to provide for himself. In a few hours the great questions with which the Anglo-Saxon race had been grappling for centuries had been thrown upon these people to be solved. These were the questions of a home, a living, the rearing of children, education, citizenship, and the establishment and support of churches. Was it any wonder that within a few hours the wild rejoicing ceased and a feeling of deep gloom seemed to pervade the slave quarters? To some it seemed that, now that they were in actual possession of it, freedom was a more serious thing than they had expected to find it. Most of the people on the list haven't bothered to face that freedom. Your de-facto "leaders" have faced it for you. It is a more serious thing than than you expect. All it takes it hard work and judgement. Be responsible for setting your society's privacy policy -- without knowing whether you are right. Face the uncertainty and build anyway. Shall I post you an Emancipation Proclamation -- as if you needed one? Start a mailing list on another site! Move this list to somewhere! Create and nurture an alt group! Make an independent moderated list drawn from the unedited list! Hold meetings! Establish for it a home, a funding, the rearing of newbies, education, citizenship, and the establishment and support of philosophies. Dead simple for people as capable as us. Just takes work. Who's volunteering? Just do it! The experiment will be over in a few weeks. Who's going to take over deciding how to run the list, and running it? If you want to help organize what I'll call the `progressive crypto community', for lack of a better term, then please do. Otherwise, in the immortal words of Lazarus Long, "PIPE DOWN!". John PS: Can we talk about crypto too? It's clear from the last few days of press releases that the pro-GAK forces are again working to confuse novices into thinking that two very different things are the same thing. Last time it was "public key infrastructure" and "key recovery". This time it's "strong crypto" and "56-bit DES". What should we do about this? Educate the public?

5 4

The V chip
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dr.Demented Vomit was born when his mother was on the toilet. \|/ @ @ -oOO-(_)-OOo- Dr.Demented Vomit

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Re: [DSS] PGP Signatures
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Decoy Vilus K)ankersore( Of The Minute's family tree goes straight up. All of his ancestors were siblings, too dumb to recognize each other in the dark. |\_/| (0_0) Decoy Vilus K)ankersore( Of The Minute ==(Y)== ---(u)---(u)---

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Re: what's in a name?
by Secret Squirrel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Without answering any of the points raised by Wei Dai, let me address the subject line. I have been a long time reader of and occasional contributor to the cypherpunks list. Since it is high volume, I prefer not to have it show up in my mailbox, but read it from either nntp.hks.net or infinity.nus.sg/cypherpunks. With the recent change in status of the list, what I get at those two places is the edited list. The same would apply to other sublists subscribed to cypherpunks(a)toad.com too. If hks and infinity started archiving the unedited list, this wouldn't bother me so much. Other than that, I am saddened, as much as a Tim is enraged, that a supposedly libertarian and anarchistic group of people has decided that censorship is the right solution to their problems. Btw, what is with nntp.hks.net? Seems to have been down for couple of days.

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[STEGO] Degausser
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Decoy L[esbian] Vitriol K[ancer]OTM has been fired for masturbating in front of his boss. o/ Decoy L[esbian] Vitriol K[ancer]OTM <| / >

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Re: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"
by Dale Thorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote: > ichudov(a)algebra.com (Igor Chudov @ home) writes: > > Adam Back wrote: > > > Perhaps it is time to reconsider the benefits of alt.cypherpunks. (As > > > an aside, it is ironic that John Gilmore was the guy who started the > > > alt.* USENET hierarchy, specifically to facilitate freedom of speech). > > An interesting idea. What's also interesting is Tim May posting after a long "absence", and in his post he repeats virtually sentence-for-sentence what a handful of people have been saying here for the past month.

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Re: FCPUNX:ecure Phones
by Dave Emery 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Don't think I will bore the list with it, But a slightly more complex version of this scheme was one of the major tactical medium security voice scrambling systems used by the US in the 70's and 80's and even to a slight extent into the 90's on military radio circuits. The military version is called Parkhill and the crypto gear is the KY-65 and KY-75. At one time (in the 70's) it was used for at least secret traffic. It was downgraded a couple of times since and is now considered obselete and compromised. A Parkhill crypto box can be seen in the NSA museum... The NSA version used time inversion (playing voice samples backwards) and faster shuffling than this one does, and possibly a more secure key generator. But it is rumored to have been broken by more than one opponent, perhaps including drug cartels. Its appeal and why it was so extensively used for a while is that it interfaces to normal voice radio gear at the audio input and output level rather than requiring different modulations and complex digital modems integrated into the radio. It also gives pretty good speech quality and speaker recognition. Its primary replacement is the ANDVT digital voice terminal which takes advantage of modern DSP technology to implement modems usable over radio links and vocoders which can produce acceptable speech at 1200 or 2400 baud. Dave Emery die(a)die.com

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Re: FCPUNX:ecure Phones (fwd)
by Dave Emery 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message:

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Voting on Moderation [was: Dissolving Choke Points]
by Dale Thorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Eric Cordian wrote: > Peter Hendrickson writes: > > Moderation has been a failure. I'm pretty good at filtering and I > > can sadly report that there is very little signal out there. > The quality of the Cypherpunks list is determined solely by the > amount of signal. The amount of noise is irrelevant. [snip] > Now that we have moderation, I can't do this while subscribed to the > main list, and have to live in eternal fear that I am writing for > an audience of 20 every time I respond to something on the unedited > list. Foo on that. I wonder how Sandy will take the vote on continuing or abandoning the moderation experiment? In most states, one juror out of 12 can kill a conviction. In a revolution such as U.S. 1776, only a tiny percent of the people supported the revolution. Will Sandy go with a majority decision (pure democratic), or allow the moderation to go away if a significant minority wants to kill it?

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Re: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"
by Dale Thorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

tmcghan(a)gill-simpson.com wrote: > in a message allegedly from: "Timothy C. May" <tcmay(a)got.net> > > the really important issue is this: is the _physical hosting_ of the > > Cypherpunks mailing list coterminous with the "Cypherpunks"? > { much thoughtful and well-phrased commentary elided } > > I would have had no problem had John announced that he was creating > > a new list, the "Good Stuff" list, with Sandy has his Chooser of > > Good Stuff. But by making the _main list_ the censored one, this > > skewed things considerably. > Now that the horse is out of the barn, ( or maybe not? ), I can't help > but ask whether one specific 'change to the change' would have > satisfied most of your objections: retaining 'cypherpunks' as the > name of the unedited, all-the-crud-you-can-read-and-then-some, > version, and adding an 'cp-worthwhile' list for those of us who prefer > not to wade thru mountains of garbage to glean a few precious tidbits. > What's in a name? Is perception more important ( to you ) than > reality? If just swapping names between cp and cp-unedited would make > such a large difference, I humbly suggest to you that you consider how > much labels need to matter. Is the title of the group more important > the the content? From where I sit, this looks a lot like a > style-over-substance complaint. Of course, I don't have my trifocals > on just at the moment. If it did not suit a specific purpose, they wouldn't have done it that way. You can take it to the bank that they did this because it was the only way to keep the 1300-plus sheep subscribed to what they wanted to be their "main" list.

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Re: Dissolving Choke Points
by Peter Hendrickson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 7:59 PM 2/3/1997, Greg Broiles wrote: >At 10:55 AM 2/3/97 -0800, Peter Hendrickson wrote: >> Moderation has been a failure. I'm pretty good at filtering and I >> can sadly report that there is very little signal out there. > I don't think it's reasonable to expect an increase in signal within 2 1/2 > weeks of the start of moderation. What I have seen is a pretty complete elimination of the signal that was there. Some might argue that this is "just" because Tim stopped posting. But so what? The result of moderation was the elimination of signal. (Aside: Can anybody think of five members of the list whose combined contributions clearly exceed Tim's? I can't.) Also, I am curious when you expect the benefits of moderation to arrive. Two and a half weeks should be plenty of time for a reasoned creative and interesting discussion to develop. It hasn't happened. Instead the value of the list has - in my view - steadily tapered off since the announcement of moderation. >> There are lessons to be learned here. One is that censorship does >> not promote a stimulating and creative dialogue. > No, that is a silly lesson to draw from this experiment. There are > lots of useful and interesting "moderated" (on paper, it's called > "editing") publications/lists/digests where the content is > intentionally controlled for content and style. And in practice people get their friends published. Ever wonder why Denning got so much bandwidth on the RISKS list when she had so little to say? I don't like edited journals, either. I prefer to have somebody I respect say "Did you see so-and-so's paper? Here's the URL." Most of what is in, for instance, peer reviewed scientific journals is fluff designed to enhance somebody's resume. Moderation was a good idea when you had a number of people who couldn't all talk at once in the same room and in which a disruptive influence could not be easily ignored. We have better ways to communicate now. Let's use them. Peter Hendrickson pdh(a)best.com

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Mailing Lists vs. Usenet
by Peter Hendrickson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 7:59 PM 2/3/1997, Greg Broiles wrote: > Seriously, if you want a distributed no-choke-points "flooding" > message distribution system, you're talking about Usenet. Robust > software exists for clients and servers, and it's already supported > worldwide on many operating systems. No need to write more software > to graft that functionality onto E-mail. If the list is going to > turn into Usenet (we've already got most of Usenet's better kooks), > we might as well just move the damn thing over to alt.cypherpunks > and be done with it. (Anyone care to guess who founded alt.* as a > way to route around censorship?) > (Of course, Usenet is a technical success and a spectacular failure, > content-wise. So opponents of moderation will be forgiven for > failing to mention this sparkling example of an unmoderated, > anything-goes forum for discussion.) Several people have brought up this point and it is worth discussing. There are some differences. I don't like Usenet's architecture. It is silly to duplicate vast amounts of traffic everywhere. It was a fine idea when there were 100 groups with lots of overlap in what people read. The horse and buggy was a good idea once too. Performance is a problem with Usenet. The system I envision (nearly identical to Igor's) would have about ten mail servers, each of which sends articles to all the others. Even in situations where something is wrong, articles will be nearly instantly transmitted along an alternate path. I think this is harder to arrange with Usenet. Competition among Cypherpunks providers works the right way. If you are getting your mail on a system which is slow and isn't up all the time, you have good reasons to switch to another provider. This is easy - just subscribe yourself to one mailing list and unsubscribe from the other. It's harder for most people to do this with Usenet. You may not want to switch your ISP to get a better Cypherpunks feed. In my opinion, Usenet is less conducive to filtering than is mail. It is true that there are lots of Usenet readers which can do things like kill whole threads and the like, but mail just screams "run me through a perl script!" This is mostly subjective, of course. More subjective opinions: I don't like being associated with Usenet. It is seen as an international bulletin board. Many people believe that it is "public" space and should be subject to zoning. I like the idea of keeping the cypherpunks list "private". I like being able to say "if what's on the list upsets you so much, why did you subscribe?" This is more effective than "so tell your child not look at Usenet". I don't like the whole Usenet cabal and all of the voting to decide which lists to canonize. Less of an issue with alt.cypherpunks, but the association is still there. Peter Hendrickson ph(a)netcom.com

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Re: Dissolving Choke Points
by E. Allen Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"gbroiles(a)netbox.com" "Greg Broiles" 4-FEB-1997 01:26:13.34 >(I'm working on a message re moderation and the list which will better >explain what I think about that - but I'm not trying to argue, above, that >we *must* have moderation for a long time - simply that it's too early to >call it a failure for failing to significantly increase the number of >useful messages.) I'll be interested in that message. I have problems with the takeover of the original list name, personally. While it is certainly John Gilmore's right to do whatever he wants with the mailing list software/hardware (I believe we've settled that, right?), I'd prefer for the cypherpunks _name_ not be associated with a moderated/censored list. (I mean no insult to either Sandy or John in this, BTW... I simply think that they've gone about this the wrong way. For instance, if John was getting an email overload for toad.com and was trying to indirectly reduce the load via reducing responses to flames, there are other ways to solve the problem - such as the distributed mailing list idea. I do think that Sandy's filtered list could provide a valuable service - most of the other filtered lists seem to filter out a bit too much, judging by the "cc any replies to this message directly to me, I'm on the [insert name of filtered list]" messages I see. If the list switches to cypherpunks and cypherpunks-edited, I might go with cypherpunks-edited (or with some combo of cypherpunks-edited and cypherpunks-flames, the latter more filtered by procmail). My objection is mainly due to the principle of the thing.) Incidentally, I checked the cyberpass.net services, and it does list mailing lists - including a 10$ per month charge per 100 subscribers. At that rate, I can afford about 100 subscribers on a local distributed list, given the 10% discount. (Depending on how it goes, I might be able to afford more... I haven't looked at my personal finances in detail recently.) >I think you misspelled "Usenet". Hope this helps. >Seriously, if you want a distributed no-choke-points "flooding" message >distribution system, you're talking about Usenet. Robust software exists >for clients and servers, and it's already supported worldwide on many >operating systems. No need to write more software to graft that >functionality onto E-mail. If the list is going to turn into Usenet (we've >already got most of Usenet's better kooks), we might as well just move the >damn thing over to alt.cypherpunks and be done with it. (Anyone care to >guess who founded alt.* as a way to route around censorship?) I'd point out that we _know_ every list member can get email, but not that they can get Usenet. I can't conveniently get it, for instance - I'd have to read it via HTTP and respond via email to a news-to-mail server. Sure, I can get an account at infonex or wherever and pick up the news groups there... but I'd prefer not to be forced to, and I suspect the same is true of many people. >(Of course, Usenet is a technical success and a spectacular failure, >content-wise. So opponents of moderation will be forgiven for failing to >mention this sparkling example of an unmoderated, anything-goes forum for >discussion.) Usenet also has easy crossposting, has been discovered by just about every spam artist known to humankind, and doesn't have very good filtering software (IMO, the last time I checked). Limited propagation, especially for a new alt group, especially for a _controversial_ alt group, is also a problem. Sure, Usenet has its advantages. (Under allens(a)earlham.edu and allens(a)yang.earlham.edu, I was the second or third highest poster on it for a few weeks a few years back. I'm familiar with Usenet.) But it also has its problems. -Allen

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Re: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"
by Timothy C. May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:50 PM -0500 2/3/97, Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law wrote: >I agree with two of Tim's points. I express no opinion about the others, >except that I think these are the two most important. > >(1) I agree with Tim that as a matter of principle, it would be preferable >to create a new moderated list, with a similar but distinguishable name, >and leave the existing list as it was. I happen to think less turns on This is a point of view many of the most thoughtful commenters seem to agree on, isn't it? One would have thought that had Sandy and John really been interested in hearing the views of list members, this approach would have eventually won out. >(2) Much to my surprise, so far moderation is a failure. I think it is a It doesn't surprise me, but then I've rarely been a fan of moderation. As Michael points out below, it mostly works on "RISKS," but in most other cases I can think of it merely slows discussion down, introduces strange skewings of opinions (to win "approval" of the moderator), and almost never causes better posts to be written. (The case of skilled editors soliciting good articles is of course an entirely different issue.) >failure because it achieves neither of the moderation "sweet spots". No >moderation is one "sweet spot". Strict moderation -- the kind you get on >RISKS, where you know nearly every post is on-topic or at least worth your >time -- is another. This is neither. My clumsy procmail filters are almost >as busy as ever. What slips through is largely duplicative of what I get Several people have also commented on this, that their filters are still working overtime. As it should be, really, as no moderator can make the list match any given person's preferences. (Personally, I'm not even convinced filters are essential. It takes no longer than 5 seconds to glance at a message and know whether to scrap it or not. Granted, it takes a bit of time to download, especially at slower modem speeds. But whether Sandy's censorship is producing any significant "savings" depends on how many messages he's sorting into each pile...clearly if 20% or less of the total posts are being filtered out, then the savings are ignorable. Anybody have the statistics handy? Hint: Sandy should publish a periodic accounting of how many messages went into each pile, and should also publish his criteria on a regular basis, pointing out any modifications he's made to his criteria since the last report.) >As Oscar Wilde either said, or should have said, the worst crime is to be >boring. Maybe the list is like the portrait of Dorian Gray, with an image of the list sitting in a closet at Toad Hall aging not so gracefully. >PS. New members of the list may justly ask, where does he get off calling >the posters he doesn't killfile bores? I stopped posting a lot to the >list some time ago, back when I decided my energies were better spent >writing long stuff (see my web page) and playing with my kids. I kept >reading the list primarily to read the work of about six people -- and Tim >was one of them. Thanks. And I should point out in fairness that Michael recruited me for his panel on "Governmental and Societal Implications of Digital Cash" (or something like this) at the upcoming CFP. --Tim May Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside" We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: GAK/KR spin
by Peter Trei 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Date: Mon, 3 Feb 1997 14:34:49 -0800 > From: Steve Schear <azur(a)netcom.com> > To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com > Subject: GAK/KR spin > Several months back there were discussions on the list regarding renaming > the government's key escrow/recovery proposals (KRAP comes to mind). I > think we need something that's catchy and simple (perhaps already familiar) > to understand for the semi-litterate citizen units. I propose we encourage > use of the terms "crippleware" or "crypto crippleware" when refering to the > products limited to their weak crypto and/or key escrow/recovery. > > --Steve For some time, I have been using the term 'espionage-enabled software' to describe GAK'd products. Also, 'compromised software' - I want to make the point that 'key escrow/recovery' == insecure.' Peter Trei trei(a)process.com PS: I have SW for working on the $10,000 DES challenge available.

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Re: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"
by Dale Thorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Scott V. McGuire wrote: > (Even within the community, some people are more a part of > it than others, and nobody is more a part of it then Tim.) Is this like saying "some of the pigs were more equal than the others"?

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Re: Trigger-Words...Trigger-Fingers
by Dale Thorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Larry Johnson wrote: > Cynthia H. Brown wrote: [snippo] > Theres not many girls on this list, is there? [mo' snippo] > Anyway, my uncle prints out the girl-cypherpunks stuff for the girls > on my list and they think its real cool and they all want to marry > technicians so that they can make them work on the computers for them, > kind of like making them do the computer dishes, you know. [yet mo' snippo] I want to get married. Lots of times. Are the girls cute? I don't do hardware, tho, I'm a software guy.

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FW: concerning Ben Franklin
by Butler 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Kent Crispin wrote: >Franklin said "A man owns an ass; he can vote. The >ass dies; he cannot vote. Who owns the vote?" Poor Timmy May must not be able to vote then, as surely his ass must have been "bashed" to death by now. Scott. REMEMBER: "Dreams are just Screen Savers for the brain"

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