December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Dr. Vulis
by Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Bill Frantz wrote: > > As I put on my flame resistant suit... > > IMHO, most of the posts about John Gilmore's action re: Dr. Vulis are > seriously miss-analyzing what has happened. As far as I can tell, John > instructed his Majordomo to refuse subscription requests to cypherpunks > from Dr. Vulis. That is all that John has done. What John has not done > is: Of course John was right to give Vilus the boot. Cypherpunks is a club and like many private clubs occasionaly finds it necessary to give some oik the boot. And of course this is not an action that can be strictly justified in terms of absolute rights which many are fond of prating on about. Rights are limited, as Mills observes they are a product of law. Society finds it necessary to enact laws to protect rights. Dmitri's posts were affecting other people's right to speak. There is thus the traditional liberal conflict, that of having to infringe rights to protect them. If libertarians would read "on Liberty" rather than using it like a magic charm they would know that the main theory it advances is of the *balance* between the rights of communities and the rights of individuals. The genius of Mills is that he shows that the "rights" of government stem from its duty to protect the "rights" of the citizens. Its an imperfect answer because the notiopn of "citizenship" it advances fails to take any account of foreign relations. Mill's rationale for obeying laws breaks down when one crosses national borders for example. > The best paradigm I can come up with to analyze John's action is my quite > imperfect understanding of communitarian theory. In essence, > communitarians say that there should be a level of social control between > individual rights and the forceful coercion of the state. What John has > done is step forward and excommunicate Dr. Vulis. He has said to Dr. > Vulis, "You are no longer a member of the cypherpunks community." Rather than "should", try the word "is". One of the things the Web demonstrates is that there are such communities. I would not state the action in terms of "excommunication", rather consider that John took the action on behalf of the community for the good of the community as a whole. > I would love to hear how people feel this action fits in to the > cryptoanarchy, libertarian utopias we frequently discuss. E.g. Why is it > not a perfectly reasonable action for some one to take in an anarchy? If we could get away from the bleating denials of the need for government and instead consider them as a positive force, preventing a power vacum that others would fill a synthesis can be reached. The founders of the US realised that to pervent tyranny it was necessary to have different branches and levels of government. The essential point being however to prevent power being used. When a community of people get together they can exercise far more power than individuals acting alone. Sometimes this power can be for the common good, other times it can be the sectarian persuit of one minorities interests against another. Phill

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Cypherpunk Inquest?
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Return-Path: lzkoch(a)mcs.net X-Sender: lzkoch(a)popmail.mcs.net Date: Mon, 04 Nov 1996 12:28:29 -0600 To: jya(a)pipeline.com From: Lewis Koch <lzkoch(a)mcs.net> Subject: Regarding a story for Upside Magazine John Young: This is an identical letter to a limited number of contributors to Cypherpunks regarding an article I will be writing for Upside Magazine about the Cypherpunks List -- its history and the current controversies it now seems to be facing. (I'm the person who uncovered the Gorelick/"Manhattan project" story. A more recent "Cybersense" column dealt with Chicago Police Superintendent Matt Rodriguez wanting to escape from a 1974 Federal Court injunction against police department spying on "radicals" so that he could now join in on investigating Cyberterrorists. See http://www.upside.com/ ) I will be writing a number of articles for the magazine itself. I have been "lurking" on Cypherpunks for about nine months with only one communications to the list regarding a request for leads on "Snake Oil" stories.) I would like to better understand and be able to explain to Upside readers why several members have chose to "leave" the List. Perry Metzger and others have argued that flaming and extraneous personal attacks have negatively impacted serious discussions of encryption, hacking and public policy and thus they have chosen to end their relationship and their writings on Cypherpunks, with Metzger forming his own, moderated list. Others contributors to Cypherpunks have argued that there have been "distractions" rants about religion, assassination politics, and language which are inappropriate for the List membership. Late last week John Gilmore wrote and said he had taken steps to remove Dr. Vulis from the list which has prompted differing responses. Some have responded positively to Gilmore's actions while others have said that it was an affront to freedom of speech and individual decision-making. (I have very deliberately chosen _not_ to make this an open letter to the list, nor will I engage in any open List-dialogue about the people I am interviewing or what I expect to write. Naturally I will respond to individuals once the article is published.) I do not expect to be able to publish your responses in their entirety. They will be edited with honesty and clarity. I have no agenda here. I will consider all your written and/or phone communications to be "on the record" unless you specifically wish prior selected and/or identified parts of your communications to be "off the record" or "for background purposes only." I will _not_ publicly announce a full list of those I have contacted. While you are of course free to share this letter with others, I have already made fairly firm decisions as to who I will contact. I would ask that your circulation be highly limited, if circulate you must. On the other hand, I will seriously consider suggestions you might offer me regarding other people who you believe I should contacted regarding this article. The article will be lengthy but I do not entertain the idea -- at this point -- about expanding the article into a book length manuscript. That doesn't mean that if thousands upon thousands gather outside by home demanding more information, that sometime in the future... I would prefer to communicate in the open, mainly because I am just now somewhat tenuously managing PGP through Private Idaho. Those of you who insist your communications be encrypted, well, it's probably good for my soul that I honor your request. Here are the questions I would like you to consider. Please do not consider them "definitive" or limiting. If you believe I have missed out on pursing certain avenues of thought and argument, please do not hesitate to point them out to me. I will note that I will be looking at the history of the list and I have noted the letter from Hal Finney regarding http://chaos.taylored.com:1000 I do not expect to write a general follow-up question to this entire list but I may wish to seek further clarification from individuals from their answers to this letter. Thank you, in advance, for what I know will be thoughtful and considered responses. * * * * * * 1. What was the original purpose of the Cypherpunks list and has it changed? For the better? Worse? 2. Does the apparent breakup reveal anything in general about unregulated, unmoderated lists? Can one make a link to the breakup to an inherent failure in the concept of anarchism? Can one make a link from this breakup to any insight in the nature of the Net itself -- both now and in the future. 3. What do you think led to the growing number of highly personal, highly inflammatory attacks made on various contributors to the list -- Tim May most especially. 4. Do you consider discussions about religion, assassination politics, and other non- cryptographic/encryption subjects to be "distractions" or substantive additions to intellectual inquiry? Are some threads more valuable than others? 5. Has the list imploded or veered off in a new, positive direction? I would ask that you use the header "Cypherstory" in your response and Cypherstory 1, 2 etc. for further communications, additions, changes. ********************************************************** Thank you Lewis Z Koch lzkoch(a)mcs.net http:www.upside.com/ "Cybersense" column

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Re: Dr. Vulis is not on cypherpunks any more
by paul＠fatmans.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> The short answer is, No. Their problem. > More specifically, we constantly have > a stream of new readers sampling Cypherpunks. Some are > technically sophisticated; some are not. In either case, new > readers do not have the historical perspective not to fall for > Dimitri's big lies. It is not a requirement in a libertarian forum to tell the truth. You also seem to be implying that people need protecting from Dimitri, much the same authoritarian argument we hear from govt. about people needing to be protected from porn/drugs/free spech etc. > Nor do they have any way of know what an > abberation his sort of behavior is on this list. "So this is > what Cypherpunks are like," would be a sad, but understandable > misinterpretation of what we're all about. What John did was > appropriate. I understand the point here but I suggest a note at the top of the "welcome to cypherpunks" note every new subscriber gets explaining who Dimitri is and how to set up their mailer software to block his posts. 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: Censorship on cypherpunks
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:45 AM 11/4/96 -0800, Declan McCullagh wrote: >Libertarianism is not incompatible with strict regulations, as long as >the rules violate nobody's rights. > >-Declan Obviously many voluntary religious organizations have quite strict rules for their members and are compatible with libertarianism. Government monopoly regulations that cannot be opted out of are not compatible with libertarianism. Instead of using the loaded term "regulations' it might be better to call things like the rules of the cypherpunk's list "club rules" or protocols. DCF

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free SSL CAs?
by Sam Quigley 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Are there any free Certificate Authorities for SSL? I've got a Stronghold server running, and I don't particularly want to pay Verisign/Thawte's high prices, but I do want to be able to do real SSL. I've set up my own CA, and given myself my own cert., but having the same server you're interacting with being the one that's the CA for the transaction leaves the setup open to man-in-the-middle attacks (I'd think, at least...). So, who do I turn to for a cert.? I don't need amazingly trusted or trustworthy security -- maybe just some third party whose site is unlikely to have been compromised, etc... Please respond by email: I've moved to coderpunks, and so won't see replies on cypherpunks. thanks, -sq

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UNSUBCRIBE CENSORSHIP
by paratama＠idola.net.id 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

UNSUBCRIBE CENSORSHIP

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Re: Any Info for Sen. Pressler....
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:57 PM 11/4/96 -0700, Troy M. Barnhart wrote: >Due to circumstances I occasionally see and speak >w/ Senator Larry Pressler - (Committee Leader)... >Been talking to him w/ the Burns Bill and such... >He wants less gov't. control, but does have "concerns" >w/ the garbage... What does the Burns Bill have to do with "the garbage"? We're not talking about the CDA... >And, wants to balance the business and private concerns... Tell him that we get real nervous when someone uses the phrase, "wants to balance." It contains the implicit assumption that the market ("The Market") is somehow incapable of providing that "balance." It also seems to assume that the person using the term has the AUTHORITY to "balance" those issues. While senators probably assume that they always have the authority to do whatever they want, there is no reason to believe that this should be true given the ostensible restrictions of government power in the US Constitution. Since the Internet is really just a large conglomeration of private property acting together in cooperation, the government's role should be at best quite limited, if not non-existant. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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[CRYPTO] Death of USENET Cabal Predicted, Film at 11
by Bovine Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

VICTORY _____________________^_. KOOKS RULE CANCELBOT|..`. SPAM IS GOOD SPAMBOT |...= s P a M O==-o <- Cabal FUCK THE CABAL GRUBORBOT|...~ \ |\ HAIL DR. GRUBOR------------------v~~ ~~ DEATH TO UUNET DRG CJ3 AGA` BOURSY` ` DLV` `

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[NOISE] Censorship of Dr. Vulius
by Joe Robinson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I regret that after lurking for so long my first post is related to this.... Sandy Sandfort <sandfort(a)crl.com> wrote: > > The short answer is, No. More specifically, we constantly have > a stream of new readers sampling Cypherpunks. Some are > technically sophisticated; some are not. In either case, new > readers do not have the historical perspective not to fall for > Dimitri's big lies. Nor do they have any way of know what an > abberation his sort of behavior is on this list. "So this is > what Cypherpunks are like," would be a sad, but understandable > misinterpretation of what we're all about. What John did was > appropriate. While it is true that Cypherpunks IS a much sampled list, it's my opinion that the distribution in the level of education among subscribers is rather skewed. I therefore believe that the "average" subscriber to this list would be intelligent and competent enough to form their own conclusions regarding the validity of the opinions expressed by anyone. I like to believe that the labels I assign to groups are based on a representative sampling of the given population, not by the sampling a select few. It's again my opinion that if others can't do that, and <cliche>judge books by their covers</cliche>, it's their loss. and Greg Broiles <gbroiles(a)netbox.com> mentioned: > [relevant, well thought-out stuff snipped] > >Given that John Gilmore is the source of the oft-repeated "The net sees >censorship as damage and routes around it" quote, it strikes me as unlikely >that he took the steps he did without some reflection on their meaning, >consequences, and chances of success. I'm sure that the decision wasn't made hastily or lightly. It doesn't change anything though - the damage is done. If even one person doubts the credibility or integrity of either John or the list, then Dr. Vulius has won. and finally, Declan McGullagh <declan(a)eff.org> said: > >With the right to speak freely comes the right to decline to speak. John, >as the owner of the computer maintaining the cypherpunks list, has the >right to decline to speak and to kick off a user who violates the >covenant of the mailing list. > >The kicked-off user has the right to start his own mailing list with >different standards. If he likes, he can establish the rules as a type of >contract to which participants must agree. And observers can criticize >either or both of them. > >Is this censorship, double standards, and hypocrisy? I think not. The problem lies in determining who defines the protocols and punishments, especially on a list such as this. For someone who espouses freedom of speech to arbitrarily censor someone is indeed hypocritical. I'm not defending Dr. Vulius - for some time now, he and a number of others have been filtered into my Humour mailbox. I'm just spewing off about having the _choice_ to ignore him or not, as _I_ see fit, you know - "... and then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out." JR

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Re: Dr. Vulis
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

As I put on my flame resistant suit... IMHO, most of the posts about John Gilmore's action re: Dr. Vulis are seriously miss-analyzing what has happened. As far as I can tell, John instructed his Majordomo to refuse subscription requests to cypherpunks from Dr. Vulis. That is all that John has done. What John has not done is: (1) John has not censored Dr. Vulis. He is still free to speak to cypherpunks by posting in the normal manner. (2) John as not turned to the courts as some others have suggested. Turning to the courts would certainly not be the way a cryptoanarchist would handle the situation. The best paradigm I can come up with to analyze John's action is my quite imperfect understanding of communitarian theory. In essence, communitarians say that there should be a level of social control between individual rights and the forceful coercion of the state. What John has done is step forward and excommunicate Dr. Vulis. He has said to Dr. Vulis, "You are no longer a member of the cypherpunks community." I would love to hear how people feel this action fits in to the cryptoanarchy, libertarian utopias we frequently discuss. E.g. Why is it not a perfectly reasonable action for some one to take in an anarchy? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz | Tired of Dole/Clinton? | Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | Vote 3rd party. I'm | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com | Voting for Harry Browne | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

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