December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

"tentacles"-- I don't get it!!
by nobody＠cicada.berkeley.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I hate to intrude here but I have been seeing all the smoke out in the newsgroups about this "tentacle" business and L. Detweiler (who is this guy??!). I hope I won't be flamed so I am sending this through a remailer. (I love your technology, one of my friends went to a cypherpunk meeting once and told me about the cooler stuff.) I sent L. Detweiler some of these questions but he never responded, so I was hoping people here could help me understand what is going on out here!!! So anyway... Could someone define "tentacle"? Detweiler said, out in the newsgroups: > > 1) the cypherpunks betrayed me. they even got a an old college friend > to pretend he was real. M.Dale sent me mail claiming he was real. I > did not ask for this mail. But if you send me lies, I will call you a > liar. I don't agree with that in the least. (With what he says they did, not the paragraph itself). > > 2) Szabo is one of the most valuable cypherpunk tentacles as far as > reputation. `he' has been posting to the net for a long time in > many groups. this is why they fought so tenaciously to protect him. > > 3) T.C.May said at a cypherpunk meeting that everyone I have accused of > being a tentacle is real. T.C.May is a liar. I dare you, Mr. May, > to come out of your hole. I will tear your postings to shreds. I > will rip the lies apart. I will decapitate the tentacles, and they > will be afraid to show their sickly green faces anywhere respectable. > I have followed this thread for such a short time (relativly speaking). I think I picked up on the "Cryptoanarchist" part (someone who doesn't support the regulation of cryptography?). From what I've been able to gather, the talk is about "tentacles" coming from one "Medusa." > 4) B.Stewart says that he saw N.Szabo and J.Dinkelacker at the > last cypherpunk meeting, *and* their drivers license. B.Stewart is > an Accomplice. I challenge anyone who saw them to tell the world > you did. Did you really see the Phantoms? > > 5) the whole affair proves that the conspiracy is very active, > involves very many people, and has gotten quite out of control. > > 6) anyone who supports the cypherpunks or their leaders are > accomplices to lies and the `hidden agenda' of black marketeering, > manipulation, tax evasion, deception, money laundering, overthrow > of governments. And these are just the *obvious* ones. So many makeshift terms here that I'm not familiar with. Could someone Define "cypherpunk." (I HAVE heard of "CyberPunk," but couldn't extract a meaning out of that either.) Please enlighten me. > > 7) cypherpunks are responsible for a huge increase in trash lately > to newsgroups. It is a means of drowning my signal in noise. They > are nothing but conspiracists, powermongers, and extremists. > What trash is this? The only thing I have seen (so far, as I believe) are various messages written by an12070 (L. Detweiler?) that have erupted into flame wars. Keep in mind that I'm NOT FLAMING ANYONE here. > hey cypherpunks! you think that because no one challenges your > ridiculous posts, calling me insane, that no one believes me? that > no one is taking me seriously? That no one is stunned that szabo > is nothing but a worthless, slimy snake? the joke's on you. there > are a fantastic number of lurkers `out there' who are beginning to > sense the lies. > CyberAnarchists... Is that someone who doesn't want CyberSpace regulated? Personally, I have nothing against the free exchange of information (does anyone here?). I was really upset when he said > death to cyberanarchists-- by anarchy... > > > stay tuned, soon they will all be SQUISHed > > -- is this one of the "violent death threats" that everyone has been talking about? thanks for the help, I just want to know. sorry that I missed some of the earlier stuff. I will be watching this list for a reply. BTW that stuff that Detweiler is doing with signatures, switching them around, it is kind of ironic given that the cypherpunks are really into that thing. He seems to be really pissing you guys off. but I gotta admit it really is a sort of new art form in cyberspace, kinda like Graffiti. although, there is so much activity lately that it kind of makes me wonder if there is a whole team of people out there. there have been a lot of rumors about infiltrators and double agents. we'll see what the future brings. personally I think remailers are God's Gift to Cyberspace, and anything done to limit their capabilities or infringe on the privacy of whoever uses them is CENSORSHIP and ORWELLIAN POLICE STATE. we'll prove to Detweiler that we are not the hypocrites he claims we are, that under no circumstances whatsoever will we *ever* betray the people who use our remailers, even if they are our enemies, because Privacy is all that matters. .adAMMMb. .dAMMMAbn. .adAWWWWWWWWWAuAWWWWWWWWWWAbn. .adWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWbn. ..adMMMMMP^~".--"~^YWWWWWWWWWWHHMMMMMMMMbn.. "~^Y" / ..dMWMP".ammmmdMMMUP^~" | Y dMAbammdAMMMMMMP^~" | | MMMMMMMMMMMMU^" -Row l : Y^YUWWWWUP^" \ j "-..,.^ mveaudry(a)turing.acs.ryerson.ca & ld231782(a)longs.LANCE.ColoState.EDU (and how many more that I haven't revealed yet? Could I actually be jmurphy(a)apple.com? could I be 3CJS5@qucdn. QueensU.ca? Who am I? Who cares?)

1 0

CRYPTO/TAX
by Sandy 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SANDY SANDFORT Reply to: ssandfort(a)attmail.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C'punks, Hal Finney wrote: I don't agree with the extreme position that cryptography will lead to the failure of the income tax and the destruction of the government. Consider: untraceable, anonymous transactions occur every day - not through cryptography, but through simple cash purchases at the local grocery store, gas station, department store, restaurant, and so on. There are many occupations which primarily involve cash transactions. Are these people immune from income tax? Of course not. Do these people pay such income tax? Of course not. The government's own figures peg tax evasion at "only" 20%. Yeah, and Elvis lives in my closet. The government has many ways of extracting tax in these cases, ranging from periodic audits with heavy penalties (which keep people honest) to imputing income (as in the case of tip income by waiters), to fraud investigations for those living beyond their means. Think "cost-benefit analysis." Duncan has already pointed out that the modal number of years spent in prison by tax evaders is "zero." Hal should get friendly with a weekend mechanic or a waitress. He might want to re-think his belief in the voluntary tax compliance of alternative economy. Perhaps Eric Hughes will recap the "crypto point-of-sale" rap he gave at the previous Cypherpunks meeting. (Or maybe he won't.) What it demonstrated was that the types of economic transactions that can benefit from crypto-privacy is much broader than Hal is imagining. We have already won. S a n d y >>>>>> Please send e-mail to: ssandfort(a)attmail.com <<<<<< ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBK1IgLE5ULTXct1IzAQFC0QP/fWrSeauH3xnD7CFofRO8dTIdVN31etSO LPqw+XOC2us01cBRCyR6BNArbjpscLgiYjdvbEaMGBGbjPw8JFlVlDTI2+WV/b7h 6fLIFgCkUzmFaZKBHaNmiCIQarii8xucVaM8lHt8rZ3tQE9mCe8i6mosagcuDO5B +9/f0an++6g= =sZO9 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

1 0

Who is L. Detweiler?
by tcmay＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Cyphertentacles, Here's a posting I made yesterday to the Extropians list, describing the Detweiler situation. Yes, even they have heard of L. Detweiler and his new prominence as a Net.Loon of note. So when some folks asked for an explanation, I sat down and wrote up a summary of the situation. Here it is: ***from the Extropians list (with a quote from that list excised, as they have rules about forwarding list traffic, except one's own, of course)*** I'll descend into the depths of Detweiler's mad world for a bit to answer some questions raised by John Clark. Detweiler is actually a fascinating case history in Net paranoia....we actually have gotten to see the birth of a Net.loon like McElwaine or Serdar Argic, a Net.loon who is already famous. He makes anybody we've seen on the Extropians list look like a Minor Perversion (apologies to Vinge's "A Fire Upon the Deep") by comparison. Antics like his are why postive reputation filters are needed so urgently, not just on mailing lists like Cypherpunks, but throughout Cyberspace. (The Extropians list software, with ::excludes, is sorely needed on Cypherpunks. Various things are holding up the transfer of this. I have suggested to Harry that one approach is to set up "mailing list servers" that support this software, as a profit-making venture.) Anyway, here's the saga of Lawrence Detweiler, aka S. Boxx and a dozen other such names. --quote from John Clark removed-- Lawrence Detweiler, sometimes called Larry and sometimes called Lance (which may be a mistake, one he never corrected until recently) is a guy who's about 22-23 who lives in Colorado, having recently graduated from Colorado State U. in Computer Science. Don't know what his career is now, if he has one. He joined the Cypherpunks list about a year ago and showed great enthusiasm and energy, volunteering to write the FAQ on "Anonymity on the Internet" and "Privacy and Anonymity." He put this out very quickly (too bad he's crazy and can't do the same for the Cypherpunks FAQ, which I have recently agreed to write, or the Extropians FAQ, about which I'll say no more). Detweiler was, like I said, very energetic, often writing very long rants against Clipper, Dorothy Denning, etc. He often got angry with someone and slipped into insulting them as being duplicitous, malicious, etc., instead of merely ascribing their different opinions as being just that. He asked for my help several times in getting his views accepted by the Cypherpunks, and I tried to get him to tone down his ad hominem attacks and general rants (he was always prone to writing agonized prose, such as "I am becoming increasingly disgusted and completely and thoroughly disenchanted by the nauseatingly waffling on vital issues by the Cypherpunks High Command."--this is not something he actually wrote, but my attempt to duplicate his style). His FAQs are very well-done, if a bit long, and tell us there's a glimmer of brilliance beside the madness....the two often go together, so this is hardly surprising. By last summer, Detweiler was handing out "Cypherpunks of the Week" awards, was arguing for his own form of electronic democracy (one person one vote, to be done on a daily basis on all sorts of issues....needless to say, many of us disagreed with him), and was generally ranting and raving. When I stated my disagreement with his electronic democracy idea as being the main goal of the Cypherpunks--and this was done in a mild, objective manner--Detweiler spat venom at me and accused me of being an agent of some government agency. His paranoia and rancor increased steadily throughout September and by October he had become "S. Boxx" and other pseudonyms, using his "an12070" account to argue about "pseudospoofing" and "tentacles of the Medusa." He apparently decided that I, for example, was using a variety of fake names, including Nick Szabo, Hal Finney, Geoff Dale (yes, the very same folks you all know from _this_ List!), to drive him crazy and to argue against his points. Thus, if Nick Szabo argues against electronic democracy AND has a Netcom account, as I do, then it's obvious: szabo(a)netcom.com is obviously a "tentacle" of tcmay(a)netcom.com! What could be more obvious? This all increased, with Detweiler launching daily rants against me, Eric Hughes, and others. He demanded apologies "or else." He demanded statements from the "Cypherpunks High Command" that we no longer "pseudospoof." He appealed to John Gilmore to "put a stop to this pseudospoofing," but John was in Nepal on a trek and didn't respond. When John eventually returned, he replied in a calm manner and suggested that Detweiler was mistaken. True to form, Detweiler went ballistic at this "betrayal" and declared Gilmore to be just another "Big Mac." (In DetSpeak, many new terms exist. Those of us who appeared on the cover of "Wired" (issue 1.2), Eric, John, and me, are "Big Macs." Other Cyperhpunks are "cheeseburgers." Of course, we are also "TENTACLES" and "SNAKES" of Medusa. Sometimes Detweiler refers to _me_ as Medusa, other times he imputes to "her" the role of coordinating the Grand Conspiracy to a) drive him crazy, b) spread the Cryptoanarchist message, and c) corrupt all of Cyberspace with Lies. He also drifts into Christian rants about Hell, Satan, God, and Damnation. Keeping track of his shifting terminology is a chore.) He asked to be removed from the Cypherunks list, and was, but continued to post to it (blindly). He created his own group, the "Cypherwonks" list, with a fascist list of rules and regulations about true identities, the evils of pseudospoofing, etc. I gather from reports that it is now moribund. (I didn't join, for obvious reasons, not even under a "tentacle"--which I don' even have, needless to say). Ironically, but hardly surprisingly, the very thing Detweiler rails against so much, "pseudospoofing," is precisely what he is most famous for! I'm sure a psychologist would have a field day with him. Detweiler issued death threats, saying he would be visiting the Bay Area to "kill the tentacles." He mostly did this under his an12070 name, though he often confused the identities and made several telling slips which confirmed to even the doubters that L. Detweiler = an12070 = S. Boxx = Pablo Escobar = Adolf Hitler, all names he has used for his paranoid rants. (Other evidence: same line lengths, same use of TeX-style ``quotes'' in messages, same use of no spaces between initials in names like "T.C.May," same florid languages, same emphasis on same issues, and, most tellingly of all, several "goofs" in which private messages to one or the other were quoted by the other, and even goofs within messages that alluded to himself as "Lance" or "Larry.") And so it goes. He has been posting his "CRYPTOANARCHIST INVASION ALERT"-type messages to several Usenet groups for the last couple of months, and has recently gone even further in the direction of madness. I expect one day to hear Detweiler has shot and killed himself, or has shot and killed others, or is holding them hostage. I know the Colorado Cypherpunks group--which expelled Detweiler from their physical meetings and from their list--is fairly concerned about their security, and the security of Phil Zimmermann, who lives in Colorado and whom Detweiler alternately characterizes as "God" or as "Satan." After the latest rounds of forged messages, with my name attached and with .sig block attached, I alerted Julf, operator of the anon.penet.fi site, to the obvious "abuse" of his remailer site....I didn't do this when Detweiler was ranting, only when he was sending out posts which gave the appearance of being from _me_. No an12070 messages have been seen by me for several days now, and Detweiler has made comments about how S. Boxx "told him" that his account has been stopped. Yeah, right. So that's the saga of L. Detweiler, the latest Net Perversion to be born in cyberspace. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power:2**859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.

1 0

Crypto and taxes
by Hal 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I can agree that cryptography will make some kinds of illegal private transactions easier. What I doubt is that this will happen at a large enough scale to seriously threaten the ability of governments to fund themselves by taxes. Take Perry's example of one person buying a rare, expensive item from another. This might be made easier to do anonymously with ecash. But how much significance will this have taxwise? If these were private individuals involved in a personal swap, chances are no taxes would be paid even under current conditions. I bought a car from my next door neighbor a few months ago. I doubt that he paid income tax on it. And transactions of this magnitude are rare among individuals in a non- business situation. Most of our transactions are done with businesses, generally corporations. Imagine taking $15,000 in cash to buy a new car anonymously. I believe you will find that the car dealers will not cooperate, that government regulations (designed to crack down on drug dealers) will require them to get some ID from you. Digicash would presumably be under the same restrictions. Furthermore, as I argued earlier, it will be much harder for a large business to successfully switch to cash transactions in the hope of evading taxes. A much larger group of people would have to be "in" on the secret, in order to cooperate to prepare the false receipts and books that would be necessary. Any situation like this will be risky and dangerous to maintain. I don't fully understand Duncan's arguments for how taxes can be avoided through being a non-citizen. I gather, though, that this would require me to either move to another country, or to go to work for a company that is in another country. Neither seems likely in the next few years for the majority of citizens. And if this did catch on, presumably this loophole could be closed, so that you were taxed by whatever country you lived in. (A similar situation exists today with respect to state income tax for people who live in one state and work in another. I don't think they are exempt from all state income taxes.) Sandy may be right that self-employed people who get cash payments do widely under-report their income, and no doubt self-employed programmers do the same to some extent. But I'm really not sure why or how a programming contractor or consultant, let alone an employee, will be able to avoid paying taxes once strong crypto is common. Won't the company paying him still want to record those payments on its books, so it can deduct them as business expenses? I believe similar records are used today to verify tax liabilities of paid consultants. Why won't this be true with crypto involved? And for employees, companies are still going to need a social security number, name and address, and they will still submit records to the government showing how much you were paid. I don't see widespread tax evasion in the picture at all. Sure, some smart people may be able to exploit the new technologies and disappear into the cracks. Self-employed information workers may have the most to gain. But the average worker and the average company aren't going to have major new opportunities for tax evasion. The economy will keep plugging along as it always has, and if the government goes down the tubes it won't be because of the advent of strong cryptography. Hal

2 1

please resubscribe
by lear35!mdbomber＠nebula.acs.uci.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I somehow got dropped from this list. Several messages to cypherpunks-request have ended up in /dev/null somehow. Could someone please add me back to the list?

1 0

No Subject
by Chris Goggans 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

After a complete sellout at HoHo Con 1993 in Austin, TX this past December, the official Legion of Doom t-shirts are available once again. Join the net luminaries world-wide in owning one of these amazing shirts. Impress members of the opposite sex, increase your IQ, annoy system administrators, get raided by the government and lose your wardrobe! Can a t-shirt really do all this? Of course it can! -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "THE HACKER WAR -- LOD vs MOD" This t-shirt chronicles the infamous "Hacker War" between rival groups The Legion of Doom and The Masters of Destruction. The front of the shirt displays a flight map of the various battle-sites hit by MOD and tracked by LOD. The back of the shirt has a detailed timeline of the key dates in the conflict, and a rather ironic quote from an MOD member. (For a limited time, the original is back!) "LEGION OF DOOM -- INTERNET WORLD TOUR" The front of this classic shirt displays "Legion of Doom Internet World Tour" as well as a sword and telephone intersecting the planet earth, skull-and-crossbones style. The back displays the words "Hacking for Jesus" as well as a substantial list of "tour-stops" (internet sites) and a quote from Aleister Crowley. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- All t-shirts are sized XL, and are 100% cotton. Cost is $15.00 (US) per shirt. International orders add $5.00 per shirt for postage. Send checks or money orders. Please, no credit cards, even if it's really your card. Name: __________________________________________________ Address: __________________________________________________ City, State, Zip: __________________________________________ I want ____ "Hacker War" shirt(s) I want ____ "Internet World Tour" shirt(s) Enclosed is $______ for the total cost. Mail to: Chris Goggans 603 W. 13th #1A-278 Austin, TX 78701 These T-shirts are sold only as a novelty items, and are in no way attempting to glorify computer crime.

1 0

Somebody posting fake Detweiler messages
by nobody＠soda.berkeley.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This message was posted to alt.conspiracy. ============================================================================ From: Tommy the Tourist <nobody(a)soda.berkeley.edu> Subject: Apologies Organization: Cypherpunks From: "L. Detweiler" <ld231782(a)longs.lance.colostate.edu> Before the story gets around from other sources, here's what *really* happened. I guess that I should start by saying that I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the tremendous disturbance that I caused, I now see that I was completely wrong. Nick Szabo is a real person, and I was mistaken to say otherwise. I don't know how to go about cleaning up the mess that I made, but I guess that I'll start by humbly asking all of you to forgive me. It began when I was at home one evening last week, watching TV. The voices were back again. They told me that the TENTACLES were going to use his account to spread their LIES, and to RAPE the unsuspecting net.virgins. The more I thought about it, the more agitated I became. Their SCREAMS filled my ears, and their TEARS came from my own eyes. I couldn't sleep because I knew that their fates rested in my hands. I had to do something. The hell that awaited them was known to me alone, and only I could save them. The poor souls would SQUIRM in AGONY and CRY OUT in pain, but the GROTESQUE cypherpunks would only LAUGH. Every time that I closed my eyes, I'd see the inferno. The monsters believed, I knew, that no joy was greater than UTTERLY DESTROYING an unsuspecting user, SODOMIZING their innocent victims just as they do each other. I thought about posting another message, but decided that this time I had to take my stand. The SATANIC CABAL must be BROKEN, as totally and completely as the Tower of Babel. I flew to Washington, D.C., determined to prove once and for all that szabo(a)netcom.com is nothing but a deceiving TENTACLE, bent on PILLAGE and PLUNDER. Once that was done, the fate of the MEDUSA was sealed. Thanks to one of his net *friends*, I had Szabo's phone number. Locating his address was not difficult. I knocked at the door and asked for Szabo. The fellow who answered the door asked my name and, when I gave it, he told me to wait there. A few seconds later I heard a voice from upstairs yelling ``Call 911! Call 911!''. His roommate jumped me and we wrestled until, finally, I freed myself and was able to calm him down enough to talk. Szabo came downstairs and said that he'd called the police, and I'd better hightail it out of there or be prepared to spend some time in jail. Thinking that he was an imposter paid by t.c.may and e.hughes to act as Szabo should anyone check, I agreed to talk with the CHARLATAN. He would meet his fate soon enough, and he would PAY DEARLY for his complicity. I convinced him that I wasn't armed, and he agreed to talk. He insisted that he *was* Szabo and tried many ways of proving it. He produced a drivers license and a passport, both issued to Szabo and with pictures of this same man. They seemed valid. I was confused. He then dialed into netcom as szabo and read some mail. It was then that I noticed the sounds, soft and just at the edge of my hearing. It was a light and breathy sound. It was... LAUGHTER. The VOICES WERE LAUGHING AT ME. It was then that the clouds parted and the gleaming ray of sunlight came down to illuminate my vision. All of the time that I had spent jousting quixotically with the cypherpunks had been wasted, as they weren't the enemy. They weren't the ones who were sending the voices to disrupt my sleep. It wasn't them at all. The voices were my true enemy, and I set out with renewed vigor to seek out and destroy the voices. Um, anyway, I guess that he really is szabo(a)netcom.com. Sorry. Now what I need to know is how do I go about rebuilding the reputation that I've spent so long destroying? So many people have learned to ignore posts from my account that I fear I'll not get another hearing. Gee, maybe on the internet they CAN tell if you're a dog... ============================================================================

1 0

One of our alumni achieves "alt.usenet.kooks" fame!
by tcmay＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Our own former member, but still all-too-frequent contributor, L. Detweiler has achieved fame by appearing in the compilation of net.cranks in the new group "alt.usenet.kooks." I had a hunch he'd be listed there along with such luminaries as Robert McElwaine, Jack Schmidlang, Gary Stollman, and Serdar Argic, and he was. Here's in entry in the draft FAQ: "L. Detweiler (you are all TENTACLES of the CYPHERpunk anarchoSYNDICALIST pseudospoofing CONSPIRACY; everyone who contacts me via post or email is a tentacle of a single Medusa): All information relevant has been deleted (probably by the cypherpunk pseudospoofers); ask around - old-timers can tell you about him, through "safe" avenues (like email). Warning: attempting to disillusion him of his theories usually results in threatening mail and getting incorporated into said theories. Handle With Extreme Care. Appears occasionally on the news.* hierarchy, crossposted to hell and back. Author of the Internet Anonymity FAQ. (Posts as ld231782@<various>.lance.colostate.edu (L. Detweiler) and an12070(a)anon.penet.fi (various constantly-changing identities).)" Which one of us will be next? --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power:2**859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.

1 0

szabo@netcom.com is NOT a tentacle!!!
by nobody＠pmantis.berkeley.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

As for the `Szabo being a tentacle thread' in the newsgroups, pmetzger just posted stating that he had indeed posted the name of the town Szabo lives in, as well as the names of his roommates. He refrained from posting that information again. I seem to vaguely recall seeing the original post, but can't find it in the buffers here -- everything before December 21st or so has expired. the thing that ROYALLY PISSES ME OFF is that NOONE WHO HEARD PMETZGER CLAIM THIS has POSTED TO SAY THAT THEY HEARD HIM SAY THAT. reminds me of the infamous rape and murder of that NY woman, with dozens of witnesses hearing her screams, just going about their business. who will be raped next? and who will be silent? everyone who is watching my thread, and being silent about what they know, is a hypocrite and a dangerous accomplice to lies. I guess that's a bit overstated. I suspect people in most major metropolitan areas don't want to get involved partially because they fear retribution, and partially because, with that many people packed together, you tend to care less about your neighbors than you would in a small town, where you know the people in your building or street. I suspect people on the net don't bother because "it's just bits" -- they read the Net like they watch TV, without any connection to the characters or dramas unfolding before them. In large part, what is said here doesn't really matter. People get curious, but it's not worth getting into an uproar. if YOU GIVE A DAMN, POST! Ah, there's the rub. Deep down, I really don't care about this particular issue. To my knowledge, Nick Szabo, whether real or not, has never said anything that has made me even care whether or not he has real. I've never found anything he's said particularly interesting. He's a net.person. Should he turn out to be a "tentacle," that's fine by me -- he won't be the first I've encountered. If he turns out to be T.C.May in disguise, all that means is that there's one less person with T.C.May's ideas in the world than people thought. I think that uncaring attitude, which I regard as fairly dominant among people who've used cyberspace (and especially Usenet) a good amount of time, is the very reason that May's ideas about widespread crypto bringing down governments will never come to pass. People have, and I believe will continue to have, a distrust about putting much faith into computers, and thus cyberspace will always have limitations. I believe people put a great deal of stock in the feel of a crisp paper dollar bill, as well as a smile and a handshake. :-) Perhaps to add more fuel to the fire, a Nicholas Szabo does indeed live in Cupertino, according to a 1990-1991 White Pages from the area. There is no G.Dale listed, however. (I was hoping to correlate the two numbers) I suspect that I need a more recent phone book to make a better test. ------ Legalize: >--<o | I confess to an unatural, and abnormal . \ / :-)-~ o>--< | act I have programmed a computer. . . \ / You are ~1,000,000,000,000,000 .1ms NAND gates have a nice day. . . . \/ The true theory of everything will run on a finite turing machine. . . .

3 2

Re: szabo@netcom.com is NOT a tentacle!!! (fwd)
by Johan Helsingius 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Sigh, more garbage from the cypherwonks list ownere posted to cypherpunks: Sigh. Why do you associate this garbage with the cypherwonks list owner? And who are you refering to by that? Unfortunately *I* am the physical list owner, as I offered to host the list on lists.eunet.fi to channel away the Detweiler discussion from cypherpunks. And I *know* I didn't send that stuff! Julf

1 0