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: 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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