December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

The Judge On War
by nobody＠neva.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- "Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West" by Cormac McCarthy On a rise at the western edge of the playa they passed a crude wooden cross where Maricopas had crucified an Apache. The mummied corpse hung from the crosstree with its mouth gaped in a raw hole, a thing of leather and bone scoured by the pumice winds off the lake and the pale tree of the ribs showing through the scraps of hide that hung from the breast. They rode on. The horses trudged sullenly the alien ground and the round earth rolled beneath them silently milling the greater void wherein they were contained. In the neuter austerity of that terrain all phenomena were bequeathed a strange equality and no one thing nor spider nor stone nor blade of grass could put forth claim to precedence. The very clarity of these articles belied their familiarity, for the eye predicates the whole on some feature or part and here was nothing more luminous than another and nothing more enshadowed and in the optical democracy of such landscapes all preference is made whimsical and a man and a rock become endowed with unguessed kinships. They grew gaunted and lank under the white suns of those days and their hollow burnedout eyes were like those of noctambulants surprised by day. Crouched under their hats they seemed fugitives on some grander scale, like beings for whom the sun hungered. Even the judge grew silent and speculative. He'd spoke of purging oneself of those things that lay claim to a man but that body receiving his remarks counted themselves well done with any claims at all. They rode on and the wind drove the fine gray dust before them and they rode an army of graybeards, gray men, gray horses. The mountains to the north lay sunwise in corrugated folds and the days were cool and the nights were cold and they sat about the fire each in his round of darkness in that round of dark while the idiot watched from his cage at the edge of the light. The judge cracked with the back of an axe the shinbone of an antelope and the hot marrow dripped smoking on the stones. They watched him. The subject was war. The good book says that he that lives by the sword shall perish by the sword, said the black. The judge smiled, his face shining with grease. What right man would have it any other way? he said. The good book does indeed count war an evil, said Irving. Yet there's many a bloody tale of war inside it. It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way. He turned to Brown, from whom he'd heard some whispered slur or demurrer. Ah Davy, he said. It's your own trade we honor here. Why not rather take a small bow. Let each acknowledge each. My trade? Certainly. What is my trade? War. War is your trade. Is it not? And it aint yours? Mine too. Very much so. What about all them notebooks and bones and stuff? All other trades are contained in that of war. Is that why war endures? No. It endures because young men love it and old men love it in them. Those that fought, those that did not. That's your notion. The judge smiled. Men are born for games. Nothing else. Every child knows that play is nobler than work. He knows too that the worth or merit of a game is not inherent in the game itself but rather in the value of that which is put at hazard. Games of chance require a wager to have meaning at all. Games of sport involve the skill and strength of the opponents and the humiliation of defeat and the pride of victory are in themselves sufficient stake because they inhere in the worth of the principals and define them. But trial of chance or trial of worth all games aspire to the condition of war for here that which is wagered swallows up game, player, all. Suppose two men at cards with nothing to wager save their lives. Who has not heard such a tale? A turn of the card. The whole universe for such a player has labored clanking to this moment which will tell if he is to die at that man's hand or that man at his. What more certain validation of a man's worth could there be? This enhancement of the game to its ultimate state admits no argument concerning the notion of fate. The selection of one man over another is a preference absolute and irrevocable and it is a dull man indeed who could reckon so profound a decision without agency or significance either one. In such games as have for their stake the annihilation of the defeated the decisions are quite clear. This man holding this particular arrangement of cards in his hand is thereby removed from existence. This is the nature of war, whose stake is at once a game and the authority and the justification. Seen so, war is the truest form of divination. It is the testing of one's will and the will of another within that larger will which because it binds them is therefore forced to select. War is the ultimate game because war is at last forcing of the unity of existence. War is god. Brown studied the judge. You're crazy Holden. Crazy at last. The judge smiled. Might does not make right, said Irving. The man that wins in some combat is not vindicated morally. Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn. A moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test. A man falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to his views. His very involvement in such a trial gives evidence of a new and broader view. The willingness of the principals to forgo further argument as the triviality which it in fact is and to petition directly the chambers of the historical absolute clearly indicates of how little moment are the opinions and of what great moment the divergences thereof. For the argument is indeed trivial, but not so the separate wills thereby made manifest. Man's vanity may well approach the infinite in capacity but his knowledge remains imperfect and howevermuch he comes to value his judgements ultimately he must submit them before a higher court. Here there can be no special pleading. Here are considerations of equity and rectitude and moral right rendered void and without warrant and here are the views of the litigants despised. Decisions of life and death, of what shall be and what shall not, beggar all question of right. In elections of these magnitudes are all lesser ones subsumed, moral, spiritual, natural. The judge searched out the circle for disputants. But what says the priest? he said. Tobin looked up. The priest does not say. The priest does not say, said the judge. Nihil dicit. But the priest has said. For the priest has put by the robes of his craft and taken up the tools of that higher calling which all men honor. The priest also would be no godserver but a god himself. Tobin shook his head. You've a blasphemous tongue, Holden. And in truth I was never a priest but only a novitiate to the order. Journeyman priest or apprentice priest, said the judge. Men of god and men of war have strange affinities. I'll not secondsay you in your notions, said Tobin. Dont ask it. Ah Priest, said the judge. What could I ask of you that you've not already given? -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNHE+ij7jyGKQlFZpAQG5SAf9GHe5Wu1JY7yw9/yk3HkYMFZqB+CbjCg8 a9Zzd7njUpmVCAYfp4HEL24Y3zHIZxA6eJjXRb+tS5Lxxr04ziC2LqLZQ6km5SY8 Dk4JNmLeKLUWzQyidZz2f1onnVy3QUbV094mtXnfY1Ee2uSB8Xh+hfdhPjrv5Kr0 C/ZXzf9e+rHzVOXQhDOjIvXN6nSyhaqAlF8HcxUIqIxRwT2lh41aGgQaNO7w+zO/ FBDquykmJeE4+EEKVszQCJOKg4PDQ74LhAYNtzT1/p4g8H5g4oFfffZKQR44tk7m VD+oIktoUgwB9mK8xAUyAEBQra18292Zk8+7Kv7WtB7jaJ8yVeE9xQ== =7ezR -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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No Subject
by bureau42 Anonymous Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim May will fuck anything that moves, but he'd rather be fucking his own mother's dead body. /\ __/__\__ | 00 | Tim May |: \ :| | \_/| \__/

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No Subject
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

If anyone doubts Gary Burnore's vindictive nature and his disregard for the privacy of others, read this message from him where he dug up an old tax lien filed against one of his critics and broadcast it worldwide on Usenet in order to embarass him and intimidate him into silence about Gary Burnore and his abusive tactics: --- BEGIN INCLUDED MESSAGE --- Subject: Re: Monkey-boys position From: gburnore(a)netcom.com (Gary L. Burnore) Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 02:01:14 GMT Message-ID: <gburnoreE5Iqy2.H8C(a)netcom.com> Organization: the home office in Wazoo, NE Newsgroups: news.admin.net-abuse.email,news.admin.net-abuse.misc,news.admin.net-abuse.usenet References: <gburnoreE51xvo.2zK(a)netcom.com> <5doim6$32q$1(a)monkeys.com> <twficE5G4HL.Fp9(a)netcom.com> <wotanE5Gu0t.8Hv(a)netcom.com> <5drvl3$bvr$1(a)monkeys.com> Ronald F. Guilmette (rfg(a)monkeys.com) wrote: { In article <wotanE5Gu0t.8Hv(a)netcom.com>, <Wotan> wrote: { >In article <twficE5G4HL.Fp9(a)netcom.com>, { >Ty Fairchild <twfic(a)netcom.com> wrote while drinking: { > { >>Fortunately this thread will not be extended by any further follow from { >>monkeyboy. His public pronouncement states his position. { > { >Y'all mean bent over a post spreading his ass cheeks and yelling "Fuck { >me" to any passing entity? { Atta boy Wotan, my little BaBaBasicks bean brain. Jump in again any time. What say each time you slam DataBasix for no reason, we post some publicly available information about monkeys.com. HEre's the first try: + +Filing Number: 90226822 +Document Type: STATE TAX +Filing Date: 04/30/90 +Amount: $157,705 +Debtor: GUILMETTE, RONALD F, <ssn deleted> + 550 PAULARINO AV, COSTA MESA, CA +Court/County: ORANGE REC, ORANGE, CA +Certificate: 90114005621 +Tax Authority: FRANCHISE TAX BOARD +Release Number: 90431912 +Release Date: 08/15/90 + +Filing Number: 336573L +Document Type: STATE TAX +Filing Date: 04/27/90 +Amount: $157,705 +Debtor: GUILMETTE, RONALD F, <ssn deleted> + 550 PAULARINO AV, COSTA MESA, CA +Court/County: SANTA CLARA REC, SANTA CLARA, CA +Certificate: 90114005622 +Tax Authority: FRANCHISE TAX BOARD +Release Number: 4451377L +Release Date: 08/10/90 + More where this came from. Yu wanna keep slamming DataBasix for no good reason? -- gburnore(a)databasix.com mailto:gburnore@databasix.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------- What's another word for Thesaurus? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gary L. Burnore | ][3:]3^3:]3][3:]3^3:]3]3^3:]3]][3 DataBasix | ][3:]3^3:]3][3:]3^3:]3]3^3:]3]][3 San Francisco, CA | ][3:]3^3:]3][3:]3^3:]3]3^3:]3]][3 | ][3 3 4 1 4 2 ]3^3 6 9 0 6 9 ][3 http://www.databasix.com | Official Proof of Purchase =========================================================================== --- END INCLUDED MESSAGE --- --

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Re: How anonymous?
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Ian Sparkes wrote: >If all anonymous posters make a concerted effort to write like Mr. >Nakatuji, not only will anonymity be assured, but the list will be a *lot* >funnier. "You know Mixmaster? Send me 50 dollar, I show you how use." But seriously, there is something to be said for adopting a style of writing specific to a nym or group of nyms. Anyone who has read The Economist magazine on various occasions knows how its language and tone are consistent, as if one author writes every article, issue after issue. Having the writings of a nym "edited" by others as a way of foiling Stylometry -- the statistical analysis of literary style -- may prove to be a lucrative business if nyms ever gain wide use, especially if they are used in ecommerce where anonymity of the nym holder is paramount to avoid the wrath of the tax man in his physical jurisdiction. Much of our writing style is unconscious. We habitually use certain vocabulary, sentence structure, punctuation. Our writings are like a fingerprint. The more we write, the greater the detail of that fingerprint. We can try to alter the style. Write shorter or longer sentences. Choose our words capriciously. But on some occasions (think ecommerce) it may be necessary to have a second party rewrite the original text. Enter the "nym editor" to remove the stylometric clues from a nym's writings. Correspondence between the nym owner and editor could be achieved anonymously using remailers, nym servers and "throw away" email accounts (Hotmail and Mailexcite). When the nym owner locates an editor and they agree on the terms of engagement, the owner submits his text to the editor. The editor reworks it, and sends it back to the owner. The owner may then make a few small changes or even submit it to another nym editor before posting the text under his nym. A nym owner may prefer a certain editor's style and continue to use him. Thus the nym will offer stylometric clues of the editor, not the owner. The nym owner can pay the editor using ecash, preferably of the fully-anonymous flavor. If the nym owner stiffs the editor on a payment, he can then broadcast it through the relevant channels. The nym suffers loss of reputation capital. It seems reasonable to assume that the likelihood of fraud by the nym holder is slim, especially if the editor tends to deal with persistent nyms. Fraud by the nym editor is also unlikely. The worst he could do is publish the unedited text, giving stylometric clues about the nym holder. The prudent nym holder who uses more than one editor can better avoid such a situation, though that risk is never entirely eliminated. However if the nym editor is uncertain of the author of the text he is reworking, there is little incentive to blackmail the nym holder since all he may be doing is passing on stylometric clues about another nym editor. Amad3us wrote elsewhere: >What do people think this nym is for? Only nyms can trade with >impunity in the tax free cypherspace. But only as long as the nym holder remains anonymous. Digital mixes are superb, but what good are they when we give away clues about who we are with every keystroke we embed in our digitally-signed messages? Nerthus -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBNHElEuFWwZe05jcJAQFSpwf6A63ba2/dSjXMJgdc4s5PvxbX+p4+J0Yw Hs+0unBnW+ULINMzyWyAs/q0oMVkXFHwD14t3VGQb+ofuhxXyC1c/tmuzKadgM5d OUAj1lmthAJncv9nJWulWAVJuksei4/xgGfAq18wSL4l9bt9L7UTY4m0zSnvlvDf KR3F+koKreO4dn9C0AcIMeClHWwpepUpxZflJwSszaPnCciuOHJ1ga/lKz+NCvmp CXPXzGW2PpfwhRBt0AkkX4WfnYNiFupalSx6pxgrHDiMHAMEr4G0W8fZlAUW8dSB X+1DSTMdCZLDMTsfSozUXDMiZB2Jgxwlu5vxcvY+kODBcCy9RGZBPw== =H2qx -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Databasix conspiracy theories
by Mixmaster 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Andy Dustman <andy(a)neptune.chem.uga.edu> wrote: > > The remailers themselves have become the victims of forgeries. Back during > > the DataBasix "reign of [t]error" directed at Jeff Burchell, the "DataBasix > > cabal" (called that by a Netcom news admin, BTW) accused the Mailmasher > > 'nymserver of being used for "forgery" of Gary Burnore's name and address > > to various posts. And now, even after the cajones.com domain has apparently > > bitten the dust, I've seen complaints of spam being received by people that's > > been forged to look as if it had come from that domain. In the case of the > > Burnore forgeries, the Path: was only traceable back to the mail2news gateway, > > so the header items implicating Mailmasher could have easily been forged just > > as Mr. Burnore's address was. Nevertheless, these alleged "forgeries" > > comprised the rationale used by a DataBasix employee, Billy McClatchie, for > > demanding the Mailmasher be shut down. > > I've never really been convinced that Databasix has much to do with the > Huge Cajones fiasco. I'm not saying nobody from there is involved, though. > I'm just trying to keep an objective opinion on the subject. While I have no first-hand information on that, Jeff Burchell, operator of the Huge Cajones Remailer, reported involvement of three DataBasix staff members: Gary L. Burnore, Belinda Bryan, and William J. McClatchie (better known by the pseodonym "Wotan"). McClatchie was also extensively involved in the public campaign to get Mailmasher shut down. Jeff's "post mortem" expose' on all this can be viewed at the following URL: http://calvo.teleco.ulpgc.es/listas/cypherpunks-unedited@toad.com/HTML-1997… While it's perhaps not the kind of evidence, being circumstancial in nature, that you'd take to court, it could certainly useful in trying to anticipate and avoid potential future attacks. Of the parties involved in the conflict(s) that led up to the remailer attacks, Burnore/DataBasix was the only one who had a motive to attack the remailers. Gary's alternative theory on who was responsible, Ron Guilmette, is much less plausible. Gary, for example, has consistently displayed a very bigoted attitude towards those who choose to utilize anonymity to maintain their privacy. He would often refer to anonymous posters as "anonymous assholes", "cowards", "hiding behind the skirts of a remailer", etc. Let's take that first phrase -- "anonymous assholes". If a person were to be arguing with a black man, and called him an "asshole", that would be somewhat acceptable. But if he called him a "black asshole" or a "ni**er asshole", he would be revealing his innate bigotry and you'd rightly call him a RACIST, implying that a member of that race had no right to express a dissenting opinion. The same applies when an ad hominem attack targets a poster's anonymity. IMO, that makes him an anti-privacy bigot. While he's now tried to clean up his act by claiming that "remailers have their place", he's on record as saying that they shouldn't be used for "abuse" and he's defined anonymous criticism as "abuse". Going back to the racism analogy, that statement is equivalent to the old line "Me? A racist? Why some of my best friends are ______". Also, Gary Burnore expressed the repeated desire that anonymous posts that were critical of him were designed to "stir up trouble" and represented "abuse" that the remailers should have blocked. If the remailer operators wouldn't censor the criticism in the MESSAGEs, then killing the MESSENGER (the remailers) would accomplish the same thing. Belinda Bryan and Billy McClatchie, two other DataBasix staff members, issued even more scathing attacks on the posters' choice of anonymity, and against the remailer. Upon occasion, they both referred to the remailer as the "No Balls Remailer" and implied that the poster had "tiny testicles". Although Belinda and Billy's comments were cloaked with a "no archive" header, and Gary Burnore has recently requested that his posts be removed from the DejaNews archives, the essence of their comments can still be followed via the portions of their posts which were quoted by others in posts that remain archived. > > That's even more evidence that the real target of the spam baiter(s) was the > > remailers themselves. Why else would you "attack" people, then anonymously > > warn them of what you'd done? Perhaps that's why the spam baiting reportedly > > was directed not only at the DataBasix gang, but also at their detractors, > > such as Ron Guilmette, Scott Dentice, etc. > > That the primary target of the spam-baiting campaign was the remailer net > (one at a time), I have little doubt. Which leaves two alternatives: either one of the participants in the Gary Burnore/Ron Guilmette/Netcom flame war was responsible, or the timing was merely coincidental. > > > (There was another set of letters going around claiming to > > > be pro-remailer, but I was always skeptical that that was the true > > > intention.) > > > > Sounds like a classic, "F.U.D." disinformation campaign like another > > anti-privacy bunch, the Co$, would engage in. What better way to discredit > > remailers that to, for example, send out anonymous messages saying "Preserve > > your rights -- defend remailers!" and making it look like the message came > > from a member of the KKK, or NAMBLA, or some other unpopular group. > > Yes, and that's how it appeared to me, as well. In fact, I really would > doubt any other possible scenario, mainly because much of the spam-baiting > was done to IP addresses (same people, different hosts), so IP addresses > were basically outlawed (if you have an IP address, you've got to have a > FQDN, right?). That and people were apparently being sent many copies of > the "warning" (to the same address). Also, the tone of the letter seemed > counter to what it was supposedly intended to accomplish, i.e., "there's > nothing you can do about it, so stop whining". OTOH, I did make a public > request for whoever it was doing it to stop, and they did seem to stop > rather shortly after that, though spam-baiting continued. Yes, the multiple copy thing was quite "ingenious", in an anti-remailer sort of way. They could either be viewed as a "friendly" warning about "abuse" involving the remailers, or they could be viewed as abusive themselves. But since they, like the spam bait, were also sent through the remailers, the remailer net was the visible target either way! Several things didn't add up about the whole "spam baiting" thing. While Burnore claimed that he and other DataBasix users were the primary targets of the spam bait, their addresses seemed to comprise only a small percentage of the e-mail addresses I saw "baited". My own test indicated that inclusion of an e-mail address in the body of a Usenet post was ineffective in attracting UCE. And one of the most visible opponents of spam baiting, Peter Bell, said pretty much the same thing. He was apparently one of the original "spam bait" targets, and would publish daily "reports" on which addresses were being baited. When the technique suddenly switched from individual messages with addresses in the headers to the format where lists of addresses were instead in the BODY of the message, he concluded, based on his observations, that the new technique was ineffective and announced that he was discontinuing his daily reports. Despite this fact, the DataBasix folks continued to claim that they were being inundated with e-mailed spam due to the ongoing spam baiting. Of course, since the new technique involved e-mail addresses in the BODY of the post, their suggested "solution" was to filter anonymous posts that contained any mention of the e-mail addresses of DataBasix staff members. Since such blockage was what they'd wanted all along, this new form of spam baiting provided the ideal excuse for demanding that Usenet posts that contained any reference to them be blocked. Jeff Burchell's post indicated that he originally acceded to this demand, but later admitted that it was ill-advised and he discontinued it.

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(No Subject)
by Benjamin Chad Wienke 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I wonder if the courts would buy a "retroactive abortion" defense in the case of the death of an oppressive official? -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Business Security 5.5 iQCVAwUBNHG4oEvLUvnE+cP3AQGHoQP9E9W4gShKGXEBvCZgbVLyiD1AbB7uErtJ pdqUCnOWTmysiQ5rQWkGoOP5+3ixflCxe2eiaopeW2Jm9JaaqxjrMCAUW+H2zmVV ExzF6/14vE00cpLLDvSrW7wEF0sPPUc+TOGyLqUqfIkQ+cQKr9eEFBjFBX10BjsG wCS0lJPXzl8= =KH8i -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 mQCNAzO0qFMAAAEEAMHp02cHHX0pjk3huDxKZ1za/PH+KVy6IAeDD7fcK3SCiNsT DqwqZsDzKQhEbVpmrxOoZKeY7RDOfEDk5EUVw/Ve4GbSOK9cdm4MohT2Poy5CnIZ POgFcVnnUu3MK6nKuAc6S4jZazv++JfXwyc+Fr5e6Izjt5D7/0vLUvnE+cP3AAUR tA1BbnRpQ01PUy5BIDw+iQCVAwUQM7SoU0vLUvnE+cP3AQFAgQQArEo32yaSNSgg zBgMvT+iQMSjf8uAIqkqDIFA8SvdSiXjvgPnsGSDwGQqC1wFZfFb55t0o6FFv3c/ zyU6U1EXGNTr1h6/6TC/l0aMyWpbjKj5+rF/KWlbpizkmMMHoioHX+hQAcUEuTfC GBk+haGPw7xfH/fsqF6xSnvhcrZRj8k= =+eSI -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Free web-based email, Forever, From anywhere! http://www.mailexcite.com

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mailing list archive
by Ryan Lackey 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

My hard disk now contains an archive of all the messages (I hope...there are 90k of them) posted on cypherpunks, since the beginning. It's CD-ROM sized; I'm building a glimpse index of them right now and will put them up on the web (tentatively somewhere on http://sof.mit.edu/) soon. I'll also be happy to copy them onto particular media (tape, cd, etc.) if I have access to the drive, for cost + a meager amount to make it worth the effort. I think getting list archives distributed to as many people as possible would be a good thing -- hopefully a recursive auction market will start and people will leave me alone after a while. I'm doing this because there isn't a decent searchable index anywhere that I've found, and it would be a nice thing to have, and I don't think the time is too far off when people will try to eliminate the list. I've been using the archive of cpunks as my test data set in writing Eternity DDS -- I thought it was vaguely poetic, in a way.

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e$: Snakes of Medusa on Wall Street? (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 18 Nov 1997 12:07:49 -0500 > From: Robert Hettinga <rah(a)shipwright.com> > Subject: e$: Snakes of Medusa on Wall Street? > In the study of American theological history, the period when Mormonism was > invented is called the Great Awakening. Um, I believe that went from the late 1500's to the early 1700's at best. Ol' Joe Smith lived in the early and late 1800's nearly a hundred years after the traditional Great Awakening. Is your claim that there was a second Great Awakending or are you saying the traditional (if you will) dating is incorrect? > that Vlad Dracul, the Impaler, was Transylvanian Actualy, to be accurate his name was Vlad Teppish. He was eventualy killed by his lord for carrying on excesses such as killing a woman because she let her husband walk around with a tattered coat. Dracul and Dracula are derived from dragon and imply a connection with the devil (which also derives its own existance from this lexical tree). > Of opinion, influence, and reputation, opinion is the most atomic. An opinion > can be safely defined as a judgement, right or wrong, based on some accepted, > or maybe just perceived, set of facts. Doesn't the use of 'perceived' imply some a priori assumptions about the base structure of reality and in fact imply a more atomistic issue, that of conceptual viability? How does an opinion become atomistic if in order to express it we must invoke other equaly critical (or atomistic) expressions? Further, without testing a 'perceived' fact is nothing but an opinion. > word about whether Socrates said the words himself. Opinion can be completely > dissociated from identity. An anonymous post on a mailing list can have an > opinion, and people can agree or disagree with that opinion as they see fit. That doesn't change the fact that the opinion, anonymous or not, originated from a single source. While I can accept that testable facts can be isolated from source biases it escapes me how an opinion can be so isolated. At its lowest level it is nothing more than a description of an individuals beliefs about reality and their place in it and clearly has impact on the sorts of ideas that are expressible in them. Perhaps opinion & fact are unwittingly being confused. Opinions tell the observer about the holder of the opinion, not the subject the opinion is direct toward. > can't *prove* our opinions are right. The definition of modern human thinking, > is, however, that at the core of it all, someone, somewhere, is using science > - -- which is all about verifiable and replicable physical results -- to > validate, and occasionally create, the set of opinions most of us would now > call knowlege. So, science or no, our thinking is still functionally, > heuristics, but it works. Oh, well. Life is hard. :-). Science is about how to ask questions, it is NOT concerned with the results directly. Science is a non-intuitive mechanism whereby we can regulate how we think about the world around us. What to do with the results is engineering. Science itself is heuristic. > I think the nice thing about science in the geodesic age, by the way, is that > the technology of microcomputers and networks makes it easier for more people > to be closer to scientific truth. There is no 'scientific truth', THE main axiom of science is that everything is open to review and change in responce to the observation and description of the item under studies interactions with the environment around it. > So, what's influence? On a personal basis, influence occurs when someone else > agrees with your opinions. Only if they changed their opinions *because* of the expression of your opinions. Otherwise we are left with independant discovery. Influence is the ability of one theory to cause the holder of another theory to add data or tests that could potentialy alter the outcome of that original theory. The results may or may not support either of the original theories or could even cause a 3rd theory to be born. > The more people agree with your opinions, the more > influence you have. The more people agree with your opinions AND are willing to act on them is a measure of influence. Also, the fact that others may in fact be motivated to act because they *disagree* with you also is clearly a possibility you don't address. Never confuse popularity with influence. > Back to our stack of planes, by no means does the "line" of someone's identity > have to be a straight one This runs counter to your assumption regarding the number of line-plane intersections. If the line is not geometricaly 'straight' it can in fact have zero, one, or more intersections. This causes a problem with this part of the conclusion, you are using the axiom as proof of the assertion (the axiom). ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there | | be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. | | | | -Alan Greenspan- | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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Re: mailing list archive
by Ryan Lackey 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Doh -- I thought my dataset included everything, but it instead just covers every article I can think of between: > Date: Tue, 27 Apr 93 22:53:39 BST > From: whitaker(a)eternity.demon.co.uk (Russell E. Whitaker) > Reply-To: whitaker(a)eternity.demon.co.uk > To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com > Cc: whitaker(a)eternity.demon.co.uk and the present. I'm also feeling tempted to incorporate the archives of some of the offshoot mailing lists, like coderpunks, etc. Does anyone know of a good source for the messages before that one? How many were there, approximately? If there are a bunch of them and you can merge them with mine, I'll be happy to send you a cd of the result. If enough people want to buy CDs of the data, I'll set up an order page, establish pricing, etc. Right now, for me to make a CD requires buying media and doing it at the media lab, unless I buy a drive, so the cost is somewhat dependent upon how many people are interested. If someone wants to use corporate or government money to overpay for a cd so I can buy a cd-r writer and make it cheaper for everyone else, I'll think fondly of whatever organization you represent :) Utterly ignoring the copyright issues in the interest of getting wide dispersal, especially since it's unlikely anyone cares since no one will get rich selling cypherpunks cd-roms, Ryan (the last time I wished for something in parenthetical postscript it worked. Wish granting service, will you please make the people of the world clueful enough to replace governmental/military force with cryptography? Or convince one of my professors that they should sign a blank thesis?) -- Ryan Lackey rdl(a)mit.edu http://mit.edu/rdl/

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Re: technical issues of the list
by Ryan Lackey 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim May wrote: > (There is, by the way, a project simmering along to put the 5 years of > Cypherpunks traffic on a Web site...) I have everything but the first 8 months or so of traffic in the process of going up on the web soon. (Stupid deadline appeared which put this off for a few hours). If the first 8 months were in someplace I could find them, then there would be a nice complete archive no longer simmering, but up on the web, ready for people to mirror. Dr. Dobbs' Journal sells a Cryptography CD-ROM with AC v 2, etc. on it for $99, and combined with a Cypherpunks CD-ROM containing list archives of cypherpunks, coderpunks, cryptography(a)c2.org, and maybe some other stuff for $50 or so, there would be 2-cd solution. I'm pretty sure all 5 years fit on one cd-rom -- I've been using 4 years as an eternity dds dataset, along with some other stuff, and I think it is less than 500mb, although one of the problems with my current eternity file system under linux is that there is no way of telling how big a directory is (yay VFS kludges). -- Ryan Lackey rdl(a)mit.edu http://mit.edu/rdl/

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