Hello, darlings. I wanted to share with you a revolutionary idea that will sound completely alien to you, but it could help you immensely in your perilous experience with disruptive posts to the list. Surely this has been proposed, but been rebuffed. Why? It is a brilliant idea: ONLY MEMBERS ARE ALLOWED TO POST. Imagine! All those annoying remailer messages would just *vanish*! Whoa, what a concept! Too bad it is heretical blasphemy. Anything that stands in the way of Unaccountable Anonymity is a Bad Thing (tm). Interestingly, if this rule were in practice on the cypherpunks list, and `member' is taken in the sense of `email addresses', I would not have been able to post this message. Many cypherpunks have taken great note of the fact that I post `blindly' in the sense that I do not subscribe under the ld231782@longs.lance.colostate.edu address but post to the list anyway under it. I ask these people, though, what makes you think that I am not receiving the delightful frenzied contortions of late on your list through some other address? Would you call me a hypocrite? I have never claimed that such a use is pseudospoofing-- the definition clearly applies to *postings* and *outgoing mail*. I suppose there is some `deception' going on if I receive mail from a different address than from which I post if people can see the list subscribers and assume that those who post are those on the list. But obviously, in many scenarios, this is a ridiculous assumption, particularly here. This brings up another question. Is the cypherpunks mailing list private? If it is private, then it is nobodies business who is receiving what through what addresses, and any use of different addresses for reception (such as that I hinted I do) are completely honest. Periodically someone discovers that they can use the SMTP EXPN command on toad.com to get a list of everyone on the cypherpunks list (supposedly), and suggest ever so delicately that E.Hughes, Mr. Master Programmer, who has clutched his Stone Age Mailing List Software so fanatically and so persistently for some incomprehensible reason, ought to get his act together and prevent people who do not subscribe from posting, and people from peeking at the mailing list. Is the latter an `invasion of privacy'? In a sense the former is too. So, I ask you cypherpunks-- is your mailing list subscriber base `public knowledge' or not? If it isn't, then figure out a way to conceal it; if it is, then don't complain when somebody uses it for malicious purposes you don't like. Are outsiders allowed to post? if they are, then stop whining at me about posting `blindly'. If they aren't then could someone please handhold Mr. Hughes, the Master Programmer, Mr. Cypherpunks Write Code, in getting some new mailing list software? * * * Of course, there are real reasons why you have Stone Age Software for your mailing list. The first reason, as I have already alluded to, is that Mr. Hughes is a iron-fist dictator who belligerently and obstinately opposes any modification in the status quo that he didn't invent in the first place. Yes, this is the kind of person who will oppose a good idea just because someone other than himself thought of it. And this amusing tension between him and Mr. May is most entertaining-- the latter ever so delicately and gently attempts to suggest some change to the list that would make it more beneficial, that would keep out the troublemakers, but Mr. Cypherpunk God has spoken long ago, that Nothing Shall Change. The second reason is more obscure. The cypherpunks love to talk about how some modifications in their software may prevent Newbies from posting. But this is nothing but putrid hypocrisy (as usual). The leaders do not give the slightest damn about Newbies, because Newbies are by definition not Insiders, and they are clueless, and it takes so much trouble to educate them, doing things like writing comprehensive and coherent posts. This may cause people to (unjustly, or rightly?) accuse the leaders of negligence to Newbies. The leaders have tried to come up with comprehensive posts on certain subjects, but they prefer to post them under their Tentacles like H.Finney to get the commensurate increase in reputation. At least, E.Hughes does. T.C.May does not really have the attention span to write anything longer than a few paragraphs or refine his writing on any subject over a long period of time. So he instead writes things like the `anonymity outline' to claim that he thought of anonymous whistleblowing first, when in fact all he did was write down the word `whistleblowing' in a long, rambling, useless salad of words. But I digress. As for Newbies, the leaders will often post disinformation from their tentacles suggesting that Newbies aren't really treated like dirt, and this is actually an effective tactic against all of the braindead idiots who subscribe to the list. So if the list software is not changing because of Newbies, why is it not changing? For a long time many people, myself included, attempted to get E.Hughes, (aka God), to do something sensible like split this list into sublists. The topic perpetually comes up. But both the leaders are opposed to this for several reasons. T.C.May is opposed to it because his God, E.Hughes, is opposed to it, but also because it decreases the opportunity to tickle (or molest, depending on whether you are S.Boxx) people with tentacles. You see, when there are a lot of lists, it is more difficult to maintain the presence of personalities in front of all the people you are trying to trick. It is so much easier to have one `cypherpunk central' where H.Finney can post something about Chaumian systems, etc., and all the Newbies can look up in admiration. The reason that Mr. Hughes has not barred `blind posting' is for the same reason. Oh, the leaders love to talk about *supposed* reasons why this is not a good idea, to ban `blind' posting. They have always perfected their disinformation techniques to the point that they even begin to believe their own lies. The *real* reason, of course, is that it is another big headache for tentacle maintenance, and of course again E.Hughe's own spectacular obstinacy. It goes against the leader's belief that every mailing list should be open to *any* idiot that wants to post, even if they are outside tentacles or anonymous remailers, when in fact the uses of anonymous remailers in legitimate, nonfrivolous groups are virtually nil. Of course, they will argue about my claim that this is so, and I shall enjoy watching them do their damage control with all their tentacles in response. * * * By the way, I have said some nasty and perhaps even LIBELOUS things in here about Mr. Hughes, the list moderator, and his close personal friend, T.C.May. Maybe you would like to get your lawyer to send me a letter. So far no one has, even after J. Bowery ranted and raved and shook his feathers in a flurry at me in the newsgroups. I have asked, a long time ago, that Mr. Hughes send me mail telling me to stop posting to the list. It is amazing in all the time all the cypherpunks have been shrieking at me, Mr. Hughes has never done so. Apparently he believes (like I do) that all my posts are extremely constructive and brilliantly executed. Otherwise, why does he put up with them? Well, he did say once that he was going to censor me on the list, but apparently that is nothing but an empty threat. I guess he realizes how hypocritical that would be for him to do, and how that would fit in perfectly that the image I have been ascribing to him, the Iron Fisted Dictator. Anyway, cypherpunks, please do not whine to me that my Cypherpunks postings are `disruptive'. Tell the List Moderator, the Iron Fisted Dictator, the Conspiracy Leader, the Master Medusa, Mr. Nazi Reincarnated, the Evil One, the Antichrist, to send me or my postmaster mail explaining why I should be Dead in Cyberspace. If your Leaders request that I stop posting to Cypherpunks, I will comply. Rather simple, isn't it? Why have you not tried this approach for so long? You did it with Helsingius and S.Boxx, didn't you? `Mr. Helsingius, please *stop* that raving lunatic, that violent madman, that ranting psychopath, from posting those BAD NO GOOD AWFUL NASTY VIOLENT PSYCHOPATHIC EVIL DEATH THREAT LIBEL HARASSMENTS. Why don't you do it again? No one is watching. No one gives a damn what happens to S.Boxx, anyway. You should kill him, for all I care.