Gang, First off, since I have just now been able to process some of the couple hundred msgs in my box, I'd like to respond to a good idea...
From: yanek@novavax.nova.edu
[good stuff removed]
The solution is the use of prefixes in Subject: lines. When you post, prefix your Subject: line with a short "tag" such as "ANON:", "DCNET:", "PGP:", "DCASH:", or others.
Excellent idea, Yanek, I like the elegance of it very much. However, I prefer
to label all my Whistleblower posts with "FWEEE:" rather than the mundane
"WHISTLE:" and besides, it's shorter. :-) Other than that, I like your
suggestions,e and here are my (short) ones (marked with "-"):
ANON: Anoymity/Pseudonymity
-MIX: Remailer Technology
DCNET: DC Nets
RANDOM: Random Generators
DCASH: Digital Banking
PGP: PGP App/Current Info
FLAME: Crypto-Censorship
-FWEE!: Whistleblowers (T
he "Keith Peterson Area"?)
-MTGS: Physical Meetings/Conferences
-------------- OK, now Whistleblowers ---------------
Secondly,
I suppose that everyone has by now heard about Bill Clinton's 800 numbers for
government waste whistleblowers and anyone else to call. A great idea, and I
applaud him for it (it'll keep Al Gore out of trouble for a while), but it's
"kid stuff" compared to the picture I have in my mind for our Whistleblowers
anonymous remailer system. Eventually, I would like to see anon msgs (some
encrypted) alerting specific investigators about assassinations, military
cost overruns, govt sex scandals, private sector insider trading and all
sorts of other nefarious goings-on. This is gonna be GREAT! We're gonna "rock
the world" of the rats out there.
Over the next few weeks, I will post some plans like the one below for all of
you to comment on. Among these will be a phased roadmap which will hopefully
diagram for all Cypherpunks what needs to be done to get a true anon remailer
up and running and populate it with juicy tidbits.
Make no mistake, this is no small job: it will require a team effort. Prepare
to be called on for small jobs, and feel free to refuse if the work is out of
your league of if you haven't enough time. It'll get done: the People are
counting on us.
For now, we are in Phase 1: planning, design & data acquisition.
Data Acq'n:
I am now working on a database which will eventually cover all of Congress,
the Executive, the Judiciary and the Pentagon. As noted before, this db will
list email addresses wherever possible. Many Congresspeople do not currently
have email, so we may even assist our elected officials in the process of
getting looped in. We will send out our initial offers to some highly placed
people to visit the Whistleblowers list and sign on, get a key and start
paying attention.
Phase 2 will be to spec out the remail and produce a preliminary set of
instructions to be sent out with the invitation to participate.
Phase 3 will be the initial remailer implementation and testing.
Phase 4 will involve getting a few press and activist people to log on and
get used to PGP and the whole idea. I expect by then that we may already have
some whistles being blown.
Later Phases will be discussed as I think of them, this is a rough
preliminary sketch intended for comment.
FYI: several Congressperson's offices have drooled audibly over the prospect
and may contribute resources or assistance to our effort. I tend to think we
should do this ourselves to avoid any sort of indebtedness to any official
entity. In addition, a local SF TV news service has expressed real interest
in getting a copy of PGP (DOS), so I will soon post a request for someone to
supply that to a certain address (stay tuned). Again, I want to stress the
importance of a central repository of all PGP versions for distribution for
non-profit purposes such as being able to sign on to this list. The
importance of ensuring that the software at this site is not compromised in
any way is crucial, just to state the obvious.
More later. Hope to see people at CFP and the Modern Times bookstore gig on
Sunday.
dave|evad
PS: In future, I will be receiving mail from the Cypherpunks list at