At 10:10 AM 11/27/1996, Mike Duvos wrote:
William H. Geiger III writes:
Dorthy Denning is a boot-licking fasicist!!!
William Reinsch is a lying bastard. Fucking politions!! Fucking goverment!! They all deserve a long rope!!
It is perhaps a point in Dr. Denning's favor that her most vitriolic detractors can spell neither "Dorothy" nor "fascist".
I must admit that I am at a loss to understand the heat which Dorothy Denning generates on the Cypherpunks list, which seems to be second only to the heat generated by posting recipes for roast feline in rec.pets.cats.
I find it interesting that you see Willam H. Geiger as a spokesman for the cypherpunks list. Remember, the list is open to anyone who can operate majordomo except one. The level of vitriol expressed by random e-mail users in the whole world can hardly be said to be a "point" in anyone's favor.
All of the people I know who have met her find her to be a pleasant person, and the occasional Email messages we have exchanged have certainly been positive and friendly.
Irrelevant, of course. Some of the most terrible people in the world have been pleasant. D. Denning may or may not be the most terrible person in the world, but her pleasantness is unrelated.
While she tends to view the Four Horsemen of the Infocolypse as a bit more threatening than the typical Cypherpunk, I don't think her views are so extreme as to justify the continuous screams of "crypto toady", "government suckup", and "wicked witch" which seem to pop up in response to her every utterance.
Personally, what I have found irritating about Denning is the fact that she is widely considered to be a credible spokesperson. Statements along the lines of "I can't tell you the scenarios we are worried about because they are classified" are a little hard to take seriously in a democracy. Imagine if you or I tried to claim that we had to deploy strong crypto but that for "reasons of cypherpunk security" the scenarios with which we were concerned could not be revealed. We would be laughed out of the forum and properly so. Denning is considered credible solely because her statements are consistent with the interests and views of those in authority.
I would even go so far as to say that this list would be a lot more entertaining if she were contributing to it, and sci.crypt is certainly a less interesting place now than it was in bygone days when she was posting there.
Denning has little to add to the cypherpunks list. The core belief of the cypherpunks is that their mail is their business. People who do not believe this are not cypherpunks and should not subscribe to the list nor should they post to it. Sir Galahad