At 7:55 PM -0500 11/17/96, Brian Davis wrote:
Regardless of what good he may have done in the past, Vulis was (and is) engaged in an enormously egotistical disply of bad manners and off-topic posting. Having just installed Eudora Pro 3.0, I know that I can easily filter him out, but have hesitated to use filters in the past. Vulis may be the one to push me over the edge.
I've been using Eudora for several years, and Pro since it came out. I heavily use filters to sort the various mailing lists into their own folders, so it's natural enough to filter a few names into "Twit" or "Trash" folders. I do sometimes look over what's in these folders before emptying them; the status of the messages helps to remind me not to respond to them, even if I happen to look at them. With Vulis and aga spewing so much bile, I'm increasingly tempted to empty the trash before even beginning to read my messages, to remove any temptation to monitor what they're saying. I think Gilmore made a tactical error, with predictable effects. But I've also tried to stay out of either the piling-on or the defense of John.
primarily because a lot of people are listmembers. This confiscation of private property would, I thought, be inimical to the cypherpunks general philosophy (to the extent one exists). I'm sure Louis Freeh will be pleased to know that you believe in such confiscation. With email
I know you mean this as a jibe (invoking the name of the Great Enemy as the ally of one's enemy). Even opponents of GAK and Freeh in general don't hold that Freeh supports confiscation of private property (except in RICO cases, drug case forfeitures, or when illegal religions are practicing in Waco, or when...well, maybe he _does_, now that I think about it! :-))
Just because you don't get your way, doesn't mean that what happened was illegal or even wrong. Your authoritarian views would do Stalin proud.
Good sentiments for an ex-prosecutor! (Again, I should clarify. I doubt many prosecutors are authoritarian-minded, politically. I even doubt many of them would support GAK and mandatory key escrow...wait until their own communications are GAKked, wait until they realize that attorney-client electronic transmissions are GAKked, with no certainty that the other side has not used various national security or whatever justifications for peeking....I think even the prosecutors of the country will feel some strong civil libertarian twinges.) While I don't believe many people in government are "evil" or have "bad intentions," I'm a strong believer that _systemic_ or _institutional_ evil is possible. Thus, the wide opposition to mandatory key escrow, just as civil libertarians of all stripes would oppose mandatory tatooing of national I.D. barcodes on arms, or the mandatory retro-fitting of all homes with special curtains containing a police-accessible "transparency mode." Domestic rules about crypto--when they come, perhaps as early as in the next several years, depending on external events and on the political climate--will trigger huge constitutional challenges. Much bigger than the Bernstein and Junger cases. Maybe bigger than the CDA case. --Tim May "The government announcement is disastrous," said Jim Bidzos,.."We warned IBM that the National Security Agency would try to twist their technology." [NYT, 1996-10-02] We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."