This feels like Detweiler spoofing again. Anyone else get that feeling? Perry nobody@pmantis.berkeley.edu says:
As for the `Szabo being a tentacle thread' in the newsgroups, pmetzger just posted stating that he had indeed posted the name of the town Szabo lives in, as well as the names of his roommates. He refrained
from posting that information again. I seem to vaguely recall seeing the original post, but can't find it in the buffers here -- everything before December 21st or so has expired.
the thing that ROYALLY PISSES ME OFF is that NOONE WHO HEARD PMETZGER CLAIM THIS has POSTED TO SAY THAT THEY HEARD HIM SAY THAT. reminds me of the infamous rape and murder of that NY woman, with dozens of witnesses hearing her screams, just going about their business. who will be raped next? and who will be silent? everyone who is watching my thread, and being silent about what they know, is a hypocrite and a dangerous accomplice to lies.
I guess that's a bit overstated. I suspect people in most major metropolitan
areas don't want to get involved partially because they fear retribution, and
partially because, with that many people packed together, you tend to care less about your neighbors than you would in a small town, where you know the people in your building or street. I suspect people on the net don't bother because "it's just bits" -- they read the Net like they watch TV, without any
connection to the characters or dramas unfolding before them. In large part,
what is said here doesn't really matter. People get curious, but it's not worth getting into an uproar.
if YOU GIVE A DAMN, POST!
Ah, there's the rub. Deep down, I really don't care about this particular issue. To my knowledge, Nick Szabo, whether real or not, has never said anything that has made me even care whether or not he has real. I've never found anything he's said particularly interesting. He's a net.person. Shoul d he turn out to be a "tentacle," that's fine by me -- he won't be the first I've encountered. If he turns out to be T.C.May in disguise, all that means is that there's one less person with T.C.May's ideas in the world than people
thought.
I think that uncaring attitude, which I regard as fairly dominant among peopl e who've used cyberspace (and especially Usenet) a good amount of time, is the very reason that May's ideas about widespread crypto bringing down government s will never come to pass. People have, and I believe will continue to have, a
distrust about putting much faith into computers, and thus cyberspace will always have limitations. I believe people put a great deal of stock in the feel of a crisp paper dollar bill, as well as a smile and a handshake. :-)
Perhaps to add more fuel to the fire, a Nicholas Szabo does indeed live in Cupertino, according to a 1990-1991 White Pages from the area. There is no G.Dale listed, however. (I was hoping to correlate the two numbers) I suspect that I need a more recent phone book to make a better test.
------ Legalize: >--<o | I confess to an unatural, and abnormal . \ / :-)-~ o>--< | act I have programmed a computer. . . \ / You are ~1,000,000,000,000,000 .1ms NAND gates have a nice day. . . . \/ The true theory of everything will run on a finite turing machine. . . .