Bryce wrote:
Here is a document I just hacked. I am breaking several of the Rules by posting it, since I am not actually subscribed to cypherpunks right now. Welcome to the cypherpunks mailing list! Starting now, you will receive hundreds of email letters every week on the subject of privacy and social change in an age of cryptographic networks.
[snip]
I. Etiquette -- The House Rules At The Virtual Cypherpunks Party The Meta-Rule: It's John Gilmore's virtual house. He is the sole owner of the computer (toad.com) that hosts cypherpunks and the sole authority over what the users of that computer (you) can do with it.
[mo' snip] Ordinarily, I'd leave this post alone, but I really hate it when people twist ideas for their own philosophical purposes. To whit: "John is the sole authority over what the users of his computer can do with his computer" (quote approximate). I don't *do* anything with *his* computer. I send email into the ether with an address on it, and he picks it up at his discretion and does what he wants with it. I am in no way involved in that process, and I do not share *any* responsibility for how he handles the email. As far as his authority goes, I've been subscribed for several months now, and I don't recall a single statement by Gilmore himself as to what this "authority" thing means. But then, why should he, and why should you? It's patently obvious to anyone with a brain, and we don't need some authoritarian boot-licking computer-bureaucrat telling us how it is.