Jim Choate has raised some questions about the nature of the List, about its privacy, and has said that some of us are trying to scare Detweiler with phony AIDS test results. Here are my responses to these questions. I suppose I'd best copy the Cypherpunks list as well, though there's been too much noise lately about Detweiler, by Detweiler, and for Detweiler. Oh well.
I want to thank everyone for their repsonce to my earlier mail. I do have some questions however.
1. CypherPunks supports crypto so people cant tamper w/ my mail but you want to censor somebody at the source. How can you support this?
Personally, I don't support it, and only a few folks have publically called for it, as is their right in a forum like ours. Their concern is likely that a single person can in fact bring down a list, can be so disruptive that the S/N drops to an unacceptable level. A better solution, if the CPU at Toad can handle the extra load, is the filtering software used now on the Extropians list. Subscribers can filter out threads they don'e want to see, users, etc. This may be coming to the Cypherpunks list. Please note that Eric Hughes never removed L. Dewtweiler from the list (nor anyone else, so far as I know). In fact, Detweiler requested that he be unsubscribed. He may or may not be subscribed under another account name, and, in any case, he seems to see some posts. And he bombards us every night with his missives.
2. Everyone says this list is private. Nowhere has this EVER been mentioned in any conversation or info that I have read. The implication in all the posts, print articles, and talk at the local group meet led me to believe CypherPunks was a public forum for discussion and implimentation of crypto related material. Was I misunderstanding something?
The list is not "private" in the sense of being a deep, dark secret. Instructions on how to join are easily available. But most mailing lists have a different "feel," a different sense of "community," than mere newsgroups have. Newsgroups encourage casual drop-ins who don't bother to read the traffic, but who just fire off a few posts and then are gone; at least with mailing lists it takes some small effort to get on and off them. We've had debates every few months about mailing list vs. newsgroup, and I can't stop this debate from happening again. There are reasons pro and con to have Cypherpunks a mailing list, and mailing lists continue to flourish for a variety of reasons.
3. Sine at least part of the networks and hardware the mail list is used on is publily funded how can you construe it as private w/o some form of moderator or subscriction contract?
If a car happens to drive on a public street are all rights to privacy lost? If a phone call is made and part of the signal path includes a publically-subsidized link, is all privacy lost? Is your e-mail subject to inspection by the authorities merely because it passes through systems they control? Ultimately, this is why we support encryption and free markets. (Well, many of us support free markets.) In the meantime, the Electronic Communication Privacy Act protects e-mail against certain kinds of seizures. It's not clear (to me) what this means for "quasi-private" mailing lists, but at least it may provide some legal defense should government agents cite discussions on this list as evidence of sedition, treason, conspiracy, etc.
4. The responces to L.D. about mail-bombs and posing as a AIDS lab is much worse and more troublesome to me than anything I have seen L.D. post. Not only is some of the actions proposed criminal but I fail to see how a group which relies on its reputation can support or condone such comments.
Hold on there, pardner! That post you are referring to was yet another one of Detweiler's own "an12070" posts! Even if there wasn't compelling circumstantial evidence--cited by so many people here--that S. Boxx = The Executioner = Psychopunk = Zen Master = an12070 = L. Detweiler, then this latest rant would _still_ have the stylistic earmarks of a put-on. Read it again, if you can stomach it, and bear this in mind. I hope this helps. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it.