Arthur Chandler:
If the publication of this information is intended as a prelude to the RL persecution or harassment of Mr. Detweiler, I want to lodge a strong dissenting opinion.
This raises an interesting meta-point. What fundamentally important reason is there beyond the threat of physical persecution (often as retribution or preemption against a wrong real or perceived), to actively seek a net user's physical identity on the net against that user's will? Should "accountability" for offenses committed on the net include a threat of physical violence, or should the scope of the punishment be limited to the scope of the offense, namely "plonking" of the offender's reputation on the net? I contend that in a sufficiently mature net culture (ie with "kill" files, reputation ratings, and digital cash) there is no possible offense evil enough to require violent retribution. My ideal is to see a day when threats of violence on the net, including the nasty, implicit threat of violence lying behind many calls for "accountability", are rendered moot by voluntary self-disclosure and tolerance for a wide variety of pseudonymity and anonymity. Cyberspace with pseudonymity allows us for the first time to create a rich subculture that is nonviolent in a way Gandhi could only dream of. On the specific case of info on Detweiler: this net stalker has explicitly made violent threats against several list members while at the same time attempting to track down their identities, and implicitly made threats against most of us by branding cypherpunks "criminals", "traitors", etc. in a wide variety of forums, implying that the normal violent retribution for such states of infamy is in order. In an ideal net culture, Doug Barnes' action would be reprehensible. But the world is far from ideal, and while we still must put our physical identities at risk we need some defense against demogogic stalkers of the world, and thus I applaud Doug Barnes' efforts in providing us information about Detweiler, just as Detweiler is seeking information about us. Nick Szabo szabo@netcom.com