At 7:26 PM -0400 9/20/00, Steve Furlong wrote:
"A. Melon" wrote:
You're probably one of those people who think that A. Melon, Nomen Nescio, An Metet, Secret Squirrel, etc., are actually individuals' personas.
Call me a moron, but what do you mean here? I had figured that "A. Melon" was the nym of one individual, "Nomen Nescio" was the nym of one, probably other, individual, and so on. Are "A Melon" etc group nyms, like "Publius" of the US Federalist Papers? Does some anonymizer give the same name for everyone who uses it?
Some do. "A. Melon" is attached to every post coming from one particular, fairly new, remailer. (His rant goes something like: "I'm a melon, you're a melon, the child pornographer next door is a melon, the anti-Iraq freedom fighter is a melon, the woman planning to poison the water supply is a melon, etc."). "Secret Squirrel" is self-explanatory. I was confused by the "A. Melon" usage myself: for a few hours I thought someone I was conversing with from the alt.fan.nietzsche newsgroup was the same "A. Melon" who posts here. Not so. The owner of the remailer posted his explanation a few weeks ago. It may have appeared here on the list...I just don't recall. Search engines should turn it up. --Tim May -- ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.