At 1:33 PM -0700 10/17/00, Ray Dillinger wrote:
On Tue, 17 Oct 2000, John Galt wrote:
Cypherpunks is archived? Isn't that against what most cypherpunks stand for? I know it sets up a "style fingerprint" attack against anonymity...
Do you imagine for an instant that a list like this could go out, be available to anonymous people, and *NOT* be archived? I guarantee various interested parties including Law Enforcement Agencies are archiving it, and would be whether or not anyone else did and whether or not any public archives were available. In fact, I'm betting that their archives are more complete than the ones on the web, and I wish we could restore some stuff from those records that's gotten lost from the web archives. In particular, I designed a digital-cash protocol once and discussed it on this list, and it's not in the web archives. I'd like to have that back, it would save me some design work when I go to implement it.
We can't stop anybody who gets cypherpunks from archiving it. We can't stop anybody from getting cypherpunks. QED, there *are* archives. Some of them might as well be public. Occasionally they are useful, or contain worthwhile URL's.
Not only this, but it was a backburner project for several years to take the toad archives and convert them to a CD-ROM for distribution. So much for "against what most cypherpunks stand for." Cypherpunks don't believe that security comes through obscurity. Those who wish to protect their identities should take positive measures to do so. --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.