At 6:11 AM 7/10/96, Black Unicorn wrote:
I wasn't touting conspiracy theories, just making what I thought was an amusing observation.
My apologies to Mr. Duvos. I didn't at all mean to suggest he was in any way responsible for this silliness, rather to point out the degree to which the conversation has sunk into the sewer.
Please, Unicorn, people here are talking about what interests them, as directly demonstrated by the generation of articles and followups. If they were _more_ interested in discussing the IETF, or SFS, or Triple DES, for example, they _would_. (And at times they do, of course. All things have their times, and threads ebb and flow.) And, Unicorn, I recall you yourself generating several *dozen* long rants regarding Jim Bell, just a few months ago... I suggest to all people who claim that the list has become "sewerpunks" that the best way to change the focus of the list is to write essays which generate responses (as you did, Unicorn, several days ago in your excellent "What remains to be done" piece). Leading by example, as opposed to "leading by kvetching." It happens that I like to write essays, more so than to just add simple one-line comments, and it happens that some of my essays have triggered a lot of messages (recently, for example, the "Net and Terrorism," and "Mind Control Drugs" threads were started by my articles). If people, on the whole, would rather discuss _other_ topics, then....then they _would_. A simple concept. Railing against the interests people have is rarely effective. And claiming, as some do, that the "purpose" of the list is to discuss primarily the latest advances in cryptology is mis-stating the nature of the list. While there is no point in debating formal charters, people discuss what they think is important. Natural corrective forces tend to stop the discussion from getting too far afield. I cannot imagine someone writing about UFOs getting much response, but that so many people have thoughts on the "Ritalin" issue (and the role of the government schools in supporting the doping of students) indicates it is within the envelope of topics Cypherpunks think important. Perry has several times threatened to form his own list, where "real cryptography" will be the only topic allowed. I urge him to follow his bliss. And other lists have had other foci, including the "Coderpunks" list, which *is* explicitly about cryptography only. (Is the Coderpunks list still active? I haven't heard anyone here mention it in a long time.) And sci.crypt, sci.crypt.research, and dozens of security- and PGP-related newsgroups are still flourishing. The Cypherpunks folks started meeting in the summer of 1992, and our focus was and remains on a wide spectrum of topics related to crypto-privacy, politics of cryptography, PGP, anonymous remailers, and a bunch of related themes. It *never* was a list devoted solely to pure cryptography; plenty of academic and professional forums already serve that market--IACR/Journal of Cryptology, Crypto, Eurocrypt, Asiacrypt, sci.crypt.*, various other mailing lists, etc. Our focus was always on the more "outre" aspects, the frontiers not often dealt with in the academic journals. (Not that we are better mathematicians, though many on this list are world-class, but because our political focus informs our choice of topics to pursue. That is, we were the first group to look seriously at anonymous remailers (in terms of implementing Chaum's ideas), the first to really fool around with digital cash in a real world environment outside the lab (MagicMoney), and we have explored black information markets, offshore data havens, and so on. I don't think any of the "academic" groups, distinguished as they are, have made the kinds of demonstrations we have in some areas. (Perry will probably disagree, calling us all a bunch of pikers and deadbeats, as he has in the past, and claiming that the only "good" Cypherpunks were Matt Blaze and Steve Bellovin, both of whom he claims were "driven off the list" by people like me. Well, people join and leave lists for all sorts of reasons. Regardless, our list is what it is. If Perry thinks we're such worthless leeches and incompetents, he should create a mailing list more to his liking. Seems fair to me.) It is hardly surprising, nor inappropriate, that we "stray" from core topics. After all, some topics are "worn out" at any given time. I don't think the 8th cycle of discussions about cracking DES or the 13th cycle of debates about NSA surveillance is any more useful than the discussions some object to (but, interestingly, some of the most vocal critics of threads being "off-topic" end up writing the greatest number of posts on that topic :-}). In any case, people can learn to use killfiles to filter out entire threads, or the posts of people they dislike reading. --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."