Given the many idiotic things already claimed by Detweiler, (including at one time or another, hotly accusing most list-active Bay Area cypherpunks of being "pseudospoofs" of each other, when all he had to do to verify our True Names was call), I don't know if it's necessary to point out Detweiler's own "pseudospoofing" and the forged quotations he is now throwing around. But despite his voluminous whoppers and mad slanders I've seen some folks actually taking some of his stuff seriously. So I just want to make sure everybody understands there's a head full of hypocrisy to go along with the head full of otherwise misfiring neurons: S.Boxx:
<sigh> nobody is interested in preventing pseudospoofing here. ...
Hi, Detweiler. I see here you're discounting your own voluminous posts on the matter. Typing in lower case doesn't hide your unique word choices, tone of voice, and opinions, and even the occasional slip by both of your 'nyms into UPPER CASE RANTS. Sorry to spoil your mad fun, but "CRIMINAL, TREACHEROUS PSEUDOSPOOFING" for rhetorical leverage just ain't as easy as you make it out to be. The practicum of always having to keep in mind the many ways you can screw up and reveal identity makes the practice severely self-limiting. For readers not familiar with the parties involved, I will point out some of the more obvious (to me) "pseudospooling", Detweiler's seemingly purposeful mixing up of quote attributions:
E.Hughes, on Pseudospoofing software
... Tim May and I were talking about this a long time, and he just beat me to learning enough PERL to write the thing.
It's highly improbable that Tim May would go anywhere near Perl, and it's also quite improbable Eric Hughes would have made such a gaffe. (Which just goes to show I _am_ Hughes and May, otherwise how could I know, eh Detweiler?)
Jamie Dinkelacker:
I oppose using it in a bogus fashion because the software is not designed for such a use, there is absolutely no protection for it (any key can be added), because I, and all the other Keyserver admins,....
Jamie is quite talented in the business world, but again it's unlikely in the extreme that he has time and interest left over for administering key servers.
Nick Szabo:
As an example, look at Ender's Game, where Ender's brother and sister get on the net under pseudonyms, and get treated just like everyone else. There is no biases. People are judged on their actions and words, not by who they are, how old they are, what they look like, or anything like that. Maybe you are blind, I don't know. I've never met you.
And what's wrong with this is the most obvious to me, since I didn't say it. My own memory, recognition of my own style, and if all else fails my own archives are sufficient to quickly dispatch "pseudospooling" attacks against myself. On Usenet there are commonly disputes over false quotations (usually non-malicious misattribution due to the nesting mess, but not always). The reputation of the "pseudospooler" is *plonked* when they are found out, especially if they are malicious. In public it's practically impossible to get away with severely malicious misquoting, unless the victim is both quite isolated and of such bad repute that readers don't believe the archive he produces. It might be feasible to defame people behind their backs, by sending false quotations in mail to small numbers of third parties. There must be quite a bit of accumulated BBS, FidoNet, and Usenet lore on the matter; anybody have good war stories? By extrapolation the quotes attributed to Arther Chandler, Hal Finney, and Perry Metzger were also likely "pseudospools", many of which will be obvious to those falsely quoted or their freinds, or those who keep good archives. And alas for Detweiler, any attributions he makes in the future will be highly suspect, as will the appearance of newbies on the net who just happen to agree with him and sound like him in somewhat improbable ways. The only remaining paranoia I have on this matter is that Detweiler is really Tim May's most elaborate "Stealth Bomber" gimmick to date. If so, either AI (Artificial Insanity?) is vastly more advanced than I had thought, or ... (Detweiler, take over for me here!) Nick Szabo szabo@netcom.com