Robert Woodhead writes:
This is called "security through obscurity." I'm shocked to see it advocated in this list! ;^>
And I'm shocked--:-}-- that people keep beating a dead horse, expecting that if they repeat their arguments enough times, something will miraculously change. This rarely works, and mainly just dilutes the content of the list further.
Opening up the list into a newsgroup has risks, but they can be mitigated and doing so would make it easier to use, and reduce the load on toad.
I won't repeat my own arguments for the 7th or 8th time. In any case, Eric Hughes has the final say and he has said it will not happen in no uncertain terms. If you vote otherwise, send your votes to dev/null. They'll count more that way. (There is no pretense that the list is a democracy.)
Bottom line, isn't one of the goals of punkery in general (whatever flavor) to _spread_ knowledge. Shouldn't this stuff be shouted from the digital treetops?
Not one of the major goals, from my perspective. We don't advertise, we don't lobby, we aren't even _set up_ to do such a thing. And when we're interviewed (and anybody _can_ be), nobody spouts off the "Cypherpunks agenda." Books and magazines spread knowledge. Notice that we don't even have a FAQ? We're hardly in the education business. We're a loose collection of folks, bound by the mailing list and the various physical meetings (and those of you out in the hinterlands should simply organize your own gatherings). The interest in remailers, digital money, code, etc., is the main glue. Political action is a detour. The Clipper debate was one such detour, occuoying too much time for several months, though I suspect some good came out of it. Anyway, it's not for me to say what the Cypherpunks are, but all those folks shouting that "we" are a lobbying group, or whatever, are misguided, I think. One of the advantages of a mailing list is the implied sense of community and of a shared history. It is expected that most on the list have seen the traffic go by, even if they skipped many of the messages. Newsgroups, on the other hand, encourage people to dip in for a few days, ignore for several weeks, dip in again, and so on. Thus, a huge number of repeat topics as people dip in and out and miss the context of comments, the history, and so on. Progress stalls, even more so than progress may've stalled in some areas on this List. And while I agree that TLAs may be reading this list, one way or another, making it a newsgroup would open it up for archiving around the world, for appearance on those CD-ROMS filled with Usenet traffic, and for easy grepping by future employers and future government snoops. In other words, a public forum. That's great if the goal is to educate people about crypto, not so great if the goal is frank discussion of tough problems. --Tim -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it.