Sunder wrote... "That's got to be the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. No TLA would do that. They'd simply watch upstream of each node. They can wait for outgoing messages and collect email addresses to their heart's content...." I'm not sure I understand this. On Cypherpunks we always seem to assume that the TLAs have infinite amounts of cash, and that's just not the case. If they can spend a couple of bucks to flush out a list rather than mount some major operation that's what they'll do, if for no other reason than to keep their exposure down. And if they're going to Gitmo me one day, I sure as hell want them to spend a few hundred thou rather than a few hundred, and hopefully leave a paper trail so I can sue the crap out of 'em if somehow I survive. And in case it's not clear, I'm suggesting that it may be useful for them to deliberately create a "fake" virus that is easily detectable, and so cull the bounce messages. -TD
From: sunder <sunder@sunder.net> To: petard <petard@freeshell.org> CC: Tyler Durden <camera_lumina@hotmail.com>, cypherpunks@minder.net Subject: Re: Cypherpunks response to viral stimuli Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2004 18:22:01 -0500
petard wrote:
Along these same lines, mightn't a TLA or similar induce someone downstream of them to spam the cypherpunks remailers and collect the identities of those who complain?
That's got to be the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. No TLA would do that. They'd simply watch upstream of each node. They can wait for outgoing messages and collect email addresses to their heart's content....
By definition, if you've subscribed to cypherpunks, you can expect all of the TLA's to at least know your email address.
If anything, you can blame the slew of anti-SCO and non-SCO related virii for the lack of messages... If you were going to pull some half assed conspiracy theory, you might have come up with something more original - like "Maybe the TLA's are sending the virii so as to choke off the lists..." But that's dumb as well for far more obvious reasons:
See, the cypherpunks is a gold mine for the TLA's. All they have to do is subscribe, listen, and wait. At some point, some poor dumb nutcase like Jim Bell will do something silly. The polyester suited knights will hit the champale and have a nice party on his ass...
Man, the collective IQ's of the posters on this list has certainly been dropping lower and lower... sheesh!
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