I agree that there is a lot of "static". In fact, I'm choosing to leave the cypherpunks list for that reason. Simply put, I'm spending a lot of time reading posts, many good, but some clueless. Example: Ten minutes after someone posted the location of PGP 2.5 we got three posts asking "Where can I get PGP 2.5?" and subsequent responses of "Yeah, me too!" The original poster had a legitimate question, assuming that he had JUST signed onto the list, but he could have directed his questions towards the original announcer, but those subsequent "votes" for information were completely unnecessary. These kinds of problems are inherent in the structure of network communication. (I long for the creation of artificial intelligence twit-filter daemons to help me separate the wheat from the chaff. Read David Brin's 'Earth' for an interesting portrayal of the future of such beasts.) Perhaps lessons can be found in the Usenet world. Knowing the location of some cypher-oriented FAQs and FTP sites upon subscription to this list might defer some of the more trivial traffic. Inclusion of some net-iquette guidelines in the list-server welcome message might defer even more. To be relevant, such things would have to be updated frequently, meaning more work for the keepers, but I think that the subsequent distillation of list traffic would pay off in better, more effective posting. In fairness, I'd have to say that I've learned many things in the past three days. But the original reason I joined this list was to ask for information on basic analog voice encryption techniques, a request that went completely unanswered. I find the subject interesting, I just can't justify the time I'm spending sorting through 40+ posts per day. ...dtw ---------------------------------------------------------------- Notice of address change: Please send mail to the following: dwitkow@eis.calstate.edu (Mail sent to dwitkows@nermal.santarosa.edu will be forwarded) ---------------------------------------------------------------- Transmitted via modified Eudora 1.4.2 over LINUX host dialup! ---------------------------------------------------------------- Finger dwitkows@nermal.santarosa.edu for PGP key ----------------------------------------------------------------