At 12:40 AM 1/17/96, s1018954@aix2.uottawa.ca wrote:
(Speaking of sublists, whatever happenned to the DC-net list mentioned in the cyphernomicon? Is this a figment of my imagination or was there any code written that I might partake of? Btw, why call it a DC network when it is really a ring? Maybe I haven't taken a good enough look at the protocol. Dinner calls. :> )
Without consulting the Cyphernomicon, my memory is that there were two main proposals for a DC-Net (Dining Cryptographers Net) mailing list. The first was by Yanek Martinson, a Russian emigre, circa 1992. The second was by Jim McCoy, of Austin. Yanek I have not heard from in a few years. Jim McCoy has also not been active on our list in at least a year, maybe longer. I recently heard from Doug Barnes that Jim may be coming to the Bay Area, so things may change. Neither of these proposed mailing lists seemed to have gotten to a critical mass. There are many reasons why mailing lists and subgroups fade out. DC-Nets are a hard thing to pull off (anyone see any working versions lately?), about as hard to pull off as true digital cash; and with less economic benefit, less incentive to do the work. So, I can't say I am, or was, surprised that such mailing lists atrophied. An equally interesting question is why the Cypherpunks list has kept on growing in size, given the nontechnical digressions that some subscribers so object to. My view, shared by others I think, is that too technical a list will atrophy...only a handful of folks are usually competent to contribute, and so message volume drops to only a few messages a day, then a few per week, then it fades out altogether. The "noise" that some decry may help to keep lists vital. (In any case, even for those who disagree, modern filtering techniques make it trivial for the "gurus" to filter out all messages except by the several of themselves, so I've never understood the point about how the list must purge itself of "noise.") --Tim May 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, Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."