Russell Nelson says:
Sorry, but this is no help. It's impossible to distinguish Agents Provocateur from merely incompetent people. You need to deal with the latter, and so the former fall out in the wash.
If the cypherpunk movement is to be an effective non-violent force, it must realize that secrecy is no help. The best designed action will work even if your enemy helps you plan it and carry it out. Karn's CJR is an example of this.
Frankly, I agree. The NSA and the rest are roughly in the position of the Eastern block dictatorships a few years ago. There is basically nothing they can do to maintain their position. They have no mechanism available. With the arrival of good cryptographic techniques in the open literature they were basically given a death sentence. Anyone with a computer and some brains can now do lots of stuff they don't like, and there isn't anything they can do about it no matter how much they would like. They will search desperately for some miracle to save them, but there isn't going to be one. Even were they to succeed in getting lots of laws in place, there would be no way to enforce them where it counts the most -- the criminals will not obey, and the technology is easy for them to get. We need no secrecy. We need only keep doing what we are doing: looking for more and more ways to attack them in the legal system, pointing out how silly they look in the press, and writing more code. There is virtually nothing they can do no matter how much they like. The NSA will either adapt or die -- it seems to be trying to die right now rather than adapt, but thats not our problem. Frankly, I'm happier if they are watching. It tells us that we are worth looking at. Perry