It occured to me that a WWW browser could be used as a sophisticated newsreader like interface to a compiled mailing list, stored on a site. The site would archive the mailing list and index/organize the mail under author, time, subject, etc. I have written a lot of scripts to do WWW tasks and otehr mail parsing utilities. I would be willing to donate the programming time to this project if others were willing to donate the computing resources. For the Cypherpunks list the main requirement would be plenty of disk space. I would like to point out that most of the cypherpunk goals relate to defining "what is a society in cyberspace". The cypherpunk answer is "one that allows interaction & communicatin while at the same time preserving privacy and freedom of speech". Note that the Usenet model does not really hold absolute privacy as a design prerequisite. In fact the use of such mechanisms like the "nntp-posting-host" and the closure of the network to "outsiders" actually is hostile to pure anonymity (I will leave to others the question of whether anonymity==privacy). My point is that most cypherpunk goals could be attained by building an infrastructure that embodies the ideas in such a way that Usenet embodies a certain set of ideas for interaction. But the further point is that the system must be self-rewarding in the way that running an NNTP server is rewarding to the site operator. (Note that the oft-noted "stifled" or "lethargic" progress of remailers is probably due to this basic fact that there is no personal positive incentive for an operator to run one, except perhaps "admiration by cypherpunk peers", a novelty that wears off quickly in the face of heated complaints). Anyway, if the cypherpunks were to build a system that allowed "community interaction" the way Usenet does, kept the freedom, but preserved the privacy, and improved the signal-to-noise ratio, it would spread like wildfire. There would be no lamenting the lame progress; it would be intrinsically self propagating like a cyberspatial virus. I am willing to contribute to this by donating programming labor to building a WWW mailing list indexer that could evolve into a full-fledged communications system, if others are willing to donate some resources. ~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^ \ / ~/ |\| | | |> | Vladimir Z. Nuri : : : : : `Imagination is more important \/ /_ | | \_/ |\ | vznuri@netcom.com : : : : : : than knowlege' (Einstein)