Tim May wrote:
On Saturday, September 1, 2001, at 01:30 PM, Nomen Nescio wrote:
Yes and no. The users aren't all that anonymous, or they wouldn't need anonymous technologies, would they? The remailer network sees where this message originates. If you use Zero Knowledge software, their network knows exactly who is using it at any time. If a digital cash bank came into existence, payments transferred into the digital system from outside would largely be from identified sources.
What can I say? You clearly don't understand:
-- how remailer _networks_ work (Hint: nested encryption...all the first remailer sees when he opens a message is an encrypted message he can't read and instructions on which remailer to send it to next, and so on. Only if most/all remailers collaborate can the route be followed by them.)
The fact that a given person is using the remailer network is not a secret. At least one remailer finds out every time he sends a message. The point is, the entry from the non-anonymous to the anonymous world is a vulnerability.
-- how Freedom works (Hint: They say that even they cannot know who is using it, except in terms of network usage. Which with cover traffic, forwarding of other traffic, dummy messages, etc., means the fact that Alice was using the network during a period of time does not mean they know which exit messages are hers.)
You are not stating their claims accurately. ZKS does indeed have information about who is using it at any given time, if they operate any of the servers. Or at least the server operators can tell. Each user sets up a route through a chain of servers, and any given server knows exactly who is using it as the initial connection into the network. Again, the entry from non-anonymous into anonymous networks is visible.
-- blinding. (Hint: That Alice deposits money into a digital bank, and is identified by the bank, does not mean the bank knows who received digital money from Alice, because Alice unblinds the note before spending it--or redeeming it.)
No, but the fact that Alice transfered a certain amount of funds into the anonymous bank is visible to at least some observers. Once again, the point is that as you enter the anonymous world your entry is visible. Compare this with the original claim: "in a properly designed anonymity system the users will be, well, anonymous, and it should be impossible to tell any more about them than that they pay their bills on time." These examples illustrate the falsehood of this claim. Much more is learned about the customers as they enter the anonymous system.
Nonsense. Most participants in this forum DO share common philosophical goals: the preservation and enhancement of individual freedom via technological means. This is our common heritage. People make moral judgements every single day on this list based on exactly this framework. And it is this moral view which tells us that bin Laden and his terrorist groups are not the market which we should target in order to advance these goals.
How about McVeigh? How about The Real IRA? How about John Brown? How about Patrick Henry/ How about Cuban exiles? (By the way, everyone should know about the time an anti-Castro group blew up a Cuban airliner. Terrorists, freedom fighters, or just a bunch who wants to be in control?)
Not everyone will agree with every specific case. But given our common philosophical heritage, list members can come to agreement with regard to most examples. The test is simple, whether these individuals advance the causes we support. As long as you're listing examples, what do you think about Osama bin Laden? Would you support efforts to market crypto technology to Islamic religious extremists? The great thing about bin Laden as an example is that we can see exactly what the consequences will be when he succeeds. With McVeigh, nobody knows for sure. But chances are it would be much the same if the militias achieved their goals: installation of a religious state. Supporting these people means helping bring about another Afghanistan, maybe right here at home next time.
Surely not. Morality plays a part in everything we do. We have goals in common. We should structure our efforts so that they are in accordance with our highest goals. Having principles is nothing to be ashamed of. We all have them, and we should be proud of that.
An additional point: if you were truly unconcerned with moral issues, you would have no objection to seeing discussion here about how we can use computer technology to promote government power and control.
From your words, I doubt you support the same goals I support.
We'll see. If you support increasing government power, then you are correct. 25BA1A9F5B9010DD8C752EDE887E9AF3 [Cantsin Protocol No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
On Sun, 2 Sep 2001, Nomen Nescio wrote:
Again, the entry from non-anonymous into anonymous networks is visible.
Which is where distributed systems like Plan 9 come into play. By being completely distributed and (at least in theory) encrypted at the network layer the 'vulnerability' becomes connecting to the network. Of sourse this still leaves the question of keys and their management as a 'entry' vulnerability. -- ____________________________________________________________________ natsugusa ya...tsuwamonodomo ga...yume no ato summer grass...those mighty warriors'...dream-tracks Matsuo Basho The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2 Sep 2001, at 3:40, Nomen Nescio wrote:
The fact that a given person is using the remailer network is not a secret. At least one remailer finds out every time he sends a message. The point is, the entry from the non-anonymous to the anonymous world is a vulnerability.
Sort of. The first remailer in the chain will see something like an IP address. This might or might not be enough to identify the indvidual using it in principle (gee, it's somebody posting from a public library or internet cafe) and almost certainly isn't in practice (how many remaler operators bother keeping something like a reverse DNS table on their servers). If the remailer operators decided they wanted to deny "baddies" use of their services, they would not only have to unanimously agree as to who the "baddies" are, they would also have to deny their services in all cases where the client cannot be positovely identified. Neither of which strikes me as being plausible.
-- blinding. (Hint: That Alice deposits money into a digital bank, and is identified by the bank, does not mean the bank knows who received digital money from Alice, because Alice unblinds the note before spending it--or redeeming it.)
No, but the fact that Alice transfered a certain amount of funds into the anonymous bank is visible to at least some observers. Once again, the point is that as you enter the anonymous world your entry is visible.
In the old style numbered swiss bank account, you give them a suitcase full of cash and you get an account number. They know who you are if the recognize you when you go in to set up the account, if not not.
Compare this with the original claim: "in a properly designed anonymity system the users will be, well, anonymous, and it should be impossible to tell any more about them than that they pay their bills on time." These examples illustrate the falsehood of this claim. Much more is learned about the customers as they enter the anonymous system.
I stand by my earlier statement. The fact that you may be identifiable at the point of entry to an anonymity system is a weakness, not a desired feature, and if it can be avoided, it should be. George
On Sunday, September 2, 2001, at 12:26 PM, georgemw@speakeasy.net wrote:
If the remailer operators decided they wanted to deny "baddies" use of their services, they would not only have to unanimously agree as to who the "baddies" are, they would also have to deny their services in all cases where the client cannot be positovely identified. Neither of which strikes me as being plausible.
If there are many remailers, essentially zero chance. (Or if one is a remailer oneself.) The other remailers can theoretically band together as some kind of guild and reject packets from "rogue" remailers, but there are numerous practical problems. Identifying a "rogue" remailer which "allows" packets from "baddies" (e.g, from Mormons, or free speech advocates) will not be easy: the guild of do-gooders will only known a rogue packet has entered their system if they _trace_ it! Nearly all "baddie" packets exiting the system ("Down with Barney the Dinosaur!" and similar evil things) will only be detected--drum roll--when they _exit_ the system. Fat chance that N remailers around the world will proactively trace packets just so they can burn the Barney critic baddie.
I stand by my earlier statement. The fact that you may be identifiable at the point of entry to an anonymity system is a weakness, not a desired feature, and if it can be avoided, it should be.
Then design such a system. "Anyone a remailer, anyone a mint" is one strong approach. --Tim May
At 12:34 PM 9/2/01 -0700, Tim May wrote:
Someone else:
The fact that you may be identifiable at the point of entry to an anonymity system is a weakness, not a desired feature, and if it can be avoided, it should be.
Then design such a system.
You did a few lines earlier:
(Or if one is a remailer oneself.)
If the next generation of <OS, browser, Morpheus, etc.> came with a remailer that was on by default, then even running a remailer would be too common to draw attention (prosecute). And given that Joe Sixpack's node regularly relays MSMixmaster messages, the *occasional* message injected by Joe will be nearly invisible. Heavy use might be detectable depending on how obvious the relayed messages are.
"Anyone a remailer, anyone a mint" is one strong approach.
Very strong. In the case of a remailer, necessary. I suppose the spam potential, of everyone an SMTP forwarder, is problem? Surmountable. Deployment, sending-ease-of-use are the real problems.
At 12:34 PM 9/2/2001 -0700, Tim May wrote:
On Sunday, September 2, 2001, at 12:26 PM, georgemw@speakeasy.net wrote:
I stand by my earlier statement. The fact that you may be identifiable at the point of entry to an anonymity system is a weakness, not a desired feature, and if it can be avoided, it should be.
Then design such a system.
"Anyone a remailer, anyone a mint" is one strong approach.
I know this suggestion has been made before, probably by myself, but it seems the remailer programmers may be missing a good opportunity in not pursuing the inclusion of remailer code in the popular Gnutella cleints (e.g., LimeWire). They advertise they are looking for new "content communities." http://www.limewire.com/index.jsp/formgroup I don't see any reason why email can't be added as a new form of content. steve
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Mon, 3 Sep 2001, Steve Schear wrote:
At 12:34 PM 9/2/2001 -0700, Tim May wrote:
"Anyone a remailer, anyone a mint" is one strong approach.
I know this suggestion has been made before, probably by myself, but it seems the remailer programmers may be missing a good opportunity in not pursuing the inclusion of remailer code in the popular Gnutella cleints (e.g., LimeWire). They advertise they are looking for new "content communities." http://www.limewire.com/index.jsp/formgroup I don't see any reason why email can't be added as a new form of content.
I haven't heard this before. It's a good idea. I've tried to contact limewire about working with them on some distributed resources coding concepts. I found them unreceptive. They suck. I've started on the very beginnings of a GNU Distributed Computing client to attack the RSA RC5 and factoring challenges. If you come up with a good concept and write some C code, I'll help you refine it and include it in the distributed computing client. I would also be willing to help you work it into the gnut Gnutella client and the KDE based Gnutella client if you can provide a reasonable argument for that as a better platform than the distributed computing client. - VAB - --- V. Alex Brennen [vab@cryptnet.net] F A R B E Y O N D D R I V E N ! -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.4 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQE7lCZ/+pIJc5kqSz8RAvsZAJ9Ggr3WzJEz3sWxzHEqaYEG4ceWlwCgi4fB OT5/iUBtU7ZXCDgFpmo2sDs= =V2E0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Monday, September 3, 2001, at 05:55 PM, V. Alex Brennen wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
On Mon, 3 Sep 2001, Steve Schear wrote:
At 12:34 PM 9/2/2001 -0700, Tim May wrote:
"Anyone a remailer, anyone a mint" is one strong approach.
I know this suggestion has been made before, probably by myself, but it seems the remailer programmers may be missing a good opportunity in not pursuing the inclusion of remailer code in the popular Gnutella cleints (e.g., LimeWire). They advertise they are looking for new "content communities." http://www.limewire.com/index.jsp/formgroup I don't see any reason why email can't be added as a new form of content.
I haven't heard this before. It's a good idea.
I've tried to contact limewire about working with them on some distributed resources coding concepts. I found them unreceptive. They suck.
I've started on the very beginnings of a GNU Distributed Computing client to attack the RSA RC5 and factoring challenges.
Jeez, why waste time on such an old-hat idea? I'm serious. The latest factoring and RC5 challenges do nothing new. Neither does using a bunch of machines. Been there, done that, got the tee-shirt. Better that you and other programmers spend effort on exactly what this thread is about: putting interesting features into Morpheus, Gnutella, etc. Better yet, using this P2P power to do a better version of either. But factoring challenges are old news. You're about 5 years too late (not that it was terribly interesting even 5 years ago...). --Tim May
On Mon, 3 Sep 2001, Tim May wrote:
On Monday, September 3, 2001, at 05:55 PM, V. Alex Brennen wrote:
I've started on the very beginnings of a GNU Distributed Computing client to attack the RSA RC5 and factoring challenges.
Jeez, why waste time on such an old-hat idea?
I'm serious. The latest factoring and RC5 challenges do nothing new.
The goal is to develop an architecture to allow access to collective processing power. Hopefully, much like this mailing list, it will drive the establishment of a sense of community and serve to reinforce a developing culture. The reinforcement of the idea of community computing, networking, and information, resources can help drive a desire for a greater realization of those things and the development of supporting group of people for extensions of those ideas. For example, ideas like FreeNet, which are derived from the cryptoanarchist school of thought. So, the answer to your question is that it's interesting to me and I'm the one doing the programming. If you can come up with something more interesting I'll probably be happy to work on it. But I'm not really interested in padding the pockets of the Lime Group, LCC. and I'm buzz worded out on P2P. What I like is the idea of trying to revitalize the cypherpunk movement - even a very tiny little bit. I'm really very disappointed with the Individual Sovereignty/Cryptoanarchy subculture lately. It seems to be running out of steam. There seems to be very few people working on interesting things. Coderpunks is a ghost town with occasional spam rolling through like a tumble weed, and cypherpunks seems to be obsessed with Jim Bell like a bunch of little girls over the back street boys. Is anyone else writing code? - VAB
At 08:55 PM 9/3/2001 -0400, V. Alex Brennen wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
On Mon, 3 Sep 2001, Steve Schear wrote:
At 12:34 PM 9/2/2001 -0700, Tim May wrote:
"Anyone a remailer, anyone a mint" is one strong approach.
I know this suggestion has been made before, probably by myself, but it seems the remailer programmers may be missing a good opportunity in not pursuing the inclusion of remailer code in the popular Gnutella cleints (e.g., LimeWire). They advertise they are looking for new "content communities." http://www.limewire.com/index.jsp/formgroup I don't see any reason why email can't be added as a new form of content.
I haven't heard this before. It's a good idea.
I've tried to contact limewire about working with them on some distributed resources coding concepts. I found them unreceptive. They suck.
Maybe you're suggestion was too far afield from their ambitions for LimeWire. Maybe they thought you were a jerk. Maybe... In any case Lime is getting great reviews from friends regarding easy of learning, use and flexibility. It seems that if a few of the technically competent want to raise this issue with them perhaps we should discuss this a bit to see if we can reach something of a consensus and then have on of the coders make contact with Steve Cho at scho@limepeer.com
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Mon, 3 Sep 2001, Steve Schear wrote:
At 08:55 PM 9/3/2001 -0400, V. Alex Brennen wrote:
I've tried to contact limewire about working with them on some distributed resources coding concepts. I found them unreceptive. They suck.
Maybe you're suggestion was too far afield from their ambitions for LimeWire. Maybe they thought you were a jerk. Maybe... In any case Lime is getting great reviews from friends regarding easy of learning, use and flexibility.
It seems that if a few of the technically competent want to raise this issue with them perhaps we should discuss this a bit to see if we can reach something of a consensus and then have on of the coders make contact with Steve Cho at scho@limepeer.com
Trust me, they suck. Their product may be the best thing out there now, but the open source client will be reasonably stable and usable soon enough (especially if some people on this list contribute patches). IIRC, I cc'd Steven Cho on the message I sent to Lime and the technical contact address they provided on their web page. The message I sent was basically an offer to implement MojoNation style swarm transmissions and distributed processing and to turn over the code (copyright and all) to them. I asked them to provide me with a copy of their java code, which they offered to do on their web page, and gave them a brief description of other successful projects I've worked on in the past so that they knew I could produce. They weren't interested - I got no response from them, not even a 'No, thank you'. So, I'm working on doing the same thing with the gnut code. (Note: I might be a little off on the above - it was a very long time ago.) If you look closely at the structure of their company and organization you can see that they're very closely tied to a VC outfit. I think the web pages about helping to develop the gnutella protocol and network etc are just a way from them to steal ideas from people. Here's a pretty good article about VC's from an engineer's perspective: http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/resource/sep01/speak.html Granted the article is a little slanted. But the idea that VCs and big established corps can get crypto stuff out there in a way that allows it to serve the ideals of cryptoanarchy is one that should be questioned. If good crypto ideas are tied up by software patents, NDAs, and copyrights, it is much more difficult for those ideas to do anyone any good. When you go to a company like Lime, there's a danger of that. Cypherpunks should support the FSF and GPL'd software because the GPL helps protect cryptoanarchist ideas and code from being tied up by patents, NDAs, and copyright. The GPL helps ensure that programmers like me, who support the ideas of cryptoanarchy, can take the code and do something with it. Discussing the ideas on this list is a good course of action. But, do we really want or need to ever deal with Lime? People will migrate off Lime once something better and free is available. - VAB - --- V. Alex Brennen [vab@cryptnet.net] F A R B E Y O N D D R I V E N ! -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.4 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQE7lH9y+pIJc5kqSz8RAuC9AJwMmyTp3KvqdAKyzrDNKUTi9WwqpgCfeapA 5oQEniKtscERDwTVTJVu+oM= =9sbJ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Sun, Sep 02, 2001 at 12:34:31PM -0700, Tim May wrote:
The other remailers can theoretically band together as some kind of guild and reject packets from "rogue" remailers, but there are numerous practical problems. Identifying a "rogue" remailer which "allows" packets from "baddies" (e.g, from Mormons, or free speech advocates)
In the next five years or so, I would not be suprised to see a call for federal licensing of remailers. Some of the more mainstream remailer operators might even go along with it, eventually, calling for a "voluntary-mandatory" code of conduct and industry self- regulation. This code of conduct might mean refusing packets from some countries, keeping logs for a certain amount of time, etc. (Identity escrow, ala key escrow. Key escrow died because of business pressure. No similar pressure exists against identity escrow.) In practice, it will naturally have limited effect, since it's easy enough to send mail to an offshore remailer, and any U.S. law will spur development and deployment of non-U.S. services. And bin Ladin can probably figure out how to get an AOL account. Then again, other countries, at least the larger OECD ones, may follow suit. Probably in those other nations, there will be few if any constitutional safeguards prohibiting legislatures from enacting such laws. Even in the U.S., I'm not sure why it would be immediately obvious that such a law would be found to be unconstitutional. The usual cites, such as McIntyre, deal with the most protected form of anonymous communication, political speech about elected officials, not the multiple horsemen who can be relied on to trot about during debates. I can envision a legal situation that is close to the Napster-Gnutella controversy, where the entry points to the network are targets for the RIAA/MPAA lawyers. Similarly, the entry points to the remailer network may be targets under such a legal structure. Underground remailers will always exist, and will be used for high-value transactions (let's hope enough remailers would exist to provide enough security), but a robust system that's also mainstream may not. I'm not saying this is especially likely, but it is a scenario that's worth contemplating as a long-term possibility. -Declan
On Tue, Sep 04, 2001 at 12:38:52PM -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote:
On Sun, Sep 02, 2001 at 12:34:31PM -0700, Tim May wrote:
The other remailers can theoretically band together as some kind of guild and reject packets from "rogue" remailers, but there are numerous practical problems. Identifying a "rogue" remailer which "allows" packets from "baddies" (e.g, from Mormons, or free speech advocates)
In the next five years or so, I would not be suprised to see a call for federal licensing of remailers.
I don't think that there is enough remailer traffic or remailers to require the feds to go throught the work of getting a law passed and setting up a licensing program. It's be nice if there was! It's more likely that remailers will get closed outright. There will probably be an ISP or email licensing program put into place, with the same "code of conduct" and/or mandatory logging that you think will be forced on remailers being forced on all email servers. Remailers would be found in violation of the order and shut down. Another way to kill remailers would be through anti-spam legislation that forbids "forging" email headers. We're already seeing some of this. Or, the feds will just set up a 'sting' on the remailer system by sending kiddie porn or bomb-making info through the remailer net and then busting each exit point in turn. It doesn't even need to be with charges which would stick in court, as almost anyone will fold when thrown in jail for a while and/or faced with huge legal bills. My guess is that the first or second is most likely. It won't even be targeted at remailers, just at regular email. Killing remailers will be a by-product of regulating the net. Eric
At 10:21 AM 9/4/01 -0700, Eric Murray wrote:
I don't think that there is enough remailer traffic or remailers to require the feds to go throught the work of getting a law passed and setting up a licensing program. It's be nice if there was!
Certainly not now, which is why I said I was talking about five years or so in the future. Going through the "work" can be something as simple as an attachment to a spending bill; unless it's controversial, it's truly not that difficult to do. Your point about ISPs as the targets for a "code of conduct" is a reasonable one, but the same analysis applies. Offshore ISPs will continue, at least at first, to host remailers, then perhaps be pressured into abandoning that plan if governments in other jurisdictions get sufficiently mobilized. Another point of attack, although more far-fetched, is restricting the sites to which network providers can carry traffic. A restriction like "knowingly providing connectiviting to a service that provides anonymous re-mailing capabilities." Then the helpful Feds will provide daily lists of offshore remailers. -Declan
On Tuesday, September 4, 2001, at 10:21 AM, Eric Murray wrote:
On Tue, Sep 04, 2001 at 12:38:52PM -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote:
On Sun, Sep 02, 2001 at 12:34:31PM -0700, Tim May wrote:
The other remailers can theoretically band together as some kind of guild and reject packets from "rogue" remailers, but there are numerous practical problems. Identifying a "rogue" remailer which "allows" packets from "baddies" (e.g, from Mormons, or free speech advocates)
In the next five years or so, I would not be suprised to see a call for federal licensing of remailers.
I don't think that there is enough remailer traffic or remailers to require the feds to go throught the work of getting a law passed and setting up a licensing program. It's be nice if there was!
It's more likely that remailers will get closed outright.
Either one runs seriously afoul of the First Amendment. Remailers are publishers. Publishers cannot be "licensed," nor can they simply be closed down. There is no issue of the "public airwaves," which is what allowed the FCC to license broadcasters and to yank the licenses of those who ran afoul of various rules. One who takes in submissions, processes them according to his own proecedures, and then sends some output to other sites is a publisher. Further, it is doubtful than any of the oft-discussed "all packets must be traceable to a meatspace" person are constitutional. The little matter of "unsigned political fliers" comes to mind (though fascists like McCain, Feingold, Feinstein, and others are attempting to use "campaign finance reform" to require meatspace identities). And there are various practical enforceability issues, discussed here so often: -- the vast number of "degrees of freedom" in networks, intranets, mixes inside warehouses, wireless, transnational, regulatory arbitrage, stego, etc. I could write more on this, but I gotta go. --Tim May
At 12:28 PM 9/4/01 -0700, Tim May wrote:
Either one runs seriously afoul of the First Amendment.
Remailers are publishers. Publishers cannot be "licensed," nor can they simply be closed down.
Let me play Devil's Advocate a bit and try to challenge this conventional cypherpunk wisdom. Unlike remailers, publishers exercise editorial discretion over what they print or distribute or broadcast. They do this by considering the content of the communication and judge, among other things, whether it is timely, newsworthy, informative, accurate, complete, relevant, interesting -- in other words, whether the content will succeed in the marketplace or not. A remailer does none of those things. Instead of a person judging articles, books, or multimedia clips as worthy of being published, a remailer simply forwards. To that end, it is far more like a mechanical device: a conveyor belt that moves an item from one place to another, perhaps taking off a layer of packaging along the way. Another analogy (though polluted because of the U.S. Mail regs) might be like a Mailboxes Etc.-type service that opens an envelope and forwards the extracted contents to you at another address. Even if that service *only* used FedEx and UPS (to avoid at least in part the postal regs), what court would strike down regulations enacted by legislatures or Congress? Seems to me the Supreme Court (wrongly) would say the First Amendment interests are limited, and it's a just exercise of the Commerce Clause. Much would depend on the details, I'd imagine, of such a hypothetical law. Is it a flat ban, or (at first) brief identity-escrow periods? Obviously I'm not trying to argue that Congress *should* enact such a law -- I think they should stay the hell away from this area -- but what if they do? How about if they try, as someone else suggested, to compel ISPs or network providers to be the _de facto_ cops? I'm not trying to scare off cypherpunk-types from coding or discussing these things. If anything, I'd argue that the next few years are the time to deploy mixes more widely, and weave them into popular products, so restrictions would meet with not just theoretical privacy-themed opposition, but lots of peeved users as well. I'm also not saying, to repeat my last message, that OECD or G8-wide legal restrictions would put remailers out of business, but I suspect such rules would make it much less likely they'd be mainstream. -Declan
On Tuesday, September 4, 2001, at 04:33 PM, Declan McCullagh wrote:
At 12:28 PM 9/4/01 -0700, Tim May wrote:
Either one runs seriously afoul of the First Amendment.
Remailers are publishers. Publishers cannot be "licensed," nor can they simply be closed down.
Let me play Devil's Advocate a bit and try to challenge this conventional cypherpunk wisdom.
Unlike remailers, publishers exercise editorial discretion over what they print or distribute or broadcast. They do this by considering the content of the communication and judge, among other things, whether it is timely, newsworthy, informative, accurate, complete, relevant, interesting -- in other words, whether the content will succeed in the marketplace or not.
A remailer does none of those things. Instead of a person judging articles, books, or multimedia clips as worthy of being published, a remailer simply forwards. To that end, it is far more like a mechanical device: a conveyor belt that moves an item from one place to another, perhaps taking off a layer of packaging along the way.
And let me play Devil's Advocate to this DA position: Not to sound overly Choatian, but there is nothing in the First Amendment which says anything about government getting to decide when "enough" editorial processing has occurred so that First Amendment protections kick in. A publisher who published a publication consisting of _all submissions_ would still be protected, even if he exercised _zero_ editorial discretion. In fact, such things exist: they are called "vanity presses." They publish for a fee, no differently than a paid remailer publishes for a fee. Is a vanity press not protected by the First Amendment? There is no requirement in the First that a press prove that it altered or selected some threshold percentage of bits before First Amendment protections exist. In fact, the Bill of Rights is not about rights granted by government at all, it's about limits on what government may do. And, as I will cover below, any kind of "know your customer" rules run into other problems. (By they way, publishers of anonymous letters are not required to "know their customers." Ditto for collectors of anonymous suggestions, radio talk show hosts accepting calls from anonymous dialers, etc. These publishers and radio talk show hosts do _not_ have to "justify" their failure to collect taceability information, nor do they have to meet any threshold test for how much editorial control they exercised. The First simply does not give government the authority to restrict a publisher this way.)
Obviously I'm not trying to argue that Congress *should* enact such a law -- I think they should stay the hell away from this area -- but what if they do? How about if they try, as someone else suggested, to compel ISPs or network providers to be the _de facto_ cops?
I'm not trying to scare off cypherpunk-types from coding or discussing these things. If anything, I'd argue that the next few years are the time to deploy mixes more widely, and weave them into popular products, so restrictions would meet with not just theoretical privacy-themed opposition, but lots of peeved users as well. I'm also not saying, to repeat my last message, that OECD or G8-wide legal restrictions would put remailers out of business, but I suspect such rules would make it much less likely they'd be mainstream.
Something I wrote about a very long time ago, before Cypherpunks even, was the "trick" (Happy Fun Court will not be amused) of using a "religious confessional" as a cover for remailers. Or of using an "anonymous tip line" as a cover. (This was discussed much in the first few years of remailer operation.) If the government demands that remailer shut down, or somehow obtain meatspace identities, confessionals and anonymous pschiatric/sex hotlines will presumably also be shut down. This was the motivation for much of the Kremvax early remailing service, which Julf later took over the code for. Sexual abuse, incest, rape, shame, etc., drove these early systems. It may be time to dust off these services as "covers." Anyone now running a remailer could consider explicity announcing their religious or psychiatric motivations. Melon traffickers --> Soul traffickers. Happy Fun Court will not be amused that such "tricks" are being used to head off an outlawing of anonymity tools. Fuck 'em. --Tim May
[I'm not saying I believe these arguments, of course.] At 05:17 PM 9/4/01 -0700, Tim May wrote:
And let me play Devil's Advocate to this DA position:
Not to sound overly Choatian, but there is nothing in the First Amendment which says anything about government getting to decide when "enough" editorial processing has occurred so that First Amendment protections kick in.
A publisher who published a publication consisting of _all submissions_ would still be protected, even if he exercised _zero_ editorial discretion. In fact, such things exist: they are called "vanity presses." They publish for a fee, no differently than a paid remailer publishes for a fee.
The flaw in your analogy is that there is human selection involved in even a vanity press. The publisher will weigh, among other factors, whether the work is libelous, whether it contains any trade secrets or other potentially illegal items that could get him in trouble, whether the work is too controversial ("The Misunderstood Hitler") to publish, whether the writer will pay on time, consult with the writer over fonts, cover art, and so on. Since a remailer, on the other hand does not exercise any independent editorial judgment about the content of the work, the burden should properly be on you to argue that a law restricting it is unconstitutional. A better analogy: Remailers are like a robotic Mailboxes Etc.-type service that opens a FedEx envelope and forwards the extracted contents to you at another address via FedEx. The robot arm, like a remailer, does not consider the content of the communication and acts like any other machine. Since this robot-mailer is by its very nature implicating interstate commerce and serves a compelling state interest of the highest order, the law is presumptively constitutional.
(By they way, publishers of anonymous letters are not required to "know their customers." Ditto for collectors of anonymous suggestions, radio talk show hosts accepting calls from anonymous dialers, etc. These publishers and radio talk show hosts do _not_ have to "justify" their failure to collect taceability information, nor do they have to meet any threshold test for how
But I know of no publisher who would publish a truly anonymous letter. Newspapers and magazine request truenames. If given someone's truename, a publisher may anonymize the letter, but a subpoena or other legal means should be able to extract the information after the fact. Also, publishers are legally liable for what they print, so they make content-based judgments about its quality -- again, unlike your remailer analogy. I'm not as familiar with the rules governing radio, but I suspect that radio hosts are liable for slander and so on if they keep a defamation-spewing guest on the line. Your argument proves too much: Do you really want remailers to be treated the same way -- and held liable for what people say through them?
If the government demands that remailer shut down, or somehow obtain meatspace identities, confessionals and anonymous pschiatric/sex hotlines will presumably also be shut down.
To the contrary, a smart staffer can write legislation that only applies to remailers. I'll leave the details to my hypothetical legislative counsel, but identity-escrow-for-12-hour restrictions could apply only to "a computer hardware and/or software device that receives an electronic mail message sent through SMTP or a similar protocol, decodes the contents through its private key, and forwards the decoded contents to a recipient." Adjust as broadly or narrowly as you like. -Declan
On Wed, Sep 05, 2001 at 05:26:43PM -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote:
[I'm not saying I believe these arguments, of course.]
At 05:17 PM 9/4/01 -0700, Tim May wrote:
And let me play Devil's Advocate to this DA position:
Not to sound overly Choatian, but there is nothing in the First Amendment which says anything about government getting to decide when "enough" editorial processing has occurred so that First Amendment protections kick in.
A publisher who published a publication consisting of _all submissions_ would still be protected, even if he exercised _zero_ editorial discretion. In fact, such things exist: they are called "vanity presses." They publish for a fee, no differently than a paid remailer publishes for a fee.
The flaw in your analogy is that there is human selection involved in even a vanity press. The publisher will weigh, among other factors, whether the work is libelous, whether it contains any trade secrets or other potentially illegal items that could get him in trouble, whether the work is too controversial ("The Misunderstood Hitler") to publish, whether the writer will pay on time, consult with the writer over fonts, cover art, and so on.
Since a remailer, on the other hand does not exercise any independent editorial judgment about the content of the work, the burden should properly be on you to argue that a law restricting it is unconstitutional.
This was discussed long ago on cypherpunks, in fact the cyphernomicon says: 8.9.7. Possible legal steps to limit the use of remailers and anonymous systems - hold the remailer liable for content, i.e., no common carrier status - insert provisions into the various "anti-hacking" laws to criminalize anonymous posts (all of 8.9 is worth re-reading for this discussion). Tim, do you really mean to say that you now think that a remailer is a publisher, not a common carrier? Maybe I lost track in all the devil's advocate indirection... I think that being a publisher, while it gives many rights, is not nearly as good as being a common carrier. My understanding of "common carrrier" in this context is that the common carrier is not held responsible at all for the traffic that it carries. It can lose its common carrier status by editing-- then it's acting like a publisher, and is responsible for the material that it edits and publishes... "Prodigy was found liable for defamation as a publisher of a defamatory statement that had been posted on its bulletin board by an unknown user. The basis of Prodigy's liability was that it was using software to monitor and delete "offensive" messages and those in "bad taste." " (http://www.radiation.com/ideas/liability/) (follow the links inthat article to find that teh CDA gives some safe harbor for "provider or user of an interactive computer service" for editing content to get rid of obscene, etc. material.) I'm not up on the current state of this. Is it no longer possible to consider a remailer (or an ISP or BBS) a common carrier and thus "publisher" is the best to hope for? Or is it that "publisher", while carrying fewer rights, is much less likely to be held invalid? Eric
On Wednesday, September 5, 2001, at 05:08 PM, Eric Murray wrote:
This was discussed long ago on cypherpunks, in fact the cyphernomicon says:
8.9.7. Possible legal steps to limit the use of remailers and anonymous systems - hold the remailer liable for content, i.e., no common carrier status - insert provisions into the various "anti-hacking" laws to criminalize anonymous posts
(all of 8.9 is worth re-reading for this discussion).
Thanks. I try not to quote my own ancient writings, but it's clear that a lot of the posters of the past couple of years are not familiar with the older writings (which is sort of excusable...) and have not thought deeply about the issues (which is not).
Tim, do you really mean to say that you now think that a remailer is a publisher, not a common carrier? Maybe I lost track in all the devil's advocate indirection...
I take no position one way or another. But "common carrier" status is not something that is automatically achieved. The telephone companies got it, to prevent phone companies from being shut down or from listening in on conversations. I'm not an expert in the history of "common carrier" legislation. (It may be described in Ithiel de sola Pool's seminal history of the telephone and liberty, though.) My point was the claim some are making that government may "license all remailers" seems unlikely. I often talk about "re-commenters" (hyphen added to emphasize the "commenter" part). If I get mail, or letters, or e-mail, and then pass it along to my friends or others, WHERE IN THE FIRST does it say I need permission from government? Imagine someone sent to prison for the crime of passing along messages he received.
I think that being a publisher, while it gives many rights, is not nearly as good as being a common carrier. My understanding of "common carrrier" in this context is that the common carrier is not held responsible at all for the traffic that it carries. It can lose its common carrier status by editing-- then it's acting like a publisher, and is responsible for the material that it edits and publishes...
There may be an item in the Cyphernomicon about this misconception, that common carrier status is something people apply for. It used to be claimed by some (don't here it as much anymore) than even bookstores could be treated as common carriers "so long as they didn't screen the books they sold."
(follow the links inthat article to find that teh CDA gives some safe harbor for "provider or user of an interactive computer service" for editing content to get rid of obscene, etc. material.)
The CDA did indeed give safe harbor...but what the CDA giveth, CDA II or the Children's Protection Act can taketh away.
I'm not up on the current state of this. Is it no longer possible to consider a remailer (or an ISP or BBS) a common carrier and thus "publisher" is the best to hope for? Or is it that "publisher", while carrying fewer rights, is much less likely to be held invalid?
No significant precedents in this area that I have ever heard of. --Tim May
Tim May wrote:
On Wednesday, September 5, 2001, at 05:08 PM, Eric Murray wrote:
This was discussed long ago on cypherpunks, in fact the cyphernomicon says:
8.9.7. Possible legal steps to limit the use of remailers and anonymous systems - hold the remailer liable for content, i.e., no common carrier status - insert provisions into the various "anti-hacking" laws to criminalize anonymous posts
(all of 8.9 is worth re-reading for this discussion).
Thanks. I try not to quote my own ancient writings, but it's clear that a lot of the posters of the past couple of years are not familiar with the older writings (which is sort of excusable...) and have not thought deeply about the issues (which is not).
Tim, do you really mean to say that you now think that a remailer is a publisher, not a common carrier? Maybe I lost track in all the devil's advocate indirection...
I take no position one way or another. But "common carrier" status is not something that is automatically achieved. The telephone companies got it, to prevent phone companies from being shut down or from listening in on conversations. I'm not an expert in the history of "common carrier" legislation. (It may be described in Ithiel de sola Pool's seminal history of the telephone and liberty, though.)
My point was the claim some are making that government may "license all remailers" seems unlikely.
I often talk about "re-commenters" (hyphen added to emphasize the "commenter" part). If I get mail, or letters, or e-mail, and then pass it along to my friends or others, WHERE IN THE FIRST does it say I need permission from government?
Imagine someone sent to prison for the crime of passing along messages he received.
I think that being a publisher, while it gives many rights, is not nearly as good as being a common carrier. My understanding of "common carrrier" in this context is that the common carrier is not held responsible at all for the traffic that it carries. It can lose its common carrier status by editing-- then it's acting like a publisher, and is responsible for the material that it edits and publishes...
There may be an item in the Cyphernomicon about this misconception, that common carrier status is something people apply for. It used to be claimed by some (don't here it as much anymore) than even bookstores could be treated as common carriers "so long as they didn't screen the books they sold."
(follow the links inthat article to find that teh CDA gives some safe harbor for "provider or user of an interactive computer service" for editing content to get rid of obscene, etc. material.)
The CDA did indeed give safe harbor...but what the CDA giveth, CDA II or the Children's Protection Act can taketh away.
I'm not up on the current state of this. Is it no longer possible to consider a remailer (or an ISP or BBS) a common carrier and thus "publisher" is the best to hope for? Or is it that "publisher", while carrying fewer rights, is much less likely to be held invalid?
No significant precedents in this area that I have ever heard of.
--Tim May
Common carrier status for ISP's is not automatic, under the '96 Telecom Act and later additions. You have to file with the FCC and promise to remove material anybody complains about, etc. in exchange for indemnification from liablility. I took a look at it and said "Fuck the dumb shit." Choate is right on this one. jbdigriz
James B. DiGriz wrote:
Common carrier status for ISP's is not automatic, under the '96 Telecom Act and later additions. You have to file with the FCC and promise to remove material anybody complains about, etc. in exchange for indemnification from liablility.
I took a look at it and said "Fuck the dumb shit." Choate is right on this one.
jbdigriz
In fact, IIRC, common-carrier status for ISPs as I describe above was actually implemented in the DMCA. Been a while since I looked at it; will have to check. It doesn't appear to have stopped anybody from getting sued for third parties infringing on copyrights, though. jbdigriz
James B. DiGriz wrote:
James B. DiGriz wrote:
Common carrier status for ISP's is not automatic, under the '96 Telecom Act and later additions. You have to file with the FCC and promise to remove material anybody complains about, etc. in exchange for indemnification from liablility.
I took a look at it and said "Fuck the dumb shit." Choate is right on this one.
jbdigriz
In fact, IIRC, common-carrier status for ISPs as I describe above was actually implemented in the DMCA. Been a while since I looked at it; will have to check. It doesn't appear to have stopped anybody from getting sued for third parties infringing on copyrights, though.
jbdigriz
http://www.loc.gov/copyright/onlinesp/ Copyright office, not the FCC DMCA is a piece of crap though. Probably illegal as hell, but IANAL. Anyway it's stupid to assume a liability that is not yours to begin with , for the dubious prospect of obtaining an alleged limitation on said liablity. I notice Napster has a Designated Agent registered with the Copyright Office. Lot of fucking good it did them. jbdigriz
At 01:59 PM 9/10/01 -0400, James B. DiGriz wrote:
In fact, IIRC, common-carrier status for ISPs as I describe above was actually implemented in the DMCA. Been a while since I looked at it; will have to check. It doesn't appear to have stopped anybody from getting sued for third parties infringing on copyrights, though.
jbdigriz
Implemented. Curious. The DMCA may have acknowledged that ISPs have immunity, being mere conduits, but the courts (sh|w)ould have decided that anyway.
At 01:59 PM 09/10/2001 -0400, James B. DiGriz wrote:
Common carrier status for ISP's is not automatic, under the '96 Telecom Act and later additions. You have to file with the FCC and promise to remove material anybody complains about, etc. in exchange for indemnification from liablility. I took a look at it and said "Fuck the dumb shit." Choate is right on this one.
In fact, IIRC, common-carrier status for ISPs as I describe above was actually implemented in the DMCA. Been a while since I looked at it; will have to check. It doesn't appear to have stopped anybody from getting sued for third parties infringing on copyrights, though.
Common-carrier status is a complex deal, including some protection in return for lots of regulation. But it's not the only choice - the ECPA and DMCA and even the otherwise-evil Communications Decency Act provided some protection for network operators under various conditions. Of course, just because the ECPA or CDA gave you some protections, that doesn't mean some subsequent law or regulation can't wipe them out; these aren't Constitutional amendments, they're just laws or regulations that can be changed whenever some legislator or regulator thinks it's convenient or fails to notice that a new rule is stepping on an old one.
At 05:08 PM 9/5/2001 -0700, Eric Murray wrote:
Is it no longer possible to consider a remailer (or an ISP or BBS) a common carrier and thus "publisher" is the best to hope for? Or is it that "publisher", while carrying fewer rights, is much less likely to be held invalid?
The "common carrier" argument never went anywhere - it was a reasonable early effort to discuss the liability rules which might be appropriate for online services; but that's not the way that the law has developed, and it's no longer considered a reasonable line of thinking. Even traditional common carriers (like phone companies) aren't likely to fit the definition of "common carrier" when they're operating as ISP's or other online service providers - e.g., pacbell.com, the company which provides local phone service as an SBC subsidiary, is still a common carrier for many purposes - but pacbell.net, the company which provides DSL connectivity, Usenet news, email, and web hosting for residential and business customers, is *not* a common carrier as that term has traditionally been used. That arm of the business is likely considered an "enhanced service provider", in FCC and PUC-speak, and doesn't get the benefit (or the burden) of traditional common carrier rules. (Don't forget, common carriers usually have to publish rate schedules, stick to published rates for all subscribers, seek regulatory permission to change their rates, participate in administrative proceedings concerning their rates charged to customers and rates of return on capital, etc - it is absolutely not some magic badge of publisher freedom which one can assume and then wield as a shield against any form of regulation. It's more like a deal with the regulatory devil, whereby one gains some short-term exemptions in exchange for eternal obesiance to a byzantine regulatory apparatus with no hope of salvation.) Even "publisher" is relatively outdated - the relevant definitions and liability rules are found in the Communications Decency Act (it wasn't all struck down; see 47 USC 230) and the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (17 USC 512), if you're talking about liability for online service providers. -- Greg Broiles gbroiles@well.com "We have found and closed the thing you watch us with." -- New Delhi street kids
On 5 Sep 2001, at 17:26, Declan McCullagh wrote:
[I'm not saying I believe these arguments, of course.]
Since a remailer, on the other hand does not exercise any independent editorial judgment about the content of the work, the burden should properly be on you to argue that a law restricting it is unconstitutional.
This is really crappy logic. Any law that restricts speech or the press is presumably unconstitutional.
A better analogy: Remailers are like a robotic Mailboxes Etc.-type service that opens a FedEx envelope and forwards the extracted contents to you at another address via FedEx.
Actually it's a really crappy analogy. Arguing that "it's kind of like this hypothetical thing that doesn't exist and therefore ought to be treated as I imagine this hypothetical thing would probably be treated if it did exist" is an incredibly poor use of the device of analogy.
But I know of no publisher who would publish a truly anonymous letter.
You're fucking kidding, right? Do you think "Ann Landers" and her ilk actually know the "true names" of all the morons who write in to her?
Newspapers and magazine request truenames. If given someone's truename, a publisher may anonymize the letter, but a subpoena or other legal means should be able to extract the information after the fact.
That's funny, just a week or two ago you were saying any ethical person in the journalistic profession should be willing to go to jail rather than compromise the identity of his sources. Someone who writes in a ltter is precluded from being a "source"? George
-Declan
At 12:38 PM 9/4/2001 -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote:
In the next five years or so, I would not be suprised to see a call for federal licensing of remailers. Some of the more mainstream remailer operators might even go along with it, eventually, calling for a "voluntary-mandatory" code of conduct and industry self- regulation.
Rather than a direct ban on remailers, I think a creeping expansion of the DMCA is more likely, and a greater threat. Instead of making remailing a criminal act - where only law enforcement is able to chase violators - it's more effective to change liability rules, empowering lots of aggrieved parties to do their own takedowns. The civil version of the DMCA has already been more effective in limiting programmer speech than 20 years of ITAR and BXA regs were - not because the penalties are scarier, but because they're swifter, more certain, and applied to upstream providers instead of actual infringers, which changes those providers into reluctant (but effective) local enforcers. (this is just a corporate/institutional version of "the policeman inside", discussed eventually on the list every time the "make bombs d00d" topic occurs - see <http://cypherpunks.venona.com/date/1993/10/msg01213.html> <http://www.inet-one.com/cypherpunks/dir.1996.08.29-1996.09.04/msg00426.html> <http://www.inet-one.com/cypherpunks/dir.1997.05.08-1997.05.14/msg00339.html>) Whereas many people reasonably calculated that their odds of being successfully prosecuted under a criminal enforcement scheme are very low - just look at the ratio of law enforcement agents to individuals using the Internet - broadening the categories of "enforcer" and "viable target" changes that calculation dramatically. By making every content provider a virtual prosecutor, and every ISP/web host/web page publisher/remailer a target, it's a lot easier to find someone to sue - and with that kind of risk in the air, potential targets get a lot more conservative and interested in suppressing the behavior in question.
I can envision a legal situation that is close to the Napster-Gnutella controversy, where the entry points to the network are targets for the RIAA/MPAA lawyers. Similarly, the entry points to the remailer network may be targets under such a legal structure.
Yeah - at least if the content isn't nested-encrypted, such that there's no reasonable way to identify content or its source. -- Greg Broiles gbroiles@well.com "We have found and closed the thing you watch us with." -- New Delhi street kids
"A potential balance between national security and science may lie in an agreement to include in the peer review process (prior to the start of research and prior to the publication) the question of potential harm to the nation.... I believe it is necessary before significant harm does occur which could well prompt the federal government to overreact." -- Inman, '82. --- It is not wuss-ninnie to spark debate, or to examine characterizations and motives. Many say, "technology is neutral." It's not. Technology is CONTEXTUAL. Somebody is going to use it for something, and that's usually somebody and something in particular. Most of you would agree that surveillance researchers failed to consider and address the moral and societal implications of surveillance technologies. That, too many said, was somebody else's problem. Now, it's *our* problem. Had they looked into motivations and societal factors, we would have had more lead time to deal with improper surveillance and secondary use issues. We are in this position today because they were "wuss-ninnies." If the benefits outweigh the costs, then fine -- but show me that you thought about it, and considered what other people might have to say, even if you might not agree with them (or me). I'm glad you have political ideas and theories of how it's going to all work out....but it often doesn't work out the way you think, or want it to. In my opinion, to characterize a technology as having aims detrimental to national security interests is both irresponsible and foolish. Words and events shape public policy -- why shape it against you? I realize Tim's position, and I respect his right to express his political opinions and ideas, even though I don't agree with them, and think he is a self-identifying flamboyant jackass. I understand that many of you have the same opinions, and likewise.... ~Aimee
On Tuesday, September 4, 2001, at 05:26 PM, Aimee Farr wrote:
"A potential balance between national security and science may lie in an agreement to include in the peer review process (prior to the start of research and prior to the publication) the question of potential harm to the nation.... I believe it is necessary before significant harm does occur which could well prompt the federal government to overreact." -- Inman, '82.
--- It is not wuss-ninnie to spark debate, or to examine characterizations and motives. Many say, "technology is neutral." It's not. Technology is CONTEXTUAL. Somebody is going to use it for something, and that's usually somebody and something in particular.
Most of you would agree that surveillance researchers failed to consider and address the moral and societal implications of surveillance technologies. That, too many said, was somebody else's problem. Now, it's *our* problem. Had they looked into motivations and societal factors, we would have had more lead time to deal with improper surveillance and secondary use issues. We are in this position today because they were "wuss-ninnies."
Nonsense. None of the current "moral and societal implications of surveillance technologies" are either new or unexplored. From Bentham to Huxley to Orwell to Donner ("The Age of Surveillance," 1980) to Brin ("The Transparent Society," c. 1996), the implications have been explored in gory detail. The notion that these implications would be avoided or handled by submitting all research proposals to Inman's oversight board is naive in the extreme. Inman's board, had the Constitution even allowed such "oversight" of private actor activities, would have killed RSA in the womb, would have blocked PGP, and would have put the kibosh on remailers....but would have endorsed surveillance cams in football stadiums.
If the benefits outweigh the costs, then fine -- but show me that you thought about it, and considered what other people might have to say, even if you might not agree with them (or me). I'm glad you have political ideas and theories of how it's going to all work out....but it often doesn't work out the way you think, or want it to.
I've been reading and thinking about these issues since I was a kid. All of the above authors I've read, plus a whole shelf full (Declan and Lucky can attest to this) of other such books. Laqueur. Kwitny, Richelson, Bamford, Wise, Kahn, and dozens of other works touching on surveillance, secrecy, terror states, espionage, and on and on. But we don't have to justify to _you_ that we have read "academic works" or thought about the issues to then press for there being no Inman-style reviews of research, no Lincoln-style suspensions of habeas corpus, not statist-style restrictions on liberty in the name of fighting our "endless enemies."
I realize Tim's position, and I respect his right to express his political opinions and ideas, even though I don't agree with them, and think he is a self-identifying flamboyant jackass. I understand that many of you have the same opinions, and likewise....
Agent Farr, you need a new gig. --Tim May
Aimee writes:
I realize Tim's position, and I respect his right to express his political opinions and ideas, even though I don't agree with them, and think he is a self-identifying flamboyant jackass. I understand that many of you have the same opinions, and likewise....
Guess not all Lying Feminist Cunts troll Sex Abuse exclusively. <yawn> -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"
-----Original Message----- From: owner-cypherpunks@lne.com [mailto:owner-cypherpunks@lne.com]On Behalf Of Eric Cordian Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2001 6:05 PM To: cypherpunks@einstein.ssz.com Subject: Re: Moral Crypto isn't wuss-ninnie.
Aimee writes:
I realize Tim's position, and I respect his right to express his political opinions and ideas, even though I don't agree with them, and think he is a self-identifying flamboyant jackass. I understand that many of you have the same opinions, and likewise....
Guess not all Lying Feminist Cunts troll Sex Abuse exclusively. <yawn>
-- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"
I am not a Feminist. ~Aimee
Aimee writes:
Guess not all Lying Feminist Cunts troll Sex Abuse exclusively. <yawn>
I am not a Feminist.
So I scored two out of three? :) -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"
On Tue, 4 Sep 2001, Aimee Farr wrote:
It is not wuss-ninnie to spark debate, or to examine characterizations and motives. Many say, "technology is neutral." It's not. Technology is CONTEXTUAL.
Ah, another convert. See, "The message is the medium" isn't right after all...it takes message, medium, context. I hope Marshall's spinnin' in his grave ;) -- ____________________________________________________________________ natsugusa ya...tsuwamonodomo ga...yume no ato summer grass...those mighty warriors'...dream-tracks Matsuo Basho The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
participants (15)
-
Aimee Farr -
Bill Stewart -
David Honig -
Declan McCullagh -
emc＠artifact.psychedelic.net -
Eric Murray -
georgemw＠speakeasy.net -
Greg Broiles -
James B. DiGriz -
Jim Choate -
Jim Choate -
Nomen Nescio -
Steve Schear -
Tim May -
V. Alex Brennen