Hi folks, There is a bug in mh mail that causes all mails to be rejected after there are more than 9999 in the same mailbox. I recieved 100 in two hours today so I suspect the subject line may well be related to my earlier post. They mostly fell on the floor. The rest are 50-50 pro/anti. Just a calibration point. The libertarians on the list do not seem to shrink from expressing their political views. Indeed the entire discussion on the NSA is a political thread pure and simple. My post related directly to the question of personal privacy rights in a democratic, plural society. I do not regard that it was off topic in any sense. I was not aware that any agreement was in effect as to the method by which goals might be achieved. I chose to persue goals by the means most likely to succeed. In that I am a pragmatist. Government regulation often provides social benefits it is not by definition an evil to be avoided. In any case regardless of the rhetoric government regulation increases, I prefer to press for some regulations I like rather than dream about there being none whatsoever. I do not separate the question of politics from technology. My reasons for working on the Web have from the start been explicity political. I regard the persuit of technology without consideration of the political consequences to be unethical. I am only in a position to influence the political process if I understand the position of the administration and can demonstrate an appreciation of their concerns. As Sun Tsu said "you must build a golden path along which your enemies may retreat". The problem with government is not that it is a conspiracy, it is an interlocking series of beuraucracies which all seek to avoid responsibility. If you want to get Phil Z. off the hook or foul up the governments escrow scheme plans you have tobe prepared to step into their mindset and walk about on the inside a bit. somewhere inside the government there is a jobsworth who is deciding to hassle Phil Z., this person will be a civil servant, not a political appointee. Ie the dregs which get left behind each time there is a new administration. What we need to do is to identify that person and nail their ass to the wall. It has to become apparent to the administration that that individual has created an unnecessary source of embarassment. It seems to me that the purpose of key escrow is not to allow the US govmt to spy on its citizens. I think they want to stop strong crypto getting out because there are still a large number of governments cables they can break and they want the fun to continue a while. No external government is going to trust a system that is clearly subject to US govt. interference. If someone comes up with a crypto proposal to avoid paying taxes I know it will never get anywhere. If they come up with a crypto proposal that guarantees that a tax is paid but conceals the identity of the persons involved I get much more interested. If somone makes contiuous political spiels themselves but object when I make one they disagree with (as one person has done) I am not going to take their objection as indicating anything other than an inability to argue their case. Phill PS I'm also none to impressed by people who make comments like "you are wrong about XXX but I won't explain why".

Timothy C. May writes:

Implying that the reason Bellovin and Karn left the list--if they did, as I haven't checked--was because of "off-topic" posts seems to be a stretch.

They both left because the noise level was too high and the cryptography content too low. I'll ask Steve to comment if you insist.

Certainly using the departure of J. Random Subscriber, or even R. Noted Hacker, as "proof" that topics are inappropriate is flawed logic. "We've lost fine subscribers like Phil Zimmermann because of crap posted here." I suspect there's some fancy Latin name for this kind of appeal to authority.

The point of this list is to provide the community of people who are interested in cryptography and its application to further personal freedom to congregate and exchange information. If important members of that community -- people with important input to give -- cease to be here because of the noise level, then we most certainly are not meeting our goal. Its not a question of appeal to authority, except that we want this list to appeal (in the other sense) to authorities in this field.

Lots of other people have joined the list, and the subscription base has done from an earlier plateau of about 700 subscribers to more than 1200 recently.

I don't care about quantity. Steve Bellovin is worth 500 subscribers -- maybe 1000. I'd rather hear his or Phil's off the cuff remarks on a lot of this stuff than most of what passes for careful thought from the average person here.

Political aspects of strong cryptography have always been important to this list. Though new subscribers may be forgiven for thinking this is the "Netscape bug list," such has not always been the case. Key escrow was a dominant topic in the early days, as it is today.

Key Escrow is a fine topic of conversation. My problem is when someone posts a long and totally irrelevant article about the value of internet stocks to the list, as just happened. Perry