Sorry about the blank post before this one.... Mike Duvos scripsit

As I understand it, Mr. Unicorn and Mr. Tmp, their true identities safely concealed behind their respective handles, engaged in a minor flame war and major ass-kicking contest related to the topics of crypto, privacy, and nasty authoritarian governments. Mr. Tmp, following his usual modus operandi, engaged in some reasonably clever hand-waving, out-of-context quoting, misdirection, and misrepresentation at the expense of a number of people, including Mr. Unicorn.

Basically correct.

All this would have been water under the bridge were it not for the fact that Mr. Unicorn, who is wont to travel in circles considerably more conservative than most of his political writings, inadvertantly disclosed his identity in the thread while showing a friend how to use Usenet. Certainly this blunder was no fault of Mr. Tmp.

Basically correct. Inadvertent disclosure is perhaps inaccurate. Said friend was privy to my identity by choice. You seem to want to dismiss tmp's liability because he assumed that my identity was secure.

Ultimately, as a consequence of this leak, certain business associates of Mr. Unicorn, with no knowlege of Usenet or the context of the discussion, were exposed to portions of it and the identity of Mr. Unicorn was disclosed. Again no fault of Mr. Tmp.

Not sure I quite agree with your assessment here. It was indeed tmp's fault that my business associates were exposed to tmp's statements. He released them to the world at large. The net is not the end of the story. It interacts with the outside world actively. To assert that tmp could not have known that associates of mine might have gotten a hold of his statements is just to ignore the facts. He is directly at fault for anything he releases to the general public. Just because someone else did some forwarding of what appeared to be a published characterization does not lift liability from the origin of the statements. To hold otherwise would eliminate accountability of the press because the newspaper stand was the last distributor.

Said business associates, being relatively anal upper-class European types with a great respect for authority, were singularly unamused by Mr. Unicorn's political views and the even worse things falsely attributed to him by Mr. Tmp in the heat of discussion.

Basically correct. Your emotional appeal to "the heat of discussion" really does not do much to reduce liability.

Mr. Unicorn became worried that his business might suffer as a consequence. Since I personally believe that one should not discriminate in doing business based on someones political beliefs, I would certainly characterize this as a moral failure on the part of Mr. Unicorn's business associates, and not the fault of Mr. Tmp.

True. Why the basic narrowness of the rest of the world should stand for some bar to my suit is somehow beyond me however. It is precisely because people are prone to be swayed by rumor and hearsay that protection against defamation is required. Had tmp no reason to believe that anyone would attribute a negative meaning to his characterizations, I might agree with you. Are you going to assert that he thought he was complimenting me? How I wish the rumor that a dentist had AIDS would never affect said practitioners business. How realistic is this in practice however? Do you really assert that it is the stupidity of the public that limits the liability of the individual wrongly spreading the rumor? I should be able to do business unimpaired with whoever I like, whenever I like, and with whatever reputation I have earned. This includes stuffy, uptight, anal Europeans, who happen to have the money right now I might add.

Finally, Mr. Unicorn, mustering all the legal and financial resources at his disposal, threatens to skewer Mr. Tmp for alleged libel, and Mr. Tmp, lacking similar resources and unable to risk a courtroom defeat, is forced to go on Usenet and publicly eat you-know-what with a large wooden spoon.

Basically correct, with the departure that he was free to seek pro-bono representation or perhaps assistance from the ACLU or EFF. Those without the ability to defend themselves with a money-is-no-object approach probably should not be so quick to defame either.

Since Mr. Tmp is not well-liked in the Cypherpunk community, response to this sorted tale consists mostly of praise for Mr. Unicorn, and silence by those who might have been critical, but who don't want Mr. Unicorn to treat them the same way.

tmp is disliked in the Cypherpunk community because of his often slanderous conduct. This is hardly my fault or anyone else's. I don't think you can attribute the response to my news simply to this in any event. Are you asserting that because I sued someone, others are too stunned into silence to be critical of my suit? I think this is silly. If it deters anyone from defaming, it was a positive thing. How it would curb reasoned debate (like your post for example) is beyond me. Part of the purpose of a legal system in any form is predictability. If you hurt Alice so, you will be punished so. If you resort to defamation, you should expect to be held accountable at one point or another. This is the incentive to instead conduct reasoned debate.

I don't think there are any heros in this story. I think it is a dark day for freedom of expression in general and Usenet in particular.

So your position will be that the laws of defamation and libel are an infringement on the first amendement? I'm not interested in anyone calling anyone else a hero. There are two sides to every dispute, the winner is merely a reflection on the moral makeup of the day.

In the past, I have engaged in lots of heated discussions on many hot-button topics, on Usenet and in many other forums, sometimes under my own name, and occasionally under a pseudonym. I have been called many vile things along the way, and have had my views on occasion misrepresented far more cleverly than Mr. Tmp could imagine or articulate.

Nonetheless, if I found myself losing work because an unpopular view of mine came to light, filing a lawsuit against another Usenet poster would be just about the last thing I would think of doing. Particularly if the discussion took place under a pseudonym and I was the person who had broken my own anonymity.

I think you confuse the issue here. It was not my unpopular view that caused the damage, but an incorrect characterization of my view. Truth is an absolute defense to libel. Had tmp been correct in characterizing my political views, he would have been vindicated. Instead he leveled baseless accusations which also happened to be false. Such being the case, your statement to the effect that I was merely "losing work because of an unpopular view of mine" is poorly worded, and misleading. You seem to allege here that it is my responsibility to post anonymously to the internet to guard against defamation and false accusation? Is it strict liability here? If you post, you are engaging in a hazardous activity and thus you bear the risk that someone might defame you? Is it the poster's responsibility to assure anonymous postings? Such would be a very curious legal standard. Should I have wanted to insure myself flawlessly, I should have posted entirely through an anonymous remailer. The reverse is not necessarily true, that unless I post anonymously I deserve what I get. Utility of anonymous posting v. Requirement of anonymous posting seems to be the distinction you are blurring.

Antics like this threaten the entire concept of Usenet as a reputation-based cooperative anarchy. The solution to Mr. Tmp is to put him in your killfile, not sue him into submission.

A kill file would be most effective if it stopped the spread of damaging rumor or somehow proved it false. It does not do so.

-- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ mpd@netcom.com $ via Finger. $

Some Reflections on Anonymous Posting and Legal Systems: How does one construct protections to the individual who conducts business in an environment of absolute anonymous potential? If I am to be able to do business with who I like, be they upper-crusted Europeans with anal political bents or what, there must be some protections. I have worked hard to cultivate a reputation of what passes for "respectability" in my business circles. The potential to post with total and untraceable anonymous attributation is a dangerous one in this context. It would be nice if completely reputation barren anonymous posters were given no sway in the scheme of things, other than what could be verified from their posts. This is unfortunately not the case. It would also be nice if one could conduct business with zero knowledge reputations and zero transaction costs. This is also, unfortunately, not the case. (I'm hoping however). It seem to me that this technological advance accomplishes what decades of civil rights legislation could not. A truly color blind world. This is why I will assert that total anonyminity, when costless, or nearly so, is a GOOD THING. Currently there are no provisions for this sort of transaction. My postings, were they made through difficult to operate and not highly reliable encrypted remailers, would probably not be able to gain the reputation that this account has. So what of libel in a true anonymous world? How can it exist? tmp may make accusations as he likes against a reputed anonymous poster known only as "Reputation rating: 65." I suffer no harm, he incurs no liability, and each is welcome to judge who's points are more reliable based merely on message content, and some idea of each posters reliability and history. I may conduct business with stuffy Europeans as I like, and not even have to worry about, or know, what their political hang ups are, or what tmp might say about me publically. The danger lies instead, not in a totally anonymous world, but in a partially anonymous one. It is in this hybrid world that I cannot rationalize putting the burden of anonymous assurance on the poster, as Mr. Duvos would have. Where some users are more anonymous than others there exists a powerful potential for harm. My hope is that eventually this will create a market for anonymous transactions, black market transactions in the eyes of some, with little or transaction cost. As suits like mine become difficult to conduct because of the use of strong anonymous remailers by defamers or posters or what not, parties will begin to defend themselves with anonymous accounts as well. Of course the catch, or the feature, is that taxation and regulation becomes, not curtailed, but almost impossible. You will not hear me assert that no-taxation is a good thing per se, but rather that an authority could be beneficial to subsidize market failures. I note that this does NOT include today's concept of "market failure" nor fabricated externalities like "national security" or "the health care crisis." I also note that such an "authority" would be much curtailed from today's concept of "government." It is my experience that those who tend to the "law and order" mentality are really looking for a means to provide for ease of transactions, not the over regulation that results instead. In my book ease of transactions is what it's all about. On the other side of the political spectrum, the utilitarian / redistribution of wealth types always seem to me to be struggling in a hopelessly circular effort to make up for the failure of markets by regulating them further and further into collectivism, instead of giving them the means to expand and bud into privatization. -uni- (Dark) -- 073BB885A786F666 nemo repente fuit turpissimus - potestas scientiae in usu est 6E6D4506F6EDBC17 quaere verum ad infinitum, loquitur sub rosa - wichtig!