The Frightening Dangers of Moderation
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Well, folks, tonight I have witnessed the frightening dangers of moderation and censorship first-hand, and would like to tell you what has happened. I think there is an important lesson to be learned from these incidents. Before I explain what has happened, I want to make one thing absolutely clear. Though I've thought the moderation of cypherpunks was a terrible idea from the start and am even more convinced of it now, I don't assign any blame to Sandy. I believe he offered to moderate the list with the best of intentions, and I sincerely appreciate his efforts to try to revive what was once a fantastic mailing list, even if in my opinion those efforts have backfired. Sandy has been a valuable advocate of cypherpunk beliefs and a lively contributor to cypherpunks list for a long time. Though the moderation experiment has resulted in some terrible consequences, we can't blame him for what has happened. If the events I have witnessed tonight occured with such a high-standing member of the cypherpunks community in charge, the cause of them can only be the very nature of moderation and censorship. I don't think any of us could have done much better in Sandy's shoes. Now, what happened tonight? As some of you may recall, a month or so ago I vehemently argued against the elimination of the cypherpunks-unedited mailingt list. Some people (though no one associated with toad.com) were claiming that 3 mailing lists might be too much load, and that having cypherpunks and cypherpunks-flames would be enough. I argued that not only would the delay of waiting for a decision put alternate cypherpunks moderators at a disadvantage, it would make it farm more difficult to convince people of the moderator's honesty as there would be no guarantee that messages made it to either list. Fortunately, cypherpunks-unedited did get created (it seems no one "in charge" ever intended not to create it). Well, as it turns out, a number of messages have made it neither to cypherpunks nor to cypherpunks-flames. Making matters worse, however, not only are certain messages being suppressed from both lists, but even messages mentioning that fact get suppressed from both the cypherpunks and the cypherpunks-flames lists! Here's exactly what happened. I was beginning to believe that Dmitri Vulis had sent an (admitedly objectionable) message to the cypherpunks mailing list, but that the message had gone to neither the cypherpunks nor the cypherpunks-flames lists. Since I was under the impression that every article was supposed to go to one list or the other, and many people probably still believe that, I mentioned this somewhat startling fact on the cypherpunks mailing list, I believe in response to a post by Tim May on the same subject. Tim replied (in a message Cc'ed to cypherpunks--though I don't think it went anywhere but to -unedited), asking me in the message, "Can you send to the list, with a copy to me, the articles CENSOREDCENSOREDCENS OREDCENSOREDCENSORE?" I therefore went back through my mail archives and found a copy of the message that I believed had gone to neither mailing list. I sent it to Tim and to cypherpunks. I prepended a few paragraphs in which I asked people to confirm that the message had gone to neither mailing list. Among other things in those paragraphs, I stated that Vulis's message was "verifiably false". It was clear from the context that I was forwarding this message to ask people which lists it had gone to, not because I believed the content to be correct or even at all convincing or interesting. That message I sent, quoting Vulis's, immediately follows this message, after the line '========'. Then, tonight, I received a message from Sandy, which I include below a second '========' marker. In that letter, Sandy had explicitly aknowledged not only that he had sent Vulis's letter to neither mailing list, but that he wouldn't send my letter to either mailing list, either! He claimed that he couldn't forward Vulis's message because it was libel, and accused me of committing libel simply by quoting Vulis's message, even though I explicitly stated that Vulis's message was verifiably false. Well, this travesty must exposed, even if I can't make known all the details for fear of libel charges. I am therefore forwarding everything I can to the cypherpunks mailing list, for all to see. As you can see, Vulis made unfounded and incorrect charges that a particular system contained a security hole. Believe me, if I could get into the details of the case I could convince you easily that his claim is not true. However, since even quoting that claim apparently opens me up to charges of libel, I can't give you the details. Thus, I have censored (by overriting original text with the letters CENSORED) any portion of quoted messages that might give you an indication of what system Vulis actually claimed had a security hole. This censorship should not, however, affect my main point, and the lesson that I hope we can all take away from this. When it comes down to it, the details of this case do not matter. What does matter is that even when the "good guys" attempt benign censorship, it can have frighteningly far-reaching effects on people's ability to discuss otherwise reasonable topics such as the mechanics of the cypherpunks list. I generally dislike censorship and moderation, but the consequences of the cypherpunks experiment have gone far beyond anything I could have imagined. In closing, let me reiterate that I don't think most of this is Sandy's, John's, or anyone else's fault. Given the knowledge I have of this case, I believe Sandy has unwittingly found himself ensnarled in a nasty legal situation where, for fear of legal reprisal he must block articles that he has a moral obligation to send to cypherpunks-flames. I certainly don't envy his position. [To moderator Sandy: I believe we must get the content of this message to the main cypherpunks mailing list. I have done everything I can to ensure that the message contains no libel. If, for some reason, you still can't send it on to the main cypherpunks mailing list, can you please tell me specifically which parts cause problems. I will the CENSOR them out and try again. This message contains important, highly relevant information for the cypherpunks community. Please help me do what it takes to get it accepted by the moderation process. Thanks.] ======== To: tcmay@got.net CC: cypherpunks@toad.com Chain: nym=antimod In-reply-to: <v03007802af21505d61f5@[207.167.93.63]> (tcmay@got.net) Subject: Re: Is Sandy really censoring criticisms of CENSORCENSOREDCENSOREDC? Okay, I went through my old mail, and I'm fairly sure this is the message. I'm convinced it never went to the flames list, and now that I've found out I'm on the -unedited list after all, I think it probably didn't go to the regular cypherpunks list either. Can people on the various lists confirm this for me? Given the total lack of technical content, the flamey nature of the article, and the fact that it is verifiably false (CENSOREDCENSOREDC ENSOREDCENSOREDCE), I can see people arguing it should have gone to - -flames (though I would probably disagree). However, I don't want to debate that. What I object to more strongly and think is wrong is the fact that it went to *neither* list. A lot of people out there are subscribing to the cypherpunks-flames and cypherpunks lists thinking that they will see everything that gets rejected (albeit with a substantial delay). If this is not the case, it should be made clear. Otherwise, it's not moderation, but dishonesty. - --
From cypherpunks-errors@toad.com Thu Jan 30 17:26:50 1997 From: dlv@bwalk.dm.com (Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM) Subject: Security alert!!! To: cypherpunks@toad.com Date: Thu, 30 Jan 97 16:15:21 EST Organization: Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y. Received: (from majordom@localhost) by toad.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id OAA18833; Thu, 30 Jan 1997 14:17:05 -0800 (PST) Received: from uu.psi.com (uu.psi.com [38.9.86.2]) by toad.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id OAA18824; Thu, 30 Jan 1997 14:16:39 -0800 (PST) Received: by uu.psi.com (5.65b/4.0.061193-PSI/PSINet) via UUCP; id AA02017 for ; Thu, 30 Jan 97 16:57:10 -0500 Received: by bwalk.dm.com (1.65/waf) via UUCP; Thu, 30 Jan 97 16:19:19 EST for cypherpunks@toad.com Comments: All power to the ZOG! Message-Id: <aw5c2D4w165w@bwalk.dm.com> Sender: owner-cypherpunks@toad.com Precedence: bulk Lines: 19
WARNING: There's a rogue trojan horse out there on the internet CENSOREDCENS OREDCENSOREDCENSOREDCEN. It's actually a hacked-up version of CENSOR with a backdoor, which allows hackers (or whoever knows the backdoor) to steal credit card numbers and other confidentil information on the Internet. Be careful! Always use encryption. Do not send confidential information 9such as passwords and credit card numbers) to any site running the trojan horse CENSOREDCENS. In general, beware of "snake oil" security products and hacked-up versions of free software. Please repost this warning to all relevant computer security forums. - --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps ======== X-From: sandfort@crl.com Sat Feb 08 00:56:23 1997 Date: Fri, 7 Feb 1997 16:45:31 -0800 (PST) From: Sandy Sandfort <sandfort@crl.com> To: Against Moderation <antimod@nym.alias.net> Subject: Re: Is Sandy really censoring criticisms of CENSOREDCENSOREDCENSORE? In-Reply-To: <19970207220720.15530.qmail@anon.lcs.mit.edu> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SANDY SANDFORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hi, On 7 Feb 1997, Against Moderation wrote:
What I object to more strongly and think is wrong is the fact that it went to *neither* list.
Unfortunately, it's not as simple as that. As soon as I can arrange it with John, I am going to stop moderating the list. In the interim, I *will not* be sending your post onto either the Flames or the Moderated lists. This is done for legal reason. As it is, you have already published a libel on the unedited list by repeating Dimitri's libel. This exposes you to legal liability, but as an anonymous poster, you are somewhat insulated from the consequences of your act. If you would like to PRIVATELY discuss this matter with me, I would not mind going into more detail with you. Suffice it to say, I any re-publication by me of Dimitri's libel would expose John and myself to legal liability and could also act to insulate Dimitri from liability as a result of CENSOREDCENSOREDCE NSOREDCENDOREDCENDOREDC. Take care, S a n d y ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ======== -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMvwBkICHQnqYPZ9VAQGf+gP/cCw3gs23pL36RIi7OTRpZaM8E7D55hVE I7H8VX4u9TdWpPJPw0Q+ZqftRxn2Ancf/6RzqZA03jSnNCqUqkEhrPSTnq4qmZmx M+BGMI/3Y3Gl3Aj7YQhpcQLEaCLMMkQ4ddG5VVujeFwMs8gWt8Zi80aytD5dLenF ykV0cj2DsWs= =ezEz -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
At 4:31 AM +0000 2/8/97, Against Moderation wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Well, folks, tonight I have witnessed the frightening dangers of moderation and censorship first-hand, and would like to tell you what has happened. I think there is an important lesson to be learned from these incidents.
(long account of getting legal threats for quoting a message about CENSORED elided) This is indeed an important incident. I hope we can discuss it. Many issues central to Cypherpunks are involved. To name a few: * the moderation/censorship issue itself (though we have probably beaten this one to death in the last few weeks). * the "libel" issue, especially as it involves Sandy, his company, and the machine the list is hosted from. The introduction of a censor has, as many of us predicted, raised serious libel and liability issues. (This is the best reason I can think of it to move to an "alt.cypherpunks" system, where bypassing of liability, libel, copyright violation, etc., laws is naturally handled by the globally decentralized and uncontrolled nature of Usenet.) * conflicts of interest issues. Apparently Sandy feels information deleterious to C2Net, having to do with a claimed CENSORED in the software product CENSORED, cannot be passed by him to _either_ of the two lists to which articles are supposed to be sent. (Sadly, he did not tell us of this meta-censorship when it happened. This made what he did deceptive as well as wrong.) * chilling of discussion. As "Against Moderation" notes, merely _quoting_ the article of another caused Sandy to not only reject his article, but also to contact him and raise the threat of legal action. (This even though Against Moderation added all sorts of "obviously false" comments to what Vulis had written.) * even more threats. At the request of CENSORED today, I called CENSORED and had a verbal communication with him (a nice guy, by the way) about this situation. He averred that "you don't want to be pulled into this," and suggested that if I post certain things, even quoting the reports that a CENSORED exists in CENSORED, I could well be sued by the lawyers of his company! These are issues which remailers, decentralized servers, anonymity, data havens, and other Cypherpunks technologies make important issues for us to discuss. When did Cypherpunks start thinking about libel? (Obvious answer: when _their_ companies were the targets of criticism, lies, libel, whatever.) It's not as if insulting or even "libelous" (I'm not a lawyer) comments have not been made routinely on the list. Insulting companies and other institutions has been standard Cypherpunks fare since the beginning. Mykotronx has been accused of high crimes, RSADSI has been declared to be placing backdoors in code, Phil Zimmermann has been declared to be an NSA plant ("only trust the versions of PGP before he cut the deal to get his freedom"), and so on. Think about it. Just about any company with any product related to crypto has at one time or another had their motives questioned, their products slammed, etc. Unfortunately, our Late Censor is an employee of one of the companies so slammed, and he has reacted by rejecting one or more of these slams without bothering to tell the list that he has to do so. (Were it me, I would have "recused" myself from the decision, or at least told the list in general terms what was going on, or, more likely, resigned as censor. But then I would never have been a list.censor in the first place.) I understand that Sandy is stepping down as our Moderator. The Censor is Dead, Long Live Sandy! I expect to harbor no continuing resentment toward Sandy (though I expect things will be strained for a while, as might be expected). The issues raised are ugly ones. Here's what scares me: the "precedent" may irretrievably be established that companies offended by words on the list will threaten legal action to recover their good name. I can imagine Mykotronx or even First Virtual citing the actions of C2Net as a precedent (a cultural precedent, to the extent there is such a thing) for their own legal letters. As with the terrible precedent set by the "even Cypherpunks had to censor themselves" experiment, these companies may be able to say "But even a Cypherpunk-oriented company realized that the antidote for damaging speech was not rebutting speech. No, these Cypherpunks realized that some threatening letters and pulling the plug on the speaker was a better approach." And we won't be able to easily argue that Mykotronx has no right to do this while C2Net does. Sandy, in his message a few hours ago to Against Moderation, even made the claim (and Sandy _is_ a lawyer, or at least once was) that John Gilmore could be held liable for speech on the Cypherpunks list. (I don't doubt the "could," but I hate like hell to see a Cypherpunkish company leading the charge.) Perhaps this is true. But the Censorship experiment, and the resulting threats of legal action by C2Net to stop mention of the alleged CENSORED in their product CENSORED, fuel the fire. Instead of denigrating such legal moves--as I'm sure most Cypherpunks would have done a few years ago if RSADSI were to try to sue people for making outrageous claims--we have a major company consisting of several leading Cypherpunks making just such threats. I'm not a legal scholar, but is it really the case that merely _alluding_ to the allegedly libelous comments of another is itself a libel? Is a reporter who writes that "Person X has alleged that Product Y has a Flaw Z" thus committing a libel? (I don't think so, as reporters frequently report such things. If merely quoting an alleged libel is also libel, then presumably a lot of reporters, and even court clerks reporting on cases, are libelers.) (ObLisp reference: quoting an expression ought to have a different return value than evaluating an expression! That's what quotes are for.) My comments this past week have not been motivated by animosity toward Sandy, and certainly my comments today are not motivated by any animosity about C2Net or any of its employees (including CENSORED, whom I spoke with today). My comments started out as being a summary of why I had left Cypherpunks when the Great Hijacking was announced. Since last Sunday, when I issued my "Moderation" post, I've only responded to messages I was CC:ed on, or to messages on the Flames list, which I subscribed to temporarily to better see what Sandy was calling flames. The discovery that certain posts were not appearing on either the Main list or the Flames list triggered today's comments about Sandy and the alleged CENSOREDCENSOREDCENSORED (blah blah blah). I hope we can declare this Censorship experiment a failure and move on. However, it is almost certain that as a result of attempts to suppress certain views, that the move back to an unfiltered state will mean that some will use anonymous remailers and nym servers to post even _more_ claims, however outrageous. This is a predictable effect. Cf. Psychology 101 for an explanation. Kicking Vulis off the list predictably produced a flood of Vulis workarounds, and a surge in insults via anonymous remailers. Instituting censorship of the list triggered a flood of comments critical of the experiment, and a predictable "testing" of the censorship limits. And, finally, now that C2Net is threatening legal action to stop discussion--even in quotes!!--of alleged CENSORED in CENSORED, expect a lot of repetition of these claims via remailers. And, I predict, claims about CENSORED will even be spread more widely, e.g., on the Usenet. (Sadly, I half expect a letter from some lawyers or lawyer larvae saying I am "suborning libel," or somesuch nonsense. As Sandy would say, "piffle." Lawyers, take your best shot.) Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside" We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."
participants (2)
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Against Moderation -
Timothy C. May