Mr. Wells: I strongly am against your policy of prohibiting encrypted traffic through your server, and your apparent monitoring of existing plaintext information. I believe you should make this severe & oppressive restriction (the former) and breach of privacy, confidentiality, and trust (the latter) clear in your introductory statements to your server. While providing this service of anonymity is commendable, it is worthless without minimum levels of functionality and assurance, and IMHO outlawing encrypted traffic is bordering on that line. You `defuse' J. Helsingius's suggestion of comparing your service with the post office by comparing it with the exchange of bombs in parcels, saying that `analogies are slippery'. Indeed, you have slipped out of this one and away from the crucial point. No one can send any `bomb' through mere text, and to compare harassing mail (which is definitely not to be condoned) to it is to expose your naive and self-serving view of the matter. I have a theory that one major motivation toward running such a server is a somewhat paternalistic desire to `monitor' traffic through one's server to one's `family'. Far better to do this with your own family than through a public service, where it is inappropriate, deplorable, and voyeristic. That you arbitrarily restrict traffic to that which you can read is a rather embarrassing indictment of your intentions, despite your lame protestations that just the `capability' is relevant. Anonymity and encryption are as interlinked as two sides of a hand. Who are you to shear one half away? Sincerely, L. Detweiler
I have better things to do with my time than deal with abusive messages. If you have something you would like me to consider, you will, first, remove all personal remarks from your message, and, second, you will refrain from rhetoric and give me reasons.
I have to disagree with Lance here.
No one can send any `bomb' through mere text, and to compare harassing mail (which is definitely not to be condoned) to it is to expose your naive and self-serving view of the matter.
I know people who would probably rather receive an explosive in the mail than receive email from certain individuals, or about certain subjects. Physical damage can be easier to heal. Your requirements are not everyone's. Although I believe myself that encryption and anonymity go hand-in-hand, I can understand that some members of the community Mr. Wells serves might not quite agree with me. As long as he makes the fact that he audits posts absolutely clear, beforehand, to his users, I have no problem with what he does. I am free to find a remailer operator with less restrictive policies, and will do so. Cypherpunks have been talking about a free market where users choose the anonymity services they like best. I see no reason to berate Mr. Wells about his policies. Make sure he discloses his policies, and let the users vote with their packets. Enforcing a standard, any standard, is a Very Bad Thing. Marc
Marc Horowitz says:
I have to disagree with Lance here.
No one can send any `bomb' through mere text, and to compare harassing mail (which is definitely not to be condoned) to it is to expose your naive and self-serving view of the matter.
I know people who would probably rather receive an explosive in the mail than receive email from certain individuals, or about certain subjects.
To begin with, the ban on encrypted messages makes no sense because people who do not have the key to read the messages can obviously not receive them, and even people who do have the key must make an active effort to read the messages. I will ignore that for the moment, however, and address this pervasive notion that words can cause more harm than letter bombs. I'm sorry, but its completely irrational to prefer to be killed by an explosive over getting email from someone you hate. This insane notion that words are somehow worse than physical blows has to stop. It leads to insane conclusions, among others, the conclusion that we must all be restricted in our speech at all times lest we offend other's feelings. This is the same argument that fundamentalist christians who would like to ban certain books from our libraries would use -- that harm can be caused by people accidently reading the books. This is no speculative notion -- the argument was once actually used regularly in our country. The real world contains lots of harmful things. People who are so incapable of handling a threatening letter or an insulting piece of mail that they would prefer to die from a letter bomb are unlikely to be able to deal with the sights and sounds they will see on an ordinary street in a big city. They are too fragile for this world and likely should be locked up for their own good until psychiatrists can manage to heal them, as the preference of death to being offended is suicidal and the incapacity to deal with the real world will obviously cripple them. The rest of the world should not be constrained to handle the needs of these obviously very mentally unbalanced individuals. Perry Metzger
"Perry E. Metzger" writes:
To begin with, the ban on encrypted messages makes no sense because people who do not have the key to read the messages can obviously not receive them, and even people who do have the key must make an active effort to read the messages. I will ignore that for the moment, however, and address this pervasive notion that words can cause more harm than letter bombs.
Stupidity is it's own virtue. If people, who are afraid of fat electrons crowding their email-box, don't bother to _read_the_manual_ that's their fault. There's a wonderful tool called the "filter", that can protect these virtual innocents from themselves. Unfortunately, no such device exists for _real_mail_. If they don't want email from certain individuals, then they can put those people into the filter and ignore them as blissfully as they ignore reality itself. Just my $0.02 worth. -- Allan Bailey, UNIX programmer, CSC | "Freedom is not free." Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations | allan.bailey@tamu.edu GCS -d+ p--- c++++ l+++ u++ e++ m++ s n+ h+ f g+ w+ t+ r y+
On Wed, 18 Aug 1993 12:20:51 -0400, "Perry E. Metzger" <pmetzger@lehman.com> said:
I'm sorry, but its completely irrational to prefer to be killed by an explosive over getting email from someone you hate. This insane notion that words are somehow worse than physical blows has to stop.
I'm sure glad you wrote this. It's about time some common sense got injected into this thread.
It leads to insane conclusions, among others, the conclusion that we must all be restricted in our speech at all times lest we offend other's feelings.
And I'm glad you pointed this out. I hadn't looked at it this way, but I see now it's a clear extension from the "words are worse than bombs" philosophy. Mike
On Aug 18, 1:09pm, Mike Rose wrote:
It leads to insane conclusions, among others, the conclusion that we must all be restricted in our speech at all times lest we offend other's feelings.
And I'm glad you pointed this out. I hadn't looked at it this way, but I see now it's a clear extension from the "words are worse than bombs" philosophy.
It also leads to talk about strong crypto as if it were assault rifles.
participants (7)
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allan＠elvis.tamu.edu -
cme＠ellisun.sw.stratus.com -
L. Detweiler -
Marc Horowitz -
Mike Rose -
Perry E. Metzger -
T. William Wells