On Thu, 25 Jan 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:

At 11:33 PM 1/25/96, Mike McNally wrote:

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Bill Frantz writes:

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and whole newsgroups.

Since nobody "owns" newsgroups, and nobody controls what's posted to them, I don't see how that's possible at all.

I agree. When I was replying to Bill Frantz's points, I neglected to comment on this point.

Suppose "alt.fan.barney" is rated G, by "someone." Since I can post stuff with strong language, and worse, to alt.fan.barney, is it still rated G, or was my stuff blocked?

When the Germans told MeinKampfuServe to block 200+ newsgroups (well, it's clear that some BavarianKops showed MKS a list of groups that they thought needed to be pulled, and MKS obliged them), a bunch of folks started copying soc.culture.german on some highly explicit stuff normally found in alt.sex.*. No word yet on whether soc.culture.german is now banned in Germany.

That's funny as hell, and probably justified in this case, but I find it in poor taste, and I hope it doesn't continue too long after the point was made. Has anyone heard of Serdar Argic? Tim seems to have a selective fascination with the general idea "if a rule is not enforceable, it's not valid." Applied to crypto, the right to bear arms and biological weapons, censorship, etc. This is a tautology. By definition, rules are made about things that are not self-enforcing. That's why you make the rule. That's why some people like societies. Some rules are good, some are bad. The non-self-enforcing rule that your kid shouldn't put a finger in a light socket or cross the street without looking is probably a good rule. The rule against the export of strong cryptography is generally, and universally on this list, considered to be a bad rule. Whether the rule is enforceable is irrelevant. Nobody can really stop you from posting whatever the hell you want wherever you want. The cancelmoose can, according to its own rules and ethics, kill your post; Perry, according to his own set of rules, can complain; the Bavarian government can *try* to ban you; your ISP can cut you off; other ISPs can filter your messages; indviduals can kill-file you. None of these actions can *stop* you. Only jail time or the death penalty would *stop* you. The reason society holds is that most people have internalized societal rules as a personal ethic, and show reasonable taste, most of the time. Unless some buffoon gives us cause to stomp on soc.culture.german as a symbol (which N.B. affects not just "those Germans," but gads of K-12 and college students in all countries using it as a medium for cultural exchange), then we will honor the purpose of the group and their privacy, just as we'd prefer that total bozos not post irrelevant drivel to cypherpunks. -rich