I strongly support this idea, so I'll mention a further advantage: kill files! No more wading through boring message about anonymous remailers, digital cash an so on (or RSA weaknesses, or crypto-legality or whatever your personal bug happens to be). I really think that the powers that be should consider the newsgroup idea. The reasoning above is really the best justification, even though I'd

personally kill the code and concentrate on the politics, that's just me. Newsreaders really have much better tools for handling this sort of traffic. (Back when my account was on msen.com, the absolute _only_ way I could possibly read this list was through the gateway to list.cypherpunks. My mailbox couldn't handle a subscription, and I was able to concentrate my time on the _good_ stuff instead of the noise.) To the people who say that Usenet has a worse s/n ratio than mail, I have two points. First, not all of Usenet has a bad s/n ratio (and this particular list _does_ have a _very_ bad s/n ratio). Second, the traditionally lower s/n ratio on Usenet has led to the development of better tools to deal with it than are available in mail. (I'd dearly love to see an ignore feature on this list, as I understand that the Extropians have, but I realize that's unrealistic. Even that wouldn't be as effective as a well-designed killfile.) I really think this idea deserves at least serious consideration. -- Matthew B. Landry ml7694a@american.edu (Finally!) mbl@ml7694a.leonard.american.edu