Cypherpunks' Electronic Book 3
Cypherpunks' Electronic Book (CEB) 3 Eric Blossom suggests that I could do the CEB job myself by using procmail or Perl & by subscribing a new user that points at my mail processing code & no changes need to be made to Majordomo. Well, he certainly makes it sound easy. However my computer skills are: arguably an expert in Assembler for 80x86 chips; fairly expert at the DOS operating system; very good with DOS Batch files; & at one time rather good with C but now quite rusty. I can get around on the Internet but am not an Internet guru. As for Perl, I would probably cast it before swines. I don't know the languages or protocols or mechanics of the Internet to do it myself. I was hoping to provoke an Internet guru to do this. Robert Hayden wants to know what the extent of his involvement in this project would be. Well, I would say just writing the code & setting up a new account. Eric Blossom makes it sound easy. However, Robert suggests that an administrator would be needed. This could even be more serious. I suspect Eric Hughes would not see it as just a minor ex- pansion of his Cypherpunk list duties - but that was what I was orig- inally hoping for. - would Eric? (shields up!). At this point, I would say that we would need an Internet guru to shepherd this project & we may need an administrator too. I have no idea how heavy the duties of an administrator would be. Anybody have any suggestions or want to volunteer? Also, we probably need someone capable of making an assessment of what is needed. Yours Truly, Gary Jeffers
I don't know the languages or protocols or mechanics of the Internet to do it myself. I was hoping to provoke an Internet guru to do this. When I wrote the very first cypherpunks remailer in September of 1993, I did it without knowing Perl, which I learned during that time, over a 2400 baud dialup to an overloaded Unix host, using emacs to edit (ever seen a page up in emacs at 2400 baud?), and having to read lots of man pages on slocal and perl (lots more screen refreshes). Now look. If you want to do something really useful, don't assume that it can be done easily or without a lot of committment in time and effort. I have no idea how heavy the duties of an administrator would be. I would suggest that since it's your idea that you should administer it. If you're not already putting out similar effort, it is somewhat foolish to ask others to do so. Eric
To expand on the points Eric Hughes made:
I don't know the languages or protocols or mechanics of the Internet to do it myself. I was hoping to provoke an Internet guru to do this.
When I wrote the very first cypherpunks remailer in September of 1993, I did it without knowing Perl, which I learned during that time, over a 2400 baud dialup to an overloaded Unix host, using emacs to edit (ever seen a page up in emacs at 2400 baud?), and having to read lots of man pages on slocal and perl (lots more screen refreshes).
Indeed, there's a trend here on Cypherpunks to try to get others do the work, when what is really needed is more work, period. Although I am probably known for "rants," I more or less agree agree with Pr0duct Cypher's pithy "One line of code is worth a thousand rants." (I say "more or less" because I suspect some of my political articles, here and elsewhere, are more useful than any of the lines of code I've written...some Lisp, some Mathematica, and now some Smalltalk/V.) But one principle I try to stick to is to always bite my tongue when I feel tempted to ask others to do something "trivial." A better approach is to find things one can do one's self and "just do it." One of these things I am spending a lot of time on now is a Cypherpunks FAQ. While I will welcome contributions, corrections, and elaborations, this will have to come after it is distributed, not as a "stone soup" sort of project. (The "stone soup" approach, named of course after the fable, is to throw out a crude outline and then wait for others to write sections. This was tried a couple of times with the FAQ (not by me)--it failed. I fear the "Cypehrpunks Electronic Book" falls into this category, independent of the tangential issues of how it will get "automatically distributed" with Majordomo or procmail or whatever.)
Now look. If you want to do something really useful, don't assume that it can be done easily or without a lot of committment in time and effort.
I have no idea how heavy the duties of an administrator would be.
I would suggest that since it's your idea that you should administer it. If you're not already putting out similar effort, it is somewhat foolish to ask others to do so.
Eric is right of course. Having an idea but expecting others to flesh it out and do the actual work is akin to the folks who naively approach published authors and say they have a "good idea" which merely needs a "little work." It just doesnn't work that way. The recently debated "Cypherpunks Electronic Book" I suspect is like this. Sorting through 40 megabytes of Cypherpunks material for stuff to include in my FAQ, and organizing and writing for a couple of hours a day, I have a pretty clear idea of how much stuff is out there. A lot. A "Cypherpunks Electronic Book" is an even bigger project than the FAQ I'm working on. And I have grave doubts that my FAQ will be read by the very people that most need to read it, given their apparent failure to read the existing FAQs in sci.crypt, the RSADSI/Paul Fahn FAQ, the documentation as part of PGP, and Schneier's FAQ. (I hope I have not insulted anyone who is undeserving of insult. If my words apply to you, take it as a recommendation that you read the existing FAQs carefully.) So, if the CEB enthusiasts want to try this, I applaud them. I just don't see the point in trying to have it declared an Official Project (or whatever). If you want to do it, go ahead and do it. But don't expect that merely proposing the "idea" will mean others will "fill in the details." (And the "details" of the writing of sections are vastly more time-consuming than the mere issue of distributing!) Frankly, I favor the WWW/HTML/Mosaic/Lynx approach, and may eventually [Ado something along these lines with my FAQ. (My FAQ is written in a structured outline processor, "MORE" for the Mac, but of course will be distributed in straight ASCII. However, I can read it into FrameMaker, which I also have, and then--I hear, but haven't tried--embed HTML links to other articles, URLs, etc.) But this will have to wait. First things first. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."
participants (3)
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Gary Jeffers -
hughes＠ah.com -
tcmay＠netcom.com