Hello everyone. I am a bit unclear as to what cypherpunks are really promoting as far as privacy vs. pseudospoofing. The lack of official comments by head cypherpunks make this difficult to sort out. Clearly, you are in favor of some forms of pseudospoofing. Here is a list of all the various forms I can think of. Please indicate which ones you are in favor of. These are just some tentative names I'm coming up off the top of my head for terminology. pseudonymity: a name that is not traceable to a particular human being. 1) straight pseudonymity: the audience is aware of the fact that the name is not traceable. (e.g. anon.penet.fi aliases, some book pseudonyms.) 2) semipseudonymity: the audience is not aware of whether or not the name can be traced, and makes no assumption. 3) quasipseudonymity: the audience tends to assume from context that the name is traceable, but it is not. I think email addresses fall in this category, but (unfortunately IMHO) that is increasingly becoming the exception. 4) pseudoanonymity: the audience is deliberately deceived into thinking the name is traceable when it is not. (e.g. a tentacle saying `I am a real person.' or someone else vouching for them.) Now, I have no objections to 1-2. And one can indeed have privacy with them. But it seems to me that all the cypherpunks are promoting 3-4 in the name of `privacy'. But it seems to me that (3) is misleading, and (4) means active lies. These are not privacy. These are the tools that criminals use to evade punishment for their crimes. Also, one *must* make the distinction between *active* and *passive* pseudonymity. If I read a book, I am not conversing with the author. I am not asking him any questions about his identity. This strikes me as harmless in most cases even if the reader is tricked into thinking the name is `traceable'. But the interactive pseudonyms, those possible with the internet, are extremely dangerous, because someone can actively lie to me when I ask `who are you?'. And it really discourages me that all you cypherpunks (e.g. J. Gilmore) think it is all the same thing, Privacy. So, which do you favor? (Please do not continue to obfuscate the issue by pretending that they are all identical.) Cypherpunks, I don't think you all understand the whole purpose of names in the first place. They were invented so that we could function as a society. The ability to `trace' a name to a human being is a very basic aspect of social interaction and ettiquete. Every day that you corrupt that trust you are not only breaking down governments, but honest interactions. I am beginning to think that not only do the leaders have secrets from the followers, they have secrets from each other. Imagine one leader asking the other through a tentacle, `what do you think of so-and-so'? yee, gad. Where is your trust, cypherpunks? Why are you so paranoid? In my experience, the people I have met that are the least trusting of others are also the most paranoid. But they are also the most secretive themselves. When you keep secrets from other people, you begin to think the whole world is keeping secrets from you. Is all of history a big lie to massage the egos of some people? The Bible is probably entirely fictional too, right? Don't you people know you are playing with fire? Active pseudoanonymity is used to start riots and wars. I plant people around the mob or in a country who agitate for the destruction of everyone. And real people get caught up in the passions. Perhaps you think you can control this. You are mistaken. He who lives by a mob, dies by a mob. What is the consensus on that delightful little Nazi story about pseudospoofing for espionage purposes? A glorious example of the delights of pseudoanonymity? Something to strive for? This is the story that I was going to send you all when your leaders told me what they knew about pseudospoofing, that I was talking about for a long time. But S.Boxx sent it before I had the chance. BTW I have misplaced the comments from the leaders that said they didn't pseudospoof, could someone email them to me?