Dissolving Choke Points
I was amused by the similarities of USG crypto policy and the moderation of the cypherpunks list. Recently a number of new regulations were announced to go into effect by a certain date. Requests for comments were made after the policy was announced. Many of us thought that was pretty sneaky. I feel the same way about the moderation plan. Moderation has been a failure. I'm pretty good at filtering and I can sadly report that there is very little signal out there. There are lessons to be learned here. One is that censorship does not promote a stimulating and creative dialogue. The cypherpunks list right now is about as interesting as hanging out by the 7-11. Another lesson is the danger of choke points. We can see how tempting it is for people to exercise their control. Even John Gilmore was unable to restrain himself from involuntary social engineering experiments. Who would we have considered to be more trustworthy? Toad.com is a choke point, not just in terms of moderation but in terms of the rate at which it can distribute messages. Let's replace it. What we want are many machines carrying the cypherpunks list. A message posted to any machine goes to all of the others. Each machine sends messages to its subscribers only once. Some of these machines should be across borders. The mail loop and multiple posting problems are solved by observing the message IDs. Fast implementation: use moderated mailing list software. Put a filter in the .forward file of the "moderator" account which looks at the message ID and forwards the message if it hasn't been seen already. The mailing list machines all subscribe each other. I've been looking for a stable machine with a good net connection to do this. I haven't found one. However, if we have many machines sharing the load, the stability of any one unit is not as important because the list will survive multiple "hits". Only the subscribers on one machine will be affected by having their messages delayed. This greatly reduces the work and responsibility for any one list operator. (As John will attest, keeping a machine running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, rain or shine, is a lot of work.) Also, with multiple machines, each unit handles a small amount of the load. This makes more machines available and has less impact on people's net connections. Last I checked, there were about 1200 addresses on the mailing list at toad.com. All we need are about 10 machines to take 120 subscribers each. (This is a completely manageable load.) Do you have a Unix machine on the Net? Does it have sendmail and Perl? Then you have all that it takes to participate. Send me mail and I'll help you set it up. Peter Hendrickson ph@netcom.com P.S. I like and respect John and Sandy and I've learned a lot from both of them. While basically well-intentioned, they just made a mistake in this instance.
i do have unix (linux) and stuff, but i can't take a lot of subscribers -- maybe 200-300 or so. i actually wrote a proposal for a mailing list without a central control point, with several advantages being impossibility of control, absense of a single point of failure, and cryptographic verification of honesty of moderators. if there is any interest, i will post it here. igor Peter Hendrickson wrote:
I was amused by the similarities of USG crypto policy and the moderation of the cypherpunks list. Recently a number of new regulations were announced to go into effect by a certain date. Requests for comments were made after the policy was announced. Many of us thought that was pretty sneaky. I feel the same way about the moderation plan.
Moderation has been a failure. I'm pretty good at filtering and I can sadly report that there is very little signal out there.
There are lessons to be learned here. One is that censorship does not promote a stimulating and creative dialogue. The cypherpunks list right now is about as interesting as hanging out by the 7-11.
Another lesson is the danger of choke points. We can see how tempting it is for people to exercise their control. Even John Gilmore was unable to restrain himself from involuntary social engineering experiments. Who would we have considered to be more trustworthy?
Toad.com is a choke point, not just in terms of moderation but in terms of the rate at which it can distribute messages. Let's replace it.
What we want are many machines carrying the cypherpunks list. A message posted to any machine goes to all of the others. Each machine sends messages to its subscribers only once. Some of these machines should be across borders.
The mail loop and multiple posting problems are solved by observing the message IDs.
Fast implementation: use moderated mailing list software. Put a filter in the .forward file of the "moderator" account which looks at the message ID and forwards the message if it hasn't been seen already. The mailing list machines all subscribe each other.
I've been looking for a stable machine with a good net connection to do this. I haven't found one. However, if we have many machines sharing the load, the stability of any one unit is not as important because the list will survive multiple "hits". Only the subscribers on one machine will be affected by having their messages delayed. This greatly reduces the work and responsibility for any one list operator. (As John will attest, keeping a machine running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, rain or shine, is a lot of work.)
Also, with multiple machines, each unit handles a small amount of the load. This makes more machines available and has less impact on people's net connections.
Last I checked, there were about 1200 addresses on the mailing list at toad.com. All we need are about 10 machines to take 120 subscribers each. (This is a completely manageable load.)
Do you have a Unix machine on the Net? Does it have sendmail and Perl? Then you have all that it takes to participate. Send me mail and I'll help you set it up.
Peter Hendrickson ph@netcom.com
P.S. I like and respect John and Sandy and I've learned a lot from both of them. While basically well-intentioned, they just made a mistake in this instance.
- Igor.
Peter Hendrickson writes:
Moderation has been a failure. I'm pretty good at filtering and I can sadly report that there is very little signal out there.
The quality of the Cypherpunks list is determined solely by the amount of signal. The amount of noise is irrelevant. Barring someone continuously mail-bombing the list 24 hours a day from a T3, it is easy to pick and choose the posts one wishes to read, and wipe the rest with a single keystroke afterwards. I read the list selectively depending upon the amount of free time I have. I always try to read serious crypto articles, and all posts by Tim, Hal, Eric, Duncan, and a few other notables. If I have additional time, I will read other threads of interest, a little Vulis, and selected Toto, who happens to be a very funny person at times. Now that we have moderation, I can't do this while subscribed to the main list, and have to live in eternal fear that I am writing for an audience of 20 every time I respond to something on the unedited list. Foo on that. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"
pdh@best.com (Peter Hendrickson) writes:
What we want are many machines carrying the cypherpunks list. A message posted to any machine goes to all of the others. Each machine sends messages to its subscribers only once. Some of these machines should be across borders.
Ever heard of Usenet? It works exactly like that...
Eric Cordian wrote:
Peter Hendrickson writes:
Moderation has been a failure. I'm pretty good at filtering and I can sadly report that there is very little signal out there.
The quality of the Cypherpunks list is determined solely by the amount of signal. The amount of noise is irrelevant. [snip] Now that we have moderation, I can't do this while subscribed to the main list, and have to live in eternal fear that I am writing for an audience of 20 every time I respond to something on the unedited list. Foo on that.
I wonder how Sandy will take the vote on continuing or abandoning the moderation experiment? In most states, one juror out of 12 can kill a conviction. In a revolution such as U.S. 1776, only a tiny percent of the people supported the revolution. Will Sandy go with a majority decision (pure democratic), or allow the moderation to go away if a significant minority wants to kill it?
participants (5)
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Dale Thorn -
Eric Cordian -
ichudov＠algebra.com -
nobody＠zifi.genetics.utah.edu -
pdh＠best.com