Hi, The text below is what I wrote for cypherpunks@algebra.com to be sent to new subscribers. Feel free to criticize. - Igor. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ About cypherpunks mailing lists ------------------------------- * * * ATTENTION: PLEASE SAVE THIS MESSAGE IN A MAIL FOLDER!!! IT WILL BE * * * HELPFUL FOR YOU WHEN YOU WANT TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM cypherpunks MAILING * * * LIST. * * * * * * DO NOT JUST DELETE THIS MESSAGE. I. Administrivia (please read, boring though it may be) The cypherpunks list cypherpunks@algebra.com is one of the cypherpunks mailing lists discussing cryptography, privacy, and social issues relating to them. These lists are connected to each other in such a way that all messages appear on all of these lists. All of these lists are high-volume mailing lists. There are several reasons for existence of multiple mailing lists that are inter-subscribed. The main reason is the large number of subscribers and limited bandwidth of each of the participating list nodes -- each node can take on only that many users. Most people will not want to subscribe to more than one of these lists. If you don't know how to do something, like unsubscribe, send mail to majordomo@algebra.com and the software robot which answers that address will send you back instructions on how to do what you want. If you don't know the majordomo syntax, an empty message to this address will get you a help file, as will a command 'help' in the body. Even with all this automated help, you may still encounter problems. If you get really stuck, please feel free to contact me directly at the address I use for mailing list management: cypherpunks-request@algebra.com Please use this address for all mailing list management issues. Hint: if you try to unsubscribe yourself from a different account than you signed up for, it likely won't work. Log back into your old account and try again. If you no longer have access to that account, mail me at the list management address above. Also, please realize that there will be some cypherpunks messages "in transit" to you at the time you unsubscribe. If you get a response that says you are unsubscribed, but the messages keep coming, wait a day and they should stop. Do not mail to the whole list asking to be removed. It's rude ans stupid. To post to the whole list, send mail to cypherpunks@algebra.com If your mail bounces repeatedly, you will be removed from the list. Nothing personal, but I have to look at all the bounce messages. There is no digest version available. There is a meta list which discusses the architecture and other issues of the distributed cypherpunks lists. It is not intended to be used for crypto discussions. if you want to be added or removed to the metadiscussion list, send a message "subscribe cypherpunks-hosts" to majordomo@algebra.com. II. About cypherpunks The cypherpunks list is not designed for beginners, although they are welcome. If you are totally new to crypto, please get and read the crypto FAQ referenced below. This document is a good introduction, although not short. Crypto is a subtle field and a good understanding will not come without some study. Please, as a courtesy to all, do some reading to make sure that your question is not already frequently asked. There are other forums to use on the subject of cryptography. The Usenet group sci.crypt deals with technical cryptography; cypherpunks deals with technical details but slants the discussion toward their social implications. The Usenet group talk.politics.crypto, as is says, is for political theorizing, and cypherpunks gets its share of that, but cypherpunks is all pro-crypto; the debates on this list are about how to best get crypto out there. The Usenet group alt.security.pgp is a pgp-specific group, and questions about pgp as such are likely better asked there than here. Ditto for alt.security.ripem. alt.cypherpunks is indended as a mirror USENET forum for this mailing list. III. Posting Policy. Please note that some members of cypherpunks mailing list may surprise you as very rude people. You may see views that sound very offensive to you. You will also see many articles that make no sense to you, are very stupid, or appear to be commercial advertisements. Consider such situation to be a price of YOUR freedom to post anything you want. Remember that speech that pleases everyone needs no protection: it is the offensive speech that is most often assaulted and thus needs to be protected. Also, speech that you find silly and distasteful may seem to be of great use for others. If you feel that some poster's articles are not useful and offensive to you, you can set up your mail reading software to ignore all articles coming from that person. Ignoring them silently has shown to be the best way of dealing with them. It will save you a lot of your own time. Even though you are free do write anything, please consider not following up to their posts with suggestions to shut them up. It only decreases usefulness of this mailing list. Eudora for Windows is known for its mail filtering capability. Procmail is a tool of choice for Unix users who want to filter their articles. Please read the documentation for these programs to find out how to set them to filter and delete unwanted messages. None of the above precludes the administrator of this mailing list to use tools protecting his hardware and bandwidth from denial of service attacks. If someone maliciously mailbombs cypherpunks mailing list, the mail bombs may be silently ignored and not passed on to the list. IMPORTANT: the list owner does not monitor the content of the messages appearing here. I disclaim any liability whatsoever for the content of articles on cypherpunks@algebra.com. If you have a problem with any materials posted here, please contact the poster to resolve them. Your use of the resources of this list constitutes an agreement with these terms. You have been warned. IV. Resources. A. The sci.crypt FAQ anonymous ftp to rtfm.mit.edu:/pub/usenet-by-group/sci.crypt The cryptography FAQ is good online intro to crypto. Very much worth reading. Last I looked, it was in ten parts. B. cypherpunks ftp site anonymous ftp to ftp.csua.berkeley.edu:/pub/cypherpunks This site contains code, information, rants, and other miscellany. There is a glossary there that all new members should download and read. Also recommended for all users are Hal Finney's instructions on how to use the anonymous remailer system; the remailer sources are there for the perl-literate. C. Bruce Schneier's _Applied Cryptography_, published by Wiley This is required reading for any serious technical cypherpunk (and there are no non-technical cypherpunks). An excellent overview of the field, it describes many of the basic algorithms and protocols with their mathematical descriptions. Some of the stuff at the edges of the scope of the book is a little incomplete, so short descriptions in here should lead to library research for the latest papers, or to the list for the current thinking. All in all, a solid and valuable book. It's even got the cypherpunks-request address. Enjoy and deploy. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cypherpunks assume privacy is a good thing and wish there were more of it. Cypherpunks acknowledge that those who want privacy must create it for themselves and not expect governments, corporations, or other large, faceless organizations to grant them privacy out of beneficence. Cypherpunks know that people have been creating their own privacy for centuries with whispers, envelopes, closed doors, and couriers. Cypherpunks do not seek to prevent other people from speaking about their experiences or their opinions. The most important means to the defense of privacy is encryption. To encrypt is to indicate the desire for privacy. But to encrypt with weak cryptography is to indicate not too much desire for privacy. Cypherpunks hope that all people desiring privacy will learn how best to defend it. Cypherpunks are therefore devoted to cryptography. Cypherpunks wish to learn about it, to teach it, to implement it, and to make more of it. Cypherpunks know that cryptographic protocols make social structures. Cypherpunks know how to attack a system and how to defend it. Cypherpunks know just how hard it is to make good cryptosystems. Cypherpunks love to practice. They love to play with public key cryptography. They love to play with anonymous and pseudonymous mail forwarding and delivery. They love to play with DC-nets. They love to play with secure communications of all kinds. Cypherpunks write code. They know that someone has to write code to defend privacy, and since it's their privacy, they're going to write it. Cypherpunks publish their code so that their fellow cypherpunks may practice and play with it. Cypherpunks realize that security is not built in a day and are patient with incremental progress. Cypherpunks don't care if you don't like the software they write. Cypherpunks know that software can't be destroyed. Cypherpunks know that a widely dispersed system can't be shut down. Cypherpunks will make the networks safe for privacy. [Last updated Sun Feb 16 13:10:56 CST 1997 ichudov@algebra.com] [Adopted from the original version by John Gilmore and Eric Hughes]