(My apologies to all the peole I like whose e-mail I haven't answered yet) ichudov@algebra.com writes:

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote:

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"Timothy C. May" writes:

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At 1:20 PM -0600 2/11/97, Igor Chudov @ home wrote:

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If the people decide for creation of a new USENET newsgroup, we need to think very hard about actually moving it to a different hierarchy from alt.*. I would propose comp.org.cypherpunks, comp.cypherpunks, sci.crypt.cypherpunks or something like that.

A comp.* or sci.* newsgroup, if created, has the following advantages over an alt.* newsgroup:

1) There is usually less spam in sci.* or comp.* 2) There are virtually no completely irrelevant flamewars 3) The propagation will be a lot better 4) More people will be able to read it because of the issue of providers not carrying alt.*.

I see nothing that would make a sci.* or comp.* newsgroup worse than alt.* newsgroup.

Sure, and this has come up in every past discussion of creating "alt.cypherpunks."

But the creation of alt.cypherpunks is _easy_, and needs little permissio or support, whereas the creation of "soc.culture.cypherpunks" or whatever takes work, requires a vote, blah blah blah. And so it never gets off the ground.

(Nor is it clear to me, and perhaps not to others, that it belongs in the the various places Igor mentioned. Comp.org.cypherpunks probably is the best fit, but then many would cite the "comp" part to try to insist that only _computer_ topics be discussed. Likewise, the "soc" domain would ske discussion...etc. "Alt" has the nice advantage of explicitly not be part sci, or comp, or soc, or even talk.)

(I apologize to everyone whose e-mail has gone unanswered this week - I've had a bunch of other stuff to do, but I'll get to it eventually. Also, I posted the Anshel+Goldfield zeta function paten number - do check it out.)

Random thoughts:

1. A newsgroup like comp.privacy.cypherpunks will be carried on a lot of corprate news servers that don't carry alt.* (or even soc.*). Note that soc.org.cypherpunks is inappropriate since cp is *not* an organization. :-) Another possibility is sci.crypto.cypherpunks. (True, people whose corporat newsservers don't carry soc.* and talk.* can use dejanews - provided their firewall lets them.)

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2. It takes more work to create a comp.* newsgroup than an alt newsgroup. It takes a vote. I'm willing to be one of the proponents and generally help with the process. (Both I and Igor have been co-proponents of major Usenet newsgroups - don't know about other people onthis list. :-)

Not only it takes a vote. What is more important is what a vote gives: a good discussion of the newsgroup and the formal RFD/RFD/CFV process ensures that, on average, a good balance is found between various groups of readers.

I am not concerned as to what the name of the group will be, it is not important. What is important is that it should be in a more or less flame-free zone.

I'm concerned about smart people stuck behind corporate firewalls and able to see comp.* and sci.*. Nearly every big Wall St firm is that way. Did I ever relate to you the story how I had to break through the firwall at GS to accomplish mywork?

It is too late to stop alt.cypherpunks, but if I had to make a prediction again, I would predict that soon posters will BEG to help them create comp.*.cypherpunks, because of spam and alt.flamage.

Timmy has a valid point: the reason why a comp.* newsgroup might have less cross-posted and "off-topic" crap is because net.cops would be more likely to complain to posters' sysadmins. Having a charter state that cypherpunks have technical means to ignore traffic they don't like, and don't need anyone forging cancels or complaining to sysadmins or otherwise getting silenced, is a good idea. What's going to happen when (not if) someone posts something in alt.cypherpunks that Chris Lewis (spit) judges to be "spam" and forges a cancel? Or someone posts a binary and Richard "little dick" Depew forges a cancel?

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3. An unmoderated Usenet newsgroup would have even ore crap than this maili list. I've been thinking of how to deal with crap, and with the obvious des by some people to delegate their decision what to read and what not to read to other people.

It is alt.* and soc.* that has most crap, sci and comp are way better.

There's a bunch of net.cops in e.g. comp.lang.eiffel that complain to sysadmins of anyone posting to that newsgroup who's in a member of the "in" crowd". It may or may not cut down on the crap, but is it worth it?

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Most people don't have nocem-enabled newareaders yet... Which is where the network of cypherpunks majordomos Igor's been busy creating comes in very handy.

It is a very good idea to let NoCeM issuers and filterers work independently from list nodes.

Yes - from the legal liability point of view (since it bothers the lying cocksucker Gilmore (spit, fart, belch) so much): suppose someone anonymously posts skipjack source code to alt.cypherpunks. Under the present systen, say, the arachelian asshole might decide not to forward it to his mailing list feaing the NSA. NoCeM's can separate the function of highlighting interesting articles from the function of forwarding these articles to subscribers who only want to see the highlighted articles. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

ichudov@algebra.com (Igor Chudov @ home) writes:

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote:

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[...] Timmy has a valid point: the reason why a comp.* newsgroup might have less cross-posted and "off-topic" crap is because net.cops would be more likely to complain to posters' sysadmins. [...]

As for net.cops, check out what Scott Nudds does in comp.lang.c++ [...]

Yes, Scott Nudds is a good example of how dedicated flamers (or maybe he is just a flamee trying to defend himself, I came too late to say for sure), and those who fuel them on, can cause even a comp.* newsgroup to be as noisy as this list. (Btw, if you think comp.lang.c++ is bad, check out comp.lang.asm.x86, sometime!). I think it is, thus, important to distinguish between noise from "outsiders", and noise caused by "insiders" who actually read the newsgroup but disrupt it for fun or grudges, or what not. A comp.* newsgroup will help reduce the former noise, for the reasons Dr. Vulis cites, but not so much the latter, since many insider trouble-makers are often their own adminstraters or providers, or who have found providers or who now have admins who will not cut them off. That being said, I fully support the idea of a comp.* newgroup, over an alt.* group. The important advantages are the greater propogation many have described, and the reduction in "outsider" noise. I also think that people interested in computing in general might be more likely to stumble onto the newsgroup, since the comp.* hierachy is so much smaller than the alt.* hierachy. I do worry, however, that some of the more mischevious people around this list might try to disrupt the voting process with forged e-mail, or turn the discussion over creation into a less than civil debate. In this unlinkely worst case scenario, however, not much would be lost since we could still fall back to alt.cypherpunks, and it would, later, make for good net.legends. :) To be fair, though, I doubt that anyone would seriously try to disrupt the creation, given the dedication I am seeing people putting into finding a new home (or homes!) for the list, and that there does not seem to be anyone dedicated to distrupting that process as John Gilmore worried there would be. (And I am on the unedited list, too!) Let's give it a shot! Leonard

"Timothy C. May" writes:

[...] Given that _political_ discussions of crypto are now encouraged in _talk_.politics.crypto (emphasis added) rather than sci.crypt, do you think political and social essays dealing with crypto anarchy, offshore databases, undermining governments, etc., will be welcome in the "comp" hierarchy?

I rather doubt it. And I would bet that if comp.org.cypherpunks is ever approved, those who dislike crypto anarchy and sociopolitical chatter will use the "comp" name to try to suppress such discussions. [...]

I think that the statement of our desire to create a new group should clearly indicate that the discussion group is of a special nature due to the tight integration of technical and political discussions. Cypherpunks are trying to achieve political goals through technological means, so it is difficult, and not regarded as desirable to produce a false dichotomy for discussions. As an example, we could cite the Linux newsgroups like comp.os.linux.misc. Linux is a piece of software written to help achieve a political goal, and, thus, in the Linux groups it is not considered off-topic to philosophize about these goals or the future as and after Linux knocks Microsoft out of the market. :) talk.politics.crypto and sci.crypt can, then, easily be argued against since the discussions there are much more restricted than what we desire.

[...] You really think whoever is spamming the list with ASCII art and broke into Paul's account to post hundreds of "John Gilmore is a cocksucker" posts will back off because of the "dedication" of some? To the perverse personality, this is merely a greater challenge and temptation. [...]

Given that you have been on the list a great deal longer than I, I do respect that you may have deeper insights into the mind of the "perverse personality" than I do. I, however, am not aware of evidence that the person or persons behind the disruptions since the middle of last year would try to interrupt a democratic USENET creation vote. My recollection of the history is that the initial attacks were directed at you personally. Dr. Vulis was blamed for them and thus, apparently, became the target of nasty e-mailings to his site. He responded to this by spamming the list with rather large articles on Armenian war crimes and forwardings of the messages. At that point Gilmore booted Vulis. Gilmore then became a target of attack and, it seems that many (presumably) innocent bystanders were unwittingly subscribed to the list in an effort to cause more work, and, hence, annoyance to Gilmore when they complained about the unwanted mail. At this point many new personalities seemed to materialize out of nowhere bent on doing nothing more than fueling flame wars. Then the "moderation experiment" (fiasco)... I do not see in this evidence, however, that any of the disruptors would target the process of the creating a new group USENET group. At first, the the disruptor could easily have rationalized that anonymous, personal attacks were fair play, since anarachists favour no explicit rules with regards to speech. After Vulis was removed by Gilmore the disruptor could then rationalize that "anything goes" since list had then passed from a state of anarchy to one with Gilmore trying to decide who could or not be on the list. (I do not think that these conjectued rationalizations are valid myself, but am just trying to give an my thoughts on the psychology of the "perverse personality".) USENET nesgroup creation is whole new ball game, however. There are explicitly defined rules and the process is intended to be democratic. If my guess as to the identity of the person masterminding the attacks is correct, that person seems to have democratic sympathies or, at least, be strongly opposed to even hints of censorship, so I do not think he would attempt to disrupt the process of deciding if a new group is created or not since that would both be inferring in a democratic process and an attempt to prevent a group of people from creating a discussion group, and thus, himself, becoming a censor. (This makes me think that given that the process is intended to be democratic, it may be more fitting that a more anarchisticly method is used to create an "alt.*" group for cyphepunks than the democratic one used to create a "comp.*" one.) In any case, if you have deeper insights than mine into the mind of the disruptor, or evidence that he or she or them would try to disrupt a comp.* newsgroup creation proces, I would be eager to hear them. Leonard