I have been watching the debate on Cypherpunk Extremism, filtering spam, and the like and have a few comments. When Tim May claims that Cypherpunk solutions lead to elitism, he is more correct than Vullis or any of his ilk are willing to realize. The reasons for this are out of implementation, not out of any ill-will or evil intent. It is because it requires special knowledge and/or software to be able to implement the "solution(s)". (Note that I am only aware of his comments through quotes of his material. I have blocked him at the procmail level, so I cannot go back through trash and read the originals. Probably a good thing, as it keeps me from sinking to the level of flames and personal attacks. Attention Vullis revels in...) I have watched the conversations on filtering and have seen few, if any, methods that would be usable by a poster of average experience without alot of extra frustration and/or time involved. For a filtering or posting method to be useful (or used), it has to be uncumbersome to use, no matter the platform. Charging for posting is not (in my opinion) a good method because conversions from real cash to e-cash are not very easy and/or available at this time. It would leave the posting to the "elite" who have connections to e-cash acceptable to the list management. Tokens are nice, but most plans for them make it a pain to post with any sort of e-mail software. (Cut and pasting a token will work for one or two sites, but if a user posts to many lists, keeping track of all those tokens could become quite a pain. There is also the risk of people posting their tokens for general use or the token being used to track anonymous posters. PGP signatures are a solution, but not a very adequate one at this point. Most autosign software has one or two minor problems. The first is that they do not line wrap before signing the text. This causes the sig to break. The second thing that people get bitten by is that some signing software only takes the "default" key. This means that, without special effort, they are stuck with one key to use for signing. (Which makes anon postings a bit of a pain.) The reason anon.penet.fi became as popular as it did is because it was easier to use than the alternatives. A solution that is difficult to use will be left to an "elite" to use. (If used at all.) A good example of this is the PGP aware version of Majordomo. The traffic on one list using that software is little to none. I believe that this is because the "ante" to post is too high. (It also has strange desires for specific linefeed formats, as well as other things that make posting a chore.) The "solution" to this is to design tools that make use of these things usable, not only for the "elite", but for the rest of the user community. (Or at least the upper 70-90%. There has to be some level of knowledge for entry into the game. The difficulty is knowing where to set that "bar".) Netscape is a good example of "transparent" crypto. It has problems though. How many sites do you connect to that use SSL? Damn few I will bet. How many encrypt everything, not just the "important stuff". Next to none. Why? Getting a secure server costs a fair chunk of change. It is possible to get one for "non-commercial use", but it is still going to cost you a bit for the certificate needed to run the server. ($295 bucks and the list of hoop to jump through. Verisign usually wants you to be a corporate entity.) Any chance of a CPunk CA coming into existence any time soon? A better chance for "transparent" security is with the IPSec FreeSwan project. How many of you out there are willing to put in the effort to get it to work though? It does have a pretty high cost in knowledge and effort. (It also seems to have some places that need work. Non-Unix clients and sites feeding off of dynamic IPs are going to be a future hurdle.) It does have probability of making things a whole lot more difficult for the busybodies at the various TLAs. (The NSA krill nets will no longer be as effective.) Until the bugs are worked out, it will be an "elitist" solution. There is no escaping that. (And since there are people who would rather concentrate on personal feuds instead of technical hurdles, it will probably remain one for alot longer.) I would like to see alot less of the "elitist" solutions. My reasons are very plain. Elitist solutions take far too much of my time to use. They do not have to be that way. There are Cypherpunks doing work to make these tools more usable. Most of them are doing it in the background and not looking for the "glory". Because of the self-centered ranting of a few, most of those who were the strongest supporters of "Cypherpunk goals" no longer associate with the list. The ones who have my highest respect are those that have actually done something to accomplish those goals, instead of writing (semi-)anonymous flames and personal attacks against Tim May and/or John Gilmore. (I sometime what Vullis has done to promote privacy and security for individuals. His pissing in the list pool certainly has done nothing positive that I have seen.) [Note that I do not always agree with Tim May. There have been many time I have read his posts and wondered if he was indulging in chemical recreation. (And he has probably wondered the same about some of my posts. probably about this one...) Sometimes he is dead on and well worth reading. But his posts are at least thought out and lack the most of the vitriol that some others on this list have been spitting. Part of the problem with reputation schemes is that humans are not always consistent. Sometimes they do not fit into the "yes" or "no" boxes we try and stuff them into.] Those who are working towards "elitist" solutions are at least working towards solutions. I think people need to ask themselves what goals they desire for themselves and what it will take to get there. You don't need to write code necessarily, but you do need to do something other than just bitch and moan. What have you done to support privacy today? --- | If you're not part of the solution, You're part of the precipitate. | |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | |`finger -l alano@teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.ctrl-alt-del.com/~alan/ |alan@ctrl-alt-del.com|