RECIPE FOR INSANITY =================== I'm extremely FRUSTRATED and DEJECTED on the progress the `whistleblowing newsgroup' has undergone as a cypherpunk pet-project: pathetically negligible and STYMIED, from my point of view. It has been many weeks since a rowdy, visionary, and consistently irritating cypherpunk first proposed it and immediate ringing endorsements came from eminent and venerable members of the list, e.g. T.C. May. It has generated quite a bit of traffic and ideas on the list. In spirit and intent is probably as central to the cypherpunk cause, as, say, PGP. WHERE'S THE GROUP? ================== I swear I am going to go INSANE waiting for some patriotic cyberpunk with a smidgeon of skill, courage, impatience, knowledge, and access to send out a NEW GROUP command for alt.whistleblower! Did I miss it? Where the heck is it? Please, I IMPLORE SOMEONE to PUT ME OUT OF MY MISERY! FIRE NOW! Damn, we have the stench of alt.fan.dick-depew wafting as easily as most mortal people create directories! PLEASE, I swear whoever gets alt.whistleblower gets to be in my personal historical all-time CYPHERPUNK HALL OF FAME and have my everlasting gratitude! Never before in the history of Usenet has something so trivial thwarted so many for so long! Sheesh, I thought it would be SIMPLE for someone to effect SOMETHING to happen in this area. I thought I wouldn't have to slave away entirely personally in going through the RFD and voting process, if even that was necessary! For once I thought this would be a project that every cypherpunk could bite off a piece somewhere, and that some COLLECTIVE MOMENTUM could be established! I thought this could happen faster than the speed of electricity. Instead it is happening slower than the SPEED OF BUREACRACY. Am I starting to sound enough like a CRACKPOT YET? well I really hope so. <tremble> I think I am going to break down and cry. Please, someone, have some humanity in you, and PULL THE TRIGGER. Are we waiting for a triplicate directive from Clinton, or the NSA, or what?! Do we have to make sure every vacillating cypherpunk likes the idea or every last senator is personally prepared with their Official WhistleBlower Kit and Decoder Ring? Who cares what anyone thinks! JUST DO IT! BOILING A TOAD? =============== Gad, it is such a g*dawful tragedy this simple take-out-the-trash chore has not been done yet. Look, I don't know about the authenticity of the recent Mycotronx postings, they make me SHUDDER! They are PERFECT AMMUNITION (whether true or not) for getting some MAJOR HEAT on the maintainers of this fragile mailing list! Does anyone have any idea how paranoid and POWERFUL the NSA is? Do you think that they just shrug their shoulders and say `oh well' when confidential information sneaks out? Do you know what kind of unpleasantness a wounded bureacrat can summon? Multiply that uncountably many times and you have a tiny facet of the decimating wrath of a betrayed horde of spies sanctioned by a vast government! Gad, this could all have been ENTIRELY AVOIDED if they were posted to a newsgroup! As I've pointed out, the critical *resilient* aspect there is that a newsgroup is *distributed* -- post from anywhere, spreads everywhere like a virus, how can a sinister federal agency clamp down on a cloud? It can't! On the other hand, if anyone decided to clamp down on toad.com, after a certain amount -- certainly a great deal but definitely a lot less than that required to shutdown Usenet -- it would CROAK! PARANOID DELUSIONS ================== Yes, I really am going insane. Clark Reynard <clark@metal.psu.edu> posted a few weeks ago he was starting the RFD for soc.whistleblowers. In my silly naivete I thought enough cypherpunks would drop by to make it a landslide, and that I'd mosey on over after hearing about all the excitement. Review the debate, balance the points, post something fiery and visionary and inspiring, sit back and watch the fireworks. Finally, I thought, someone who knew what they were doing could get this silly thing HAPPENING. Someone could be a LEADER and take RESPONSIBILITY. Someone could give some DIRECTION to the pervasive cypherpunk malaise, stalemate, and bickering. Someone who was forging AHEAD irrespective of counterproductive and sabotaging griping. What the heck happened? Did anything happen? This is not only dead without a bang, it is dead without a whimper! Mr. Reynard posts on Tue May 4:

Based on the responses of a few cypherpunk members, I have decided not to post a second RFD for soc.whistleblowers unless I receive a significant amount of email requesting that I do so. Nor will I post a CFV.

My sanity is teetering precipitously. Who were these cypherpunk `members'? Mr. Reynard refuses to identify `them' to me in email. He says that someone has asked him NOT to personally start the whistleblower group! and that this person deserves his trust because of his reputed contributions to the cypherpunk cause! Gee, I asked, who could this be that would ask to HALT PROGRESS for some vague, nebulous, unspecified reason that even Mr. Reynard was not aware of? Look, I would have gladly saved all this bilge for private email, but I DON'T KNOW WHO TO TALK TO! Supposedly this person, for some unfathomable reason, specifically told Mr. Reynard NOT to reveal his identity! I will not quote email, but Mr. Reynard kindly sympathizes with my frenzy, but still refuses to tell me anything informative! So ever since May 4 and trading several barren and excruciatingly exasperating missives with Mr. Reynard, I am BOILING OVER! This mystery person is supposedly going to post something on the whistleblower project, acc. to Mr. Reynard, Real Soon Now to the list that will absolutely dazzle everyone with its magnificent splendor. Well, WHERE IS IT? (Note to the clueless: *this* is certainly not IT!) MUSHROOMS AND PUDDING ===================== I find it OUTRAGEOUS the weaselly and underhanded way this mystery individual, apparently wholly intentionally, has TOTALLY STYMIED and THWARTED the SOLE cypherpunk progress in this area. Cypherpunks, do you feel like trampled mushrooms yet? well I DO. Not only that, Mr. Reynard wrote cryptically:

While I find the imputation that I ought to be executed as an Enemy of the People both offensive and absurd, it seems that I could be acting retrogressively, though no sane reason why I am doing so has been presented to me.

who is it that levelled these atrocious, filthy accusations? Mr. Reynard took it upon himself to do a PUBLIC SERVICE. Who is it that suggested that it was anything but valiant heroism? Speak, I demand it! Reveal yourself! From whence comes this treasonous, traitorous slime? Where is the DOUBLE AGENT in our midst?

I will allow others to continue their efforts, and would be pleased to help in whatever manner I can, but do not wish to foment further splintering of what is already a divided group.

Please Mr. Reynard, isn't it clear that the cypherpunks will forever have more splinters than a shredded beam? Who CARES what anybody else thinks! Isn't there any SCRAP of INTRINSIC MERIT in this project? Is `cypherpunks' just the brand name for MUSHY GUTLESS SPINELESS PUDDING? Look, if somebody is doing a lot to get the whistleblower group going, I PRAISE AND COMMEND YOU. But so far I see ABSOLUTELY NO SIGNS anything is happening! After weeks of hypothetical hyperventilating, we have nothing but a DEAD CORPSE! In this fragile and critical period, I would rather make a fool of myself shouting than be silent as it LANGUISHES INTO OBLIVION.

If interest warrants, or opinion seems different than what I understand it to be, I reserve the right to change my mind.

INTEREST WARRANTS! CHANGE YOUR MIND! If not you, then SOMEBODY! If not now, then IMMEDIATELY! CAVEAT ====== Ok, so others on the list will find my rantings most unpalatable and tell me so in email and on the list, perhaps even humiliating me with epithets and personal attacks, despite that, while bordering precariously, this note is free of them. I DON'T CARE! I'm a desperate man! This thing is just too IMPORTANT for me to care about STEPPING ON SOME TOES or BLOODYING MY NOSE. It is the first feeble step toward a kingdom of Electronic Democracy, and we are just tripping and falling over each other like drunken legislators! Yes, some will say `what are you doing about it personally?' I am WAITING FOR THE GROUP TO BE CREATED so a tentative FAQ CAN BE POSTED THERE! (FAQs do not arise in vacuums, they are forged from posting and feedback! I speak from experience!) No, my worthless, prejudiced, personal FAQ for whistleblowers is NOT WRITTEN, because right now, for strange and mysterious reasons I will leave to the reader to prophesize, to do so currently would SCANDALOUS WASTE OF MY TIME! 'scuze me while I go get some water, i'm getting hoarse...