Re: mailing list archive

Doh -- I thought my dataset included everything, but it instead just covers every article I can think of between:
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 93 22:53:39 BST From: whitaker@eternity.demon.co.uk (Russell E. Whitaker) Reply-To: whitaker@eternity.demon.co.uk To: cypherpunks@toad.com Cc: whitaker@eternity.demon.co.uk
and the present. I'm also feeling tempted to incorporate the archives of some of the offshoot mailing lists, like coderpunks, etc. Does anyone know of a good source for the messages before that one? How many were there, approximately? If there are a bunch of them and you can merge them with mine, I'll be happy to send you a cd of the result. If enough people want to buy CDs of the data, I'll set up an order page, establish pricing, etc. Right now, for me to make a CD requires buying media and doing it at the media lab, unless I buy a drive, so the cost is somewhat dependent upon how many people are interested. If someone wants to use corporate or government money to overpay for a cd so I can buy a cd-r writer and make it cheaper for everyone else, I'll think fondly of whatever organization you represent :) Utterly ignoring the copyright issues in the interest of getting wide dispersal, especially since it's unlikely anyone cares since no one will get rich selling cypherpunks cd-roms, Ryan (the last time I wished for something in parenthetical postscript it worked. Wish granting service, will you please make the people of the world clueful enough to replace governmental/military force with cryptography? Or convince one of my professors that they should sign a blank thesis?) -- Ryan Lackey rdl@mit.edu http://mit.edu/rdl/

At 11:27 AM -0700 11/18/97, Ryan Lackey wrote:
Does anyone know of a good source for the messages before that one? How many were there, approximately? If there are a bunch of them and you can merge them with mine, I'll be happy to send you a cd of the result.
You should talk to Hugh Daniel, who has a project to put the entire archives of the list from toad.com on a server, or whatever. (Hugh is working hard on the SWAN project, so this may be on the back burner.) My understanding is that essentially complete archives exist, possibly with some overlaps that would need some tuning or filtering, since the list went online in October 1992. (Until, of course, toad.com stopped being the host of the list.) I presume there must be "merge and filter out dupes" programs, based on message ID or some hash of the contents, to allow the many separate archives to be dumped into one giant data base and then sorted to weed out dupes.
If enough people want to buy CDs of the data, I'll set up an order page, establish pricing, etc. Right now, for me to make a CD requires buying media and doing it at the media lab, unless I buy a drive, so the cost is somewhat dependent upon how many people are interested. If someone wants to use corporate or government money to overpay for a cd so I can buy a cd-r writer and make it cheaper for everyone else, I'll think fondly of whatever organization you represent :)
You don't need to ask for donations...either use a CD-R burning service and charge enough to cover your costs and a bit more, or take a small gamble and set yourself up as your own CD-R burner (something you'll want for your Eternity Service anyway...for backups if for nothing else). I'm skeptical of charityware projects... A CD-ROM is no more expensive than a Cypherpunks t-shirt, and there have been several different versions of them. All done without asking for donations. I'll certainly order one or two of these CD-ROMs, if they're done reasonably well. The CD-ROM ought to be in format readable by the major platforms, which is usually not a big problem, if the right protocol is used. And probably just in sendmail "linear" file format, so that the mailers we have can read the file in. Getting fancy with sorting the messages into subdirectories would get hairy. Possibly the files could be arranged by month, or year. Many of the "Web archives," e.g., of the Extropians and Cypherpunks lists, apparently organize by months and years, so this software may already be available for you to use. I don't think you need to buy a CD-R for this one-shot product (though CD-R drives are now very cheap and you might want one for yourself, anyway). A vast number of services have sprung up to do this for you, for reasonable fees. Check the ad pages of any of the PC magazines, or do a Web search. (The way it works is that one sends them a disk drive, or Bernoullis, or MO disks, or tapes, properly formatted, and they do a run of disks. I have no idea what you have available, but you ought to be able to get access to an external 650 MB hard disk, which can then be taken down to a local burner outfit, probably one near you in Cambridge or Boston. They hook up the drive, transfer the files, and make the run.) A service will even label the CD-ROMs produced.
Utterly ignoring the copyright issues in the interest of getting wide dispersal, especially since it's unlikely anyone cares since no one will get rich selling cypherpunks cd-roms,
I wouldn't count on this. I think you can assume that at least _someone_ will raise a stink, if only to see the sparks fly (to mix some metaphors). At least someone will threaten to sue, claiming that their words are copyrighted. Furthermore, many of the posts over the years have contained copyrighted newspaper articles, copyrighted programs, even stolen material. This shouldn't discourage you, necessarily, and you may be able to use some protections as a "archiver" rather than as a "editor." (BTW, using editorial discretion to remove some items, such as "Wall Street Journal" copyrighted articles, or ASCII art insults, or RC4 code apparently liberated from RSADSI, etc., will _increase_ your liability and exposure, not decrease it. For you will then unambiguously be making editorial choices, and hence certain protections lapse.) --Tim May The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^2,976,221 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

At 01:27 PM 11/18/1997 EST, Ryan Lackey wrote:
If enough people want to buy CDs of the data, I'll set up an order page, establish pricing, etc. Right now, for me to make a CD requires buying media and doing it at the media lab, unless I buy a drive, so the cost is somewhat dependent upon how many people are interested. If someone wants
Remember that there's a lot of code in cypherpunks mail, at least in the early history of the list :-) So there's some risk of export restrictions applying, and you might have to limit your sales to Real Americans (or at least Real American mailing addresses.) Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, stewarts@ix.netcom.com Regular Key PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
participants (3)
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Bill Stewart
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Ryan Lackey
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Tim May