[ANON} War in rec.guns

17 Dec 2003

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{{Reply-To: john.nieder@tigerteam.org}}

 -=> Quoting Royce@ug.eds.com to All <=-

 Ro> Um..not to encourage more of your ranting, but you published email
 Ro> from the r.g moderator.

The post was a message in which the moderator admitted to killing my
pro-anon messages to the group.  THAT's why I cross-posted it.

 Ro> You may not remember McCarthy's "I have here a list of 157
 Ro> communists...", but this argument sounds a lot like it.

The moderator did not post pro-anon messages I received Cc:s of.
Period.  After I started raising hell and mentioning specific messages,
they showed up - after "closure," of course.  Some never showed.

 Ro> You claimed this, and the other posters who were "censored" were free
 Ro> to post here as proof.  No one but you seems to be doing this.

Probably they care even less than I do at this point.  Still, I stand by
what I said, as some the messages started showing up _after_ I made the
accusation.

 Ro> The points you made were not relevant to the discussion.  You weren't
 Ro> paying attention when I explained why the first time.

Once and for all - my points; refute them or shut up:

1:  "Real" accounts are easily simulated/spoofed.  Therefore, a "real
accounts only" policy gives no protection whatever from whatever it is
that the moderator and rec.guns regulars feared so much from remailed
posts.

2:  Remailed posts are not always anonymous.  Some users (myself
included) use remailers non-anonymously because our normal systems do
not have as much flexibility, particularly with headers [Cc:, Bcc:,
Reference:, etc] as some remailers provide.  This is especially true for
users of BBS systems and other store-and-forward arrangements.  Such
posts, even with sigs, CLEARSIGN, and Reply-To: fields were being killed
when sent to rec.guns, simply because they came through remailers.  This
was unreasonable.  Jacob Vetleson in particular claimed to have posted
many, many tech posts and articles that were killed because they went
through a remailer.

3:  Some participants on gun forums are uncomfortable using their
regular accounts, especially when posting from their business sites,
because of employer prejudice against firearms, and desire some degree
of anonymity - even the trivial anonymity provided by the simple,
unencrypted remailers - to protect their jobs.  I also know a _lot_ of
single women who do not like to post on _any_ newsgroup because they
fear harassment at their jobsites stemming from some weirdo tracking
them from their mail address.  There are plenty of other reasons to use
anonymous remailers.  You may think they're stupid, I may think they're
stupid, but that's none of our business.  The measures one takes for his
own defense and privacy are his own affair and his own responsibility,
whether this means getting a house gun or using a remailer for his
messaging.  It's not for me or you to judge.

4:  Someone (was it you?) smugly said that remailers were no good
anyway, because of other measures available for defeating them,
specifically traffic analysis.  I posted a message explaining at some
length the exhaustive countermeasures some of the more sophisticated
remailers (and remailer users) incorporate to defeat traffic analysis.
I didn't hear another peep about _that_ subject.

5:  The remailers are the brainchildren of extremely pro-RTKBA net
activists.  Ignorantly banning remailer use was pointlessly antagonistic
toward several very powerful, active and well-financed allies.

6:  Numerous people simply hated remailed posts "on principle."  My
answer to that was basically, "So what?"  I hated all the inane newbie
crap that got posed on rec.guns asking the same _stupid_ questions ten
or twelve times a week, usually how best to violate 922(r) or render an
otherwise good weapon worthless through brainless modifications, etc..
etc., etc.  You know what I do when I see posts I don't like or that
offend my sensibilities?  I scroll through them.  I killfile the author.
I don't bother to read them.  These are perfect solutions for those who
have irrational aversions to anon posts.  Look into them.

 Ro> Answer this: Does every newsreader have a killfile option?

Every setup I have used (six or seven, I think) has _some_ provision for
twitting, filtering or killfiling.  If yours doesn't, you might want to
look into a change, especially if other peoples' posts bother you so
much.  Having whole classes of posts censored from a newsgroup seems an
awfully inefficient way of setting up a twitfile...but that's exactly
what you are, in essence, advocating.

anonymous＠extropia.wimsey.com

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