Re: CYPHERPUNK considered harmful
David Lambert <dcl@panix.com> writes:
Peter Trei <trei@process.com> wrote:
Terms like 'cypherpunk' and 'cryptoanarchy' tend to pigeonhole us as nutcases for many people, and are a barrier to getting our ideas across. I'm not saying this pigeonholing is correct - in fact I despise people who judge a book by it's cover, but so many people DO make such snap judgements that we need to take this into account when talking to the general public.
Two of the responses to the "An opportunity..." post unapologetically admitted that they refused to read the text of the message due to the presence of the word "cypherpunk" in the first sentence.
Shows you what we're up against.
BTW, I'm not for changing the name of the list, but I do see the logic in a more establishment-friendly name to use when lobbying the public.
There is likely some truth to the cypherpunk turning some people off before they listen, but also as has already been said 'cypherpunks' has it advantages too: catchy, gets the media imagination, and has an established reputation, and set of accomplishmensts. One thing I have been thinking would be nice would be a USENET newsgroup, as mailing lists are a step away from easy access which some people never make. It makes it less easy to browse and see what it's about, interacting with majordomo software might seem very intuitive to most members, but not all will be so comfortable signing up their mailbox (which they possibly pay for per K), and may indeed lack the expertise required to do the job. There are serveral archives of cpunks, but these don't tend to be as well known as newsgroups. More people might come across cypherpunks ideas, and the technology for remailers, disk encryptors, discussions of nym servers, steganorgraphy, IPSEC, etc if they were in a newsgroup, perhaps even within the comp, soc, or sci hierarchies. One thing I have discovered in myself is a reluctance to subscribe to too many mailing lists, as the volume, and management of the resulting traffic piped your way can be overwelming (yes I know there are various filters to split off traffic into separate mbox files). I think it is a shame that things like the nym server discussion which sounded very interesting to me got split off into a separate group, I'd just as soon see the discussion here, for reluctance to subscribe to yet more groups reasons, and because it sounded like it wasn't very high volume anyway. Same for the stego group discussions. If it's all in one place at least I can skim that for interesting things. Both of those discussions I think would contribute to the signal ratio here. But, Peter's stated aims sound useful, of promulgating cypherpunks technolgy, and ideas to as large an audience as possible. Definately a very important aim, and one that lots of people already devote some time and thought to. Might I suggest that a newsgroup would be a way to go? There are already a number of security, privacy, and crypto related groups, but they tend to have their own pattern of flow, you know penet.fi problems on alt.privacy.anon-server, alt.privacy (dunno not read much), alt.security.pgp pgp usage, David Sterlight fueled discussions, some ITAR stuff, talk.politics.crypto, crypto politics, comp.org.eff.talk, there must be a few others. Peter's FAQ like document was very nicely worded for avoidance of any connotations of conspiracy or 'punkery' which might put off the less adventurous souls, the more conservative. How about it? Reckon cypherpunks as a group has enough readers to hmm, push through a vote for group creation, if the majority thought it was a useful exercise. A group soley for what? cypherpunks technology, social impacts and education, a place where someone would go with security questions, and to learn about the future of personal and corporate security on the net. If a few people frequented it, with the sort of diligence that a number of people spend time contributing to the alt.security.pgp group, and a useful set of pointers, and FAQs posted frequently, it might become a useful resource. One URL which I haven't seen pushed all that much which impressed me a lot for a very comprehensive list of cypherpunks technology, what it is and where to get it was Tatu Ylonen's pages on crypto, and crypto apps: http://www.cs.hut.fi/ssh/crypto/ A resource that would look good with a support newsgroup for discussion of just such technology. I would have thought that if anyone was interested to set up such a group (Peter? - your initiative?), that you could tone down the 'cypherpunks' name if you felt it would further the cause of giving the newsgroup wider appeal. I mean perhaps you would mention 'cypherpunks', 'the mailing list', near the end of the FAQ as further resources, and a forum for active discussion, explaining the name first, so that people don't get put off, after they've got that far (read all through your FAQ), presumably they'll be less inclinded to let a label bother them. Adam
aba@dcs.exeter.ac.uk writes:
One thing I have been thinking would be nice would be a USENET newsgroup, as mailing lists are a step away from easy access which some people never make.
This sounds like a very good idea to me, since I find the flood of e-mail from CP, much of it non-crypto-related, to be annoying. If this traffic were in a newsgroup, it would travel compressed over my phone line, and I might use a killfile on sstuff like the CO$ thread. Anything posted to the main cypherpunks mailing list and the spun-off mailing lists (steganogrpahy, remailers, nym servers, etc) could be posted to the newsgroup by maiking one of the mail2news gateways a subscriber.
time and thought to. Might I suggest that a newsgroup would be a way to go? There are already a number of security, privacy, and crypto related groups, but they tend to have their own pattern of flow, you know penet.fi problems on alt.privacy.anon-server, alt.privacy (dunno not read much), alt.security.pgp pgp usage, David Sterlight fueled discussions, some ITAR stuff, talk.politics.crypto, crypto politics, comp.org.eff.talk, there must be a few others. ... Reckon cypherpunks as a group has enough readers to hmm, push through a vote for group creation, if the majority thought it was a useful exercise. A group soley for what? cypherpunks technology, social
No vote is needed to create an alt.group: something like 'alt.security.cypherpunks' or 'alt.privacy.cypherpunks'. Just post a proposal to alt.config, post many articles seconding the proposal, let it be discussed for a week, then issue a newgroup. To create a newsgroup in the 'big 8' (comp., sci., etc) one needs to deal with unpleasant control freaks like group-advice, news.groups, and David Lawrence. It takes up to 6 months. On the other hand, many sites that have Usenet have comp.* but not alt.*. Their users would still have to use the mailing lists or find another site. To create something like comp.security.cypherpunks (I think this would be the most appropriate place, since there's already c.s.announce, c.s.misc, and c.s.firewalls), talk to the group-advice cabal. --- Dr. Dimitri Vulis Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps
In article <PysiBD7w165w@bwalk.dm.com>, Dr. Dimitri Vulis <dlv@bwalk.dm.com> wrote:
aba@dcs.exeter.ac.uk writes:
One thing I have been thinking would be nice would be a USENET newsgroup, as mailing lists are a step away from easy access which some people never make.
This sounds like a very good idea to me, since I find the flood of e-mail from CP, much of it non-crypto-related, to be annoying. If this traffic were in a newsgroup, it would travel compressed over my phone line, and I might use a killfile on sstuff like the CO$ thread.
Anything posted to the main cypherpunks mailing list and the spun-off mailing lists (steganogrpahy, remailers, nym servers, etc) could be posted to the newsgroup by maiking one of the mail2news gateways a subscriber.
That was my thinking exactly. That's why I wrote just such a mail2news gateway to a local newsgroup, csc.lists.cypherpunks (moderated, with cypherpunks@toad.com as the moderator), as you can probably see in the header. This way, trn groups all articles with the same subject together, and correctly threads articles that have References: or In-Reply-To: headers. As for the location, I'd agree with comp.security.cypherpunks. Watch out, though; the list/group will probably get a much higher readership as a newsgroup. Although this is good for the "make the public aware" goal, remember that, as far as I can tell, September 1992 never ended. I've been very impressed with the signal/noise ratio on this list. In fact, people often put [NOISE] in the subject line to flag trivial content. This ratio will certainly go down if we go to a newsgroup. One of the main benefits of Usenet is that anyone can _post_. One of the main detriments is that _anyone_ can post. - Ian "that would have been much more elegant in Latin"
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In list.cypherpunks, aba@dcs.exeter.ac.uk writes:
One thing I have been thinking would be nice would be a USENET newsgroup, as mailing lists are a step away from easy access which some people never make.
That's a feature, not a bug. Unless the group was moderated, I predict the S/N ratio to be <= 0. Witness the crap in alt.2600. The mailing list, as someone said before me, works as a limited pre-screening system. Given the nature of the list's focus and discussion, I think a newsgroup would end up being a stable attractor for the clue-deficit crowd. Not something I'd find useful. - -- Roy M. Silvernail [ ] roy@cybrspc.mn.org PGP Public Key fingerprint = 31 86 EC B9 DB 76 A7 54 13 0B 6A 6B CC 09 18 B6 Key available from pubkey@cybrspc.mn.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMFsCyhvikii9febJAQFJVQP/VDKh+Mb8FFsm85IqOmYOZ82gam7Lmbwp +E3sSOnnRUVQAiT8vbSs/qeA3ozZEF6Oi++CVYzPh/S8zLUufoUqSGuhOwXi2Z3R XH1CTkXBYccuQkd7wG8Sm7Q9sN+zd8iR4byWQrknlSua9czivNjHhUNDxgdwSR7p yI3GCz1L244= =uYVL -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Roy Silvernail <roy@cybrspc.mn.org> writes:
In list.cypherpunks, aba@dcs.exeter.ac.uk writes:
One thing I have been thinking would be nice would be a USENET newsgroup, as mailing lists are a step away from easy access which some people never make.
That's a feature, not a bug. Unless the group was moderated, I predict the S/N ratio to be <= 0. Witness the crap in alt.2600.
I think you misunderstand what I was saying, I wasn't saying *instead of*, but *as well as*, and with a different purpose, just a comment on Peter's post as to creating *another* group / list with a different purpose, one to specifically further his ideas on transferring technology to more people.
The mailing list, as someone said before me, works as a limited pre-screening system. Given the nature of the list's focus and discussion, I think a newsgroup would end up being a stable attractor for the clue-deficit crowd. Not something I'd find useful.
So I most definately agree with the likely effects of for instance merging the list and a newsgroup with a mail to news gateway, as someone suggested, this would be a really bad idea, and would open the list to a flood of junk. If a group such as say alt.cypherpunks were created, it would be just yet another group which hosts endless directionless arguments with David Sternlight, etc. via huge cross posting. Perhaps it would be better to just post crypto FAQs to existing crypto groups, to further use of crypto. A later suggestion someone else had was of a read-only mailing list mirror in a newsgroup. I'm not sure about this, I mean yes it would allow more people to casually read, and this is what I use Todd Masco's nntp.hks.net nntp server for, and find it a really nice way to read, much nicer than a mail box, even if it was slower for me. Of course there are software solutions which allow you to set up similar effects your self, but as a standard read-only newsgroup, I think it would likely increase readership. But I'm not sure, I mean even that is likely to get the list some more junk, as it will less of a barrier to post, I mean all you have to do is send to cypherpunks@toad.com, after all, and it wouldn't take a lot to figure that out. Undecided as to whether a read only newsgroup in mail.cypherpunks or something would be a good idea or not. I'm sure it already happens a lot of places, so perhaps it won't make a lot of difference. But I definately wasn't advocating gating an alt group to cpunks and vice-versa. Adam
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In article <43f97c$64n@calum.csclub.uwaterloo.ca>, you wrote:
Dr. Dimitri Vulis <dlv@bwalk.dm.com> wrote:
Anything posted to the main cypherpunks mailing list and the spun-off mailing lists (steganogrpahy, remailers, nym servers, etc) could be posted to the newsgroup by maiking one of the mail2news gateways a subscriber.
That was my thinking exactly. That's why I wrote just such a mail2news gateway to a local newsgroup, csc.lists.cypherpunks (moderated, with cypherpunks@toad.com as the moderator), as you can probably see in the header.
This way, trn groups all articles with the same subject together, and correctly threads articles that have References: or In-Reply-To: headers.
Some readers may not know they can use Yarn/UQWK under DOS or OS/2 to read this list as if it were a newsgroup. Yarn has Filters which can be used to move email from various lists to pseudo-newsgroups, and the threading, References, etc, work nicely. PGP signing/encryption is a menu choice. A hook for a MIME processor is provided. Trn filters may be used to filter the real newsgroups before the mail and news is packed by into a SOUP packet by UQWK. There is a Yarn list: yarn-list@lists.colorado.edu More info: http://www.nic.com/~cannon/handson.html - -rex -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.i iQCVAgUBMFt0+W8sjl9sYg/JAQF83AP7BgfWOaiAZQc+3A2UPQ8ej8GgdqyaUbKc vqmVUldOp9WrRsP9LZUxgW8MWd0FfWFKOpttlvfPdsrmU1CPcb9G+Qh8dc05iEIW CFBTDo2z6F8qcEtS0gnG0SGEjIvSEMAxOvurTs5qfGhSgcBnbPdpmTMgElOIJCeO hqiM+jGFd1E= =U+24 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
participants (5)
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aba@dcs.exeter.ac.uk -
dlv@bwalk.dm.com -
iagoldbe@csclub.uwaterloo.ca -
roy@cybrspc.mn.org -
rshea@netcom.com