-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

lefty@apple.com (Lefty) says,

lef> and then treats us to what he purports to be Mr. Nalbandian's phone number lef> and address. ... lef> Whoever you are, nobody, you're a hypocrite and a coward.

Well, it wasn't me, but in any event I dispute this. The use of anonymous remailers does not make one a coward, any more than the use of a pseudonym does (or is your given name "Lefty")?

Certainly the use of an anonymous remailer in and of itself it doesn't make one either a coward or a hypocrite. However, invading someone's privacy by posting their telephone number and home address is a hypocritical act for anyone who expects others to respect their own privacy. Moreover, doing so anonymously is cowardly. And, yes, my using my long-standing nickname, "Lefty", is _quite_ different from posting anonymously. You can reply directly to me using my email address, <lefty@apple.com>, which appears in the header of everything I post; moreover, I am responsible for what I post using that ID. See it up there? You can easily determine who I am from that information. <lefty@apple.com> is, in effect, a True Name. <nowhere@bsu-cs.toad.com> is not. <nobody@jarthur.cs.hmc.edu> is not.

As for the privacy aspect, I believe it may serve the interests of those who desire privacy to point out privacy lapses. Not all the time, but sometimes you have to say, "the emperor has no clothes".

It is not the case that anybody "pointed out a privacy lapse" here. On the contrary, someone _committed_ a privacy lapse by obtaining and posting Mr. Nalbandian's phone number and address _specifically_ as an incitement for people to harass him. This _is_ an invasion of privacy. Are you somehow failing to see that?

For example, would you object to this:

an4544@anon.penet.fi = Eric Robison <ericr@Solbourne.com> an68863@anon.penet.fi = Derek M. Harkins <harkinsd@solix.fiu.edu> * an51751@anon.penet.fi = Joe Baptista <baptista@planet.org>

The anonymous remailer is not so anonymous, is it? Should I have kept the information to myself, or am I right to publicize it?

What you have supplied represents an invasion of privacy as well, in my opinion. If you were to explain how you came by this information, _that_ might be worth sharing, but simply presenting a mapping of anonyms to truenyms is not. -- Lefty (lefty@apple.com) C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:.