A message from your list maintainer. I try not to interfere with topic selection too much. I have only once or twice specifically requested that some topic not be discussed. Today, however, I want to offer a specific guideline about a group of topics. The guideline is as follows: Do not discuss topics on cypherpunks which are already frequently discussed on sci.crypt or alt.security.pgp and do not directly relate to cypherpunks concerns. To illustrate this guideline, the recent thread on parallel DES cracking has been well discussed on sci.crypt. This initial announcement was interesting, and maybe one round of short comments were appropriate, but the discussion should be held on sci.crypt. There is already a forum there, please use it. The list is large and getting larger. There are, by my guess, maybe four times as many people who were previously on the list than those who are on the list; most of these dropped out for volume, from the comments I get. I echo the call for self-restraint made earlier. Others have recently written on what cypherpunks, the list, is about. I have some comments myself, which are long, and go back to original purposes, and such. I will not elaborate too far in this message. _Pace_ Tim May, I do think that there should be some guidelines about list content. Cypherpunks is not all cryptography to all people, and parallel DES-cracking particular cryptography is totally mainstream. Cypherpunks is not totally mainstream. Cypherpunks is about implementations of cryptography, particularly disapproved-of cryptography--not just the privacy of epistles but the privacy of the structure of society. There can be no hard separation of topics between the newsgroups and this list; I don't intend to enforce one. Nevertheless, some things clearly belong better elsewhere. The existence of gray areas does not prevent the existence of clear ones. I do understand the concerns that some members of the list are new to cryptography as well as cypherpunks. Cryptology is a large and increasingly technical field; there is no substitute for some hours of study. I myself have logged hundreds of hours reading technical cryptography, and while I don't expect that many of the members of the list will ever do that, I do expect that those who want to learn will do some proactive reading. You can't be spoon fed a working knowledge of anything; working knowledge is the result of working. Since meta-discussion can easily bring down a group, I will appreciate it if responses to this position are short, cogent, and thoughtful. Eric