Hello. I was originally writing this post for tor-talk mailing list, which is a general mailing list hosted by Tor Project to discuss online anonymity and cryptography technology, I later realized it was probably a good idea to seek feedback from other lists so I crossposted it to many of them. It's all my humble options and please forgive if it's inappropriate. In the history of the Internet, there were always some communities who found themselves (or placed themselves) in the center of the storm on cutting edge development related to Internet freedom, security and privacy in the past 30 years. Back in the 80s, sci.crypto and a handful of newsgroups were prominent and widely read by everyone in the field of security and cryptography. In the 90s, there were comp.risks and the Cypherpunk mailing list, and they are probably everything you need for resources and discussions. In 2000s, Bugtraq and the Full Disclosure movement started, where all the security holes were debated and exposed. Those communities were center of the mass, brought all the talent people together, to conduct free discussions and research about everything ongoing in the field, no matter it was news, debate, designs, programs, rumors or personal argument, with light or no moderation, where ideas crashed on each other and produced fruitful new approaches. Unfortunately, it looks like that this kind of communities is becoming endangered species. It's hard to find anything similar after 2008 (or ~2005)? All the existing lists are dead pools now with few threads, some newsgroups still exist, but are toxic now since only narcissists are posting, and no other existent members to stop them since, they were all gone. The remaining lists are becoming project-centric, only discuss specific technical issues and not a general platform of discussion, such as this tor-talk (historically, mailing lists named as "-talk" were usually popular, like a party). seclists.org still has some historically famous lists but they are not very active, comp.risks only has news digest now! No posters! The Cryptography mailing list on metzdowd.com is still moving, but only 3 or 4 topics are discussed monthly (but in-depth, which is good), with strict on-topic policy. Other popular forums, like HackerNews or Reddit, functions more like a brief digest instead of a general purpose online forum. Where are all the hackers, developers, cryptographers, activists, researchers, etc gone? 1. It seems that the arise of social media, like Facebook and especially Twitter, is partially responsible for the current state of deterioration of online forums, as now all the latest and interesting information are tweets, and everyone's on Twitter. They are turning the Internet communities to be less and less formal and sophisticated people, Have a new project? Instead of writing a 1000 words short essay and debating with all the experts in the mailing list, just send a 50-word tweet and post the code to GitHub! 2. It seems that the scope of Internet freedom, security and privacy has expanded infinitely, it's infeasible to talk to everyone on Earth in this field by posting in two or three mailing lists, everyone moved to their personal (physical and online) social network to talk is a natural result of it. This is how the Cypherpunk list dead according to some, I believe the same thing is going on everywhere. (sorry if Cypherpunks found it's offensive, no intention to insult, but just no longer the center of mass according to John Gilmore in 2002). 3. It seems that the Internet is no longer an academic thing and compared to popular culture online, the research community becomes almost invisible and finally led to the collapse of many of them. 4. It seems that the Internet is no longer an utopian "cyberspace", but now with lots of threats, such as doxxing and mass surveillance. 20 years ago it's normal for a hacker or activist to post a controversial research, with the phone number and personal address attached in a mailing list, and joining monthly offline meetings. But now, many of them, or perhaps even you, the one who is reading this post, would prefer a low profile in the community, or proactively separate different works. Many are also prefer a private Off-the-record talk over a public debate, prefer small private groups with encryption over big open space. Some even proactively obscure or erase online records. This has two consequences, first, the Big Brother has to work harder and it's good. But it also means the community as a whore becomes harder to communicate with each other, there are always time when someone discovered something which is unnoticed to others, or comes up with an exceptionally good idea. But a fragmented community is more difficult to promote them. (It's also difficult to conduct a historical research in the future, which can be a problem. In contrast the Usenet posts from the 80s are still here and it's good for history and research, but bad for privacy, but it's another topic). Look! Number 1, 2, 3, 4 actually goes together, towards the same end! Does anyone have an option about how the things going on today? Any explanations of the current state of the Internet communities? And what is your recommendation of a good online fourm for general discussion of freedom, security and privacy? Cheers, John Random