The Tim May message came from the cpunks archives. Tim died not long ago. The archives hold quite a bit of discussion about prosecution of Jim Bell and CJ Parker and various subpoenas disclosed and presumbably some which were not. Likely several persons were contacted directly by the prosecutors but not shared on the list. That continues. No question cpunks has served as a waterhole to be spied by predators. So too the whole Internet, public and private archives, anonymizers, so on. From the beginning there have been plants of informers, instigators, provocateurs, and kin stirring the pot. IP hosts and system administrators remain the primary sources of data, overt and covert. Multi-level log files are ubiquitous, from identifying packets to end to end foolhardists. No way to use the Internet undetected. Programs that promise that are deceptive, Tor only one of the ploys. Privacy has been a sham from the get-go, Comsec and infosec, crypto in particular, are porous by design, ignorance, opportunism, profit. Open source a cartoonish protective condom, adherents of it are con artists. Cpunks like leak sites are stings, witting or unwitting. Mea culpa. Jim Bell is a Sabu, subject to federal sanctions as ex-con if not willing to solicit supporters and unwary victims. There are thousands of them. Those most loudly anti-authority are the experts of betrayal for kings coin and to avoid going back to jail. Cpunks archives offer much to support this critique, other archives and live action even more. Cyber security is a huge racket profiting from deliberately ineffective cybersec.

Does it contain messages that the Venona files almost completely lack?1995 messages that: 1.   Lack 'jim bell'2.   Lack 'jimbell@pacifier.com'3.   Lack 'assassination politics'4.   Lack ' ap ' except in contexts other than 'assassination politics', such as Associated Press or 'killer ap '5.   Lack references to 'bell', as in 'that damn bell', or 'that idiot bell'.              Jim Bell On Tuesday, January 7, 2020, 07:23:19 AM PST, Mirimir wrote: On 01/07/2020 02:55 AM, John Young wrote: [tl;dr - You can't trust anyone involved.] Makes sense to me. I may well have what was called FCPUNKS from the mid 90s through maybe 2001 or 2002. However, sharing it would be too risky, unless I redacted or randomized all headers. Which would make it kinda useless, no? Maybe I'll do it, as a public service, just before dying. So hey, I'll dig through some old backups. <SNIP>

Yes, the cpunk archives have a slew of 1995 (before and after too) about Jim Bell, Assassination Politics, Jim's email addresses, and related matters. Takes a bit of reading to find them, searches don't turn up all of them. 1995 is less bountiful than other years (say, 2019 spasms) but hardly insignificant and offer worthwhile reading on a variety of topics other than the low-volume AP stuff. Jim was in the pokey during this period so that reduced his postings. However Jim was sending out postal mails to compensate for the online lack. At 02:58 PM 1/7/2020, jim bell wrote:

Does it contain messages that the Venona files almost completely lack? 1995 messages that:

1. Lack 'jim bell' 2. Lack 'jimbell@pacifier.com' 3. Lack 'assassination politics' 4. Lack ' ap ' except in contexts other than 'assassination politics', such as Associated Press or 'killer ap ' 5. Lack references to 'bell', as in 'that damn bell', or 'that idiot bell'.

Jim Bell

On Tuesday, January 7, 2020, 07:23:19 AM PST, Mirimir wrote:

On 01/07/2020 02:55 AM, John Young wrote:

[tl;dr - You can't trust anyone involved.]

Makes sense to me.

I may well have what was called FCPUNKS from the mid 90s through maybe 2001 or 2002. However, sharing it would be too risky, unless I redacted or randomized all headers. Which would make it kinda useless, no?

Maybe I'll do it, as a public service, just before dying.

So hey, I'll dig through some old backups.

<SNIP>

On Mon, Jan 06, 2020 at 06:44:20PM -0600, \0xDynamite wrote:

...

...

The subpoena states in bold caps "We request that you do not disclose the existence of this subpoena, because such a disclosure may make it more difficult to conduct the investigation." ... Please provide any and all documents, papers, letters, computer disks, photographs, notes, objects, information, or other items in your possession or under your control, including electronically stored or computer records, which:

1. Name, mention, describe, discuss, involve or relate to James Dalton Bell, a/k/a Jim Bell, or

By the way, John, thanks for the "heads up." I purged my archives of Jim Bell e-mail sent directly to me, though I left on my system the e-mail he copied the list on.

Doesn't this implicate you? Are you trying to protect him?

...

(Yes, I purged the back-ups, too. A good reason not to back up e-mail to CD-Rs.)

--Tim May

Hmm, your header says you're John Young....

\0xD

You are aware that that email (as forwarded) is from nearly 20 years ago?

You'll notice whose prominently missing from this convo.

Jim Bell.

Know why?

He didn't really want an answer.

He wants a reason to be paranoid.

Nutjob

You shouldn't be so quick to judge, from afar, at that. In times of confusion and disease, nothing can be certain without doing the work. Have you done the work? Marcos

...

...

Nutjob

Have you done the work?

I think John's posting of Tim's email pretty much resolved it. Anyone who expects a US public (or private) server owner not to obey a US court order's instructions is too stupid to be using a computer on the internet.

Are you saying you're willing to give away your rights? If you haven't broken a law, what is your reason to give up anything...? marxos

On Mon, 6 Jan 2020 19:28:25 -0800 Razer wrote:

You'll notice whose prominently missing from this convo.

Jim Bell.

Know why?

He didn't really want an answer.

He wants a reason to be paranoid.

"I left on my system the e-mail he copied the list on." means, I think, that TM didn't delete posts from the/his list archive. All in all, the clue doesn't give any clue as far as I can see, and JY's subject "so called missing messages" is clearly retarded since the messages ARE missing, for whatever reason. or perhaps the clue is that people partially deleted their archives to avoid helping the govt prosecute Jim. But actually deleting posts doesn't make too much sense. One could simply give an edited copy to the govt while keeping the complete archive secret....and publish it later.

Nutjob

Rr

On 1/4/20 2:03 PM, John Young wrote:

...

X-Sender: tcmay@mail.got.net Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <200101082217.RAA29708@johnson.mail.mindspring.net> References: <200101082217.RAA29708@johnson.mail.mindspring.net> Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 14:59:33 -0800 To: John Young , cypherpunks@cyberpass.net From: Tim May Subject: Re: Bell Case Subpoena Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"

At 5:09 PM -0500 1/8/01, John Young wrote:

...

Today at 4:30 PM two Treasury agents, Tom Jack and Matthew Mc Whirr, served me a Subpoena to Testify Before Grand Jury, in US District Court of Western Washington, Seattle, WA, on January 25, 2001, 9:00 AM. Robb London, AUSA, is the applicant.

The subpoena states in bold caps "We request that you do not disclose the existence of this subpoena, because such a disclosure may make it more difficult to conduct the investigation." ...    Please provide any and all documents, papers, letters, computer    disks, photographs, notes, objects, information, or other items    in your possession or under your control, including electronically    stored or computer records, which:

     1. Name, mention, describe, discuss, involve or relate to James      Dalton Bell, a/k/a Jim Bell, or

By the way, John, thanks for the "heads up." I purged my archives of Jim Bell e-mail sent directly to me, though I left on my system the e-mail he copied the list on.

(Yes, I purged the back-ups, too. A good reason not to back up e-mail to CD-Rs.)

--Tim May

On Tue, 7 Jan 2020 15:53:25 +1100 Zenaan Harkness wrote:

Because the gov.t would surely never entrap folks they suspect of hiding something gov wants, e.g. by issuing a subpoena and later seizing computer equipment and backups?

that's a possibility.

But more logically, a rational gov that actually wanted the data would obtain a seizure warrant and seize the equipment without forenotice, and thus pre-emptive (and at that moment in time, lawful) deletion of records, would therefore have been the most logical course.

so the theory is that people who kept archives, first and foremost gilmore, deleted them so that the govt didn't get the data? Still the message from TM quoted in this thread explicitly states that May didn't delete his copy of list messages, only personal messages. So, the theory doesn't fully add up. also, JB could certainly add some light here. What sort of role did his messages to a public mailing list play in the criminal charade that the US department of 'justice' conducted agaisnt him?