What are Appropriate Topics?

[Timothy C. May]

First off, my sincere apologies to Bob Snyder for quoting and
responding to his e-mail to me, without realizing he had not cc:ed it
to the list as well. I'm so used to replying to the author and then
having to manually cc: the Cyherpunks list that it was not until I got
the message quoted below that I realized his comments were private. I
will try to be more careful.

Partly it was his civil tone that misled me--it read like a post to
the list, and not a personal note. In any case, my apologies to Bob.

But I may as well respond to his comments (which I just checked to
make sure were sent to the list as well).

> I have no problem with politico-cryptologic themes or discussions on the
> role and nature of government in the presence of strong cryptography
> appearing in Cypherpunks.  They certainly beat "PGP good,
> Sternlight/Detweiller bad" messages.  I only question generic discussions
> of forms of government without any reference to cryptography or even
> privacy.  I don't see that as any more appropriate for the group than
> abortion or health care debates, if it doesn't have a cryptological theme.

At least in my messages, I was not arguing merely statism vs.
libertarianism, or some such stale abstraction, but the specific issue
of taxation in the face of strong crypto and privacy, and the
oxymoronic nature of "volunteer governments." (I also think there are
issues related to privately-produced law which folks on this list
ought to know about, as it is the likely form of crypto anarchic law,
such as it is. The connections with crypto are quite strong, as it is
untraceable communication and commerce which makes these discretionary
communities possible.)

As for pure crypto being discussed on the list, there's a fair amount
of that. I've posted my share of explanations of zero knowledge proof
systems, dining cryptographers protocols, complexity theory, etc. I'm
not saying this to defend myself, per se, but to note that these
topics produced almost no discussion, almost no interest. Make of this
what you will.

> If you disagree with me, fine, we'll disagree, and I'll mentally filter out
> another subject line. :-)  It's not all that hard, which is why I
> originally responded via direct email rather than sending it to the list.
> 
> Bob

As I said, my apologies for quoting Bob's e-mail. At least nothing in
his message was embarrassing or compromising or could have done with
any changes.

My real issue, which is perhaps why I reacted as I did, is with the
growing chorus of messages attempting to do "mid-course corrections"
on the topics discussed. Too many "We are deviating from the
Cypherpunks charter" and "But let's get back to crypto" messages, when
in fact the best way to steer discussion in the direction one wants is
to write a post or essay that _does_ this. (My major pet peeve is the
post which goes on and on and closes with the infamous "But this
really has nothing to do with crypto, so let's end this thread.")

Cypherpunks is not sci.crypt, nor is it alt.security.pgp. And the
oft-quoted mantra of "Cypherpunks write code" is incorrectly applied
in many cases. I was present at the founding of our illustrious group,
and, speaking for myself and for my understanding of the interests
expressed at the September 1992 Oakland meeting (at the home of Eric
Hughes), the topics of interest are *much more* than just "Cypherpunks
write code."

It may be true that boring liberal-conservative, left-right,
statism-libertarianism debates are best avoided (not to mention
believer-atheist and pro-choice--pro-life debates), but there are
numerous politico-cryptologic points of philosophy that merit scrutiny
and debate. For example:

* what happens to tax collection in an era of unbreakable cyphers?

* how will the state react? (seen in the many converging threads
involving national ID cards--including more news today on this, the
Postal Service plan to take over much of electronic commerce, the
software key escrow (SKE-GAK) schemes, the Clipper deal, etc.)

[Surely these are Cypherpunk topics? If not, what's left?]

* crypto anarchy issues. Hal Finney is more skeptical than I am, and
Hal and I had some reasonably good debates....more folks should join
in. Again, surely a prime Cypherpunks topic. If not, why do we exist?
Or do you all plan to simply accept my views as the official doctrine?
(I didn't think so.)

[Resolution of some issues surrounding anonymous murder contracts,
data havens for medical experiments on humans, etc., is a more
interesting and fruitful area that "Can DES be broken?" debates, which
were old and boring in 1985. We are apparently the only forum on the
planet thinking about these important issues, so it seems foolish to
not discuss them merely because some political issues come up.]

* what's really holding back the spread of digital cash? 

* where do we go from here?

And a dozen other juicy topics. If people want to debate these and
similar issues, we should *encourage* them to, not announce that the
topics are deviating from some imagined idea of the charter.

In fact, "Cypherpunks write code" is just one manifestation of the idea
that we can actually change the world through the technological
development of privacy-enhancing systems. For some, it may mean
writing Perl or C code. For others, hacking the legal and business
systems to figure out how to actually build digital banks. For still
others, it means building networks of remailers and digital mixes. It
can mean a lot of things.

It's generally best, I think, to lead by example. Instead of
pronouncing a topic to be off-limits or not consistent with the
charter, why not find a way to make what you *are* interested in also
interesting to others? That's how we'll move forward into new areas.


--Tim May



-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay at netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
"National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."