Poison Pill Defense (fwd)

[Igor Chudov @ home]

----- Forwarded message from Peter Trei -----

>From cpunks at manifold.algebra.com  Wed May 21 09:12:25 1997
Message-Id: <199705211410.KAA03539 at www.video-collage.com>
Comments: Authenticated sender is <trei at popserver>
From: "Peter Trei" <trei at process.com>
Organization: Process Software
To: cypherpunks at algebra.com
Date: Wed, 21 May 1997 10:21:43 -6
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Subject: Re:  Poison Pill Defense
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nobody at huge.cajones.com (Huge Cajones Remailer) writes:
> 
> I hear from anonymous correspondents that the following
> technique has been successfully deployed among some militia
> members and cypherpunks who fear raids on their private
> property.  Apparently the technique was originally invented
> by a biotech lab that the FDA was planning to shut down in an
> uncivil manner when Kessler first came to power.  The
> lab was never raided.
 
> Preliminary: choose a suitable viral agent.  [...]

> Step one: immunize household members against this agent.

Several things come to mind in reading this.

1. This has *no* crypto-related content.

2. This guy has been watching too many re-runs of 'Mission 
Impossible'. The scheme is Rube-Goldberg and full of potential
failure modes, ranging up to and including the accidental 
death of the implementor and his/her household. The techniques
involved are complex, difficult, dangerous, and expensive. 

3. This is not a 'defense'. 

* It won't stop a raid; if it's deployment is kept secret, 
  it's deterrence value is zero. If it's deployment is 
  publicized, then it is ineffective, since the raiders 
  will take appropriate countermeasures (and announcement
  of it's deployment is *very* good grounds for a raid).

* It won't work to conceal whatever you had that was worth 
  concealing, in the event of a raid.

All it is a scheme for getting petty vengence, and even 
if works perfectly, will get you murder or attempted 
murder charges tacked onto whatever you were raided for.

Only an idiot (such as our anonymous poster) would even 
think of deploying such a scheme. 

4. If I were an agent provocateur, attempting to make the 
members of this list look dangerous, I'd encourage them to
discuss topics like this. Jim Bell's advocacy of AP may have
been legal, but it sure didn't endear him to LEAs.

I seriously suspect that this thread may have been planted
by someone with the intent of discrediting the list.

Peter Trei
Disclaimer: I speak only for myself.
 

----- End of forwarded message from Peter Trei -----