About lawyers and spoliation

[Aimee Farr]

Tim May:

> At 12:54 PM -0500 8/3/01, Aimee Farr wrote:
> >Bear wrote, quoting me:
>
> >>  I've got a nice protocol for running a fully-encrypted mailing list
> >>  stegoized in images on a web/FTP site, which would be totally
> invisible
> >>  to non-participants - but such a list can't be announced publicly
> >>  so of course nobody could find out about it and join it, without
> >>  also letting the law know about it and join it.
> >
> >Interesting.
>
> Banal, actually.

Maybe to you, Tim, but I was looking at it from a different perspective.

First, in regard to dissident group bulletproofing, so as to provide the
greatest First Amendment associational protections. (I suspect some of you
get your legal advice from the government.) And, also in regard to dissident
group surveillance. This list has been affected by recent events, and
"subjectively chilled." While it is not the first time for such things, the
effects on group dynamics are of interest to me.

Second, I would like to see the conversational economic theories at work in
a protected list.

Third, many of your concepts were harbingers of a shift where people take
costly evasive maneuvers to protect what is legal, and traditionally
highly-valued speech and association (being critical of the government).
Your ideas are being implemented, or examined, often by ordinary people with
less spectacular motives and aims. So, the more "trodden," "banal,"
.....[insert Tim Mayism here]...something is to you, the more interesting it
is to me.


> >>  And the list goes on.  Every time you try to get something used by
> >>  more than a dozen people, it cannot be secret.
> >
> >"Three make keep a secret, if two of them are dead." -- Benjamin
> Franklin,
> >1728.
>
> A platitude which misses the point of modern PK and DC-Net sort sorts
> of approaches. The "security" of chained remailers is of course not
> perfect, but it does not depend on the naive attacks which Ray
> Dillnger claims make the security as bad as he claims. Nor is his
> "stegoized mailing list" even the slightest bit interesting.

I'm sure you are aware that some disagree with you, Tim. In a rather
significant way. I wish they found it less interesting, too. But, they
don't.

> Well-trod ground. What is it about some of you people who don't even
> bother to learn the basics?

> >I've seen predictions that by 2005-7, your IP will be biometrically
> >associated. (I have nothing to back to that up, but the source was
> >credible.)
>
> IP addresses have nothing to do with attacks on remailers and DC-Nets.

Okay.

> Do some reading.

I read a lot, Tim. My practice areas don't come neatly packaged. I realize
your frustration with me, and can only beg your understanding and tolerance,
although I have low expectations in this regard. (Picking on me is about as
sporty as shooting turtles in a stock tank.) I could never match the
technical skillsets or understanding of this list, please forgive me for my
sins. Yea, I know not what I do..... I am aware of my shortcomings, (!!!)
and I do appreciate your taking the effort to try to help me with my
conceptualization. You often do so, and I note your good intentions, even
when they come with a few well-placed darts.

> Start with Chaum's 1981 paper on untraceable e-mail,
> read at least the first 5 or 7 pages of his 1988 paper on dining
> cryptographers nets, and then move on to the other list-related
> sources.

Perhaps I can contribute in other areas, Tim. I will try to do better. I
mean that sincerely.

I pitched a paper on these spoliation concepts many months back and was
awarded with 10,000 words in a legal pub. However, you intimidated me to the
extent that I promptly torched my efforts. Had you not done so, perhaps I
could have contributed something more substantial to this thread.

As for spoliation, DO SOME READING TIM, you comments are BANAL, ACTUALLY.

You are a the leader of a pack of prize jackasses that pick on cripples in
here. *REAL* SUBVERSIVES have a gentlemanly demeanor (at least the decency
of pretense).

~Aimee