Anonymous Posting

[Tim May]

On Tuesday, August 21, 2001, at 07:59 PM, An Metet wrote:

> I find the content from remailers is far higher than average for the
> list.

I find it lower. Maybe it's just me. A lot of gibbering, ranting, and 
insults-without-traceability. Doesn't mean I don't "support" the 
legality and technology of remailers, just a comment on what traffic I 
see from them. Not surprising, of course.

>
> The technology isn't there yet, true, but it won't get there without
> deploying it and using it.  Why isn't this obvious?

The technology won't get there by a particular person using remailers, 
inasmuch as the actions of that person don't cause others to change. 
This is also known as the "but what if everyone did what you're doing?" 
fallacy. I've grokked this since around 1966. Why isn't this obvious?

> We may not be able to decide for others, but we can certainly look
> down on so-called cypherpunks who, in many cases, cannot even encrypt
> a message, never mind "writing code".  Many, in fact, exhibit
> hostility towards remailers and anonymity, as you do.

1) I used the Kremvax pseudo-remailer a year or two prior to the 
Cypherpunks list. Indequate, of course.

2) I used the earlier Cypherpunks remailers in their first month of 
operation, in 1992. More to the point, I architected the basic features 
remailers should have at the first Cypherpunks meeting. Check the 
archives if you doubt this.

3) I pulled off the "Blacknet" thing using both remailers and PGP in 
1993. This was a fully-untraceable two-way information market. No 
fancy-shmantzy ZKS system was needed, providing one was willing to live 
within the latency constraints of using Usenet. (Still a reasonable goal 
for text messages. Receiving MPEG-2 movies untraceably will remain a 
thorny technical problem until bandwidth goes up by a large factor.)

4) I use remailers when I choose to. Other times I use my normal dial-up 
account. How do you know I am not some of the posts you are referring to?

5) Signing an article is giving away something of value. (For example, 
it might be used against the signer.) Absent some reason to sign, some 
"consideration," why sign a post? Why make it even slightly easier for a 
prosecutor to produce in court when nothing of value is being given in 
return?

>
> What I fail to understand is why such people are on this list in the
> first place, but, as you say, people make their own decisions.
>
> (None of these comments apply to Tim May, of course.)
>

There are many enemies of liberty subscribed to the list, and posting to 
it. This is what happens when the "ideology-agnostic" crum-bums take 
control. "Cypherpunks write Rijndael C code...they don't care about 
ideology!"

Fuck that. Cypherpunks care about both code _and_ ideology, else why 
bother? If Rijndael C code is all that matters, why not just drop 
Cypherpunks and join Perrypunks?

Oh wait, it seems most nitwits _have_. Never mind.


--Tim May