Cypherpunks and terrorism

[Greg Broiles]

At 12:20 AM 9/14/2001 +0200, Nomen Nescio wrote:

>You're about to begin running a remailer.  Apparently you haven't done
>so before.  Well, it should be quite an education.

Ah, no. Try a Google search for "remailer at ideath.goldenbear.com", and 
you'll find plenty of references to the remailer I ran in 1994-1995. (I 
don't remember when I started - there's a reasonable chance it was in the 
fall of 1993, but honest remailers don't keep logs . . )

I think remailers are ideally run either by people/organizations with very 
few resources (so they're not attractive litigation targets) or substantial 
resources (so they can defend themselves vigorously & aggressively vs. 
litigation) and right now I find myself somewhere in between those two 
poles. Nevertheless, the events of the past few days have changed the 
risk/benefit ratio such that I believe the risks of inaction on my part are 
worse than the risks of acting.

>   Keep it up for a
>year and you'll be more qualified to judge whether this technology is
>good or bad, on balance.  One thing is certain: if you go into it just
>because you think it will be an "interesting project", you won't stay
>with it for long.

I'm going into it because I think it's important to provide actual and 
symbolic support for freedom and privacy when those values appear to be 
under attack by people like you, who would assume the title of "conscience" 
and "protector" in order to render people helpless, practically or legally.

If you're still hung up on judging whether technology is "good" or "bad", 
you're not ready for this list, nor are you qualified to discuss policy 
beyond deciding what color the balloons and streamers should be at the 
homecoming dance.


--
Greg Broiles
gbroiles at well.com
"We have found and closed the thing you watch us with." -- New Delhi street kids