What happened to the Cryptography list...?

[Tim May]

On Wednesday, August 6, 2003, at 11:05  AM, Adam Back wrote:

> The problems with closed lists relying on a single human for
> forwarding and filtering...
>
> Couldn't he just let people post in his absence?  It kind of detracts
> from a list if it disappears for weeks at a time on a regular basis.
>
> Also there are delays, and then there's Perry decisions that a
> discussion is no longer worth persuing when contributors are still
> interested to discuss.
>
> Adam

I enjoyed interacting with Perry about 10-11 years ago, mostly on the 
Extropians list. Perry was a major political ranter (even if it is not 
true that he coined the phrase "Utopia is not an option"). (Extropians 
was a privately-owned list, and what eventually drove me away was the 
silliness involving "trials" for those accused of insulting others, or 
violating some rules, or disrespecting the Official Beliefs. I 
attribute this silliness not to malice by the Extropian Maximum 
Leaders, but by the very nature of private lists and the almost 
unavoidable tendency to try to "perfect" lists by tweaking what people 
can and can't say.)

I despise people's private fiefdoms, whether Dave Farber's "Interesting 
People" list or Lewis McCarthy's "Coderpunks" list or any of Bob 
Hettinga's various "BearerBunks" and "Phisodex" lists. And Perrypunks, 
with its quixotic policy about politics (politics banned, except when 
Perry wanted to rant), was just another private fiefdom.

I don't dispute their property right to do with their machines as they 
wish, absent contracts, but being in their fiefdoms chafes very quickly.

The distributed CP list may end up being the last list left standing, 
at least in this niche.

Part of the reason Usenet continues to thrive, despite its flaws.



--Tim May
"That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize 
Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of 
conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States who are 
peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." --Samuel Adams