Another Cypherpunks Investigation?

[Eric Cordian]

Tim writes:

> My comment is that this "Professor Rat," whose posts I have not seen 
> for as long as lne.com has been my feed, is probably in some real 
> difficulty. His posts are very direct threats, not veiled in any of the 
> vague, political "politicians ought to be given a fair trial and then 
> hanged" or even the "I hope Washington is nuked" sorts.

"Professor Rat" goes to his own folder in my Procmail script.  I
occasionally skim it, but mostly I just delete it when it expands to many
megabytes.

I hope this isn't going to be another one of those cases where some
federal judge reads list messages completely out of context, and concludes
that some plot is afoot to blow up the federal government.

Perhaps Professor Rat is a federal agent hoping to bait some list member
into publicly cheering when he criticizes high-ranking public officials.

Or perhaps Professor Rat just made the mistake of playing Paintball on the 
weekends while subscribed to the Cypherpunks list. 

> (One rule of thumb I use is to never, ever use actual names of 
> burrowcrats. Except for a few at the top, I don't even make any effort 
> to remember the names. It's hard to be charged with making a direct, 
> credible threat when no specific person is either named or alluded to.)

Allusions work, like "the coke-snorting C student who drove his car
drunk into somebody's hedge."

I wouldn't necessarily leap to the conclusion Professor Rat lives in 
Australia.  Perhaps he just has has a shell there.

-- 
Eric Michael Cordian 0+
O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division
"Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"