fwee! are we having fun yet?

[""L. Detweiler"" <ld231782@longs.lance.colostate.edu>]

This is an open letter to E. Hughes.

Let me review my arguments for starting the group immediately.

1. Anonymous postings are highly controversial and will remain so for a
long time. Complete respectability is probably unattainable.  We should
start the group and let users judge for themselves the safety of
posting their material.

2. No new software is required under this scheme.

3. No new machines are required.

4. No sponsors for machines need to be sought out. In fact, under this
scheme we tap into an existing vast network supplying both software and
machines called `Usenet'. I think there're some RFC's on it somewhere.

5. No one other than the poster takes heat.  The poster should not post
if they are concerned about the risk.

6. This scheme doesn't exclude posting currently, whereas absence of
anonymous servers does.

7. People already have a method of connecting to the net and posting.
Reinventing the wheel is great but it will take a painful amount of
time. It's been tens of thousands of years since the wheel was
invented, why start from the beginning?

8. We should be extremely careful about people relying on the moderator
address to forward mail. My understanding is that not all posting
systems automatically do so. It seems this could easily break or be
unreliable (egad!). The user should explicitly assure himself anonymity
by sending to the anonymous server, not relying on this implicit approach.

9. Multiple machines for anonymity take longer to set up. We haven't
even got one for Usenet posting right now (?).

10. DNS (Domain Name Service) is a great idea when n>1 machines are
available. Currently n=0.

11. DNS complicates the picture, more room for error, and takes more
time to pull off correctly. Does anybody have a clear idea that it
would work, and if so how to implement it?

Under your daunting list of prerequisites and requirements, I think we
will be lucky to get something running before the next century. They
are all *fine* and *genuine* as possibilities and opportunities, but
they are *unnecessary* and *unbearable* as prerequisites and requirements.

>The internet world has been without a whistleblower's newsgroup for
>many years; a delay of a few months will not matter much.

The internet sees new groups all the time, and alt groups get created
at the slightest provocation and whim, and it would be ridiculous to
delay the introduction of something this critical and useful, when far
less useful and far more frivolous groups litter the cyberspace like
bales of discarded data packets, ankle-deep.

Look, apparently you haven't got any heat on the Mycotronx postings,
but wouldn't you feel a hell of a lot more comfortable if they
*weren't* funneled through your single machine? Ask Steve Jackson what
paranoid and degenerate agents can accomplish when they have an
easily-identified, portable target and some vague suspicions!  The 911
document has all the criminality of a wedding announcement compared to
the Mycotronx stuff!  Don't these postings demonstrate there is an *immediate* need?

Here's the deal. Despite how it may appear, I am not (consciously!)
demeaning or downplaying anyone's efforts in this group and idea. I
think it is great that a lot of people have a lot of ideas and are
looking at the big picture and long run, making commitments. I am too!
But I think we absolutely *must* start immediately.  We are not going
to get anywhere if someone says ``oh, *I'm* the one that's working on
that---don't worry about it, just you wait, something real neat-o is
going to come along any day now,  wink wink.''

<heavy dejected sigh> Haven't we been through all this before?  I have
nothing to do nor do a lot of others until *something* is in place! I
think major improvements in software only come in the heat of use, not
in the languid comfort of theory and planning. We can be exploring the
weakness and the uses of the system *immediately*. We don't have to
have controversial postings to the group, starting out. Currently,
though, I just think there is just no momentum without a group.  Which
comes first, the anonymous servers or the group? Obviously, the *group*!

Here's my idea. For *now*, lets just use alt.whistleblower as a
*clearinghouse* of material that was *already posted* elsewhere on the
net. That is, nobody takes any personal risk. They just keep their eyes
out for stuff that appears in other places that fits into the
`whistleblowing' category and forwards it to that group. If there is
any heat they just point to the original posting and say `I did nothing
but forward it, don't talk to me about it.'  (By the way, the Mycotronx
posting is awesome whistleblower stuff, the kind that legends are made
of, but I think it still might be a bit risky to post that to a Usenet
group yet, even an `alt', even anonymously). Also, we can just forward
interesting stuff from newspapers and magazines. No risk there. If
anybody thinks they have a solid way to remain anonymous (we're talking
about cypherpunks here, I'm sure they'll find a way) they can post
*now* using old-fashioned methods.

I really like the idea of a big unveiling of some great new shining,
sparkling, shrink-wrapped Personal All-Purpose Guaranteed Anonymous
Home Whistleblower Kit (tm) by Cypherpunks, Inc. accompanied by a
blaring and pretentious Official Whistleblower Press Release.  But
(leaving aside the sheer hilarious implausibility of that *ever*
happening) that would give all our evil enemies a lot of ammunition to
claim that we're `violating the status quo'. There're some things that
should be loudly unveiled to the witless masses, and some things that
should just be silently uncovered by sharp individuals! This is in the
latter category!

What more can I say?  Isn't the immediate need transparently clear? 
Does *anyone* read what I write? Am I nothing but a babbling, deranged
lunatic? Just *watch* how fast I get a FAQ there, if it *ever* starts...

There are now several hundred quasi-official cypherpunks, and I think a
lot of them are agitated and itching for something to do! Not to
mention the vast hordes out on Usenet who will be attracted to
something extraordinary.  Let's get the group going and turn everybody
loose to have some fun!  This is something that *everyone* can
contribute to directly *now*, once the group is started! Let it be a
funnel for our ingenuity! But we have nothing but a bunch of impatient,
dissipated, wasted energy otherwise. What a shameful tragedy. I can't
be a part of it.

Someday, everything we're rattling about will be refined to the point
of excruciating blandness and `dulldom', and we will be telling our
grandkids about the heavy burdens we had to suffer to get there (back
in the ol' days we had to get anonymity *by hand!* and even then people
hated it and called 'em `forgeries'!).  At our current impoverished
rate, though, our grandkids will consider us nothing but mad eccentrics
overflowing with bizarre and impractical ideas that never saw the light
of day, with a few strange insights tragically ahead of time,
sluggishly mired in the bogs of politics and personalities. 
Cypherpunks? No, more like the hapless Babbage Ciphers, stuck endlessly
in the minors. ``Yeah, just wait 'til next year, we'll really show 'em then.''