Re: The death of the list as we know it (tm)

[tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)]

Robert Woodhead writes:

> This is called "security through obscurity."  I'm shocked to see it
> advocated in this list!  ;^>

And I'm shocked--:-}-- that people keep beating a dead horse,
expecting that if they repeat their arguments enough times, something
will miraculously change. This rarely works, and mainly just dilutes
the content of the list further.

> Opening up the list into a newsgroup has risks, but they can be mitigated
> and doing so would make it easier to use, and reduce the load on toad.

I won't repeat my own arguments for the 7th or 8th time. In any case,
Eric Hughes has the final say and he has said it will not happen in no
uncertain terms.

If you vote otherwise, send your votes to dev/null. They'll count more
that way. (There is no pretense that the list is a democracy.)

> Bottom line, isn't one of the goals of punkery in general (whatever
> flavor) to _spread_ knowledge.  Shouldn't this stuff be shouted from
> the digital treetops?

Not one of the major goals, from my perspective. We don't advertise,
we don't lobby, we aren't even _set up_ to do such a thing. And when
we're interviewed (and anybody _can_ be), nobody spouts off the
"Cypherpunks agenda."

Books and magazines spread knowledge. Notice that we don't even have a
FAQ? We're hardly in the education business.

We're a loose collection of folks, bound by the mailing list and the
various physical meetings (and those of you out in the hinterlands
should simply organize your own gatherings). The interest in
remailers, digital money, code, etc., is the main glue.

Political action is a detour. The Clipper debate was one such detour,
occuoying too much time for several months, though I suspect some good
came out of it.

Anyway, it's not for me to say what the Cypherpunks are, but all those
folks shouting that "we" are a lobbying group, or whatever, are
misguided, I think.

One of the advantages of a mailing list is the implied sense of
community and of a shared history. It is expected that most on the
list have seen the traffic go by, even if they skipped many of the
messages. Newsgroups, on the other hand, encourage people to dip in
for a few days, ignore for several weeks, dip in again, and so on.
Thus, a huge number of repeat topics as people dip in and out and miss
the context of comments, the history, and so on. Progress stalls, even
more so than progress may've stalled in some areas on this List.

And while I agree that TLAs may be reading this list, one way or
another, making it a newsgroup would open it up for archiving around
the world, for appearance on those CD-ROMS filled with Usenet traffic,
and for easy grepping by future employers and future government
snoops. In other words, a public forum.

That's great if the goal is to educate people about crypto, not so
great if the goal is frank discussion of tough problems.

--Tim

-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
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W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
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