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PROOF POSITIVE OF POISON
===
From: [email protected] (Timothy C. May)
Subject: Options for Speech on Cypherpunks
Date: Wed, 6 Oct 93 12:31:04 PDT
Lots of options for dealing with too much volume, too much flamage,
too little content, too many diverse interests, whatever. Not all
options are feasible for the Sysadmin (Eric Hughes), of course, and
software is not always available.
Needless to say, these ideas are swirling around in many minds.
"Abraham-Hughes" described their ideas along these lines at a
Cypherpunks meeting,
===
From: [email protected] (Jamie Dinkelacker)
Subject: Newbie reading: Bamberg
Date: Thu, 7 Oct 93 18:17:53 -0700
Newbie cypheroids and cypherettes,
Tim May has pointed to _The Puzzle Palace_ by Bamberg several times here
and on the Extropians list. If like me you're a newbie, it's a quick,
excellent read. Don't miss it. It'll give context for the quote, "gentlemen
don't read each other's mail."
===
From: [email protected] (Timothy C. May)
Subject: Bamford's "The Puzzle Palace"
Date: Thu, 7 Oct 93 18:59:41 PDT
"My name is Bamford, _James_ Bamford."
Bamford's "The Puzzle Palace" is a bit dry in places, but is very
well-researched. I first read it in hardback in 1982 and the stuff
about intercepts of commercial intelligence (stock trades, corporate
secrets, etc.) got me to thinking about how the NSA may be _using_
the fruits of its corporate intercepts. This motivated the plot of the
novel I've been working on, and my interest in the "BlackNet" aspects
of crypto, so I can honestly say Bamford's book changed my life.
He also describes in previously-nonpublicized detail the "Harvest" and
"Lodestone" systems installed at NSA headquarters at Fort Meade around
1963. Our own Norm Hardy was involved in this and will be describing
his "Harvest" experiences at this Saturday's Cypherpunks meeting.
See (some of) you there!
===
From: [email protected] (Jamie Dinkelacker)
Subject: Re: Bamford's "The Puzzle Palace"
Date: Thu, 7 Oct 93 19:48:17 -0700
ooops, Tim's right. I was listening to David Bromberg (urg?) while writing
that post and it slipped out. Thanks, Tim.
===
From: [email protected] (Timothy C. May)
Subject: Re: The death of the list as we know it (tm)
Date: Fri, 8 Oct 93 10:43:05 PDT
My point is this: there are many sound reasons to keep a group such as
ours a mailing list and not open it to every freshman in college who
can grep for "punk" and stumble across us, or for every
Sternlight-type bozo who delights in creating noise and rancor in
groups.
As others have mentioned, tools exist to locally feed mailing list
traffic into pseuodo-newsgroups, which can then be treated as the
newsgroup format some folks desire.
We debate this issue every couple of months. Give it up. Or start your
own newsgroup. Or use one of the existing newsgroups.
===
From: [email protected] (Timothy C. May)
Subject: Re: The death of the list as we know it (tm)
To: [email protected] (Robert J. Woodhead)
Date: Fri, 8 Oct 93 19:16:36 PDT
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,
[email protected] | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it.
===
Date: Sat, 9 Oct 93 04:18:31 EST
From: Matthew B. Landry <[email protected]>
Subject: Safe and fun environment?
>Still, it might make sense for someone from this list to give them some
>help on the crypto aspects. This could be a safe and fun environment
>in which people could be introduced to crypto, and it could even expand
Unless this list undergoes some VERY radical changes, it will never be
a "safe and fun environment" to introduce new people to anything. At the
moment, in order to get anything out of it, one has to devote large quantities
of queue space and time to the subscription, and sift through the flames and
other noise to locate the rare bit of truly valuable info. There are very few
people on this list who routinely post things worth reading, and many who
_never_ post things worth reading, and seem to be only around for the flame
wars.
And god forbid that a newcomer should ask a QUESTION! Dear lord no.
That newcomer will be flamed so totally that no burn unit around will be able
to save them.
Most of those that are persistent or resiliant enough to survive what
this list can often put people through may or may not decide to stay. I would
imagine that such negative experiences would turn a lot of people off to the
whole idea of crypto-privacy. If I hadn't already been committed to privacy
when I joined the list, I would have immediately unsubscribed, called Fort
Meade, and asked what I could do to help.
The vast majority of people who post on this list and respond to other
people's posts are obnoxious idiots who are willing to flame at the slightest
provocation, and will do so until the person they attack backs down or simply
gives up.
No one on this list is entirely to blame, nor is anyone entirely
blameless for this. Several of the top figures on the list (TC May and Eric
Hughes to name two) have recently adopted an inappropriately elitist attitude
toward the direction of the list, and the movement. No one can stop Eric from
running the _list_ however he wants, but the _movement_ belongs to all of us,
thank you. Even though I respect the crypto-political opinions that they
express a great deal, I think that they and their supporters have taken this
too far. And worse, they have not taken a firm stand against the kind of flame
war that is continually erupting over individual posts on the list. For the
leaders to sit back and watch this go on is simply not the appropriate way to
handle things.
Until we fix the serious problems in this list, it will never be an
appropriate environment for newcomers to learn about crypto-privacy, just a
training ground for flame-throwers.
Dare I suggest (why not? I'm already burning to a crisp, how much worse
could it get?) that we create a moderated newsgroup that would gateway the
substantive traffic from this list into a more accessible forum (but NOT the
other way around). In that manner, we could provide a place for newcomers to
learn about cryptography and the movement, without forcing them to sift through
mountains of flame wars. Questions could be referred to qualified personnel,
instead of going to the list where they act like little flame magnets.
This newsgroup would not replace the list, nor would it be more than
marginally connected (because of the selected cross-postings), but it would
provide the kind of environment that the list does not or cannot provide.
Go ahead and dump flames in my mailbox. I've long since gotten used to
it. I'm not going to back down until someone convinces me that a hospitable
environment with informative traffic and a high s/n ratio is a bad idea. Or,
you can save bandwidth and send the flames to /dev/null, because that's where
anything that doesn't make sense will go. Rational comments are welcome,
though.
Oh, and for those of you that are tired of seeing me post, you can rest
assured that you will never see it again. Contributing to this list has brought
nothing but trouble to my life, and I have better things to do with my time
than wade through piles of flamage in my personal mail box.
===
From: [email protected] (Timothy C. May)
To: [email protected]
Date: Sat, 9 Oct 93 2:45:26 PDT
I wrote this reply to Matthew Landry, who raised some complaints about
the direction of this list, the role of the "leaders," and so on. I
sent it to him personally, so as not to add to the already heavy
volume of stuff on this list, especially the complaints of the last
few days.
I think the term "leader" is inappropriate. Several of us got the group
rolling a little over a year ago, but the anarchic nature of the
mailing list (source of strengths as well as weaknesses).
In Matthew's post he on the one hand blasts the elitist attitude of
Eric Hughes and myself while in the next paragraph blasting the lack
of action taken by the "leaders" to control flames and set up systems
to help newcomers.
Anyway, I enjoyed a political piece Matthew wrote a couple of weeks or
so ago, and I told him this. So his piece tonight (2:30 a.m) merited a
response.
And though some of you are no doubt sick of seeing these issues
debated, I've decided to forward my letter to him to all of you, as I
think some points need to be made.
I've removed one or two sentences from the version I mailed to
Matthew.
===
From: tcmay (Timothy C. May)
Subject: Re: Safe and fun environment?
To: [email protected] (Matthew B. Landry)
Date: Sat, 9 Oct 93 2:15:32 PDT
Matthew,
I think you're taking the stuff here too personally. Not all the
feedback to you has been negative--I recall congratulating you on a
nice political piece.
But you have raised issues about elitism and unwillingness to teach
newcomers that others have raised. And you ought to see some of the
abusive e-mail I get! Whew!
Whenever I disagree with some of the paranoids and ranters, I am
called a traitor, a hypocrite, a lackey of Eric Hughes, a member of
the "Clique," and on and on.
Let me comment on a few of your points:
> a "safe and fun environment" to introduce new people to anything. At the
> moment, in order to get anything out of it, one has to devote large quantities
> of queue space and time to the subscription, and sift through the flames and
> other noise to locate the rare bit of truly valuable info. There are very few
> people on this list who routinely post things worth reading, and many who
> _never_ post things worth reading, and seem to be only around for the flame
> wars.
I'm sorry to hear you're getting so little new stuff here. Many of us
have spent many hour typing in (or scanning and OCRing, in my case)
papers and articles, from Chaum's "Dining Cryptographers" paper
(every bloody word of it!) to Shamir's "How to Share a Secret" to
scads of shorter articles and whatnot.
And the debate ranges from random number generators to Perl scripts
and TCL to digital money to ECPA to .... well, to about 20 major
topics, by my estimate.
> And god forbid that a newcomer should ask a QUESTION! Dear lord no.
> That newcomer will be flamed so totally that no burn unit around will be able
> to save them.
This is simply not true. I have answered--when I could--the questions
of many people over the past 12 months. And I've repeatedly posted
reading lists, pointers to the Glossary at the soda site, and so on.
It is true that I sometimes am exasperated by people who have clearly
not been reading the list who ask "Can anyone tell me about digital
money?" when the topic has just been discussed!
(A FAQ would be nice. I was about to agree to do it a year ago, when
...comments on status of the FAQ elided to reduce flamage and angry
feelings....
Fortunately, there are many other newsgroups that beginners can read
ot learn crypto....Cypherpunks was not set up to compete with
sci.crypt and all the other sources.
> The vast majority of people who post on this list and respond to other
> people's posts are obnoxious idiots who are willing to flame at the slightest
> provocation, and will do so until the person they attack backs down or simply
> gives up.
I think this is uncalled for. I haven't seen this kind of flaming,
except in the XXXXX case, and that has its own dynamic. (And
please, Matthew, try to find a post where I have flamed XXXXX in
public...I don't believe you can easily find one.)
> No one on this list is entirely to blame, nor is anyone entirely
> blameless for this. Several of the top figures on the list (TC May and Eric
> Hughes to name two) have recently adopted an inappropriately elitist attitude
The mailing list cannot be run by "democratic means." Nor can
"teaching assigments" be handed out.
The list is like a party at someone's home. The will of the herd is
not the will of the organizers.
Nor is the Cypherpunks agenda all that clear. I, for example, want to
see strong crypto deployed in ways very different than what others
favor. Are we to take a majority vote on an agenda, a charter?
It's better to just leave the agenda loose and unwritten, so as not to
have to grapple with this collision of goals. We can all pretend the
agenda is what we favor.
> running the _list_ however he wants, but the _movement_ belongs to all of us,
> thank you. Even though I respect the crypto-political opinions that they
The _movement_ belongs to what gets written and what gets responded
to. In other words, if you want to be listened to, you have to get
people's attention by the quality of your arguments.
You can't rail against "leaders" (an ironic choice of words you used)
like Hal Finney or Duncan Frissell just because their posts get
reaction. You can't argue that the "herd" didn't have a chance to
vote. In fact, people vote with their own posts. Market democracy.
> express a great deal, I think that they and their supporters have taken this
> too far. And worse, they have not taken a firm stand against the kind of flame
> war that is continually erupting over individual posts on the list. For the
> leaders to sit back and watch this go on is simply not the appropriate way to
> handle things.
The "leaders"? I have commented many times on issues of rancor and
flames, even recently, and for this I am accused by some of being part
of "the Clique" that "runs" Cypherpunks. Nonsense.
> Until we fix the serious problems in this list, it will never be an
> appropriate environment for newcomers to learn about crypto-privacy, just a
> training ground for flame-throwers.
About 70% of the flames would subside if XXXXX would cool his jets,
and stop ranting and raving.
As for "training newcomers," it's not easy. Lots of books exist, and
many of the really solid contributors (Barrus, Honeyman, Collins,
Stewart, etc.) learned their crypto in exactly this way.
Many of us wrote _very long_ articles of a tutorial nature when the
list was getting started. Newcomers who are unwilling to read some of
the technical books on crypto should not expect us to write customized
tutorials.
> mountains of flame wars. Questions could be referred to qualified personnel,
> instead of going to the list where they act like little flame magnets.
May I ask which "qualified personnel" you have in mind? As per the
earlier comment, not many of the crypto experts I know have any
interest in hand-holding, not when at least a dozen good books on
crypto are readily available.
> This newsgroup would not replace the list, nor would it be more than
> marginally connected (because of the selected cross-postings), but it would
> provide the kind of environment that the list does not or cannot provide.
How is this group you propose any different from sci.crypt,
talk.politics.crypto, the various *.privacy groups, the *.clipper
group, or the *.security groups? Seems to me sci.crypt is exactly what
you're looking for. (But don't expect hand-holding for newcomers
there, either!)
> Oh, and for those of you that are tired of seeing me post, you can rest
> assured that you will never see it again. Contributing to this list has brought
> nothing but trouble to my life, and I have better things to do with my time
> than wade through piles of flamage in my personal mail box.
Matthew, threatening to leave is not going to have much effect. But if
you have decided to leave, good luck in all your endeavours.
-Tim May
===
From: [email protected] (Jamie Dinkelacker)
To: Matthew B. Landry <[email protected]>
Date: Sat, 9 Oct 93 11:39:51 -0700
Subject: Re: Safe and fun environment?
[Cypherlings, excuse the bandwidth]
Matthew,
As a fresh newbie allow me to react for the record to your recent post.
>a "safe and fun environment" to introduce new people to anything.
I've never found a safe and fun environment anywhere, anytime if I looked
closely enough to see what was going on; hence I never expect it anywhere,
anytime.
> And god forbid that a newcomer should ask a QUESTION! Dear lord no.
>That newcomer will be flamed so totally that no burn unit around will be able
>to save them.
My questions have been answered graciously, thoroughly, and when I've been
corrected, I should've been due to inattentive typing (e.g., author's
names).
> No one on this list is entirely to blame, nor is anyone entirely
>blameless for this. Several of the top figures on the list (TC May and Eric
>Hughes to name two) have recently adopted an inappropriately elitist attitude
>toward the direction of the list, and the movement.
Movement? Like in 'bowel'? I don't see the elitest approach; from my
perspective it looks like people with knowledge being exasperated when
others want private tutoring and don't RTFM. I'm pretty much the same way
in my areas of expertise.
>No one can stop Eric from
>running the _list_ however he wants, but the _movement_ belongs to all of us,
Let me get this straight -- you're claiming property rights to spontaneous
behavior of other individuals?
> Until we fix the serious problems in this list, it will never be an
>appropriate environment for newcomers to learn about crypto-privacy,
It's been good for me. Why do you think that might be?
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