Coffee, anyone?

["Philippe_D_Nave" <pdn@dwroll.dw.att.com>]

Hello, _real_ people and cypher-crypto-pseudo-spoofs!

I almost fell out of my chair laughing at the recent post revealing the
TRUE identities of half the people (I use that term guardedly these
days) in the mail group. It did me a world of good.

Try this on for a quick reality check- this is how I view the issue of 
anonymity, trust, reputation, validity, etc. in the Cypherpunk forum:
 
I see the list as a coffee house, buried in the bowels of a machine at
Berkeley. People wander in and out, some to chat, others to listen. There
is no implied social contract in place among the participants, really,
just some common interests. For the price of a cup of coffee (my time
and my connection to Internet), I can enjoy stimulating conversation
and shoot the breeze. When people present their ideas, I take their 
identities at face value (asking for ID's before making small talk seems
a bit gauche). Every now and then, a message in a bottle comes sailing
through the (open) door- the waiter pulls the message out and reads an
anonymous posting. Those so motivated can put replies in the bottle and
sling it back outside, where the anonymous poster picks it up. Truly
obnoxious messages can be answered by Molotov cocktails in the same
manner <grin>.

My point is this: we're in a coffee house, not a courtroom. If I meet
someone in a coffee house and want to do serious business like buying a
car, co-publishing a paper, or betting my career on a set of equations,
I (we) would adjourn to a somewhat more formal setting and follow
entirely different rules for establishing trust and reputation. In the
same vein, I might listen to a chorus of voices spouting political
agendas while sipping my coffee, but I wouldn't expect the applause
and the catcalls to be tabulated and published as election results. I
agree entirely with Detweiler about the importance of being able to
validate people electronically, but I think it would be a shame to close
the door to the coffee house, take attendance, and charge admission.
........................................................................
Philippe D. Nave, Jr.   | The person who does not use message encryption
pdn@dwroll.dw.att.com   | will soon be at the mercy of those who DO...
Denver, Colorado USA    | PGP public key: by arrangement.