A favor re Detweiler

[hfinney@shell.portal.com (Hal Finney)]

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I'd like to expend some "reputation capital" here and ask people for a 
favor.  I am worried about Larry Detweiler's obvious mental anguish.  We 
tend to forget that we are dealing with real people on the net, flesh 
and blood human beings.  Larry is obviously going through genuine 
difficulties here.  As a member of our virtual community, I ask that we 
show him some compassion and consideration.
 
Larry believes that people have been communicating with him in private 
mail under multiple identities in order to confuse and mislead him.  
Specifically, he has suggested that Jamie Dinkelacker is a pseudonym 
employed by Tim May.  I gather that he has received email from both 
names.  He also suggests that others have employed these practices.
 
Since I do not live in the Bay area, I have never met Jamie Dinkelacker, 
although I had the opportunity to meet Tim once when he visited southern 
California.  So I am not in a position personally to assure Larry that 
Jamie is a real person separate from Tim.  But I know many list members 
are in northern California and I assume several of you have met both 
Jamie and Tim.  I ask those of you who can vouch for Jamie's separate 
identity to send me private email saying so, which I will forward to 
Larry.  If enough people can do this, perhaps a PGP-style "web of trust" 
can be established which will reduce Larry's concerns about this 
particular case at least.
 
(I have considered the possibility that Jamie actually is a pseudonym 
employed by Tim.  This is certainly not inherently impossible, given the 
structure of the net.  As I told Larry, I myself have occasionally 
posted under apparently-legitimate pseudonyms in other times and places, 
although never on this list.  I certainly don't attach the moral 
significance to the practice that Larry does.  Nevertheless, in this 
particular case, the situation is so obviously causing mental suffering 
that I assume that if Larry's charges were true that Tim would have 
confessed in order to spare Larry this pain.)
 
I know that it's easy to just write people off on the net, the various 
marginal or fanatical personalities whom one runs into now and then.  
That is why I am asking this as a personal favor.  If you have read and 
appreciated my essays on digital cash, or on the various legal issues 
involving crypto exports; if you have used the remailer code I worked 
on, or PGP for that matter on which I spent hundreds of hours of 
personal time, then I ask that you help me out with this request.  Do it 
as a favor to me regardless of your feelings for Larry, and I will just 
hope that my efforts will bring him some peace of mind.  Thank you.
 
Hal Finney
hfinney@shell.portal.com
 
 
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