Humility, Embarrassment, Shame, and an Apology

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

Hello fellow Cypherpunks! I am writing this message to sincerely
apologize for my past behavior over the past few weeks on this list,
particularly over the last few days. I have written messages that I am
not proud of. And all for nothing. I am here to tell you that your
leaders have all assured me in unequivocal terms that they are not
pseudospoofing in any way whatsoever and have no personal knowledge of
any pseudospoofing on the cypherpunks list or anywhere else, so I now
feel like an embarrassed idiot for escalating this matter to this
level, when it is so obviously completely unjustified in retrospect. I
realize I am the premier digital Don Quixote, chasing phantoms and
jousting at windmills! The joke is on me!

I have learned many things over the past few weeks. I thank you for the
valuable lessons you have taught me. I was too arrogant until now to
accept your wisdom with humility. Clearly, my mistake! Don't I feel
stupid! I think both you and I have many things in common. We are
interested in the growth of cyberspace and recognize that
pseudoanonymity has awesome power, like an atom bomb. I think the
difference is that I thought you were doing all you could to detonate
them when you were really trying to  stop them. I apologize to everyone
I offended by suggesting otherwise.

I think that fucking tentacle S.Boxx has demonstrated the damage that
can be done with pseudoanonymity. He ought to be taken out and shot in
the forehead. I would enjoy watching him stare blankly with a gaping
hole in his skull and his brains and blood splattered about. In fact, I
am going to do precisely that if I ever find the bastard. (His family
deserves to die too, but we'll see what mood I'm in at the time). And
everyone knows that he is a tentacle! Image the raw power that can come
from the surreptitious use of this extraordinarly overpowering force!
It is like the ultimate technique for social engineering, guerilla
warfare, espionage, sabotage, and riot instigation. The evil, hard-core
hackers have done well to perfect it. You are lucky that your leaders
are so farsighted and astute to realize the inherently dangerous and
damaging nature of its use. You have accomplished great miracles from
your honorable cooperation! Although, we definitely have a new arms
race with the Psychopunks in the strategic position (thank god there
are none here!). I hope we can reach a detente. This is my own peace offering.

Your leaders E.Hughes and T.C.May have mailed messages to my postmaster
in complaint in my questions about there use of different sites.
P.Metzger mailed my postmaster in regard to his mailbombing me.
E.Brandt sent my postmaster and my root another letter recently asking
me to stop mailing him, which was amusing considering that he initiated
our conversation. I have been subject to a sendsys bomb yesterday, that
came in about ~.5 meg, and a new grisly mailbomb today at ~5 meg and
growing. But we can now understand that none of this is necessary. It
has reached its purpose. I have achieved a serenity and tranquility
with my newfound delight and euphoria. 

I got another anonymous and cryptic phone threat this afternoon, from
who knows. ``Shot by the SWAT team. No doubt about it. GET HELP.'' This
brings the total of heartfelt greetings from my dear friends to 2. And
I have no idea what D.Barnes has been able to turn up in his blackmail
campaign of assaulting my previous employer, the school administrators,
and (more recently) stealing my resume. Yes, the cypherpunks are truly
the Protectors of Privacy and the Promoters of Anonymity. They have
done all this because they are concerned about my well being, and I
have been an obnoxious jerk for weeks in misinterpreting their worried
concern over my welfare and sanity. 

I have made an appointment with a therapist (it was quite a new
experience for me) and I think he is going to help me through my
serious psychological disorders and paranoid delusions. I apologize to
subjecting you to my insanity. I am quite ashamed of it. Please tell
everyone you know that I am insane and should be avoided like a leper.
Some of the people I know and respect have heard you, and I thank you
for helping them to realize that I am a dangerous lunatic that should
be avoided. It's really the best thing for everyone.

To demonstrate my sincerity, I will not post at all to any list,
including the one I helped create, for a period of one week, starting
now. You will not even see any new messages in the newsgroups by
L.Detweiler unless they are new sendsys bombs or forgeries. I will not
even touch a keyboard or go near the Internet. This was at the
recommendation of your gracious leaders who are sincerely concerned for
my mental health and my obvious deterioration over the past few weeks.
Clearly, I have been ignoring all the best advice of my well-meaning
friends to pursue fantasies.

I have learned how fast one can accumulate enemies if one attacks
anything that others hold dear. I committed my energies to this list
for 10 months but they mean nothing because of my reprehensible
intoleration for lies, especially those sent to me. I have been deluded
in thinking that I can stop lies or even that they are immoral or
unethical, particularly in relation to pseudospoofing. Lies are
Liberating! Even if your leaders were pseudospoofing (which they have
assured me in certain terms they are not) they would certainly have the
right to lie to others, including their friends and followers, through
their tentacles. This is not an inherently deceptive use of
pseudonymity. It is similar to using different names for harmless
magazine subscriptions.

I sincerely apologize for attacking anyone over this issue. I was wrong
to call E.Hughes or N.Szabo a `bald faced liar.' You have a right to
exist in cyberspace, and use the Internet to whatever use you can
imagine. And if others that are living around you in the neighborhood
ask you what you are doing, and if everything is all right, and wonder
about the strange noises and smells, like I did, you should tell the
nosy bastards to go to hell. They deserve it. I deserved it all. That
is your constitutional right to privacy, and it should extend to
Cyberspace just as it does in the real world. Live and let live!

I was once concerned about the possible deceptions of the Media by your
cause. I now realize that the Media is inherently corrupt and should be
manipulated to the Cypherpunk agenda in any way possible. In
particular, we should promote ourselves as the respectable citizens we
are. The public gets frightened by an image of Anarchy and Radical
Libertarianism. If we promote it as Cryptoanarchy and Cypherpunks, we
can get much farther. Both Markoff and Kelly, and his fantastic
photographer L.Dyer, have been extremely understanding and
accommodating in helping us promote our agenda among the widespread
population. In fact, the NYT article was an exceptional breakthrough of
emphasizing our goals of privacy and cryptography for the masses. I
really liked that quote by W.Diffie, one of the world's foremost cryptographers.

In my new realizations I am particularly inspired by your underlying
agenda of tax evasion, black marketeering, and the overthrow of
governments. DEATH TO ORDER!  Hedonistic delights like gambling dens
and prostitution rings would be a Love Boat for everyone, but they
aren't enough. I have had some neat fantasies lately about starting new
drug nextworks and assassination enterprises. What delights await us!
The possibilities of untraceable cash and anonymity are truly
liberating -- we can build up internation criminal organizations and
launder our money freely, and avoid all detection! The vanquished world
will lick our boots! I hope that you will let me in on your finetuned
Cryptoanarchist secrets that would make Goldfinger and Hitler proud. If
you don't, that's okay too. I'm really unstable and there's even a
rumor that I'm actually an FBI agent, so that it would be better if you
didn't tell me anything that would be upsetting to someone who
practices law enforcement.

I want to encourage everyone here to explain the history of how I
reached my newfound epiphanies out in the newsgroups if possible,
particularly on the `CRYPTOANARCHIST INFILTRATION ALERT'. (I won't be
able to forward this because of my promise, maybe you could help me
out.) Together we can attack the blasphemous heretic infidel S.Boxx so
that he is completely inundated in the noise and help the world to
realize the grandeur of Cryptoanarchy. I will be the new Poster Boy for
the CryptoAnarchist movement. I shall promote it to my death with all my heart.

I am sorry to have upset anyone who has ever watched this mailing list.
I was continually prodding you to discover the truth, but there was
nothing to discover! I  kept telling you to send mail to your leaders
yourself, to put pressure on them to reveal their knowledge, to
investigate the claims of reality of identity that were extremely
suspicious, and follow up past inert, passive, lifeless viewing of the
text that scrolls by your faces and hypnotizes you daily, more
mesmerizing and psychologically dangerous and deadly than television!
But we all know that this was a delusion now, a faded dream. The list
is our outlet to reach out to other real people, to make friends, to
achieve grand goals. As the leaders reassure us, upon their honor as
patriot Cryptoanarchists and honest human beings, there are no fake
identities anywhere in all of cyberspace, and on the Cypherpunks list
in particular! All my past claims are nothing but bizarre, wretched,
pathetic, deluded fantasies and hallucinations. In psychology, it is
called `projection'.

Everyone should understand now that I am completely in favor of the
entire cypherpunk agenda, and everything that E.Hughes or T.C.May or J.
Gilmore says or does. They have been like three loving uncles to me,
helping me to see the errors in my ways and correct my breaches in
ettiquete. E.Hughes, in particular, has been the most sweetly
endearing. He is so humble and gentle! His words flow like a gentle
breeze or a murmuring stream. How could could I accuse anyone so
honorable of lying in a serious academic journal like RISKS?! T.C.May
has always answered my letters with a kind response, and J.Gilmore
talked to me personally on the phone to comfort me over my anxieties.
We are really just one big family with nothing but love for everyone!

I now see that Cypherpunks is a fine organization and leaders on par
with CPSR and EFF.  I unjustly accused many human beings of not
existing, like J.Dinkelacker, N.Szabo, G.Broiles, H.Finney, A.Chandler,
and M.Landry. Every one of them has talked to me on the phone and told
me about their wonderful lives to assure me they are real. I am really
ashamed that I have ever attacked anyone associated with the cypherpunk
cause. It was an atrocious violation of everyone's privacy. Please just
chalk it up to my delusions of persecution. How could I have ever
thought anyone here was out to get me? Ha, ha.  Ho Ho. Heh Heh. Hee.
Hee. BWAHAHAHAHA The prozac really IS starting to help! (I was quite a
fool to be afraid of drugs before! they have been critical in relieving
me of my mania, depression, psychoses, and hallucinations, particularly
the LSD, but evil dancing red neoplasm orgasms are oxymoronic monsters,
she corrupt hair in the treason cold washing butterfly, falls truth
salad words filth below and lie trees air, but only poison on Mondays!)

Before I go I would like to share some of the beatiful uplifting prose
of the dear friends who helped me vanquish my insanity. At first I
thought the following was some of the most evil brainwashing and
vicious psychological torture that could be inflicted on a human being.
I realize the grotesque errors in my ways. These are now some of my
favorite quotes. I am going to read them nightly, as I pray to God to
bring us all CryptoAnarchy for Christmas. I *beg* your forgiveness for
my own depravities, perversions, and crimes. Above all, please do not
construe my heartfelt sincerity as searingly sarcasting satire. I swear
on my honor as a Cypherpunk and to our Mother Medusa that my words are
genuine. As long as I am among honorable, reputable, respectable
people, I would never lie.

p.s. Some of this below was private email, but everyone involved has
assured me they would be delighted if I quote it.

===cut=here===

H. Finney:
> This is about all I can offer you in terms of evidence for Dinkelacker's
> independent existence.  It's up to you now.  You can cling to this paranoid
> fantasy, adding layers of elaboration, saying that I must be a false identity,
> Nick must be, this Max More must be (but then, who publishes Extropy?  You
> can get back issues going back three years!), and as more evidence comes
> forward you just add layers upon layers.
> 
> Or you can say to yourself, do I really have any basis for believing that
> people are trying to mislead me in this way?  Who is my best candidate for
> being a fake persona?  Let's investigate that one in detail.  Let's face
> the truth.

steve klingsporn <moofie@apple.com>
>Larry,
>
>You are obviously quite delisional, from your accusations of people being
>criminals, vehicles for criminal activity, to calling people "Darth Vader"
>and 
>"Medusa."  you have always been opposed to anything contrary to your own
>sheltered personal views, and I sincerely hope you grow up before someone
>seriously hurts you (I have heard discussions of this nature are brewing).
>
>You have ostracized yourself and made yourself appear like an utter
>baffoon via your postings.  People have made it quite clear that they
>don't want you poking your nose into their lives.
>
>I have never felt any close feeling towards "Cyber" or "Cypher" anything,
>nor am i personally involved in any way with my roommates or their friends.
>
>I sincerely hope you grow up and learn to examine TRUTH before making
>accusations that certainly could be considered libelous and slanderous.
>
>Have a nice life, loser.

Steve Wiggam:
> I've thought about why I assume your posts are noise.  I seem to have 
> decided on the basis of only a few.  We had an email exchange based on
> one of them in which I got the strong impression you were someone who
> thinks on a wavelength that's too far away from mine for meaningful
> conversation to take place--though you seem concerned about similar
> issues, and you sure have energy, which I would like to admire.
> So, my not liking your style is sad, and my having formed that impression
> seemingly quickly (in retrospect) is interesting, but not too sad or
> interesting.  I'm busy.
> 
> Something subtle, difficult and delicate that is not read is useless.
> Unwanted information that drowns out good information is worse than useless.

G.Broiles:
> Anyway .. re the connection between people and net identities, I gotta
> disagree with your recent posts about it - not so much from a "what things
> ought to be like" perspective but from a "how things are" perspective. I
> think the cat is way out of the bag re the connection between
> personalities/identities/physical bodies, and I don't think that we're ever going
> back. I think it's just going to get worse. I agree that it's difficult to deal
> with people people who may or may not be real, and may or may not turn out to
> be someone you can't stand (it's perfectly plausible that S.Boxx is EH, for
> instance) - and don't think that's a problem that's fixable. I dunno if 
> you've ever read any Foucault, but one of the themes that I get from his 
> work is that the development of our idea of "identity" comes from the way
> that we think about medical treatment and the way that we think about
> punishment. The body (and the identity) is the focus of the exercise of
> power; I think that one of the ways that technology will change this is to
> make it more difficult to affect physical bodies with actual punishment. The
> fluidity and uncertainty of "identity" that's creating anxiety on the list
> will, I think, prove eventually to be freedom; EH can't punish L. Detweiler,
> or kick him off of the list, or spoof him, or otherwise screw around, if he
> can't tie you down to one account/one name/one public key/whatever. I'm
> completely amazed to read his recent commentary on the list in light of what
> he wrote to you earlier (about being kicked off the list, etc.)
>
> There's no way to stop spoofing, cheating, or censorship (in a global 
> sense); it's possible to work around them if you have sufficient technical
> skills, or the money to pay someone who does. What I'd like to do is write
> (and give away) the tools so that we can ALL do that; then, in a wider
> sense, we can talk. As long as only some people have these abilities, they
> will use them to the detriment of the rest.

Mike McNally:
> > YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO LIE TO ANYONE.
>
>You are absolutely wrong about that.  There is absolutely no law
>against telling lies.  There is of course a distinction made when
>fraud is perpetrated in order to, essentially, commit theft, but your
>moronic attempts to portray "theft" of your oh-so-important "trust" or
>"faith" as equivalent to actual theft is without any basis in any
>system of common law.

G.Broiles:
> Although it saddens me to say this, the C-punks list seems to me to 
> be the pet project of a clique of a few people who allow others to read/post 
> to it as long as we're sufficiently respectful of their infinite wisdom. 
> People who write on topics uninteresting or threatening to that clique are 
> flamed, and then criticized for responding to the flames. There are two 
> different standards for messages - one for those posted by folks "within", 
> and another for those "without". I think you get flamed because you've 
> failed to kiss enough ass, not because your posts are unreasonable.
> 
> There are two sorts of posts consistently considered acceptable: 
> posts by "insiders", whatever their topic, length, or content; and 
> transcriptions of media interviews with those insiders. Any other post will 
> either be flamed or allowed to die a death of quiet neglect. Substantial 
> replies to posts by non-insiders are rare indeed.
> 
> You are among the few people whose posts to C-punks I read 
> consistenly. The list will suffer a substantial loss if you stop posting.

Jeremy W. Porter <jerry@io.com>
> All you have really done is convince people that you are crazy.  I've met
> real human people that have commented on your apparent problem.
> I am truly amazed by your persistence in this apparent delusion.
> From the people I have met, including members of EFF, EFF-Austin,
> Cypherpunks, Austin-Cypherpunks, CTSA, Austin Internet Society, and a couple
> of other groups, I have seen several people mention that they believe that
> you have some sort of mental illness.  I have not heard one person
> publicly or privately defend you or your position.
> In essence, you (ld231782@lance.colostate.edu) have become discredited.
> If you are sane, then your best bet would be to get an account from
> some other provider and use that for future post/email.  If you toned
> done the rhetoric, you might even win some people over to your cause.
>
> Of course of you really are crazy, then this will be viewed as an attack,
> and I will be added to your list of "Tentacles".  Which really doesn't
> matter to me or anyone I communicate with, because you have already
> destroyed any credibility you once had.

H.Finney:
> I have mixed feelings about the disagreement you have been having
> with Eric Hughes.  Generally, Eric does not seem to take a very active
> hand with the list.  He only posts once every few weeks, so I don't
> think he can be accused of being dictatorial.  I don't know; maybe he's
> sending dozens of messages around behind the scenes, but I suspect that
> he is not applying his authority too heavily.

T.C.May
> Merely seeking freedom is probably not enough. Gambling, prostitution,
> and easy access to drugs and other hedonistic delights may be enough,
> but I've seen nothing to indicate this type of "Love Boat" is being
> planned. Just the dreamy ideas about self-sufficiency. A commune by
> another name. A floating "Hog Farm," with anarchocapitalist ideology
> replacing Thoreau and Marx.
>
> - people hear about widespread tax evasion by crypto-anarchists, and
> they get interested (for various reasons, including jealousy, anger,
> greed, desire for freedom). "Crypto lasing."
>
> Governments will have a hard time collecting taxes, regulating the
> behavior of individuals and corporations (small ones at least), and
> generally coercing folks when it can't even tell what _continent_
> folks are on!
>
> Some of us believe various forms of strong cryptography will cause the
> power of the state to decline, perhaps even collapse fairly abruptly.

E.Hughes
>The issue here is epistemology.
>
>This is exactly like the question "Are you a liar?", to which the
>answer is always "no".
>
> The usual way to break out of this 'solipsism of the dialogue' is to
> invoke a social mechanism, that is, ask someone else.  Under a belief
> of widespread impersonation, however, all denials are now presumed to
> come from the original speaker of the first denial.  Thus the
> solipsism of the dialogue expands to a solipsism of all dialogues.
>
>There is no such question, as I argue above.  Am I dishonest if I
>cannot exhibit the nonexistent?
>
>Ask your therapist what 'projection' is.
>
>I never stopped beating my wife, either.

J.Gilmore
> My phone number is for those who I
> choose to give it out to.  The way our conversations have been going,
> I'm not interested in having them over the phone.
>
> I think that if you showed the correspondence between you and I to
> any impartial observer, they would agree that you are oversensitive
> and are reacting in ways that are not warranted by the messages.
>
> If people think that you are becoming unstable, they are doing
> you a favor by asking people at your University to come talk to you.
> If I was in that state, I hope they would do the same (or come over and 
> talk to me, if they were in the same town).
>
> Your contributions to crypto discussions always impressed me over the last
> year or so.  I hope you can get past this period of excessive suspicion.
>
> I still haven't read the cypherpunks backlog, or current traffic, but
> the impression I get from talking to some folks in person is that you
> have gone a bit off the deep end with paranoia.  Is that also your
> impression?
>
> I think I'm beginning to sound a lot like any reasonable person would
> after being asked to continue helping you justify your fantasies.  I predict
> that the list of people who "sound a lot like" this will continue to grow
> until YOU change.
>
> I'm not interested in ongoing participation in debunking your paranoid
> fantasies.  I don't want to spend the time.
>
> I hope to see you on the net someday, posting useful commentary or
> information.  Until then
>
> ``Refusal to answer is not dishonesty.''  Bye.