Who is L. Detweiler?

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

Cyphertentacles,

Here's a posting I made yesterday to the Extropians list, describing the
Detweiler situation. Yes, even they have heard of L. Detweiler and his new
prominence as a Net.Loon of note. 

So when some folks asked for an explanation, I sat down and wrote up a
summary of the situation. Here it is:

***from the Extropians list (with a quote from that list excised, as they
have rules about forwarding list traffic, except one's own, of course)***

I'll descend into the depths of Detweiler's mad world for a bit to
answer some questions raised by John Clark. Detweiler is actually a
fascinating case history in Net paranoia....we actually have gotten to
see the birth of a Net.loon like McElwaine or Serdar Argic, a Net.loon
who is already famous.

He makes anybody we've seen on the Extropians list look like a Minor
Perversion (apologies to Vinge's "A Fire Upon the Deep") by
comparison. Antics like his are why postive reputation filters are
needed so urgently, not just on mailing lists like Cypherpunks, but
throughout Cyberspace. (The Extropians list software, with ::excludes,
is sorely needed on Cypherpunks. Various things are holding up the
transfer of this. I have suggested to Harry that one approach is to
set up "mailing list servers" that support this software, as a
profit-making venture.)

Anyway, here's the saga of Lawrence Detweiler, aka S. Boxx and a dozen
other such names.

--quote from John Clark removed--

Lawrence Detweiler, sometimes called Larry and sometimes called Lance
(which may be a mistake, one he never corrected until recently) is a
guy who's about 22-23 who lives in Colorado, having recently graduated
from Colorado State U. in Computer Science. Don't know what his career
is now, if he has one.

He joined the Cypherpunks list about a year ago and showed great
enthusiasm and energy, volunteering to write the FAQ on "Anonymity on
the Internet" and "Privacy and Anonymity." He put this out very
quickly (too bad he's crazy and can't do the same for the Cypherpunks
FAQ, which I have recently agreed to write, or the Extropians FAQ,
about which I'll say no more).

Detweiler was, like I said, very energetic, often writing very long
rants against Clipper, Dorothy Denning, etc. He often got angry with
someone and slipped into insulting them as being duplicitous,
malicious, etc., instead of merely ascribing their different opinions
as being just that. He asked for my help several times in getting his
views accepted by the Cypherpunks, and I tried to get him to tone down
his ad hominem attacks and general rants (he was always prone to
writing agonized prose, such as "I am becoming increasingly disgusted
and completely and thoroughly disenchanted by the nauseatingly
waffling on vital issues by the Cypherpunks High Command."--this is
not something he actually wrote, but my attempt to duplicate his
style).

His FAQs are very well-done, if a bit long, and tell us there's a
glimmer of brilliance beside the madness....the two often go together,
so this is hardly surprising.

By last summer, Detweiler was handing out "Cypherpunks of the Week"
awards, was arguing for his own form of electronic democracy (one
person one vote, to be done on a daily basis on all sorts of
issues....needless to say, many of us disagreed with him), and was
generally ranting and raving.

When I stated my disagreement with his electronic democracy idea as
being the main goal of the Cypherpunks--and this was done in a mild,
objective manner--Detweiler spat venom at me and accused me of being
an agent of some government agency.

His paranoia and rancor increased steadily throughout September and by
October he had become "S. Boxx" and other pseudonyms, using his
"an12070" account to argue about "pseudospoofing" and "tentacles of
the Medusa." He apparently decided that I, for example, was using a
variety of fake names, including Nick Szabo, Hal Finney, Geoff Dale
(yes, the very same folks you all know from _this_ List!), to drive
him crazy and to argue against his points. Thus, if Nick Szabo argues
against electronic democracy AND has a Netcom account, as I do, then
it's obvious: szabo@netcom.com is obviously a "tentacle" of
tcmay@netcom.com! What could be more obvious?

This all increased, with Detweiler launching daily rants against me,
Eric Hughes, and others. He demanded apologies "or else." He demanded
statements from the "Cypherpunks High Command" that we no longer
"pseudospoof." He appealed to John Gilmore to "put a stop to this
pseudospoofing," but John was in Nepal on a trek and didn't respond.
When John eventually returned, he replied in a calm manner and
suggested that Detweiler was mistaken. True to form, Detweiler went
ballistic at this "betrayal" and declared Gilmore to be just another
"Big Mac."

(In DetSpeak, many new terms exist. Those of us who appeared on the
cover of "Wired" (issue 1.2), Eric, John, and me, are "Big Macs."
Other Cyperhpunks are "cheeseburgers." Of course, we are also
"TENTACLES" and "SNAKES" of Medusa. Sometimes Detweiler refers to _me_
as Medusa, other times he imputes to "her" the role of coordinating
the Grand Conspiracy to a) drive him crazy, b) spread the
Cryptoanarchist message, and c) corrupt all of Cyberspace with Lies.
He also drifts into Christian rants about Hell, Satan, God, and
Damnation. Keeping track of his shifting terminology is a chore.)

He asked to be removed from the Cypherunks list, and was, but
continued to post to it (blindly). He created his own group, the
"Cypherwonks" list, with a fascist list of rules and regulations about
true identities, the evils of pseudospoofing, etc. I gather from
reports that it is now moribund. (I didn't join, for obvious reasons,
not even under a "tentacle"--which I don' even have, needless to say).

Ironically, but hardly surprisingly, the very thing Detweiler rails
against so much, "pseudospoofing," is precisely what he is most famous
for! I'm sure a psychologist would have a field day with him.

Detweiler issued death threats, saying he would be visiting the Bay
Area to "kill the tentacles." He mostly did this under his an12070
name, though he often confused the identities and made several telling
slips which confirmed to even the doubters that L. Detweiler = an12070
= S. Boxx = Pablo Escobar = Adolf Hitler, all names he has used for
his paranoid rants. (Other evidence: same line lengths, same use of
TeX-style ``quotes'' in messages, same use of no spaces between
initials in names like "T.C.May," same florid languages, same emphasis
on same issues, and, most tellingly of all, several "goofs" in which
private messages to one or the other were quoted by the other, and
even goofs within messages that alluded to himself as "Lance" or
"Larry.") 

And so it goes. He has been posting his "CRYPTOANARCHIST INVASION
ALERT"-type messages to several Usenet groups for the last couple of
months, and has recently gone even further in the direction of
madness.

I expect one day to hear Detweiler has shot and killed himself, or has
shot and killed others, or is holding them hostage. I know the
Colorado Cypherpunks group--which expelled Detweiler from their
physical meetings and from their list--is fairly concerned about their
security, and the security of Phil Zimmermann, who lives in Colorado
and whom Detweiler alternately characterizes as "God" or as "Satan."

After the latest rounds of forged messages, with my name attached and
with .sig block attached, I alerted Julf, operator of the
anon.penet.fi site, to the obvious "abuse" of his remailer site....I
didn't do this when Detweiler was ranting, only when he was sending
out posts which gave the appearance of being from _me_. No an12070
messages have been seen by me for several days now, and Detweiler has
made comments about how S. Boxx "told him" that his account has been
stopped. Yeah, right.

So that's the saga of L. Detweiler, the latest Net Perversion to be
born in cyberspace.

--Tim May


-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
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