Re: Disinformation (or the Truth?) About Clipper

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

Jim Miller writes:

> I'm quite satisfied with this clarification (as if it matters to any  
> but me).
> 
> Still, I believe labeling your efforts a "disinformation campaign"  
> was a mistake.  It gives the pro-Clipper people something to throw  

Fair enough! I hereby agree not to use the term "disinformation
campaign," as it has clearly caused some confusion. 

It seems that any labelling of what we are doing, except by innocuous
labels liek "education campaign," will cause some confusion. For
example, I think it's clear that we are talking about a "smear
campaign": we are setting out to take what we know about Clipper and
what we _surmise_ about Clipper and use this to "smear" it, to
basically undermine trust in it and cause a public outcry or promises
of a boycott of Clipper products.

But calling it a "smear campaign" is equally impolitic, I guess.

I appreciated the thoughtful comments of folks like Jim Miller and
Phil Karn. I didn't especially care for the "me too" comments along
the lines of "Yeah, and like if we start lying and stuff, we'll like
be as bad as they are. And like then we'd _deserve_ Clipper."

(My apologies to Beavis and Butthead. Heh heh.)

Taking issue with the semantics of the term "disinformation," which I
clearly take in a broader sense than some do, is different from
cluelessly imputing dishonesty and lying to me.

I still say our goal should be to undermine support for Clipper.
Counter-propaganda, education, whatever. To me, spreading of rumors
which appear to have some foundation is completely legit: this is part
of what being educated really means.

As I keep saying, we certainly can read the many signs that point to
key escrow being made de facto the favored system, and perhaps the
only legal system, even though the "official" truths all are that the
standard is "voluntary." Sort of like the tax system in the U.S.

--Tim May


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