Re: whats all this nonsense

[jrochkin@cs.oberlin.edu (Jonathan Rochkind)]

>I just signed onto this list. What the hell is all this nonsense that I hear
>about mandating PGP signed messages?
>
>I thought the whole grassroots crypto thing was about protecting privacy
>rights and individual liberty and all that. So what if someone wants to
>post a message to cypherpunks AND DOES NOT WANT ANYONE TO BE ABLE TO
>PROVE THEY WROTE THE MESSAGE. Whether because they fear legal prosecution,
>or some other social consequence down the line, or whatever

Of course we all agree with you there, but as someone else mentioned, users
would be perfectly free to sign with a _pseudonymous_ key.  My key wouldn't
have to be in the name of "Jonathan Rochkind," it could be "Dirk the
Destroyer", or whatever else I wanted it to be.

I'm not sure if Eric is suggesting that everyone submit their public key to
the list or not. If he is, then things would be made a bit dificult, as you
would have to make your one-time-only anonymous key, send it to toad.com,
wait for it to be recognized, and _then_ send your message to the list.
Assuming that not only do I not want your messages traceable to Jonathan
Rochkind, but I also don't want them traceable to _each other_, then I'd
have to make a new key before sending each message, and go through that
whole rigamarole each time. I'm not how often people actually _would_
desire to do such a thing (generally, it's important to most people to
build up a good reputation, pseudonymous or otherwise), but....

I agree you have a good point that it's important the list be set up so
it's possible to contribute to it anonymously/pseudonomously.  And that
_some_ implementations of what Eric is suggesting might make that either
impossible or just a pain in the ass (and we probably dont' want to do
either). There are probably other implementations that wouldn't have this
problem.  Although I would still oppose them, pretty much on the grounds
Tim May has been ranting about.  (and I do mean ranting in the best way. :)
).  People should pretty much be able to do what they want, and I don't
see any compelling reason to force people to sign their messages whether
they like it or not.