Less Flaming, More Civility

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

Folks, the level of flaming and gratuitous insulting (insultations?)
is getting in the way of our message.

We have on our list folks from Netscape, First Virtual, and (maybe)
Digicash. Amongst others. And we certainly know that some of our
messages are being forwarded to others.

It behooves us to bear this in mind. If we can't calmly and clearly
make our points about why privacy is important (and I mean in the
sense of personal responsibility, not just the buzzword), about why
end-to-end encryption is generally better than transport-level
security, and about why "certifying authorities" is (to many of us) a
flawed approach, then we are failing.

More concisely, the Cypherpunks list is one of several "watering
holes" that have appeared. Rather than trashing schemes which are not
"'punkly correct" (PC, to coin a term), or which seem to have been put
together in haste (perhaps for good reason)), we should instead use
this golden opportunity to influence things.

Call me an elitist, but I think the Cypherpunks list has an important
role to play in influencing:

-- Web development (Netscape, InterCon, others)

-- digital cash (DigiCash, First Virtual, others)

-- key escrow policies and plans (TIS, Microsoft, etc.)

-- the future of PGP, tools, etc.

-- etc.

These things will have more of an effect on the future than convincing
Aunt Erma to encrypt her mail.

It may be that the comments made here about the security model of
Netscape and First Virtual are on the mark, that these models need a
lot more work. But I don't know see how insults or derision, or
imputing bad motives to these folks, will help. (I think I was careful
this past motive to avoid slinging mud at Bill Gates, for example,
during the debate about reports that Microsoft could be including some
form of key escrow in future OS releases. Not to say I've never
flamed...)

One lesson that's become clear is to expect that derisive comments
made here will often find their way back to those derided. I always
write with the expectation that folks as disparate as David Chaum and
Dorothy Denning will perhaps be reading my words! (Hi, David! Hi,
Dotty!) They may read them because someone forwards the messages to
them, or because in 1996 the Cypherpunks list is sold on CD-ROM, or
because one of them has access to the main NSA search engines (:-}).
Whatever, my point is that insults are rarely helpful, and are
unpersuasive. Insults also set a tone for later debate that is hard to
get beyond.

Not all debate recently has been insulting, of course. In fact, most
hasn't been. But the insulting tone persists in some of the thread
titles, and in the generally adversarial nature. (If I were Marc A.
or Kipp, I'd not feel very welcome here....a situation which is
counterproductive to our presumed goals.)

Hal Finney nicely summarized why folks want some privacy on Web pages,
and why transport-level security is generally less desirable than
end-to-end security (including the special case of anonymous
origination). This is the usual "who do you trust?" motif, which comes
up in mail delivery _and_ in key certification. 

(Sidebar: In my view, Web browsers like Netscape and Mosaic, etc.,
should not get overly involved in these issues. These are issues
for Web page owners to worry about and set policy on. The browsers may
want the right hooks in them to allow authentication policies to be
implemented, but the browser-makers should probably stay out of the gory
details of which crypto algorithms are used, what access policies are
set, etc. This makes it easier to drop-in stronger systems at a later
time. I may be misunderstanding plans, I admit.)

So, this is my little rant on "Can't we all just get along?" expressed
in a different way.

The Cypherpunks list has become one of several de facto "watering
holes" where diverse participants interact. Let's not blow it.


--Tim May

-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
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