Re: Breaking into girlfriend's files

[Black Unicorn <unicorn@access.digex.net>]

On Tue, 27 Dec 1994 dmandl@bear.com wrote:

> Date: Tue, 27 Dec 94 09:52:22 EST
> From: dmandl@bear.com
> To: cypherpunks@toad.com
> Subject: Re: Breaking into girlfriend's files
> 
> Black Unicorn <unicorn%access.digex.net@bear-lock.bear.com> writes:
>  
> > I guess I suffered from the silly idea that as a whole, the members of 
> > the list would not put  short term morality before the long term goal.
> 
> Do me a favor, Uni: I want to assassinate you and all the other members
> of your family.  Could you send me some powerful handguns and silencers?
> Oh, and while you're at it, give me all of your addresses and precise
> travel schedules for the next two weeks.  As an "amoralist," I'm sure you
> won't put short term morality before my long-term goal.  Thanks.

I fear what you request would probably violate many laws.  Providing you 
with weaponry has little to do with providing you the information you 
might need to obtain and modify such weapons as you will need.

I will however be happy to direct you to several publications on the
manufacture and use of silencers, disposable and otherwise.  I will also, 
as an academic gesutre, be happy to provide you with likely sources or 
methods to obtain or otherwise control handguns and other such weaponry.

As for my addresses, I'm sure if you're serious about killing me and my 
family, you'll be able to obtain these.  Arguing that they are in the 
public domain, unless I have put them there, is just silly, off point and 
misunderstands the differences between the basic need of publication and 
distribution of potential weaknesses and attacks for the advancement of crypto
as a technology, and the privacy associated with the personal affairs of others.

I will advise you that I take significant personal security measures.  
Feel free to test these if you like.

>   
> > It seems there are those who disagree with me.  I would offer the 
> > following:  While it may be that Joe Break-Into-Girlfriend's-Files may or 
> > may not be justified, that is not ours to judge.
> 
> I'll judge what I want to, OK?

As long as I don't have to listen to it on a crypto mailing list, fine.

> What are you trying to do, _coerce_ me
> into giving information to someone that I don't want to?

As I have stated, I will never argue a duty to disclose, only that a 
moral argument cast as a cypherpunks position is outrageous.
 
> > It is simply for the 
> > crypto non-challenged to comment on the security or lack thereof of a 
> > given system.
> 
> Hmm, sounds like you're telling us what to do.  And defining what "we" are,
> to boot.  I'm many things besides "crypto non-challenged."  I'm an individual
> and an individualist, not a cog with a particular static role in society,
> which is apparently the way you'd like it.  If you ask me what the color of
> the sky is, I can say "39" if I want.

Forgive me for not adding "Or say nothing at all" to the end of my 
comment, I thought the readership of the list astute enough to pick up on 
this themselves.  It seems I was mistaken.

> > As soon as this list turns into a pile of bleeding heart 
> > liberals, anxious to embroil themselves in the personal matters of 
> > others, it has failed.
> 
> Yeah, well it seems you were just as quick as the "bleeding heart liberals"
> to scold others and impose your personal (a-)morality.  Typical.

I argued that morality should have never entered in to the conversation.
If you want to be meta-physical, I suppose this is a "moral" position.  
I'll discuss this in e-mail if you wish.

> > I cannot believe that people on this list, those who claim to be 
> > interested in the preservation of privacy, would support the proposition 
> > that knowledge about the strength or weakness of a given system should be 
> > surpressed.
> 
> No one was suppressing anything or in any way attempting to stop the flow
> of information.  They were just expressing their opinions.  Just because
> _you_ were unhappy with those opinions, that's no reason to hurl accusations
> of censorship around.

Person A requests information.
Person B says no, because the use of the information is unsound in person 
B's view.

Censorship?  You tell me.

> I can refuse to give help to anyone I don't feel like helping, and if I feel
> like giving him a piece of my mind in the process, that's my business and his.

It seems everyone is convinced that I was insisting on some sort of duty 
to disclose.  I was not, I will not.

> > I submit that the response should have been the same regardless of the 
> > nature of the material.
> > 
> > Which is it going to be?
> > 1>
> > Q: "How do you attack X?"
> > A: "Y"
> > or
> > 2>
> > Q: "How do you attack X?"
> > A: "Realistically X should not be attacked, because to allow the 
> > widespead lack of confidence in X will destroy society as we know it, and 
> > anyhow it's nasty."
> 
> Great, I've always wanted to be a simple input-output machine.

What you do in your own home is fine.  When it comes to information about 
the strengths and weaknesses of crypto, a moral judgement is not required.

> 
> Pseudo-individualist Republican rubbish...

Personal opinion which you insisted I refrain from expressing.

I believe the word you used was "Typical"

>    --Dave.
> 

073BB885A786F666 nemo repente fuit turpissimus - potestas scientiae in usu est
6E6D4506F6EDBC17 quaere verum ad infinitum, loquitur sub rosa    -    wichtig!