the problem with attacks on Blaze & Weinstein

[Greg Broiles <gbroiles@darkwing.uoregon.edu>]

The "Blaze & Weinstein are devils in disguise" business is ridiculous, as is
the notion of "cypherpunk purity". Cypherpunks is a mailing list. If Blaze
and Weinstein were up to something especially tricky, they'd probably post
from accounts not traceable to their employers (like, say, anonymous
remailers). Suggesting that a person is not to be trusted because they work
for organization "X" is particularly silly where the suggestor isn't willing
to provide the details of their own organizational ties.

This is a mailing list. Mailing lists are for discussing things - like
technological defenses for privacy. People may have interesting things to
contribute because of, in spite of, or irrespective of their employment or
other relationships with large organizations. (And, in fact, they do. Both
Matt Blaze and Jeff Weinstein have done and said pro-privacy things despite
the equivocal-to-hostile stance their employers have taken with respect to
privacy. Brian Davis, the list's token prosecutor :), has recently been
sending messages re the limits of governmental power in the context of
criminal investigations. Microsoft employees have posted re Microsoft's
choices about privacy and encryption/security. And so on.) If this were a
secret organization and we were splitting up into individual cells for
revolutionary/forbidden activity, your suspicion/paranoia might be useful.
But we're not (it's an open list, archived on full-text searchable Web
servers), so it's not.

And, apart from whether or not they're valuable list contributors, the list
really isn't in a position to not "tolerate" unwanted or unproductive
readers or authors. The tools which make identity difficult to fix make it
difficult to restrict/deny access to an unpopular or unwanted identity. Get
used to it. Adapt or die, hmm? 

--
"The anchored mind screwed into me by the psycho-  | Greg Broiles
lubricious thrust of heaven is the one that thinks | gbroiles@netbox.com
every temptation, every desire, every inhibition." | 
	-- Antonin Artaud		   	   |