Filters and Freeh

["Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net>]

At 7:55 PM -0500 11/17/96, Brian Davis wrote:

>Regardless of what good he may have done in the past, Vulis was (and is)
>engaged in an enormously egotistical disply of bad manners and off-topic
>posting.  Having just installed Eudora Pro 3.0, I know that I can easily
>filter him out, but have hesitated to use filters in the past.  Vulis may
>be the one to push me over the edge.

I've been using Eudora for several years, and Pro since it came out. I
heavily use filters to sort the various mailing lists into their own
folders, so it's natural enough to filter a few names into "Twit" or
"Trash" folders. I do sometimes look over what's in these folders before
emptying them; the status of the messages helps to remind me not to respond
to them, even if I happen to look at them. With Vulis and aga spewing so
much bile, I'm increasingly tempted to empty the trash before even
beginning to read my messages, to remove any temptation to monitor what
they're saying.

I think Gilmore made a tactical error, with predictable effects. But I've
also tried to stay out of either the piling-on or the defense of John.

>primarily because a lot of people are listmembers.  This confiscation of
>private property would, I thought, be inimical to the cypherpunks general
>philosophy (to the extent one exists).  I'm sure Louis Freeh will be
>pleased to know that you believe in such confiscation.  With email

I know you mean this as a jibe (invoking the name of the Great Enemy as the
ally of one's enemy). Even opponents of GAK and Freeh in general don't hold
that Freeh supports confiscation of private property (except in RICO cases,
drug case forfeitures, or when illegal religions are practicing in Waco, or
when...well, maybe he _does_, now that I think about it! :-))


>Just because you don't get your way, doesn't mean that what happened was
>illegal or even wrong.  Your authoritarian views would do Stalin proud.
>

Good sentiments for an ex-prosecutor!

(Again, I should clarify. I doubt many prosecutors are
authoritarian-minded, politically. I even doubt many of them would support
GAK and mandatory key escrow...wait until their own communications are
GAKked, wait until they realize that attorney-client electronic
transmissions are GAKked, with no certainty that  the other side has not
used various national security or whatever justifications for peeking....I
think even the prosecutors of the country will feel some strong civil
libertarian twinges.)

While I don't believe many people in government are "evil" or have "bad
intentions," I'm a strong believer that _systemic_ or _institutional_ evil
is possible. Thus, the wide opposition to mandatory key escrow, just as
civil libertarians of all stripes would oppose mandatory tatooing of
national I.D. barcodes on arms, or the mandatory retro-fitting of all homes
with special curtains containing a police-accessible "transparency mode."

Domestic rules about crypto--when they come, perhaps as early as in the
next several years, depending on external events and on the political
climate--will trigger huge constitutional challenges. Much bigger than the
Bernstein and Junger cases. Maybe bigger than the CDA case.

--Tim May


"The government announcement is disastrous," said Jim Bidzos,.."We warned IBM
that the National Security Agency would try to twist their technology."
[NYT, 1996-10-02]
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."