Information Warfare

[Peter Hendrickson <pdh@best.com>]

The cypherpunks list has been under "attack" for some time.  How have
we managed it?  Very poorly in my view.

Some people have dismissed the idea that rogue governmental elements
are behind some of our problems.  Yet, there is no reason to rule
out this hypothesis.

The government has not always behaved well with regards to its
perceived enemies in the last few decades.  The FBI seems to
infiltrate everything - even churches!.  This is well documented.

The CIA has worked hard on disrupting various political movements of
which it did not approve using provocateurs and other conspiratorial
dirty tricks.  (I believe the FBI has, too, but I do not recall any
documentation offhand.)

We know that "Information Warfare" is the big thing in the defense
establishment right now.  It's all over their web pages.  We see
articles from the Kennedy School which seem to compare free speech
with disease. Etc. Etc.

We also believe that the things the Cypherpunks are interested in are
on the radar screen.  Maybe the Cypherpunks are, too.

Is it unreasonable to ask whether some people are getting funding to
experiment with disrupting "groups" like the Cypherpunks?  I can
easily picture people inventing all sorts of important sounding words
like "psy-op" for what is little more than rudeness.

Whatever the cause of the disruptions, the solutions are the same.

Most of the proposals I've been hearing have to do with controlling
the behavior of other cypherpunks and creating more structure.  This
is a mistake.

It's clear that even the definitions of "spam" and "flame" are hard to
nail down.  The next idea will be to moderate on the basis of content.
How will we decide what is content?  Clearly that's much too important
a question to leave to just one person.  What we need is a committee
to decide!  What's next?  Robert's Rules of Order?

All of this detracts from the work we have before us.  If you've ever
been involved with a non-profit organization, you will know that
enormous energy is spent on internal political scheming.  That's a
boring waste of time.

Let's go down a better path.  Let's think about the best way for each
cypherpunk to manage disruptions.  Please consider these suggestions:

1. Filter noise.

I filter based on origin.  If a kill file doesn't work, use a positive
filter to read messages only from people who are worthwhile.  It has
been suggested that this doesn't work because some people post
garbage, but also occasionally post something good.  There's gold in
the ocean, too.  Why don't we retrieve it?

If you don't want to manage a filter yourself, find somebody to do it
for you.  A number of people offer filtering services.

Remember that in an open forum, noise increases with signal.  The more
worthwhile and interesting threads are on the list, the more worthless
postings we are going to see, particlarly when people are consciously
disruptive.

2. Post signal.

Filters are useless when there is no signal.  Signal comes from
cypherpunks.  You are a cypherpunk.

3. Birds of a feather flock together.

When you respond to somebody, you mingle your on-line identity with
theirs.  Fly with the eagles.

Peter Hendrickson
ph@netcom.com