"alt.cypherpunks" people?

[Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk>]

John Gilmore urges action, or piping down... well lets start with
discussion of whether one possible action is appropriate, and useful
(piping down is not an option:-):

What do people think of starting an alt.cypherpunks USENET newsgroup?

It has some advantages:

 1. It distributes the cost of information dispersal, rather than
    largely placeing the load on a single machine.

 2. Newsreading software typically includes threading, which is useful

 3. It avoids the issue of ownership, it is more anarchic.  There is
    no list or host owner to get prosecuted for copyright violations, 
    export law violations, libel etc.

 4. Automatically gets archived several places, and is searchable

 5. It will be unmoderated

And some disadvantages...

 1. Cross-posting in USENET is a problem, especially in alt newsgroups

 2. Commercial spam is a problem with newsgroups

 3. USENET distribution is likely less efficient of overall bandwidth

 4. News propogation times are often poor (Exeter univ. receives news
    about a week late) This is a real killer in my view.  I have
    another news server I can access at the moment, but not everyone
    may have access to a reasonable news server.

 5. News access is more complex for some people.  Some alt newsgroups
    are not carried by some servers.  Perhaps news-to-mail and
    mail-to-news gateway would solve these problems.

 6. Some have argued in the past on this topic that the mailing list
    medium is better because it is more exclusive, as it requires more
    technical competence, and an active enough interest to subscribe.
    This is an elitist argument.  Perhaps it is relevant though, if we
    are trying to maintain a mailing list where technical discussions on
    how to improve privacy are to take place.  I wouldn't call this
    attitude censorship though.

My overall feeling is that I prefer the faster turn around time of a
mailing list.  When interesting things were/are happening on the list
(netscape break, late breaking crypto news, and cypherpunks spin on
it), the fast turn around time was essential.  Being able to react
quickly to news items, and to organise technical projects rapidly is
one of the cypherpunks main advantages and attractions from my point
of view.

My view of moderation is that it is a huge amount of work for the
moderator, that it is hypocritical philosophically (we promote
anarchy, but in order to effectively promote anarchy, we reject
anarchy), that it breeds artificial social hierarchys, rather than
allowing posts and posters reputations to stand on their own merit.

I was happier with the strength of the philsophical standing of the
list prior to moderation.  Moderation hasn't improved the noise much
anyway.

Readers who have been reading for several years may understandably
wish to recapture the stimulating discourses, and lively community
feel to the list from the past.  Lists change, cypherpunks is a victim
of it's own success, media attention increased public awareness,
increased number of subscribers, and at the same time increased the
proportion of noisy off-topic posts.  Unfortunately the success of the
list, and the noise has resulted in some of those people who kept it
interesting leaving the list.

Coderpunks is a reasonable list, I'm not sure that it is moderated as
such, but if you breach etiquette (discussion of politics, even when
perpetrated by respected cryptographers, or by people discussing the
implications of breaking DES, rather than the strict coding questions)
they get Futplex-grams, which I find slightly annoying.

Cryptography@c2.net is again reasonable, and gained back some of the
original people who quit cypherpunks over the years due to noise.
Cryptography is moderated.  (Or is moderated when Perry thinks it
would benefit from moderation, so that may change).

Perhaps some of the lack of stimulating discussion is simply that the
ideas are no longer hot new ideas.  Most of the interesting technology
and it's implications have been discussed.

What's left is attempting to stop government restrictions and backdoors,
and deploying the many complex peices of software for which there exists
uses and demands.

Adam
--
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