Re: Recommendation: Creation of "alt.cypherpunks" (fwd)

[Jim Choate <ravage@EINSTEIN.ssz.com>]

Forwarded message:

> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 15:42:48 -0800
> From: Greg Broiles <gbroiles@netbox.com>
> Subject: Re: Recommendation: Creation of "alt.cypherpunks" (fwd)

> I disagree strongly that a controversial or legally troublesome list (or
> other data stream) should be closely associated with a business.

No. IS the business.

> (Also, what is the "right" thing to do where a particular exercise of free
> speech looks like it has serious potential to harm the business, thereby
> harming or eliminating the list which makes the speech possible? Isn't
> every choice a person could make in such a situation reducible to
> "censorship"?)

Get somebody else to do the marketing, your current promoter is incompitent.
I don't think I can accept "personal choice" == "censorship". To my mind
personal choice is a decision I make based on my wants and needs. Cencorship
is a decision about my want and needs made by somebody else. Distinction is
pretty clear to me.

> Every "forum" for free speech occurs exists in the context of economic and
> political relationships - and there will always be some message which
> threatens (to some degree) the stability of those relationships, and by
> implication, the forum itself. Unless we can eliminate economics and
> politics (ha, ha) I think that will always be the case - and there will
> always be some messages which raise "conflict of interest" problems. But
> some forums rest on less stable relationships (like, for example, most
> small businesses) and are more easily threatened by difficult messages.

Everthing exists in a context of economic and political relationship, and
religous ones, and intellectual ones, and historic ones, and cultural ones,
and sexual ones, etc.  Life is inherently unstable, what makes anyone
believe that ANY forum is not under constant threat of extinction? If from
nothing else sheer boredom.

Life ain't that simple.

If there were no "conflict of interest" problems we wouldn't have our
interests in the first place. Also, why do you believe that conflict doesn't
have a market as well?

> It's much easier to disrupt the income stream of a small business than to
> disrupt the income stream from a portfolio of investments or savings.

Depends on where that income stream comes from.

> But
> even a system whose upkeep was funded by something as unremarkable as
> interest on a savings account or a CD would still theoretically be
> "conflicted" were someone to use the system to propose or carry out a
> scheme to, say, overthrow the U.S. Government, or eliminate the FDIC and
> loot various savings & loans. 

Would one of the persons be a owner?

> The threat(s) to systems providing transport/storage for controversial
> messages are not limited to liability after a judgement; it is becoming
> more common for civil plaintiffs to seek (and get) discovery of the actual
> hardware owned and used by defendants, in order to look through the storage
> media for discoverable information, including "deleted" files. The tactics
> the Co$ used against its critics were shocking but also legal (modulo some
> irregularities). It's certainly not unimaginable that similar tactics would
> be used against a remailer or majordomo operator were the list to pass
> traffic that someone didn't like. And if a computer system is the target of
> a search warrant in the criminal arena, you'll be lucky if you get to keep
> your electronic alarm clocks after the search. Count on everything with a
> chip in it going away in the police van.

Irrelevant. Whether the system were private or business would make no
difference to the warrant. The question is,

"Since I run a system on the Internet and may become involved through no fault
of my own with legal difficulties because of my activities how do I pay for
the legal bills and various other consequences?"

Another question affecting financing is,

"Whether I am doing this for fun or business the cost will be the same. From
a effort and resources perspective, including the realities of the tax code
and cash flow, which is in my best interest?"

I would also offer that it isn't in the best interest of any party to shut a
Internet site of some report down. Consider the cypherpunks mailing list.
Assume for a moment that the remailer was to mysteriously disappear tonite
at midnite. If Sandy or somebody didn't put something up within a day or two
entirely too many people would start asking "whaz up?" The most successful
strategy would be to impose some sort of continous drain on the business
until it seemed to fold of natural causes. I contend that a business will
hold out much longer than most individuals will.

> Most businesses don't want to expose themselves to the threat of civil or
> criminal seizure or discovery, especially not at random times and for
> non-business reasons.

Exactly! It isn't a weakness, it's a strength.


                                                 Jim Choate
                                                 CyberTects
                                                 ravage@ssz.com