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rec.guns Cross-Post
[Cross-posted from rec.guns regarding the banning of remailered posts]
+ Date: 11 May 94 14:32:13
+ From: [email protected] (John Nieder)
+ To: [email protected] [rec.guns]
+ Subj: [ANON]: Yes or Goodbye!
=========================================================
"The Federalist Papers were anonymous posts." -- Anon.
=========================================================
I'm so angry I can barely enter this...
This question of anon posts is currently the subject of conflict in
numerous RTKBA net-venues, and I am sorry to see it come up here. As
someone who has carefully followed the encryption/net-privacy/anonymity
movement for the past three years, I feel that I am qualified to comment
on the issue.
To get to the point, _there are no logical arguments against anon posts_.
ALL the arguments against them I have heard boil down to one of two roots:
<1> Technical ignorance.
<2> An adolescent prejudice that anon posting isn't macho.
That's _it_. I can't dignify them further.
To elaborate:
<technical ignorance - short course>
"Real" Names and accounts aren't. Fictitious and virtually untraceable
"real" accounts and net identities are trivially generated, particularly
with the increasing number of other commercial nets and computer
Bulletin Board Systems linked to Internet. Anyone can produce a "good"
account in about as much time as it took me to write this. If anyone is
bent on making trouble on this or any other group, there is no practical
barrier to their efforts, least of all by the banning of remailed posts.
Generating new "real" accounts is often easier than using remailers. At
least a message from a remailer _says_ it's an anonymous post, and the
reader may killfile that From: field if he has an anti-anon bias.
"Accountability" is generally illusory anyway, as anyone knows who has
tried to silence the many legendary Net Nuisances who have abused
Internet to an extent beyond that which we are likely to encounter in
rec.guns. If troublemakers want to post mischief, even under their own
names, there is very little that can be done about it. If you doubt
this, consider the infamous Prodigy "Vito" case. They'll be back.
In short, if you think a "real accounts only" policy is any protection
against _anything_, you're just dreaming, plain and simple.
Further, _remailers provide needed non-anonymizing functions for some
users_. Though the parochial Internet mindset assumes that all users
are on complex institutional Unix systems, this is simply no longer
true; many users are on private home computers, linked through a wide
variety of host systems, each with its own limitations.
For example: In posting this message, I am limited by the
(non-configurable) host software to headers containing only To:, From:
and Subject: fields. It is impossible for me to Cc: a netmail reply to
a post's author, or include Reference:, Comment:, Reply-To: or any other
header field. This is frustrating, but by using some remailers for my
reply, I may include these and other standard header fields for enhanced
function. I do not use the remailer to anonymize, but merely to post
more efficiently - I will include a Reply-To: field with my name in it
as well as my sig. Currently, such posts are rejected from rec.guns.
There are many other secondary functions for remailers. Use your own
imagination.
<"Duhhhh...but I betcha _John Wayne_ wouldn't use a remailer!">
A competent explanation of "anonymized digital reputation" as concept is
beyond the purview of rec.guns, but I will refer those interested in it
to the [email protected] mailing list. Put on your thinking cap,
though, as the list principals are smart boys who'll leave you in the
dust if you can't keep up. Anyone who wishes a better understanding of
the purpose of the anonymity movement should monitor the list for a
while.
But so what? _Ultimately, all posts stand or fall on their internal
merits, no matter what name - if any - is on them_. Ego and identity is
utterly irrelevant, or should be.
In these anon-post arguments over the past few years, I have noticed
those who most oppose anon posts are consistently the same persons who
habitually engage in flamewars, ego battles and rants. This cannot be a
coincidence. As I have already demonstrated above, remailed posts pose
no "threat" to anything beyond what is already present from falsely
generated "real" accounts, but the urge to personalize and invest ego
(however illusorily) in posts dies hard. The anonymous post has a long
and noble history; it says, "Here is a thought - consider it on it's
merits, irrespective of how 'important' or obscure its author is."
Further, there are legitimate reasons for wishing anonymity in any case.
There are many persons whose situations are such that participation in
politically-sensitive newsgroups and lists is unwise. On ca-firearms,
there was an anonymous poster who was a policeman in a highly
politicized, anti-gun PD. His participation on an activist RTKBA list
would jeopardize his job (remember Leroy Pyle). Would anyone braying on
here about the un-machoness of anon posting wish to support his family
when he gets fired because of "manly" non-anon policy preferences? I
thought not...funny how that works.
"Caution is not cowardice and carelessness is not courage." There is no
upside to being personally conspicuous in dangerous political waters.
If you want to stick your neck out for no good reason, go right ahead,
but don't impose that pointless risk on everyone else just because you
don't know any better.
< MAKE ENEMIES FAST! >
Though the political and civil rights issues at stake in the privacy
movement have probably never seriously crossed the minds of 95% of the
participants here, they exist nonetheless, and are remarkably related
to the RTKBA battle.
_There are no more important natural allies to the RTKBA movement on
Internet than the computer privacy advocates_. There is substantial
overlap in these groups, and the ill-informed banning of remailer use
in RTKBA net forums is stupidly antagonistic and insulting to the best
friends we have...and right now, we need all the friends we can get,
especially ones who are experienced and organized activists in their own
right.
Such anon codewriters and advocates as Tim May and most other principal
encryption/anti-Clipper/remailer activists are vehemently pro-RTKBA, and
make their support known at every opportunity. I find it embarrassing
that "well-meaning" but ignorant RTKBA list and newsgroup maintainers
such as "Magnum" and Jeff Chan have directly insulted them so
grievously, without a second's thought or serious consideration.
< "It's _my_ list! If you don't like it LEAVE!" >
I intend to.
I believe in the RTBKA because I dislike folks who compulsively want to
dominate others by force of authority and who wish to ban everything
they can't understand, or fear because they can't control.
The anti-gunners and the anti-privacy people are the _same_. Usually,
they are actually the same people (check voting records in Congress),
but in any case exhibit identical mindsets.
When another user left [email protected] in protest of the
anti-anon policy, imposed there not because of any problems caused by
anon posts but rather "on principle," he received netmail from two
anti-anon users which he forwarded to me when I left the list. Neither
one had the least idea of the actual issues and technical considerations
enumerated in this message, which was not a surprise. What I found
truly sickening was that one idiot went on for his entire post about how
a list had to be a "benevolent dictatorship," (oxymoron unnoted) and
that anon posts somehow threatened the "order" of the list, and that
anon posters were ungrateful and soforth. It was nothing more than a
catalogue of irrational bullyings by a control-addict.
I do not want to align myself with people like that. Sorry.
If anon posts are forbidden on rec.guns - or ca-firearms, or anywhere
else - I'm leaving and encourage others to do likewise.
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