No Subject

[owner-cypherpunks@toad.com]

At 12:05 PM 3/20/96, Perry E. Metzger is rumored to have typed:
> anonymous-remailer@shell.portal.com writes:
> > Some people have wondered why I am anonymous and attack me.
> > I am not ashamed of my views.
>
> Well, then you should be.
>
> > I write this thread anonymous as a form of protest.
>
> Why is it a form of protest? If you aren't ashamed, post it under your
> name.

What amuses me most about this series of rantings by whomever, other
than the paranoid and baseless claims made by the anonymous poster,
is the number of people who have been complaining about the author doing
so anonymously through a remailer.  The irony of such a situation is
too rich to pass up.

It seems that cypherpunks can dish it out when other newsgroups and
mailing lists suffer such problems ("well, the remailers do nothing
that telneting to port 25 cannot do..." or "internet identity is such
a fiction anyway, get used to it"  seem to be common responses), but
when the cypherpunks lists is the victim of unpleasant anonymous messages
we fall back to the tired refrain of "if you have nothing to hide why
are you posting anonymously."  How sad.

So, why the hypocrisy here?  If you don't want to be bothered by these
messages there is a simple solution, use a mail agent that can filter
out remailer postings and trash them.  Of course this would also kill
interesting messages from others who use remailers, but that's the price
we pay for having remailers that do not support anonymous identity upon
which reputation can be built.

Oh yeah, I forgot...cypherpunks write code (snicker).  So why not stop
bitching and write a bit of code that provides for useful anonymous
reputations and/or fix the glaringly obvious problems with current
remailers.

jim, who is sorry that he is not the one posting such trolls to the list
just to make the puppets dance...