Re: LA Times article on crypto anarchy

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Sat, Mar 22, 1997 at 12:56:02AM -0800, Huge Cajones Remailer wrote:
> 
>   Look at the number of people on the list who _boast_ about their
> killfiles. They are idiots. Even those who profess to use their 
> filters as an information tool seem to base their filtering on
> personality, to a large degree.
>   The result? They are filtering _into_ view those the disinformation
> artists who will lick their dick in order to lead them away from 
> areas they don't want to receive too much attention.
> 
>   The result of the sheep mentality of cliques who killfile each other
> is that if a list member wants to raise an issue outside of his or her
> own _clan_ on the list, then they must make NOISE sufficient to draw
> in the members of other clans, whose other members will read their
> replies.

An interesting idea.  However, while there is no doubt some truth to 
it, I think you are vastly overestimating the strength of the 
effect.  The barriers between cliques are quite permeable, and there 
are many people who have cross membership in several.  So no 
significant good idea is going to be blocked.

A far more important form of filtering takes place inside the cranium. 
Human beings find it essentially impossible to accept ideas from
people they consider assholes, even if they "read" every word.  

>   The fact of the matter is, spotting spooks and schills on this list
> is a minor matter of the simplest of traffic analysis, given the fact
> that so many list members are content to focus their attention only on
> the _visible_ enemies that those who use deceit and deception have to
> make little effort to cover their tracks.

I think you are vastly overrating the impact of "spooks" and "shills" 
on the operation of this list.  It seems to proceed by its own dynamic.

-- 
Kent Crispin				"No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com,kc@llnl.gov		the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint:   B1 8B 72 ED 55 21 5E 44  61 F4 58 0F 72 10 65 55
http://songbird.com/kent/pgp_key.html