Disinformation from folks like Kent on this list

[Tim May <tcmay@got.net>]

At 8:03 AM -0800 5/16/97, Duncan Frissell wrote:

>Kent should try and read up a little.  The slaughter in Rawanda started when
>the government radio stations began broadcasting orders for tribal members to
>come by and pick up their government-purchased machetes and get out there and
>start hacking.  It was a classic government ordered slaughter.
...

The problem I have with Kent is _not_ that he works for LLNL, and not even
that he has charitable things to say about mandated key recovery systems.
After all, others here on this list also work for the government (including
The Real Government (tm), the Federal Reserve). And so on.

No, what I find so irksome about Kent is his obdurate unwillingness to
bother to learn whereof he speaks:

- unawareness of the situation in Rwanda, though he cites it as an example
of why "anarchy leads to mass killings."

- he cites hackneyed Webster's definitions of "anarchy" to make some point,
then objects that others are relying too much on definitions when they
refute him.

- he claims remailer networks are insecure without apparently having
comprehended how chained remailers work and without apparently even
glancing at the 1981 Chaum paper or the followup papers on DC-Nets (which
discuss collusion sets in great detail).

- he proudly admits to not having looked at past archives, nor I presume at
the large file I generated a few years ago (Cyphernomicon), covering many
of the issues he keeps raising.

- he claims his flavor of "key recovery" is demanded by corporations, but
seems unwilling to then just let corporations do as they wish in this
regard (if corporations really want it, they'll get it...but not in the GAK
form the government is insisting it be in). He also cites key recovery as a
middle ground in the war on crypto, thus implying (counter to his claimed
support of voluntary systems) key recovery will not be voluntary.

(Speaking as an info-terrorist who sees strong crypto as a tool for
triggering the eventual collapse of governments and dispenser of justice to
the criminal rulers, I certainly won't be "volunteering" to use any key
recovery tools, leastwise none that put the key in any subpoenable
repository. Maybe key recovery with my lawyer, outside the U.S., but not in
any Netscape's Trusted Key Suppository.)

And so on.

I've taken to sometimes responding to him, but usually not. Nothing
delights me more than seeing some long rambling criticism of us, and our
work, and then deleting it.

Kent is just one of several folks who've discovered this list, share none
of its core values, and seeks to disrupt it with innuendos, spam, insults,
and disinformation.

Kent, please go away.

--Tim May

There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws.
Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!"
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."