From: Tim May <tcmay@got.net>
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 1997 15:52:19 +0800
To: Declan McCullagh <cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: NAMBLA embattled -- mirror sites?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.95.971024181115.26025B-100000@well.com>
Message-ID: <v03102801b07750d7df7a@[207.167.93.63]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 6:14 PM -0700 10/24/97, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>Folks on f-c and cypherpunks have mirrored holocaust revisionist web
>pages, banned books, and censored newspapers. Now I understand that NAMBLA
>is in danger of losing its home on the web. Anyone up for mirroring the
>(text-only)  publications of perhaps the world's most controversial
>organization?

This is one of several types of information too dangerous to mirror. Most
mirrors have involved stuff those damned furriners have banned, like
Holocaust denial info, the Mitterand book, the Homulka-Teale material, etc.
It's pretty safe to mirror stuff banned in Germany, Israel, France, Canada,
etc., but not so easy to mirror stuff banned in the U.S., or highly
controversial material.

Mirroring the NAMBLA stuff could be a severe career-limiter, for example.
Even if not strictly illegal.

(Recall that a student, who shall remain nameless here, mirrored some
controversial stuff at his Ivy League school. He was almost kicked out of
the graduate school program he is in, as I recall the story (but this was
about 2 years ago, so my memory may be hazy). After withdrawing the
material and promising to stay in line, the situation cooled down. Imagine
his woes had he mirrored NAMBLA material!)

Other too-dangerous material would be, for example, U.S. defense secrets,
personal medical files, material ordered closed in court cases, etc.

These are areas where untraceable data havens really shine. My own
Blacknet, as an example. If the NAMBLA material were to be periodically
sent out via remailers, to Usenet, censorship would be nearly impossible.

And so would traceability and, hence, culpability.

--Tim May

The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^2,976,221   | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."