From: KINNEY WILLIAM H <kinney@spot.Colorado.EDU>
Date: Wed, 14 Apr 93 17:58:52 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: alt.whistleblowers
Message-ID: <199304150058.AA21866@spot.Colorado.EDU>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Some comments on alt.whistleblowers from an (up to now) lurker. In brief,
this strikes me as being a very foolish idea. 

In detail:

-- Does anyone really think this is going to have much of an effect on
   anything? My suspicion is that a forum providing unlimited ability
   for people to anonymously post undocumented accusations against 
   powerful people will be summarily ignored, not just by the targets
   of the accusations, but by everybody else with an actual life. There
   seems to be no discussion of the biggest weakness of this idea: the
   expected signal to noise ratio. This accomplishes nothing if it is 
   overrun by, say, Kennedy asassination loons. It doesn't seem wise to me
   for the Cypherpunks' first major public act to be something this
   pointless and ill-conceived.

Ok. Suppose I'm wrong about the above, and this thing works like people
seem to think it will.

-- The tools available to accomplish this task (PGP, remailers, anon servers)
   are certainly impressive, but I really don't think they're well developed
   enough yet to give cause for much confidence in taking on the government
   and the entire U.S. corporate sector in a frontal assault. 

-- Is this really in line with the purpose of the Cypherpunks? To quote from
   the charter

   "Cypherpunks write code.  They know that someone has to write code to
   defend privacy, and since it's their privacy, they're going to write
   it.  Cypherpunks publish their code so that their fellow cypherpunks
   may practice and play with it.  Cypherpunks realize that security is
   not built in a day and are patient with incremental progress."

   I like this paragraph, and what it says to me is that (a) people
   are, in the end, responsible for their OWN security and need to be made
   to realize this, and (b) PATIENCE is the most important prerequisite
   for success. Both of these principles are being violated by the
   hasty creation of alt.whistleblowers. This has nothing to do with
   enabling people to independently achieve data security, and it shows
   no patience whatsoever.

Wouldn't everybody be better served by quiet, patient development and
distribution of tools, instead of a huge juvenile "FUCK YOU!" to people
who could really care less? Let's not piss away a solid foundation with
cheap theatrics.

                                -- Will


"Getting people to fight by letting the force of momentum work
is like rolling logs and rocks. Logs and rocks are still when in a
secure place, but roll on an incline; they remain stationary if
square, they roll if round. Therefore, when people are skillfully
led into battle, the momentum is like that of round rocks rolling down
a high mountain -- this is force."

-- Sun Tzu


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