From: ""L. Detweiler"" <ld231782@longs.lance.colostate.edu>
Date: Mon, 17 May 93 21:09:09 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: I'M GOING CRAZY! FWEE!
Message-ID: <9305180408.AA15369@longs.lance.colostate.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



RECIPE FOR INSANITY
===================

I'm extremely FRUSTRATED and DEJECTED on the progress the
`whistleblowing newsgroup' has undergone as a cypherpunk pet-project:
pathetically negligible and STYMIED, from my point of view. It has been
many weeks since a rowdy, visionary, and consistently irritating
cypherpunk first proposed it and immediate ringing endorsements came
from eminent and venerable members of the list, e.g. T.C. May. It has
generated quite a bit of traffic and ideas on the list. In spirit and
intent is probably as central to the cypherpunk cause, as, say, PGP.

WHERE'S THE GROUP?
==================

I swear I am going to go INSANE waiting for some patriotic cyberpunk
with a smidgeon of skill, courage, impatience, knowledge, and access to
send out a NEW GROUP command for alt.whistleblower! Did I miss it?
Where the heck is it? Please, I IMPLORE SOMEONE to PUT ME OUT OF MY
MISERY!  FIRE NOW!  Damn, we have the stench of alt.fan.dick-depew
wafting as easily as most mortal people create directories! PLEASE, I
swear whoever gets alt.whistleblower gets to be in my personal
historical all-time CYPHERPUNK HALL OF FAME and have my everlasting
gratitude! Never before in the history of Usenet has something so
trivial thwarted so many for so long!

Sheesh, I thought it would be SIMPLE for someone to effect SOMETHING to
happen in this area. I thought I wouldn't have to slave away entirely
personally in going through the RFD and voting process, if even that
was necessary! For once I thought this would be a project that every
cypherpunk could bite off a piece somewhere, and that some COLLECTIVE
MOMENTUM could be established! I thought this could happen faster than
the speed of electricity. Instead it is happening slower than the SPEED
OF BUREACRACY.

Am I starting to sound enough like a CRACKPOT YET? well I really hope
so. <tremble>  I think I am going to break down and cry. Please,
someone, have some humanity in you, and PULL THE TRIGGER. Are we
waiting for a triplicate directive from Clinton, or the NSA, or what?!
Do we have to make sure every vacillating cypherpunk likes the idea or
every last senator is personally prepared with their Official
WhistleBlower Kit and Decoder Ring? Who cares what anyone thinks! JUST DO IT!

BOILING A TOAD?
===============

Gad, it is such a g*dawful tragedy this simple take-out-the-trash chore
has not been done yet. Look, I don't know about the authenticity of the
recent Mycotronx postings, they make me SHUDDER! They are PERFECT
AMMUNITION (whether true or not) for getting some MAJOR HEAT on the
maintainers of this fragile mailing list! Does anyone have any idea how
paranoid and POWERFUL the NSA is? Do you think that they just shrug
their shoulders and say `oh well' when confidential information sneaks
out? Do you know what kind of unpleasantness a wounded bureacrat can
summon? Multiply that uncountably many times and you have a tiny facet
of the decimating wrath of a betrayed horde of spies sanctioned by a
vast government!

Gad, this could all have been ENTIRELY AVOIDED if they were posted to a
newsgroup! As I've pointed out, the critical *resilient* aspect there
is that a newsgroup is *distributed* -- post from anywhere, spreads
everywhere like a virus, how can a sinister federal agency clamp down
on a cloud? It can't! On the other hand, if anyone decided to clamp
down on toad.com, after a certain amount -- certainly a great deal but
definitely a lot less than that required to shutdown Usenet -- it would CROAK!

PARANOID DELUSIONS
==================

Yes, I really am going insane. 

Clark Reynard <clark@metal.psu.edu> posted a few weeks ago he was
starting the RFD for soc.whistleblowers. In my silly naivete I thought
enough cypherpunks would drop by to make it a landslide, and that I'd
mosey on over after hearing about all the excitement. Review the
debate, balance the points, post something fiery and visionary and
inspiring, sit back and watch the fireworks.

Finally, I thought, someone who knew what they were doing could get
this silly thing HAPPENING. Someone could be a LEADER and take
RESPONSIBILITY. Someone could give some DIRECTION to the pervasive
cypherpunk malaise, stalemate, and bickering. Someone who was forging
AHEAD irrespective of counterproductive and sabotaging griping.

What the heck happened? Did anything happen? This is not only dead
without a bang, it is dead without a whimper! Mr. Reynard posts on Tue May 4:

>Based on the responses of a few cypherpunk members,
>I have decided not to post a second RFD for soc.whistleblowers
>unless I receive a significant amount of email requesting
>that I do so.  Nor will I post a CFV.

My sanity is teetering precipitously.

Who were these cypherpunk `members'? Mr. Reynard refuses to identify
`them' to me in email. He says that someone has asked him NOT to
personally start the whistleblower group! and that this person deserves
his trust because of his reputed contributions to the cypherpunk cause!
Gee, I asked, who could this be that would ask to HALT PROGRESS for
some vague, nebulous, unspecified reason that even Mr. Reynard was not
aware of? Look, I would have gladly saved all this bilge for private
email, but I DON'T KNOW WHO TO TALK TO! Supposedly this person, for
some unfathomable reason, specifically told Mr. Reynard NOT to reveal
his identity! I will not quote email, but Mr. Reynard kindly
sympathizes with my frenzy, but still refuses to tell me anything informative!

So ever since May 4 and trading several barren and excruciatingly
exasperating missives with Mr. Reynard, I am BOILING OVER! This mystery
person is supposedly going to post something on the whistleblower
project, acc. to Mr. Reynard, Real Soon Now to the list that will
absolutely dazzle everyone with its magnificent splendor.

Well, WHERE IS IT? (Note to the clueless: *this* is certainly not IT!)

MUSHROOMS AND PUDDING
=====================

I find it OUTRAGEOUS the weaselly and underhanded way this mystery
individual, apparently wholly intentionally, has TOTALLY STYMIED and
THWARTED the SOLE cypherpunk progress in this area. Cypherpunks, do you
feel like trampled mushrooms yet? well I DO.

Not only that, Mr. Reynard wrote cryptically:

>While I find the imputation that I ought to be executed as
>an Enemy of the People both offensive and absurd, it seems
>that I could be acting retrogressively, though no sane reason
>why I am doing so has been presented to me.

who is it that levelled these atrocious, filthy accusations? Mr.
Reynard took it upon himself to do a PUBLIC SERVICE. Who is it that
suggested that it was anything but valiant heroism? Speak, I demand it!
Reveal yourself! From whence comes this treasonous, traitorous slime?
Where is the DOUBLE AGENT in our midst?

>I will allow others to continue their efforts,
>and would be pleased to help in whatever manner I can, but do
>not wish to foment further splintering of what is already a
>divided group.

Please Mr. Reynard, isn't it clear that the cypherpunks will forever
have more splinters than a shredded beam? Who CARES what anybody else
thinks! Isn't there any SCRAP of INTRINSIC MERIT in this project? Is
`cypherpunks' just the brand name for MUSHY GUTLESS SPINELESS PUDDING?

Look, if somebody is doing a lot to get the whistleblower group going,
I PRAISE AND COMMEND YOU. But so far I see ABSOLUTELY NO SIGNS anything
is happening! After weeks of hypothetical hyperventilating, we have
nothing but a DEAD CORPSE! In this fragile and critical period, I would
rather make a fool of myself shouting than be silent as it LANGUISHES INTO OBLIVION.

>If interest warrants, or opinion seems different than what
>I understand it to be, I reserve the right to change my mind.

INTEREST WARRANTS! CHANGE YOUR MIND! If not you, then SOMEBODY! If not
now, then IMMEDIATELY!


CAVEAT
======

Ok, so others on the list will find my rantings most unpalatable and
tell me so in email and on the list, perhaps even humiliating me with
epithets and personal attacks, despite that, while bordering
precariously, this note is free of them.

I DON'T CARE! I'm a desperate man!  This thing is just too IMPORTANT
for me to care about STEPPING ON SOME TOES or BLOODYING MY NOSE. It is
the first feeble step toward a kingdom of Electronic Democracy, and we
are just tripping and falling over each other like drunken legislators!

Yes, some will say `what are you doing about it personally?' I am
WAITING FOR THE GROUP TO BE CREATED so a tentative FAQ CAN BE POSTED
THERE! (FAQs do not arise in vacuums, they are forged from posting and
feedback! I speak from experience!)

No, my worthless, prejudiced, personal FAQ for whistleblowers is NOT
WRITTEN, because right now, for strange and mysterious reasons I will
leave to the reader to prophesize, to do so currently would SCANDALOUS
WASTE OF MY TIME!

'scuze me while I go get some water, i'm getting hoarse...