From: nobody@alumni.cco.caltech.edu
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 93 10:12:35 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: pseudospoofed out
Message-ID: <9310201704.AA02218@alumni.cco.caltech.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


on Wed, 20 Oct 93 09:23:03 PDT, hfinney@shell.portal.com (Hal Finney) writes:
< A basic principle of
< discourse is that the validity of an idea is independent of its source
< (which is why ad hominem attacks are considered invalid).  Yet this
< principle is not widely followed (which is why ad hominem attacks are
< considered effective).

i believe the reason this principle is not often followed is because 
so much context is gained from knowing who a person is.  not just the
message history, but knowing what a person's experience and profession
are can be extremely helpful in understanding the intent of the communication.

removing the sender's identity also removes a substantial amount of 
semantic information.  computers might be able to send billions of bits
per second over a network, but it's up to us humans to remove the degrees
of freedom and figure out what is really meant.

< Dug's solution enforces the discipline of judging
< each piece of mail on its own merits.  Maybe more people should consider
< this approach.

i don't think that's what he meant.  Doug Luce <doug@lm.net> says:

< if i can't figure out who it is by the context, the sender loses.

which means to me, doug is still using contextual information gained by
his knowledge of the sender.

as an example, i often find mr. detweiler's posts to this list difficult
to interpret, since i don't know him personally.  is he playing devil's
advocate? is he just trying to be entertaining? is he deliberately behaving
in a schizophrenic manner, or is he just a victim of MPD?  i can't tell 
from his posts alone.

which is why i believe that honest humans for the most part will have no
good reason to spoof.  trusted communication just won't work without
reputation.  both the sender and receiver rely on context provided by 
reputation to send comprehensible messages.

----

i liked the point made recently that e-mailing lists are often like
discussions at a coffee house, and are not formal environments for objective
culling of opinion.