From: jamie@netcom.com (Jamie Dinkelacker)
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 93 11:02:40 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: My Views on the Detweiler Matter
Message-ID: <9310271717.AA00817@netcom.netcom.com>
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Cypheroids and Cypherettes,

The eventual recognition that names are symbol strings and not their
referents is akin to the realization that the map not being the terrrtory.
Yep, sometimes we just keep learning the same old lesson.

The Detweiler/Boxx rants have the flavor of a reformed alcoholic
distrupting the champagne toast at a wedding, selfishly driven by their
world view and utterly unaware of the social dynamics around them. But
aside from the rantings, pleas for TrueNameUtopia in CypherSociety, and
threats, I sense something else. Take your pick of remark -- "thou doth
protesteth too much," or "where there's smoke there's fire," or ... . Seems
to me that the essential raison d'etre of L.Detweiler and S.Boxx (and even
sometimes The SternLight himself) is purposive to distract c'punks from
"writing code" or essays or having fun. This is basic motivated deception
used in sports, business and the military ... get the opponent to do
something else ...

Here's one interpretation: if c'punks weren't pushing the envelope in
creating both tools and understanding for things like cryptography,
anonymous remailers and digital cash, nor pushing the social bounds through
BlackNet, Nyms, Sam Hill, and May's CryptoAnarchy, the Detweiler nonsense
wouldn't have emerged. A nerve has been struck; and this seems, in the big
picture, to be A Good Thing.

I've no doubt that to the true statists, fascists and communists, we are
their vision of hell. On the other side of this, they will no longer be the
only ones to hide behind anomynity, pull their secret strings, and
pronounce agents of change as Evil Incarnate. 

We stand at the threshold of a new world, in large part to be enabled by
cryptography. As "The Net" expands, dark fiber becomes illuminated, online
markets flourish and the like, cryptography will be key for economic
survival, and it will be in the hands (or machines) of The People, not The
State.

If such great progress wasn't being made toward providing for personal
privacy, the L.Detweiler-Boxxs of the Net would be ranting about something
else. So each rant underscores how significant the progress in cryptography
is becoming; and it will become more so.  In a nutshell, three cheers for
c'punks. 
--
................................
Jamie Dinkelacker   Palo Alto CA 
Jamie@netcom.com    415.941.4782