From: James Still <still@kailua.colorado.edu>
Date: Fri, 29 Oct 93 11:33:25 PDT
To: 'Cypherpunks List' <cypherpunks@toad.com>
Subject: Re: ID of anonymous posters via word analysis?
Message-ID: <2CD16F67@kailua.colorado.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



>  I remember reading some time ago that the Nazis had a method of
>trapping communists that went like this:
>  They'd put the suspect in  room and carry on a conversation with him
>(all males, as I remember). Then, after several hours of conversation
>about any and all kinds of subjects, they would tote up the number of
>times that the suspect used the word "concrete" -- evidently a favorite
>left-wing buzzword in the '30s. If the "concrete" cropped up frequently
>.... off to camp went the suspect.


This practice is, IMHO, extremely unethical and dubious at best!

If the world's experiences are a metaphorical "object" bundled up in
a <.lib> somewhere in the cosmos, then *anything* that the Nazi's
did should be considered completely bugged code.  Why do we want to
inherit their flawed algorithm's?

The whole point of the cypherpunk cause is to compile code from the
ground up--considering the ethics involved with decisions such as
rooting out 'nyms.  Have we decided that it is now imperative to know
the identities of those on 'our' side (further fueling this
polarization of 'us' versus 'them')?

Let's leave behind this obsession with determining who's who; it
has taken us too close to the kluged code of Nazi history!  My eye
is on the prize...  ;)


 --- still@kailua.colorado.edu ------------------------------------