From: Eli Brandt <ebrandt@jarthur.Claremont.EDU>
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 93 17:38:21 PDT
To: cypherpunks list <cypherpunks@toad.com>
Subject: Re: Anonymity versus Responsibility
In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.87.9310211150.A4957-0100000@crl.crl.com>
Message-ID: <9310230035.AA18944@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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>   It still seems to me that the spoofing issue has been oversimplified:
[...]
>   "Spoofing and deception are not the same."

What's overly simple about this?

>   Then Boxx gets dinged for using spoofs, 

I don't think anyone cared that "S. Boxx" posted pseudonymously.

[ Example of someone impersonating William Gibson ]
[ Example of someone impersonation *you* ]
> tell me you wouldn't feel furious. Someone  has used anonymity to 
> misrepresent you. In essence, to lie about you in  an ingenious way made 
> possible by a combo of human nature and the structure of the NET.

Anonymity has nothing to do with this.  Nor does pseudonymity.  This
is a simple case of exploiting technical loopholes the size of
Neptune.  Unfortunately, many people give more credence than they
should to the From: line, perhaps not realizing that present
protocols were never designed for security.  An easy way of making
reality conform to expectations is to spread the use of digital
signatures.

Your examples of "harmful spoofing" are problems, but they are old
problems having nothing to do with the use of nyms.  You can't,
for example, post to alt.cyberpunk as an47351@anon.penet.fi (William
Gibson) and expect to fool anybody.  Yes, forgery is obnoxious.
But this putative offense of "pseudospoofing", of having multiple
names, is very from forgery.

   Eli   ebrandt@jarthur.claremont.edu