From: hughes@ah.com (Eric Hughes)
Date: Sat, 27 Nov 93 21:04:19 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Banning any subscriber
In-Reply-To: <199311272018.MAA26674@mail.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <9311280456.AA04042@ah.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


>I personally disagree with censorship. It would be impossible to enforce
>anyway. A move of this type would simply drive Detweiler to use the
>Cypherpunk remailers which would be harder to detect. Then what do we do?
>Stop accepting mail from our own remailers?

Basically, yes, except for signed letters from previously
authenticated pseudonyms.  This is a simple form of a positive
reputation system.  A kill fill is a negative reputation--'not that
person'.  A positive reputation rejects all but a particular set of
identities.

Much of the debate on cypherpunks magically incants 'reputation
systems' to solve all sorts of sticky problems, but none have ever
been implemented in software, except for killfiles, which are not
effective against disruption in an anonymous environment.

Necessity is the mother of invention.  A motivated individual trying
to disrupt a communications forum and who has to avoid a kill file
will be necessary to create the need for a positive reputation system.
Once the need is there, the software will follow.  LD could become the
most valuable participant in the endeavor of creating a positive
reputation system, namely, the irritant at the center of the pearl.

Let us encapsulate him well.

Eric