From: "L. Detweiler" <ld231782@longs.lance.colostate.edu>
Date: Sat, 22 Jan 94 18:28:11 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: more unbearably upsetting, tasteless, and disruptive taunts and ridicule with some delightful Leader Libel thrown in on the top
Message-ID: <199401230217.TAA08649@longs.lance.colostate.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Hello, darlings. I wanted to share with you a revolutionary idea that
will sound completely alien to you, but it could help you immensely in
your perilous experience with disruptive posts to the list. Surely this
has been proposed, but been rebuffed. Why? It is a brilliant idea:

ONLY MEMBERS ARE ALLOWED TO POST.

Imagine! All those annoying remailer messages would just *vanish*!
Whoa, what a concept! Too bad it is heretical blasphemy. Anything that
stands in the way of Unaccountable Anonymity is a Bad Thing (tm).

Interestingly, if this rule were in practice on the cypherpunks list,
and `member' is taken in the sense of `email addresses', I would not
have been able to post this message. Many cypherpunks have taken great
note of the fact that I post `blindly' in the sense that I do not
subscribe under the ld231782@longs.lance.colostate.edu address but post
to the list anyway under it. I ask these people, though, what makes you
think that I am not receiving the delightful frenzied contortions of
late on your list through some other address? Would you call me a hypocrite?

I have never claimed that such a use is pseudospoofing-- the definition
clearly applies to *postings* and *outgoing mail*. I suppose there is
some `deception' going on if I receive mail from a different address
than from which I post if people can see the list subscribers and
assume that those who post are those on the list. But obviously, in
many scenarios, this is a ridiculous assumption, particularly here.

This brings up another question. Is the cypherpunks mailing list
private? If it is private, then it is nobodies business who is
receiving what through what addresses, and any use of different
addresses for reception (such as that I hinted I do) are completely
honest. Periodically someone discovers that they can use the SMTP EXPN
command on toad.com to get a list of everyone on the cypherpunks list
(supposedly), and suggest ever so delicately that E.Hughes, Mr. Master
Programmer, who has clutched his Stone Age Mailing List Software so
fanatically and so persistently for some incomprehensible reason, ought
to get his act together and prevent people who do not subscribe from
posting, and people from peeking at the mailing list. Is the latter an
`invasion of privacy'? In a sense the former is too.

So, I ask you cypherpunks-- is your mailing list subscriber base
`public knowledge' or not? If it isn't, then figure out a way to
conceal it; if it is, then don't complain when somebody uses it for
malicious purposes you don't like. Are outsiders allowed to post? if
they are, then stop whining at me about posting `blindly'. If they
aren't then could someone please handhold Mr. Hughes, the Master
Programmer, Mr. Cypherpunks Write Code, in getting some new mailing list software?

* * *

Of course, there are real reasons why you have Stone Age Software for
your mailing list. The first reason, as I have already alluded to, is
that Mr. Hughes is a iron-fist dictator who belligerently and
obstinately opposes any modification in the status quo that he didn't
invent in the first place. Yes, this is the kind of person who will
oppose a good idea just because someone other than himself thought of
it. And this amusing tension between him and Mr. May is most
entertaining-- the latter ever so delicately and gently attempts to
suggest some change to the list that would make it more beneficial,
that would keep out the troublemakers, but Mr. Cypherpunk God has
spoken long ago, that Nothing Shall Change.

The second reason is more obscure. The cypherpunks love to talk about
how some modifications in their software may prevent Newbies from
posting. But this is nothing but putrid hypocrisy (as usual). The
leaders do not give the slightest damn about Newbies, because Newbies
are by definition not Insiders, and they are clueless, and it takes so
much trouble to educate them, doing things like writing comprehensive
and coherent posts. This may cause people to (unjustly, or rightly?)
accuse the leaders of negligence to Newbies. The leaders have tried to
come up with comprehensive posts on certain subjects, but they prefer
to post them under their Tentacles like H.Finney to get the
commensurate increase in reputation. 

At least, E.Hughes does. T.C.May does not really have the attention
span to write anything longer than a few paragraphs or refine his
writing on any subject over a long period of time. So he instead writes
things like the `anonymity outline' to claim that he thought of
anonymous whistleblowing first, when in fact all he did was write down
the word `whistleblowing' in a long, rambling, useless salad of words.
But I digress. As for Newbies, the leaders will often post
disinformation from their tentacles suggesting that Newbies aren't
really treated like dirt, and this is actually an effective tactic
against all of the braindead idiots who subscribe to the list.

So if the list software is not changing because of Newbies, why is it
not changing? For a long time many people, myself included, attempted
to get E.Hughes, (aka God), to do something sensible like split this
list into sublists. The topic perpetually comes up. But both the
leaders are opposed to this for several reasons. T.C.May is opposed to
it because his God, E.Hughes, is opposed to it, but also because it
decreases the opportunity to tickle (or molest, depending on whether
you are S.Boxx) people with tentacles. You see, when there are a lot of
lists, it is more difficult to maintain the presence of personalities
in front of all the people you are trying to trick. It is so much
easier to have one `cypherpunk central' where H.Finney can post
something about Chaumian systems, etc., and all the Newbies can look up
in admiration.

The reason that Mr. Hughes has not barred `blind posting' is for the
same reason. Oh, the leaders love to talk about *supposed* reasons why
this is not a good idea, to ban `blind' posting. They have always
perfected their disinformation techniques to the point that they even
begin to believe their own lies. The *real* reason, of course, is that
it is another big headache for tentacle maintenance, and of course
again E.Hughe's own spectacular obstinacy. It goes against the leader's
belief that every mailing list should be open to *any* idiot that wants
to post, even if they are outside tentacles or anonymous remailers,
when in fact the uses of anonymous remailers in legitimate,
nonfrivolous groups are virtually nil. Of course, they will argue about
my claim that this is so, and I shall enjoy watching them do their
damage control with all their tentacles in response.

* * *

By the way, I have said some nasty and perhaps even LIBELOUS things in
here about Mr. Hughes, the list moderator, and his close personal
friend, T.C.May. Maybe you would like to get your lawyer to send me a
letter. So far no one has, even after J. Bowery ranted and raved and
shook his feathers in a flurry at me in the newsgroups.  I have asked,
a long time ago, that Mr. Hughes send me mail telling me to stop
posting to the list. It is amazing in all the time all the cypherpunks
have been shrieking at me, Mr. Hughes has never done so. Apparently he
believes (like I do) that all my posts are extremely constructive and
brilliantly executed. Otherwise, why does he put up with them? 

Well, he did say once that he was going to censor me on the list, but
apparently that is nothing but an empty threat. I guess he realizes how
hypocritical that would be for him to do, and how that would fit in
perfectly that the image I have been ascribing to him, the Iron Fisted
Dictator. Anyway, cypherpunks, please do not whine to me that my
Cypherpunks postings are `disruptive'. Tell the List Moderator, the
Iron Fisted Dictator, the Conspiracy Leader, the Master Medusa, Mr.
Nazi Reincarnated, the Evil One, the Antichrist, to send me or my
postmaster mail explaining why I should be Dead in Cyberspace. 

If your Leaders request that I stop posting to Cypherpunks, I will
comply. Rather simple, isn't it? Why have you not tried this approach
for so long? You did it with Helsingius and S.Boxx, didn't you? `Mr.
Helsingius, please *stop* that raving lunatic, that violent madman,
that ranting psychopath, from posting those BAD NO GOOD AWFUL NASTY
VIOLENT PSYCHOPATHIC EVIL DEATH THREAT LIBEL HARASSMENTS. 

Why don't you do it again? No one is watching. No one gives a damn what
happens to S.Boxx, anyway. You should kill him, for all I care.