From: Nikolaos Daniel Willmore <ndw1@columbia.edu>
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 94 01:45:18 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Bye from Xenon.
Message-ID: <199402170941.AA12749@konichiwa.cc.columbia.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


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 -= qwerty remailer shutdown notice =-

Disclaimer: none.

OK tentacles, damage control time. See what one post can start? And you
think alt.w.a.s.t.e. would survive (see forwarded posts from Usenet)? I
have just remembered that I arrived here on this mailing list in need of
remailers, since I was being anonymously Xenon. For that I gave up my
anonymity, to the remailer operators. Then I decided to gain some
legitimacy by starting my own remailer on Netcom. As Netcom has no
Manhattan number yet, and I like to connect at lab, that blew my anonymity
for any Unix skilled person who wanted to find out who I was. Finally I
lost sight of why I really came here, which was to find out ways to get PGP
out to people. And now that I'm posting via qwerty, I don't even need a
remailer network any more.

I have also come to realize that in the next five years, the ONLY solution
to keep people from abusing the remailers is a human being sitting there
moderating the remailer. As I do not have the time, and do NOT think it
would be profitable to try to pay some undergraduate to moderate qwerty, I
have decided to shut qwerty down. The only other solution in my mind is to
have qwerty forge its return address, a solution that will likely get my
account revoked when the shit hits the fan after just ONE abuse causing
postmaster@netcom.com to have to pour through sendmail logs and process
logs or whatever, to find me. And qwerty@netcom.com has become the "PGP
Information Clearinghouse". Yes I find it amusing to see "fuck-wads" whine
about one bad post to their oh so precious little narrow-minded newsgroup,
but I no longer see qwerty@netcom.com as an expendable resource, which I
can afford to loose.

I thought of remaining on the Cypherpunks mailing list, only because
Pr0duct Cypher (PGP Tools and Magic Money), Will Kinney (Curve Encrypt),
and a few other bright lights post here. But I am a man of action, not of
debate, and even on turning to debate on this list, I find very few out
here who are as smart, humane, creative, or radical as I am, and therefore
I become unfulfilled with the level of discussion I am able to find. I made
a big mistake turning away from product development and information
distribution to debate, and trying to change people's opinions. This was
what lead me to science. I can be found on Usenet, if ever my unsubscribe
request will be fulfilled by Eric Hughes, who cannot even figure out how to
automate a mailing list, or avoid silly errors with the remailing software.
I am sorry to express my disappointment, and the fault lies only with
myself, for I mistook you for adults. When a real (my favorite word)
cryptography mailing list appears, and is announced on Usenet, I shall
subscribe.

The "Cypherpunks" have disappointed me, for as I have said before, they are
not punks. Nor, I have found, are they "Cypher", if that imply them being
competent activists. Hell, they can't even run a mailing list or an ftp
site. The clincher came today, when I asked Eric Hughes, "founder of the
Cypherpunk movement", about why the FUCK he hasn't fixed macpgp2.3.cpt.hqx
to reflect the fact that it is a .gz file, not a .hqx text file. This,
after I posted it very loudly to the list that it had a corrupt name, and
that a month after I posted the same thing to Usenet. What he told me was
this, and I apologize for the pathetic act of posting "personal e-mail" but
well, FUCK YOU if it bothers you, or doesn't conform to some RFC standard
of "netiquette":

>From: hughes@ah.com (Eric Hughes)

>Look, I don't have the permission to change the file name, or I would have
>done it. soda is running with very low quotas and the administrators
>changed some of the ownerships without setting the permissions right, OK?

And this is our Great White Hope for who will run our future e-bank, and
revolution culminating in the fall of the government as we know it? He who
speaks in tongues instead of English, about remailers? When I stop
laughing, I'll start crying. And Eric, "Hey". Sure liked that STUPID
Cypherpunks meeting, with all the God Damned, "Eric_Hughes [Guest] orders
Medusa, One Medusa, coming right up!, Don't got your snakes on today, Might
I recommend a needle with that?, The bacteria on the bar die as the drink
is set down., ld brings Eric_Hughes [Guest] a Medusa."

PhUcK y0u EveRyb0dy ;-). Bye, till I get my hands on Stealth-PGP, which
should be a few days from now. Then the fun begins: sophisticated
steganography. I hope it works out with Stealth-PGP, so I don't have to
convince people to rewrite PGP from the ground up, 'cause as you know it
takes a lot of work to get past those "closed doors" to talk to those secretive
developers of the (grassroots) upcoming new de-facto encryption standard.

Why don't I disappear silently? Because I know there are many "lurkers" out
there who would appreciate knowing why I left. I get mail from them often.
In fact, I think the greatest power in this list, if it has power, lies in
the hands of the "lurkers". Those who spread PGP, one copy at a time, and
wish to learn here, not live here. And because I want this great audience
to hear my words, for I think they matter and will have influence, for I
say nay, these are not activists, these "Cypherpunks". They are greedy
e-yuppies, who would use encryption for personal gain, at the expense of
their fellow man. I have discovered that and I now must part ways, hoping I
do not loose contact with those few out here on the internet who are
straight thinkers and straight arrows.

Another pathetically motivated, but this time nostalgic, quote from
personal e-mail:

From: Philip Zimmermann <prz@columbine.cgd.ucar.EDU>

>Your letter is interesting. I'd like to discuss some ideas with you.
>We should talk. Please send me your phone number, or call me at
>XXX XXX-XXXX. Early morning is not the best time to call. Any other
>time is. Please call me. I like your ideas.

 -=Xenon=-

Forwarded from Usenet ("the beginning of the end"):

comp.org.eff.talk #27044 (0 + 3 more)                   
[1]
From: mcwhirk@mail.auburn.edu (Robert K Mcwhirter)
[1] Is this Blacknet stuff possible?
Followup: comp.org.eff.talk
Organization: Auburn University
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2]
Date: Wed Feb 16 23:58:30 EST 1994
Lines: 51

[ Article crossposted from sura.security ]
[ Author was Pat Eddy ]
[ Posted on Wed, 16 Feb 94 17:11:52 -0500 ]

Pat,

> Can someone at SURAnet comment on this Blacknet stuff that seems to
> be hitting some of the USENET newsgroups lately. Are these people
> as untraceable as they say ?

I saw the posts myself... The best comment I saw was a followup post,
to the effect of "some darn kids out there have been taking William
Gibson a little too seriously."

A little more seriously, though: Yes, it may be very hard to find out
who is participating in this scam -- given the number of anonymous
posting services and anonymous ftp sites (some of which don't log
their transactions at all) they could hide for quite some time from
semi-casual scrutiny.

However, given CERT's fairly long arm in this arena, I suspect it
wouldn't take long for a concerted effort on the part of CERT to shut
them down. That depends on CERT's perception of "blacknet" as a
serious security threat -- I can't speak for them, but I'd hazard to
guess that they are about as concerned about "blacknet" as we at
SURAnet are... which is to say "not at all". (I base this guess on a
lack on response from CERT regarding these posts.)

I also think that blacknet's reach exceeds their grasp -- the claims
they make about "sending cash" and "depositing funds in accounts you
specify" strikes me as mighty big talk from a group that isn't on Dunn
and Bradstreet's register. If anything, their goals are probably much
more short term, like ripping off anyone foolish enough to show
interest in their "service." And of course, there's always the chance
that it was just a joke/boast/prank. Usenet is the Net of a Million
Lies, after all....

Nick Vargish

 ----------------------   ----------------------   --------------------
- - ---
 |.  Nick Vargish  .|   |.   SURAnet   .|   |. O: (301) 982-4600
.|
 |. vargish@sura.net .|   |. systems engineer .|   |. rust never sleeps
.|
 ----------------------   ----------------------   --------------------
- - ---

comp.org.eff.talk #27045 (0 + 2 more)                   
[1]
From: mcwhirk@mail.auburn.edu (Robert K Mcwhirter)
[1] Blacknet
Organization: Auburn University
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2]
Date: Thu Feb 17 00:01:11 EST 1994
Lines: 19

I just corss-posted (I think I did it right) an article concerning the
'Blacknet'.

What bothers me is not the blacknet itself, but the attitude of the
second poster in the thread saying how CERT could 'strong-arm' the
anonymous remailers to find out who was running the Blacknet.

Is this possible? Would/Could CERT actually do this if they wanted to?
What are they? The net.cops?

- - -Bob

- - --
====
Bob Socrates McWhirter     internet: mcwhirk@mail.auburn.edu

"God is dead"         "Nietzsche is dead"
  -Nietzsche           -God



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