From: Stanton McCandlish <mech@eff.org>
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 94 14:10:13 PDT
Subject: Re: Cypherpunks Reported:
In-Reply-To: <9406051505595.DLITE.fantome@delphi.com>
Message-ID: <199406172110.RAA23076@eff.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


In article <tmpCrIDG5.364@netcom.com>,  <tmp@netcom.com> wrote:
>austin ziegler (fantome@delphi.com) wrote:
>
>: Again, the reporter calls cypherpunks "a largely
>: anonymous group of programmers," a "sinister" depiction.  I see cypherpunks
>: as being brazenly *open* (for the most part) about the fact that they
>: despise Clipper and Skipjack.  And while I *can* program, I am not a
>: programmer, per se ... what about those of us who are cypherpunks because we
>: value our privacy?
>
>I certainly haven't run into very many self-proclaimed cypherpunks.

[hand raised here]

>they
>are pretty dense on the cypherpunk list (cypherpunks@toad.com) but are
>far more diluted when you shine a light on them out here in Usenet. 
>sort of like running cockroaches.

Puh-lease.  Lets excerise a little basic logic here, Boxx.  If the
cypherpunks list is a list for cypherpunks, don't you think you'd find a
lot of them there?  And if, perchance, the cypherpunks are not an
overwhelming majority of the net.population, don't you think you'd expect
them to be "diluted" on the net at large?  Come now, the same dilution
argument can be made for archers, or dance instructors, or finger-painting
fanciers.  I don't think the cockroach metaphor is justified in any of
these cases.