From: abostick@netcom.com (Alan Bostick)
Date: Wed, 30 Nov 94 23:56:31 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: The Market for Crypto--A Curmudgeon's View
In-Reply-To: <199411300734.XAA10429@largo.remailer.net>
Message-ID: <kmKtkyczB4HM073yn@netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


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In article <199411300734.XAA10429@largo.remailer.net>, you wrote:

> Let me be REAL clear about this.  The immediate proposal is to mark
> and possibly delay unsigned messages to the list.

In my view, delaying unsigned messages is only moderately better than
dropping them.  It punishes users for having non-crypto-friendly email
setups (and makes things somewhat more confusing for other list readers,
even the ones who sign their messages).

>    From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)
> 
>    Not to trivialize this proposal by frivolously insulting it, but
>    consider a mailing list that decided to delay/bounce any messages that
>    were not written in TeX, or in Acrobat, or whatever. 
> 
> I don't think you are frivolously insulting it, but I do think you are
> ignoring the basic distinction I made about the difference between
> measures which prevent use and measures which do not.  The use of the
> syntax "delay/bounce" denies exactly this distinction.

Yes, but you are denying the way in which delaying, like bouncing,
actively interferes with the timely forwarding of non-signers' messages,
while merely marking them is a more passive form of harrassment.  Yes,
there is a distinction between delaying and bouncing.  There is also a
distinction between battery and homicide.

You keep insisting that delaying unsigned messages does not interfere
with non-signers' abilities to participate in the discussion.  I say you
are wrong.  It's a positive hindrance.  It punishes people for
circumstances that may well be beyond their control.  It's a bad idea.

You maintain the list, you can do what you want.  As you can plainly see
(Tim's right on this one), I sign my posts to the list, and my posts
would get the favored treatment.  No one can stop you; but if you do
something that makes valued contributors take a walk, you wouldn't be
doing the list any favors.

(Are you going to make sure that all the signatures are valid, or will
you accept someone sticking a PGP signature into their .sig and using it
over and over?)

                          | In the other room I passed by Ellen Leverenz as 
   Alan Bostick           | someone asked her "Do you know any monopole 
   abostick@netcom.com    | jokes?"
finger for PGP public key | "Sure," she said.   "In fact, I know two of them."
Key fingerprint:          |     -- Terry Carr, GILGAMESH
50 22 FB 46 41 A3 17 9D F7 33 FF E1 4E 1C 89 79  +legal_kludge=off

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