From: rah@shipwright.com (Robert Hettinga)
Date: Tue, 27 Dec 94 15:43:49 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Breaking into girlfriend's files
Message-ID: <v01510102ab25fd909dcb@DialupEudora>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


<looks both ways. speaks behind hand to offstage>
        Psst! Is Tim here?
        What? He's on vacation?
        Cool.
<removes body armor, nomex overalls, and titanium cup... Puts titanium cup
back in. Adujsts underwear. Taps microphone...>

Ahem.

>   := At 9:52 AM 12/27/94, dmandl@bear.com
>>  := Black Unicorn <unicorn%access.digex.net@bear-lock.bear.com>

dmandl> No one was suppressing anything or in any way attempting to stop
the flow
dmandl> of information.  They were just expressing their opinions.  Just because
dmandl> _you_ were unhappy with those opinions, that's no reason to hurl
accusations
dmandl> of censorship around.
dmandl>
dmandl> I can refuse to give help to anyone I don't feel like helping, and
if I feel
dmandl> like giving him a piece of my mind in the process, that's my
business and his.

unicorn>> Q: "How do you attack X?"
unicorn>> A: "Realistically X should not be attacked, because to allow the
unicorn>> widespead lack of confidence in X will destroy society as we know
it, and
unicorn>> anyhow it's nasty."

dmandl> Great, I've always wanted to be a simple input-output machine.
dmandl>
dmandl> Pseudo-individualist Republican rubbish...

As a pedigreed piece of Pseudo-individualist Republican rubbish (PIRR)
myself, I take exception to that remark. Associating noble PIRR with
pseudonyms named for inappropriately-colored fictional creatures really
gets my, ahem, goat.

It seems to me the proper answer to the original poster of this thread was
to greet it with a deafening silence. First, because the answer is trivial
given the technical level of this list (well, the average technical level,
anyway) and can be obtained elsewhere. Second, because there is such a
diversity of ethics, politics, and moral belief on this list, because the
fundemental nature of the technology we discuss here and its potential
impact on human society is so great, to address the question on its merits
would unleash enough verbal flatulatence (including my own, I'm afraid) to
rival even the best Mel Brooks epic.

To employ an appropriately PIRR sports metaphor, the question was a pitch
so *obviously* a slow lob over the plate, such an *easy* target for
flamage, that it should have been very apparent to anybody here that it
wouldn't have been fair at all to the pitcher to even swing at it.

Short of letting it fall into the mitt with a dull thud, a pointer to the
appropriate HAKK3r d00d list would have been the next best thing. This was
done. Next on the list would be actually answering the question as quickly
as possible. This was done. (Thank you, Perry.) The quierant will probably
not be able to execute the proper solution anyway. He'll probably run out
of steam before executing it, and if he does it anyway, he deserves all the
shit he'll find himself in upon decrypting those files.  We were all young
and stupid once. Some of us still are, it appears.

The posting was inadvertant flamebait, yes?

Let the rubble bounce already. Can we take the rest of the discussion
off-line now?

Cheers,
Bob Hettinga


P.S.  My apologies to M(s)r. 'Corn if I stepped on he/she/it's er, hooves.
I meant to cast no asparagas upon he/she/it's choice of nym-name.

-----------------
Robert Hettinga  (rah@shipwright.com) "There is no difference between someone
Shipwright Development Corporation     who eats too little and sees Heaven and
44 Farquhar Street                       someone who drinks too much and sees
Boston, MA 02331 USA                       snakes." -- Bertrand Russell
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