From: gjeffers@socketis.net (Gary Jeffers)
Date: Sat, 12 Aug 95 01:24:15 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: PERRY-GRAMS (Does Perry speak for Cypherpunks?)
Message-ID: <199508121046.FAA06728@mail.socketis.net>
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                      PERRY-GRAMS
            (Does Perry speak for Cypherpunks?)


   I have a solution to the Perry off-topic problem: PERRY-GRAMS.

   I got this idea from the following text of Tim May's:.

----------------- start Tim May text ---------------------------------
Perry is Perry. He has certainly written his share of rants and "off-topic"
posts, as have we all. Literally thousands of his posts over the past 3
years reside on my disk drives, and certainly until recently most of them
were not about writing code.
--------------------end Tim May text ---------------------------------


   Firstly, what is a Perry-Gram?

1. Find a long Cypherpunk post by Perry that is in your opinion,
     "off-topic". Keep the header.

2. Add the full post of Perry's "Ciphergroupies" post which I have
   thoughtfully included at the end of this post. Include header.

3. Add text asking Perry to defend his off-topic post as appropriate to
     Cypherpunks.

   For true effectiveness, you really need to post several Perry-Grams
 per provocation.

   To be really effective, Cypherpunk "Ciphergroupies" will need to
do a little networking. Most don't have much in the way of Cypherpunk
archives - but some do. If you want to make some Perry-Grams but lack
the archives, then post a call to Cypherpunks to have someone with
archives to send you as many long, "off-topic" posts by Perry as they
can. With a little cooperation, we can build up a data base of Perry
"off-topic" posts. Unfortunately, my Cypherpunk archives were lost,
so I won't be much help. - I am at a loss for Perry's words. However,
a lot of Cypherpunks keep lots of old posts. I am willing to store at
least one 1.44 meg diskette of Perry-Grams in compressed .zip format.
Trade them like baseball cards. Of course, with computers, that's
sharing :-).

   If you're having problems getting people with archives to help you,
then contact Tim May. I suspect that Tim (Bless his Generosity) will be
willing to dig up some potential Perry-Grams material for you.

   Treasure your Perry-Grams. They are not merely for the current Perry
threads. If you save them, then you can whip them out in the future when
Perry does more of his nasty, hateful "off-topic" attacks. I recommend
Perry-Gram diskettes. I think this is the best way to bell the Perry-
cat. Let Perry deny his own words! :-) :-) :-)

Crypto relevance: Cypherpunks cannot be well described as just a list for
techno freaks who love Crypto. I believe that most of the heavy crypto
coders & theorists would be just as happy to be working on AI, linkers,
natural language parsers, etc.. - were it not for POLITICAL CONSID-
ERATIONS! I think most of the active people on Cypherpunks despise
central political control & are active in order to stop it. Cypherpunks
is motivationally driven by this political consideration. Perry did not
spend $50k & "spend months of [his] life struggling to..." just because
he thinks that computer crypto is "RAD KOOL".

   Then why drive out our polemists & our conspiracy buffs? Conspiracy
theory is the theory of the working of states by non-establishment
writers. Our political writers are "crying fire" when "danger of
fire" is evident to them. They MUST give out the alarm. Most people
are ignorant of the degree of danger that we are in from the power-
mad illigitmate United States "Federal" State. Thank God for
"extremist right-wing kooks" who do conspiracy writing. They may yet
save us from establishment "left-wing Liberal kooks" who seem desperate
to bankrupt us & turn America into a police state. Not that the
Republicans are much better. They seem to be on a mission to cut
Democratic spending by 5%. -  As the Russians say "Prophylactic
politics." - When there is public discontent with the elite's policies,
give the people an insincere group of politicians to cater to the public's
grievances.

-------- start of Perry E. Metzger "Ciphergroupie" post ----------
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To: KALLISTE@delphi.com
Cc: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Only 1/3 of Government Computers Down So Far
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 09 Aug 1995 12:29:59 EDT."
             <01HTVAYUCH6W90PB08@delphi.com>
Reply-To: perry@piermont.com
X-Reposting-Policy: redistribute only with permission
Date: Wed, 09 Aug 1995 21:34:12 -0400
From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@panix.com>
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KALLISTE@delphi.com writes:
> 	Many people are interested in cryptology because they don't
> want the NSA (among others) invading their privacy.

So, the question is this: do people want to follow the standard "ooh,
lets shudder at the conspiracy theories" track, and fall flat on their
faces, or do they want to see cryptography implemented and widely
deployed?

The noise levels on this list have driven most of the important crypto
types off it. People like Phil Karn and Steve Bellovin, who actually
implement stuff, aren't here any more. Instead, we have a vast flood
of ciphergroupies who love to post the latest funny bit they found on
the net, discuss whether David Koresh was being unfairly persecuted,
and how many bits of toe lint they found last week.

What we used to have was the cafe where the politically motivated
cryptographers hung out and gossiped. Now we have an open sewer in
which the occassional pearl still floats, and the cryptographers are
mostly gone.

Those of us who want to discuss cryptography here have been displaced.
If your goal is to impede communication about cryptography, you've
admirably succeeded. You've cut off one more place where people were
discussing how to deploy real-world solutions.

Tim May is wrong. I don't care what you call a "cypherpunk" -- thats
your business. However, the useful people *are* the people who write
code, spend long hours working to get standards implemented, work
lobbying in Congress, etc. Those of you who just rant, like Tim, were
very useful two years ago, but its getting rather thin listening to
you guys make it impossible to discuss real work while you blather.
(Sorry, Tim. However, as long as you are going to call me "abusive" I
might as well speak my mind. If you are going to do the time, might as
well do the crime.)

> The Foster story concerns the chief NSA privacy-invasion of modern
> times: spying on domestic banking transactions.  So it's relevant.

Actually, what you've been posting has been even below the standards
of journalistic integrity (i.e. few) that you find on a Pacifica radio
station.

I don't even care if all the conspiracies are real. Isn't what is out
in the open enough? If the invasions of privacy that the government
acknowledges and the crap like Clipper that they try to foist on us
isn't horrifying enough, what weak-assed conspiracy theory that
someone came up with while tripping is going to do it for you.
Reality is frightening enough. FINCEN is real. The NSA really spied on
people at least until the congressional hearings in the '70s. The
government really invades privacy every day. Why do I need crap?

> 	The Grand Inquisitor role is getting a little old.  So if
> you want to continue to play it, my response is:  Fuck Off.
>
> -Orlin

Frankly, Orlin, I think you are, with respect to the goals we are
trying to advance here, a useless lump of flesh. I've spent about
$50,000 of my own money trying to make the internet safe for
root-eaters like yourself. I've spent months of my life struggling to
get RFCs out, and I'm spending most of this month locked in my
apartment writing code. Right now, we are coordinating an effort to
try to get get IPSEC widely implemented in the next several months and
deployed by spring. What do you do, exactly, other than generate chaff
to make it impossible for any real work to be seen on the radar?

When people bring up real work, like cryptographic libraries or Wei's
stuff or the work I've been doing in the IETF and that sort of thing
people like Matt Blaze notice, and maybe Ray Cromwell and Hal Finney
(cypherpunks both, not ciphergroupies) try to discuss things, but the
folks like you basically drown everything out by making more noise
about random conspiracy garbage.

Frankly, if anyone is helping the NSA, its you. They don't want to see
universally deployed crypto. You could be out trying to spread
cryptography by coding, by handing people crypto when they need it, or
any one of dozens of other things. Instead, what you are doing is
making it impossible for people to try to get work done.

I have no idea what you are like personally. Maybe you're a nice,
smart guy. Maybe you are really a useful person in your other life.
However, I don't think your posting more conspiracy tracts is
improving life as we know it.  You have become an impediment -- a lump
of rock in the highway. You aren't part of the solution -- you are
part of the problem.

Perry
----------------end Perry E. Metzger "Ciphergroupie" post --------------

                                         PUSH EM BACK! PUSH EM BACK!
                                         WWWAAAYYYY  BBBAAACCCK!
                                         BBBEEEAAATTTT  STATE!

                                         Gary Jeffers