From: dlv@bwalk.dm.com (Dr. Dimitri Vulis)
Date: Sat, 16 Sep 95 05:30:14 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: CYPHERPUNK considered harmful
In-Reply-To: <14439.9509161026@exe.dcs.exeter.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <PysiBD7w165w@bwalk.dm.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


aba@dcs.exeter.ac.uk writes:
> One thing I have been thinking would be nice would be a USENET
> newsgroup, as mailing lists are a step away from easy access which
> some people never make.

This sounds like a very good idea to me, since I find the flood of
e-mail from CP, much of it non-crypto-related, to be annoying. If
this traffic were in a newsgroup, it would travel compressed over
my phone line, and I might use a killfile on sstuff like the CO$ thread.

Anything posted to the main cypherpunks mailing list and the spun-off mailing
lists (steganogrpahy, remailers, nym servers, etc) could be posted to the
newsgroup by maiking one of the mail2news gateways a subscriber.

> time and thought to.  Might I suggest that a newsgroup would be a way
> to go?  There are already a number of security, privacy, and crypto
> related groups, but they tend to have their own pattern of flow, you
> know penet.fi problems on alt.privacy.anon-server, alt.privacy (dunno
> not read much), alt.security.pgp pgp usage, David Sterlight fueled
> discussions, some ITAR stuff, talk.politics.crypto, crypto politics,
> comp.org.eff.talk, there must be a few others.
...
> Reckon cypherpunks as a group has enough readers to hmm, push through
> a vote for group creation, if the majority thought it was a useful
> exercise.  A group soley for what?  cypherpunks technology, social

No vote is needed to create an alt.group: something like
'alt.security.cypherpunks' or 'alt.privacy.cypherpunks'. Just post a proposal
to alt.config, post many articles seconding the proposal, let it be discussed
for a week, then issue a newgroup.

To create a newsgroup in the 'big 8' (comp., sci., etc) one needs to deal with
unpleasant control freaks like group-advice, news.groups, and David Lawrence.
It takes up to 6 months. On the other hand, many sites that have Usenet have
comp.* but not alt.*. Their users would still have to use the mailing lists or
find another site. To create something like comp.security.cypherpunks (I think
this would be the most appropriate place, since there's already c.s.announce,
c.s.misc, and c.s.firewalls), talk to the group-advice cabal.

---

Dr. Dimitri Vulis
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps