From: fc@all.net (Fred Cohen)
Date: Mon, 25 Dec 1995 07:50:21 +0800
To: cp@proust.suba.com (Alex Strasheim)
Subject: Re: corporate bashing
In-Reply-To: <199512242101.PAA02640@proust.suba.com>
Message-ID: <9512242220.AA04636@all.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text


> We are not extremists.  There is nothing extreme about believing that an
> email you send to your spouse or your friend ought to be private, or that
> people ought to be able to read and write about whatever subject interests
> them.  The extremists are those who are fighting so hard to preserve the
> possibility of totalitarianism.

In that sense, many cypherpunks are not extremists, but in another
sense, many (most?) cypherpunks are.  They seem to believe that in the
Intenet, slander is acceptable behavior and that anonymity should be
used as an escape from responsibility for what they do and say.  If you
want to remain free to speak your mind, you have to become responsible
in at least two ways:

	1 - You must top slandering people.
	2 - You must stop using anonymity as a way to avoid being responsible.

When I say must, I am not intending to mean anything less.  If the
cypherpunks continue to do these two things, they will rapidly find that
they are doing more to destroy all of our rights to free speech in the
Internet than they ever did to encourage freedom of expression.

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