From: Bruce Baugh <bruceab@teleport.com>
Date: Sat, 27 Jan 1996 09:49:56 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: "This post is G-Rated"
Message-ID: <2.2.32.19960126084847.0069ba04@mail.teleport.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 08:06 PM 1/25/96 -0800, Johnathan Corgan <jcorgan@aeinet.com> wrote:

>This would allow to emerge a free market 'ecology' of ratings agencies, 
>similar to the system that has emerged in the PC technology 
>market for product reviews.  

This seems to me a task of crucial importance, as I listen to the
conversations of relatively net-clueless folks. Their first reaction, upon
learning about net abuse, is to demand that abusers be tracked down and
punished. Privacy-enhancing tools make this more difficult. It seems to me
that if we're to avoid a wholescale crusade against net privacy, we _really_
need to have a credible alternative to offer: both the software and the
wetware :-) to let individuals screen out offending drek. Having canned
solutions is especially important, since many of the people most susceptible
to anti-privacy propaganda are precisely those who don't know and likely
aren't going to know how to construct their own filters.

I see this as a matter of enlightened self-interest, therefore.

I can't write code worth squat, but I can write other things. I'm starting
in on a Web-based guide to privacy tools, with screen shots and the like. If
anyone has useful info to contribute about screening out crud for novices,
write me! I need to hear from you!

Bruce Baugh
bruceab@teleport.com
http://www.teleport.com/~bruceab