From: Dale Thorn <dthorn@gte.net>
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 09:42:06 +0800
To: "Wayne H. Allen" <whallen@capitalnet.com>
Subject: Re: Purpose of this forum
In-Reply-To: <199609081513.LAA14900@ginger.capitalnet.com>
Message-ID: <323382E9.26BD@gte.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> Wayne H. Allen wrote: 
> At 03:03 AM 9/8/96 +0000, attila wrote:
> =Dear Whoever,
> cypherpunks are *not* crackers; this is a crytographic
> and political issues relating to cryptography mailing list.
> 
> Well maybe, political issues galore certainly, but very very little
> to do with cryptography. I mean what does TWA 800 have to do with this
> list. I mean lets be completely honest here, whatever the original
> purpose of the list was for its been allowed to shift away from its
> intended purpose considerably.
> Wayne H.Allen
> whallen@capitalnet.com
> Pgp key at www.capitalnet.com/~whallen

My two cents worth: Since the purpose of the forum is to explore issues 
affecting personal cryptography and privacy, etc., TWA 800 as an excuse 
to crank out privacy-depletion laws is certainly of concern here, though 
one could argue for sub-forums to cover related issues.

Reminds me of research into Simpson affair - can you really understand 
what such a case is all about without "shaking the bushes" and "raking 
the leaves" quite a bit? So much essential data is avoided by both sides 
who have pre-determined agendas, that we're left with broken threads of 
inquiry everywhere. One could argue that Simpson is inconsequential, 
until one considers changes to the law, particularly to citizen juries.

Perhaps the ideal would be a top-level forum for crypto-specific issues, 
then sub-forums for specific related topics, and a catch-all sub-forum 
for related messages not fitting into the specific sub-forums.

I personally don't like the idea of filters; I'd prefer a sieve instead.