From: Bryce <bryce@digicash.com>
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 1996 07:44:17 -0800 (PST)
To: Dale Thorn <dthorn@gte.net>
Subject: Re: [NOISE]-- [PHILOSOPHYPUNKS] Re: The House Rules At The Permanent Virtual Cypherpunks Party
In-Reply-To: <32A2F39C.5996@gte.net>
Message-ID: <199612021544.QAA12207@digicash.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



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> Now I've gotcha!  If I, Dale Thorn, an ordinary person (not a commercial
> mailer), realize somehow what your snail mail address is (an analogy),
> and I send you a personal letter, are you saying I don't have the "right"
> to do so?  Even if I am aware that you redistribute the letter, as, say,
> a newspaper such as the L.A. Times would?


Yes this is a fine analogy.  You have the right to send
whatever letters you want; you don't have the right to demand
that any particular thing be _done_ with those letters once
they arrive, in the absence of some contract to the contrary.


> I'm guessing that what you're saying is something to do with the content
> or size of such a mailing, yes?


Noooo...  What I was saying was that even such a simple service
as a mailing list raises some complex issues about agency and
responsibility.  Did _you_ send MMF to all those people, or did
Gilmore?  What if Gilmore had a MMF filter in place?  What if
you evaded it?  What if Gilmore only broadcasts signed messages
and you signed the MMF?  What if you paid to have it broadcast?


So what _I'm_ saying is that there are some complex issues
about this kind of cyberspatial event, but that the realspace
substrate is relatively simple-- it's Gilmore's computer and
you have no moral authority to demand that he do or not do any
particular thing with it.


In the following, you appear to take exception to both of these
claims, or at least to the first one-- I'm not sure.


> But whatever the case, I'm not "doing something with" your mailbox if
> I send you a snail mail letter, and I'm not "doing something with" your
> computer if I send you a posting. It's you who know the result of opening
> up your computer to the phone lines, and it's up to you to post *your*
> "rules", and to date, I don't recall any postings from John Gilmore to
> me or the list regarding such rules, just a few little tin-plated
> dictators doing it in his name.


I'm still not sure if you are just prone to colorful rhetoric,
or if I have really upset you with something I've said.  If the
latter, I still don't understand what, exactly.


Bryce




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