From: janke@unixg.ubc.ca (Leonard Janke)
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 01:08:11 -0800 (PST)
To: "Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net>
Subject: Re: Recommendation: Creation of "alt.cypherpunks"
In-Reply-To: <199702131535.JAA20917@manifold.algebra.com>
Message-ID: <m2hgjfn4ek.fsf@clouds.heaven.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


"Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net> writes:

> [...] 
> Given that _political_ discussions of crypto are now encouraged in
> _talk_.politics.crypto (emphasis added) rather than sci.crypt, do you think
> political and social essays dealing with crypto anarchy, offshore
> databases, undermining governments, etc., will be welcome in the "comp"
> hierarchy?
> 
> I rather doubt it. And I would bet that if comp.org.cypherpunks is ever
> approved, those who dislike crypto anarchy and sociopolitical chatter will
> use the "comp" name to try to suppress such discussions.
> [...]

I think that the statement of our desire to create a new group
should clearly indicate that the discussion
group is of a special nature due to the tight integration of
technical and political discussions. Cypherpunks are trying to achieve 
political goals through technological means, so it is difficult, and
not regarded as desirable to produce a false dichotomy for discussions. 
As an example, we could cite the Linux newsgroups like comp.os.linux.misc. 
Linux is a piece of software written
to help achieve a political goal, and, thus, in the Linux groups
it is not considered off-topic to philosophize about
these goals or the future as and after Linux knocks Microsoft out of
the market. :)

talk.politics.crypto and sci.crypt can, then, easily be argued 
against since the discussions there are much more 
restricted than what we desire.

> [...] You really think whoever is spamming the list with ASCII art and
> broke into Paul's account to post hundreds of "John Gilmore is a
> cocksucker" posts will back off because of the "dedication" of some? To the
> perverse personality, this is merely a greater challenge and temptation.
> [...] 
 
Given that you have been on the list a great deal longer than
I, I do respect that you may have deeper insights into the
mind of the "perverse personality" than I do. I, however, am
not aware of evidence that the person or persons behind the
disruptions since the middle of last year would try to interrupt
a democratic USENET creation vote. My recollection of the
history is that the initial attacks were directed at you personally.
Dr. Vulis was blamed for them and thus, apparently, became
the target of nasty e-mailings to his site. He responded to
this by spamming the list with rather large articles
on Armenian war crimes and forwardings of the messages. At that point 
Gilmore booted Vulis.
Gilmore then became a target of attack and, it seems
that many (presumably) innocent bystanders were unwittingly
subscribed to the list in an effort to cause more
work, and, hence, annoyance to Gilmore when they complained
about the unwanted mail. At this point many new personalities
seemed to materialize out of nowhere bent on doing
nothing more than fueling flame wars. Then the "moderation 
experiment" (fiasco)... I do not see in this evidence, however, that
any of the disruptors would target the process of the
creating a new group USENET group. At first, the
the disruptor could easily have rationalized that anonymous, personal
attacks were fair play, since anarachists favour no explicit rules
with regards to speech. After Vulis was removed by Gilmore
the disruptor could then rationalize that "anything goes" since
list had then passed from a state of anarchy to one with
Gilmore trying to decide who could or not be on the list.
(I do not think that these conjectued rationalizations are valid
myself, but am just trying to give an my thoughts on the
psychology of the "perverse personality".)

USENET nesgroup creation is whole new ball game, however.
There are explicitly defined rules and the process
is intended to be democratic. If my guess as to the identity of the 
person masterminding the  attacks is correct, that person seems to have
democratic sympathies or, at least, be strongly opposed to even
hints of censorship, so I do not think he would attempt
to disrupt the process of deciding if a new group
is created or not since that would both be inferring
in a democratic process and an attempt to prevent
a group of people from creating a discussion group, and thus, himself,
becoming a censor.  (This makes me think that given that the process is 
intended to be democratic, it may be more fitting that
a more anarchisticly method is used to create
an "alt.*" group for cyphepunks than the democratic one
used to create a "comp.*" one.)

In any case, if you have deeper insights than mine into the mind of
the disruptor, or evidence that he or she or them would
try to disrupt a comp.* newsgroup creation proces, I
would be eager to hear them.

Leonard