From: jf_avon@citenet.net
Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 08:45:43 +0800
To: Tim May <tcmay@got.net>
Subject: Re: Real issue of crypto controls: security or taxation loss?
In-Reply-To: <199709131600.MAA22590@cti06.citenet.net>
Message-ID: <199709140029.UAA28271@cti06.citenet.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



On 13 Sep 97 at 9:19, Tim May wrote:

> (JF won't see this, unless Bob H. chooses to pass it on, Sandy-style. This
> on unedited, undelayed lists, not on digests and delayed condensations.)

AFAIK, e$pam is not edited and not a digest.  But there might be 
parental control ...  :-)

> At 9:57 AM -0700 9/13/97, jf_avon@citenet.net wrote:
> >Hi.
> >
> >I've been lazily following the crypto-control issue through e$pam
> >list.
> 
> Read the real list.

Tim, there are a lot of important issues in life, and crypto is only 
one of them.  I value your opinion a lot and find most of your 
comments to be not only valid but even often wise.  But of course, 
as a CP highness, you seems to sometimes forget :-) that:

1) CP is carrier to so much things that I don't find interesting

2) every second wasted never comes back

3) some of my other interests requires as much time as CP, mostly 
Canadian Firearms Digest where locally, we Canucks, are fighting a 
battle you are no stranger with, only we got it worse than you 
Yankees.

4) IMO, crypto has to be a useful tool to be interesting.  I am more 
interested in improving life than in building aesthetic mathematical 
algorithms.  And the most direct way to achieve this is anonymous 
e-$, not guns.

5) fighting for privacy rights will be irrelevant when govt will have 
been starved to extinction by e-$.

6) If I subtract from my awake time my working time, my eating time, 
my washing time, my ****ing time and my domestic chores time, it 
leaves me with time I can do whatever I want.  This remaining time is 
always too short.

7) After several weeks of being on CP and e$pam and e$ 
simultaneously, I found that I can read most of you posts on 
CP via e$pam, great thanks to RAH.  RAH seems to forward everything 
that is even remotely related to e-$.  Unless RAH has a 
Machielavelous plan to induce everybody in error, for the time being, 
he does a great job.  I subscribe from times to times to CP for 
random durations at random moments just to cross-check theses things. 
My last year long absence from CP was caused by entirely other 
things.  I had no time for any net stuff at all. 

> As a comment, sometimes when I try to "reply to all" to these messages from
> folks reading digests, I get "you are not a member of this list" or "this
> is a private list" messages.

Why don't you try jf_avon@citenet.net? :-)  Get a decent mailer and 
you'll find it's easy...  :-)

> Fine, but it's why I won't waste time on folks who may not even see what I
> write unless I address it to them personally.

So now, do you propose mandatory voluntary subscription to some 
mailing lists?  :-)  Never thought about telepathy? Or becoming a 
prominent TV figure so that *everybody* (well, almost...) would be 
force-fed to TM-Stuff (tm) ?   :-)  OK, OK, I push it a bit 
but why should I have to suffer the intelligent and down to the point 
discussions on CP if I consider that I have other better things to 
do?  The issue comes down to the respect of the Individual. Could I, 
pe-lease, have my own interests? Pe-lease?

As for your perception of "loosing time on folks [snip]", I opinate 
that it is an error from you.  Although I am off from CP, I recently 
ordered Applied Crypto (at last, I found the money...), and I plan to 
give a small introduction talk to various persons and groups.  I make 
*every* *damn* *efforts* to spread PGP with everybody I know, 
distributing software and keys.

But you see, if you say to somebody : this will encrypt your 
communications" they don't give a shit.  

If you explain to them the digital telephony bill, the current 
tapping capability, the various moves that the govt is currently 
doing, *and* crypto through the e-$ applications *and* political 
consequences of e-$, *then* they *really* do get interested.  

In my own experience, introducing the topic by the e-$/govt-intrusion 
door is what gets them the motivation to learn text-based 
plain-vanilla PGP.  And as I said in an earlier post, the more they 
get their money confiscated in the name of the Great Unwashed 
Happiness, the more they get interested.

So, "that folk" is one it is unwise to neglect, he just gets 
overwhelmed by the sheer volume of stuff on CP.  Most of the 
discouraged just unsubscribe and a few rare stick to it in diverse, 
indirect ways.  The ones who stick to it might just be the most 
persistent of them all.

> JF, get a decent mailer and get on the real list if you want to participate.

I use Pegasus Mail V2.53 with a kill file verging on the terabyte 
thank you.  And I don't want to "participate", I want to exchange 
ideas.  Peoples who want to do so with me will do so.  If it is too 
much work to include me in your replies, just don't bother.

> Oh, and "cypherpunks@toad.com"

Please send me a valid name so I can keep posting to CP without 
suffering the irrelevant-to-my-interests stuff, in full confidence 
that RAH will keep doing it's fantastic job of forwarding your 
most-of-the-time-interesting-to-me posts.

Ciao Tim
Ciao all

jfa