From: Charlie Comsec <comsec@nym.alias.net>
Date: Sat, 6 Dec 1997 12:08:46 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Anonymous Thread
Message-ID: <19971206040027.1052.qmail@nym.alias.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



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Monty Cantsin wrote:

> Something that I have found irritating about the posts by
> non-persistent identities is that it isn't possible to support a
> meaningful discussion as previous statements can always be repudiated,
> or maybe even weren't made by the particular poster.  I compared this
> to sound bites.

How is that fundamentally different from non-anonymous posts, though?
You can always disavow (or attempt to) a previous post by claiming it was 
forged, that someone stole your password, hacked your account, or posted it
when you accidentally left your terminal logged on while you were at 
lunch.

In addition, there's nothing to stop someone from obtaining multiple e-mail
accounts.  So why should ten anonymous posts be an more irritating than
ten posts from hotmail.com, juno.com, etc. accounts?  They could be from ten
different people, just one, or any number in between.
 
> On second thought, however, there is an easy way to solve this.  If
> the anonymous poster accepts the context of previous messages, the
> discussion can continue.  There's no reason why the person behind the
> virtual thread has to be the same, but the context itself is important
> if we want to have interesting discussions.

Agreed.  It's the ideas that are important, not the identity of the person[a]
expressing them.  The only exception I can think of is if the person
expressing the ideas is asking that they be accepted because of some unique
qualification or expertise he claims to possess.
 
> So, if you don't want to sign your messages, just acknowledge the
> message ID of the relevant previous messages whose context you wish to
> use.

Unless that's coupled with a PGP signature, there's nothing to keep one
anonymous person from impersonating another and agreeing to something.
For example, if "A" is debating "B", there's nothing to stop "B" from
posting as "C", claiming to be an anonymous KKK, NAMBLA, etc. member, 
then posting again, impersonating "A", and pretending to agree with "C"
(by, as you say, "acknowledging C's message id").

Nor is it much better if "A", "B", and "C" are non-anonymous.  "B" can open
a throwaway account as "C", and then forge a follow-up from "A".  Unless
it's done among a group of people skilled at interpreting headers, it may
well succeed, or at least arouse a lot of F.U.D. about "A".
  
- ---
Finger <comsec@nym.alias.net> for PGP public key (Key ID=19BE8B0D)

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