Re: Cypherpunks know they're cool

Ted Ts'o writes,
> What I don't understand is, why are people complaining?  We're just
> seeing people exercise their sacred right to free speech..... all over
> this mailing list.  After all, isn't this what you were working towards?

Heh.  I agree with Ted.  Try taking the same advice we'd give someone who
received a offensive anonymous note:  quit your bitching & moaning, you
losers!

Yeah, yeah, I know, volume attacks are of a different kind than
offensive content.  But my own belief is, if our software is broken, we
shouldn't blame the doofus who comes along and tickles it.  If we end
up having a problem of volume harrassment, we should expect to have to
PROTECT OURSELVES with some half decent mailing list software.  For
instance, something that accepts mail only from subscribers or that
shunts large messages (or excessive number of messages from a single
person) to the moderator for review.  The fact that we have stupid
software is our own fault.

To me, this has the same feel to it as the current flap about 
anonymous newsgroup postings.  The right answer, in my opinion,
is to use news distribution software which can filter out anonymous
postings (and, in order to enable that, and prior to the availability
of "real person" cryptographic certificates, to ask that all remailers
provide a special header line).

What these solutions have in common is that we ask people to protect
themselves, rather than requiring everyone else to adhere to their
notions of good behavior.

Which brings to mind the potential problem that 99% of everybody
may choose to participate exclusively in "real person only" groups.
Any hints at a solution to that one?  How about if we try to 
convince people to participate in "pay as you go" groups using
digital postage?  That would solve many of the problems, in a way
that is less offensive to the freedom-loving among us.

-- Marc Ringuette (mnr@cs.cmu.edu)

Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1993 15:07-EST
   From: Marc.Ringuette@GS80.SP.CS.CMU.EDU

   What these solutions have in common is that we ask people to protect
   themselves, rather than requiring everyone else to adhere to their
   notions of good behavior.

Hmm..... how is this alike, and how is this different, from a hardliner
NRA saying, "We should ask people to protect themselves by wearing
bulletproof vests, instead of trying to ban guns"?

   Which brings to mind the potential problem that 99% of everybody
   may choose to participate exclusively in "real person only" groups.
   Any hints at a solution to that one?  How about if we try to 
   convince people to participate in "pay as you go" groups using
   digital postage?  That would solve many of the problems, in a way
   that is less offensive to the freedom-loving among us.

Carrying the above metaphor further, is it really a problem if 99% of
everybody chooses to live in firefight-free zones, so that they don't
have to wear bullet-proof vests?  And is saying that, "O.K, we'll make
people pay for bullets" really going to help?  It just restricts the
people who can fire bullets (or write large amounts of anonymous
postings) to those who have lots o' cash.

As long as we are really being freedom-loving, there's nothing we can do
(or should _want_ to do) to get people to attend groups that allow
anonymous posters, if they only want to travel in "real person only"
circles.  If they've made a choice not to want to read anonymous
postings (perhaps by installing a filter which deletes all anonymous
postings unread), how is this a "problem"?

							- Ted