FWEE!: alt.prematurity

*/ Ladies & Germs, /*

Certain cpunks have called for the immediate establishment of
alt.whistleblowerson Usenet. I have noted a certain respect for engineering
matters in these notes, but a lack of acknowledgement for the "other"
business involved in setting up a serious whistleblower service. I beg your
attention for a moment whilst I toss in my two cents:

As I am the person doing some of the legwork to establish the body of
Users/Subscribers for the alt.wb service (in my spare time), I would like to
request that this action NOT be taken at this time. I am as anxious as anyone
to see this become a reality, but I have learned over the years that both
information services and sex can be ruined by prematurity. You're welcome to
screw up your sex lives by cumming in your pants too soon, but PLEASE don't
give saddle this potentially IMPORTANT information service a huge birth
defect by putting it out before I am ready. There, I've admitted it, I am not
ready yet (nor are the Users). If it flies before I can set up the org's that
will take advantage of it, it would not be a good thing, IMHO.

I have mentioned prematurity before this and have been roundly ignored, to my
chagrin. Alas...

I am not suggesting that we can't begin exPERimenting in SOME way to get the
technology right, but I AM saying that we have a LOT of work to do if we want
this service to mean anything. On the other hand, if we're just a bunch of
engineers jacking off over our ideas, and not true crusaders trying to invent
a new method for busting sniveling government weasel-embezzelers, then who am
I to stop y'all?

Gee, Dave, just _why_ is it a bad idea right now?

- Not enough people are educated enough to use it. I have spoken with
Congressional staffers, media people and several activist orgs. They all need
either email accounts, PGP software and some readme files (or all three)
before they can take advantage of any WB info. They're not even sure how to
approach the issue of verification and we'll have to help them with this
concept. Imagine Picasso pitching the wonders of Assymetry to an audience of
People Who've Never Heard of Painting.

- We haven't figured out who'll be polled to send in msgs and exactly HOW
we'll offer them some sort of anonymity and what they need to do afterward.
It should be a select group at first, but we have not established the
guidelines for this service. Putting it out without any kind of guidelines
could be disastrous. This is the Trusted Reputation Issue. Please do not
underestimate this.

- Not a single cpunk has yet submitted any suggestions to me for the
Guidelines as I have asked twice. Not one person. Do that first, O Verbose
Ones! After we build such a document and have prominent people (such as
Nicholas Johnson, former FCC head under L.B.Johnson - "eh... no relation")
sign statements of support based on it (as discussed before, with I think,
nearly unanimous approval), then we can more _safely_ proceed. Have you heard
of the Declaration of Independence? They prepared that document well, got all
their Ducks in a Row and it's lasted for over 200 years. How many decades do
you think a good WB system could last/evolve for? I ask only that you engage
your long-range vision for a moment.

- Except for good ol' John Gilmore, no one has sent me their pubkey for the
list of volunteers after I publicly requested same some weeks back. Belly up
to the Bar, Dewds.

- ?

There are other excellent reasons to keep it in our collective pants for a
while, but if THESE don't convince you, then perhaps I am asking the wrong
group of folks to help get this started properly. I suggest that we set up a
dummy area and begin to conduct some experiments ala Tim May's F117A bogus
post. Hopefully, this will allow our more impatient members to spew to their
heart's delight while the rest of us continue with the legwork and phonework
to give it social armor.

Anybody can put a box out on the street and say "everybody put your
complaints in here," but it takes some real thinkers to put out a serious
whistleblower system.

Lastly, I ask your forgiveness for all my sins...

   dave

PS: Only kiddin', I never sin. Well, hardly ever these days. Well, pretty
often then, but I keep it to a few times a day. OK, well, maybe hourly, but
I'm really acting in the best interest of everyone. OK, I lied, I sin and sin
and sin every second of my existence.                    ...So sue me!

[internaut]
>As I am the person doing some of the legwork to establish the body of
>Users/Subscribers for the alt.wb service (in my spare time), I would like to
>request that this action NOT be taken at this time. I am as anxious as anyone
>to see this become a reality, but I have learned over the years that both
>information services and sex can be ruined by prematurity.
>
>There, I've admitted it, I am not
>ready yet (nor are the Users).

If you think that you are the whistleblower moderator, fine. Be one.
But we need a completely unmoderated group. If you think you have any
right to hold up an unmoderated group to squeeze through your own
bottleneck, please go elsewhere.

I admire and appreciate your work to gain mainstream acceptance of this
group. But we have a great deal to lose through `premature' publicizing
this project. Anonymous servers, if they hadn't been `sneaked on' to
the net, would probably be specifically banned if news and network
administrators were forewarned of their presence. Now I see an awful
lot of backpeddling and fence-hopping by these hypocrites on e.g.
news.admin.policy who say ``Oh gee, we think anonymity is *great*, we
just want to control where you can use it.'' If it weren't for
pioneering and underground cypherpunk work in this area, I believe the
statement would be ``that issue was brought up, and they have been
specifically banned from the network because anonymity is worthless and
only for cowards and criminals.''

You are talking to many people (i.e. bureacrats and legislators) who
may be totally displaced and bypassed (i.e. lose illegitimate power) by
this service.  There are a great many people you are talking to, I
think, whose every interest is to totally castrate the project of any
`offensiveness'. I think you are trying to operate on a much more
respectable level than is possible currently. That level can only be
attained by a gradual evolution of the medium, starting with something
rather crude, kludgy, and unsophisticated.

>Not enough people are educated enough to use it.

we are not trying to get everyone in the U.S. to understand how this
works immediately. This is an impossible goal. Your efforts amount to
singlehandedly educating the public about the Internet. To most, the
idea of a worldwide bulletin board is mindboggling enough. If you wait
until everybody and his grandma know what you are talking about, I'll
be dead by then. If you wait until every legislator and bureacrat
understands it, the earth will have crumbled before you finish.

There are plenty of sophisticated people who can benefit from this
*immediately*. We are starting something with training wheels. If we
were IBM we would be doing it like you have in mind, an incredible
backroom strategizing effort before a massive and highly publicized
public rollout with great hype and fanfare. But we are not IBM. We are
cypherpunks. We are the silent underground who slips radical new
conquests past people before they even realize it. Anything less is too
formal, fragile, and lifeless. We are not waiting for you to come out
with your Press Kit before this thing starts.

>- We haven't figured out who'll be polled to send in msgs and exactly HOW
>we'll offer them some sort of anonymity and what they need to do afterward.

polled? sounds like an election, like something democratic, like
something that can be twisted by a misguided majority. Again, you sound
like you are looking for a group with high quality control.
Unfortunately, I think this goal is largely antithetical the essential
spirit of the whistleblower idea. The whistleblower is alone and
isolated, almost by definition. Your ideas on filtering incoming
messages, gained from those you've talked to, sound rather naive and
dangerous to me. You're welcome to set up all these mechanisms outside
of a *totally*free* group and `ride' on the traffic therein. But don't
ever propose tampering with that traffic in a centralized fashion. You
will be badly burned.

>Not a single cpunk has yet submitted any suggestions to me for the
>Guidelines as I have asked twice. Not one person. Do that first, O Verbose
>Ones!

I think a FAQ posted to the group is an excellent idea. In fact I am
considering putting one up here. But if the group hasn't even been
created yet, we have nowhere to post. The FAQ should come as soon as
possible, but *after* the creation of the group. And if there are a lot
of conflicting demands on a single group, than a FAQ that everyone
agrees to would be impossible to come up with amidst all the objections.

I just don't get it. This is a group like any other. Why do you think
the whole international public has to be prepared for its creation by
you personally?  People have to judge for themselves what to post, and
how reliable the mechanisms are. Sure, we will give the facts on the
security of the medium in the FAQ. But if they don't trust it (and
there will be plenty of reasons not to) then they shouldn't risk it. If
anywhere else there should be less content restrictions and our
overseeing `recommendations' (i.e. dictations) on postings.

>Have you heard
>of the Declaration of Independence? They prepared that document well, got all
>their Ducks in a Row and it's lasted for over 200 years. How many decades do
>you think a good WB system could last/evolve for? I ask only that you engage
>your long-range vision for a moment.

There was an interim government prior to the passage of this document.
And there was enormous haggling over the content of it, with many
compromises. The document is not perfect. There are flaws and cracks
that have poked through after 200 years. Do you think our judicial
system is as effective as possible? Do you think our legislative system
is the most representative of people's expectations of and directives
to their subservient government? Do you think our government today
truly represents, in all ways, the intentions of its founders? Do you
think they considered all possible scenarios? Do you think they would
not want to make some minor adjustments or major changes after seeing
200 years pass from their noble experiment? Do you think that anything
that is dynamic can be static?

Our democratic system, at the time of its inception, was almost
radically experimental. The broad commitment to state and human rights,
to the exclusion of federal ones, was quite flabbergasting to the
slaves of the European model...

>Anybody can put a box out on the street and say "everybody put your
>complaints in here," but it takes some real thinkers to put out a serious
>whistleblower system.

Look at everything that is efficient in the world, and you will see
that it is so because of *independently operating* components, with
minimized centralized control. When you want to get on your car and go
somewhere, you don't submit any proposals to a government agency for a
Transportation Plan.  The capitalist system works (and certain others,
which shall remain nameless, have failed) precisely because everybody
pursues and uses money *independently*. If they have an idea how to run
a business, they just start one (with great hassle from government
regulations). Usenet works because every server keeps abreast of all
articles *independently*. Message transmission on the internet is so
reliable because virtually an infinite number of routing pathways exist
that a message can take, avoiding any obstacles, each component
performing its job *independently*. Now, let me hear again how you want
us to submit all our public keys to you, submit the group guidelines
for your personal perusal (and presumably veto), and wait for all your
congressional friends to understand the concept? And how this will
ultimately lead to an ideal and robust system?

You simply don't understand. This idea is bigger than you, it is bigger
than me. Anyone who tries to wrap themselves completely around it will
explode from the pressure.

This system will *grow* *itself* to become extremely sophisticated and
respected. Let us not smother the sapling with misguided preconceptions
for nourishment.

>There are other excellent reasons to keep it in our collective pants for a
>while, but if THESE don't convince you, then perhaps I am asking the wrong
>group of folks to help get this started properly.

`Let's' start a mailing group for `nambypambypunks'. `We'll' get George
``Wouldn't be Prudent at this Juncture'' Bush to join. In fact, `we'
better even start it until `we're' sure he likes the idea.

p.s. cypherpunks, I certainly don't claim to speak for the group as a
whole (such a task would be impossible no matter *what* is said) but I
am becoming a bit disenchanted and disillusioned with some of the
opinions expressed herein. Is it just that the weasels are more vocal?