A favor re Detweiler

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I'd like to expend some "reputation capital" here and ask people for a 
favor.  I am worried about Larry Detweiler's obvious mental anguish.  We 
tend to forget that we are dealing with real people on the net, flesh 
and blood human beings.  Larry is obviously going through genuine 
difficulties here.  As a member of our virtual community, I ask that we 
show him some compassion and consideration.
 
Larry believes that people have been communicating with him in private 
mail under multiple identities in order to confuse and mislead him.  
Specifically, he has suggested that Jamie Dinkelacker is a pseudonym 
employed by Tim May.  I gather that he has received email from both 
names.  He also suggests that others have employed these practices.
 
Since I do not live in the Bay area, I have never met Jamie Dinkelacker, 
although I had the opportunity to meet Tim once when he visited southern 
California.  So I am not in a position personally to assure Larry that 
Jamie is a real person separate from Tim.  But I know many list members 
are in northern California and I assume several of you have met both 
Jamie and Tim.  I ask those of you who can vouch for Jamie's separate 
identity to send me private email saying so, which I will forward to 
Larry.  If enough people can do this, perhaps a PGP-style "web of trust" 
can be established which will reduce Larry's concerns about this 
particular case at least.
 
(I have considered the possibility that Jamie actually is a pseudonym 
employed by Tim.  This is certainly not inherently impossible, given the 
structure of the net.  As I told Larry, I myself have occasionally 
posted under apparently-legitimate pseudonyms in other times and places, 
although never on this list.  I certainly don't attach the moral 
significance to the practice that Larry does.  Nevertheless, in this 
particular case, the situation is so obviously causing mental suffering 
that I assume that if Larry's charges were true that Tim would have 
confessed in order to spare Larry this pain.)
 
I know that it's easy to just write people off on the net, the various 
marginal or fanatical personalities whom one runs into now and then.  
That is why I am asking this as a personal favor.  If you have read and 
appreciated my essays on digital cash, or on the various legal issues 
involving crypto exports; if you have used the remailer code I worked 
on, or PGP for that matter on which I spent hundreds of hours of 
personal time, then I ask that you help me out with this request.  Do it 
as a favor to me regardless of your feelings for Larry, and I will just 
hope that my efforts will bring him some peace of mind.  Thank you.
 
Hal Finney
hfinney@shell.portal.com
 
 
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Mr. Finney makes many references to private mail correspondence of mine
and many presumptions of my thoughts, many of which are incorrect and
none of which I have given him permission to do so.

No one would be doing me any favor by contacting me personally over the
`Dinkelacker matter'. Please do not do so. I am very shocked that Mr.
Finney would have made any such request publicly without first
consulting with me. The style of this request reminds me of Mr. May's
public letter of some time ago to M.Landry over a `safe and fun
environment', the latter individual telling me he was shocked over Mr.
May's public address on his own private matter. 

>Nevertheless, in this 
>particular case, the situation is so obviously causing mental suffering 
>that I assume that if Larry's charges were true that Tim would have 
>confessed in order to spare Larry this pain.)

The situation you describe has nothing to do with me personally. I
assume that if there were no merit to the `charges' Mr. May or Mr.
Hughes would have long ago posted a message specifically denying them
instead of obfuscating the issue with satire, evasions, and propaganda.
Mr. Hughes and Mr. May are unresponsive to my personal email. And
because of his complicity in the evasion and rather uncharacteristic
message (with many striking irregularities) I now doubt the existence of H. Finney.

I have tried in total desperation to find someone I respect to condemn
pseudospoofing for the evil it is. No one has done so. My respect for
many individuals has dropped accordingly. My respect for many black
phantoms has dropped accordingly. (I wish I could tell the difference.)
My respect for the cypherpunk group as a whole has dropped accordingly.
`Their' respect for me has dropped accordingly. (There is a lot of
`reputation capital' being transacted at the moment.)

I have resigned my role and unsubscribed from another list I have been
long committed to that is cross-pollinated (or should we say,
`contaminated', `tainted', and `poisoned') by some cypherpunks, over
the same issue of pseudospoofing. I fear I have lended valuable time
and `reputation capital' to a cause, that has become apparent to me
through many public and private letters by many people, to be devoid of
integrity. I blame certain individuals for this treacherous
misrepresentation of basic cypherpunk goals. And as for `being
assaulted in email' there is absolutely no doubt this has happened to
me. Whether by phantoms or real people, I have no idea. I find it
reprehensible that no one can give me any assurance.

I encourage any other `cypherpunks' who find this practice of
pseudospoofing reprehensible to unsubscribe from the list in protest,
and carry out further debate on the `agenda' in newsgroups.

If any systematic and concerted illusions or deceptions relating to
cypherpunks are being promoted by anyone, I will be no party to it. I
will quite to the contrary work to pierce the balloon of deceit with
the sharp needle of truth. Perhaps even from the inside of the balloon.
I suspect that `the Dinkelacker matter' is merely one square inch on
the entire black balloon.

The only service that will aid my `mental anguish' and cause me to
reconsider my involvement with this `group' is a post in the following from:


Newsgroups: talk.politics.crypto,alt.wired
From: tcmay@netcom.com
Subject: Multiple Personality Disorder

I have never posted or emailed under the account jamie@netcom.com.
Jamie Dinkelacker is a distinct human individual from myself. Eric
Hughes and I condemn the poisonous practice of pseudospoofing. It is
not a goal of the cypherpunks. We do not practice it. In fact, we are
investigating ways to prevent it on the list, starting with database of
everyone who has promised not to.

Furthermore, a rumor that actors were used in Wired article photographs
is simply false. To my knowledge anyone ever pictured in a photograph
of any `cypherpunk' group member in the mainstream media was at least a
list subscriber.


``Oh what a tangled web we weave; when first we practice to deceive.''
--``Shakespeare''

"L. Detweiler" <ld231782@longs.lance.colostate.edu> writes:
[...]
> 
> I have tried in total desperation to find someone I respect to condemn
> pseudospoofing for the evil it is. No one has done so. My respect for
> many individuals has dropped accordingly. My respect for many black
> phantoms has dropped accordingly. [...]

> I encourage any other `cypherpunks' who find this practice of
> pseudospoofing reprehensible to unsubscribe from the list in protest,
> and carry out further debate on the `agenda' in newsgroups.

After reading this message, along with several others you have recently
sent to the list (and broadcasted in comp.org.eff.talk) I think that I am
not alone in bringing to your attention the fact that "you just don't get
it." 

Identity as most people know it, and as you are attempting to tightly cling
to, is dead.  Gone.  History.  Stick a fork in it 'cause it's done.

It has no equivalent on the electronic frontier.  Complaining about it and
bemoaning whatever loss you may feel will do nothing to change this fact.
I know this must be difficult for some people to understand; I routinely
get strange looks from people when I reveal that some of my closest friends
are people who I have never "met" in the traditional sense, and that I
regularly play games, exchange messages, and discuss whatever is on my mind
with people from across the globe who have no more physical substance to me
than wisps of phosphor on a crt.  

This is a fundemental paradigm shift that you have not made yet.  It is one
that few have.  If anything, it is shared conceptual memes such as this
subject of identity in a world without substance that is the true
cypherpunk cause.  

> ``Oh what a tangled web we weave; when first we practice to deceive.''
> --``Shakespeare''

Sorry, by this was not written by Shakespeare.  It was penned by Sir Walter
Scott. 

jim

``In a false quarrel there is no true valour''
--Shakespeare