The Courtesies of Cypherpunks

From: jazz@hal.com (Jason Zions)
>It's also common courtesy. You can have significant disagreements with a
>person, yet still honor their simple requests.

I owe no courtesy to someone who forfeits any respect in their
atrocious misbehavior. This is as simple as the maxim, if you are a
criminal your rights are diminished. If you mailbomb me, you have
forfeited your `right to privacy'. If you email my postmaster a
complaint about me before contacting me, you have forfeited your `right
to privacy'. If you lie to me, you have forfeited your `right to
privacy'. If you fail to adequately respond to my personal accusations
of impropriety or criminality, especially meeting them with evasion or
stonewalling, you have forfeited your `right to privacy'. If you have
ever sent me mail as a Snake of Medusa or a Tentacle of a Monster, you
have forfeited your `right to privacy' -- under ALL your pseudonyms and
identities. If you ridiculously condone and endorse any such
reprehensible behaviors under such patent idiocy as `respecting
copyright' or `common courtesy', you have forfeited your `right to
privacy'. If you have done any of the above to *anyone*, you have
forfeited your `right to privacy' with respect to EVERYONE in your society!

I also think you have forfeited your right to speak in that society as
well -- maybe only temporarly -- but in situations where these kinds of
outrageous behaviors are condoned by a corrupt moderator, no recourse
except leaving or starting a new list is possible.

In particularly obnoxious cases of criminal abuse, I will attempt to
shame you into repentance by ridiculing you in front of people who
appear to be your friends and community (presuming you actually have
any), if all other measures have failed. (Even this may be ineffective,
but if you have no shame, you have no humanity.) 

That is the Detweiler Code of Cyberspatial Ethics and Privacy. If it is
incompatible with the Cypherpunk Code of Chivalry, my heartfelt
condolences go out to you. Perhaps you would like to elucidate me as to
which of the above practices require my RESPECT.

As I was saying, psychopunks have elevated their religion of `privacy'
and `pseudospoofing' to perverse extremes. ``The cypherpunk agenda is
becoming indistinguishable from raw criminality.'' May you choke on
your own poisons. Already, you wallow and drown in them and defile the
naive, trusting, honest, and innocent daily on your list. Frankly, I
can barely stand to be in the same Cyberspace with you. The `psychopunk
core' of the cypherpunks is nothing but a fanatic, brainwashed
religious cult. No wonder you guys identify with David Koresh. I assure
you, future Cyberspace will not be big enough for the both of us.

Go ahead, CENSOR me! For the crime of writing `FLAMEBAIT' or,
equivalently, YELLING THE TRUTH.

What depraved hypocrisy, that some psychopunks attempt to CENSOR ME
indirectly by mailing my postmaster (who could care less about your
sniveling whinings).

You guys really do have *some* ethics, don't you? ``Don't ever DIRECTLY
CENSOR ANYTHING!'' ``NEVER GET CAUGHT or be PERSONALLY ACCOUNTABLE or
RESPONSIBLE for ANYTHING!''

Ken McGlothlen writes:
 > ld231782@longs.lance.colostate.edu ("L. Detweiler") rants:
 > | I owe no courtesy ...
 >
 > More ludicrousness....


You know, while resisting the temptation to respond to Mr. Detweiler
(my rational self knows it's pointless, but my ire is raised), I've
begun to wonder whether this sort of psychosis is an anomaly or if
it'll be more common as the net becomes accessible to more and more
people.

We've all worried about various types of regulations on traffic which
may be proposed or imposed as the net becomes more common.  What if
this type of paranoia crops up more frequently?  (Indeed, it may have
happened many times in the past; Mr. Detweiler is just very "loud"
about it.)  Is it likely that there are a lot of people on shaky
emotional footing who'll lose their grip when faced with the new
sociological paradigms of electronic communities?

And, most importantly, should I be chastised for using cypherpunks
bandwidth for my musings? :-)  If so, I'll here make a lame attempt to
redeem myself by giving a preliminary thumbs up to the "Applied
Cryptography" text by Bruce Schneier.  I picked up my copy over the
weekend, and it looks like a winner.

--
Mike McNally

Mike McNally says:
> We've all worried about various types of regulations on traffic which
> may be proposed or imposed as the net becomes more common.  What if
> this type of paranoia crops up more frequently?  (Indeed, it may have
> happened many times in the past; Mr. Detweiler is just very "loud"
> about it.)  Is it likely that there are a lot of people on shaky
> emotional footing who'll lose their grip when faced with the new
> sociological paradigms of electronic communities?

It will happen, but good filtering agents can stop it from becoming
annoying.

Perry

ld231782@longs.lance.colostate.edu ("L. Detweiler") writes:

| I owe no courtesy to someone who forfeits any respect in their atrocious
| misbehavior.

But wouldn't you say that *any* mailbombing is atrocious behavior?  So why
should you garner further respect?

| [...]  If you mailbomb me, you have forfeited your `right to privacy'.  If
| you email my postmaster a complaint about me before contacting me, you have
| forfeited your `right to privacy'. If you lie to me, you have forfeited your
| `right to privacy'. If you fail to adequately respond to my personal
| accusations of impropriety or criminality, especially meeting them with
| evasion or stonewalling, you have forfeited your `right to privacy'.

The first one has the most credibility as far as forfeiting one's right to
privacy.  But then, I think that mailbombing someone, and then threatening more
mailbombs, might well lead to getting some help from the site administrator, or
even the subnet administrator if need be, because that sort of juvenile,
puerile action isn't warranted at any time.  The last one is the . . . well,
stupidest, because if that held to *everyone*, then nobody would have any right
to privacy.  Anyone could accuse anyone, without basis, of impropriety or
criminality.  Hey, Detweiler, where were you on the night of February 4, 1989?
Someone was breaking into my system from colostate.edu. . . .  Unless it was a
special event, you'd probably have a tough time remembering what happened to
you on that day, much less rounding up witnesses.  So how can you make an
"adequate response"?  Whose definition of "adequate response" do you use?

I just don't think that your rather arbitrary, personal criteria justify
forfeiting one's "right to privacy"---and whose definition do you use for that?

| If you have ever sent me mail as a Snake of Medusa or a Tentacle of a
| Monster, you have forfeited your `right to privacy' -- under ALL your
| pseudonyms and identities.

Pardon?  Meaning that if I'd sent you mail---*any* mail---via anon.penet.fi,
that I forfeit my "right to privacy"?  That's ludicrous.  Inane, even.

| If you have done any of the above to *anyone*, you have forfeited your `right
| to privacy' with respect to EVERYONE in your society!

Again, whose definitions do we use?  I'd really hesitate to use yours as
written above.  Why not my definitions?  Because I think mailbombs at *any*
time are odious, because they not only affect the users involved, but every
site that message goes through.  So have you forfeited your right to privacy?
If not, why?  Who says?

| I also think you have forfeited your right to speak in that society as well
| -- maybe only temporarly -- but in situations where these kinds of outrageous
| behaviors are condoned by a corrupt moderator, no recourse except leaving or
| starting a new list is possible.

Well, who decides?  You or the moderator?  Maybe the moderator prefers his
definitions.

| That is the Detweiler Code of Cyberspatial Ethics and Privacy.

Fortunately, there has been no move to adopt this sort of "code of ethics" on a
general basis.  It's not so much a "code of ethics" as much as it is a "code of
Detweiler uber alles."  It's just too arbitrary and Detweiler-centric, and the
results of violating your code of ethics seems to be swamping people with
mailbombs, so. . . .

| No wonder you guys identify with David Koresh. I assure you, future
| Cyberspace will not be big enough for the both of us.

More ludicrousness.  Cypherpunks is not made of a uniform hive of like-minded
hackers (traditional sense).

| Go ahead, CENSOR me! For the crime of writing `FLAMEBAIT' or, equivalently,
| YELLING THE TRUTH.

What truth?  You haven't really said anything useful here, you've just tried to
dictate what your "code of ethics" is, which boils down to "if you do something
I don't like, at any point, you lose your right to privacy as far as I'm
concerned."  It's arbitrary and capricious; not all that useful to the rest of
us, and hardly appropriate to this list.

| You guys really do have *some* ethics, don't you? ``Don't ever DIRECTLY
| CENSOR ANYTHING!'' ``NEVER GET CAUGHT or be PERSONALLY ACCOUNTABLE or
| RESPONSIBLE for ANYTHING!''

And as for that point, you are guilty of lumping all of us together again,
aren't you?

				---Ken McGlothlen
				   mcglk@cpac.washington.edu
				   mcglk@cpac.bitnet

Look, everyone --

Detweiler is a seriously disturbed individual. Sending him mail saying
"what the hell are you doing -- you're nuts" isn't going to do any
good. Crazy people don't think they are crazy. Ignoring is rantings
works a whole lot better than any other strategy.

I only mailbombed him because he was sending me unsolicited personal
mail and wouldn't stop. Otherwise I ignore him, and I advise others to
do the same.

Perry