The Contortions of Cypherpunks

N.Szabo <szabo@netcom.com> in RISKS

>I'd like to assure the readers of RISKS that I am in fact a unique person,
>distinct from the other names L. Detweiler listed.  Of the people on his list
>I know from personal contact, all are distinct people in Real Life(tm).  

Give specific evidence to support your claim or retract it. Who do you
know from personal contact? What do you mean that you are `distinct
from other names'?

>Well
>before his post to RISKS, L. Detweiler was provided means of personally
>verifying that many of the names he listed are distinct True Names (eg phone
>numbers he can call), but it doesn't seem to help.

You appear to be referring to my private mail among many different
people. Please elaborate on your claim, or retract it.

L. Detweiler:
> Give specific evidence to support your claim or retract it. 

Uncle!  I retract my claim!  I'm not me!  My abject apologies for being 
a traitorous criminal pseudospoof, deluding even myself in the process!
(Very good VR tech they've got here!)

Detweiler, I don't know what is wrong with you, but there are
quite a few cypherpunks nearby in Colorado; many of them know
know many of us.  Several of us whom you have explicitly or strongly
implicitly accused of being "pseudospoofs" have violated their
own desire for privacy and sent you their phone numbers.  Some
post them publicly as a matter of course.  (Have you returned
the favor?  Does anybody know Detweiler's phone number?).  You
seem to lack all conception of how completely silly your accusations
look from the perspective of a Bay Area cypherpunks meeting, with
all us "tentacles of Medusa" overfilling a largish meeting room,
jokingly speculating about who will be detweiled next.

With less altruism than some fellow "tentacles", I have decided 
I don't trust you with anything more than I already give out by 
posting my True Name to the net.  In hindsight, even my True Name 
is probably too much trust with people like you in the world, who 
would subject cultural practices they do not understand to the 
extreme violent retribution consequent of something being
a crime or treason.  

If I may engage in some detweiling myself, a long overdue return 
of volleys:  The damage that can be caused by the demogaugic stalkers 
of the world is vastly greater than can be caused by swaying a few peer 
pressure prone readers here and there with "pseudospoofing".  As
if a centralized news media, politic polls, etc. don't already 
sway follow-the-crowd types to a degree vastly surpassing anybody's 
capabilities on the net.  The desire to keep track of identity may sound 
innocent enough, but behind the rhetoric of "accountability" looms
the bloody claws of violent politics, the quest to create a centralized 
identity enforcement agency, a net-based panoptic extortion racket 
with a potential for tyrrany surpassing anything the world has has 
yet seen.  Do you doubt Detweiler favors such an outcome over the 
dreaded "pseudospoofing"?  I'll be happy to forward Detweiler's posts 
in imp-interest on the matter, assuming everybody's not grown long since 
tired of these rants.  And with that bit of my own detweiling I will 
myself retire from the field, lest detweilosis be contagious.

Nick Szabo				szabo@netcom.com

> post them publicly as a matter of course.  (Have you returned
> the favor?  Does anybody know Detweiler's phone number?).  You

Here's some info folks might appreciate (all numbers area code
303, unless otherwise noted):

Lance is the college of engineering subdomain.
Scott Douglas (lance sysadmin) scott@lance.colostate.edu 491-7954
College of Engineering Dean's Office: 491-6603 (Dr. Jorge Aunon)
Vice President, Student Affairs (discipline): 491-5312 (Keith Miser)
ACNS switchboard (Computation center) 491-5133 (Gary Edelen)
ACNS Consulting Desk 491-7276
CSU Information 491-1101
Degree Verification 491-7159

Hold off for a bit on these numbers; it's still not clear who (if anyone) 
is really responsibile for him now. 

I had a very productive talk with Gary Edelen who (like me) is not pleased 
that state funds are going to subsidize someone's highly disruptive, insane, 
quasi-religious rants; he's contacting Scott Douglas, who is apparently the 
administrator of record for the lance subdomain. 

Lawrence Detweiler was awarded a BS in Engineering Science in Spring 
of 1993.

LD's finger: 
------------

Notes:
He is no longer listed with student information or as a staff/faculty 
member, nor is he listed with 303 directory; there is no L. Detweiler 
listed in Fort Collins anymore, or in Denver/Boulder, although there 
is a Jeff Detweiler listed in the 1991 phone book; a call to 498-8278 
got an answering machine, 491-5893 forwards to the Kater Laboratory 
Optical Core.

The 1-5893 number is for the Department of Anatomy, Dennis Giddings 
(staff member). LD apparently worked for the Kater Laboratory as an
hourly student. 

Rene Olson (491-6849) used to be his supervisor, but could not be reached 
for comment.

---------------------------------
[longs.lance.colostate.edu]
Login name: ld231782  			In real life: L. Detweiler
Phone: 15893, 498-8278
Directory: /users/UNGRAD/ES/ld231782	Shell: /bin/tcsh
Most recent logins:
	parry        Fri Nov 12 22:20
	mears        Thu Nov 11 15:42
	jenkins      Sat Nov 13 21:11
	casco        Mon Nov 15 01:02
Never logged in.
No Plan.
--------------------------------

Note that this is just the easy stuff, I have folks digging deeper.
More to come...

-- 
----------------                                             /\ 
Douglas Barnes            cman@illuminati.io.com            /  \ 
Chief Wizard         (512) 448-8950 (d), 447-7866 (v)      / () \
Illuminati Online          metaverse.io.com 7777          /______\

# ... who (like me) is not pleased 
# that state funds are going to subsidize someone's highly disruptive, insane, 
# quasi-religious rants; ...

Censoring public nets from unpopular viewpoints is not what cypherpunks
should be advocating.

If we cannot practice either tolerance or inbox-filtering in our own
group, we cannot expect the rest of the world to agree with our ideas
for free speech nets.

						strick

> If we cannot practice either tolerance or inbox-filtering in our own
> group, we cannot expect the rest of the world to agree with our ideas
> for free speech nets.

  Worse, you can't convince anyone new to the list that you're not
just a group of children with large egos and complex privacy enhancing
toys. I've seen a few well written messages in this group and some
pointers to interesting information, but by far the most volume on
this list, and the xtropians list for that matter, has been petty
bickering. I had higher hopes ....

-David

David Kovar had higher hopes:

>   Worse, you can't convince anyone new to the list that you're not
> just a group of children with large egos and complex privacy enhancing
> toys. I've seen a few well written messages in this group and some
> pointers to interesting information, but by far the most volume on
> this list, and the xtropians list for that matter, has been petty
> bickering. I had higher hopes ....

It's unfortunate that many people think others must write interesting
articles for them. I don't want to pick on David, but his comments
underscore the problem. 

If people want interesting stuff, they need to write it! In looking
over my archives, I only found two (2) past messages from David Kovar,
one here about creating false electronic identities and one on
Extropians about he Panix system and its management. (I may have not
saved all of David's posts...if so, I apologize for any
mischaracterization of his contributions.)

As to the flames, I'm as unhappy about it as David is. But what to do
about it? I haven't called for Detweiler to be censored, though I did
take the precaution of nofifying Dewtweiler's postmaster--the first
time I've ever done this--after recieving numerous threatening
messages ("You will be hung by the neck until dead and then sent to
Hell.") and an explicit statement from him that he intended to
continue harassing Eric Hughes and me until we recanted or begged
forgivness or somesuch nonsense.

For more than a month I ignored his public comments and didn't respond
at all to his private letters to me (threats, foamings,
manic-depresssive mood swings....he even tried to enlist my support in
his battle against Hughes...this after calling for my execution just
days earlier!). This didn't work.

It's too bad this is disrupting the list. But, to be blunt, I consider
all the fatuous "why can you just get along?" comments to be equally
disruptive. Several people, notably Hal Finney, Doug Barnes, others,
have stepped into the breach to try to cool Larry's fevered
imagination--for their troubles they were declared to be Tentacles of
the Medusa. Part of the Dark Side of the Force, as Larry sees things.

Detweiler recently sent me e-mail cackling about how proud I must be
of my latest Nym Tentacle, a certain Hal Finney. I guess I'm honored.
Don't know about Hal, though.

What more can I say? I never called for Detweiler to be kicked off,
and I've tried to limit my comments about him to a couple of
explanatory posts.

(I have to struggle with my Neo-Calvinist urges. To a Neo-Calvinist,
ignorance is its own punishment...if people believe false ideas, then
Reality will punish them. "Think of it as evolution in action." Thus,
when Detweiler makes outrageous remarks, those who believe him are
choosing their own punishment. Normally, I thus see no reason to "set
the record straight." I did, however, a while back when many follow-up
posts to Detweiler's began to take his "pseudospoofing" as a fact of
the list, as a starting point. This misapprehension of reality seemed
to be taking on a life of its own, so I wrote a long piece on the
Detweiler matter.)

I intend for this to be my last word on the subject, unless some major
and different kind of information comes to light.

Clearly he is succeeding in pressing a lot of buttons.


--Tim May



-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it.

If the publication of this information is intended as a prelude to the 
RL persecution or harassment of Mr. Detweiler, I want to lodge a strong 
dissenting opinion. Mr. Detweiler's posts, made in an open forum, are his 
opinions on a number of matters relevant to the social implications of 
encryption and privacy. If we disagree with his views, we can post 
responses, or simply ignore them. Once anyone see's L. Detweiler on the 
header of any post, he or she has a pretty good idea of the tenor of 
what's coming. If you know it's going to enrage you, then why bother 
reading it?
  I personally think that, under the avalanche of rhetoric, he 
raises some very germane issues. I would miss him if he left. But even if 
I thought him 100% mistaken, I wouldn't endorse posting RL information 
about him so that people unhappy with his views could contact Mr. 
Detweiler's associates to complain about him. 

On Mon, 15 Nov 1993, Douglas Barnes wrote:

> > post them publicly as a matter of course.  (Have you returned
> > the favor?  Does anybody know Detweiler's phone number?).  You
> 
> Here's some info folks might appreciate (all numbers area code
> 303, unless otherwise noted):
> 
> Lance is the college of engineering subdomain.
> Scott Douglas (lance sysadmin) scott@lance.colostate.edu 491-7954
> College of Engineering Dean's Office: 491-6603 (Dr. Jorge Aunon)
> Vice President, Student Affairs (discipline): 491-5312 (Keith Miser)
> ACNS switchboard (Computation center) 491-5133 (Gary Edelen)
> ACNS Consulting Desk 491-7276
> CSU Information 491-1101
> Degree Verification 491-7159
> 
> Hold off for a bit on these numbers; it's still not clear who (if anyone) 
> is really responsibile for him now. 
> 
> I had a very productive talk with Gary Edelen who (like me) is not pleased 
> that state funds are going to subsidize someone's highly disruptive, insane, 
> quasi-religious rants; he's contacting Scott Douglas, who is apparently the 
> administrator of record for the lance subdomain. 
> 
> Lawrence Detweiler was awarded a BS in Engineering Science in Spring 
> of 1993.
> 
> LD's finger: 
> ------------
> 
> Notes:
> He is no longer listed with student information or as a staff/faculty 
> member, nor is he listed with 303 directory; there is no L. Detweiler 
> listed in Fort Collins anymore, or in Denver/Boulder, although there 
> is a Jeff Detweiler listed in the 1991 phone book; a call to 498-8278 
> got an answering machine, 491-5893 forwards to the Kater Laboratory 
> Optical Core.
> 
> The 1-5893 number is for the Department of Anatomy, Dennis Giddings 
> (staff member). LD apparently worked for the Kater Laboratory as an
> hourly student. 
> 
> Rene Olson (491-6849) used to be his supervisor, but could not be reached 
> for comment.
> 
> ---------------------------------
> [longs.lance.colostate.edu]
> Login name: ld231782  			In real life: L. Detweiler
> Phone: 15893, 498-8278
> Directory: /users/UNGRAD/ES/ld231782	Shell: /bin/tcsh
> Most recent logins:
> 	parry        Fri Nov 12 22:20
> 	mears        Thu Nov 11 15:42
> 	jenkins      Sat Nov 13 21:11
> 	casco        Mon Nov 15 01:02
> Never logged in.
> No Plan.
> --------------------------------
> 
> Note that this is just the easy stuff, I have folks digging deeper.
> More to come...
> 
> -- 
> ----------------                                             /\ 
> Douglas Barnes            cman@illuminati.io.com            /  \ 
> Chief Wizard         (512) 448-8950 (d), 447-7866 (v)      / () \
> Illuminati Online          metaverse.io.com 7777          /______\
>

Arthur Chandler:
> If the publication of this information is intended as a prelude to the 
> RL persecution or harassment of Mr. Detweiler, I want to lodge a strong 
> dissenting opinion.

This raises an interesting meta-point.  What fundamentally important
reason is there beyond the threat of physical persecution
(often as retribution or preemption against a wrong real or perceived), 
to actively seek a net user's physical identity on the net against that 
user's will?  Should "accountability" for offenses committed on the 
net include a threat of physical violence, or should the scope of the 
punishment be limited to the scope of the offense, namely "plonking" 
of the offender's reputation on the net?  I contend that in 
a sufficiently mature net culture (ie with "kill" files, reputation
ratings, and digital cash) there is no possible offense evil enough
to require violent retribution.  My ideal is to see a day when threats of 
violence on the net, including the nasty, implicit threat of violence 
lying behind many calls for "accountability", are rendered 
moot by voluntary self-disclosure and tolerance for a wide variety of
pseudonymity and anonymity.  Cyberspace with pseudonymity allows
us for the first time to create a rich subculture that is nonviolent 
in a way Gandhi could only dream of.

On the specific case of info on Detweiler: this net stalker has 
explicitly made violent threats against several list members while 
at the same time attempting to track down their identities, and
implicitly made threats against most of us by branding 
cypherpunks "criminals", "traitors", etc. in a wide variety of forums, 
implying that the normal violent retribution for such states of 
infamy is in order.

In an ideal net culture, Doug Barnes' action would be reprehensible. 
But the world is far from ideal, and while we still must put our physical
identities at risk we need some defense against demogogic stalkers of 
the world, and thus I applaud Doug Barnes' efforts in providing us 
information about Detweiler, just as Detweiler is seeking information 
about us.

Nick Szabo				szabo@netcom.com