Curious content

Tim,

I'm not so sure I'm very fond of the quote that you used in the 
CP-FAQ:


             - As Paul Ferguson, Cypherpunk and manager at US Sprint,
                puts it: "We're located in Herndon, Virginia, right
                across the street from Dulles Airport and a hop, skip &
                jump down the street from the new NRO office.   ,-)"
                [P.F., 1994-08-18]


As I did say this, and it _is_ true, it somehow lends conjecture to the
scenario that Sprint is somehow involved with US Gov't wiretapping
schemes.

I'd appreciate it if you could either strike the quote or clarify it
to reflect the true meaning of my remarks.

Concerned,


_______________________________________________________________________________
Paul Ferguson                         
US Sprint 
Managed Network Engineering                        tel: 703.904.2437 
Herndon, Virginia  USA                        internet: paul@hawk.sprintmrn.com

Paul Ferguson writes:
...
> I'm not so sure I'm very fond of the quote that you used in the 
> CP-FAQ:
....
> As I did say this, and it _is_ true, it somehow lends conjecture to the
> scenario that Sprint is somehow involved with US Gov't wiretapping
> schemes.
> 
> I'd appreciate it if you could either strike the quote or clarify it
> to reflect the true meaning of my remarks.
> 
> Concerned,

I will remove it, in an upcoming release (may not be for several
weeks, as I noted in the docs), but it illustrates some interesting
points:

1. That people's words on open lists are of course archived in many
places.

2. Unless Paul's a speed reader, he probably grepped for his own name
to find what quotes were used, what credit was given, what mention was
made. I suspect a _lot_ of people will do that first thing. Some will
be pissed to _not_ find their name enough times (or at all, perhaps).
Others will want their words changed, their thoughts expanded upon.

3. In general, I don't want to encourage the dozens of you who are
quoted to send me messages asking for this. Your words are your words,
and others have been linking them in Web pages, quoting them, etc.

4. If someone thinks I _seriously_ am misrepresnting them (and I don't
think Paul can claim my comment did...after all, I was discussing the
heavy concentraiton of spooks and telcos in the Northern Virginia
nexus, and Paul was making the same point when he added the bit about
the NRO headquarters in Chantilly), then send me a private not and I
will consider taking some action.

(But don't take this as an invitation to grep for your name and then
ask for changes.)

--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: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
"National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

An additional note:

I appreciate Tim's effort to compile a document we can all call our
own. In my opinion, its been a long time in coming.

Tim and I share many idealisms, including those of cryptoanarchy,
zero-tolerance and non-governmental manipulation.

Any and all remarks I make to the list are public, and believe it or
not, I understand that when I make them. One would be a fool not to 
understand the implications.

Just thought I'd toss in these few pennies...

Cheers,

- paul

Paul Ferguson wrote:

> An additional note:
> 
> I appreciate Tim's effort to compile a document we can all call our
> own. In my opinion, its been a long time in coming.

Thanks...I also think my doc has been slow in coming. Like I said,
it's taken too long to write.

Out of curiousity, I did a search of the doc for Paul's name and was
surprised to see that I'd only used one of his quotes. Oh well. 

People should bear in mind the random nature of how I pulled quotes.
Since there may be some interest in this, I'll comment:

- Though the FAQ covers material going back for _years_, especially
the past 2 years, more recent material is more heavily weighted. That
is, recent stuff is likelier to be used.

- In particular, once the overall structure took shape (the major
chapter headings, the themes), I often would see something that looked
"interesting" and would directly attach it, with some massaging of the
text, selective elisions, etc., to the appropriate branch of my
outline structure. 

- This means that postings in the last several months are
over-represented as compared to earlier stuff from the "archives."

(Side Note: I spent perhaps too long, several months back, laboriously
using Eudora to sort into folders the many thousands of posts I had on
nearly as many topics. The result was awe-inspiring: an optical
cartridge containing folders on every conceivable variant of digital
money, for example, and containing many hundreds of folders on other
topics. The *usefulness* of all this effort--which was by no means a
"set it up and walk away" filtering job, as I had to decide on the
search criteria, created the filters, etc.--has been less
awe-inspiring, as I don't have time to _re-read_ the sorted posts to
find good stuff!  Still, on each and every topic in the FAQ, I can
call up multiple posts by people, and I could probably double the size
of the FAQ just by including tidbits from these posts. The Cypherpunks
have written a truly astounding amoun to good stuff.)

I also don't want to leave the impression that I am not looking for
additional comments and elaborations. I am. 

But there's great danger in people using the points made in the FAQ to
just expand or elaborate on. I know how addictive it is to comment on
what people have written....

So, send your comments.

I'm skeptical of "stone soup FAQs" ("Here's a short outline...send me
stuff"), which is why I've written what I've written. But comments and
corrections are always welcome, as I make clear in the accompanying
docs.

--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: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
"National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."