RE: Tim May the Luddite--His Last Message for A While

> It may be time for me to move on. More than 2 years on this list,
> since the B.C. period, may be too long.

I've been thinking the same thing. Sadly, some of the initial C'punks
are those that are amoung the worst flamers. Eric and Perry should
be leading by example, but that isn't the case.

Recently, I was encouraged by the number of outsiders willing to post.
The folks from Netscape were just the most recent. But they
were greeted with massive hostility because their code isn't perfect,
or maybe because they are trying to make a buck. Sometimes
releasing code sooner means that you will be arround later to fix it.

Even Amanda, who I first saw posting to comp.fonts when she worked
for Visix, has not been showing her usual diplomacy.

Cypherpunks write code, and care about politics, technology,
society and economics.

Cypherpunks will continue. I'm not so sure about the cypherpunks list.
I'm not willing to bet that it will be different than Extropians.

Pat

Pat Farrell      Grad Student                 pfarrell@cs.gmu.edu
Department of Computer Science    George Mason University, Fairfax, VA
Public key availble via finger          #include <standard.disclaimer>

Pat Farrel wrote:

> Cypherpunks will continue. I'm not so sure about the cypherpunks list.

Without T.C. May, I'm not so sure either, unless somebody else could take
up his role as inofficial moderator. In the past, whenever the list has
gone astray, T.C.'s analytical posts have set things straight, calmed
down flamers and defined the relevance of various topics (to the cp
agenda). This kind of moderation, mostly set by example without annoying
hardly anyone, is not so easy to do. Completely unmoderated (in this
sense), the cp-list might become just another sci.crypt, talk.politics.
crypto or alt.security.pgp.

And without the visionary posts by T.C. May, the cp-list would be a lot
poorer. Certainly, there are other frequent posters with visions, but
T.C. May's long and deep penetration into the consequences of true
anonymity or pseudonymity has yet to be equalled on the list. (Other
verbal and experienced cp's, like Eric H., Perry M. and Hal F., among
others, of course have their own sectors of expertize, no less vital
or important.)

Appendix:

The recent boom in signed posts to the cp-list is uninteresting to
me. If an argument is good I don't care if the pseudonymous identity
(or true, in the sense of a physical identity matching the name in
a fingerprint file or whatever) is forged. I would care if an impostor
tried to give out disinformation in the name of, for example, Eric H.
But I'm sure I would notice the difference.

Amamda W.'s latest example of what MIME could be used for was
interesting. The only thing that came through to me (Pine 3.91
on a Unix shell account over Ethernet to a Reflection for Windows
client) was an underscored 'on' in red pixels. What a wonderful
instrument for SHOUTING.

Mats