The Frightening Dangers of Moderation

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

Well, folks, tonight I have witnessed the frightening dangers of
moderation and censorship first-hand, and would like to tell you what
has happened.  I think there is an important lesson to be learned from
these incidents.

Before I explain what has happened, I want to make one thing
absolutely clear.  Though I've thought the moderation of cypherpunks
was a terrible idea from the start and am even more convinced of it
now, I don't assign any blame to Sandy.  I believe he offered to
moderate the list with the best of intentions, and I sincerely
appreciate his efforts to try to revive what was once a fantastic
mailing list, even if in my opinion those efforts have backfired.

Sandy has been a valuable advocate of cypherpunk beliefs and a lively
contributor to cypherpunks list for a long time.  Though the
moderation experiment has resulted in some terrible consequences, we
can't blame him for what has happened.  If the events I have witnessed
tonight occured with such a high-standing member of the cypherpunks
community in charge, the cause of them can only be the very nature of
moderation and censorship.  I don't think any of us could have done
much better in Sandy's shoes.

Now, what happened tonight?  As some of you may recall, a month or so
ago I vehemently argued against the elimination of the
cypherpunks-unedited mailingt list.  Some people (though no one
associated with toad.com) were claiming that 3 mailing lists might be
too much load, and that having cypherpunks and cypherpunks-flames
would be enough.  I argued that not only would the delay of waiting
for a decision put alternate cypherpunks moderators at a disadvantage,
it would make it farm more difficult to convince people of the
moderator's honesty as there would be no guarantee that messages made
it to either list.  Fortunately, cypherpunks-unedited did get created
(it seems no one "in charge" ever intended not to create it).

Well, as it turns out, a number of messages have made it neither to
cypherpunks nor to cypherpunks-flames.  Making matters worse, however,
not only are certain messages being suppressed from both lists, but
even messages mentioning that fact get suppressed from both the
cypherpunks and the cypherpunks-flames lists!

Here's exactly what happened.  I was beginning to believe that Dmitri
Vulis had sent an (admitedly objectionable) message to the cypherpunks
mailing list, but that the message had gone to neither the cypherpunks
nor the cypherpunks-flames lists.  Since I was under the impression
that every article was supposed to go to one list or the other, and
many people probably still believe that, I mentioned this somewhat
startling fact on the cypherpunks mailing list, I believe in response
to a post by Tim May on the same subject.

Tim replied (in a message Cc'ed to cypherpunks--though I don't think
it went anywhere but to -unedited), asking me in the message, "Can you
send to the list, with a copy to me, the articles CENSOREDCENSOREDCENS
OREDCENSOREDCENSORE?"  I therefore went back through my mail archives
and found a copy of the message that I believed had gone to neither
mailing list.  I sent it to Tim and to cypherpunks.  I prepended a few
paragraphs in which I asked people to confirm that the message had
gone to neither mailing list.  Among other things in those paragraphs,
I stated that Vulis's message was "verifiably false".  It was clear
from the context that I was forwarding this message to ask people
which lists it had gone to, not because I believed the content to be
correct or even at all convincing or interesting.  That message I
sent, quoting Vulis's, immediately follows this message, after the
line '========'.

Then, tonight, I received a message from Sandy, which I include below
a second '========' marker.  In that letter, Sandy had explicitly
aknowledged not only that he had sent Vulis's letter to neither
mailing list, but that he wouldn't send my letter to either mailing
list, either!  He claimed that he couldn't forward Vulis's message
because it was libel, and accused me of committing libel simply by
quoting Vulis's message, even though I explicitly stated that Vulis's
message was verifiably false.

Well, this travesty must exposed, even if I can't make known all the
details for fear of libel charges.  I am therefore forwarding
everything I can to the cypherpunks mailing list, for all to see.  As
you can see, Vulis made unfounded and incorrect charges that a
particular system contained a security hole.  Believe me, if I could
get into the details of the case I could convince you easily that his
claim is not true.  However, since even quoting that claim apparently
opens me up to charges of libel, I can't give you the details.  Thus,
I have censored (by overriting original text with the letters
CENSORED) any portion of quoted messages that might give you an
indication of what system Vulis actually claimed had a security hole.

This censorship should not, however, affect my main point, and the
lesson that I hope we can all take away from this.  When it comes down
to it, the details of this case do not matter.  What does matter is
that even when the "good guys" attempt benign censorship, it can have
frighteningly far-reaching effects on people's ability to discuss
otherwise reasonable topics such as the mechanics of the cypherpunks
list.  I generally dislike censorship and moderation, but the
consequences of the cypherpunks experiment have gone far beyond
anything I could have imagined.

In closing, let me reiterate that I don't think most of this is
Sandy's, John's, or anyone else's fault.  Given the knowledge I have
of this case, I believe Sandy has unwittingly found himself ensnarled
in a nasty legal situation where, for fear of legal reprisal he must
block articles that he has a moral obligation to send to
cypherpunks-flames.  I certainly don't envy his position.

[To moderator Sandy:  I believe we must get the content of this
message to the main cypherpunks mailing list.  I have done everything
I can to ensure that the message contains no libel.  If, for some
reason, you still can't send it on to the main cypherpunks mailing
list, can you please tell me specifically which parts cause problems.
I will the CENSOR them out and try again.  This message contains
important, highly relevant information for the cypherpunks community.
Please help me do what it takes to get it accepted by the moderation
process.  Thanks.]

========

To: tcmay@got.net
CC: cypherpunks@toad.com
Chain: nym=antimod
In-reply-to: <v03007802af21505d61f5@[207.167.93.63]> (tcmay@got.net)
Subject: Re: Is Sandy really censoring criticisms of CENSORCENSOREDCENSOREDC?

Okay, I went through my old mail, and I'm fairly sure this is the
message.  I'm convinced it never went to the flames list, and now that
I've found out I'm on the -unedited list after all, I think it
probably didn't go to the regular cypherpunks list either.  Can people
on the various lists confirm this for me?

Given the total lack of technical content, the flamey nature of the
article, and the fact that it is verifiably false (CENSOREDCENSOREDC
ENSOREDCENSOREDCE), I can see people arguing it should have gone to
- -flames (though I would probably disagree).  However, I don't want to
debate that.  What I object to more strongly and think is wrong is the
fact that it went to *neither* list.

A lot of people out there are subscribing to the cypherpunks-flames
and cypherpunks lists thinking that they will see everything that gets
rejected (albeit with a substantial delay).  If this is not the case,
it should be made clear.  Otherwise, it's not moderation, but
dishonesty.

- --

>From cypherpunks-errors@toad.com  Thu Jan 30 17:26:50 1997
From: dlv@bwalk.dm.com (Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM)
Subject: Security alert!!!
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 97 16:15:21 EST
Organization: Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.
Received: (from majordom@localhost) by toad.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id OAA18833; Thu, 30 Jan 1997 14:17:05 -0800 (PST)
Received: from uu.psi.com (uu.psi.com [38.9.86.2]) by toad.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id OAA18824; Thu, 30 Jan 1997 14:16:39 -0800 (PST)
Received: by uu.psi.com (5.65b/4.0.061193-PSI/PSINet) via UUCP;
        id AA02017 for ; Thu, 30 Jan 97 16:57:10 -0500
Received: by bwalk.dm.com (1.65/waf)
	via UUCP; Thu, 30 Jan 97 16:19:19 EST
	for cypherpunks@toad.com
Comments: All power to the ZOG!
Message-Id: <aw5c2D4w165w@bwalk.dm.com>
Sender: owner-cypherpunks@toad.com
Precedence: bulk
Lines: 19

WARNING: There's a rogue trojan horse out there on the internet CENSOREDCENS
OREDCENSOREDCENSOREDCEN.  It's actually a hacked-up version of CENSOR with a
backdoor, which allows hackers (or whoever knows the backdoor) to steal credit
card numbers and other confidentil information on the Internet.

Be careful! Always use encryption. Do not send confidential information 9such
as passwords and credit card numbers) to any site running the trojan horse
CENSOREDCENS. 

In general, beware of "snake oil" security products and hacked-up versions of
free software.

Please repost this warning to all relevant computer security forums.

- ---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

========

X-From: sandfort@crl.com Sat Feb 08 00:56:23 1997
Date: Fri, 7 Feb 1997 16:45:31 -0800 (PST)
From: Sandy Sandfort <sandfort@crl.com>
To: Against Moderation <antimod@nym.alias.net>
Subject: Re: Is Sandy really censoring criticisms of CENSOREDCENSOREDCENSORE?
In-Reply-To: <19970207220720.15530.qmail@anon.lcs.mit.edu>

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                          SANDY SANDFORT
 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Hi,

On 7 Feb 1997, Against Moderation wrote:

> What I object to more strongly and think is wrong is the
> fact that it went to *neither* list.

Unfortunately, it's not as simple as that.  As soon as I can
arrange it with John, I am going to stop moderating the list.
In the interim, I *will not* be sending your post onto either
the Flames or the Moderated lists.  This is done for legal 
reason.  As it is, you have already published a libel on the
unedited list by repeating Dimitri's libel.  This exposes you to
legal liability, but as an anonymous poster, you are somewhat
insulated from the consequences of your act.

If you would like to PRIVATELY discuss this matter with me, I
would not mind going into more detail with you.  Suffice it to 
say, I any re-publication by me of Dimitri's libel would expose
John and myself to legal liability and could also act to 
insulate Dimitri from liability as a result of CENSOREDCENSOREDCE
NSOREDCENDOREDCENDOREDC.

Take care,


 S a n d y

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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At 4:31 AM +0000 2/8/97, Against Moderation wrote:
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>
>Well, folks, tonight I have witnessed the frightening dangers of
>moderation and censorship first-hand, and would like to tell you what
>has happened.  I think there is an important lesson to be learned from
>these incidents.

(long account of getting legal threats for quoting a message about CENSORED
elided)

This is indeed an important incident. I hope we can discuss it. Many issues
central to Cypherpunks are involved. To name a few:

* the moderation/censorship issue itself (though we have probably beaten
this one to death in the last few weeks).

* the "libel" issue, especially as it involves Sandy, his company, and the
machine the list is hosted from. The introduction of a censor has, as many
of us predicted, raised serious libel and liability issues. (This is the
best reason I can think of it to move to an "alt.cypherpunks" system, where
bypassing of liability, libel, copyright violation, etc.,  laws is
naturally handled by the globally decentralized and uncontrolled nature of
Usenet.)

* conflicts of interest issues. Apparently Sandy feels information
deleterious to C2Net, having to do with a claimed CENSORED in the software
product CENSORED, cannot be passed by him to _either_ of the two lists to
which articles are supposed to be sent. (Sadly, he did not tell us of this
meta-censorship when it happened. This made what he did deceptive as well
as wrong.)

* chilling of discussion. As "Against Moderation" notes, merely _quoting_
the article of another caused Sandy to not only reject his article, but
also to contact him and raise the threat of legal action. (This even though
Against Moderation added all sorts of "obviously false" comments to what
Vulis had written.)

* even more threats. At the request of CENSORED today, I called CENSORED
and had a verbal communication with him (a nice guy, by the way) about this
situation. He averred that "you don't want to be pulled into this," and
suggested that if I post certain things, even quoting the reports that a
CENSORED exists in CENSORED, I could well be sued by the lawyers of his
company!

These are issues which remailers, decentralized servers, anonymity, data
havens, and other Cypherpunks technologies make important issues for us to
discuss.


When did Cypherpunks start thinking about libel? (Obvious answer: when
_their_ companies were the targets of criticism, lies, libel, whatever.)
It's not as if insulting or even "libelous" (I'm not a lawyer) comments
have not been made routinely on the list. Insulting companies and other
institutions has been standard Cypherpunks fare since the beginning.
Mykotronx has been accused of high crimes, RSADSI has been declared to be
placing backdoors in code, Phil Zimmermann has been declared to be an NSA
plant ("only trust the versions of PGP before he cut the deal to get his
freedom"), and so on. Think about it. Just about any company with any
product related to crypto has at one time or another had their motives
questioned, their products slammed, etc.

Unfortunately, our Late Censor is an employee of one of the companies so
slammed, and he has reacted by rejecting one or more of these slams without
bothering to tell the list that he has to do so. (Were it me, I would have
"recused" myself from the decision, or at least told the list in general
terms what was going on, or, more likely, resigned as censor. But then I
would never have been a list.censor in the first place.)

I understand that Sandy is stepping down as our Moderator. The Censor is
Dead, Long Live Sandy! I expect to harbor no continuing resentment toward
Sandy (though I expect things will be strained for a while, as might be
expected).

The issues raised are ugly ones. Here's what scares me: the "precedent" may
irretrievably be established that companies offended by words on the list
will threaten legal action to recover their good name. I can imagine
Mykotronx or even First Virtual citing the actions of C2Net as a precedent
(a cultural precedent, to the extent there is such a thing) for their own
legal letters.

As with the terrible precedent set by the "even Cypherpunks had to censor
themselves" experiment, these companies may be able to say "But even a
Cypherpunk-oriented company realized that the antidote for damaging speech
was not rebutting speech. No, these Cypherpunks realized that some
threatening letters and pulling the plug on the speaker was a better
approach."

And we won't be able to easily argue that Mykotronx has no right to do this
while C2Net does.

Sandy, in his message a few hours ago to Against Moderation, even made the
claim (and Sandy _is_ a lawyer, or at least once was) that John Gilmore
could be held liable for speech on the Cypherpunks list. (I don't doubt the
"could," but I hate like hell to see a Cypherpunkish company leading the
charge.)

Perhaps this is true. But the Censorship experiment, and the resulting
threats of legal action by C2Net to stop mention of the alleged CENSORED in
their product CENSORED, fuel the fire. Instead of denigrating such legal
moves--as I'm sure most Cypherpunks would have done a few years ago if
RSADSI were to try to sue people for making outrageous claims--we have a
major company consisting of several leading Cypherpunks making just such
threats.

I'm not a legal scholar, but is it really the case that merely _alluding_
to the allegedly libelous comments of another is itself a libel? Is a
reporter who writes that "Person X has alleged that Product Y has a Flaw Z"
thus committing a libel? (I don't think so, as reporters frequently report
such things. If merely quoting an alleged libel is also libel, then
presumably a lot of reporters, and even court clerks reporting on cases,
are libelers.)

(ObLisp reference: quoting an expression ought to have a different return
value than evaluating an expression! That's what quotes are for.)

My comments this past week have not been motivated by animosity toward
Sandy, and certainly my comments today are not motivated by any animosity
about C2Net or any of its employees (including CENSORED, whom I spoke with
today).

My comments started out as being a summary of why I had left Cypherpunks
when the Great Hijacking was announced. Since last Sunday, when I issued my
"Moderation" post, I've only responded to messages I was CC:ed on, or to
messages on the Flames list, which I subscribed to temporarily to better
see what Sandy was calling flames. The discovery that certain posts were
not appearing on either the Main list or the Flames list triggered today's
comments about Sandy and the alleged CENSOREDCENSOREDCENSORED (blah blah
blah).

I hope we can declare this Censorship experiment a failure and move on.
However,  it is almost certain that as a result of attempts to suppress
certain views, that the move back to an unfiltered state will mean that
some will use anonymous remailers and nym servers to post even _more_
claims, however outrageous.

This is a predictable effect. Cf. Psychology 101 for an explanation.
Kicking Vulis off the list predictably produced a flood of Vulis
workarounds, and a surge in insults via anonymous remailers. Instituting
censorship of the list triggered a flood of comments critical of the
experiment, and a predictable "testing" of the censorship limits. And,
finally, now that C2Net is threatening legal action to stop
discussion--even in quotes!!--of alleged CENSORED in CENSORED, expect a lot
of repetition of these claims via remailers. And, I predict, claims about
CENSORED will even be spread more widely, e.g., on the Usenet.

(Sadly, I half expect a letter from some lawyers or lawyer larvae saying I
am "suborning libel," or somesuch nonsense. As Sandy would say, "piffle."
Lawyers, take your best shot.)


Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside"
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."