Dissolving Choke Points

I was amused by the similarities of USG crypto policy and the
moderation of the cypherpunks list.  Recently a number of new
regulations were announced to go into effect by a certain date.
Requests for comments were made after the policy was announced.  Many
of us thought that was pretty sneaky.  I feel the same way about the
moderation plan.

Moderation has been a failure.  I'm pretty good at filtering and I
can sadly report that there is very little signal out there.

There are lessons to be learned here.  One is that censorship does
not promote a stimulating and creative dialogue.  The cypherpunks list
right now is about as interesting as hanging out by the 7-11.

Another lesson is the danger of choke points.  We can see how
tempting it is for people to exercise their control.  Even John Gilmore
was unable to restrain himself from involuntary social engineering
experiments.  Who would we have considered to be more trustworthy?

Toad.com is a choke point, not just in terms of moderation but in
terms of the rate at which it can distribute messages.  Let's
replace it.

What we want are many machines carrying the cypherpunks list.  A
message posted to any machine goes to all of the others.  Each
machine sends messages to its subscribers only once.  Some of
these machines should be across borders.

The mail loop and multiple posting problems are solved by observing
the message IDs.

Fast implementation: use moderated mailing list software.  Put a
filter in the .forward file of the "moderator" account which looks
at the message ID and forwards the message if it hasn't been seen
already.  The mailing list machines all subscribe each other.

I've been looking for a stable machine with a good net connection to
do this.  I haven't found one.  However, if we have many machines
sharing the load, the stability of any one unit is not as important
because the list will survive multiple "hits".  Only the subscribers
on one machine will be affected by having their messages delayed.
This greatly reduces the work and responsibility for any one list
operator.  (As John will attest, keeping a machine running 24 hours a
day, 7 days a week, rain or shine, is a lot of work.)

Also, with multiple machines, each unit handles a small amount of the
load.  This makes more machines available and has less impact on
people's net connections.

Last I checked, there were about 1200 addresses on the mailing list at
toad.com.  All we need are about 10 machines to take 120 subscribers
each.  (This is a completely manageable load.)

Do you have a Unix machine on the Net?  Does it have sendmail and
Perl?  Then you have all that it takes to participate.  Send me
mail and I'll help you set it up.

Peter Hendrickson
ph@netcom.com

P.S. I like and respect John and Sandy and I've learned a lot from
both of them.  While basically well-intentioned, they just made a
mistake in this instance.

Peter Hendrickson <pdh@best.com> writes:
> There are lessons to be learned here.  One is that censorship does
> not promote a stimulating and creative dialogue.  The cypherpunks list
> right now is about as interesting as hanging out by the 7-11.

Censorship adds a social hierarchy, and this is inevitably resented.

A similar problem existed with ICS (Internet Chess Servers), they
include a MUD like facility where users can discuss chess.  For misc
reasons certain behaviour was frowned on, and a system of control was
added to the software where certain users where given moderator
status, and could kick others off.

The fact that some of the moderators were particularly poor players
helped to annoy others who though outspoken, where good chess players,
and led to the particularly long thread in alt.chess (or whatever
group it was) titled `guppies rule the goldfish bowl' or something.
(A `fish' is a newbie chess player, a guppie being a small fish,...)

Interesting repetition of the social phenomena of resentment of power
in electronic forums (however well intentioned, and for whatever
perceived social good).

> Another lesson is the danger of choke points.  We can see how
> tempting it is for people to exercise their control.  Even John Gilmore
> was unable to restrain himself from involuntary social engineering
> experiments.  Who would we have considered to be more trustworthy?

Quite.  For a pedigree of championing free speech, and unpaid efforts
to further freedom, he was high up on the list.  I'd feel happier if
he was joining in with these discussions, rather than getting
interested to the extent to set up moderation, even though not
participating in the discussions.

> [distributed list homing ideas]

sounds good.  But what about USENET groups?  They're distributed, what
feature of your proposed solution is superior to using USENET groups
distribution mechanisms in your opinion?

Several times in the past, a USENET newsgroup alt.cypherpunks was
suggested.  Some people were against it because they felt that it
would attract more noisy posters.

Perhaps it is time to reconsider the benefits of alt.cypherpunks.  (As
an aside, it is ironic that John Gilmore was the guy who started the
alt.* USENET hierarchy, specifically to facilitate freedom of speech).

> P.S. I like and respect John and Sandy and I've learned a lot from
> both of them.  While basically well-intentioned, they just made a
> mistake in this instance.

Agree.  Also, the quicker they acknowledge their actions as mistakes,
and correct the results, the less their reputations will suffer.

Perhaps at the end of the trial moderation experiment would be a good
time to change position without loosing face.  (If acknowledging
mistakes bothers them).

Adam
--
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