Recommendation: Creation of "alt.cypherpunks"

(Please leave my name in any replies to ensure I see your comments.)

I talked to Hugh Daniel at the Saturday meeting about the creation of an
"alt.cypherpunks" unmoderated (of course) newsgroup as a possible
alternative (or supplement) to cypherpunks@toad.com. Greg Broiles and John
Gilmore were there for part of the discussion, too.

(We did not, unfortunately, get to the "future of the list" topic at the
physical meeting...the excellent presentations ran way over the expected
time and we never got to this topic. Sort of too bad, given John's edict
that we have 10 days to find and implement an alternative....)

A Usenet newsgroup has many advantages and disadvantages. Whether it might
be gatewayed to other mailing lists--perhaps even the list(s) which
survives "cypherpunks@toad.com"--depends of course on the decision of those
hosting others lists.

A charter statement is needed, and then the issuance of a creation message.
A better charter statement will increase the chances of more sites carrying
the newsgroup. While many sites carry essentially all newsgroups--more than
30,000--, some sites do not and only carry some of the alt.heirarchy. And
some sites do not carry _any_ of the alt newsgroups.

At Hugh's suggestion, I'm suggesting a "first cut" at a charter statement.
Suggestions for additional language or changes are welcome.

Charter for alt.cypherpunks: (suggested)

"Alt.cypherpunks is for the unmoderated discussion of cryptography and the
political, social, and economic implications of unrestricted, strong
cryptography. The Cypherpunks grpup has existed since 1992 and has been
central in the debate about strong crypto, government restrictions, crypto
anarchy, and in showing weaknesses of various ciphers and security
products. The mailing list has had as many as 1500 subscribers, plus
gateways to newsgroups and Web sites. It is expected that "alt.cypherpunks"
will be a free-wheeling forum for many viewpoints. As it is unmoderated,
readers are strongly advised to learn how to use filters and other tools
for making virtual anarchies manageable for their own tastes."

I invite your comments, editorial suggestions, etc. Perhaps when enough of
the "collective mind" has made inputs (ughh!), the charter can be submitted
with the creation message. (I'm not knowledgeable about the process, but
I'll bet many of you are.)

There are of course disadvantages to such a newsgroup, as any Usenet user
certainly knows. However, there are advantages as well. Here are some of
each:


* Advantages:

- Usenet is set up to automagically propagate articles across tens of
thousands of sites.

- there is no "nexus" of control, no chokepoint, no precedent (in the U.S.)
for halting distribution of Usenet newsgroups. (Canada stopped some
Homulka-Teale newsgroups a few years ago, other countries have blocked
entire sections, but note that the Scientologists have been unable to block
"alt.religion.scientology"...I surmise that a mailing list version of
a.r.s. would have faced lawsuits against the list.owner, if reachable in
U.S. or European courts...a lesson to think about with the current
imbroglio over certain claims about certain products and the possible
liability of Sandy and/or toad.com.)

- fairly sophisticated newsreading software already exists.

- no "unsuscribe" and "unscrive" messages! (It makes it easy for newcomers
to discover the group, read it for a while, then stop. It also, of course,
increases the number of "What is crypto?" sorts of messages.)

- persons cannot be unsubscribed from an unmoderated list

- with a Usenet group, there is no ability to impose notions of "order" on
the list (e.g., requirements for PGP-signing, demands for "on-topic" posts,
removal of "illegal" posts, etc.). Thus, people must deal with a virtual
anarchy by using proper tools, by ignoring what they don't want to see, or
by contracting out the role of "nanny" to others.


* Disadvantages

- Usenet newsgroups are easy targets for spammers, even more so than are
mailing lists.

- crossposting often gets out of hand. (With 30,000+ newsgroups, even
well-intentioned posters often pick the "three or four most likely" targets
for their posts).

- propagation is often spotty, and some sites have no access at all to the
"alt.*" hierarchy. (Many corporate sites block the alt heirarchy. Many
academic sites block just the alt.binaries.pictures heirarchy. Etc. A news
to mailing list gateway is possible for these readers.)

- propagation may be slower than mailing lists.

- Usenet is of course archived and easily searchable via Alta Vista, Deja
News, etc.. This bothers some people. (However, the CP mailing list is now
also archived and searchable, so the disadvantage is becoming moot.)

- persons cannot be unsubscribed from an unmoderated list (this is also an
advantage, of course)

- there will be more newbie-type messages, as casual browsers of Usenet
discover alt.cypherpunks and ask questions. This is both a disadvantage and
an advantage.


* Discussion of some of these points:

1. The issue of slow- or non-propagation can be handled by having mailing
lists which bounce the traffic (from a well-connected site) to folks who
get slow distribution, or no distribution at all. News to mail gateways, in
other words. Traffic in the reverse direction (end reader back to
alt.cypherpunks) can be handled either by "blind posting" to the a.c.
newsgroup, via one's newsreader, or through mail-to-news gateways, or
perhaps via the distributor described here.

2. And the services of "moderators," such as Eric Blossom's and Ray
Arachelian's "best of" lists, or even Sandy's list, are of course still
possible. A newsgroup does not change this, except for the latency in
getting messages out to newsgroup sites.

3. The advantages of a "no nexus, no chokepoint" distribution are huge. The
Usenet carries huge advantages in terms of having no place to attack it.

4. Some have raised the point that Usenet is "inefficient" and should not
be used for this reason. Well, it may indeed be ineficient, but the costs
have already been incurred, and alt.cypherpunks would only be 1/30,000th of
additional load (very roughly speaking). In other words, might as well use
what's out there. If a "second Usenet" ever comes into existence, fine.

5. Some of us discussed the creation of alt.cypherpunks back in '92-93. At
that time, we thought the mailing list had some major advantages. In my
view, the situation has changed dramatically since then. The mailing list
has become huge, the volume of noise has increased, majordomo is allowing
the list to be used for spamming (any 'bot system will probably have this),
and the list is already gatewayed to many sites as a _newsgroup_ anyway.

So, I think the time has come to just create it. The "activation energy
barrier" of a mailing list, where people would have to make the effort to
subscribe, has long since become irrelevant.

It may be a target for spammers, but it's hard to imagine it being much
worse than what we have now.

Usenet is an anarchy. We might as well use it.

I've never created an alt group, but I presume many of you have (and I know
of one currently fed up Cypherpunk who created the entire alt.* hierarchy a
decade or so ago). I presume some of you can thus help in such an effort.

--Tim May






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."

Tim May <tcmay@got.net> writes:
> (Please leave my name in any replies to ensure I see your comments.)
> 
> I talked to Hugh Daniel at the Saturday meeting about the creation of an
> "alt.cypherpunks" unmoderated (of course) newsgroup as a possible
> alternative (or supplement) to cypherpunks@toad.com. Greg Broiles and John
> Gilmore were there for part of the discussion, too.
> 
> (We did not, unfortunately, get to the "future of the list" topic at the
> physical meeting...the excellent presentations ran way over the expected
> time and we never got to this topic. Sort of too bad, given John's edict
> that we have 10 days to find and implement an alternative....)

I was wondering how this part of the discussion would go, oh well.

> At Hugh's suggestion, I'm suggesting a "first cut" at a charter statement.
> Suggestions for additional language or changes are welcome.
> 
> Charter for alt.cypherpunks: (suggested)
> 
> "Alt.cypherpunks is for the unmoderated discussion of cryptography and the
> political, social, and economic implications of unrestricted, strong
> cryptography. The Cypherpunks grpup has existed since 1992 and has been
> central in the debate about strong crypto, government restrictions, crypto
> anarchy, and in showing weaknesses of various ciphers and security
> products. The mailing list has had as many as 1500 subscribers, plus
> gateways to newsgroups and Web sites. It is expected that "alt.cypherpunks"
> will be a free-wheeling forum for many viewpoints. As it is unmoderated,
> readers are strongly advised to learn how to use filters and other tools
> for making virtual anarchies manageable for their own tastes."

Sounds good enough to me.

> I invite your comments, editorial suggestions, etc. Perhaps when enough of
> the "collective mind" has made inputs (ughh!), the charter can be submitted
> with the creation message. (I'm not knowledgeable about the process, but
> I'll bet many of you are.)

I get the impression that Greg Broiles is, and he posted a message
proposing the creation of alt.cypherpunks a few hours before yours.
Perhaps you had not seen it.  Anyway he didn't propose a charter.


As Sten Drescher <stend@sten.tivoli.com> and Jim Choate
<ravage@einstein.ssz.com> just announced their work on a distributed
list based on multiple majordomo hosts, the question remains as to
which of:

1. separate alt.cypherpunks and cypherpunks list 

2. alt.cypherpunks and cypherpunks list gated both ways

3. cypherpunks list only

are most useful.

Either option 1 or option 2 sound good to me.  If the gating takes
place at a site with a good news feed, this would provide a mechanism
to allow people to access the list either way they chose.  (An
implementation of the news-mail / mail-news you proposed).

Adam
--
print pack"C*",split/\D+/,`echo "16iII*o\U@{$/=$z;[(pop,pop,unpack"H*",<>
)]}\EsMsKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<J]dsJxp"|dc`

If the people decide for creation of a new USENET newsgroup,
we need to think very hard about actually moving it to a different
hierarchy from alt.*. I would propose comp.org.cypherpunks,
comp.cypherpunks, sci.crypt.cypherpunks or something like that.

A comp.* or sci.* newsgroup, if created, has the following advantages
over an alt.* newsgroup:

1) There is usually less spam in sci.* or comp.*
2) There are virtually no completely irrelevant flamewars
3) The propagation will be a lot better
4) More people will be able to read it because of the issue of providers
   not carrying alt.*.

I see nothing that would make a sci.* or comp.* newsgroup  worse than
alt.* newsgroup.

igor

Timothy C. May wrote:
> 
> 
> (Please leave my name in any replies to ensure I see your comments.)
> 
> I talked to Hugh Daniel at the Saturday meeting about the creation of an
> "alt.cypherpunks" unmoderated (of course) newsgroup as a possible
> alternative (or supplement) to cypherpunks@toad.com. Greg Broiles and John
> Gilmore were there for part of the discussion, too.
> 
> (We did not, unfortunately, get to the "future of the list" topic at the
> physical meeting...the excellent presentations ran way over the expected
> time and we never got to this topic. Sort of too bad, given John's edict
> that we have 10 days to find and implement an alternative....)
> 
> A Usenet newsgroup has many advantages and disadvantages. Whether it might
> be gatewayed to other mailing lists--perhaps even the list(s) which
> survives "cypherpunks@toad.com"--depends of course on the decision of those
> hosting others lists.
> 
> A charter statement is needed, and then the issuance of a creation message.
> A better charter statement will increase the chances of more sites carrying
> the newsgroup. While many sites carry essentially all newsgroups--more than
> 30,000--, some sites do not and only carry some of the alt.heirarchy. And
> some sites do not carry _any_ of the alt newsgroups.
> 
> At Hugh's suggestion, I'm suggesting a "first cut" at a charter statement.
> Suggestions for additional language or changes are welcome.
> 
> Charter for alt.cypherpunks: (suggested)
> 
> "Alt.cypherpunks is for the unmoderated discussion of cryptography and the
> political, social, and economic implications of unrestricted, strong
> cryptography. The Cypherpunks grpup has existed since 1992 and has been
> central in the debate about strong crypto, government restrictions, crypto
> anarchy, and in showing weaknesses of various ciphers and security
> products. The mailing list has had as many as 1500 subscribers, plus
> gateways to newsgroups and Web sites. It is expected that "alt.cypherpunks"
> will be a free-wheeling forum for many viewpoints. As it is unmoderated,
> readers are strongly advised to learn how to use filters and other tools
> for making virtual anarchies manageable for their own tastes."
> 
> I invite your comments, editorial suggestions, etc. Perhaps when enough of
> the "collective mind" has made inputs (ughh!), the charter can be submitted
> with the creation message. (I'm not knowledgeable about the process, but
> I'll bet many of you are.)
> 
> There are of course disadvantages to such a newsgroup, as any Usenet user
> certainly knows. However, there are advantages as well. Here are some of
> each:
> 
> 
> * Advantages:
> 
> - Usenet is set up to automagically propagate articles across tens of
> thousands of sites.
> 
> - there is no "nexus" of control, no chokepoint, no precedent (in the U.S.)
> for halting distribution of Usenet newsgroups. (Canada stopped some
> Homulka-Teale newsgroups a few years ago, other countries have blocked
> entire sections, but note that the Scientologists have been unable to block
> "alt.religion.scientology"...I surmise that a mailing list version of
> a.r.s. would have faced lawsuits against the list.owner, if reachable in
> U.S. or European courts...a lesson to think about with the current
> imbroglio over certain claims about certain products and the possible
> liability of Sandy and/or toad.com.)
> 
> - fairly sophisticated newsreading software already exists.
> 
> - no "unsuscribe" and "unscrive" messages! (It makes it easy for newcomers
> to discover the group, read it for a while, then stop. It also, of course,
> increases the number of "What is crypto?" sorts of messages.)
> 
> - persons cannot be unsubscribed from an unmoderated list
> 
> - with a Usenet group, there is no ability to impose notions of "order" on
> the list (e.g., requirements for PGP-signing, demands for "on-topic" posts,
> removal of "illegal" posts, etc.). Thus, people must deal with a virtual
> anarchy by using proper tools, by ignoring what they don't want to see, or
> by contracting out the role of "nanny" to others.
> 
> 
> * Disadvantages
> 
> - Usenet newsgroups are easy targets for spammers, even more so than are
> mailing lists.
> 
> - crossposting often gets out of hand. (With 30,000+ newsgroups, even
> well-intentioned posters often pick the "three or four most likely" targets
> for their posts).
> 
> - propagation is often spotty, and some sites have no access at all to the
> "alt.*" hierarchy. (Many corporate sites block the alt heirarchy. Many
> academic sites block just the alt.binaries.pictures heirarchy. Etc. A news
> to mailing list gateway is possible for these readers.)
> 
> - propagation may be slower than mailing lists.
> 
> - Usenet is of course archived and easily searchable via Alta Vista, Deja
> News, etc.. This bothers some people. (However, the CP mailing list is now
> also archived and searchable, so the disadvantage is becoming moot.)
> 
> - persons cannot be unsubscribed from an unmoderated list (this is also an
> advantage, of course)
> 
> - there will be more newbie-type messages, as casual browsers of Usenet
> discover alt.cypherpunks and ask questions. This is both a disadvantage and
> an advantage.
> 
> 
> * Discussion of some of these points:
> 
> 1. The issue of slow- or non-propagation can be handled by having mailing
> lists which bounce the traffic (from a well-connected site) to folks who
> get slow distribution, or no distribution at all. News to mail gateways, in
> other words. Traffic in the reverse direction (end reader back to
> alt.cypherpunks) can be handled either by "blind posting" to the a.c.
> newsgroup, via one's newsreader, or through mail-to-news gateways, or
> perhaps via the distributor described here.
> 
> 2. And the services of "moderators," such as Eric Blossom's and Ray
> Arachelian's "best of" lists, or even Sandy's list, are of course still
> possible. A newsgroup does not change this, except for the latency in
> getting messages out to newsgroup sites.
> 
> 3. The advantages of a "no nexus, no chokepoint" distribution are huge. The
> Usenet carries huge advantages in terms of having no place to attack it.
> 
> 4. Some have raised the point that Usenet is "inefficient" and should not
> be used for this reason. Well, it may indeed be ineficient, but the costs
> have already been incurred, and alt.cypherpunks would only be 1/30,000th of
> additional load (very roughly speaking). In other words, might as well use
> what's out there. If a "second Usenet" ever comes into existence, fine.
> 
> 5. Some of us discussed the creation of alt.cypherpunks back in '92-93. At
> that time, we thought the mailing list had some major advantages. In my
> view, the situation has changed dramatically since then. The mailing list
> has become huge, the volume of noise has increased, majordomo is allowing
> the list to be used for spamming (any 'bot system will probably have this),
> and the list is already gatewayed to many sites as a _newsgroup_ anyway.
> 
> So, I think the time has come to just create it. The "activation energy
> barrier" of a mailing list, where people would have to make the effort to
> subscribe, has long since become irrelevant.
> 
> It may be a target for spammers, but it's hard to imagine it being much
> worse than what we have now.
> 
> Usenet is an anarchy. We might as well use it.
> 
> I've never created an alt group, but I presume many of you have (and I know
> of one currently fed up Cypherpunk who created the entire alt.* hierarchy a
> decade or so ago). I presume some of you can thus help in such an effort.
> 
> --Tim May
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 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."
> 
> 
> 
> 



	- Igor.

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

    tim:  

    two points you make: 

    1.  the propogation is slow...

    2.  some sites do not carry alt. groups

    are enough to kill an active discussion list. of course, it does
    slow down excessive volume.

    I vote we just set up a new majordomo with some additional antispam 
    filters including knocking out exploding mail headers, etc. I would 
    accept excluding non-members as long as we take the remailers which 
    are listed with either JP or RL.

    Therefore, I am willing to host it on our majordomo which I have 
    pretty well shaken down for other lists.  other than spam and 
    potentially non-members, I refuse to even consider censorship or 
    moderation in any form.  

    Likewise, Jim Choate and Sten Drescher apparently are trying to 
    establish a multi-site majordomo.  the extra work of maintaining 
    non-duplicates and sychronization makes the task non-trivial and 
    questionable...

    as for failure mode recovery, I can always run a backup from 
    primenet; I dont really see the need for it; we have had less than 
    4 hours downtime in the last year, and that for a regional power 
    failure which will be a mute point sometime this spring when the 
    diesal generators arrive.  knock on wood, but the T1 has been up 
    straight through.

 ==
 "attila" 1024/C20B6905/23 D0 FA 7F 6A 8F 60 66 BC AF AE 56 98 C0 D7 B0

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Attila T Hun <attila@primenet.com> writes:
>     tim:  
> 
>     two points you make: 
> 
>     1.  the propogation is slow...
> 
>     2.  some sites do not carry alt. groups
> 
>     are enough to kill an active discussion list. of course, it does
>     slow down excessive volume.

Is there any offline newsreading software for linux?  (Something to
grab feeds from an NNTP server of selected newsgroups to put in
/usr/spool/news/, and something to queue posts for posting via NNTP
when on line)

(My difficulty with USENET groups is that we have pay per second phone
bills over here, and online USENET reading is inefficient, that plus
propogation delays).

Adam
--
print pack"C*",split/\D+/,`echo "16iII*o\U@{$/=$z;[(pop,pop,unpack"H*",<>
)]}\EsMsKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<J]dsJxp"|dc`

At 1:20 PM -0600 2/11/97, Igor Chudov @ home wrote:
>If the people decide for creation of a new USENET newsgroup,
>we need to think very hard about actually moving it to a different
>hierarchy from alt.*. I would propose comp.org.cypherpunks,
>comp.cypherpunks, sci.crypt.cypherpunks or something like that.
>
>A comp.* or sci.* newsgroup, if created, has the following advantages
>over an alt.* newsgroup:
>
>1) There is usually less spam in sci.* or comp.*
>2) There are virtually no completely irrelevant flamewars
>3) The propagation will be a lot better
>4) More people will be able to read it because of the issue of providers
>   not carrying alt.*.
>
>I see nothing that would make a sci.* or comp.* newsgroup  worse than
>alt.* newsgroup.

Sure, and this has come up in every past discussion of creating
"alt.cypherpunks."

But the creation of alt.cypherpunks is _easy_, and needs little permission
or support, whereas the creation of "soc.culture.cypherpunks" or whatever
takes work, requires a vote, blah blah blah. And so it never gets off the
ground.

(Nor is it clear to me, and perhaps not to others, that it belongs in the
the various places Igor mentioned. Comp.org.cypherpunks probably is the
best fit, but then many would cite the "comp" part to try to insist that
only _computer_ topics be discussed. Likewise, the "soc" domain would skew
discussion...etc. "Alt" has the nice advantage of explicitly not be part of
sci, or comp, or soc, or even talk.)

Since posting my comments I've just seen the proposal that tivoli may host
a list. Fine with me. But I wonder how long Tivoli and its parent company,
IBM, will tolerate such things as postings of dumpster divings at Mykotronx
and RSADSI, of deliberate slams against Tivoli products (a la the case John
Gilmore referred to this morning), postings about assassination markets,
and so on.

I still feel that the time has come to move virtual forums such as ours out
of U.S. jurisdictions. Given that most European nations are worse in some
ways (no Holocaust denial posts allowed in "cypherpunks@foobar.de"?), I
recommend the alt.cypherpunks as the best overall compromise.

--Tim May



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."

"Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net> writes:

> At 1:20 PM -0600 2/11/97, Igor Chudov @ home wrote:
> >If the people decide for creation of a new USENET newsgroup,
> >we need to think very hard about actually moving it to a different
> >hierarchy from alt.*. I would propose comp.org.cypherpunks,
> >comp.cypherpunks, sci.crypt.cypherpunks or something like that.
> >
> >A comp.* or sci.* newsgroup, if created, has the following advantages
> >over an alt.* newsgroup:
> >
> >1) There is usually less spam in sci.* or comp.*
> >2) There are virtually no completely irrelevant flamewars
> >3) The propagation will be a lot better
> >4) More people will be able to read it because of the issue of providers
> >   not carrying alt.*.
> >
> >I see nothing that would make a sci.* or comp.* newsgroup  worse than
> >alt.* newsgroup.
> 
> Sure, and this has come up in every past discussion of creating
> "alt.cypherpunks."
> 
> But the creation of alt.cypherpunks is _easy_, and needs little permission
> or support, whereas the creation of "soc.culture.cypherpunks" or whatever
> takes work, requires a vote, blah blah blah. And so it never gets off the
> ground.
> 
> (Nor is it clear to me, and perhaps not to others, that it belongs in the
> the various places Igor mentioned. Comp.org.cypherpunks probably is the
> best fit, but then many would cite the "comp" part to try to insist that
> only _computer_ topics be discussed. Likewise, the "soc" domain would skew
> discussion...etc. "Alt" has the nice advantage of explicitly not be part of
> sci, or comp, or soc, or even talk.)
> 
> Since posting my comments I've just seen the proposal that tivoli may host
> a list. Fine with me. But I wonder how long Tivoli and its parent company,
> IBM, will tolerate such things as postings of dumpster divings at Mykotronx
> and RSADSI, of deliberate slams against Tivoli products (a la the case John
> Gilmore referred to this morning), postings about assassination markets,
> and so on.
> 
> I still feel that the time has come to move virtual forums such as ours out
> of U.S. jurisdictions. Given that most European nations are worse in some
> ways (no Holocaust denial posts allowed in "cypherpunks@foobar.de"?), I
> recommend the alt.cypherpunks as the best overall compromise.

(I apologize to everyone whose e-mail has gone unanswered this week - I've
had a bunch of other stuff to do, but I'll get to it eventually. Also, I posted
the Anshel+Goldfield zeta function paten number - do check it out.)

Random thoughts:

1. A newsgroup like comp.privacy.cypherpunks will be carried on a lot of
corprate news servers that don't carry alt.* (or even soc.*). Note that
soc.org.cypherpunks is inappropriate since cp is *not* an organization. :-)
Another possibility is sci.crypto.cypherpunks. (True, people whose corporate
newsservers don't carry soc.* and talk.* can use dejanews - provided their
firewall lets them.)

2. It takes more work to create a comp.* newsgroup than an alt newsgroup.
It takes a vote. I'm willing to be one of the proponents and generally help
with the process. (Both I and Igor have been co-proponents of major Usenet
newsgroups - don't know about other people onthis list. :-)

3. An unmoderated Usenet newsgroup would have even ore crap than this mailing
list. I've been thinking of how to deal with crap, and with the obvious desire
by some people to delegate their decision what to read and what not to read
to other people. 

While cpunks@toad worked, one could subscribe to a filtered version offered
by at least 2 people. There was no easy way to get those articles that either
filterer considered worth reading: if you subscribed to both lists, you'd get
most articles twice.

Here's a proposal: anyone should be free to issue 'highlight' NoCeM's for the
unmoderated cypherpunks newsgroups. Perhaps there will be a 'bot immediately
highlighting submissions from well-known posters.

Someone reading the newsgroup with a nocem-enabled newsreader (such as gnu)
can choose to read only those articles that one of the filterers he trusts
has already marked as worthy of his attention. (E.g. Sandy can issue NoCeMs
to his heart's content.) However the filterer can't stop someone from not
using NoCeMs and reading the entire newsgroup traffic without incurring
moderation delays.

Most people don't have nocem-enabled newareaders yet... Which is where the
network of cypherpunks majordomos Igor's been busy creating comes in very
handy. 

When one of the nodes in the distributed cpunks2news gateway gets a submission,
it should xmit it to the other known gateways and post it to Usenet. Also it
should grab postings from the Usenet newsgroup and forward them to its mailing
list. However in addition to the unedited mailing list, some gateways can
choose to offer a filtered list controlled by one or more nocem issuers:
i.e. one might be able to subscribe to cypherpunked-filtered-by-either-
ray-or-sandy and receive articles only when the gateway receives a
nocem from one of the two listing their message-ids. (Better yet, one
might specify in the subscription which filterers to use.)
I don't think this is a very hard thing to hack up.

Sorry for the typoes: now Imust run, but I'd beinterested in the feedback on
these thoghts.

---

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

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote:
> "Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net> writes:
> > At 1:20 PM -0600 2/11/97, Igor Chudov @ home wrote:
> > >If the people decide for creation of a new USENET newsgroup,
> > >we need to think very hard about actually moving it to a different
> > >hierarchy from alt.*. I would propose comp.org.cypherpunks,
> > >comp.cypherpunks, sci.crypt.cypherpunks or something like that.
> > >
> > >A comp.* or sci.* newsgroup, if created, has the following advantages
> > >over an alt.* newsgroup:
> > >
> > >1) There is usually less spam in sci.* or comp.*
> > >2) There are virtually no completely irrelevant flamewars
> > >3) The propagation will be a lot better
> > >4) More people will be able to read it because of the issue of providers
> > >   not carrying alt.*.
> > >
> > >I see nothing that would make a sci.* or comp.* newsgroup  worse than
> > >alt.* newsgroup.
> > 
> > Sure, and this has come up in every past discussion of creating
> > "alt.cypherpunks."
> > 
> > But the creation of alt.cypherpunks is _easy_, and needs little permission
> > or support, whereas the creation of "soc.culture.cypherpunks" or whatever
> > takes work, requires a vote, blah blah blah. And so it never gets off the
> > ground.
> > 
> > (Nor is it clear to me, and perhaps not to others, that it belongs in the
> > the various places Igor mentioned. Comp.org.cypherpunks probably is the
> > best fit, but then many would cite the "comp" part to try to insist that
> > only _computer_ topics be discussed. Likewise, the "soc" domain would skew
> > discussion...etc. "Alt" has the nice advantage of explicitly not be part of
> > sci, or comp, or soc, or even talk.)
> > 
> (I apologize to everyone whose e-mail has gone unanswered this week - I've
> had a bunch of other stuff to do, but I'll get to it eventually. Also, 
> I posted
> the Anshel+Goldfield zeta function paten number - do check it out.)
> 
> Random thoughts:
> 
> 1. A newsgroup like comp.privacy.cypherpunks will be carried on a lot of
> corprate news servers that don't carry alt.* (or even soc.*). Note that
> soc.org.cypherpunks is inappropriate since cp is *not* an organization. :-)
> Another possibility is sci.crypto.cypherpunks. (True, people whose corporate
> newsservers don't carry soc.* and talk.* can use dejanews - provided their
> firewall lets them.)

> 2. It takes more work to create a comp.* newsgroup than an alt newsgroup.
> It takes a vote. I'm willing to be one of the proponents and generally help
> with the process. (Both I and Igor have been co-proponents of major Usenet
> newsgroups - don't know about other people onthis list. :-)

Not only it takes a vote. What is more important is what a vote gives: 
a good discussion of the newsgroup and the formal RFD/RFD/CFV process
ensures that, on average, a good balance is found between various groups
of readers.

I am not concerned as to what the name of the group will be, it is
not important. What is important is that it should be in a more or
less flame-free zone.

It is too late to stop alt.cypherpunks, but if I had to make a
prediction again, I would predict that soon posters will BEG to help
them create comp.*.cypherpunks, because of spam and alt.flamage.

> 3. An unmoderated Usenet newsgroup would have even ore crap than this mailing
> list. I've been thinking of how to deal with crap, and with the obvious desire
> by some people to delegate their decision what to read and what not to read
> to other people. 

It is alt.* and soc.* that has most crap, sci and comp are way better.

> Most people don't have nocem-enabled newareaders yet... Which is where the
> network of cypherpunks majordomos Igor's been busy creating comes in very
> handy. 
> 

It is a very good idea to let NoCeM issuers and filterers work 
independently from list nodes.

	- Igor.

Igor Chudov @ home wrote:
> Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote:
> > "Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net> writes:
> > > At 1:20 PM -0600 2/11/97, Igor Chudov @ home wrote:

> > > >If the people decide for creation of a new USENET newsgroup,
> > > >we need to think very hard about actually moving it to a different
> > > >hierarchy from alt.*. I would propose comp.org.cypherpunks,
> > > >comp.cypherpunks, sci.crypt.cypherpunks or something like that.

> It is too late to stop alt.cypherpunks, but if I had to make a
> prediction again, I would predict that soon posters will BEG to help
> them create comp.*.cypherpunks, because of spam and alt.flamage.

I would lean toward sci.crypt.cypherpunks myself.  Are there any
implications in the use of that name as to restrictions, etc.?

Dale Thorn wrote:
> Igor Chudov @ home wrote:
> > Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote:
> > > "Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net> writes:
> > > > At 1:20 PM -0600 2/11/97, Igor Chudov @ home wrote:
> > > > >If the people decide for creation of a new USENET newsgroup,
> > > > >we need to think very hard about actually moving it to a different
> > > > >hierarchy from alt.*. I would propose comp.org.cypherpunks,
> > > > >comp.cypherpunks, sci.crypt.cypherpunks or something like that.
> 
> > It is too late to stop alt.cypherpunks, but if I had to make a
> > prediction again, I would predict that soon posters will BEG to help
> > them create comp.*.cypherpunks, because of spam and alt.flamage.
> 
> I would lean toward sci.crypt.cypherpunks myself.  Are there any
> implications in the use of that name as to restrictions, etc.?
> 

Not really. All you have to do is to go through a formal newsgroup
creation process, post a RFD, second RFD, a CFV, and supposedly 
impartial votetakers will record the votes. You must get > 100 votes
YES, and the number of YES votes should be more than twice (thrice?)
the number of NO votes.

	- Igor.

At 7:11 PM +0000 2/11/97, Attila T. Hun wrote:

>    tim:
>
>    two points you make:
>
>    1.  the propogation is slow...
>
>    2.  some sites do not carry alt. groups
>
>    are enough to kill an active discussion list. of course, it does
>    slow down excessive volume.

Good points. However, I'm used to fairly robust debate on Usenet, and the
prop delay does not seem too stifling to me. As you note, it cuts down on
immediate replies; this may not be a bad thing.

I see any site which can be identified with a corporate or institutional
entity--like C2Net, toad, Tivoli, Primenet, Netcom, whatever--being
targetted if a controversial mailing list is hosted at that site.

(This may not have been the case when the list was full unmoderated, and
was only a "reflector" or exploder of incoming messages. As soon as a
moderator started passing on some messages and rejecting others, the
precedent was set (somewhat) for charges that a site or sysadmin is now
liable. This has not been tested in court, of course, but I fear this is
how things will go. As I mentioned in another message, had the traffic in
alt.religion.scientology instead flowed through a site such as
"scientology@primenet.com," the operators of Primenet and the sysadmin of
that mailing list almost certainly would have received "decease and cyst"
orders. Remember that Netcom was hit with similar orders. Usenet cannot be
stopped in this way. A major strength.)



>    I vote we just set up a new majordomo with some additional antispam
>    filters including knocking out exploding mail headers, etc. I would
>    accept excluding non-members as long as we take the remailers which
>    are listed with either JP or RL.

This is a suggestion I have long thought to be a good one. Only allow posts
from list subscribers, and make a special exception for remailers by adding
them to the approval list. Figure if a spammer is smart enough to know what
a remailer is, at least see her traffic for a while. Drop the inclusion of
remailers if volume is too high.

(Or, put remailer messages in a special place. An ftp or Web site, for
retrieval. Or  have list members "vet" the remailed messages, as someone
was suggesting a few months back. Or....)

>    Likewise, Jim Choate and Sten Drescher apparently are trying to
>    establish a multi-site majordomo.  the extra work of maintaining
>    non-duplicates and sychronization makes the task non-trivial and
>    questionable...

Yeah, it seems to be one of those potentially good ideas that will just
never get done, due to the difficulties, the maintenance, and the press of
other projects. (And even if it gets done, which I hope for of course, I
doubt many of us will want anything with added complexity, new commands for
our posting software to deal with, etc. So, it will have to look just like
an ordinary mailing list, with the mirroring handled transparently.)

(Speculation: Isn't some of this talk about distributed mailing list sites
and mirroring beginning to echo the structure of FidoNet?)

--Tim May


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."

Timothy C. May wrote:
> At 7:11 PM +0000 2/11/97, Attila T. Hun wrote:
> >    two points you make:
> >    1.  the propogation is slow...
> >    2.  some sites do not carry alt. groups
> >    are enough to kill an active discussion list. of course, it does
> >    slow down excessive volume.

Good if all this is worked out in advance.  I'd like to add a couple
thoughts:

The freedom from temptation to interfere (censor, etc.) outweighs
the slowness.

The nature of the list (crypto) creates more paranoia than most
other lists, making the above even more important, with the
advantage being that there *should* be less noise than other forums
due to the technical nature of the discussion.

Thanks to the last couple of months, c-punks has now provided nearly
every example of what to look out for and plan for.

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

"Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net> writes:
> At 7:11 PM +0000 2/11/97, Attila T. Hun wrote:
> >    I vote we just set up a new majordomo with some additional antispam
> >    filters including knocking out exploding mail headers, etc. I would
> >    accept excluding non-members as long as we take the remailers which
> >    are listed with either JP or RL.
> 
> This is a suggestion I have long thought to be a good one. Only allow posts
> from list subscribers, and make a special exception for remailers by adding
> them to the approval list. Figure if a spammer is smart enough to know what
> a remailer is, at least see her traffic for a while. Drop the inclusion of
> remailers if volume is too high.

A couple of "me too"s:
Low volume spam via remailers increases the strength of the remailer
net. Yay!
Not allowing non-subscribers to post is not a problem is the mailing
list is linked to the usenet version. The people who read/post to
cypherpunks via a newsgroup interface now can just use the real
newsgroup. Also, people who don't get alt.* and don't want to use
dejanews can sub to the list version.

Jer

"standing on top of the world/ never knew how you never could/ never knew
 why you never could live/ innocent life that everyone did" -Wormhole

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