[Declan McCullagh: "A List Goes Down In Flames," from Netly]

Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1997 21:24:37 -0800 (PST)
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
To: fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu

The Netly News Network
http://netlynews.com/

A List Goes Down In Flames
by Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com)
February 12, 1997
   
       The plan for the cypherpunks mailing list was simple. It was to be
   an online gathering place, an intellectual mosh pit, dedicated to the
   free flow of ideas and personal privacy through encryption.
   
       Of course it caught on. From its modest beginnings connecting a
   few friends who lived in Northern California, it quickly grew into one
   of the most rowdy, volatile lists on the Net: Cypherpunks typically
   piped more than 100 messages a day into the mailboxes of nearly 2,000
   subscribers. And the list became a kind of crypto-anarchist utopia.
   Populated by pseudonymous posters with names like Black Unicorn, it
   was a corner of cyberspace where PGP signatures and digital cash were
   the norm -- and there were no rules. Then yesterday came the news: The
   list was being evicted and faced imminent shutdown.
   
       In an e-mail seen 'round the Net, John Gilmore, Electronic
   Frontier Foundation cofounder and list maintainer, announced that he
   was no longer willing to provide a virtual home for the cypherpunks.
   In a post entitled "Put Up or Shut Up," he described how his efforts
   to improve the list through moderation were condemned, how technical
   problems were consuming more of his time, how pranksters had tried to
   subscribe the entire U.S. Congress to the list. How this experiment in
   crypto-anarchy had failed. He gave the cypherpunks 10 days to find new
   lodgings.
   
       "The last straw for me was seeing the reaction of the list to
   every attempt to improve it. It was to carp, to cut it down, to say
   you're doing everything wrong," Gilmore told me yesterday night. One
   of the first employees of Sun, Gilmore quit after eight years -- a
   millionaire more interested in pursuing ideas than dollars. But his
   experiment with the list has left him weary. "If everything I'm doing
   is wrong, I'm clearly not the right person to host the list," he said.
   
       "I would like to see some other structure in which the positive
   interactions on the list could continue. I'm not trying to create that
   structure anymore," he added. Instead, he would try the only true
   crypto-anarchist solution: "I'm handing it over to members to do what
   they wish with it."
   
       The cypherpunks first pierced the public's consciousness when
   Wired magazine splashed them across the cover of the second issue. The
   Whole Earth Review and the Village Voice followed soon after. The name
   "cypherpunk" came to be synonymous with a brash young breed of
   digerati who were intent on derailing the White House's encryption
   policies and conquering cyberspace. This was crypto with an attitude.
   
       Gilmore was typical of the breed. Monthly Bay Area meetings of the
   'punks were held in the offices of Cygnus, a company he started to
   provide support for the free Unix alternative, GNU.
   
       But the veteran cypherpunk came under heavy fire in November 1996,
   when a loudmouthed flamer flooded the list with flame bait and ad
   hominem attacks on various members. Finally, Gilmore, ironically, gave
   him the boot -- and incited an all-consuming debate over what the
   concept of censorship means in a forum devoted to opposing it. In a
   society of crypto-anarchists, who should make the rules? The mailing
   list melted down. By last month, it seemed, more messages complained
   about censorship than discussed crypto.
   
       Indeed, for months Gilmore seemed unable to do anything right. He
   tried moderation, which proved to be even more contentious, raising
   the question of empowering one cypherpunk to decide what was
   appropriate for others to read. One member of the group, in effect,
   would be more equal than the rest. And why would members take the time
   to write elaborate, thoughtful articles on crypto-politics if their
   treatises might not make it past the moderator's keyboard?
   
       After the expulsion, some of the longtime list denizens left
   angrily, joining the 700 subscribers who had departed since the
   controversy began. One of those was Tim C. May, a crusty former Intel
   engineer who prides himself as the organizer of the first cypherpunk
   meeting in September 1992. In an essay summarizing the reasons for his
   departure, he wrote: "The proper solution to bad speech is more
   speech, not censorship. Censorship just makes opponents of 'speech
   anarchy' happy -- it affirms their basic belief that censors are
   needed."
   
       After all, May pointed out, the list ended up on Gilmore's
   toad.com machine only by happenstance -- it almost was housed on a
   workstation at the University of California at Berkeley. Ownership of
   the computer with the database of subscribers did not mean that
   Gilmore owned the cypherpunks. "Whatever our group once was, or still
   is, is not dependent on having a particular mailing list running on
   someone's home machine... and it cannot be claimed that any person
   'owns' the cypherpunks group," May wrote.
   
       The cypherpunks have responded to Gilmore's eviction notice. List
   participants generally have halted the incessant attacks on Gilmore,
   and now the discussion has turned to how to continue this experiment
   in online anarchy -- while preventing one person from ever again
   having absolute control of the List. Within hours of Gilmore's
   announcement, posters were tossing around ideas of a distributed
   network of mailing lists that would carry the cypherpunk name, and
   other 'punks likely will migrate to the more tightly controlled
   coderpunks and cryptography lists.
   
       But for the true believers in crypto-anarchy, only one solution is
   adequate: Usenet. "There is no 'nexus' of control, no chokepoint, no
   precedent... for halting distribution of Usenet newsgroups," Tim May
   wrote. That, in the end, is what defines a cypherpunk.
   
###

John Gilmore <gnu@toad.com> writes:

[Fluffy Gilmore apologia by Declan expunged]

Two small points.

1.  The rift between Gilmore/EFF and Cypherpunks is hardly
    of recent origin, and dates back to when the EFF first
    demonstrated to horrified Cypherpunks that its policy
    would be one of appeasement and capitulation towards
    clearly unacceptable legislation.  This is all in the
    archives, including Tim May's essay on why he chose not
    to renew his EFF membership.

2.  The article fails to mention Gilmore's new nickname. :)

--
     Mike Duvos         $    PGP 2.6 Public Key available     $
     mpd@netcom.com     $    via Finger.                      $

Mike sheds more heat than light on the issue. Gilmore does not always
represent the EFF; not every action of his is an EFF action.

As for the "rift," may observers said at the time that DT was a Jerry
Berman "appeasement and capitulation" scheme. Note Berman no longer works
at EFF. Note EFF is no lnoger in DC.

And yes, I've read Tim May's essay on his EFF membership. I probably would
have had the same reaction.

-Declan


On Fri, 14 Feb 1997, Mike Duvos wrote:

> John Gilmore <gnu@toad.com> writes:
> 
> [Fluffy Gilmore apologia by Declan expunged]
> 
> Two small points.
> 
> 1.  The rift between Gilmore/EFF and Cypherpunks is hardly
>     of recent origin, and dates back to when the EFF first
>     demonstrated to horrified Cypherpunks that its policy
>     would be one of appeasement and capitulation towards
>     clearly unacceptable legislation.  This is all in the
>     archives, including Tim May's essay on why he chose not
>     to renew his EFF membership.
> 
> 2.  The article fails to mention Gilmore's new nickname. :)
> 
> --
>      Mike Duvos         $    PGP 2.6 Public Key available     $
>      mpd@netcom.com     $    via Finger.                      $
> 
> 
>

At 9:36 AM -0800 2/14/97, Declan McCullagh wrote:

>As for the "rift," may observers said at the time that DT was a Jerry
>Berman "appeasement and capitulation" scheme. Note Berman no longer works
>at EFF. Note EFF is no lnoger in DC.
>
>And yes, I've read Tim May's essay on his EFF membership. I probably would
>have had the same reaction.
>

It might be a useful minor footnote for me to say that I did end up
renewing for a later year (though I kept getting mail as "Tim Mat"). I was
semi-persuaded that they'd learned their lesson.

I stopped paying attention to them a while back, though, and haven't
considered renewing. They just came to seem to be irrelevant as a
"membership driven" organization. (There were reportedly only about 2000
individual members as of not too long ago, and the EFF does little
recruiting for new individual members. They are definitely not following
the NRA or AARP models.)

Their legal work support has been very nice, of course.

As for Berman, he put on the "SAFE" forum, which I thought was very well
done. So, he redeemed himself, for me.

(I don't really understand personally whether the Digital Telephony (CALEA,
Computer Assistance for Law Enforcement) thing is Just Bad, or Really Bad,
or Even Worse, or Inconceivably Evil. No one seems to know what is expected
for Internet telephony providers, for example, or whether DT/CALEA could be
used to shut down remailers, as some of us fear. If DT/CALEA turns out to
be Really Bad, or Even Worse, I'll have to put Berman back on my list of
less desirable folks. :-})

--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."

Mike Duvos wrote:
> John Gilmore <gnu@toad.com> writes:
> [Fluffy Gilmore apologia by Declan expunged]
> Two small points.
> 1.  The rift between Gilmore/EFF and Cypherpunks is hardly
>     of recent origin, and dates back to when the EFF first
>     demonstrated to horrified Cypherpunks that its policy
>     would be one of appeasement and capitulation towards
>     clearly unacceptable legislation.  This is all in the
>     archives, including Tim May's essay on why he chose not
>     to renew his EFF membership.
> 2.  The article fails to mention Gilmore's new nickname. :)

I'm so disgusted by the other disinformation put out by John's loyal
friends (i.e. "respected" cypherpunks) on the subject of "disrupters
and sociopaths", etc. that I try not to reply to any of the crud I
see posted by those clowns.  But when someone tries to be reasonable,
conversation is possible.  So how about some points on "disrupters":

1. Disrupters don't like bullies.
2. Disrupters don't like mindless authorities.
3. Disrupters don't like control freaks.
4. Disrupters don't like liars and hypocrites.
5. Disrupters don't like NSA/CIA/DEA/FBI trolls.
6. Disrupters don't like Animal Farm policies and elitists.

In short, if Gilmore had come down on the real problem people once
in a while, they wouldn't have agitated the "disrupters" nearly as
much as they did.  But he wasn't about to do that, because he's one
of the problem people himself.  Fooey on you, Gilmore.  May you never
work in this business again.

Toto wrote:
> Timothy C. May wrote:
> > At 9:36 AM -0800 2/14/97, Declan McCullagh wrote:
> It is my (limited) understanding that the EFF has discovered that
> the support that comes with private philanthropy from will o'wisp
> Bay Area 'liberals' doesn't carry the terrible burden of having to
> compete for the petty contributions of the UnRich.
> I have a brother-in-law who gives seminars to the Nouveau Riche in
> the Bay Area, teaching them how to give their money away to 'good'
> causes. I believe that one of the prime considerations in separating
> the 'good' causes from the 'bad' causes has something to do with the
> the proper wine being served with the cheese and cracker offerings
> during their cocktail parties.

Wine and cheese are the key.  You hit that one on the head.  I tried
those Mensa parties in Beverly Hills a few times, but the girls want
you to kiss their hands like some kinda princesses or something,
whereas I think a simple handshake would suffice.  So I just quit
going.  Maybe this has something to do with why there are no c-punks
meetings in the L.A. area.

Toto wrote:
> Timothy C. May wrote:
> > At 9:36 AM -0800 2/14/97, Declan McCullagh wrote:
> It is my (limited) understanding that the EFF has discovered that
> the support that comes with private philanthropy from will o'wisp
> Bay Area 'liberals' doesn't carry the terrible burden of having to
> compete for the petty contributions of the UnRich.
> I have a brother-in-law who gives seminars to the Nouveau Riche in
> the Bay Area, teaching them how to give their money away to 'good'
> causes. I believe that one of the prime considerations in separating
> the 'good' causes from the 'bad' causes has something to do with the
> the proper wine being served with the cheese and cracker offerings
> during their cocktail parties.

Wine and cheese are the key.  You hit that one on the head.  I tried
those Mensa parties in Beverly Hills a few times, but the girls want
you to kiss their hands like some kinda princesses or something,
whereas I think a simple handshake would suffice.  So I just quit
going.  Maybe this has something to do with why there are no c-punks
meetings in the L.A. area.

On Sat, 15 Feb 1997, Dale Thorn wrote:

> Date: Sat, 15 Feb 1997 18:43:51 -0800
> From: Dale Thorn <dthorn@gte.net>
> Reply-To: freedom-knights@jetcafe.org
> To: Toto <toto@sk.sympatico.ca>
> Cc: cypherpunks@algebra.com, cypherpunks@toad.com,
>     freedom-knights@jetcafe.org
> Subject: Re: The EFF
> 
> Toto wrote:
> > Timothy C. May wrote:
> > > At 9:36 AM -0800 2/14/97, Declan McCullagh wrote:
> > It is my (limited) understanding that the EFF has discovered that
> > the support that comes with private philanthropy from will o'wisp
> > Bay Area 'liberals' doesn't carry the terrible burden of having to
> > compete for the petty contributions of the UnRich.
> > I have a brother-in-law who gives seminars to the Nouveau Riche in
> > the Bay Area, teaching them how to give their money away to 'good'
> > causes. I believe that one of the prime considerations in separating
> > the 'good' causes from the 'bad' causes has something to do with the
> > the proper wine being served with the cheese and cracker offerings
> > during their cocktail parties.
> 
> Wine and cheese are the key.  You hit that one on the head.  I tried
> those Mensa parties in Beverly Hills a few times, but the girls want
> you to kiss their hands like some kinda princesses or something,
> whereas I think a simple handshake would suffice.  So I just quit
> going.  Maybe this has something to do with why there are no c-punks
> meetings in the L.A. area.
> 

Dale, so you are in mensa?  Did you have to take a test?

aga wrote:
> On Sat, 15 Feb 1997, Dale Thorn wrote:
> > Toto wrote:
> > > Timothy C. May wrote:
> > > > At 9:36 AM -0800 2/14/97, Declan McCullagh wrote:

> > > I have a brother-in-law who gives seminars to the Nouveau Riche in
> > > the Bay Area, teaching them how to give their money away to 'good'
> > > causes. I believe that one of the prime considerations in separating
> > > the 'good' causes from the 'bad' causes has something to do with the
> > > the proper wine being served with the cheese and cracker offerings
> > > during their cocktail parties.

> > Wine and cheese are the key.  You hit that one on the head.  I tried
> > those Mensa parties in Beverly Hills a few times, but the girls want
> > you to kiss their hands like some kinda princesses or something,
> > whereas I think a simple handshake would suffice.  So I just quit
> > going.  Maybe this has something to do with why there are no c-punks
> > meetings in the L.A. area.

> Dale, so you are in mensa?  Did you have to take a test?

I joined in 1986 at the urging of my sort-of lawyer (not a real
lawyer, but much better actually) from Beverly Hills.  He liked the
parties since he was trolling for babes; recent (1986) divorce and all.

Anyway, Mensa was accepting U.S. Military GT scores prior to 1980,
and I scored 153 in 1966, which was the highest at the several posts
I did duty in (Ft. Benning GA, Ft. Ord CA, Ft. Lee VA, 4th A.D. Europe).

I gave up on it after a few meetings, since I didn't care for the
parties, and there didn't seem to be any really active/interesting
people there.  There was a "rational sig" I wanted to attend, but
never got around to.  Mensa did put on some good speakers every now
and then, but you could do as well by checking in with the Masons
or the other local civic groups.

My first reaction to the "Death of Cypherpunks" (Declan McCullagh's
article in http://netlynews.com Feb 12, 1997) is that it is another
example of "The Tragedy of the Commons." -- the (unsolvable) problem
of unlimited access to a limited resource. Cypherpunks was also
susceptable to the strange Internet phenomenon where people could be
proud of their anti-social, bad behavior (flame wars, "grafitti" in the
form of spam). For this reason, I suspect that the future of the Internet
in general, and Cyphperpunks in particular, will require serious editorial
control (as is done by the Risks and Privacy digests).

The only other alternative I can see would be to limit membership
-- but not limit what members might write. In the long term, I suppose
we'll have sufficiently intelligent software agents that can recognize
spam and flaming and invisibly delete them from our e-mail in-boxes.

What bothers me more than anything else about the "solutions" I've
seen proposed to the death of Cypherpunks is that they rely on
technology -- and reject human judgement -- to solve what is, in
reality, a social problem.  (One can certainly make the same argument
about the V-chip, browser porn filters, and similar hacks.)

Having been "on" the net for over 15 years -- and with experience
in both ends of the censorship/moderation problem  (I'm probably
the only Cypherpunks member to have had a book "banned in Boston"),
I'm sorry that a handful of sociopaths managed to destroy this
experiment in anarchy, but I suspect that this was inevitable.

Martin Minow
minow@apple.com

ps: (From McCullagh):
>       But for the true believers in crypto-anarchy, only one solution is
>   adequate: Usenet. "There is no 'nexus' of control, no chokepoint, no
>   precedent... for halting distribution of Usenet newsgroups," Tim May
>   wrote. That, in the end, is what defines a cypherpunk.
>
Nope: alt.cypherpunks will not be distributed to many sites that would
accept an e-mail list. Also, it's too easy for the disgruntled to forge
cancel group messages. I'm afraid that human judgement is still required.

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


In <v03010d01af2a5a0699db@[17.219.103.204]>, on 02/14/97 at 12:31 PM,
   Martin Minow <minow@apple.com> said:


>My first reaction to the "Death of Cypherpunks" (Declan McCullagh's article in
>http://netlynews.com Feb 12, 1997) is that it is another example of "The
>Tragedy of the Commons." -- the (unsolvable) problem of unlimited access to a
>limited resource. Cypherpunks was also
>susceptable to the strange Internet phenomenon where people could be proud of
>their anti-social, bad behavior (flame wars, "grafitti" in the form of spam).
>For this reason, I suspect that the future of the Internet in general, and
>Cyphperpunks in particular, will require serious editorial control (as is done
>by the Risks and Privacy digests).

>The only other alternative I can see would be to limit membership
>-- but not limit what members might write. In the long term, I suppose we'll
>have sufficiently intelligent software agents that can recognize spam and
>flaming and invisibly delete them from our e-mail in-boxes.

I compleetly dissagree with you.

The "Death of Cypherpunks" was not caused limited resources, or by spam, or by
the posts of the "good doctor". It was killed by two factors. The first was the
winning and sinviling crowd that was just too dam lazy to filter their mail.
With some very basic filtering the majority of the noise could be removed from
the list. There were a group of list members that were unwilling to take the
small amount of effort required to do this. They are the same type of people who
wine and cry that the governmnet should regulate this or regulate that all too
willing to give up a "little" freedom for promisises of extra "security". As if
this was not bad enough they typically demanded that everyone else give up a
"little" freedom along with them so they could have there extra "security".

The second and and even more deadly factor in the demise of the list was that
John & Sandy listened to these sheep. If there was such a great demand for a
censored cypherpunks list then they should have created a new censored list.
Those who wanted the services of Sandy to censor the list would have been free
to switch while leaving the main list intact. Instead the list was censored and
a cypherpunks-flams & a cypherpunks-unsensored lists were created. These list
were created with the promise that anything that did not make it onto the main
list would be placed onto the flames list. Well the inevitable happened a
message was posted that Sandy felt he could not forward to the flames list. All
this brew-ha-ha could have been avoided if Sandy had just posted a message to
the flame list stating that Dimitri had posted some crap that he could not or
would not repost to the flames list. No one would have faulted him for it as all
but the newest of list members know Dimitri. Instead threats of lawsuits were
addressed to anyone who even mentioned Dimitri's accusations. This blatent act
of censorship by Sandy and supported by John is what has brought cypherpunks to
where it is right now. Rather irronic that leaders of the fight against
"censorship" would use such tactics when it suits their needs.

>What bothers me more than anything else about the "solutions" I've seen
>proposed to the death of Cypherpunks is that they rely on technology -- and
>reject human judgement -- to solve what is, in reality, a social problem.  (One
>can certainly make the same argument about the V-chip, browser porn filters,
>and similar hacks.)

What bothers me more than anything is how false "problems" are created so
"solutions" can be implemented. Censorship of the list was NEVER needed.
Censorship of TV is not needed (ala V-chip). Censorship of cryptology is not
needed (via ITAR). Censorship is NEVER needed nor warented. Period.

- --
- -----------------------------------------------------------
William H. Geiger III  http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii
Geiger Consulting    Cooking With Warp 4.0

Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice
PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail.
                          
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- -----------------------------------------------------------
 
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At 10:31 AM -0800 2/14/97, Martin Minow wrote:

>What bothers me more than anything else about the "solutions" I've
>seen proposed to the death of Cypherpunks is that they rely on
>technology -- and reject human judgement -- to solve what is, in
>reality, a social problem.  (One can certainly make the same argument
>about the V-chip, browser porn filters, and similar hacks.)

Au contraire, Martin! Many of my posts have _explicitly_ pointed to the
human filtering services offered by Eric Blossom, Ray Arachelian, and
perhaps others. Arranging to have others edit or filter the information
flow is a fine and dandy thing, and it's a very "anarchist" thing to do.

The "anarchy" of the restaurant business, the book business, and so many
other markets and sectors, where end-users are forced to look for filtering
mechanisms (such as restaurant reviews, advice of their friends,
advertisements, etc.) works pretty well.

And, I believe, the Cypherpunks list was doing pretty well before the
Moderation thing happened. The noise from the 'bots was no worse than the
noise of 2-3 years ago from Detweiler. The claims that "the list has become
unusable" were bogus, in my opinion.

(Hence the claims that "you Cyherpunks only complain" are also bogus. I for
one was not complaining and demanding that John and Sandy "do something" to
"fix" the list. I accepted the nonsense spouted about me and John and
others as just part of the chaos expected in any forum. I just filtered and
deleted such nonsense.)

It is true that some signal producers have either moved on to other
things--in many cases to crypto-related companies directly or indirectly
spawned by the Cypherpunks list and contacts!--or are not writing as many
basic essays as they once did. Such is to be expected. People get tired of
writing explanatory articles, and handling newbies.

The key to improving signal is to increase the amount of signal, not to
just suppress noise so as to make the S/N ratio look better. I can easily
hit the "delete" key to remove noise, but I can't hit the "create" key to
increase signal.

--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."

> The only other alternative I can see would be to limit membership --
> but not limit what members might write. 

The notion that there are "members" in some kind of formal fashion is 
inherently un-cypherpunk in my book and would most likely be 
rejected.

> Having been "on" the net for over 15 years -- and with experience in
> both ends of the censorship/moderation problem  (I'm probably the
> only Cypherpunks member to have had a book "banned in Boston"), I'm
> sorry that a handful of sociopaths managed to destroy this
> experiment in anarchy, but I suspect that this was inevitable.

In your 15 years on-line you should KNOW that it's an inevitable 
cycle inherent to anarchic forums like cypherpunks.  But the notion 
that cypherpunks is dead and destroyed is silly.  Cypherpunks will 
(and already are) reform and renew as is, I believe, necessary.  
Whether or not the name cypherpunks is used and embraced is 
irrelevant.  Those interested in cryptography as a tool of personal 
privacy and freedom will inevitable congregate in the self-organizing 
fashion that "cypherpunks" have always recognized.

The "human judgement" you are referring to is leadership.  Leadership 
is not necessarily anathema to cypherpunks.  Leadership is provided 
by those who try to post signal and ignore the noise.  Those who 
continue to push the discussion forward.  

People inevitably tire of robust forums such as this.  The sociopaths 
and the leaders come and go in waves.  Let the forum mutate in 
whatever way it chooses.
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At 10:31 AM 2/14/97 -0800, you wrote:
<snip>
>
>Having been "on" the net for over 15 years -- and with experience
>in both ends of the censorship/moderation problem  (I'm probably
>the only Cypherpunks member to have had a book "banned in Boston"),
>I'm sorry that a handful of sociopaths managed to destroy this
>experiment in anarchy, but I suspect that this was inevitable.
>
>Martin Minow
>minow@apple.com
>

For the FWIW dept:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
Hmm...yes I agree.  Handful of sociopaths.  Inevitable?  Perhaps.  

On one hand anarchy, on the other control.  Free-wheeling vs. stifling.
Complete free speech vs. censorship.    

Oh, sure.  You can always say that one is more "right" than the other.  But
I believe everyone sees the validity of both sides...whether you agree with
them is another thing. So, we seem stuck between the two. And yet, they say
there is always a third option.  We just need some time to pull away and
see it.  

This "experiment in anarchy" may be coming to an end.  But I like your
choice of words: "experiment."  We've learned a great deal through this
one.  Perhaps next time we'll structure things differently.  Who knows?
Long after the last packet leaves cyhperpunks@toad.com, the spirit, the
ideas and ideals will remain.

Take good care,

Michael Ehling
mehling@ibm.net

Michael Ehling wrote:
> 
> At 10:31 AM 2/14/97 -0800, you wrote:
> <snip>
> >
> >Having been "on" the net for over 15 years -- and with experience
> >in both ends of the censorship/moderation problem  (I'm probably
> >the only Cypherpunks member to have had a book "banned in Boston"),
> >I'm sorry that a handful of sociopaths managed to destroy this
> >experiment in anarchy, but I suspect that this was inevitable.

The experiment in anarchy continues full speed.

Cypherpunks is not dead, although it will take the newly created
online communities to pick up steam. Cypherpunks mailing list simply
expanded and took another form.

Again, thanks to John Gilmore for running this list for years. His
job required a lot of dedication and effort and I am thankful to him
for what he did for it. cypherpunks@toad.com enhanced my understanding
of reality immensely.

	- Igor.

Igor Chudov @ home wrote:
> Again, thanks to John Gilmore for running this list for years. His
> job required a lot of dedication and effort and I am thankful to him
> for what he did for it. cypherpunks@toad.com enhanced my understanding
> of reality immensely.

  I certainly hope that the lack of posts expressing gratitude to John
Gilmore for his maintenance of the CypherPunks list on toad.com for all
these years is merely because those who have benefitted from his efforts
are expressing their thanks via private email to him.
  Certainly, as Igor has indicated, he did not just sit on his butt
playing with Little Peter while 'the machine' ran itself and provided
the CypherPunks with a home for both rational discourse and mad
ramblings.
  There are quite a few people, ranging from long-term members to
passers-by who have had their horizons broadened by the list, and I
would hope that they are appreciative of the fact that the mechanics
of bits and bytes underlying the distribution of our grand soliloquys
came at the expense of a considerable portion of his own time and
energy.
  I know that I am.

Toto