The Interlinked Cypherpunks Lists?

I've recently had some of my articles sent to "cypherpunks@cyberpass.net"
bounce (more precisely: "<cypherpunks@cyberpass.net>... Deferred:
Connection timed out with rigel.cyberpass.net. Warning: message still
undelivered after 4 hours").

And I've received no Cypherpunks list traffic more recently dated than
Saturday morning. (I'm subscribed to cypherpunks@cyberpass.net.)

I surmise that something is wrong. So I've subscribed to one of the
alternates, cypherpunks@algebra.com.

Some thoughts:

* Is it possible for the interlinked lists to send out announcements of
list problems to subscriber of all such lists? (Each list owner could do a
periodic "who cypherpunks" of the other lists, then use this list to send a
message if a problem comes up. More sophisticated cross-processing could
eliminate duplicates, etc.)

* Alternatively, if one of the sites goes down, such as
"cypherpunks@cyberpass.net" seems to have done, could the other sites
automagically pick up the task of distributing articles until the site
comes back up?

* How feasible is it to have a single "virtual subscription address" which
gets traffic from one of the various list sites? (To avoid having to
subscribe to two or more lists and thus getting duplicates.)

I'll resubmit a few of my recent articles to cypherpunks@algebra.com.

--Tim May

There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws.
Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!"
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
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 wrote:
> I surmise that something is wrong. So I've subscribed to one of the
> alternates, cypherpunks@algebra.com.
> 
> Some thoughts:
> 
> * Is it possible for the interlinked lists to send out announcements of
> list problems to subscriber of all such lists? (Each list owner could do a
> periodic "who cypherpunks" of the other lists, then use this list to send a
> message if a problem comes up. More sophisticated cross-processing could
> eliminate duplicates, etc.)

I think that it is rather desirable.

Also, I am curious if Raph Levien could adapt his remailer pinging system
to pinging the cypherpunks network, and produce his reports about the
speed and reliability of each site.

> * Alternatively, if one of the sites goes down, such as
> "cypherpunks@cyberpass.net" seems to have done, could the other sites
> automagically pick up the task of distributing articles until the site
> comes back up?

I've been thinking about the same problem in the last month, and I am not
sure how to solve this problem simply and reliably.

The advantage of the current network is that it was extremely simple to
propose and build.  It would be great if someone could propose something
as simple for the task that you are suggesting.

> * How feasible is it to have a single "virtual subscription address" which
> gets traffic from one of the various list sites? (To avoid having to
> subscribe to two or more lists and thus getting duplicates.)

It is not hard, of course, but how should it be different from any other
node in the network? Any existing node is such a virtual subscription
address, and each of them is a potential point of failure for their 
respective subscribers.

The only true reliability can be achieved by subscribing to two or more
cypherpunks sites, and eliminating duplicates. Reliability has its costs.

	- Igor.

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On Mon, 12 May 1997, Tim May wrote:

> Some thoughts:
>
> * Is it possible for the interlinked lists to send out announcements of
> list problems to subscriber of all such lists? (Each list owner could do a
> periodic "who cypherpunks" of the other lists, then use this list to send a
> message if a problem comes up. More sophisticated cross-processing could
> eliminate duplicates, etc.)

For simplicity, I suggest posting announcements to alt.cypherpunks.  I
would assume that most people on this list also read alt.cypherpunks.

>
> * Alternatively, if one of the sites goes down, such as
> "cypherpunks@cyberpass.net" seems to have done, could the other sites
> automagically pick up the task of distributing articles until the site
> comes back up?

If each site keeps logs of all messages sent to the list for the last n
number of days, a simple Perl hack would allow the admin of the downed
site to compare logs with another site and send all the unsent messages
to the distribution list.

>
> * How feasible is it to have a single "virtual subscription address" which
> gets traffic from one of the various list sites? (To avoid having to
> subscribe to two or more lists and thus getting duplicates.)

How would this be different from any other list site?  I don't know for
certain, but it should be the case that each site is subscribed to at
least two other sites for redundancy.  A necessary consequence of not
subscribing to two or more lists is the fact there will be one single
distribution point which could go down at any time.

>
> I'll resubmit a few of my recent articles to cypherpunks@algebra.com.
>
> --Tim May
>
> There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws.
> Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!"
> ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
> 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."
>
>



Mark
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> bounce (more precisely: "<cypherpunks@cyberpass.net>... Deferred:
> Connection timed out with rigel.cyberpass.net. Warning: message still
> undelivered after 4 hours").

I too didn`t see some of my articles come through, I`m subscribed to 
cyberpass.net, Your copied traffic appears to have come through now 
though. When I did have trouble sending I pinged cyberpass.net and it was 
up, so I presume it was just a majordomo problem.

> * Is it possible for the interlinked lists to send out announcements of
> list problems to subscriber of all such lists? (Each list owner could do a
> periodic "who cypherpunks" of the other lists, then use this list to send a
> message if a problem comes up. More sophisticated cross-processing could
> eliminate duplicates, etc.)

Yes, I still get a LOT of duplicates, after checking several times that 
I was only subscribed to one list. I`m not running procmail at the moment 
(still playing with linux) and I seem to remember the duplicates nearly 
always have *different* message IDs, is there a procmail recipe to kill 
these?

> * Alternatively, if one of the sites goes down, such as
> "cypherpunks@cyberpass.net" seems to have done, could the other sites
> automagically pick up the task of distributing articles until the site
> comes back up?

This would be an excellent idea, if the sites kept a "who cypherpunks" 
on each other they could do a ping every hour or so to check the site was 
up and if not add the users in the "who" list to their subscriber list.
Is this possible with majordomo or some sort of script, list operators? 

> * How feasible is it to have a single "virtual subscription address" which
> gets traffic from one of the various list sites? (To avoid having to
> subscribe to two or more lists and thus getting duplicates.)

Hmm, this rather kills the idea of a distibuted system which is 
impossible to censor. I know this isn`t really a necessary system as I`m 
sure we all trust the list operators who run the sites, but it is a very 
cypherpunk idea and I rather like seeing it in action.

I can see problems with the current system, most notably the duplicates, 
but if these can be either killfiled on reciept, or even better, tweaking 
of the majordomos can remove them at source, the system will be very 
stable and useable, as it is the duplicates are not too great a problem, 
just an annoying quirk of the system, but it would be nice to see the 
back of them. 

This message is probably off topic as it talks about practical use of 
technology as opposed to ethics and blowing up poloticians, in which case 
I appologise, back to ranting and anarchism ;-)