Re: Stronghold

C2Net was wrong to censor the cypherpunks list in the guise of moderation.
It was wrong to send threatening letters to people who claimed its
products were weak.  The whole moderation/censorship experiment was a
terrible mistake.  The actions taken by C2Net were completely unjustified.

At the same time, it is dishonest to say that its products have
backdoors or are weak.  There is no evidence whatsoever that this
is the case.

It may stretch the intellects of some cypherpunks beyond the breaking
point to hold these two views about matters at the same time.  In the
black and white world where some cypherpunks live, a company which
tries to prevent criticism is evil, hence it must be fraudulent as well.
More mature list readers will recognize that a company or a person can
be wrong in some actions while being right in other ways.

The burden of proof in claiming that there is a weakness in someone's
security product is on those making the claim.  Compare the unfounded
statements by Vulis with the carefully documented breaks of weak
software by Ian Goldberg, David Wagner, John Kelsey, and Bruce Schneier.
What if Goldberg and Wagner had claimed that Netscape's RNG seeding was
weak, without providing any more evidence than that claim?  What if
Schneier et al had broken cellular phone encryption without backing it
up?  They would have been justifiably ignored.

If anyone really does believe that C2Net's products have backdoors or
weaknesses, why don't they present them?  Either they want people to keep
using C2Net's supposedly broken products, which reflects badly on them,
or they want people to stop but they are unable to present any evidence
of these purported weaknesses.

When Vulis or anyone else claims Stronghold is broken, ask him why he is
presenting his claims in a form which will cause people to keep using
this "broken" software.  Does he want people to have weak encryption?
Is he in favor of backdoors?  If not, he would surely present evidence
of the weaknesses, if there is any.  Make Vulis explain his motivations
when he makes these claims.

On Thu, 2 Oct 1997, Anonymous wrote:

> 
> C2Net was wrong to censor the cypherpunks list in the guise of moderation.
> It was wrong to send threatening letters to people who claimed its
> products were weak.  The whole moderation/censorship experiment was a
> terrible mistake.  The actions taken by C2Net were completely unjustified.

Where do people get these bizarre ideas? C2 didn't censor the list. A guy
who happened to work for C2 dropped some messages from one list. The
messages still went out on the unfiltered list. Had he worked for Mc
Donald's or the the NYC Sanitiation Department, would you blame them for
this as well? 


-- Lucky Green <shamrock@cypherpunks.to> PGP encrypted email preferred. 
   "Tonga? Where the hell is Tonga? They have Cypherpunks there?"

Lucky Green <shamrock@cypherpunks.to> writes:

> 
> On Thu, 2 Oct 1997, Anonymous wrote:
> 
> > 
> > C2Net was wrong to censor the cypherpunks list in the guise of moderation.
> > It was wrong to send threatening letters to people who claimed its
> > products were weak.  The whole moderation/censorship experiment was a
> > terrible mistake.  The actions taken by C2Net were completely unjustified.
> 
> Where do people get these bizarre ideas? C2 didn't censor the list. A guy
> who happened to work for C2 dropped some messages from one list. The
> messages still went out on the unfiltered list. Had he worked for Mc
> Donald's or the the NYC Sanitiation Department, would you blame them for
> this as well? 

Lucky is lying: the censored articles were also filtered from the list which
was billed as being unfiltered.

---

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

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM writes:
> 
> Lucky Green <shamrock@cypherpunks.to> writes:

> > Where do people get these bizarre ideas? C2 didn't censor the list. A guy
> > who happened to work for C2 dropped some messages from one list. The
> > messages still went out on the unfiltered list. 

> Lucky is lying: the censored articles were also filtered from the list which
> was billed as being unfiltered.

This is revisionist history.  I can't recall any intimation at the
time that any messages were filtered from the unfiltered list.

Obviously I can't say whether _all_ the censored articles came out 
on the unfiltered list.  But I do know that I received at least one 
message from Vulis with an unsubstantiated allegation [of a secret 
backdoor, I think?] in Stronghold on the unfiltered list, as well as
some later complaints from Vulis that Sandy's filtering was unfair
and hypocritical.  Unfortunately I didn't save the original message--
I just wrote it off as the typical Vulis spew.



-- Jeff

Dimitri Vulis <dlv@bwalk.dm.com> writes:
> > Where do people get these bizarre ideas? C2 didn't censor the list. A guy
> > who happened to work for C2 dropped some messages from one list. The
> > messages still went out on the unfiltered list. Had he worked for Mc
> > Donald's or the the NYC Sanitiation Department, would you blame them for
> > this as well? 
> 
> Lucky is lying: the censored articles were also filtered from the
> list which was billed as being unfiltered.

There were 3 lists:

cypherpunks-unedited		(everything)
cypherpunks			(moderated by Sandy)
cypherpunks-flames		(the stuff Sandy rejected) 

At the time I was subscribed to cypherpunks and cypherpunks-flames in
the belief that this would result in getting everything, and save the
bandwidth of subscribing to all 3, but allow me to tell what was
rejected.

I didn't see the censored post at all.  This means at least that Sandy
didn't post it to either of cypherpunks or cypherpunks-flames.  This
is consistent with his later admission that he considered Dimitri's
comments on Stronghold security as a conflict of interests for him to
post, as he was manually posting to both of those lists.

Unfortunately I wasn't on cypherpunks-unedited at the time, but I
thought that it was immediate send out from toad.com without going via
Sandy.

Adam
-- 
Now officially an EAR violation...
Have *you* exported RSA today? --> http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/rsa/

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`

Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk> writes:

> Dimitri Vulis <dlv@bwalk.dm.com> writes:
> > > Where do people get these bizarre ideas? C2 didn't censor the list. A guy
> > > who happened to work for C2 dropped some messages from one list. The
> > > messages still went out on the unfiltered list. Had he worked for Mc
> > > Donald's or the the NYC Sanitiation Department, would you blame them for
> > > this as well?
> >
> > Lucky is lying: the censored articles were also filtered from the
> > list which was billed as being unfiltered.
>
> There were 3 lists:
>
> cypherpunks-unedited		(everything)
> cypherpunks			(moderated by Sandy)
> cypherpunks-flames		(the stuff Sandy rejected)
>
> At the time I was subscribed to cypherpunks and cypherpunks-flames in
> the belief that this would result in getting everything, and save the
> bandwidth of subscribing to all 3, but allow me to tell what was
> rejected.
>
> I didn't see the censored post at all.  This means at least that Sandy
> didn't post it to either of cypherpunks or cypherpunks-flames.  This
> is consistent with his later admission that he considered Dimitri's
> comments on Stronghold security as a conflict of interests for him to
> post, as he was manually posting to both of those lists.
>
> Unfortunately I wasn't on cypherpunks-unedited at the time, but I
> thought that it was immediate send out from toad.com without going via
> Sandy.

Going over my notes I see that at least one of my submissions - the
one quoting the C2Net lawyer letter in its entirety - didn't appear
even on cypherpunks-unedited.

---

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

Dimitri Vulis <dlv@bwalk.dm.com> writes:
> Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk> writes:
> > Unfortunately I wasn't on cypherpunks-unedited at the time, but I
> > thought that it was immediate send out from toad.com without going via
> > Sandy.
> 
> Going over my notes I see that at least one of my submissions - the
> one quoting the C2Net lawyer letter in its entirety - didn't appear
> even on cypherpunks-unedited.

I think I saw this claim made before around the time of the "moderation
experiment".

The only ways I can see that this could have happened are either that:

  i)  John Gilmore started editing cypherpunks-unedited at Sandy/C2net's
      request

  ii) cypherpunks-unedited was edited all along by someone (John or Sandy)

i) is sort of feasible, perhaps there are others who were on unedited
and were counting who could confirm this.  Toto I think was.

ii) is hard to believe because the fact that something is edited shows
-- when the editor is sleeping you get lag.

I'm fairly sure I didn't see the C2 legal letter you posted yesterday
before.

Can anyone else can confirm?

Adam
-- 
Now officially an EAR violation...
Have *you* exported RSA today? --> http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/rsa/

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`

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

    when the whole sordid affair went down, particularly Dimitri's
    charges on faults, and my very strong "discussion" on the
    possibility Sameer may have cut a deal to save his own skin,
    thereby making C2 very insecure and very dangerous, I was
    subscribed to unedited, edited, flame, and announce --sorting 
    them into separate folders just to watch. the premise was 
    that none would be dumped: unedited was all, flame was 
    anything which was not in the edited feed.
 
    As to sameer, I was not terribly kind as to his general 
    morality, or the class morality as a whole. the fed hot
    water had mysteriously cooled off.

    unedited was clearly delayed during the day. I never saw
    dimitri's letter, and I would have, since dimitri was one
    of the louder (and, frankly, a bit too vituperative). there
    was a time I read most everything Dimitri posted just for
    the inanities and humour.  Dimitri (dont get a fat head,
    sucker) is more bark than bite; did your mother repress
    you as a child, Dimitri? 

    I sent one small comment on C2 backdoor possibilities for 
    ass-saving in the wee hours, it went through. the others
    did not, I thought maybe I had missed it, and checked
    DejaVu and the archives (which are not always the best)
    --so I reposted in the wee hours.

    likewise, tim copied several of his protests which never made
    it to the unedited list.

    so, in addition to the travesty of "moderating" the free speech
    list, Dimitri non-withstanding, they lied to us in regards the
    unedited list.

    as for Sandy's excuse that a few blatant examples from Dimitri
    placed him personally in double jeopardy --that's pure hyperbole,
    and it's fetid. and real low for a man with a law ticket.
    secondly, there should have been absolutely no hold on the
    unedited list and therefore no liability.

    no question in my mind that Gilmore, Sandfort, Sameer, and
    whoever else had their little stinky fingers in the pie were
    trying to censor them all --just in varying degrees. all of
    their actions were reprehensible, and from my standpoint, I
    would not trust any of them to not kick a dog when it was
    down --or even pour kerosene on a cat's behind.

    Bad Day in Blackrock.  where is Spenced Tracy and Gary Cooper 
    when High Noon really does join The Greatest Show on Earth?

    -------- previous messages follow for reference ---------

on or about 971006:0936 
    Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk> purported to expostulate:

+Dimitri Vulis <dlv@bwalk.dm.com> writes:
+> Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk> writes:
+> > Unfortunately I wasn't on cypherpunks-unedited at the time, but I
+> > thought that it was immediate send out from toad.com without going via
+> > Sandy.
+> 
+> Going over my notes I see that at least one of my submissions - the
+> one quoting the C2Net lawyer letter in its entirety - didn't appear
+> even on cypherpunks-unedited.

+I think I saw this claim made before around the time of the "moderation
+experiment".

+The only ways I can see that this could have happened are either that:

+  i)  John Gilmore started editing cypherpunks-unedited at
+Sandy/C2net's
+      request

+  ii) cypherpunks-unedited was edited all along by someone (John or
+Sandy)

+i) is sort of feasible, perhaps there are others who were on unedited
+and were counting who could confirm this.  Toto I think was.

+ii) is hard to believe because the fact that something is edited shows
+-- when the editor is sleeping you get lag.

+I'm fairly sure I didn't see the C2 legal letter you posted yesterday
+before.

+Can anyone else can confirm?

+Adam

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