Re: Br'er Tim and the Bug Hole

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Blanc wrote:
>By jove, I think I've "got" it - there *is* something deeper going on
>here:
>
>Tim is really an undercover 'narc' - through his provocative remarks
>he's actually encouraging all the violent terrorists on the list to
>come out of their lurking holes and reveal themselves.  Then he's
>going to turn them all in for a cash reward, which he'll use to buy
>more high-tech stock.
>
>Yeah, that's it!

While Blanc is only joking, I want to take this opportunity to comment
on the Find The Mole game.

Moles look just like everyone else.  Speculation on who is actually a
provocateur or an informant or a saboteur or whatever only has the
purpose of creating unhappiness and undermining anything worthwhile
that is going on.

It is likely that there are informants lurking amongst the
cypherpunks.  The secret police watch and infiltrate far less
interesting groups, and this one has received more than its share of
publicity.  (In a couple of decades we'll probably learn who they
were.  Hopefully things will work out in such a way that this will be
worth a good laugh.)

The right thing to do is to assume there are a certain number of moles
around and engineer your activities accordingly.  If you really think
you can Find The Mole, then I would think your first step is to keep
quiet about what you are doing.

Monty Cantsin
Editor in Chief
Smile Magazine
http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html
http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.htm

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At 6:13 AM -0700 11/12/97, Neva Remailer wrote:

>While Blanc is only joking, I want to take this opportunity to comment
>on the Find The Mole game.
>
>Moles look just like everyone else.  Speculation on who is actually a
>provocateur or an informant or a saboteur or whatever only has the
>purpose of creating unhappiness and undermining anything worthwhile
>that is going on.
>
>It is likely that there are informants lurking amongst the
>cypherpunks.  The secret police watch and infiltrate far less
>interesting groups, and this one has received more than its share of
>publicity.  (In a couple of decades we'll probably learn who they
>were.  Hopefully things will work out in such a way that this will be
>worth a good laugh.)

At last year's Hacker's Conference, a programmer/analyst from the CIA told
me that the Cypherpunks list was well known to folks there. I don't know if
they're still reading it, what with the list hiccups earlier this year and
subsequent drop-off in number of subscriptions.

At this year's CFP, an NSA guy said the same thing about NSA getting the list.

I assume the government agents know exactly what we're talking about.

Someone who has corresponded with me privately said he works for a defense
contractor on intelligence matters, and he said they took my posts about
how unbreakable crypto would facillitate perfect espionage and perfect
black markets in information very seriously. He also said "Blacknet" was
used as an example of the dangers of info-terrorism.

--Tim May



The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^2,976,221   | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."