Subject: Re: [Raven] Opinion toss

From: "Greg Broiles" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 13:01:49 -0800

Bob Mahoney wrote:
>I don't have anything terribly unique or interesting to add to this
>discussion, but since the list may be sifted later to contribute to
>the determination of consensus, I'll put my opinions into the mix
>very briefly:
[...]

I hope that continuing discussion on the list is not seen as anything other
than continuing argumentation intended to amuse the participiants. The only
identifiable participants in the discussion(s) held herein who seem to favor
collaboration with the wiretap fetishists have been shown to have a
commercial interest in the development of surveillance tools, who are
apparently hoping to achieve some combination of (1) stimulating demand for
their products, (2) avoiding their own design work by arranging for it to be
done by an uncompensated committee of volunteers, (3) obscuring their own
contributions to the design and development of repressive machinery, and (4)
moving beyond simply enabling government interference and monitoring, but
creating an international standard for it, such that repressive regimes may
easily interchange their tools.

I no longer think that discussion in this circumstance is useful, and have
curtailed my list activity accordingly. My silence should not be interpreted
as a lack of interest nor as acquiescence, but as a courtesy to other list
members who aren't likely to be enriched by further repetition of
refutations and challenges to the surveillance salesmen. One of the problems
with a consensus model of decisionmaking is that it tends to favor the
opinions and positions of people who have the stamina or stubbornness to
continue to articulate their position, without regard for its merit.

If, for some reason, it's important to make decisions about technical
collaboration with agents of surveillance state(s) by measuring continued
recitation of opinions, please, consider mine as having been repeated daily
or weekly without making me prove I can write a crontab to achieve that
goal. I hope that whatever decisionmaking process or opinion-gathering
process is at work behind the scenes at the IETF proves to be more
sophisticated than would be suggested by a simple headcount, and which does
not favor longwindedness over economy.