From [email protected] Tue Oct  5 13:07:11 1993
Path: uunet!bounce-back
From: [email protected] (Peter Gutmann)
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,sci.crypt,alt.security,alt.security.pgp,comp.security.misc
Subject: RFD: sci.crypt.research
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Date: 5 Oct 1993 10:22:55 -0400
Organization: Computer Science Dept. University of Auckland
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Name: sci.crypt.research
 
Charter: To allow the discussion of cryptography and cryptographic issues in
         an environment free of the type of noise which has been plagueing
         sci.crypt for the past year or two.
 
Status: Moderated
 
In the last few years to signal to noise ratio of sci.crypt has become
progressively worse, scaring away many of the previous sci.crypt regulars.  The
level of the postings to the group has steadily declined from useful details on
current research, algorithms, implementations, and informed comment, to endless
wrangling about US export restrictions, the Clipper/Capstone chips, key escrow,
the first amendment, NSA conspiracies, and whatnot.  The appearance of
talk.politics.crypto has alleviated this problem only slightly.
 
I therefore propose the creation of sci.crypt.research in an effort to restore
the status quo to what it was a few years ago.  Despite many, many requests
>from people to keep the noise out of sci.crypt, this has not happened, so the
new group will be moderated.  However cryptography being the contentious issue
that it is, there may be an advantage to having more than one moderator.  Here
are some recent comments I made during a discussion in sci.crypt:
 
>I can moderate it if there's a demand for sci.crypt.research.  Since I'm
>located in a country which doesn't generally get intimidated by the US govt,
>and whose branch of the NSA don't even like to admit they exist, there's
>little chance of any problems.
> 
>However since the principal task of any moderator will be to act as noise
>filter, how about having multiple moderators with people submitting postings
>to whoever's closest, much like the submission process to the editors of
>technical journals.  As long as the moderator collective maintains a
>reasonably uniform standard of junk rejection I can't see any problems, and
>there could be advantages to having at least two moderators, one in the US and
>one in a location free of any US govt. influences.
 
What the moderation would entail is, as I see it, the filtering out of non
crypto research related noise such as anything related to the issues mentioned
above, leaving only the core of useful information which it's become so hard to
find in sci.crypt recently.  The purpose of the moderation isn't so much to
restrict posting but rather to allow posting in a noise-free environment.
 
Peter.
-- 
 [email protected]||[email protected]||[email protected]
[email protected]||[email protected]||[email protected]
             (In order of preference - one of 'em's bound to work)
            -- "We shouldn'a sold the flags" - Groucho Blondini -- 

From [email protected] Thu Oct 14 20:49:33 1993
Path: uunet!bounce-back
From: [email protected] (Peter Gutmann)
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,sci.crypt,alt.security,comp.security.misc
Subject: 2nd RFD: moderate sci.crypt, create comp.software.crypto
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Date: 14 Oct 1993 19:01:08 -0400
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This is the second RFD for the sci.crypt reorganisation, which summarises 
the debate so far and provides an updated proposal.  The original RFD 
proposed the creation of a new group, sci.crypt.research, aimed at allowing 
the discussion of cryptography and cryptographic issues in an environment 
free of the type of noise which has been plagueing sci.crypt for the past 
year or two.  
 
The response was in general favourable, but a number of people thought that 
sci.crypt should be moderated instead of creating a new group.  However 
others (me included) were of the opinion that moderating sci.crypt would 
leave nowhere for postings which one person summed up as:
 
>    Does anyone have a Playfair cracker around?  My daughter has just
>    encrypted my grant application and won't decrypt it until I double
>    her pocket money!
>
>That is scarcely anything to do with state-of-the art research, cryptography
>politics, computer security or any of the other categories already catered 
>for.
 
The general consensus seems to be that we need some sort of moderated group, 
but not everyone agreed on sci.crypt.research.  A suggestion was made that a 
better solution to the problem would be to moderate sci.crypt, and to create 
a new group, comp.software.crypto for handling the traditional "Where can I 
get a free DES implementation/Is there a cracker for my WordPerfect file/
etc" type postings.  This seems like a workable compromise between the 
"Moderate sci.crypt" crowd and the "Create a new moderated group" crowd, 
since it creates a noise-free sci.crypt as well as leaving an open group for 
crypto-related messages which don't have any place in talk.politics.crypto 
or comp.security.misc.
 
The proposal therefore is:
 
 - Change the status of sci.crypt from unmoderated to moderated.  As I've 
   mentioned before I'll offer to act as one of the moderators, if anyone 
   else wants to help with this, let me know.
 
 - Create a new unmoderated group comp.software.crypto for general discussion 
   about software and all the other things which would probably be answered 
   anyway by reading the FAQ :-).
 
OK, flame away.... if anyone's got a better solution (I'm sure you all do 
:-), don't hesitate to let us know.
 
Peter.
-- 
 [email protected]||[email protected]||[email protected]
[email protected]||[email protected]||[email protected]
             (In order of preference - one of 'em's bound to work)
     -- He's dead Jim.  You grab his tricorder, I'll get his wallet --

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