From: utzoo!utcsstat!geoff
Newsgroups: net.jokes.d
Title: Minimal encryption guidelines
Article-I.D.: utcsstat.501
Posted: Tue Feb  8 17:29:00 1983
Received: Tue Feb  8 17:59:22 1983


Since whenever you say anything, you offend someone,
it follows that everything on the net should be encrypted.
Thus for convenience readnews should automatically decrypt everything,
bringing us back to an effectively unencrypted net.


I think we should stop worrying about offending people.
People are going to be offended, but it is the reader's problem,
not the sender's.
People who can't tolerate being offended are going to find life difficult.
They should learn to accept being offended since they are going
to be offended all their lives by many things and will have no
way of preventing this.

Rather than beating ourselves and gnashing our teeth over
whether our submissions may offend people, perhaps we should
worry about whether our articles are worth sending or not.
I had hoped that this article would not be necessary,
but this topic keeps reappearing, and people keep taking it seriously.


Quick head count: how many people are offended by this article?

Geoff Collyer, U. of Toronto