Re: [ICANN-EU] Answers to Questions by Svensson and Roessler

[Thomas Roessler <roessler@does-not-exist.org>]

On 2000-08-15 13:31:40 +0300, Constantine S. Chassapis wrote:

>> Sorry, but this doesn't sound too independent to me...  Knowing
>> about possible influence after the nomination and election
>> won't help once that influence is exercised.

> You are correct! I just have to add that I am honest; I am
> stating the truth about myself and my situation, and I believe
> honesty is a positive thing for a candidate to have (I can
> provide proof about anything that I have said about myself if
> somebody asks so). Note that it would have been very easy for me
> to state "self-employed" and to end this discussion. I have been
> self-employed in the recent past and it is very easy for me to
> re-enter that particular status.

Your honesty is certainly appreciated, however, it doesn't help too
much.

> From a philosophical standpoint note this: influences exist
> everywhere. Even there where seemingly they are absent!  The more
> secret an influence is the more powerful is. A way to decrease
> the power of an influence is to make it public, i.e. to identify
> it. This is the first step!

This is certainly true.  However, it is nice to know about the
direction of influences _before_ putting someone on a ballot or even
electing a person.  A candidate who essentially says that he will be
influenced later by any firm which happens to employ him, has a few
problems.

In this case, I'd frankly prefer a person about which I know _now_
who's behind.

> Now, with the risk to offend you, but not having this intention,
> I would kindly ask you to identify yourself with two or three
> words (and something about fitug.de in english), just for the
> symmetry of a dialogue: You know everything about me, ...

The short answer: Try entering my name into a search engine, you'll
find out quite a bit about me.

The long answer: I'm currently finishing studies in applied
Mathematics (which have taken a bit too long).  I've administered
Unix machine at my institute for quite some time. I'm involved with
maintaining the mutt mail user agent (-> www.mutt.org).  In the
past, I've co-moderated de.admin.news.announce for some months; this
implies having been one of the persons responsible for maintaining
the de Usenet hierarchy.

Additional side interests include legal and social aspects of the
net and of information technology, and technical, social, and legal
aspects of - in particular - anonymity and applied crypto.


FITUG is a club of individuals interested in information technology
and its social aspects.  Members include technicians, journalists,
and other interested persons.

The club gives some frame to these individuals' activities. Examples
for activities and topics include lobbying the German government
with respect to export of open source crypto software when it was
still a (partially) open question, internet content control and
rating, politics of open source software, and more.  Frequently, you
won't see the name of the club attached to members' activities.

The club as a whole maintains a very active mailing list,
<debate@fitug.de>, which is an excellent source for news and
discussions about developments on the net.

Finally, I should mention that FITUG is a member organization of the
Global Internet Liberty Campaign (GILC).

-- 
Thomas Roessler                         <roessler@does-not-exist.org>