t-shirts, imagery, and Cypherpunks PR

[skyhawk@cpac.washington.edu]

> From: koontzd@lrcs.loral.com (David Koontz ) <koontzd/daemon>
> >fnerd@smds.com
> >For a logo... how a bout a fist holding a key?
> 
> How about a mailed fist holding a key, with the caption
> 
> Privacy is our Profession

I like it, but it doesn't emphasize the fact that we're fighting a war here, a
war against government oppression.  We're fighting a guerilla war, here folks,
on the future battlefield of cyberspace.  And like anyone fighting a dinosaur,
we've got a big jump on the enemy in that we know our way around in this new
world, and they're dumb, blind, and slow.  We can hit them where they're weak,
use disinformation techniques to confuse them, and then fade into the mist.  We
can introduce false data into their computers to make them run in circles, and
drop their systems completely in classic guerilla style.  The people will
follow us, because we've got truth and freedom on our side -- all we have to do
is explain this, and we've won!  The leviathan must fall, and we'll help it
along its way!  We must arm ourselves conventionally, also, for those dark days
that may be ahead.  When a monster this size falls, we have no idea how chaotic
things may become.  Automatic weapons, the Anarchist's Cookbook (suitably
corrected, of course), and other martial pastimes will balance our
technological wizardry.

Hm.  It's not a particularly good imitation of Tim May's classic parodies, but
it'll have to do for now.

Folks, we're fighting a war.  A public relations war.  We are not, NOT,
fighting a conventional war.  Violence is not something we can have associated
with us.  We cannot be seen as hardcore anarchists, intent on crushing the
state.  We cannot enter into an obvious, head-to-head conflict with our
country's government, particularly law enforcement.  For us to be perceived as
such in the eyes of Joe Sixpack is fatal.  We will be, indeed we will have
BEEN, marginalized and rendered impotent and irrelevant.  For us to become so
engaged in conflict in *fact* is to have lost, because we have nothing like the
power of our wonderful government.

If we give them an excuse, they'll crush us like bugs.

We can't be seen as crazed revolutionaries.  We have to be more like relatively
harmless specialists in the field of privacy in cyberspace, explaining that
technology has the potential to cause arbitrary badness, and we've got ideas
about how to do things a different, better way.  We can be out on the fringe of
normality, but if we're seen in the same light as [fill in your favorite
trivialized group of wackos here], we're fucked.  Martyrdom is sexy and
romantic, but rarely useful, and almost never ideal.

Do keep in mind that this entire message is my personal opinion about how to go
about making the world a better place.  I'm not completely psycho about it, I
don't think people with different ideas are stupid or even necessarily wrong.
I just think the "conflict" meme is in danger of being given too much emphasis.

--
Scott Northrop          <skyhawk@cpac.washington.edu>            (206)784-2083
ObVirus:   The demand for obedience is inherently evil.
ObVirus2:  As a juror in a Trial by Jury, you have the right, power and duty
           to acquit the defendant if you judge the law itself to be unjust.