"Village Voice" Article is Another Winner!

[tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)]

Many thanks to Paul Ferguson for posting the "Village Voice" article...we
out here in the boonies of Silicon Valley (well, relative to the V.V....a
refreshing change, eh?) have to wait for the "clipper ships" (and clipper
chips?) to arrive with the latest copies. (I hope everyone will get the
issue as soon as possible.)

I am pleasantly surprised at just how good the three main articles on
Cypherpunks have been--Levy's "Wired" piece, Kelly's long article in "Whole
Earth Review," and now Julian Dibbell's nice report in "The Village Voice."


(Yes, maybe I have some bias, given that I was quoted in each of
them....that's another reason I'm urging _others_ to do more of the talking
with the latest batch of journalists, Mssrs. Mulivor and Hum, so as to
spread the load a bit. But, as fair warning, if journalists contact _me_,
I'll continue to spout off. Maybe they like our more "crypto anarchist"
slant on things over possibly more mainstream topics like "data privacy.")

Some have sent e-mail to me saying that Dibbell was perhaps a bit
"leftist-biased" in his comments about "hippie-hacker millionaires," or
somesuch. I actually thought his points were very solid, capturing the
"hippie-hacker" feel of Cypherpunks (recall that one of our proposed names
was "Cryppies," a play on the nickname crypto boffins are given and an
obvious parallel to "Yippies" and "Hippies," even though many of us are
economic libertarians). And pointing out that perhaps not everyone will
embrace this new technology without qualms, that perhaps there is some
natural elitism involved (in at least some of us). I couldn't agree more.I
detected in his words of caution some of my own (and perhaps others, though
Eric Hughes can comment for himself) concerns...I tend to think in terms of
historical and technological "inevitability," which Julian characterized as
a kind of smugness, and I think he was perceptive here.

The "Voice" is not a technophilic mag like "Wired," so the social
implications are handled differently. I think their readers will be
well-served.

(Having not yet seen the published article, I don't know if there are
sidebars and pointers to other articles and sources. Are there?)

And his closing comment about strong crypto was powerful:

"Call strong cryptography a technical wager, then. It's a
smart bet that the state's long-running worst nightmare -- a
society whose entire informational texture is woven out of
unreadable secret codes -- turns out to be our own best dream of
the future."

An impressive article.


-Tim May

--
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: by arrangement
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