Re: CYPHERPUNK considered harmful

[Black Unicorn <unicorn@polaris.mindport.net>]

On Fri, 15 Sep 1995, David C. Lambert wrote:

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> Peter Trei <trei@process.com> wrote:
> 
> >      Terms like 'cypherpunk' and 'cryptoanarchy' tend to pigeonhole us as
> > nutcases for many people, and are a barrier to getting our ideas
> > across. I'm not saying this pigeonholing is correct - in fact I despise
> > people who judge a book by it's cover, but so many people DO make such
> > snap judgements that we need to take this into account when talking to
> > the general public.
> 
> Two of the responses to the "An opportunity..." post unapologetically
> admitted that they refused to read the text of the message due to the
> presence of the word "cypherpunk" in the first sentence.
> 
> Shows you what we're up against.
> 
> BTW, I'm not for changing the name of the list, but I do see the logic
> in a more establishment-friendly name to use when lobbying the public.

So found the propoganda arm of the cypherpunks with a snazzy and PC name.

Distrubute watered down cypherpunk "teachings" in more benign forms which 
hide their true (Ohhh! Scary!) potential in an effort to make them commonly 
acceptable to joe sixpack.


Can't we all see what road this leads down?

At the risk of politicizing the issue, I wouldn't be the first to call this 
"left-speak" or "term-sanitizing."

Really the core issue is that the citizens of their respective nations 
need to either:

1>  See cryptography for the important individual rights issue that it is 
and latch on to the basic desire for free and unmonitored commerce and 
exchange without censorship or observation.

or

2>  Decide that they are not interested in the issues because these 
issues are too radical, or simply because their own political ideas fall left
(or statist) of this spectrum.


Personally, and being quite defeatist and selfish, while I would like a 
widespead population wide strong crypto system asthetically, in the end I 
don't care if every joe sixpack on the planet uses real crypto, just so long as 
those I am to conduct commerce (of data or goods) with do.

The final judgement will be in the advantage of velocity and security of 
transactions and the wealth that this "allocates" to those wise enough to 
adopt crypto exchange systems.  Evolution in action.  If this makes me 
elitist, so be it.

Granted, there are non-cryptoanarchy applications to crypto which I am 
ignoring.  My fingers are tired and I believe them incidental.

> 
> David C. Lambert
> dcl@panix.com
> (finger for PGP public key)
> 
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