Re: Katz on cypherpunks, in HotWired's Media Rant

[Omegaman <omegaman@bigeasy.com>]

On Mon, 30 Sep 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:

> 
> Katz has no understanding of the difference between someone (or some bunch)
> who use a name-password combination called "cypherpunks" with the
> discussions on the _list_ called cypherpunks.

No he does not.   I pointed this out to him in private mail after reading
the text of the "rant" at hotwired.  He says that he makes the distinction a
number of times throughout the article between "the person who logs in
internally" from hotwired " and the "cypherpunks mailing group."

I replied, "no, Jon, you did not...and I suspect that I am not the only
reader of your article who thinks so."  

I will be most interested in his reply.  

> His comment, "Cypherpunks don't want real confrontations or discussions, or
> they would reveal their identities and make it possible to respond, as most
> flamers do. They are among media's rarest and at the same time most
> easily recognized subspecies: nihilists." shows the same level of
> sophistication as someone accusing Bill Clinton of misdeeds because
> "whitehouse.gov" is used as a name/password for some forum.
> 
> Someone this naive (or this disingenous, if he knows better) has no
> business writing for anything about the Net.
> 
> Once again, "Wired" and "HotWired" disgrace themselves.
> 
> --Tim May
> 

Anyone care to wager that he won't post any sort of correction or addendum
in a later forum?

me

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