Re: "cypherpunks is dead..."

["Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net>]

At 3:37 PM -0500 2/19/97, Robert Hettinga wrote:

>We also have to thank Tim May for his um, ideological, presence on this
>list from since before it existed, :-), and, or course, for his current
>"leadership", both moral and political. (Of course, I can say all the next
>few wierd and gushy things about him without fear of refutation on his
>part, 'cause, in his wisdom, I'm still in his killfile ;-)) It was Tim who

No, Bob, I actually took you out of my filter file (Eudora's killfile) a
while back.

It is true that I don't like your style, your writing style, that is. Some
say I am overly sensitive to style issues...probably so. I find most modern
cyber-journalism unreadable, with the hipper-than-thou "street cred" lingo
and the obfuscatory purple prose.

I find reading the straight-shooting words of even my ideological opponents
(or opponents in some areas) far easier than reading the neo-journalistic
hype some of my ideological fellow-travellers use.

Nothing personal.

>was our compass. It was Tim who came down from the mountain and stopped us
>from worshiping the fatted calf of censorship, and who is now leading us
>into the promised land of unfettered discourse, both on usenet and on the
>new cypherpunk server network. Since Tim paper-trained most of us here
>(myself included, though some may debate how well he succeeded :-)), that
>is, how to behave on this list, and, most important, how to imagine what a
>world of strong crytography on ubiquitous networks would look like, I now
>find his "leading" us out onto the net, and away from Sinai, most
>symmetrical indeed. :-).

Well, I guess I have to say "Indeed." (Though I don't claim to be leading
anyone, especially not off the list. After several weeks of saying nothing,
I outlined my reasons for disliking the censorship move...reasons that had
also been made by many other folks. Anyway, Adam Back's summary of events
is pretty close to the mark.)

The vision of where the world is headed, noted by Bob, has been clear to
many of us for many years. When I first read about public key systems,
circa 1977, I got an inkling. When I read Chaum's paper on untraceable
digital cash, circa 1986, things got clearer. And when I evaluated the
business plan of Phil Salin for his company, American Information Exchange,
in 1987, everything fell into place. My role with him was to suggest how
cryptographic protocols, including digital cash, would open up information
markets. His company eventually got some funding, but failed. This company
was several years too early, as it presaged many aspects of the Web (and,
not coincidentally, its "sister company" was Xanadu, which even more
clearly presaged the Web--indeed, Ted Nelson was the godfather of the Web.

Anyway, by mid-1988, I wrote and distributed "the Crypto Anarchist
Manifesto," which, to my surprise and satisfaction, basically anticipated
all of the things now being done on Cypherpunks and elsewhere (anonymous
remailers, message pools, steganography, BlackNet types of markets,
ubiquitous crypto, etc.). The missing piece, digital cash, is a hard nut to
crack...sure, it exists (Mark Twain Bank, DigiCash, etc.), but it's hard to
get robust versions deployed and used. (Getting PGP integrated into mailers
is stil bogged down, for reasons I have to believe have to do with
pressures from somewhere, else why would e-mail packages not make PGP
support painless?)

I agree with Bob and others that the Cypherpunks are in no danger of dying
out. Things are just about to get a lot more interesting.

--Tim May





Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside"
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."