"cypherpunks is dead..."

[Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>]

"...long live cypherpunks?"

"So long, and thanks for all the fish?"


But, seriously, folks...

Lucky Green echoed many of my own thoughts when he talked about all the
things being on this list has meant to him. Like Lucky, there is a
rediculously huge list of things that this list has taught me over the
almost three (wow..) years or so that I've been here.

Thanks to all of you here, I have had nothing short of a Copernican
transformation in my perception of the universe, and it completely changed
what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. From the very first time I
started reading this list and applying what I learned here to what I
already knew, right then, for the first time in a *very* long time, I knew
*exactly* how some very important pieces of the world actually worked, and
more important, why they were going to change.  I now *know* where the
world is going to go. Maybe not when, of course, but certainly where and
how. :-) (Old stock picker's joke: "I can tell you what. I can tell you
when. I can't tell you both. If I did, I wouldn't tell *you*.")


Anyway, I've learned all these things from many cypherpunks, some still
here, and a lot who've left. I expect that, as we move into the next phase
of this "group", we'll continue to teach ourselves much more about the
world and strong cryptography's effect on it. But, nothing will compare to
the feeling we'll get when we remember the time we've spent here at Toad
Hall. We have John Gilmore to thank for the "lodgings", of course, and,
certainly, for his encouragement and support.  And, obviously, his
tolerance, which finally sagged and broke under the weight of both his
expectations and those of our own.

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
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. :-).


And so, in this last 24 hours or so on toad.com, I want to thank *both* Tim
and John. But, also, I personally want to thank the "money-punks". People
like Eric Hughes, and Perry Metzger, and Ian Goldberg, and Hal Finney, and
Lucky Green, and Duncan Frissell, and Black Unicorn, and many, many other
people, who have helped me work through, on this list, or in private
e-mail, or, occasionally, in person, all of the stuff they know, and the
stuff I have figured out myself. All about e$, about digital bearer
certificate markets, about microintermediation. All the things which
completely occupy almost all my waking thoughts these days.


Because of this list's effect on my life, I have been motivated to start
the Digital Commerce Society of Boston, to evangelize financial
cryptography to any audience who would listen to me, to create a web site
dedicated to e$, to create a group of e$ lists with some 300 total
subscribers, to work with Vinnie Moscaritolo to create both the Mac-Crypto
lists and conferences, to work with Vince Cate and Ray Hirschfeld to create
the world's first peer-reviewed conference on financial cryptography, and
with Vince and Ian Goldberg to create the world's first intensive financial
cryptography bootcamp (which is going on as I write this). To create, with
Vinnie, and Rachel Wilmer, and Anthony Templer, and Bob Antia, and Rodney
Thayer, the next generation of the e$ website and mailing lists.

Next week, I go to FC97 in Anguilla because of the things I've learned on
this list. In the middle of March, I go to Cupertino to help Vinnie with
Mac-Crypto 2.0, because of the things I've learned on this list. I've been
invited to speak all over the world (and New Hampshire, too :-)) to talk
about this stuff. I get quoted in the newspapers. I write magazine op-ed
pieces. It has even earned me a buck or two. :-).

In short, I owe everything I do of any consequence these days to my
participation on this list, and, for that, I'm profoundly grateful to all
of you for the privelege of being here: to listen, to learn, and,
occasionally, to pay back all the stuff I've learned with a thing or two
that I've worked out myself.


Like that creosote bush I talked about before, cypherpunks is not going to
die just because the address "cypherpunks@toad.com" ceases to exist. There
are already 3rd-order cypherpunks lists out there. 3rd generation copies of
the same "memetic" material. cypherpunks will *never* die, short of a
cybernetic Chixalub event of some kind, and, frankly, even then. The
internet sees censorship as damage and routes around it.


So. In a very real sense, today on cypherpunks is like any other day in the
life of a creosote bush. It's a big desert, folks. We're the only ones who
know how to live out here. The whole damn desert, as far as the eye can
see, is ours to move into.

All we have to do is keep filling in the empty spots...


Cheers,
Bob Hettinga



-----------------
Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox
e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"Never attribute to conspiracy what can be
explained by stupidity." -- Jerry Pournelle
The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/rah/
FC97: Anguilla, anyone? http://www.ai/fc97/